“Dean, let me know if you need to rest for a bit. I don’t mind driving,” Mary said from the passenger seat. It was stuffy in there, and I rolled the window down, letting in the warm morning air.
“Sounds good. Maybe in an hour or so. I’m too wound up to rest anyway.” It was the truth.
“I love you,” she said as she closed her eyes and turned from me.
“I love you too,” I replied. The words from the text message hung in the front of my mind.
NINE
It was a long drive to the border of New Mexico, and we had to fill up a few times. The truck’s mileage was terrible, and each time we stopped at a near-empty, out-of-the-way gas station in hopes that no one would hear the two prisoners in the back if they decided to shout or cause a scene. Lucky for us, they didn’t make a peep, and when we opened the door on the side of the road halfway through our journey, they were both cross-legged, leaning against the far corners, staring at us. They seemed surprised that we would offer them water and a bathroom break, but they took both with caution. I figured maybe compassion would soften them up, even though I knew they didn’t deserve anything but the worst treatment for what they’d done. My mother’s words rang in my mind as I tipped the water bottle slowly: “You catch more flies with honey.” I’d never understood that as a kid but did now.
Mae seemed more like her old self; the time alone must have helped. We passed the border into New Mexico well past sunset, and because of the stops and the governor on the truck, it was around eight at night when the text came in from General Heart’s people. Mary had a location sent to her tablet, and before we knew it, we were heading off the main highway, and onto a back road in the rocky, hilly landscape.
The dusk sky turned to darkness, and with no lights on the roadsides, I struggled to make sure we stayed on the road.
“How far now?” I asked for the fifth time in the last half-hour.
“Looks like we should be up on it soon. I have no idea how they’ve kept a whole facility hidden out here. There aren’t a lot of homes or anything, but those vessels aren’t small. Testing the ships must get seen by the people in the area,” Mary said.
“Yeah, we saw a town, what, ten miles back?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
The road we were on ended, with a large cement barricade preceded by some reflective construction signs saying “Road Ends.”
“What do we do now?” Mary asked, zooming in on her tablet.
“Pass that over, please,” I said, reaching for it. “Looks like there’s a dirt track here, and if we follow that, we should be there in a couple of minutes. I know it’s dark, but I don’t see a damn thing out there.” It was pitch black out here by then, but the sky was full of stars out in the middle of nowhere, and the moon hung low in the sky, half-moon but full of reflective light.
“Just be careful,” Mary said, reaching for the radio. “Mae, we have to go left here onto the dirt road, and I use the term ‘road’ loosely. Do you mind going ahead of us in the Jeep so we don’t go bouncing into a big rock and end up stranded with Bonnie and Clyde in the back?”
“You got it. Just let me sneak around you. Where do you think it is? Shouldn’t we see it by now? Guards? Lights? A fence?” Mae asked over the walkie.
“That’s what we thought, but the map says we’re almost there. All I see are rocks, dirt, and stars.” Mary set the walkie down, and Mae pulled ahead of us, driving slowly over the bumpy terrain.
We bounced along behind her, the truck’s old suspension not made for this kind of travel. Five minutes of that, and we were coming to another barricade. Mae slowed before us. It was the strangest thing. Our lights blasted the back of Mae’s Jeep, and I turned them down. For a moment, I thought Mae had turned her lights off, but then saw they hit the construction signs but didn’t travel beyond them, like some sick science experiment my brain couldn’t comprehend.
“What is this?” I asked, getting out of the truck, almost stumbling as I looked forward. Mary was right behind me, and we walked over to Mae, who was also looking ahead, jaw dropped down in wonder.
Twenty feet in front of us, the air shimmered, and the light from the Jeep dissipated into nothing, like it was sucked into a black hole. I could see rocks and dirt beyond it, but it didn’t look right, like we were being tricked with an optical illusion. Looking up, we could see the stars in the distance.
“Look,” Mary said, pointing upward. I didn’t know what she meant, but then I saw it. A blurry line straight across the sky, like something bent at that point.
Before we could try to figure out what it was we were seeing, a noise like a garage door squeaking open hit us, and forty yards to the right, a door was opening; a door out of thin air. Three people came out of the doorway, which was large enough for vehicles to pass through. I saw Mae bring her hand to her gun, which was tucked into the back of her pants. I wondered if I should do the same but recognized the man at the forefront of the three. The other two were holding assault rifles, and stood half a foot taller than Trent Breton, one of the engineers from our meeting with the president in Washington.
“Glad you could make it,” Trent said, smiling wide. “Do you have the package?”
Mary nodded and pointed to the truck.
“Slate, do you mind pulling the truck to the compound? Henrik, take the Jeep, please.” Trent was still smiling as he motioned for us to follow him. “Don’t worry, your belongings will be brought to your rooms in a few minutes. Patrice asked me to meet you out here and show you the wall.” He led us to the slightly shimmering façade and ran his hand along it, where I noticed a small, almost indiscernible ripple, like a crease in a bedsheet. “Pretty cool, wouldn’t you say? We found some truly remarkable technology lodged in the ships’ computers. Things we could never have imagined working so easily. Being an engineer, I always dreamed of inventing or working on something like this, a cloaking device of sorts.”
I was finally picking up what he was saying. “Are you telling us there’s a whole facility hidden behind this wall that looks just like the distant desert?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I won’t bore you with all the details, but it involves refraction, thousands of reflective cameras imaging other points, and a net of sorts. We actually have a solid wall with the device draped over it.”
Mary lifted an eyebrow. “How do you keep people from seeing inside from above? Planes? Drones?”
“It covers the base in a dome. Think of a football stadium with a retractable ceiling,” Trent said, seemingly very pleased with himself. I didn’t blame him, because I was thoroughly impressed with it.
“And just how big is this dome of yours?” Mary asked.
He paused, as if thinking, and continued walking until they neared the open bay door. The truck passed through, and we waited to the side as the Jeep followed it. Once they had safely passed us, he stepped forward and smiled widely once again. We followed, and I was blown away at what I saw.
From the outside, we just saw a representation of the night, complete with hills, rocks, landscape, and stars; but when we looked inside, there was a huge structure, lights high in the roof, which had to be three hundred feet in the air. It went on for as far as I could see in all directions, and off what must have been a few miles was one of the transport vessels. Though I’d seen them countless times over the past year, my pulse still quickened at the sight of the gargantuan ship.
“It’s about twenty square miles. We had to make it big enough to house the vessel for testing, and everything else we’re doing here, including weapons testing. We couldn’t have anyone seeing what we’re doing. And for all we know, we’re always being watched, maybe from space right now. Even by the Bhlat. We don’t know enough, so we erred on the side of caution,” Trent said. He wasn’t kidding.