Max put her eye to the viewfinder to frame the shot. Chloe had her shoulder under the left edge of the saucer as though carrying it. The UFO was a little over six feet across, metal, suspended by a chain hanging from the back of the dusty old tow-truck. It was parked in the dirt lot of the Little A'le'inn, the only tourist attraction in the small highway town of Rachel, Nevada. Population: Yes.
Chloe repositioned herself slightly, gesturing. "Come on Max! You need to be in this too!"
"I will, I will. Just need to get the composition right." Max moved a little to one side, bending her knees slightly. "Tilt your head up just a little?"
Chloe moved her head. "Dude. Get in here and take the picture already. Burgers. Fries."
"Hang on… jeez. Okay, on the count of three, say 'alien cheese'"
"Alien Cheeseburgers!" Chloe smiled.
"Not til the count of three, dummy. Ready? One…two…three!" Max hit the shutter button right as she let go of the camera. Froze the universe. She walked around to the right side of the flying saucer, put her shoulder under it, mirroring Chloe - like they were carrying it between them. She rewound to a few microseconds after she'd triggered the camera. Kept herself perfectly still as she ran the universe forward at quarter speed. The camera made a slow click as it began to fall. She froze, grabbed it while it was a foot off the ground, then returned to normal time.
"Get it?" Chloe asked, still huddled under the edge.
Max flipped the screen to 'play', walked back to Chloe so they could both see it. "I must not have let it go evenly. Looks like the upper left corner pitched forward a little, and there's a slight motion blur from the fall…" I could redo it with a faster shutter, but the aperture change would blur the mountains and sign a little….
Chloe rested her chin on Max's shoulder, peeking over at the screen. "It's a cute shot. Off balance, a little blurry, it's like…an artsy found photo. I like it. Now come on - let's get our food on!" Chloe put her arm around Max's shoulder, half pushing, half steering her toward the front door.
Max let out a small laughing "hey!" as she nearly tripped. She clicked the lens cap on and slipped the camera into her bag as they crossed the threshold.
It was smaller than she expected. Inside. Smell of plastic, grilled meat and electric heaters. A bar ran along the right kitchen wall, worn laminate tables and plastic chairs lurked in the center of the room, while narrow shelves with alien related paraphernalia ringed the edges. Stickers, T-shirts, masks, snow globes, cases with all manner of tchotchke. Three alien dolls in shirts...
A pool table filled the space near the back left wall, and in the far corner, a real live coin-operated Pac-Man arcade game beckoned. The ceiling above the bar was completely hidden by a solid field of hanging cash. On closer examination, Max realized they were taped-up dollar bills guests had left messages on. Thousands of them at least. More questions than answers there…
Chloe seemed to ignore it all, beelined for the bar.
"You don't even have to look around, do you?" Max asked, knowing the answer.
"I will. I mean, I took a frame-grab as soon as we walked in. Cataloged everything. I already know what toys I'm buying before we leave, if that's what you mean. Don't worry… It'll still be fun to look around with you. I just wanna order first." Chloe sidled up to the bar, picked up a menu. Max unconsciously rewound, watched her do it again. Spun her forward and back one last time. She decided that Chloe was a good sidler. A lot better than she was. Max was more of a 'walk up and sit down' kind of person. But Chloe always had a legit sidle. It was impressive.
The menu Chloe held was another thing she didn't really have to look at. She'd get the Alien Burger and fries - made that much clear on the drive up. I, on the other hand, need to see the menu. Max walked up to the bar and took the open stool next to Chloe. Wasn't sure what she was having yet. She might end up with the burger too, but she wanted to see options.
I wonder if the cows out there end up as alien burgers in here?
She put the question out of her mind just as quickly. She liked cows. They were always friendly. In her experience, they seemed to have…preferences about things. Which was a sign of something. And it was like…they just didn't ever mean anybody any harm.
It always makes me a little sad how delicious they are…
But if they weren't, they'd prolly be endangered by now too…
Maybe an alien burger with bacon?
Nom.
Hank Larsen dragged a few files over to cheap plastic thumb drive. He was on the third floor, working out of a private meeting room. His morning orientation session wrapped an hour ago. The employees in today's group were all transfers in from other MCCP facilities, so it was a shorter schedule block. No need to go over the foundation stuff, just right to the facilities, the area, the peculiarities of HQ. Easy.
"That's a good one." Sarah pointed at another folder further down the display.
He copied it over to join the others.
In addition to his morning job leading some of the orientation classes, Hank was a minor precog. Short range. Outer limit of a few weeks. His predictive sweet spots were at about ten minutes, and again at just over seven days. Stone skips. Glimpses, mostly. There were others who could project further or with greater accuracy. But where they might pick up on events, he was better at people. The combo made him a good fit.
Sarah was blind that close in, starting up about where he left off. It's why they paired up on assignments. She projected out with decreasing resolution to about a year. The uncertainty with distance was a normal limiting factor, made worse by proximity to so many other talents.
It was something they'd all suffered from here at HQ. Foreknowledge altered the future. A prediction by one would shape ops briefings, change plans, or change how people thought about a problem to begin with. Or when they began thinking about a problem.
Any alteration to the future could ripple back to change what they'd see. That kind of feedback was normal with only one precog. Manageable. It got complicated with more than one, often changing what other precogs would see pitched forward. In turn, shifting their predictions, which would further alter activities or intentions, reflecting back as changes to the others…
Like loops inside of mirrors. It was a complete mess at first. 'Predictive interference patterns', they'd called it.
Another proof that nothing existed in isolation.
But they'd adapted, splitting themselves up to work in small teams with mostly non-overlapping timeframes. There weren't that many of them. Only a few teams at HQ. But enough that each could work with different ops in non-interfering ways. Like ripples in different ponds, now separated by land, they mostly stayed clear of each other's futures that way. At the level of individual ops, anyhow.
Hank paused, said, "Guys, I think we're pushing detection thresholds for today. Folder access is logged, so…this is good enough for now. Still have a week or two. Grant, if you wouldn't mind, soft reset? Reboot us again tomorrow, same time?"
"Yeah. I'm on half shift tomorrow, but it's okay. I'll stay a bit."
"Thanks. It'll be worth your while. Better do this quick, before we're missed."
