Angels of the Quantum Gate Read online

  “You see, the Galaxy is BIG… I mean really big. And this is just one out of billions and billions. There’s no warp drive or whatever for getting around, even for beings as technologically advanced as the Grays. Matter and energy are the same thing, just sub-atoms with different spins and a boson or two. And space is still full of energy, so it might as well be full of matter. So you can’t send energy, or matter, through energy, or matter, faster than energy, slash matter, can travel. What a look! Anyway, that doesn’t make sense. So evidently they found a way to set up these conduits so they don’t have to travel faster than light speed, they just don’t have as far to go. I don’t know anymore than that about how they work. Suffice it to say that they are far, far advanced over us technologically, so it seems like magic.”

  “Well, if they’re so advanced, why do they want to cause so much trouble when they do come? I mean, look what they’ve done to me, and my wife, and you say to you yourself and a lot of other people. They don’t seem very nice for such advanced beings.”

  “Some of them are, as you say, nice. Actually some are more, shall we say, enlightened than others regarding other species, other life forms. Plenty, I guess the majority, are not that different from us when it comes to that though. And that’s the worrisome thing about it all.”

  “How do you know so much about them? How have you figured all this out? Maybe you’re wrong about, well, a lot of this.”

  “All right, Don, let me give you some more history. My history. I got involved in this UFO stuff back in the late 50’s. I was a young lieutenant, looking ahead to what I thought would be an Air Force career. They did some tests and thought I had some talent at investigation, so I was attached to, let’s just say, a unit that was an offshoot of Project Bluebook. Or so I thought. Actually Bluebook was the decoy and I wound up in the real thing. I was in the group that knew about Roswell, that actually worked with some crashed alien ships, that did the autopsy you’ve heard of…that was no hoax by the way although that stupid film of it was a hoax…and finally that actually attempted to interview a Gray that survived a crash. We had no success by the way. He, slash she or whatever, eventually succumbed to its injuries and got carted off for another autopsy.

  “Well, this is radical stuff. We couldn’t let this information out. To anyone. And we had no idea who we could trust. So it was suppressed, on pain of death. Heck, we couldn’t even trust our superiors. Nobody in Washington knew of this, not FBI or CIA, not the Joint Chiefs or the President. Especially not Congress. We kept it to ourselves, within our very private group, and worked like hell to create decoys, Area 51, and the like, to keep all this contained. Remember when Jimmy Carter said he had seen a UFO? Our mind control specialists very quickly moved into position to convince him that he’d really just seen Venus. We got pretty good at that too. Before long all the UFO flap died; the press was no longer interested, and we could work unhindered. Mostly we used these chambers for our offices. Nobody but us knew they existed, and the Grays kept building them for us, so we never ran out of space…heh, heh, the final frontier.

  “So now it’s just us, the Air Force few, the Self-Evidence Group, the Un-ALIEN-Able Rights Club. We’re all Air Force retired, plus a few trusted sympathizers we’ve picked up…mostly former abductees with no one to turn to but us. We old codgers just act like we’re all nuts. It’s easy. The more we talk about UFOs and show purported photos of them, the more people believe we’re just nutty old codgers. Add to that some dirty shacks in the woods. We’re hardly ever there anyway. We spend most of our time in these caves. Interviewing abductees. Cataloging stories. Sorting out the real from the fanciful. Watching events happen and trying to figure out where we’ll be when the hunters come.”

  “The hunters?”

  “Hunters. You got it. You think all these E.T.s are just unintentionally troublesome scientists, exploring the universe and collecting a little DNA on the way? The scientists are the good guys no matter how much trauma they cause. Remember they’re psychologically a lot more like humans than we should hope. Because to them, we’re the beasties, Mr. Don. Oh, I guess they think of us as primates, which we are, but we are animals to them. Animals to be studied, dissected, herded, petted, hunted, slaughtered…and eaten.”

  “Huh…eaten?”

