Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (4 page)

“You’re going to … to land on an invisible planet?”

“There’s something out there. If it’s real, we can land on it.”

Perez blinked. Her eyes and throat felt dry. It might have been only two minutes of silence, but it seemed longer before Perez continued.

“There can’t be another planet in our solar system. We’d have seen it. It’s just not possible.”

“I’ve been doing this job for too long, Ms. Perez. There’s been a lot of smart people, a huge amount of money and technology thrown at this, and yet the mathematics and physics don’t lie: there is something as big as a planet on the other side of our Sun that’s ducking us. And when I mean it’s ducking us, I mean it’s actively hiding. Either it exists at a spectrum of light we just don’t see naturally or it’s artificially created to keep us from seeing it.”

“No, no, no … Now you’re talking science fiction, or an advanced civilization or technologically gifted species that’s hanging out in our solar system. Come on!”

“Absolutely, Ms. Perez, and it’s here, too, on Earth.” “What? It can’t be…”

“It’s all true. When we’ve been able to get data to our servers and computers, there’s always some kind of data incompatibility issue or information degradation that makes the information, images, everything useless. And government sponsored projects to advance surveillance have had their imaging and spectrograph equipment destroyed, hindered, or blocked. Ultimately, their plans disappear or are so badly altered that they too are useless.”

Perez held up her hands as if trying to slow the conversation and its inevitable train wreck.

“Colonel, what you’re saying is … well, it’s just too incredible. I mean, it means there’s some kind of world just beyond our line of sight that’s able to bend light waves so it’s invisible. And now you’re saying there’s some kind of conspiracy as well. That someone’s messing with our technology to make sure we don’t see what’s there.” Saying it all out loud did not make it sound less crazy as Perez had hoped.

“Do you hear yourself?”

“Sure do. Have for years. It takes a while to believe, but when you and others say the same thing all the time, it becomes as real as it gets.”

“A conspiracy on Earth too?”

He answered without hesitation.

“Absolutely. All your notes, designs, and all electronically-stored documentation of your project disappeared this morning.”

Perez was on her feet in milliseconds.
Years of research, thousands of hours work, all gone!

“What? Are you bullshitting me! That’s not remotely funny!”

To Farrell’s credit, he remained calm and still, and allowed the burst of emotion to pass as if he had been in that very situation before. After a moment, he nodded and motioned for her to sit down. Once she’d settled and her heart rate had slowed, he spoke in the therapeutic tone her father had used to calm his clients.

“Yes, Ms. Perez. All your work saved on the university’s server system, external backup system and cloud started to degrade into an unintelligible mess or disappear altogether. Since we’ve been monitoring your work, we saw it happening, re- routed and manually inputted some of your backup files to old thumb drives. We also dispatched the local bureau to pick you up before anything happened to you.”

Shit.

Farrell looked at his hands again.

“What do you mean?” Perez asked. “What happens to the people that do what I do or make advances on this problem?” She sat in her chair with her arms folded over her chest, very aware of her clothes absorbing her sweat.

Again, he replied immediately.

“They disappear, fall off the planet. Even their electronic footprint disappears as if they were never here. Even when they’re in protective custody, or witness protections, they still disappear. INTERPOL and Scotland Yard have been all over this for the last three years. The lead guy at Scotland Yard is convinced there’s something systemic, so tied into our computer systems that we are missing something.”

“Maybe he’s wrong …”

“Bradley? Arthur Bradley from Scotland Yard? Wrong?” Farrell said with more emotion than she had heard for the entire interview. “Bradley is many things, but he’s not wrong here. He’s the guy who found the patterns with the computer and people disappearances. No, he’s not wrong. I wish he was.”

More silence. Throat dry and breathing deeper, Perez thought she would have more questions but only managed one.

“What happens next?”

“We’re going to go into the next room where there are a bunch of stenographers using old manual stenotype machines and scientists with pens and pads of paper that are going to write everything you say about your project down. Your work is remarkable and that’s why we’re moving fast. If the data breach’s speed is any indicator, your work may hold the key in seeing the invisible,” Farrell replied.