Grant used to be rogue talent. Whisperer. He was one of the first to try to harden Max…Mrs. Caulfield…against manipulation, back when he was first brought on board. Sparring sessions. Practice. Resistance training.
His suggestive skills were more effective on willing subjects. In a way, it was like he was giving them permission to do the thing they wanted anyway…
He touched Sarah's head first. Her eyes closed. "Your connection to the memories of this room and related events, and all prior memories of your current assignment will be temporarily isolated from the whole. Tomorrow at twelve, you'll feel compelled to return here to this room, where they will return. Tell no one where you're going. Hold now until I've finished with Hank. After waking, you'll continue separately to the cafeteria for lunch, before continuing with your day."
Hank knew Grant's work was done entirely mind to mind, but he liked to read aloud sometimes. Everybody had their quirks.
Grant touched his head…
Hank couldn't decide between the cranberry apple cobbler or the flourless chocolate cake with meringue. They both looked good, but he sensed that the chocolate would be too heavy later on. He put the dish on his tray, admiring the flakey golden crisp. Cobbler it is…
Chloe was impressed. Max ran the table like a pro. Which meant she was very slowly and methodically losing the game. Her opponent was a large, dusty man with a blue jumpsuit and grey beard. Her efforts gave Chloe space to chat up the others while they watched.
Probing, if you will. Heh. …yeah…
Chloe sipped, continued. "Yeah, so we got this YouTube friend who's all like daring us, just calling us out online. But in his own challenge video he only hopped over the line and back like a chickenshit. What's the best spot to go way past a line on video so we can kinda shut him up for good about this?"
The bearded pool player stopped mid shot, said, "No. You girls really don't want to mess with any of that. Those dudes are deadly serious up there. And not one of 'em got a sense of humor."
The guy behind the bar pulled out a menu, came over, showed Chloe the map on the back. "There's two ways most of the tours go. The first is to take a left at the dirt road a mile or so up. Just stay on it for ten miles, and that'll put you at the back gate. There's a fence line and a good sized guard post. People normally take pictures at the sign and go on their way. The second way, here, you go back about twenty-five miles the other direction, toward Vegas, and take a right on the dirt track. That's Groom Road. A ways down, it'll turn between a couple of hills. A little more and that's what's called 'the front gate'. Guard shack is another eight miles down the road, through the hills, but you won't see it. But here, there's a couple of signs you can take a picture by. You can do either one. There's more structure to see by the back gate, but either's the same really. Just whatever you do, don't go past the signs. Even messing around. Your friend was lucky if he got away with it."
One of the bearded guy's friends added, "Those cammo dudes are no fuckin' joke."
"Cammo dudes?" asked Max, with an artfully puzzled smile.
"Private defense contractors - perimeter security for the base. They patrol the back country in them white pickups. They'll have eyes on you the whole time. Near the gates, they have regular spots they sit and drink their coffee and watch the tourists. They got cameras too. You look; you'll see 'em. Make sure you're on the right side of the lines and all. You cross over, or if they think you crossed over, they come down, sometimes guns drawn, yellin'… Mostly intimidating, but they'll call Lincoln County Sheriffs out to get you. Honest mistake, Sheriff might let you off with a stern warning or a seven-hundred-fifty dollar fine. Mouth off, and they can do you up to six months in jail."
"They ever shoot people?" Chloe asked.
"Sheriff? No. They're just the regular Sheriff for the county. Cammo dudes, I've never heard of nothin' escalating that far, but I guess we wouldn't. Use of deadly force is authorized past the boundary. But…I don't know."
"So how would they know we were there?" asked Max innocently. She took a shot at stripe, whiffed. "Darn it!"
Bartender said, "They got sensors all over the place. Some pressure pads in the dirt roads as far away as twenty miles out. There's motion sensors, sound detectors, heat sensors, cameras everywhere, and some even say they can detect scent so they can tell if you're a deer or cow or not. Some they let you see, others are hidden on Joshua trees or in rocks or shrubs. They got hidden snipers on some ridges, a few helicopters. But it's okay to go up to the gates if you do it right. They know tourists are curious, and I expect they understand that it's a little rite of passage for some to stand by the signs for pictures. They won't mess with you much if you're obvious about it and that's all you do. But don't linger, and don't go wandering. And do not cross that line. They'll be on you before you know it."
Another added, "If you girls go up today, mind the weather front comin' in. We're supposed to get some rain in the flats, and snows in the hills. Chances of a ticket go up if you make 'em get out of their warm trucks to come talk to you."
Chloe tossed back a swig. "Noted. And uh…sounds like most tourists funnel in along those two main roads. They're smart to control it. Ever hear of anyone going in over land? That's a lot of rough back-country border for them to cover…"
"Old days, used to be more. Motorbikes, four-wheelers, that sorta thing. When they still had a ridge-line that was public land. But the feds seized the last of that a few years back. It's a big desert, but there's nowhere to hide. Nearest public line of sight is nearly twenty-five miles away. Every valley and crevice is monitored and locked tight. You'd honestly have an easier time getting into Fort Knox undetected."
Beardyman added, "Nothing new under the sun. And ain't nothin' you two are gonna try they ain't seen before…"
Chloe caught a glance from Max. The beginnings of a smile on her lips. If it was just Max, she'd have been in already. The challenge was dragging Chloe along with her.
Chloe's mind worked casually while Max carefully lined up her next missed shot. She wanted to give this a go with her regular plain old self if she could. First time at least. Just to see how far they could get. For fun.
But she was thinking past that.
Dense multi-sensory net.
Fast reaction trucks on the roads. Helicopters on patrol or standby.
Men with guns. M4s wouldn't be a problem at 5.56, but they'd have to have snipers running .308, .338 or .50. Plus radio, so any one witness quickly becomes an army…
Miles and miles of hard terrain as a buffer zone. Jets or drones as a last ditch maybe. Don't know about tanks, energy weapons. Have to watch. Wildlife would have blown any mines by now… Doubtful.
Teleporting gets us past the terrain. But we could have started there. At least outside. Try not to cheat too much.
But how to stay hidden… Every net has holes. Otherwise it's a…sheet. And…you can't…fish with a sheet. Wait - is that actually true? Shit. Have to look that up. Oh. Guess those dudes can totally fish with a goddamn sheet. Okay then. Huh. I don't know if I know what that means then…
Whatevs. Focus.
