“I have taught members of our team how to remote view our location to any passing ETs, and we use this technique to vector them to our location. We also use musical tones and high-powered lasers. With these tools and techniques, we have succeeded in initiating contact with extraterrestrials that are biological beings which rely on spacecraft, as well as advanced species that are non-physical yet sentient and perfectly capable of communicating with humans.
“These ET civilizations are all capable of interstellar travel and they operate on the other side of the light/matter barrier as easily as we use radio signals and fly on jets. They communicate instantaneously using thought energy. This is their reality; their cell phone and automobile. This is their existence technologically, theoretically and everyday practicality. But it looks like magic to us.
“I’m sure it looked like magic to those scientists who were assigned to reverse-engineer those downed spacecraft, but within ten years, they had learned enough to reverse gravitational fields and access zero-point-energy. And there’s the rub… there’s the crime against humanity. Because we’ve had the means to eliminate poverty, pollution, climate change and disease for six decades, and yet those few individuals running the secret government have chosen to deny the rest of the world. And that’s why I’m here with you today — not to convince you that UFOs exist, but to mount a campaign among the uninformed masses that forces the secret government to turn over the technologies that can change our world.”
Adam followed the exiting crowd out of Ballroom-C. He found the security guard he was seeking standing by an unmarked door.
“Tech Sergeant Evans?”
The North Carolina native’s dour expression broke into a smile. “Captain Shariak?”
“In the flesh… and titanium. How are you, Gene?”
“Good… you know. Did my two tours, then spent five years at Andrews securing communications for VIP aircraft.”
“How long have you been working private security?”
“About six months. Not much money, but it has its perks. I did a Taylor Swift concert a few weeks ago; that was cool. God, it’s good to see you. The last time I saw you…”
“Was the day before my chopper went down.”
“Yeah. So, what have you been up to?”
Shariak fished out a business card from his wallet and handed it to Evans. “My new job.”
“Under Secretary of Defense? Damn… Hey, if you hear of any openings, I’m available.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Dr. Greer is really something.”
“He’s definitely out there.”
“Think you can score me some private face time? I had a few questions for him that I’d prefer to ask him alone.”
“Wait here.” Eugene Evans knocked twice on the door and entered.
He returned three minutes later. “Sorry, Captain. Dr. Greer’s really busy. He said he’d try to reach out to you later in the week.”
“Thanks. Listen, it was good seeing you… you look great. And good luck with the new job.”
“Thanks, Captain. You take care.”
Adam followed the exit signs down the carpeted corridor, unaware another pair of eyes were watching him as he passed by.
14
The geology of the tunnel glistened like polished obsidian — an effect caused by the nuclear powered boring machine which had been used to scorch through the earth more than fifty years earlier, just as Matthew DeVictor had described to her two years before.
Jessica Marulli felt the MP’s eyes on her as she ran her palm across the smooth surface. Her suitcases had been brought out to the underground station, the subterranean train set to arrive any minute to whisk her to another location where she would spend the next six to eight weeks—
— unless Council had voted against her bump in clearance and she was to be killed.
Too nervous to sit on the bench, she focused on the glass-like geology, her trembling fingers a result of overwrought nerves and extreme fatigue. She had not slept in two days — the last thirty-seven hours courtesy of Council’s security measures.
Dr. Elizabeth Hull had introduced herself as a psychiatrist. Fit and in her early forties, the native of Mickleover, a suburb of Derby, England, talked endlessly during her four shifts with Jessica while the two of them were locked up together in an eight-by-ten-foot concrete cell, brightly lit by fluorescent lights.
“We find sleep deprivation to be a far more effective tool to determine a candidate’s potential security risk than, say, water-boarding. I’m not saying we’d ever water-board a member of our team — we’d never harm anyone… unless, of course, their actions warranted it.”
There was only one chair in the room and it was always occupied by one of her two keepers, the other being a bearded Ivy Leaguer named Jack Stack, who gazed at her with predatory eyes but refused to say a word. The “Odd Couple” rotated places on random shifts, adding to Jessica’s disorientation.
Jessica bounced her back against the cell wall, using the pain to keep herself awake and to block out the woman’s grating voice.
“I’ve had many a candidate refer to me as Lizzie Borden. Have you ever heard of Lizzie Borden, Dr. Marulli?”
“She was an axe murderer who killed her parents.”
“That she was. Let’s see… how did that poem go?”
Jessica chanted as she bounced. “Lizzie Borden… took an axe… and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw… what she had done… she gave her father forty-one.”
The Englishwoman nodded, making notes. Subject’s cognitive skills are still functioning after 28 hours without sleep… a tough egg to crack. “Did you know the rhyme was all wrong? It was created by a reporter in order to sell newspapers. Lizzie actually gave her stepmom eighteen whacks and her father eleven.”
“Who gives a shit about Lizzie Borden?”
“I imagine her father and stepmom when she came at them swinging that axe. Did you know she was acquitted? There’s a lesson here — no dear, don’t shut your eyes. If you lean against the wall and shut your eyes, Jack Stack will return with an electrical collar and you don’t want that. We have a rhyme about Mr. Stack… would you like to hear it?”
“No.”
“Jack Stack will take no flack when his subjects want to lean. Close your eyes and your neck will fry because he is so mean.”
“How much longer?”
“We agreed any inquiries about the time would add an additional fifteen minutes. You now owe us forty-five more minutes. Now what was I saying?”
Jessica struck the wall harder.
“Cooperate and I can subtract time as well. Dr. Marulli? Hello?”
“Lizzie Borden… some kind of lesson.”
“Right. What I was going to say is that it doesn’t really matter if it took Lizzie one whack with the axe or forty-one. What’s important here is that something caused her to snap and kill her parents. You’d never kill your parents, would you Jessica?”