In Albany, New York, in the subbasement of the Erastus Corning Tower, all of this was duly noted, and correlations were quickly drawn between the grisly discovery at Moonlight Ranch and the ailing spacecraft. Nothing escapes the all-seeing gaze of Albany, except, of course, when it does. Vermont in November 1927, for example.
Tiddley-pom.
And so it goes.
We move on to the matter of a secret history.
Ten days from its closest approach to Pluto, New Horizons passed less than one hundred miles from what might, for the sake of convenience, be described as a cloud. A thousand times denser than the hard vacuum surrounding it and as wide as the Mediterranean Sea, it squatted in the path of the probe. Deep inside its heart, electrical impulses raced along an intricate maze of hydrocarbon dendrites and axons, relaying detailed observations of New Horizons, building a profile of this strange visitor from the inner solar system. Without eyes, it saw. Without hands, it touched. Launched ten millennia ago from a dwarf planet far beyond the orbit of Pluto, the cloud has waited, patiently, for this encounter. Here, in this moment, is its purpose fulfilled. The cloud is a voyager, too.
In 1933, both James Whale and Edgar Rice Burroughs dreamt of the cloud.
In 1945, an actor who’d once played a hero determined to rescue an imperiled alien princess also dreamt of it. A few months later, it was the last thing on his mind before he died of a heart attack.
In 1971, three astronomers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, all engaged in a search for a hypothesized “Planet X,” repeatedly suffered nightmares of a cloud from deep space that swallowed the world. Writing in his private journal, one of these men referred to the monstrous cloud as Jörmungandr.
In 2009, Drew Standish turned a page in an ancient, wicked book (we will say that a book can be wicked) and read a description of the cloud penned three and a half centuries before the birth of Christ. The book named the cloud, though it’s a name that Standish has never dared to speak out loud. He knows the cloud is a harbinger. He knows the cloud is an angel with a golden trumpet. He knows the cloud guards the gates of Eden.
Six years later, it sent a message that briefly shut down New Horizons, and a billion miles farther out than Pluto, buzzing fungal things in black towers hunched over their own machines, receiving and analyzing everything the cloud saw.
What rough beast, indeed.
These things happen.
And these.
And these.
9. The Puppet Motel (July 11, 2015)
EVERYTHING FOR MILES AROUND has post-apocalyptic cowboy movie names. If John Wayne had been a spook, he’d have thought of names like these. Flying in low, the Signalman ticks them off: Jumbled Hills, Mercury, Yucca Flats, Fallout Hills and the Paradise Range, Tikaboo Valley, Papoose Lake, Sedan Crater. It’s better than thinking about what-the-fuck-ever is waiting for him down below. The Janet airlines Boeing 737-600, dirty white with that crimson cheatline slash just for emphasis, begins its final descent, dropping towards a landscape so desolate and scorched that God’s own nuclear arsenal must have been called in for the job. To the north he can see the paler playa expanse of Groom Lake proper, a funny name for something that last held water ten thousand years ago. He’s been told that whenever it rains, tiny shrimplike bugs called copepods wriggle their way up from the salty clay, shaking off dormancy, only to be devoured by hungry flocks of seagulls that fly in all the way from California for the feast. The plight of the copepods, thinks the Signalman, is a pretty good metaphor for every goddamn thing about Area 51 and, for that matter, every goddamn thing about his life.
Five more minutes and they’re on the ground, and the dingy Boeing—purchased cheap from Air China—is taxying towards the terminal. This is the first time he’s flown since 1995, the same year this plane rolled off the assembly line. He waits until it has come to a complete stop, and then he waits almost five minutes more before unfastening his seat belt and retrieving Immacolata’s briefcase from the overhead compartment.
Back on the train, Jack Dunaway kept eyeing the briefcase like it was a rattlesnake coiled and waiting to strike.
“How much less of a mess would we be in,” he asked, “if those Limey sons of bitches hadn’t spent the last hundred years keeping us in the dark?”
“She’s not a Brit,” said the Signalman. “She was born in Tennessee. At least, that’s what they say.”
“I didn’t mean her,” said Dunaway. “Well, I didn’t mean only her. I didn’t mean her in particular.”
“Ain’t no point in getting pissy because the other side’s better than us at lying, cheating, and burying the truth. She does her job, just the fuck like you.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
And the Signalman almost asked, You really think that’s how it works, us against them? You really gonna berate me for not cheering on the home team? But Dunaway is exactly the sort of douchebag who tries to advance in the Company by ratting out his betters. Joe McCarthy would have loved the guy. The Signalman keeps his questions to himself.
“They’re cooperating now,” he says instead.
“Sure they are. Now that they’re scared. Now that it’s too late.”
“There, there, Little Buckaroo. We’re not talking doomsday. Not just yet. Anyhow, where would we be if Y hadn’t shown a little mercy and left us the prize back in ’78? Not like they had to. Credit where credit’s due and all that.”
“Credit? We should have nailed them to the wall just for showing up in Rhode Island, never mind sending two of our agents on a wild goose chase so Barbican could snatch the right of first refusal.”
“And you think I’m the one with anger problems,” the Signalman said, and poured himself another shot of J&B.
The exit door opens, letting in the desert heat, letting in the terra-cotta light of the fading afternoon, and he makes his way along the narrow aisle, then down the foldout airstairs and onto the cracked tarmac. There’s no one waiting to meet him, but he hadn’t really expected there would be. The Signalman’s not exactly the sort of errand boy who rates a welcoming committee. He’d hoped there might be time for a shower, a quick bite to eat, maybe another drink before the party begins. And if wishes were horses, he’d still be on that train. He flashes his credentials for a couple of bored guards, and they let him pass. Neither of them looks him in the eye or says a word. It’s usually like that, when security sees a red shield, especially if it’s their first time. For most of these guys, Albany’s little more than a black-budget fairy tale, an intelligence community urban legend, until you’re face-to-face with the undeniable fact of it.
Cut to the chase. Get on with it, already.
They’re holding her in Zone 17, and that means a short ride on Dreamland’s very own underground maglev. There’s a whole goddamn city down here, a rat’s maze of tunnels and bunkers, substations, railways, and maintenance shafts, two dozen layers stacked one atop the other like a birthday cake. This is the beating heart and mind of the base, safe from satellites and Google Earth, hidden from the UFO and conspiracy nuts who lurk about the perimeters with their cameras and telephoto lenses.
The Signalman dislikes being below almost as much as he dislikes flying.