Sleeper Seven

by Mark Howard

  Several more white school buses with blacked-out windows arrived, and the new arrivals boarded them before speeding off towards different areas of the base. She initially thought she was pretty much alone here, but now realized she just happened to miss the daily commute when she arrived. The place was as tight as a drum, a seeming ghost town, with nobody around to give even a hint of anything happening behind those closed hangar doors.

  When the dust settled, they boarded the newly empty jet. The flight back was uneventful, with the exception of Kal and Len reiterating to her the importance of the papers she had read and signed, regarding the information she obtained within the employ of the U.S. government, and how revelation of this information was tantamount to treason against the country and would be swiftly prosecuted, and that this information is required to be taken to her grave, yadda yadda yadda. She was not even to answer questions about her experiences in the negative; if asked, she simply was not to respond at all.

  Strangely enough, they spent a solid minute or two focusing on the fact that there would be no deathbed confessions either, and if there were, there would be consequences for her remaining family and descendants, not in terms of harm — that they made clear — but in terms of defensive misinformation and damage of reputation, in order to minimize credibility of the claims. Jess was a little freaked out by all this, especially the talk of deathbed confessions, which were a good seventy years out — if she were lucky.

  They then discussed their relationship, and how she was an independent contractor to the U.S. government, and not a member of any armed services branch, and that from time to time she may be called to perform special projects, but without any specific contract of employment. At the end of this standard red-tape speech, they handed her an envelope and asked her not to open it until later. They were soon back on the ground, and they bid her adieu as they bundled her into a taxi.

  It was strange being dumped back into the real world, watching the tourists head to the strip, not a care in the world other than what shows they would see, and how much money they might win — or lose. Perhaps they would do some things that would stay in Vegas, as the saying went, but at least it would be their choice to keep those secrets.

  Her head swimming, she suddenly had no idea where to go. She finally asked the patient taxi driver to take her to the main terminal; she had decided she just wanted to go home. She missed Chicago.

  On the short drive around the airport perimeter, she remembered the envelope, and retrieving it from her bag, opened it. Inside was a check, made out to her, from 'Straubel-Guillen Services LLC' in the amount of fifty thousand dollars. Shocked, she stared at the figure for a full minute, until the taxi stopped at the main terminal.

  ~ 44 ~

  After landing at O'Hare, Jess immediately took a cab to her bank and deposited the check. Arriving home, she collapsed on the couch, her cat greeting her by taking up residence on her stomach and purring loudly. Gavin must have heard her trudge up the stairs, as there was soon a knock on her door. Eliciting a yowling complaint from the cat, she arose to open it.

  "Look who's home! Hey Girl!" Gavin exclaimed, attacking her with a hug. Dragging her to the couch, he sat down and pulled her down next to him.

  "So how was it? I haven't gotten a text from you in a few days, so I got worried. Were you able to get in on a program?"

  "Oh yeah, I was able to get in on a program all right. Gavin, you won't believe what has happened over the last few days. I don't believe it."

  "Try me. What, did you go astralling all over the universe or something?"

  "Well, not quite...I mean the Center was fantastic, but then I got poached."

  "Oh babe, did it hurt?" he asked, frowning.

  "NO! Stop it! Gavin, seriously, this, like, undercover lady from the government flew me to Vegas, and tried to get me to do some corporate espionage work, but then the real government people rescued me, one is a bartender and the other is a handyman at the center, and they're married! Can you believe it? And then there is some other stuff I totally can't even tell you about!"

  "OK, babe, you're sounding like a bad TV movie here. Slow down. You went to Vegas? To be a spy?"

  "YES! But now I am freaking out. Gavin, I think I'm in over my head. I did some stuff I wasn't supposed to, and saw some stuff I wasn't supposed to, and now I KNOW! But I can't tell anyone what it is! And it is KILLING me! What do I DO?" she yelled, shaking Gavin violently by the shoulders.

  Gavin gasped loudly and covered his mouth. "Did you sleep with a Russian agent? I always knew you were a double-crosser, you little firecracker!"

  "Seriously Gavin," Jess begged, "I need help with this. What do you do when you know too much?"

  "OK, OK. Well, what do you want? Do you want to have a happy life? Then just forget about it and move on. Go talk to my therapist if you need to. Do you have PTSD?"

  "Gavin! It's not like that. I know some...stuff...like stuff that people don't believe in...OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO TELL YOU BIGFOOT IS REAL! I can tell you that! I saw it with my own eyes! Unless I was set up. They could have done that...I haven't totally discounted that possibility...but I seriously don't think they did, and if not, then...OH MY GOD — BIGFOOT!"

  Gavin's joking smile gave way a little. "Shit, Jess. Come on now. You've been gone for like five days and you come back to tell me your a government spy and you've seen Bigfoot? Let's go to Marie's and get a drink. You obviously need one. And no talk about Atlantis or the Loch-Ness monster, okay?"

  Twenty minutes later, sitting at a long oak bar, Gavin ordered two bottles of Bell's Oberon. Then he turned and gave her his serious face.

