Independence Day: Silent Zone (8 page)

Everyone had a job.
Dworkin would monitor the input/output meters while Lenel operated the
cannon.
Freiling tracked the energy levels reaching the sensors, and Cibatutto
stood
ready to give the cutloff signal when the ship's temperature climbed
past 140
degrees. That left Okun and Radecker with their hands free to watch the
show. A
mirror was positioned at an angle below the generator to let them see
how it
worked. Special prismatic crystal goggles were distributed. If
everything
worked like it was supposed to, they would allow the team to watch the
energy
surge spit out of the ship and travel through the room. When everything
seemed
to be in order, Okun gave the final go-ahead.

"Okey-dokey,
boys, let's get it on."

Lenel was standing on
the operator's platform of the cannon, a device that looked like a
dentist's X-ray
machine built to battleship-sized proportions. He adjusted his goggles,
then
threw the switch. Everything happened at once. The cannon sent a beam
of arcing
electrical power through the air, penetrating the walls of the ship and
coursing into the generator. A tremendous crack ripped through the
bunker, and
the ship seemed to explode into flames of blue light. The glass on the
instrument panel in front of Dworkin shattered, and Okun was sure he'd
ruined
the ship forever. But Lenel continued to fire. A firestorm of hazy blue
light
flared out of the ship in all directions, stabbing into the air in a
zigzag
dance of truly alarming speed, like a thousand ghosts looking for a way
out of
a pillowcase at the speed of light. When Cibatutto directed his
attention to
the generator at the bottom of the ship, Okun instantly knew why they
called it
the aqua-box: green light was spilling out of the opening and, on the
surface
of the mirror, Okun could see energy racing around the inside of the
generator
chamber like a waterspout, a cyclone of crystal green water. Then
Cibatutto
waved his arms, Lenel killed the power, and it all came to a dead stop.
The
room echoed with silence except for the frazzled sputter coming from
one of the
lighting fixtures, which popped and died. The whole thing had taken
less than
ten seconds.

The
scientists all looked at Okun, who pulled off his goggles and stared
wide-eyed
at the ship. "That was pretty trippy." It was a few moments before
the young genius realized what had happened. He had been proved right.
The
energy wasn't simply leaching out of the ship; it was being forced out,
purged,
by the ship's design. And the aqua-box, as he had predicted, seemed to
function
as some sort of capacitor, a device which multiplied the energy before
passing
it back to the system. It had more than quadrupled the power input from
the
cannon, overwhelming the meters on Dworkin's output monitors and
sending them
into meltdown.

"Nicely
done, young man, nicely done indeed! We haven't made this much progress
in
years." Dworkin and the others were jubilant. Even Lenel was smiling.

They began checking
the registers on the meters wired to the sensors on the walls. Despite
all the
visual fireworks, Okun was surprised that they hadn't burned up along
with
Dworkin's voltmeter. In fact, the numbers were rather low. Very little
energy
had reached the sensors up near the ceiling. That, he realized
immediately,
spelled trouble for his theory. The energy was dissipating much more
quickly
than he guessed it would. Then again, the violent, flailing, spasmodic
way the
energy had shot around the room could indicate a mistake in the way the
scientists had put things back together.

Dworkin
was already calling for a bottle of champagne. He was busy extolling
this
advance in their knowledge to Radecker when Okun called across the
room,
"Something's not right." He came and explained the sensor readouts to
the others. "It means these alien ships would have to fly wingtip to
wingtip in order to keep their communal energy supply alive."

"Still,"
Dworkin countered, "you have proved that the ship is designed to take
energy in, magnify it, and pump it back out. Perhaps the presence of
other
ships would attract or draw the energy from this one."

Okun
screwed up his face and shook his head no. "I don't buy it."

Lenel
joined them and was characteristically blunt. "Of course this means
we've
spent twenty five years screwing around down here for nothing. But at
least now
we know."

"Know
what?" Radecker asked.

"The
kid
just proved this hunk of alien junk can't fly by itself. If we're ever
gonna
get it to fly, we'll need another ship just like it." When no one
backed
him up, Lenel asked, "Isn't that right, fellas?"

