BISENTIENT, page 15
“We...errr...well you actually.” began Meek. “Have a problem”
Zach was only too aware that he had a problem, his headache was back and if anything, worse than the last time.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Meek sat at the table and leaned across it to whisper.
“Don't move or say anything.” began Meek, glancing for emphasis to his left in the direction of the security camera. “But your reaction just now, in the lab, suggests that you have a STZ3798-2 connected to your cortex.”
Zach's eyes registered something in the realm of shock and horror. He sat upright and Meek could see the tension. Zach's eyes began to dart around the room as if they needed to keep busy as his brain took in what Meek had said. Without really thinking Zach's right hand crept slowly to the back of his head and he gently explored the healing wound just inside the hairline.
“Bastards.” he thought. “The fucking bastards.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“SO, THERE'S A parallel society there, with, like, a Government?” said Molly.
Plater was looking thoughtful and couldn't seem to settle. He stood by his living room window as if expecting to see someone or something.
“I told you.” he said. “There's an entire city, there must be millions there.”
“All dreaming.” said Molly.
“Or sick.”
“What time is he coming?” asked Molly.
“I don't know, but he'll come.” said Plater.
“He knows what that thing is?” asked Molly.
“He took it to someone, someone in a Government lab, a scientist. They think they know what it is.”
There was a sound from the kitchen, a tapping. Bartholomew was outside the back door.
“What are you doing?” said Plater as he slipped the bolt and let Bartholomew in.
“I'm terribly sorry.” said Bartholomew, who was brushing his suit trousers with his hands. “I thought it wise to arrive discreetly, one never knows who may be watching. I'm afraid I may have damaged your wild rose.”
“What?” said Plater before realising Bartholomew had clambered over the fence and tangled with the rambling wild rose bush that squatted in the back corner of Plater's city garden.
“Who might be watching?” said Molly as Plater and Bartholomew appeared in the living room.
“The same people that followed you to my shop.” said Bartholomew. “We don't know who they are or what they want so I think it best to take precautions until we know.”
“Tea? Or something stronger?” asked Molly, realising that Plater seemed in no mood to be a good host.
“A whiskey would be admirable Molly, thank you.” said Bartholomew smiling. “I thought my days of climbing fences were long gone.”
Bartholomew took a decent slug from the two fingers of single malt Molly had poured.
“I can tell you.” began Bartholomew. “What my friend at the Ministry has deduced from the diagram you brought out. He's a physicist actually. He believes that the diagram you drew is part of the construction plan for a most interesting piece of equipment. It seems there are theories about such machines, but the technology just isn’t there to construct a viable device.”
“What's it for?” asked Molly.
Bartholomew paused a moment and looked at Plater and Molly in turn.
“Well it's a bit strange really.” he said. “It seems these are instructions for building a machine that can distort spacetime.”
Bartholomew looked again from Plater to Molly and back again.
“You're going to have to explain.” said Plater.
“Well, I'll do my best but this isn't my field.” said Bartholomew. “According to Brian, my friend, it is theoretically possible to distort space and time. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it seems scientists have known of this possibility since the days of Einstein. Indeed some believe it will be the way we can one day visit other planets without taking many lifetimes to reach them.”
The expressions on Plater and Molly's faces told Bartholomew he needed more explanation.
“But what would a machine like this do exactly?” asked Molly.
“Well nobody really knows.” said Bartholomew. “They are really the province of science fiction. Brian saw elements in the diagram that would need to be present in such a theoretical device.”
“Okay, so why is this such a big deal?” asked Plater. “If it's not even possible to make one of these things what were details doing in the Realm?”
Bartholomew took another healthy dose of whiskey.
“Those plans were taken from the Others, this much you were told. There was a considerable sacrifice made to obtain them. There were” Bartholomew paused. “...casualties.”
“Casualties?” said Molly.
“Fourteen people were lost to bring that information to safety.” said Bartholomew.
“What do you mean?” asked Plater.
“In the Realm we mounted an operation. We knew that the Others were planning something important. Our watchers reported lots of activity in the Valley. It’s the area of the Realm where the Others congregate. It is a largely empty place that appears to us to contain many objects associated with the less savoury aspects of humanity.”
“I'm sorry Raymond.” said Plater. “But this isn't making much sense.”
“It can be hard to accept.” said Bartholomew. “But we watch the Others all the time and it was said that much activity was being put to creating something very important. They were busy compiling a book. They believed that these were mystical writings handed down to them from the gods. They believed that once they had compiled the book they could decipher it and learn secrets known only to the gods.”
“This sounds crazy.” said Molly.
“Yes, but we believe the information was supposed to be carried into the real world for use by their agents. We believe that they intend to build this device.”
Bartholomew drained his glass. Plater and Molly said nothing.
“So we were able to steal a large part of one of the copies.” said Bartholomew.
