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The helicopter was already on its way up again, a vertical shot through the narrow column between the thick-forested trees. Not even waiting for full egress, the rapid ascent of the bird-of-war forced its final two passengers to turn the last step into a three-feet hop. It didn’t slow them in the least; the mission was all that mattered.
“This way, Sir,” Agent Cochran said in a whispered shout, one balanced perfectly to reinforce the urgency of the situation over the thumping of the departing Hawk. Katie Cochran’s partner fell into step on the other side of the package, providing a pinched security as they hit the wall of trees and left the small clearing behind.
“Alright, we’re here,” their ward demanded. “Far from prying eyes. So tell me what this is about. Is it Underpass? Another Wrinkle? Just don’t tell me the damn thing has backfired again.”
The apprehension in his voice was hidden as well as could be expected, evident only to someone who had served at his side long enough—and respected him well enough—to recognize it despite his layers of self-control.
“Sorry, Sir,” Cochran offered. “We’re on Protocol Midnight. Nothing disclosed until you’re secured.” She looked him in the eye, giving as much apology as she could with the gaze. Those weren’t the things she or Agent Danners were paid to think about. They were just the ones tasked with keeping Babbage alive so he could do his job.
They reached a small deadfall, Babbage looking ridiculous trudging through the woods in his ornately expensive and now completely wrinkled suit. Danners reached down into the mess of leaves and twigs as Cochran scowled at their surroundings, weapon drawn at her thigh, looking for any threats despite the unlikelihood. She heard a click over the noise of the fading copter, and a concrete stairwell revealed itself as the crafted deadfall slid out of the way.
Babbage dutifully proceeded down the stairs, one of his protective agents to either side. LED lights flickered automatically to life in the midst of the retreating day as the deadfall slid back into position behind them and cut off the sun before they were even halfway down the stairs.
“Shit,” Babbage said. “What’s the security rating on this place? I’ve never heard of it. Or been briefed on the layout specs. This is definitely something new. How bad is this thing, Katie?”
“Level 9, Sir,” Katie Cochran answered, the hint of apology in her voice growing with a pity that was matched only by her own fears.
“Son of a bitch,” Babbage whispered to himself. After a moment, as their walk continued down the elongated corridor, his impatient glare softened a little and his spine seemed to stiffen. “Alright. Let’s to it then.”
At the eventual end of the hallway, flanked by his defensive escort, Babbage accessed the biometric security to gain access to an elevator. Inside, there was no indication of how deep the destination lay. Just a single button accompanied by additional layers of the highest security protocols. After what felt like at least five minutes, the cab thunked to rest and the doors slid open.
A room full of people rose to their feet like staccato popcorn as one by one they registered who it was who had just joined them.
“Mr. President,” his Secretary of Defense said, loudly enough that it was a proclamation as much as it was a greeting.
Babbage stared back, taking in the thirty or so occupants. It confirmed his fears, at least to the extent of how serious a problem he was obviously facing. Just enough of the most important people, with exactly the right number missing to ensure degree of separation enough to keep the government going in the event something went very wrong. Well, shit.
“Alright,” he demanded. “Who’s going to tell me whatever the hell it is I need to know?” He worked hard to keep too much steel out of his voice, a common and unfortunate side-effect of any attempt to suppress his nerves. He knew people couldn’t give their best when they were busy fearing the displeasure of their commanders.
A crisp woman, the sheen of her dark skin and hair magnified by the glare of the overhead lights, addressed the President.
“I think I should probably start, Sir,” she said.
“Dr. Lewis.” So it was Underpass. The only thing left was to find out how bad. “Okay, fill me in.” Babbage took the seat waiting for him at the head of the digital inlaid table, and the rest of the room (minus the head of the Underpass Project and his two protective agents standing in flank positions behind him) followed suit.
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Lewis shifted, turning her focus to the group. “By now, everyone here is probably at least aware of the fact that Underpass didn’t exactly produce the results we were looking for.”
“And just what were you looking for?” asked the Secretary of Defense, a man in complicated military garb with a lot of very shiny accessories. “I sure as hell hope we were aiming high, considering what it’s cost us.”