  "Now let's get down to brass tacks. You saw some shit, you can't un-see it, you can't let it go, and you can't tell anyone. Does that sum it up?"

  "Yes. Exactly. I mean, it's so momentous, so gigantic...and so...strange."

  "Well you said before it was something people don't believe in, and since we both obviously believe in ghosts — and you already mentioned Bigfoot...Oh my God Jess, did you see aliens?"

  Her eyes grew wide as saucers as she held her bottle to her mouth mid-drink.

  "Jess! Oh my God! I guessed it! You didn't tell me! You didn't tell me!" Gavin exclaimed, then lowered his voice. "Holy crap, there really are aliens? Well I always figured, but really? That's so cool! Noice, Jess," he added, high-fiving her. Then under his breath, to himself: "I knew there was aliens."

  "Wait, are they here to harm us or help us?"

  Jess froze in place, her mouth full of beer, unable to confirm or deny, or even to say the truth — that she didn't know exactly.

  "Oh, right, you can't tell me. That's like my therapist, she said if someone calls and asks if I am a client, she can't even tell them either way. She says it's an ethics violation to even give an answer, yes or no. She just has to say she can't answer those questions. OK, so don't tell me anything. We're gonna be like old school Don't Ask Don't Tell, all right?"

  Jess, spitting out her mouthful of beer, laughed a long, violent, choking laugh while grabbing at napkins to wipe up Gavin, the bar, and herself.

  "Jesus, look at me. I'm a mess," she commented between coughs.

  "Yeah, you are. But one thing you're not is sketchy. I know you won't tell anyone anything. Remember when I downloaded a torrent of This is 40, and after watching it, you went online and bought a theatre ticket you didn't even use?"

  "It was a good movie! And I wanted to support the director. I like him," she replied apologetically.

  "Yeah, well you made me buy one too!"

  "It's the right thing to do, Gavin," she added testily.

  "See what I mean! Your logic's a little twisted there, but I know your heart's in the right place. Pretty much S.O.P. for you."

  "I know, right? But anyway, I've gotta go further, I need to know more. It doesn't make any sense. I can't go through life with this. How could I live a normal life, knowing this?"

  "You know I'll support you best I can, sugar-smacks. Whatever
you need. For now, though, have another," he said, sliding over a fresh bottle while daintily retrieving the slobbered-on one for disposal.

  They ended up talking, drinking, and eating well into the evening, discussing everything about her trip — except for the best parts. As they stumbled home, Jess looked up at the few stars they could see in the city sky — actually planets, mostly — and she wondered where that ship was now, and whom they would be buzzing next. She needed to know what was going on. This wasn't her prying into their business — they were inserting themselves into the business of private citizens, and she was a private citizen, so...it was her business now too, she rationalized. But she wasn't an ordinary private citizen. She could see more, hear more, discover more, than most everyone out there.

  And she would, beginning that very night.

  ~ 45 ~

  As she lay on her bed, she found she was exiting even before starting her procedure; being buzzed certainly didn't seem to hurt the process. I wonder if they know this at the Center, she thought, I'll have to email them about it later, might help to bring in new business. Maybe set up a deal with the local wineries. Once out, however, she was perfectly sober, and instantly horrified at the monstrous snoring noise emanating from her body. Ignoring it, she placed her focus and intent on the ship, and felt the familiar pull of the tunnel.

  She arrived to find the ship dark and empty. Moving outside the structure of the ship was difficult, as she became stuck several times due to the density of the material, but she eventually found lower density pathways to squeeze through.

  What she found outside astounded her. She was inside a large airplane hangar, similar to the ones in Nevada, but this one was packed like sardines with dozens of similar black triangles. They were parked with only a few inches of clearance edge to edge, and opposite eachother, such that the rows of triangles formed a herringbone pattern all the way to the end of the hangar — easily a half-mile. From there, two other rows returned with smaller versions of the ship: one hundred foot and twenty-five foot spans, as compared to the larger versions like hers which were closer to three hundred feet on a side.

  Interestingly, she didn't see any examples of the tiny craft she piloted to North Korea; these were all the same type of equilateral triangular ships with the rounded-off corners. Also, Jess could see these ships were supported by tripod legs that extended from the bottom, unlike her craft, which had no built-in supports. The smaller ones here also appeared to be pilotless drones, as they didn't even have the width to contain a usable cockpit like her small craft did.

  She was able to get a good look at the exterior of the ship, as the waning light of the day filtered through an array of dirt-covered windows near the top of the hangar wall. The ship's surface was a textured matte-black with no reflectivity; it seemed to absorb most of the light hitting it. Embedded into one rounded corner were two large horizontally-directed headlights, which reminded her of the bluish halogen lights on newer cars. The half-sphere indentations underneath each corner were perfectly smooth with no nozzles or hardware within; they simply looked like giant ten-foot diameter golf ball dimples. Recalling her first sighting of this ship in operation, these were the areas that held the spheres of white fire, so she assumed these were the thrusters.