Active electronics will be detectable. Can't shield everything. Device energies have to be visible to themselves to be useful as sensors. So the ones projecting - radar, IR, LIDAR, motion, whatever - they should show up in their own frequency ranges. Need a drone sweep. And somebody made the sensors, so specs should be discoverable once we know what they are…
Passive sensors pose more of a challenge. Lurking quietly.
But everything needs power. Solar, batteries, or hardwired AC. No poles out here, and scavengers would munch anything sitting on the ground, so, buried? Tons of EM fields either way. Limited detection range on that. Low level flyby. Too much surface to cover. Fine tuning runs to narrow a path later, maybe. But all of the devices should be warmer than the surrounding air. Show up in passive IR. Metals, plastics. Chemical markers.
Max pulled back to strike the cue.
Data is another giveaway. A sensor is no good if it can't communicate what it senses. Guessing wifi is out. Too easy to hack or jam. Tight point-to-point transmissions would be better, but they'd need focusing antennas on everything, with line of sight. Which means one-to-one receivers. Too limiting for them, even with larger collectors on hilltops. Single points of failure too… Hmmm. If I was designing it off the shelf, I'd run the data over fiber. Shallow trenching. Still need power. Pipe power and optical data down the same shallow trench. Out of the way, masked from view or hungry critters. Fiber means no signal bleeds over to parallel power lines through induction, so more secure too.
Those are the main keys, aren't they? Energy. Power sources. Plus data transmissions. And heat. Follow the power, map the grid. Power distribution defines the sensors. Manufacturer's specs define the limits of sensing. Placement densities required. Terrain. Orientation. Cones. Distance. Frequencies. Thresholds. Assuming some redundancy, some unwired, solar, batteries, redundant signal, maybe some wireless after all. Hard to reach places. Throwaway devices with low bandwidth needs, mesh networks, Joshua tree to the next tree… Interesting. Combo. Still generates heat above desert ambient. Map the thermal. That still gets us most devices…
My toys have better sensitivity…
Dudes with binoculars might be a different problem. Or even basic FLIR. Lenses reflect. They'll have diffusion covers. Might detect them anyway. Then there's non-EM passive. Acoustics. Pressure. Stuff you can't see. Could use adaptive camo ourselves, but there's still some heat, sound, plus there's tradeoffs vs. protection.
I need to take the Yeti for a spin… Only one though. Maybe.
The cue ball smacked into a different stripe, knocking in her opponent's solid.
With Max, we don't need a continuous run. Just short hops. Better if she doesn't win the bet. But we'll still probably need a round two or three. Things we can't predict. Unknown unknowns.
Max could mask our temps with a slower layer of time, but that would show as a hole, or distort the background, ambient variations showing up. Shit. Still better than a bloom to a human eye, but no idea what kind of automated alarming is set up yet. Research would help. Might aim a few IAs down the research rabbit holes now, just in case… Boom!
You're handicapping both of you though, relying on Max.
But…it's a fun day out, and she's game.
First run at least. Just to see how far you can get.
Chloe laughed a little to herself.
Yeah, with an OP as fuck escort… not a remotely fair test.
But if we don't make it cold…if it gets to be too much trouble, or gets boring for her, I'll go active. Map it all, map the infrastructure, all the sensor nets. My little eyes in the sky. See the holes that way. There might even be a path we could walk through without being detected, if we can find the gaps. They don't have our sensors. They can't see their own holes. Not like we can. Always have the core…
Could activate a dust mesh. Might be able to jack in, subvert the sensors or the data directly. So then we'd be down to what dudes could see with their eyes. Maybe… Assuming coverage. Alt, Max gets me somewhere central, if there is such a thing. Take over the whole grid. Have to find it first. And if we can get there, we shouldn't have any trouble getting to the facility just as easy - since we know where that is. That's still cheating for the first Let'sPlay, though… See how it goes…
Maybe helpers, though. Scouts. Builders…
Chloe was aware they were still carrying on without her at normal speed. She heard Max say something about a cow suit? That got her attention.
"Wait… sorry, I spaced for a sec. Did you just say 'cow suit'?"
Max laughed. "Yeah. We were talking about ways someone might get in. So maybe, if we dressed up as a cow, they wouldn't pay any attention to us at all."
"No, that's brilliant. Hiking twenty miles over rough terrain, bent over in total darkness. I like it."
"We could trade being the front, but whatever. Or we could totally disguise ourselves as a UFO. But I kinda wonder - would that freak them out, or would they be all like 'they're late'?"
"Twisted, but genius…"
Max smacked the cue ball off a stripe, which collided with the eight ball, dropping it in the corner pocket. Game over.
"Aww man. Tough break, Max. No…pun."
"Yeah. We should prolly get going anyway." She'd fill Chloe in on the next hour once they were outside.
"Sure. Well, guys, appreciate the game and the chat. Thanks." Chloe took the hint, grabbed her stuff.
"Good luck with your friend's challenge. Careful out there." Beardy. Turns out his name was Sean, but his friends called him Derek, for reasons that made sense, probably. Nice enough dudes though.
'Yep. Catch you guys later."
Max headed for the door, turned to wave. Glanced up. They'd signed their own dollar bill earlier, after eating. Taped it to the ceiling with the others. Chloe led her out with her bag of alien loot over her shoulder.
Once they were in the Rover, Max explained. "Sorry. Those guys were like total chatterboxes. We wouldn't have been out til almost sunset."
"How far back?"
"Over an hour. We were still inside."
"Damn. Good call. I miss anything useful?" Chloe put her seatbelt on with a click.
Max did the same. Replied, "Not really. Few minor things maybe. Turns out, their knowledge mostly runs out at the outside gates. So we might be on our own past that. The whole culture, from the I-want-to-believers to the spur-of-the-moment tourists, that's where experience and firsthand knowledge ends. Outer fence-lines. Plus whatever they could see in the skies. Lights, whatever. Some of the old timers visited a public ridge back when it was still public. Overlooked the base. But that's no go now. And honestly, we can see more ourselves on Google Earth, so there's that…"
"What else?" Chloe started the Rover, turned down the music.