  In a bored monotone: “Yes, eaten. That’s all for now. Why don’t you get cleaned up? Get some sleep. You look like a wreck. Hey, Jack, show Don his room.”

  Jack waved from outside the doorway. He was a tall, skinny, scruffy looking guy, and he was wearing a dirty white lab coat over faded green scrubs. He looked vaguely familiar.

  “Yes, you’ve seen me before. In the hospital room…which wasn’t a hospital room. Actually it was…”

  He opened another barely visible door in another partition bolted into the glass floor, and there it was. The hospital room!

  “Sorry your accommodations have to be so clinical. We don’t have enough rooms set up down here yet, and the, quote, hospital room was a priority. So I’m afraid you’ll be staying in here again. Hope you don’t mind too much.”

  “I guess I don’t have a choice. But what was I doing in here in the first place? Sue said she found me passed out on the road. Then you gave me a shot and next thing I remember I was back home and Sue was sewing everything in sight.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, we had to do that. You were extremely traumatized. Actually we were the ones who picked you up. You were crawling down that road. You were in a dangerous state. Your pulse was 200, BP about 200 over 150. You couldn’t breathe, and you were dehydrated. We set up this room…well, actually it was inside your house at the time, but it would look the same to you. The window’s fake. We kept you sedated and on IVs for days.

  “Then your wife showed. It was about 2 or 3 am. She was in shock. Recently cauterized lacerations. All signs of abduction. We put her to bed. Started IVs and sedation. She was still under heavy medication when you woke up. Very suggestible. We wanted her there when you woke up to ease the trauma some. But she’d been instructed to fetch us right away. We put you and her back to sleep and kept you under for a few more days. We had a few problems with, what’s his name, Rob, when he returned your truck. He was about to call the cops…blow everything.”

  “What did you do to Rob?”

  “We didn’t do anything to him…well not really. A little mind control. Injections and hypnosis. He thinks he returned the truck and nobody was home. So he left the keys under the floor mat in the truck. That’s all. He’s fine now…he really is.”

  “You’re making me nervous.”

  “Oh, don’t be. Everything’s fine. At least as fine as it ever was. Rob’s fine and doesn’t remember a thing. Our very best are working with your wife. She’ll be fine too. She won’t remember the abduction. Just, uh, don’t let her near a sewing machine, or even a needle and thread, for, well, awhile.”

  “Where is my wife?”

  “I honestly don’t know. We had to leave after we got you two settled. We had to interview some more abductees. This group of Grays, Pinks too, were unusually aggressive. We have reason to think they may be back soon. And we needed to drill down to this chamber and get set up here.”

  “They’re coming back here?”

  “No, they never use the same chamber twice. It doesn’t work that way. That’s why it’s safe here. As safe as it can be anywhere. Well, that’s enough for now. Plenty of hot water and everything you need there in the bath. Take this when you’re ready to sleep.”

  He handed me a pill in a little baggie. I heard him lock the door behind him. I’m captive again, I thought. At least I can get clean. But I’m not taking that pill.

  I didn’t have any trouble getting to sleep. I must have been totally exhausted. But I didn’t stay asleep and everything was rolling around in my head.

  “OK, you can get up now.” It was Jack’s voice. The door unlocked but didn’t open.

  “What’s the point of locking me in?” I was shouting. “You think I�
�ll jump up that shaft all on my own?”

  This time the door opened. “We can’t have you wandering about here. I’m sorry, but you might get hurt. Or you might break something. A lot’s going on down here. More than you’d think. Lighting, communications, supplies. We have to stabilize the shaft. Provide for protecting and sealing. We don’t know what’s coming, so we’ve got to be ready.”

  I was sitting up in the hospital bed. “If things are that serious, isn’t it time you let this out? Drake was talking about hunters and cannibals. Don’t you think other people have the right to know?”