"That
would seem to be the logical conclusion," Dworkin agreed. "Didn't we
mention that part?"

"No! No one
mentioned that," Radecker yelled. "Did I mention the fact that I
can't leave until we get this thing to fly?" Radecker reached up and
began
massaging his temples. Obviously, he hadn't understood the full
implications of
the test until that moment. When he felt the impulse to grab the first
seventy-year-old he could lay his hands on and begin choking him to
death, he
reminded himself to breathe deeply.

Okun
wanted to run the test again at a slightly higher input level and see
if he
could get a different reading on the sensors. And an hour later, when
the ship
had cooled down, the scientists agreed. After carefully setting the
levels on
the energy input cannon, Okun asked the others to tell him if the
flaring aura
of light behaved any differently, then headed off toward the center of
the
ship.

"Where
are you going?"

"Um,
inside. I noticed last time that some of the gizmos inside the cockpit
lit up,
and I want to check out what's going on in there."

Dworkin
chuckled. "Mr. Okun, I'm afraid that's impossible. I believe I've
already
mentioned to you that the energy levels we're using overheat the
circuits and
generate intolerably high temperatures."

Freiling
concurred. "He's right, Breakfast."

"Brackish.
My name is Brackish."

Freiling
didn't seem to listen. "The inside of the cockpit gets hotter than a
skillet. If you touch it, you'll get burned."

"Look,
guys, I'm young, I'm nimble, I'm a natural athlete. Don't worry. When
it starts
getting hot, I'll get out quick."

"I won't allow
it." Dworkin put his foot down. "Mr. Radecker, as director of the
lab, would you please forbid this young man from going through with
this
foolish idea. The temperature inside the craft
quickly rises to more than two hundred degrees. He'll roast. Dr. Lenel,
come
down off that gun. The experiment is canceled."

"Stay
where you are, Doctor." Radecker thought about it.
No more
Okun, no
more five-year contract.
Without their boy genius, Spelman
would have to
pull the plug on the project, or at least reorganize. "Mr. Okun, do you
honestly think you can get out of there in time?"

Okun's
mind made another odd connection. "Have any of you guys ever seen that
show called
Thrillseekers
? Where these guys crash
cars and jump
motorcycles over things? Anyways, I saw this one where a guy, a
stuntman, walks
into a house, a little fake house they built for the stunt, dig? He's
got his
crash helmet and these fire-retarding overalls on. So, he waves to the
crowd
and goes inside. Then these other guys come and set fire to the shack
and then
throw this honkin' bundle of dynamite inside. A couple of seconds
later,
kablooey! The whole thing blows sky-high, and you see the stunt-man
come flying
through the air—Aaaaagh!—in this perfect swan dive, and he lands on
this big air-mattress.
For a minute he just lies there—
I might be dead
—but
then he jumps up and
takes a bow."

"I
think I saw that one," Freiling shouted. "It was at a
racetrack."

"If
you have a point to make, why don't you get to it?" Radecker snapped.

"Are
you dense?" Freiling demanded, wheeling around and looking at Radecker
like he was the crazy one. "The boy is asking for some safety
equipment.
He needs a crash helmet and something to land on."

And
fifteen minutes later, that is what he had. Cibatutto had taken a
colander from
the kitchen, lined the inside with foam padding, and attached a chin
strap. By
the time this makeshift headgear was ready, Okun and Radecker had
created a
landing pad by stacking mattresses under the hatchway of the alien
ship. Okun
strapped on the helmet, climbed the ladder, and practiced diving to
safety. It
was fun, it was simple, they were ready to go.

When
he
saw they meant to go through with it, Dworkin announced that he refused
to
participate and started to leave the hangar.

"Dr.
Dworkin," Radecker called across the room. "I wouldn't do that if I
were you. Have you already forgotten our deal?" The tall gaunt
scientist
stood there for a moment while his conscience wrestled with his sense
of
self-preservation. Finally, he turned around and returned a few steps
closer to
the ship. "How would the director like me to assist?"

"That's
OK, you can just stand there and watch. Dr. Lenel, why don't you show
me how to
work this contraption. I'd like to operate it, if that's okay with our
stuntman."