“Copies?” Plater questioned.
“Yes, the Others were writing their dictation from the gods as received by more than one of their number. Competing Prophets, one might say. We were able to get hold of some of the pages from one version, but at a great cost. Our watchers were discovered. We're not sure how, perhaps someone from the city gave them up. But fourteen of them were lost.”
“Do you mean dead?” asked Molly.
“We have no easy way of knowing.” said Bartholomew. “Only a handful of those we have lost have ever returned. We have not seen anything of the fourteen.”
“But could that happen to Mason?” said Molly. “Could he be 'lost'?”
“It is always possible.” said Bartholomew. “We know much but understand little. We are locked in conflict and in conflict there are always casualties.”
“Why?” said Plater. “What is this machine supposed to be for? What do they hope to achieve?”
Bartholomew took a deep breath and continued.
“As you were told this is a struggle with a force that we believe is not of our world. An alien force able to interact with humans via the Realm and other ways too in some cases. We are forced to accept the possibility that this force represents a physical race of beings.”
“You mean...” began Molly. “Like ETs ? Like the Greys?”
“What are Greys?” asked Plater.
“That's what they call the sorts of aliens with big heads and big eyes that people report being abducted by.” said Molly. “I read about it on the net, these people said they'd been taken up to alien spaceships and had experiments done on them and stuff.”
Bartholomew shook his head slightly.
“Those poor people seem to have problems of an earthly nature rather than unearthly.” he said. “But yes, we do mean actual beings from another place in the universe. We believe that by using their influence to cause people in the real world to build this device they hope to use it somehow for their own ends.”
“That's quite a story.” began Plater. “But what good would this 'spacetime distorter' be to these things?”
“The most likely possibility is also the most terrible.” said Bartholomew. “If this device works it is possible that these creatures might be able to use it to create some sort of bridge, or shortcut if you prefer, to enable them to reach our world faster.”
“My god.” said Molly.
Plater turned and gazed out of the window into the street.
“What do we have to go on?” said Plater.
“Well.” said Bartholomew. “It seems some of the components of this device are unusual and Brian was able to find out that a single company in America had recently bought virtually all the necessary items. Funny thing is it's a company called 'Meadowland inc.', ostensibly a property holding company.”
“Who owns it?” asked Plater.
“Well that's the really odd thing.” said Bartholomew. “It's owned by some quasi-religious cult that calls themselves The Church of the Reclamation. They own huge amounts of property across the US and use this company to control it. It seems they are very wealthy and have more than a million members worldwide.”
“So what do we do?” said Plater. “Can't we alert the authorities or something?”
“I hardly think that would be well received. How would we explain our knowledge of this enterprise and why we regard a crackpot cult's attempts to build a machine most scientists believe is science fiction, should be of concern ?”
“Well what then?” asked Molly. “Should we join this Church, see if we can find out what's going on from the inside?”
“I'm not sure you'd be safe.” said Bartholomew. “If one is to believe the press The Church of the Reclamation is not, it seems, a typical religious organisation.”
Molly got up and crossed to the table, flipped open Plater's laptop and switched it on.
“Time to find out about this lot.” she announced.
CHAPTER THIRTY
CARVER’S STAY IN Washington had not gone well so far. He had received a call from the Security Services, MI5, while in-flight informing him of a suspected terrorist attack in London. When he arrived in the US, his first meeting had been with an angry Secretary of State who had complained that the same Security Services had failed to show the necessary politeness and inform the CIA in London, as had been agreed in previous versions of the meetings Carver was in Washington to attend. He sometimes wondered if the so-called 'special relationship' had ever really existed. Things worked well when information flowed from the UK to the US, but he doubted the appropriate levels of information flowed in the other direction.
He was only too happy to cry off the official dinner on his second night. He was of course deeply apologetic and politely declined the State Department's offer of medical assistance to help ameliorate his gastric distress.
So it was that at 21:00 he left his hotel through the service area and got into a car rented by Glade Industries. It was waiting for him and driven by a short hispanic man with ornate tattoos on each forearm, wearing a Redskins baseball cap. After a fifteen-minute drive the car pulled into an underground car park.
“Mr. Carver.” said a man in his mid-thirties, extending his hand and smiling broadly. “My name is Franklin, Conrad Franklin. Please, come this way.”
Carver followed Franklin along a short dark corridor to a lift. Franklin inserted a key and the lift began to move. There were no floor indicators at all and after a few moments the doors opened directly onto a large room that was neat and luxurious like an expensive hotel suite.
A man and woman sat talking on a sofa. As the lift doors opened they broke their conversation and turned towards Carver.
“Mr. James Carver.” said the woman. “I'm so glad you could find the time to join us, I understand the schedule is tight this visit?”