  “They’re not cannibals. Cannibals eat their own species. We’re potential prey. Or potential animal product. Don’t you think we’ve tried to let people know about this? With the exception of the few, they won’t believe us without other evidence, and they do things that hinder what we’re doing. Believe me, they make it impossible to accomplish anything productive. Ask Drake. He tried in the most careful ways to enlarge knowledge within the Air Force and got shot down every time. The cover up was easy. People don’t want to know this stuff.”

  “You think I won’t notify authorities when I get out of here?”

  “You can try. They’ll never believe you. Not without evidence.”

  I wrapped in my sheet and stood up. I was facing Jack, who was still standing in the doorway. “I don’t believe that. Besides, all they have to do is locate these shafts, these caves.”

  “They won’t be able to. We’re seeing to that. The stakes are too high. We’ve got to have safe places. The continuation of the human race depends on it.”

  “Won’t the Grays figure out where you’re hiding?”

  “They won’t care. They’re not genocidal. Most of them anyway. They’re not out to eliminate all of us. If they wanted to do that, believe me, they could wipe us all out with ease. Us and everything else. Because they make no distinction between us and, say, termites. We just have more elaborate living quarters, that’s all. And it wouldn’t be sporting to the hunters. They’ll want us to fight back. Not that we can in any effective way. But it will amuse them.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Ask Col. Drake. Hey, it’s early. I’ll bring you some breakfast.”

  “What time is it anyway?”

  “Oh-seven-twelve, EDT.”

  “And the date?”

  “It’s 6/29.”

  “My god, that’s more than a month since the, uh, funnel landed!”

  “Time flies!” He smiled, turned, walked out and locked the door. He’d left some dingy but fairly clean orange coveralls hanging over the chair. They fit well enough.

  ****

  This was not a pleasant time in my life. I thought I was at least going to get to be one of Drake’s Un-Alien-Able Rights guys, but instead I was their prisoner. I never saw Drake again, not there, not in his normal form. His henchmen brought me food. I have no idea where it came from. Sometimes it was fast food, sometimes it was pretty good, and sometimes it was terrible. I had lots of books to read, all about UFOs and the like. I had DVDs to watch, documentaries on UFOs of course. Otherwise there was no entertainment, nothing to do. I could write, but there was nothing to write about.

  Until...the government people showed up. At least that’s what I thought they were. Two guys, black suits, white shirts, black ties, black shoes. I’m sure they would have had the black sunglasses too except that it was too dark in there.

  They opened the door without even knocking and walked on in while I was reading the history of Project Bluebook...for the second time.

  “Who are you?”

  “That’s not important. We need to ask you some questions. Are you Donald Henson?”

  “I’m Don Henson. How do you know my name? What are you here for? Can you get me out of here…?”

  “We’re asking the questions.”

  “What are my rights?”

  “Of what rights are you speaking? We just want you to help clear some things up. After all, you’re the one...the only one...in this complex. And it has some pretty sophisticated equipment.”

  “I don’t know anything about the rest of this, uh, complex. All I know is my room. Jim Drake and his bunch put me in here, and now they won’t let me out.”

  “Who is Jim Drake? And his bunch as you call them?”

  “Hey, Jim is a friend of mine. Has been for a long time. I don’t want to get him in trouble. I just don’t understand why this thing is...was...in my cornfield. Are the alien hunters really coming to eat us?”

  “Alien hunters?”

  “Well, don’t you know what’s happening? What agency are you from? FBI? Military? Air Force, like Jim?”

  “Jim Drake is in the Air Force?”

  “Dammit! Don’t you know this? He’s a retired Colonel from Project Bluebook! Or the other part of it...the real part! Why don’t you find him? And my wife! I don’t know what’s happening with her. You can start with answering my questions first. I have a few rights here.”

  “We’ll make it easier. Here.” He handed me a notepad. “We want you to write it all down. Everything that’s happened. What this place is. How you came to be here.”

  “Oh geez. Another notepad. I don’t know why if I don’t even know who you are.”