“That’s a fair question,” Lewis answered, seemingly unaffected by the man’s implied insinuation. “But we weren’t particularly looking for anything specific. To put it bluntly, it was a highly theoretical experiment performed to see what would happen.”
“Something bad happened!” the general—Banchich—indicted. Babbage recalled the man had family in Hawaii. Damn. Banchich continued, “So I’d say you obviously didn’t do enough homework before you pushed the button.”
“Perhaps,” Lewis answered, not rising to Banchich’s ire. “But what’s more relevant is the fact that I’m pretty sure something bad is still happening. Which is why all of us are here.”
“David,” Babbage interjected as he saw the general swell in preparation to respond, “I sanctioned Underpass. And I promise there will be time for recriminations later.” He directed this to the room at large, owning his accountability for each of their potential personal tragedies. “But right now, first things first.” He looked back to the scientist standing opposite him. “Reader’s Digest version, Dr. Lewis: fill everyone in on the highlights.”
“Yes, Sir.” She turned again to the group. “Underpass was a highly theoretical experiment intended to manipulate what we think we know about dark matter. Our research indicated it might just be possible to exploit some of the loopholes in the structure of the universe to get around the limits of light-speed communication, possibly even travel someday.”
Lewis bent over, tapping commands into the inlaid touch menu of the conference table, and a computer-generated image came up on flat screens to both sides of the room, so neither half had to turn in their seats. The image was of the Milky Way, indicating a path connecting two points on the cosmic map. “We picked a star, a fairly distant one celestially speaking, and shot a high-energy wave through the substructure of dark matter.
“Obviously, there was no way to know exactly what happened on the other end, but all our tests seemed to prove that the energy wave got there exponentially faster than it had any right to. Way sooner than a traditional speed-of-light transmission. And largely intact.
“So,” General Banchich asked, clearly working to check his anger for the sake of the President if nothing else, “if we’re talking about a successful experiment, why are we all hiding in this basement? Besides the fact that you and your friends are responsible for wiping Hawaii off the map.”
The accusation kicked off an explosion of mumbling and stirring. Katie tensed, instinctively stepping up behind the President to close the minimal gap, and saw Danners do the same from the corner of her eye.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Babbage admonished, “I fully understand your passion. And it’s well placed. One-and-a-half million Americans are dead. And that doesn’t even account for Japan. The time will come for the passion you all feel, I promise. But now isn’t that time.” Babbage saw Banchich relent, his jaw grinding with his restraint. With an inward sigh, he nodded to Lewis, still standing there unfazed.
“We’re calling it a Wrinkle,” Lewis explained. “We still don’t understand everything, but there was some kind of feedback pulse or inverted reverberation back along the wave. We’re not even close to understanding the scientific process that led to it. Honestly, we’re completely in the dark. It shouldn’t have been possible. All we know is that it happened. And yes, as a result Hawaii got buried under a tsunami. There was no way to foresee it.”
Babbage jumped in to forestall complete chaos, grabbing control and focusing the conversation toward the information he needed, whether he really wanted to hear it or not.
“Dr. Lewis. Tell me why we’re here now. Are we anticipating another Wrinkle event?”
“No, Sir. A much stranger side effect, I’m afraid.” Lewis nodded to another scientist about halfway down the table. Babbage raised his eyebrows in question but said nothing. He knew to let his people do their jobs. “Peters?” Dr. Lewis offered.
Clearly less comfortable than Dr. Lewis, the man nevertheless stood. Lewis bent, unlocking her command screen and sliding the layout down the digitized surface with a controlled flick of her hand. The much younger man, clearly nervous and less self-possessed, caught it and started typing. “Thanks, Sarah,” he said. Then, looking horrified, “I mean, Dr. Lewis.”
Babbage saw the man visibly swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing down and then up, like a bird on water dipping for a meal. “Two days ago,” Peters started, “we picked up a high-velocity object traveling within our own solar system, on a trajectory that would bring it very close to Earth. At first, we went nuts trying to figure out how NASA’s NEO tracking could have possibly missed it, and just what the risk-percentage was the object could catastrophically intercept…”
“NEOs?” another of the military men asked.
“Near Earth Object,” Dr. Peters clarified. “But before anyone could settle down to the task, the details changed. For starters, we’re not dealing with an object following any ecliptic.”
