“And we know little more than when we started?” The man at the other end of the table, half-shrouded in shadow, lit the tip of his cigarette. “Other than that no one else can know what we know. No one can hold this burden.”
“No one would believe it,” said another.
“I’m still not sure I do,” a third said.
“We can continue the underground detonations,” said another, hope edging in his voice.
The general nodded. “We will. We must. Continue probing the nature of this…discovery. What it means, but we are here today because that direction may not offer much hope.”
“What is this new option?” said the man who had just lit a new cigarette.
“Given what we discovered about the third variable, the constant in all our experiments, it stands to reason we might succeed with…how do we put this?”
“Less brute force?”
“Exactly.”
“The third variable,” said a doughty man in the background. “Are we to assume we’re moving to human trials?”
The general nodded. “You’re on the right path. I would bring in our lead tech men and scientists but they’re busy with the patients — er, volunteers.”
“We have volunteers already?”
“Seven of them.” He sighed again, looking down. “Brave men and women. All showing the highest aptitudes for intelligence, and…intuitive abilities.”
“You raided the psi-ops rejects, didn’t you? MK Ultra? Where did they come from?”
The general looked up sharply across the table at the only other man standing. “I don’t know. Honestly, didn’t ask. All I understand is it’s the only thing, they assure me, that makes sense to try.” He retrieved a stack of files from a case under the table. “These seven. They’ve shown abilities to do supernormal things. See and experience things outside of time and space. A level of brilliance leagues above the common level. Now I don’t pretend to understand the science of all these subatomic variables, or the implications of what goes on in the quantum level of reality, but if these people are already behaving as if they’re outside the rules, breaking the system, then they may be what we need.”
“To do what exactly?” the smoker said. “You got us to go along with all this thermonuclear pyrotechnics, and now of course every other country wants in on the game just as we’re getting out. Like that won’t raise its own sort of doomsday potential? But I’m not sure I’m following what these seven…subjects are going to do.”
“First off, they’re not subjects in the sense we’re used to. I’ve been told they have to volunteer. That given the nature of their ‘work’, the voluntary aspect is essential.”
Another chuckle. “You can’t knock ‘em over the head, hook them to the machines and let ‘em go?”
“No. In fact, that was tried with two…early test runs.”
“What? You went for this without informing us first?”
“Limited study, I assure you.”
“And these subjects?”
“Prisoners. Korean spies, to be honest.”
“Great. Let me guess, they didn’t do so well.”
“Their physical bodies expired during the process.”
A pause as his wording sunk in.
“And…the non-physical?”
The general licked his lips. “From what we could tell, the spiritual component, the ego or id or astral body, call it what you will, tore itself apart within minutes of manifesting.”
“Jesus.”
Murmurs of doubt shifted about the room.
“Hence the proposal for using psychics, those whose minds are already expanded to contemplate and accept the infinite, the lack of space-time restrictions.”
“Good luck with that. If this theory is valid, if we’re…god, trapped like you say, then their minds may be just as blown, coming up against the truth first-hand.”
Nodding, the general leaned in. “That’s why we’re going with seven, instead of one or two. Hopefully a couple will be strong enough to handle it. Strong enough to give us a report back. Find a weak spot, or peek beyond the bars, so to speak.”
“Strong?” the smoker made a dismissive sound. “I hear you have some rather lacking physical specimens. One old woman who was rescued from Auschwitz. She was in rough shape in 1945, and went downhill since.”
“If she’s among the recruits, then her mind more than made up for it.” The general glared at the smoker, upset with the intrusion and the questioning. “Who knows, perhaps the horrors she experienced there enhanced her other abilities, and elevated her to what we need for this experiment.”
“And I also hear there’s a man over a hundred years old. Smart cookie in his productive days, I’m sure, but right now? Barely staying alive, we’ve got him on life support basically.”
The general tapped his fingers, getting impatient. “I don’t know where you’ve gotten this information that even I don’t have, but it’s irrelevant.” The general set his hands flat on the table, gripping the edge, and took his attention away from the distraction. “We have our orders.”
“Shit,” someone said. “I wish I could just forget all this, all we know. Be like all those blissfully ignorant fools out there working on testing devices, blowing shit up, worrying about wars and everything else. You know, the little things, comparatively.”
“You can, too.” A different suit cleared his throat, took a sip of water. “Or sample some of the drugs we’ve been giving these volunteers. What are you lacing them with, general? LSD again? Mescaline? Some new cocktail?”
“Something,” he said. “Along with hooking their brainwaves — their consciousness essentially — into the most powerful computers we have.”
“Jesus,” someone said, and the smoker at the other end slowly raised his hand.
“I want to meet the volunteers. Wish them luck. They’re going to either be damned forever…or turned into gods.”
“The general nodded. “If that’s your wish. Do it fast, they are going under in one hour.”
A STUTTER IN THE FILM, STATIC AND THEN
The same room. The time stamp: December 23, 1962.
Two men. The general and the man who had been smoking and arguing with him. Now he was in the dim light. An unused ashtray in front of him. They both looked pale.
“Shut it down.”
“We don’t know it hasn’t worked.”
“We don’t?” The general lifted his face, his pained red eyes searching for anything to hold onto. He took a nervous drag of his own cigarette. “What would you call it then? They’ve all…gone crazy, beyond madness. I can’t imagine. Too much for even their enhanced consciousness or psi talents or whatever you want to call it.”
“We tried everything to bring them back?” The smoker pounded the table, with less effort than he might have liked, as if the point wasn’t there to make. “I want to hear what they will say. We have nothing! Not a scrap of information back from them.”