  “That’ll be all for today.”

  “Today? When do I get out of here?”

  They walked out and locked the door behind them.

  “I hope somebody has a key!” I shouted to the door.

  I was cursing like mad but there was nobody to hear me. I threw the notepad across the room and it slid down the curved glass wall. And then it stuck there. Just stuck on the wall about two feet above the floor. I never had anything stick to the wall like that before. I thought to myself, this is one hell of a sticky situation...ha, ha, ha...sarcasm intended.

  ****

  So there I was with a flat notepad stuck to a curving glass wall with no visible means of support. I walked over to it. It easily released into my hand. I tried to put it back, but it only fell to the floor. I tried several times and finally threw it like I did before. It wouldn’t stick again. I had no explanation, just a beat-up looking notepad. I took it over to the one table in the room, pulled up a chair and started to write the whole freakin’ thing over again because they had taken all I’d already written. After a little while I was tired and lay down for a nap.

  I think I slept a long time, but I had no way to know. I woke up because the door was opening again.

  “Jim Drake!” I exclaimed. “It’s about time you came back. What is going on? And who are the guys asking questions?”

  The voice was convincing...but not quite.

  “I am not Jim Drake.”

  “What the…! You look like Jim Drake! You even sound like him...sort of. Just who do you think you are then?”

  “The most convenient term that you would understand would be to say that this ‘I’, as you would have me be, am a communication device.”

  “A device? You are not human?”

  “I am not a biological organism.”

  “So you are a hologram? Of Jim?”

  “You may think of me as such. I am not a hologram, but perhaps you will understand me as one.”

  “So where...or what...did you come from?”

  “I was sent to you, and you alone, by some of the more enlightened ones of our kind. We do not want you and your kind to be harmed. We hold an ethic of non-interference. There are others who value conquest and domination of species they hold to be inferior. However, my kind holds that all species have equal rights for survival according to natural law.”

  “So why are you interfering with me?”

  “We, being to you ‘I’, am here to help you. You yourself are in a situation of difficulty, are you not? Your kind is in even greater danger. There are conquerors amongst my greater kind, subjugators, enslavers, exploiters, hunters, carnivores. Some would commit genocide of those deemed inferior.”

  “OK...let me get
this...I’m trying to soak it all in. And what am I supposed to do about it all? I can’t even get out of this crazy sticky-sometimes glass room with its curvy walls and its locked door and this other place that has lots of equipment according to the black-n-white guys who might or might not be government. And now a fake Jim Drake comes to see me to keep me from being eaten, I guess. What do you want me to do?”

  “There is not so much you personally need to do. Not yet. We are acting on your behalf within our own political spheres. I am here to communicate with and to comfort you personally. No other will see me.”

  “Some comfort. Nobody else can see you. Nobody else can see anything. And if you wanted to comfort me, why didn’t you send a fake Sue instead of a fake Jim Drake.”

  “That can be arranged, if you prefer.”

  “No, no, no... I don’t know. I don’t want any more fake anything. Or real anything. You may be enlightened, but you’re driving me crazy. You are all so advanced so why don’t you know anything about psychology? You can’t just come here and disrupt everything...where we live...who we are...what we think...what we can see or not see....”

  “Mr. Henson, we are in agreement. Non-occult observation, interference, and exploitation are antithetical to the ethics of our particular subset of the set of our kind.”

  “Just who is your kind anyway?”

  “We are travelers from beyond what you know. You would not understand beyond that.”

  “Well, I’d like to do some traveling too. Beyond what I know in this frackin’ place!”

  “Frakin’?”

  “Oh never-mind. Say, how come you speak English anyway?

  “Linguistics is very easy for us. We interpret and replicate almost all modes of communications whether based on atmospheric compression, electromagnetic forces, shared consciousness, etc. Whatever is appropriate. As necessary, we add new symbols. The use of frackin’ will now be indexed.”

  “Well, I wish you would index getting me out of here.”