“Doctor,” one of the military men interrupted, “some of us just blow things up for a living.”
A spattering of nervous laughter checkered the room, slightly relieving the tension. Peters apologized, offering a strained smile.
“Let me put it this way. This thing blatantly disregarded every law of physics and gravity that we know of. And it was moving fast. Could-barely-be-constituted-as-matter fast.”
“I don’t think any of us missed the past tense, Doctor,” President Babbage said.
“Right.” Peters bent again to the command menu on the table in front of him. On the wall screens, the digital representation of Dr. Lewis’ Underpass trajectory disappeared. In its place, they were now all looking at a grainy picture of the near-surface of the moon.
“Early this morning, the object touched down on the moon, here,” he indicated the photo, “in the Ptolemaeus Crater. Sorry about the quality of the shot. Despite being Earth’s closest neighbor, the moon is still pretty far away. About 250,000 miles, at the moment.”
“At the moment?” interrupted one of the President’s strategy men.
Peters appeared briefly flustered. “The moon’s orbit is elliptical. Its distance from us varies throughout its cycle. Right now it’s near as close as it comes. Even so, that’s a long way to snap a photo. We haven’t had time to reposition a more powerful satellite or send any kind of probe for a closer look. I’m afraid this is as good as it gets.”
The object didn’t appear to be of any discernible shape. From the rough photo it simply looked oblong, any features or color obscured by the lack of sufficient technology to tell.
“It isn’t very big,” Peters continued. “Maybe the size of a large commercial jet. Considering everything, it represents evidence beyond almost any shadow of a doubt we’re dealing with extra-solar intelligence.” Dr. Peters looked to the President.
Babbage nodded noncommittally in acknowledgement of the information, feeling the weight of the room’s stairs proportional to the situation. When he’d been pulled from his office and flown here against his will—a slave to protocols designed to override the autonomy of the most powerful person in the free world—he’d feared Underpass had blown up in his face in some new, tragic way. Now, he almost wished that was the case. He noticed that Dr. Peters had taken advantage of his reverie to sit back down and was doing his best to blend back into ambient obscurity.
Reluctantly, the President stood. “Okay,” he started, demanding a calm his nerves fought desperately to steal from him. “I guess today is a day we all get to make history. “We can’t assume that any of the things we’ve seen in books or movies about this kind of thing hold any truth. That is, except for the fact that we seem to be dealing with technological and scientific superiority. And that we have no idea why they’re here or what they want. But we have to assume it’s no accident that, of all the solid planetary objects in the solar system, they made a beeline to our back yard.”
The President paused, letting the information sink in, for him as well as all the others. “Doctors, what do we know as far as attempts at communication?”
It was Dr. Lewis who spoke up, “So far, there’s been nothing from the craft we can detect,” she said. The use of the word craft for the first time was lost on no one. “But there’s zero chance this is coincidence, so shortly after we shot Underpass into the stars.”
She took control of the embedded command screen again, and again the monitors changed. This time, the trajectory Underpass followed was overlaid with another, an estimate of the path the craft was on before its presence had been picked up. They were near-identical. “We only noticed we had company in the first place because our eyes were set on Underpass’ back trail, trying to figure out what caused the Wrinkle. It’s unlikely any other nation even knows it’s up there.”
“Are you telling us that not only did your little test take this country down to only forty-nine states, but you also managed to lay out a bread-crumb trail for hostile aliens right to our doorstep?!” General Banchich demanded. He shot to his feet, but Babbage stared him back down into his chair. He was losing control of this thing.
“Where does that leave us, Dr. Lewis?” Babbage asked Lewis, his eyes still on General Banchich.
“Well, for starters we have no evidence that they’re hostile. And believe it or not,” she answered, “there’s an established protocol for Silent First Contact. Pretty much any First Contact scenario. In this case, we’ve tried every conventional, unconventional, and experimental means we could think of to express friendly intent and ask after their intentions. It’s obvious they know we’re here. So far, there’s been no response we can detect, and no change in the craft since it landed.”