"Okay. So one maybe useful bit of info is that once we're there, it's probably just like any other Air Force base. They rely on the terrain and their perimeter systems to keep people out. But people on base have jobs to do and stuff. But they also have downtime. There are cafeterias, baseball fields, temporary housing, even a clubhouse of sorts. People have to be able to walk around outside, do normal stuff. Oh, no windows on any of the buildings though… Few times a day they sound an alarm, and everyone has ten minutes to get inside of a windowless building so they can't see. That's when the secret planes take off and land.
"But most times, out walking around… Not a big deal. The servicemen and women are mostly stationed out of Nellis or Edwards on paper. Some go back and forth in shifts, while others are there full time. Blocks of six months, whatever. Anyway, there's no private vehicle traffic, but there are regular daily flights in and out of Nellis, and a private terminal with unmarked planes run out of McCarran. Plus a bus that goes in every morning."
"You're thinking of trying to sneak onto one of the official transports? Blending in?"
"You asked about that. These guys didn't have much direct knowledge, but a couple were ex-military. Nothing to do with the base or anything, just in general. They said the security checks would be insanely tight. Military IDs, crosschecked against personnel databases offsite, biometric scans for verification, so we'd have to have all of that established. Then the security clearance thing, need to know your badge numbers, there would need to be badges with numbers and our photos already at their boarding checkpoints, unless it was our first time, but they'd verify your orders to make sure you were authorized and all of that regardless… It's controlled access, so they know who should and shouldn't be there… As you'd expect."
"Okay, so we'd need to create comprehensive military back-records for each of us, and check all of those boxes off in their systems before we tried. Seems simple…" Chloe slowly creeped them forward to the highway, stopped.
"Yeah, well, we'd obviously need uniforms too if we want to fit in. Your hair is gonna be an obvious dress-code violation…"
Chloe's hair shifted from shades of blues to a light strawberry blonde. "Better?"
Max stared, uncertain. Her eyes widened after a quick rewind and replay. "Holy shit Chloe! What the hell?!"
"Wait - did I just surprise you with something? Please don't rewind behind this?" Chloe smiled wide.
"Uh, yeah? How the fuck did you do that? How long have you been able to do that?!"
"Sorry. Haven't dyed my hair in about a year and a half, so then I guess? Well, I mean, it's not exactly 'hair' anymore. At least, not in the traditional sense. Plays like it. A lot stronger though. And you'd need a microscope to see the differences from the outside."
Max leaned back in her seat, looked away, then back to Chloe. "That's new." More calm now, if maybe a little hurt. "Pretty major, too. Why…why didn't you say anything?"
"Didn't occur to me? Which…sounds super fucking lame now, I know. But at the time, it was just another upgrade. Just one more body-hack among many. I mostly did it for the sensors and stuff. Internal structures. Surface control - uh, the color changes - were a bonus. Sorry, I know I should have said something. You're…you're not comfortable with this, are you?" Chloe looked momentarily worried.
Max shifted toward her in her seat, touched her wrist. "No, no, it's not like that. It's cool. Dude, whatevs. It's all you. Just a surprise is all. And the color change was so fast - that's so fucking cool. Wait… Do it again? Can you make it any color you want?"
Chloe smiled, appeared relieved. "Pretty much, yeah. It's more surface texture refraction than internal pigment, but there's some of that too, for slower changes, long-term blends." She switched from light brown to black to red and back to blues, then rippled them all in waves, like a cuttlefish…
"Shit. That's…really neat! Play later? For now, guess it's enough to know your hair won't bust us once we're in…"
"Okay, good. I'm glad you don't hate. Uh…what else did I miss in the rewind? Oh - wait - are we going right or left?" She pulsed back to blues.
Fucking amazing…
"Sorry - go right. And not to disappoint you, but none of those guys inside really believe it's anything but military planes out there. So we might be hitting an empty hangar. Metaphorically. Even in the 'ufo community', there's a faction that says Area 51 is nothing but a smoke-screen. Like, no UFOs at all, ever. Other than the real definition of 'flying objects that are also unidentified', cause, I guess amateurs are pretty bad at identifying faraway shit in the sky that they don't recognize or know anything about? Big surprise. Anyway…story is that the government, contractors and the CIA have created or perpetuated the myths to keep eyes focused here instead of where the real secret stuff is, alien or otherwise, depending on who you believe."
Chloe accelerated them up to highway speed, heading south. "Where's that?"
Looking out, Max could see the first hints of storm clouds to the west. "There are a few camps, and no one has any direct knowledge, so, giant grain of salt. But some say the real alien stuff was all relocated to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio sometime in the late 1950's. Hidden in plain sight. Or went there directly from Roswell, and Area 51 was never in the mix. Or from Germany in 1945, according to some stories. Whatever. Oh, and some also think that the real hybrid UFO testing happens mostly from a secret underwater base in some caves under Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Like the entrance is actually underwater…"
Chloe laughed. "The fuck? Gitmo? Seriously?"
"Yep. Those stories go back to before we were born… So before Gitmo was Gitmo I guess."
"Huh. That definitely sounds like bullshit. What do they say goes on at Area 51 then?"
"Boring old test flights of conventional experimental planes like the U-2, SR-71 and Aurora… Stealth fighters and bombers back in the day. Other stuff now. Blackstar, unconventional stealth drones, whatever. That's all for sure. For the rest… it's either a giant distraction, or the real deal, and if it's the real deal it may still have UFO stuff, or it might have been moved."
"Covering off on all possible choices. So…basically no one knows anything, and everyone is completely full of shit?"
"Pretty much that, yep. They also said that there are two main private defense contractors that run everything, along with the CIA and military. With other defense companies leasing space to test secret experimental designs."
"Any chance we could just, I don't know, buy one?"
"You're so funny… I asked you that last round. You did some quick research before raising the unsettling point that if we did, we'd essentially be classified as arms dealers. Or, alt, if the companies are controlled by any local flavors of 'them', they'd be unlikely to sell anyway, which seems at least possible…"
"Makes sense. Hmmm. Okay - could we go in as non-military employees? Fake contractors?"
"That all starts to sound really complicated, and a job for normal spies. Whole point is that we're us, Chlo. We can just go in as us, right? The way we do it, we don't need any of that. Unless you really want to, I mean."
"Yeah, shit. Obviously. You're right. So…what? We storm the front gate?"