After a moment of silence, Perez could hear the fluorescent light again in addition to her breathing. Her growling hunger pains had gone. “A whole planet? An entire world just outside the visible spectrum?”

“Yup, and that’s not the interesting part.”

“What? A whole planet next door and we can’t see it, and that’s not the interesting part? Jesus, Colonel! What’s enough to pique your interest?”

“I don’t think invisible planets occur naturally. Who’s running the technology to make an entire planet invisible and why are they hiding?” Farrell returned to looking at his folded hands.

“What happens to me after I give you everything?”

“You go into witness protection. A place where there’s lots of wheat fields, in the middle of nowhere. No computer or internet. Just books, lots of books if you like.”

Perez sat still. Her world and life had completely changed in mere hours.

Shit
.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
– Confucius

Cold rain washed over Andrea Perez. She stood, feeling chilled and drenched, in the middle of a cornfield with her slipper-clad feet sinking into the mud. A huge, black bird- shaped ship hovered silently mere feet above the ground. Three small females stood before her. Their sleek black jumpsuits seemed at odds with their large jaws, sloping foreheads, and broad faces.

“Obviously, we are not from around here,” the redhead said.

“I thought aliens would have really big heads and speak telepathically?”

“Why do Earthers say that when it is clear that they are the giants? But enough. For you to be safe, we must go,” the woman said. No coercion, no force, just a statement.

Still, she hesitated.

“Safe? From who? Farrell?”

“No, not him. He is determined and committed to the truth, but he means you no harm. Others are not like him. And if we were able to find you with ease, they surely will.”

“My dad? He’ll be alone?”

“No, he will not. He understands and wishes you well. He will join you but not before his work is done.”

“What work?”

“Preparing Earth for the truth. We need your help as well.”

“Why me?”

“Our holographic emitters are failing. We need your help.”

Reassured, Perez smiled and approached the ship’s extended ramp with confidence. “I’ll miss the rain,” she said.

Why will I miss the rain … there’s no rain on Terra? Lightning. Ice. Caves. Underground … There’s only rain on Earth. I’m not on Earth.

Perez’s consciousness returned as her recurring dream of her last day on Earth faded. She sat up, jolted to the present. She’d had far too many mushrooms and ‘special’ cabbage dishes that, though they filled her quickly, made her very sleepy. After years of combining those two foods, she should expect such dreams.

Perez blinked and stretched in her seat. She’d fallen asleep at her work station in her small quarters. A series of old blueprints for terraform equipment that had been converted to energy for the Terran community’s life support systems and holographic emitters lay on the table. The first thing she’d done when she’d arrived was to recommend periods of taking the cloaking field offline when Earth satellites and probes weren’t around. She found it ironic that she was one of the key conspirators on a hidden planet that Farrell had alluded to so many years ago. Now, fully awake in the present, she noticed a water stain where her head had been, right beside her empty plate and cup. She wiped her mouth. Yes, she’d drooled as she slept.

“Now, that’s really unattractive,” she muttered.

Though still dressed in her plain brown slacks, and black and reddish tunic, she wanted to pull off her shoes and crawl into bed just feet away. Her quarters had been built for women of less than five foot three; she was lucky to have two rooms and her own semi-private bathroom with attached bathing area.

“Just when you thought college dorm life was bad.”

Her knife, affixed at her waist, gave her the feeling that she had to be somewhere else—she only took a weapon when leaving her quarters. She glanced at the piles of large books, tablets, and paper charts stacked like pyramids around the room. A flash of Terra’s spinning molten core, unusual on a tidal-locked planet, popped into her head. She often wondered how a still planet could generate such a powerful magnetic field solely by the planet’s core. It was fascinating how Terra’s spacecraft used magnetic fields for landings and launches.

“Wait! The launch! Crap!”

Perez raced out the door and into the narrow common hall in a bid to make her appointed time. Low lights ensconced and scattered throughout the residence core allowed her to see and wave back to her neighbors and coworkers, who all lived next to each other in a honeycomb structure made of stone.