“Okay,” Babbage offered the room at large, taking in subtle gulps of air to reinforce his air of calm and maintain a presence of authority. “Okay. I need to get out ahead of this thing, before some kid with a digital telescope finds it and plasters it all over YouTube. Or—God forbid—Russia or China preempt us and do something really stupid. This room’s full of some of the best strategic and scientific minds God ever invented. So tell me. What the hell do I do now?”
He made sure to divide the room into pockets of professionals least likely to result in a catastrophic meltdown, separating the tempers most likely to explode on contact. After half an hour with close supervision, the results were about what he expected. Recommendations were all over the place, from increasing all branches of military readiness, to instigating hostilities with currently hostile nations to keep their focus away from the moon, all the way to doing absolutely nothing in order to prevent any perception of hostility.
“That’s enough,” he interrupted. “Thank you. All of you, I mean it. But I think that’s all the time we can afford if we’re going to be sure to stay ahead of this and not be forced into a situation where we’re doing nothing but reacting.”
He shifted his tone into one of authority, one that completely hid the genuine uncertainty and fear coursing through him. “Mr. Secretary, Joint Chiefs, generals, doctors, you are my hands and feet on this. We’re going to Defcon 2 effective immediately. All possible military readiness, just in case. We’ll keep trying to establish friendly contact. I’m going to have to go in front of the American people to tell them what we know, urge them to be calm and ready for anything this situation might require from them. I know you all know your parts and won’t let me down.
“Katie, Trévon,” he said, indicating the agents hovering at his hip, “I’m pretty sure no one here’s going to try to kill me. So you get to help me figure out how to tell the world we’re looking at the sequel to Copernicus turning the non-heliocentric model on its head.”
As his people turned to their tasks, the tenor of the room shifted dramatically. The heartbeat of productive commotion skipped into an entirely different feel. Babbage turned, looking to his teams of military, political, and scientific experts. They were pulling phones from their ears, staring confusedly at portable devices, pounding away uselessly at keys. All efforts to finally act on this thing seemed to have been stymied the second they’d started.
Agent Cochran stepped forward instinctively, and Babbage gently ushered her aside. “What’s happened?” he asked.
“Phone and internet access just cut out,” one man reported. “We can’t email or call on either cells or landlines.”
“Sat phones are down too,” someone else added. “Absolutely nothing’s getting out.”
Playing with the digital command menu, Dr. Lewis cycled rapidly through controls. “Mr. President, I think we just lost access to our entire infrastructure. I don’t think we have control of anything right now.”
“How is that possible?!” Babbage demanded. “That’s millions of independent pieces of software.”
“I don’t know, Sir.” Dr. Lewis shuffled through program menus Babbage didn’t understand. “I’m pretty sure I can establish passive access to our satellites, but nothing more.” She typed silently for a couple seconds, her finger taps audible in the new silence of the room, and then the dual, mounted screens lit up again. “They left us a back door. I think they wanted us to see this.”
“See what?”
The group was staring at the image of Ptolemaeus Crater. “This is as close to a live feed as I can manage. The delay is marginal.” The original object remained, seemingly parked at the base of the crater. However, a new craft, smaller, was emerging and venturing forth from the surface. Correction: multiple crafts.
“How many is that?” the President asked.
“I can’t tell,” Dr. Lewis answered, studying the command screen in the table.
“They’re moving so fast,” Dr. Peters whispered. “And the angle… that shouldn’t be possible.”
“It isn’t,” Dr. Lewis said, “for us.”
“Doctor, how much time?” the President demanded.
“I can’t tell you for sure, Sir.” She was writing equations into the surface of the desk with her finger, sequences of numbers and letters Babbage could make no sense of. “My best guess is they could breach the atmosphere within an hour. Maybe only half, depending on exactly where on Earth they’re heading.”
“From the looks of how many of those things are on the way, I’d say it’s damned near everywhere,” General Banchich offered.
Murmuring filled the room.
“Keep on them, Lewis.”
“Yes, Sir,” she answered. “As fast as they’re moving, I’ll have to switch back between whichever of our satellites remain in orbital position. I’ll do my best.”
The room watched. Within the hour, just as Lewis predicted, the front line of ships decelerated drastically, punching into the atmosphere at insane speeds and at impossible angles, angles that would have melted any human craft into liquid-metal slag.