"That's where we're headed. I was thinking something like that. It's totally up to you though. I mean, this trip is mostly for hanging out and for fun. Grabbing any clues at the end for the virtual 'them' mystery cork-board is the easy part. So maybe we take it as far as we can, do the rewind cube thing as needed, and at the end of the run, we back all the way up, dress like the natives and teleport where we need to be with zero alarms?"
"Might be a plan. Let's see once we get a better idea of what's what…"
Chloe held the camera to her face, snapped a few quick shots of Max under the sign. In bold red letters it warned against flying drones, taking photos or crossing the line.
Only breaking one out of three… So far.
Front Gate, Area 51. Dirt road. Two signposts, but…no actual gate. Concertina wire extended off in each direction. Monitoring equipment sat on the hilltop to the left. A desert-tan trailer with optics and sensors squatted to one side of the road, fifty yards ahead. Sun was streaming in under the leading edge of the storm front.
She zoomed the camera past Max to get a better look at the white truck parked at the top of the hill ahead. She couldn't make out the occupants with the glare on the windshield. Polarizer didn't clear it up much either.
She pulled back, lined up for one more shot of Max. A close up of her face this time. Full frame. Off center. Max swayed a little, self-conscious, even after all this time. Still preferred to be behind the camera, rather than up front. Ridiculously adorable… Chloe increased her own internal clock-speed, speeding up perception, slowing the world just a touch. She wanted every detail. Out here, with Max. A selfish little moment to admire her. Time. To notice the warm inner glow of late afternoon sunshine soaking into her face. Her eyes shining, each iris lit, showing off impossible details. Chloe imagined trillions of tiny galaxies floating behind those pupils… Her freckles…contrasting, curving over kissable skin. A few strands of hair caught in the breeze, blew across her face in slow-motion. Max smiled, lips soft, blinked as she looked away for a moment. Eyes down. The next blink her gaze returned, locked onto Chloe. Like there was no camera at all. No universe. Just the two of them. And all the time that was left…
She wondered if Max had slowed things for herself too. It was that kind of look. Chloe captured the moment forever, tripped the shutter. Lowered the camera halfway, smiling, asked, "Distract much?"
Max did that thing where she bit her lower lip on one side a little… "Yeah… you too."
She had to remind herself that she wasn't the only one capturing this moment. They were under multispectral audio-visual surveillance from all sides. And unlike home, Chloe didn't control any of it out here. Yet. Anything they said to each other now would have an audience. They were probably the most interesting disturbance along the entire perimeter this afternoon, so all eyes would be on them.
Max took the camera back, put it in her bag. Leaned into Chloe. "What now, love? Could take you back for toys and we could race. Or we could go on a leisurely hike along the road. We could spin back and go stealth. Could fly in like a UFO? Or dress like a cow. We could go away and try to do the full impersonation style infiltration. It's your day. Anything you want."
Chloe considered. "We're already here. Let's give it at least one go without all of that? Sometimes it's the simple things, right?"
"Sometimes. Stroll then?"
"I didn't bring an umbrella, but sure. Let's see what happens if we go in all casual like? But maybe we should ditch the Rover somewhere first?"
"Good point. Gimmie a sec." Max folded back to their garage, reappearing in fractions of a second. To any cameras, it would look like the Range Rover simply vanished. Which would set off more than a few alarms…
Ariel kept one eye on the holo of the ship, another on the screen to the side. Paperwork. Registries. Bank accounts. Trying to untangle the behind-the-scenes, and any links to the bigger picture that the rest of the floor was working on. Nothing useful yet.
Her eyes were going funny. She'd caught a few hours of sleep this morning on a couch in temporary quarters. The rest was coffee. Too much. She was making some headway; transactions weren't regulated or monitored in quite the same way they were here in the US. What she'd picked up was it was mostly a cash, drugs or barter kind of enterprise. Favors and markers traded around.
Different kinds of currency. Not so much a paper trail. No obvious way to account for it from outside, really.
Which made it far more difficult to prove anything.
Someone would have to meet it on the far end. Wherever that was. Only way, stick with it. Maybe she could get face rec on some of the dudes at some point. Carefully.
"Dave, can you keep an eye for a bit. Need to take a break. I can bring you something from upstairs if you want?"
"No, I'm good Ari. I got it. Take your time. I'll call if anything happens."
"Cool. Thanks. BRB…"
Chloe felt the change the moment Max whisked the SUV away. The truck on the hill launched toward them, spewing twin rooster tails of dust and gravel. They'd stay on this side of the border for the first interaction. Still on the right side of the law. See how aggro they were by default. Unprovoked. …ish. Public land. Two defenseless girls who maybe just did a magic trick in open air…
The white pickup slid to a halt just the other side of the line, rocks dragging, crunching under the tires.
Both doors flew open. Two cammo dudes. Desert camouflage pants, leg rigs, boots, but with non-military t-shirts. A little overweight. Oakleys. Short hair. Cop mustaches. No body armor. Interesting. Comfort over safety. Meant they were here for tourists, not the front line against a real threat. That line was probably back a ways. The driver got out with a short AR-15. The passenger had a video camera pointed at them, sidearm drawn. Neither pointed weapons at them directly, however.
"Hey there." said Max cheerfully, adding a small wave.
Chloe waved, head-nod. "'Sup?"
Camera cammo dude drew closest, yelled in his best fast-angry dudebro respect-mah-authoritai voice, "Turn around! Get your hands in the air! I said turn the fuck around! Don't look at me - look away!"
Max looked at Chloe, shrugged.
Chloe had a good close-up look at them now. Facial geometries…
Neither had more than a cursory social media presence. LinkedIn, Facebook profiles with no pictures and limited connections… She backed into those through their wives' profiles. Names, relatives… There were plenty of pics there. Some tagged. Pictures of them, family, kids, barbecues. Friends. Going back years. Shift to iCloud for the driver. More. Contact lists, call histories… Chloe poured over military records, high school transcripts, emails, text, phone metadata. One had been discharged under 'other than honorable circumstances' while an MP at an overseas base, but no other marks. Neither mapped to anyone interesting. Just a couple of ex-military dudebros doing their jobs as private security under the flag of a low-profile defense contractor. She knew she was cheating a little. But this shouldn't affect the retry count… Chloe noticed crumbs on a pant-leg. Eating…
"Turn around!" shouted the first again.