Okun realized
Radecker was blackmailing the holding their embezzlement over their
heads like
a hatchet. And while it made him sad to see the regal old Dworkin
having to
kowtow to a man of half his years and a quarter of his IQ, he figured
there was
nothing he could do about it. Looking completely ridiculous standing
next to
the spaceship with the big stainless-steel strainer strapped to his
head, he
offered Radecker a manly thumbs-up, then, after a few deep breaths,
climbed the
ladder and disappeared into the dark mass of the alien vehicle.

Lenel
turned the power dial a tad lower than Okun had requested, then showed
Radecker
how to activate the power by means of a simple switch. As he turned and
stepped
off the operators platform, Radecker quickly reached down and cranked
the power
regulator up a full twist to the right.
That ought to do the job.

Inside,
Okun looked around uncertainly. This was starting to seem like a very
bad idea.
It wasn't the power surge that would rip through the ship in a moment;
it was
the dark interior. Being in there alone, he suddenly felt how foreign,
how
otherworldly this claustrophobic environment was. There was just enough
light
seeping through the cabin windows to cast dim shadows across the
rounded walls,
which were dripping with creepy, semiorganic technology. It felt more
like a
mausoleum than a flying machine. He was on the verge of chickening out,
but
instead he pulled on his goggles and yelled down through the hatch that
he was
ready.

As soon as the power
switched on, the same loud crack ripped through the ship, knocking Okun
slightly off-balance. He reached out to steady himself on the wall. All
across
the instrument panel lights snapped on, including the shell screen
Cibatutto
had shown him. He jerked his hand away from the wall when he felt it
swell to
life under his palm. Unfortunately, the momentum of his arm combined
with the
uncertainty of his feet to cause the natural athlete to trip once over
his left
foot, then immediately
again over his
right, all of it taking him farther away from the escape door. His
stumbling
landed him flat-ass on the floor directly in front of the shell screen,
where
he saw something that scared the bejesus out of him. A picture filled
the
vein-laced screen, a fuzzy, distorted image of a giant Y rising
straight out of
the ground. The alien technology gave this image a visual texture
unlike any
Okun had seen before. The picture spoke to him. Not with words, but in
emotional terms. For reasons he would never fully understand, this
simple image
communicated a deep emotional sensation that hit him like a punch in
the gut.
It seemed like the loneliest, most desolate thing he'd ever seen in his
life.
He got the sense this great Y-shape was somehow an instrument of
torture, an
enemy. But at the same time, it was beckoning Okun, urgently calling
for him to
come. His plan to check the other instruments completely forgotten,
Okun sat on
the floor, mesmerized by the picture and his strong emotional response
to it.
Later he would be able to joke about the moment, likening it to reading
a
travel brochure for Hell written by Samuel Beckett, but at the moment
he was in
trouble. The temperature inside the ship was rising fast. Fortunately,
something nearby started moving. The steering controls, that neatly
folded
stack of bones, opened itself and twitched to life like a pair of giant
lobster
legs. This distraction saved his life, occurring as it did just as a
butt-bubbling
wave of heat suddenly rose in the floor. In one giant stride, Okun
crossed the
cockpit and dived through the hatch, handing facefirst on the mattress.

Radecker
switched off the power.

The
scientists looked at the long-haired daredevil stuntman-cum-lab worker
and
waited for a sign that he would live. His exit from the ship could not
fairly
be called a swan dive, but it was pretty close, especially for a
beginner, so
the gentlemen were expecting him to leap up any moment and take a bow.

"Mr.
Okun?... Mr. Okun?..."

Standing
on a chair with his pants
around his
ankles and his ass toward the
bathroom mirror, Okun examined his burns. The doctor who examined him
upstairs
in the hangar had assured him they weren't serious. But they were
painful
enough to keep him from sitting down for a few days. He gingerly pulled
up his
trousers, then examined his new piece of jewelry. He'd attached the
ankh-shaped
gizmo he'd found in the ship to a piece of leather string to make
himself a
necklace. He admired his new treasure in the mirror. "Groovy," he
nodded. Then, feeling hungry, he went looking for food.