Soon, Lewis indicated one that was likely on a trajectory for North America, and at an order from the President she shifted all her efforts into tracking just the one. When it hit the ionosphere, none of the telltale inferno of atmospheric reentry was in evidence. All the way through the outer layers of the atmosphere, the craft sailed through with seemingly no resistance, adding friction and energy transfer to the list of scientific laws these beings seemed capable of disregarding at will.
The craft resembled nothing like anything capable of atmospheric flight, with no aerodynamic lines or evident propulsion. It was predominantly ovoid, with inverted curves in counterintuitive places and no sharp lines at all. The craft was white, almost golden in its stark brilliance, no bigger than the size of most cars.
About five minutes after atmospheric entry, three fighter jets flanked it in an isosceles escort.
“General Banchich, tell those fighters not to do anything stupid!” Babbage ordered.
“Sir, I have no contact. Those fighters are operating under their own initiative.”
The room could see their obvious efforts to make contact. They moved up and back, rocked their wings, altered pitch. No doubt they were making entreaties and demands on every frequency they had available to them. It was odd watching everything from the aerial vantage of orbiting satellite.
“Sir,” Dr. Lewis offered, “if that craft maintains its trajectory, it’s heading straight towards us. I mean here. The coordinates of this bunker.”
The President said nothing, only continued to watch.
Suddenly, the two flanking fighters split off to either direction. As soon as they were clear, the trailing jet fired its missiles. Crossing the intervening space, traveling almost too fast to see, the weapons rippled from nose to tail, ceasing to exist in mid-flight. Seconds later, the same phenomenon rippled through all three planes themselves, as if they had flown through a pocket of superheated air—like the haze coming off a baked highway—never coming out the other side.
The President clenched his fists at his sides tight enough to force the blood from his knuckles. He wanted to order his people to get him back control of his communications network—to put him back in control of his country—but he knew they had never ceased in their efforts to do just that. Throwing out superfluous orders would serve only to distract them.
The alien flyer rapidly approached their location, and as it entered the highly restricted airspace, automated anti-air defense systems kicked into high gear. The AI computerware driving the systems needed no external commands to do so. Thank God for small favors, Babbage thought. A barrage of fire spewed forth from previously concealed groundworks, unleashing literally thousands of rounds in mere seconds at what none of them could help to think of now as a threat.
The automated targeting systems were flawless. Javelins, Patriots, Grumbles, Strelas, and a number of classified beauties the U.S. had disavowed on more than one occasion took to the air, ready for something to consume. At this range it took no time at all for missiles and ballistics to close.
As the ammunition poured into the craft, the radiance of the thing seemed to blaze even brighter. Instead of inflicting critical damage, however, the incoming fire appeared consumed somehow by the ship—not deflected, and not phased out of existence like the planes—just… absorbed. Contact from the onslaught left no evidence whatsoever on its hull. Hundreds of individual impacts, and nothing to show for it but a light show.
The vessel flew on, approaching ever nearer, dropping in a distinct descent toward the ground. As it reached a critically low altitude, the anti-aircraft fire abruptly cut off, programmed to assume the decreased elevation meant its barrage had been effective. But instead of a ground impact, the craft simply disappeared, dropping with a slight ripple into the earth as if it were a submarine commencing a routine dive.
President Babbage stood silently, along with every other man and woman in the fortified bunker. The satellite imagery showed nothing now but a peaceful landscape where seconds before a virtual automated war—however ineffective—had ensued. The tension in the room became a tangible thing.
It was coming.
The silence was painful, until a mere minute later the far wall of the bunker started to swell. Then a portion of it simply vanished, leaving a seven-foot porthole that reached almost entirely to the ceiling.
A lone creature stepped out. The President knew there had to be a more politically correct term for the thing than referring to it—or even thinking of it—as a creature, but as politically savvy as he was, nothing came to mind. It (she?, he?) stood erect, and was definitively humanoid. A thin down or fur covered every inch of the thing visible to the naked eye. More than anything else, it resembled a predatory cat. Large conical ears topped its head, swiveling slightly at each subtle sound. Round eyes with vertical irises studied the room with intelligent intensity. A blunt, hostile-looking muzzle, like that of a panther or mountain lion, housed teeth obviously not intended for an herbivore’s diet.