They continued their approach. "I said get your fucking hands in the air and turn the fuck around! I can legally fucking shoot you right now!"
Intimidation tactics were over the top. So lame…
Chloe said, "Dude, chill the fuck out. We didn't do anything wrong. And I'm pretty sure you can't."
Camera cammo dudebro raised his sidearm to a low ready, still not pointing directly at her. "I will not tell you again. Turn the fuck around, and put your goddamn hands in the air."
The driver hung back just a little. Rifle ready, but down.
Chloe rolled her eyes, turned, hands up a little, impatient. "Fine."
Max cheerfully followed her lead.
Camera dude holstered his sidearm while the other covered. He frisked them both roughly. "Are you carrying?"
"What?" asked Max.
"I said are you fucking carrying. Any weapons on you?"
"No. Gosh. Why are you so mad? What did we do?" Max asked.
Max was playing up 'sweet'… Chloe held back a laugh.
As camera dude backed off, continued recording them, the driver asked in a gruff voice "What are you doing here? Who else is with you?"
Chloe responded, "No one dude. It's just us. Jesus. What's wrong with you guys?"
"You're lying to my fucking face. Where's your fucking car? It was just here. Who took it? Where did they go? Why did they leave you behind?"
Max put her arms down, slowly turned. Chloe went to do the same.
He practically shouted. "I didn't say you could turn around! Fucking face the other way!"
Max failed to comply. Met his eyes and said softly, "We're obviously not a threat to you. Please, tone it down. I know you're doing a job, but you've done it. You can stop being so rude."
Chloe stifled a laugh, but it came out as a little snort. That…didn't go over well.
He said coldly, "You know right where you are right now. If you're gonna be smartasses, we'll get the Lincoln Sheriff down here and you can deal with him. Trespassing alone is good for six months in jail. Now I asked you a question. Where the fuck is your car?"
Max stared down the barrel of his sidearm. Into his camera. "And you know where you are. Public land. Outside your perimeter. You've been watching us this whole time. Your other cameras have been watching us this whole time. At no point did we cross your little line. Your own video is the evidence of that. We haven't threatened, we haven't resisted. So please. Be civil."
His voice raised in pitch. "I'm not fucking around. Last chance. Where's your fucking car?!"
Max looked at Chloe. "Your call, babe."
Resigned, Chloe shrugged, said, "No, go ahead."
Max said simply, "I teleported it to Las Vegas. Now please, point your weapons somewhere else, before you get hurt."
Chloe laughed, hand reached out, touched Max's shoulder. "I love you Max."
She shrugged, smiled. "I know…"
Camera guy grabbed at Max.
She vanished.
Chloe dropped her arm, shrugged at them as they looked around.
"What the fuck?" Camera dudebro focused on Chloe as the other drew up, scanned around them. He hesitated, uncertain, finally rushed Chloe as if to physically subdue her. Maybe it was a fallback to training, maybe it the challenge to authority, maybe it was instinct to secure her before she could vanish too. Neither made it more than a step before tripping over their own feet. Max had tied their boot laces together. Chloe couldn't help but laugh. As they went down, their weapons briefly flashed, flew apart into a coarse reddish dust.
Max reappeared.
"Classic approach." said Chloe.
Max leaned into her as the men struggled to get up. "Classic for a reason. Had to improvise a little. Didn't bring tie wraps. I…I should get some tie wraps… Might be a long day…"
The men had managed to roll, push themselves back, still on the ground, one cut at his laces with an angry knife. The other went to do the same. Max vanished, appeared behind them, leaned back against the sign. To their credit, they sheathed their knives before moving toward Chloe again.
Two dudes. Strong builds. Active soldier bodies had faded. They had truck-sitting-beer-and-lifting bodies now. That was good. Chloe upped her clock speed, throwing them into relative slow motion. With nerve and muscle upgrades, she was stronger, could respond more quickly, move her augmented body faster, but she was still ultimately bound by time, physics.
The smaller one reached her first, went to tackle her by the waist, football style. Reflex. He played from junior high through his senior year, where he broke his collarbone. It healed, but ended his parent's dreams of a scholarship. He went military instead.
Chloe, watching him fall into her, waited until he was almost touching. Vaulted up, fluid, over one shoulder like a dolphin, catching his collarbone with her knee on the way. Snap. It was a clean break. She rolled to her feet as he lost balance and face-planted into the dirt road behind her.
The second guard saw the first go down, but it happened fast. He didn't have time to alter his direction or momentum. He committed, arms out. Chloe dropped, spinning, went under an arm, gave him a little telekinetic push from behind, adding to his momentum, throwing him off balance. He lost footing, tripped over the first guy, went down.
Max cleared her throat. Chloe looked back at her. Max rolled her eyes.
"What?" asked Chloe.
Max gestured toward the hill. A foot-wide orb appeared ten feet from Chloe's head, followed by the crack of a rifle.
"Oh. Nice catch… Thanks?"
Max shrugged, pointed awkwardly, vaguely toward the hilltops. "So…snipers."
"Right." Chloe walked over to Max, took her by the hand. "Feel like walking?"
"Sure." Another bubble appeared, bullet locked inside. Then another.
"Persistent."
"He'll run out of bullets."
"True enough."
They set off at a leisurely pace. The crack of gunfire behind them. Max left the growing collection of orbs hanging in the air like a festive sort of desert art installation, showing where they'd been. The first raindrops fell into the dirt, dotting the landscape with small, dark cup shapes…
Chloe picked up a flat rock, skipped it along the dirt road in front of them. She was thankful for Max's makeshift umbrella. A thin, hemispherical sheet of frozen time keeping pace overhead as they walked.
Max handed her a wrapped lemon candy she'd liberated from a bowl near the register on their way out of the diner. "Whatcha thinking about?"
"Ooh. Pocket-candy. Thanks! Um. So, okay - you know how we were talking earlier, about parking drones over cows or whatever to maybe highlight them for drivers?"
"Uh huh." Max said, popping a candy in her mouth.
"Well, it gave me an idea. I mean, we really could do it in a way that didn't freak people out…"
"For reals?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, it's not cool for the people driving, and it sucks ass for the cows, right? Not their fault. But…that's not the thing I was thinking of exactly. I wanna do that too, but it triggered another idea."