“Late for another meeting, Perez?” an unusually large-jawed woman said with an even larger grin.

“Thanks for overstating the obvious, Hydra!”

She wove in and out of small pockets of people, all with pale white skin and dark brown eyes. Being a full head taller than her new peers made her stick out in a crowd, and even after all her years here, she still wasn’t used to her lean body. If she exercised as Clematis had suggested, she would become even fitter, could perhaps even become an athlete. Once the first of three flights of stairs came into view, she no longer needed signs to guide her through the elaborate community. She sprinted up the staircase as a siren began to screech. The sound of spinning turbines and other machinery hummed constantly throughout the subterranean world, and periodic sirens marked changes of shifts, announcements, and, rarely, warnings. This siren proclaimed a shift change that meant in a few seconds mobs of people would fill the corridors, preparing either to arrive for their shift or to go home, eat, dance or hunt. Her breath grew ragged and her leg muscles tightened with the effort, but she was determined not to miss her meeting.

“Not again … I swear I won’t hear the end of it.”

A group of scientists, identified by their green sashes, gathered just ahead of her. They waved their tablets and spoke with great enthusiasm, while just behind her, another group carried sharpened spikes, spears and other edge weapons for a hunt.

“You’d think … that with all the advanced technology … they’d have invented elevators or escalators,” she gasped while running up her third flight of stairs. Though not completely out of breath yet, her hope that she’d reach Legate Legionis Clematis and Dux Cloelius dwindled.

I bet they’re already gone. What the hell, Perez. Lay off the vegetables and mushrooms!

Despite almost fifteen years of acclimating to her new home, Terra’s gravity still strained her human body. Terra was only slightly larger than Earth, considered by most of her peers as negligible, but they didn’t have to live with the change for the rest of their lives. She wondered if she’d live beyond a hundred like these people—more time to learn more languages, origins and maybe even find a new power source for the emitters.

Perez, comfortable now with the array of edged weapons and firearms they carried nearly all the time in their subterranean world, dodged more clusters of females clad in various browns, black and reddish colors. Her own knife bounced against her hip.

Damn! Forgot my sidearm again! I’ll regret that one of these days.

She entered a larger space brightened by light reflected through large skylights. Unique markets, food dispensaries, drinking establishments and places to sit lined the sides of a wide foyer. Though reminiscent of the old markets of Earth, the ornate, colorful sculptures, free standing or embedded in large stone archways, resembled those of ancient Rome. But while ancient Rome had fallen on Earth, here, Rome’s origins and life remained commonplace.

So much to still learn still,
she thought as she sidestepped a group of adolescents and avoided crashing into a weapons rack. Edged weapons were so familiar in public that she hardly noticed the first aid kits, fire extinguishers, atmosphere alarms, and racks of knives for killing the planet’s large rodents.

I really have to learn more maneuvers
, she thought as she continued her jaunt past more newly installed racks. The monsters had become more brazen recently. Finally, she saw the two women. They’d stopped to wait for her in the congested walkways. She realized that with an entire civilization built underground—three level structures on the surface and three below the crust—elevators for people were not really necessary. Feeling as tall as a giraffe in the land of lions, she could easily spot the Terran-Earth mixed children. Even as adolescents, they were taller than the native Terran. Perez enjoyed her transition into a society that valued height and strength almost as much as teaching and learning. As a scientist and an ambassador from Earth, she held the title of Immunes, a direct derivation from Latin meaning a soldier with at least one specialization. Her pink sash, one of five on the whole planet, indicated the high regard in which they held her—a scientist responsible for fixing a failing cloaking system for the planet.

New arrivals from different parts of Terra looked sideways at her; even though the proportions of her limbs and trunk were nearly identical to theirs, they perceived her Earthly thick build and short stature as thin and tall. Her thick, dark-brown hair, which fell below her shoulders, was truly an anomaly among the shorter red-haired women and the few Terran men. Her narrower head with a corresponding jaw, higher cheek bones and an average human skull with its high forehead all differed from her Terran counterparts with their heavier brows, sloping foreheads, and flatter craniums that jutted out more towards the back of the neck.