As it stepped forward, both Agents Cochran and Danners immediately drew their arms and opened fire. A device on one of the thing’s forearms lit with an eerie purple glow. Without flinching, the creature stood as the bullets seemed to disintegrate less than a foot from their target, shrapnel ejecting to either side in bright purple flashes until each weapon was spent.
Cochran made to advance and engage the creature hand-to-hand, but the President placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. In minutes, these beings had subdued and bypassed the defenses of one of the most powerful nations, and presumably every other nation, in the world.
“What is it you want?” the President asked, fighting for his I-don’t-negotiate-with-terrorists voice.
The thing’s protracted mouth, looking so much like the muzzle of a predator, was covered with some kind of viscous gelatinous filter. As the thing spoke, the material vibrated, and the literal growls and purrs of its voice came through the speakers around the room: clear American English.
“We have come to inform you that your message has been received.”
“Message?” the President asked. “What message?”
Seeming to ignore him, the creature spoke on. “You were unwise to target us with your dark matter technology. We were content to ignore you here, primitive and near-dormant despite the screaming of your inane clamor into the music of galaxy. Although an annoyance, you were never any threat, and therefore of no interest. But that all changed when our world was rocked by your imprudent salvo.”
Babbage was stunned. He knew he should be saying something. Advocating. Intervening. Explaining how Underpass had not been meant as a salvo, not an attack of any kind. Just a science experiment, a hallmark of his people to learn and advance themselves. To plant a marker of progress upon the universe. They had not even known of this race’s existence. But his words remained as buried as the room he was now trapped in.
The creature continued, “We were willing to repeat the demonstration that removed the two oceanic islands from your world if it had been required. So we were pleased, at least, that your race had the sense to acknowledge our response as incontrovertible. Your reply was a wise one, more sage than we anticipated from you.
So it hadn’t been the Wrinkle after all. Their science hadn’t backfired. Hawaii. Japan. Neither was the fault of Underpass, nor the aspirations of humankind that were a benchmark of progress and achievement.
But there had been unintended consequences. To this creature’s people, to its world. And they had taken harsh and immediate action. Earth’s tragedy could be laid at the feet of this being’s people, retaliation for an unforeseeable consequence. Yet still, despite the perfect English, he didn’t understand what this creature was saying.
“Response? What response? We never sent a response to your people.” The President could feel his agents at his sides, standing ready but impotent. Few eyes made contact with his. Those that did looked at him helplessly.
Saying nothing further, the being stepped forward. It thumbed an infinitely thin translucent sheet—one no bigger than a stamp—from the device around its forearm. All in the room made way. Deliberately, the creature placed the small film down on the digital surface of the conference table. Immediately the screens in the room came to life with new images.
Pictures of barren beauty, one after another, sequenced through a slideshow of one of the greatest achievements in the history of humankind. Timeless if time-worn, the images showed the surface of the moon in more color and detail than any picture ever taken of that surface by human technology. Each shot captured one of the seventeen American flags left behind as evidence to the achievement, each more than thirty years ago.
Thirty years of standing proud sentinel as a bastion of human accomplishment. Thirty years on a distant surface with no atmosphere to protect those proud colors from the harsh realities of light and radiation. One after another, those crisp, clear, real-time snapshots showed a moon peppered with seventeen pristine, white flags.
“We received your message,” the creature repeated. “And my people accept your surrender.”
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AUTHOR BIO:
Steve is a mental health therapist by day who spends every available free moment of his life violating the rules of proper posture in front of his computer. A lifelong nerd, he nevertheless found an incredible woman to marry him anyway. He spends his days in Ohio hiding from the sun as much as possible, where he happily ascribes to the philosophy of no take-backs. http://www.stephencevansauthor.com
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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “Long Live Ozymandias”:
Very few manuscripts that we receive elicit the kind of reaction this one did when we read the ending—but “wow” doesn’t even come close.
Just when we thought we’d seen every possible idea for an alien first-contact or invasion story (or movie), author Stephen Evans gave us one with a new and clever premise. Then he capped it with a perfectly set up, brilliant, unforgettable ending delivered at just the right moment.
And we don’t mind if he violates the rules of proper posture at his computer if it means producing more outstanding fiction like this.