"Sorry. I interrupted."
Chloe picked up another stone. "It's okay. Just, there's no reason we can't do the same thing for other animals… ones endangered by poaching around the world, you know? Least til we build their numbers back up. Reduce the demand side, help find alternative sources of income for poachers until the post-scarcity lift kicks in for everyone, usual story, right? That's the long term play, but til then, there are still these animal dudes out there being killed for completely dumb-shit reasons…"
"No, you're absolutely right, Chloe. Lighting them all up at night will totally help."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "You're such an ass. Not light them up. Light the poachers up."
"They do have guns and stuff… Easy enough to target a drone with a flashlight."
"Not if the drone is armed too…"
Max stopped. "No, Chloe. We're not building a semi-autonomous flying army of murderbots. Didn't you take away any meaningful life lessons from the Terminator films? Or like, any of 21st century history?"
"TV show was so much better. Summer? Are you kidding? And besides, that's not the same. They were never sentient, just… yeah. Anyway…"
"Drifting, darling." They set off again.
"Sorry. Tranq guns then. Whatthefuckever. Just… some way to tag the assholes and protect the wildlife. It's only automating and scaling up what rangers and conservationists are trying to do by themselves right now. We'll need to do something to protect the ones we release anyway. Why not help the rest of the population til then?"
"I'm totally on board with this idea, Chloe. I just think we have to be careful not to give people reasons to be afraid of us. Armed murderbots, regardless of purpose…"
"No, I get that. But fuck, Max. Maybe…maybe some people should be afraid. Maybe…just maybe, if you're out there in the world doing really cruel evil shit, catching a tranq in the ass is the least you deserve…"
"And the poachers fall, get eaten by predators while they're asleep… That's on us. Some of them do have families. It's shit what they're doing, but… It's kinda like the pirates off the coast of Somalia - something is making all of that crazy risk seem like a good idea to otherwise normal people. Giant payoff, desperation in a vacuum…"
"So maybe they tranq 'em and then call in the rangers? Hover and keep predators away until they can be arrested? I mean, we can figure out the details. That's just protocol. I was just thinking it's another something we can do; you know?"
"Yeah - that works. I mean, some people might have allergic reactions, dosage matters… just have to be careful is all."
"Cool. I'll put a team on it. Make sure we think through the safety part too. Work with the rangers, whatever…"
"It's a good idea, Chloe. You know how I feel about our critters. Even if I am a fucking hypocrite. But…bacon, man. It's like…It's so good…"
"You and me both. But good comes from doing as much as we can, wherever we can. Forgive ourselves for being human… Yeah - shutup. Just sayin', paralysis is never an antidote for hypocrisy. Or some shit. Whatever…"
"K. I'm in."
The occasional shot from behind was joined by more enthusiastic shots from the hill ahead…
"See, if we already had an army of tranq drones…"
"We have taser drones."
"We'll bring 'em next time…"
"Next time…"
Max moved another orb out of their path. They were densely layered to the point that it was difficult to see around them. Rain had picked up, lowering visibility further. She focused on their steps along the muddy roadway, pushing uphill slowly under the barrage.
The sniper at the gate ran out of rounds about the same time the road turned and put a hill between them. A few more further along continued to take potshots at them as they walked. They'd made it about a half a mile further before the first helicopter arrived. Blackhawk, like the one John loaned her a couple of years ago in another branch. This one was a little different, grey, mini-Gatling guns mounted on board. They hovered low to one side at first, fired a line of angry red sparks from the doorway, aiming across the road in front of them. The overloud, anxious brrrrrap sound of the mini-gun, the wall of flying mud and rock - a warning to stop. They went for another warning strafe. Max caught a few hundred rounds and put them in an atomic orbit around the helicopter to wave them off. But the gunner must have interpreted that as an attack, cause he opened up directly into them. Few thousand rounds a minute, cutting toward them through the rain. Long controlled bursts of spitting fire sideways under their umbrella. That's when she switched from the Pac-Man-like trail of orbs floating behind them to the protective shell following along with them. Catch, rotate, repeat. Ended up like a giant tortoise shell, growing wider with each new round.
A few minutes after the first, another helicopter dropped a squad of military troops in the hills ahead. By the time the Humvees with sonic weapons showed up, they were bogging down. New attacks were mostly piling up in the event horizons of the existing bubbles, but they were a constant. It was getting harder to see where they were going. And harder to hear each other over the vehicles and rain and echoing weapons fire in the canyon. Max was strictly playing defensive to this point, but she'd need to change things up if they were gonna continue. Chloe said something about sensing microwaves passing gaps between orbs.
Chloe leaned in close to her. Shouted, "Max…"
"Yeah, Chloe?" Max yelled back.
"I think it might be time to call this one. Feels like we've hit five stars in GTA or something…"
Max wasn't worried. "Sorry… Loud. Hang on." She froze time. Moved their protective shell of stasis bubbles out and away, lined them up facing the hillside. Collapsed. Once time restarted, the captured ordinance would continue on, slamming harmlessly into the dirt.
She scanned the small valley, the air a blend of stationary water drops and thick grey-blue smoke. Now that she had a better view, she could see that the force arrayed against them wasn't very large. A couple dozen well-armed soldiers, a helicopter, some humvees, and what looked like a lone winged drone circling. It wasn't much, but they made up for small initial numbers with a shit-ton of flying metal and directed energy.
The two of them were only three-quarters of a mile past the outer perimeter. And these soldiers were only the first-responders. Radio. Sensors. Alarms. More would follow if they kept going. The real perimeter guard shack was still more than seven miles down the road, and the base was another twenty beyond that. Outer sliver of the outer buffer zone. They weren't anywhere yet.
Max could easily sort it all, but this was an afternoon adventure with Chloe, and she was trying to ride the line between doing too little and doing too much. If she disabled every threat in any one of the thousand ways she could, the two of them would have a nice uneventful hike through the hills. Not the full 'Area-51 infiltration experience' she knew Chloe was looking for. But if she did too little, Chloe would fall to a hail of high caliber rounds every half second or so…
She wanted to chat without either of them yelling. Bubbled the drone, helicopter and the other vehicles, as well as the soldiers positioned behind cover up each valley wall ahead. She let time go. The smack of lead and copper and burning phosphor and steel into the hillside was louder than she expected. The helicopter in particular had been sending an insane volume of projectiles their way. The barrels were static, glowing bright orange.