  Across the middle of the ship's underside was a larger circular indentation about forty feet across, but shallower — only six inches deep at the most. Running in all directions within this area were small, inch-deep channels that formed the Hieroglyphic or Aztec patterns she sighted from her craft, whether decorative or functional, she had no idea. Near the perimeter of this inner circle were three large rectangular openings from which the supports extended down at an angle. In the exact center of the circle, enclosed in a red-tinted glass and wire cage, hung a single Edison filament light bulb, which looked quite out of place considering the technology of the machine it was affixed to.

  Jess moved up and over the ship to view the top, which was featureless, with the single exception of a large diameter dome, similar to the depression on the underside in that it rose to only a few inches at its highest point. As she examined it, a twinkle caught her eye. Moving in closer, she observed a light at the apex of the dome, but embedded underneath the surface — not protruding like the red one below. This light was clear, but had a rainbow of different color filters within a rotatable housing, allowing the color of the light to change dynamically. This close inspection led her to take a longer look at the surface of the ship. The flat black finish was arranged into tiles, each of which contained an array of minuscule dots or bumps, reminding her of something that she couldn't quite place.

  Although amazed at the engineering of this machine, the overall impression she got from this extended examination was more than a little confounding. The relatively small space for the crew meant this wasn't some sort of cargo or troop transport vessel, and the lack of any weaponry she could see — unless the thing shot lasers — meant it wasn't a fighting vessel. All of it added up to one thing — this machine was for stealthy observation only; a reconnaissance ship.

  What still made no sense to her was that a ship designed for stealth would have an array of extremely bright lights on it. Perhaps they were needed in certain situations where stealth was not required, or maybe they were even part and parcel of the stealthiness. If the lights could dynamically change color, then they could imitate the standard running lights of any aircraft. Then again, they could also demonstrate that this was not a ship of this world — if that was the intended goal.

  Something was just not right about it though. Jess knew the government already had hi-res satellite tracking, as well as high altitude recon planes, not to mention the standard stealth fighters that could do most anything these ships could do. Perhaps not with the finesse of this advanced ship, but still, there seemed to be no compelling reason to spend the billions of dollars that must have been invested to design, build, and test these things for the incremental value in recon. It seemed like a project the cold war mentality would generate, like the moon mission, where money was no object. In the relative safety of the post cold-war era, however, it just couldn't be justified in her mind.

  What also couldn't be justified was the use of these things against an unknowing populace. That is what galled her. And she knew from Kal and Len that they were perfectly willing to run smear campaigns to discredit those trying to bring the truth forward. She wouldn't just carefully document the machinery and methods of use and try to raise awareness — there were probably people out there already doing this, to little effect. The majority of the population had no idea these things existed. It was like the Bigfoot she saw — nobody will believe in it until there is a body on a table somewhere. Jess realized she had to put the body on the table, so to speak. She had to provide incontrovertible evidence of these machines that were being actively used to harass innocent citizens, without a warrant — or any clear oversight whatsoever. So that's what she would do, she decided. She would take one.

  Re-entering the ship, she moved towards one of the four consoles, the one with the UFO picture in the corner. Watching the pilots previously, she knew the ship was operated fully through these touch screen panels, so she attempted to manifest just the tip of a finger to operate it. Feeling it coalesce, she stabbed at the screen, causing it to spring to life. By varying the density, she found she didn't need to manifest any physical matter in order to operate the panel; there was some inherent property to the touchscreen design where just the hint of energy registered as a touch, and so she found it easy to manipulate.

  The panel had four sections, with no text labels, only pictures. One section contained a triad of circles which she assumed was the three engines. Another showed a rotating 3D profile of the ship surrounded by some kind of force-field, which she surmised must be like the slipstream feature in her smaller craft. A third section had different options for camouflage, with pictures of day and night scenes, a box containing a picker for different types of conventional
aircraft, and an icon of a muted speaker. A fourth section held various icons related to navigation or other miscellaneous options. Each section had sliders below it indicating the currently chosen degree of operation. Touching a section would bring her into a more detailed view of that component with both main and fine tuning controls.

  When she felt comfortable with the layout, she attempted to bring the engines online. The familiar dull roar of the thrusters, similar to a jet engine, permeated the hangar. Switching panels, she increased the noise-cancellation effect on the stealth panel, and though this resulted in a considerable decrease in volume, it didn't abate the noise entirely. As the ship was still firmly on the ground, she raised the engines even further, to forty percent. When this had no effect, Jess tried to recall any exterior straps or tie-downs that she might have missed, and punching through the various panels, searched for something like an anchor icon, but found nothing.

  Knowing she had little time, she abandoned her search and simply raised the engines higher, to seventy percent. Although the craft began to shudder, it still wasn't enough to lift even one support away from the hangar floor. Racking her brain, she couldn't understand what was holding back this advanced craft. Then she remembered the ring.

  Navigating to that screen, she found the ring was fully disabled. Raising the power to maximum, the loud hum instantly drowned out the engine noise as the material liquified and spun up. With a jolt, the ship shot upwards, smashing an enormous hole through the roof of the hangar before Jess could regain control.