Carver noticed the lift doors close on Franklin, obviously a discussion above his station.
“You must be Mrs Cantrell, I've heard a lot about you.” said Carver. “There have been developments on our side.”
“Please, just call me Faith.” said Cantrell “I have heard of the developments, yes. This is Professor John Straker from Illinois.”
The men shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before all three relaxed into the deep cushions of the cream sofas.
“So, am I correct in thinking that you have subjects already at Stage 3 over there?” said Cantrell.
“We have just begun Stage 3, yes, and we have two subjects that have shown synchronized activity to 98% and better.” said Carver. “I have asked Braberson to send a results package by the secure channel.”
“98% is truly remarkable.” said Straker. “Are they implanted?”
“Yes, the second implant was inserted just before I left England.”
“No side-effects? Rejection of the implants?” said Straker.
“Rejection is being managed and so far no adverse reaction at all.” said Carver.
“That really is exciting news James.” said Cantrell. “We have some news of our own, but it isn't as encouraging as yours, John...”
Straker seemed to take a deeper than normal breath before he spoke.
“One of our people in the Department of Defense reports that a peculiar event was detected five days ago. An event that might suggest we have a local problem.”
Straker paused as if unsure how to continue.
“Go on.” said Carver.
“A military survey team, from the Corps of Engineers, was measuring seismic activity in Northern California and one afternoon their measuring equipment went off the scale. Now they've been expecting the 'big one' in California for years now but the odd thing about their measurements was that the disturbance they saw was not geological in origin. According to their instruments there was the equivalent of a quake at more than 9 on the Richter scale but it was located in the Rockies and apparently almost at the surface.”
“Forgive me professor but I'm not sure I understand the significance of what you're telling me.” said Carver.
“I'm sorry.” said Straker. “What I'm saying is that we believe there was a release of energy, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains that caused seismic detectors hundreds of miles away to flatline. This was definitely not a natural phenomenon Mr. Carver, er... James.”
“What could it have been?” said Carver.
“That's just it.” said Cantrell. “We don't know of any technology that could have caused this event. It also lasted for a matter of seconds and appears not to have caused damage.”
Carver looked back to Professor Straker.
“What do you mean?” asked Carver. “What happened here?”
“It's early days but we think this may have been caused by the operation of a device we thought beyond current science.” said Straker. “From the time man first ventured into space it has been a dream to explore distant worlds and galaxies. But every schoolboy knows that the sheer distances involved to even our nearest neighbour solar system would required decades to travel by any means we know of today. But every schoolboy has also watched Star Trek and any number of other sci-fi films where inter-stellar travel is possible. They call it 'warp drive' at least in Star Trek, in other films it gets other names but the concept is the same.”
Straker paused but nobody spoke, so he continued.
“The classic way to explain this idea is to imagine the universe is like this sheet of paper, a two-dimensional representation of our three dimensions.” Straker took up a pad that lay on the coffee table, he drew two 'x's on the paper about twelve centimetres apart.
“Let's say we're here.” he indicated one of the crosses. “And the place we want to visit is here.” He indicated the other cross. “If we travelled in a conventional manner the shortest route would be a straight line like so.” he drew a line on the paper to join the crosses. “But let's suppose that this represents interstellar distances, thousands of light years, it would be impossible to make the trip.”
“I still don't see where this is going.” said Carver.
“What if we cheat, like on Star Trek.” said Straker, tearing the sheet from the pad and curling it up so that the two crosses almost touched. “What if there was a way to bend space like this so that we could make the distance we'd have to travel smaller?”
“But this is impossible surely?” said Carver. “And what does it have to do with your event?”
“Theoretically this is possible.” said Straker. “But impossible to do in practice, or so we believe. The reason the event measured last week is of interest to us is that it represents a release of energy of the same order of magnitude required to permit bending, warping if you will, of the fabric of spacetime. There is a better than even chance, James, that someone, somewhere, within these United States has developed the technology to warp space.”
“But that's crazy.” said Carver. “There must be some other explanation.”
He looked from Straker to Cantrell and back.
“We have a theory of our own.” said Cantrell. “We adhere to the theory that the entity represents an alien intelligence, a species from a distant planet. We've theorised about why they have any interest in us and why they seem to want to interfere in human affairs. You know that the dominant theory is survival as the entity’s home may be in some sort of existential crisis. You've read the same papers as us no doubt. We also believe that they are able to influence individuals here on Earth. Well what if they're getting people here to help them build one end of a bridge to allow them to travel to Earth from wherever the hell they come from?”
Carver's immediate reaction was to laugh, he had only rudimentary scientific training but had read enough popular science speculation to know that these concepts were real enough. But to believe this idea needed aliens that could control humans to the point of persuading them to build some machine, and presumably a highly complex device. Surely this was an endeavour for a government not some band of drones being directed from space.