The quiet that followed was almost total. Only the rainfall. The smell of gunpowder and wet sagebrush was strong. Blue haze drifted in slow patches across the roadway.
Chloe stood up straight, looked around.
Max said quietly, "Better?"
"Much. Thanks dude. That was…a little intense. And less fun than I'd pictured in my head. I don't know what I was expecting. Couldn't even see anything. That probably doesn't get better up ahead unless we start fucking with them, right?"
"I think, yeah. I mean, it's easy enough to do, but I don't want to smooth it completely, you know? I'm here for you. Whatever you want, Chlo. Wanna keep going? Try again?"
"Yeah. Let's call this one a bust. I have another idea." She held a cube between her thumb and index finger. It glowed an intense blue.
Max saw that she was dumping thoughts, memories. "Where do you want me to meet you?"
"Diner parking lot, as we were leaving? If that's okay? I'll explain after you give me this?"
"Sure love. But you know this goes against the total retry count, right?" Max smiled.
Chloe stuck her tongue out. The cube stopped glowing. She handed it to Max, gave her a kiss. "See you when I see you…"
"You too." Max waved, hesitated, finally hit rewind. The orbs returned, rotated the other way, marched slowly backward with the umbrella, picking up speed. The helicopter's guns caught the smoke, fire and bullets thrown back into the barrels, assembled them into ordinance, attached them to the belt, placed them back in the metal ammo box.
She kicked the rewind into overdrive. Back a little over an hour.
Quiet. Empty. Dry. But she was certain sensors and cameras were lighting up again right now, as she stood alone in the road, well beyond their gate.
She folded back to the diner. Rewound her blip-stop in the valley away. No sensor data. No warnings.
Chloe had just walked out of the front door, looking back over her shoulder for Max.
"Hey love." Max was leaned against the Rover in front of her. "Catch."
Chloe reached out, effortlessly picking the cube from the air. "Dammit. Already? How many times?" The glow. "Only one. Oh. Okay, cool…" She leaned against the Rover next to Max, catching up. After a minute, she dropped it into her pocket. Put the alien loot bag inside.
"You said you had another idea?"
Chloe brushed a hair out of Max's face. "Yeah. No. It was a good try. My fault. Wanted to see how far I could get as a boring old civilian. Was hoping you wouldn't need to be so hardcore on team carry…"
"Most secure facility in the world… can't imagine why it went the way it did." Max said innocently, staring off into space.
"Okay, I deserve that…"
"Kidding. You know I don't mind." Max bumped into her playfully.
"I know. But that was fucking lame dude. Right into a meat grinder. I mean, it was an okay test of you saving my ass with both arms tied behind your back, but…that wasn't a question. Hiding behind you while you do all the work, uh, not how I wanted to do this, you know?"
"I do."
"Okay, cool. So…practice run is out of the way…that was SuperMax and mostly Chloe 1.0."
"So, maybe it's time for an AdequateMax and Chloe 2.0 run?"
"Nah. You're always SuperMax to me. And I think on my best day I'm at more like 1.6. But…the next potential upgrade skips right to version 100k, and I'm…not ready for that yet."
"All you. What's the plan, Stan?"
"This is gonna sound dumb after the shit performance last time, but I wanna do a full-effort solo run. Just to see what I'm capable of on my own, for reals…and maybe you can save my bacon if shit really hits the fan? Or I get an ouchie? Or if I get hungry, you can maybe put the brakes on and bring me actual bacon?" Chloe bumped her back.
"Not dumb. I believe in you. And all the bacons, not a problem. I can park overhead. Keep an eye on things."
"Cool. Would you mind taking us back to the barn real quick? I'd like to prep a little."
"Already home…"
The desert light faded to the warm LEDs of their garage.
Max took them upstairs after dropping off the Rover. Left Chloe to do her thing in the residence while she wandered up to the roof. She leaned against the half-wall, forty-one floors up, scanned out to the horizon. The city felt quiet. Storm front was off to the west. It would be dark in a couple of hours, but the strip was already lit. Always lit…
She sat back on the bench. Wood. Chloe got if for her a year ago. Modeled after the one her dad made for her back home in Seattle. The grass bent underfoot. A collection of cherry trees, arms winter-bare, whispered in the breeze in the raised planter behind her.
So many times she'd been somewhere, up high, looking out over this valley. This city.
Remembered the first night here; she and Chloe had just moved in. It had been hot - still a hundred-degrees after midnight. Just ridiculously fucking hot. They'd spent half the night floating aimlessly in the pool on their loungers. Lazily throwing floaty-pool-noodles back and forth at each other. The music played across the rooftop, fires going, lights low, just talking, laughing, watching the stars. That night, hanging out with her up here… that's what made this whole city feel like a home. Their home.
A hundred degrees. Shit. It was forty-five now, and dropping fast. Late afternoon, dead of winter. The rain would probably hit here before sunset. God, this is such a different place in summer… Max had to admit, Chloe had thrown some epic pool parties though. Live bands, open bars… Friends and co-workers…
On hot days like that, she loved hanging out on the bench with a lemonade, the shade from the cherry trees cutting the sun overhead into a million shadows. Five, six months and they'd be back in that oven…
What's up with me? Mind is so wandery today… She refocused on the here and now. The usual lights winked and flashed over toward the strip. A few planes were on approach to the right, a few more were climbing, taking tired vacationers home.
She wondered what Chloe was up to downstairs. Probably in some sort of data fugue…getting ready… She got up, leaned out over the wall again.
This'll be good for her. Round two. Solo run. Stretching. Pushing her boundaries. Being one with her expanded badass self. She has confidence, but sometimes I think part of her is still holding back. While the other part is fighting to feel like she's earned the gifts she was given… Can't be easy. I just want her to have fun…
Max rocked back from the building's edge as thousands of tiny hummingbirds blurred past the roofline with a bright airy hum. They crashed straight up into the sky like a storm wave against a breakwater, kept accelerating. As a flock, they hit altitude, curved north toward Area-51 before spreading out, fading from view.
Max could hear them… the distant sounds of popcorn as each tiny drone went supersonic…