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“Be gone!” Lee added, not sure what else to say, knowing there was nothing more he could say, and wondering how else he could dismiss the soldier. His choice of words was clumsy, but he hoped the anger in his voice would carry the moment. It was now that his poker face would either win the hand or cause his bluff to fail. He held his lips tight, pursing them in anger, refusing to allow the slightest tremor of fear to creep through. “I never want to see you again.”

Well, Lee thought, that much at least was true.

The soldier nodded without saying anything. He stepped to one side and slunk down the hallway with his rifle shouldered and his head hanging low.

Lee turned to watch the guard depart, his heart exploding within his chest. Whispering to himself, he mumbled, “Don’t look back. Don’t look back.”

The soldier opened the door and walked out into the night, closing the door behind him without looking at Lee. His sunken features were submissive, and Lee understood the man was doing all he could to avoid incurring more wrath from what he perceived to be a brutish general. In his mind, he was probably already dreading a dressing down by the camp commander in the morning and packing his bags for a prison labor camp. Well, thought Lee, that was probably going to happen anyway, but for an entirely different reason once they realized the con.

Outside, Sun-Hee’s brother jumped out of the way. Lee could see he was visibly shaken as the guard emerged from the building, but the guard didn’t pay any attention to him. He kept his head down and hurried into the darkness.

Lee’s shoulders dropped as he took a deep breath. He felt like he’d just swum under water for the length of the indoor pool at the Olympic complex in Seoul. His hand was still shaking as he reached for the door to the secretarial pool. The sudden thought that it might be locked terrified him. If so, the guard probably had the key. He tested the handle. The knob turned, allowing him to push the flimsy wooden door open.

The door squeaked on its hinges.

A child stood inside the darkened room, barely five feet from him. Behind the child was a freshly made cot. White sheets had been pulled down over the dark woolen blanket, ready for the child to slip into the bed, but it was clear the cot was undisturbed. The child must have been standing there waiting for him for hours.

“I knew you would come,” the young boy said. “You always do.”

Instead of a teddy bear or some other form of comfort, the boy was holding a crayon in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. Lee expected to see some crude drawing of a house or trees, some depiction of the world around them lacking any perspective or depth. Perhaps with stick figures or an oversimplified image of the sun shining brightly in a clear blue sky, but the sheet of paper was covered in scientific formulae, all hurriedly drawn at various angles.

“This is what you want,” the child said, handing Lee the paper. “Only you don’t know it yet.”

Lee glanced at the curious scrap of paper briefly, not sure what he should do with it before handing it back to the boy. He crouched down, making eye contact as he spoke.

“We're in a dangerous place. Do you understand that?”

The boy nodded.

“I need you to come with me,” Lee said, and the boy held out his hand in response. His fingers were warm. Lee hated to think how cold they might become before the night was through.

Together, they crept back down the hallway, out of the door and out into the darkness.

“So what's the plan from here?” Stegmeyer asked, sitting back and sinking into one of the plush chairs in the back of the RV.

Rain battered the windows.

The RV swayed as it was buffeted by the wind.

“We take him to the craft,” Lachlan replied as the RV continued on down the interstate highway in the darkness.

“Are you crazy?” Bellum snapped. “DARPA and the NSA are going to tear the East Coast apart looking for him. You think they're going to let you waltz in and take him to see the craft? There's a reason they've kept him away from the UFO for all these years.”

“I know,” Lachlan replied.

“But you don't even know where it is!” Stegmeyer said. “No one I've spoken to has any idea where they've hidden it.”

“It's over a hundred yards in diameter,” Lachlan replied. “Where do you hide a gigantic spaceship? Where would you store a spaceship for decades without anyone noticing?”

Lachlan pulled a folder out of one of the drawers in the RV and began flipping through dozens of typed pages and photographs.

“In plain sight,” Jason offered.

Lachlan smiled, “Exactly.”

He sorted through the loose sheets of paper before shuffling a few pages and tossing them onto the coffee table.

“What do you make of these?” he asked.

There were dozens of pages. Stegmeyer picked up a sheet, as did Bellum. Lily grabbed a sheet and shared it with Jason. She pointed at the title at the top of the page:
Energy Output - US Nuclear Power Plants.

A table had been printed on the paper, with the names of each nuclear installation down one side. Years were listed across the top to allow for comparisons over time. Several of the locations had multiple reactors, with the output of each reactor shown in the table.

“I don't get it,” Bellum said. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything out of the ordinary,” Jason replied, his mind in sync with Lachlan's. He was already skimming over the output results, thinking about where the nuclear power plants were located, how much energy they were producing and which electrical grid they contributed towards.

“You think they've hidden the craft in a nuclear power plant?” Stegmeyer asked.

“Makes sense,” Lachlan replied as Jason continued scanning the figures. “They need somewhere big enough to house this thing, somewhere they can limit access and ensure tight security.”

“So, not out at Area 51?” Bellum asked in his gruff voice.

“No,” Lachlan replied with a soft laugh.

“I think I've got it,” Jason said confidently. “North Bend, Oregon. My guess would be that it's in reactor one.”

Stegmeyer dropped the sheet of paper to her lap, slapping it on her thigh. She turned slightly, looking to Lachlan for confirmation. Lachlan smiled.

“How did you know?” Stegmeyer asked, sitting forward and looking at Jason.

Jason kept his finger on the page, saying, “There are three reactors. The original reactor with a capacity of two hundred megawatts, the other two are newer and capable of almost nine hundred megawatts each.”

“And?” Lachlan asked. His pride in Jason was unmistakable.

“Well,” Jason said. “According to these tables, all three reactors are on line, but reactors two and three are consistently low over the past two decades, only ever producing between five and six hundred megawatts each. All the other reactors around the country are hitting around 90% efficiency, but these reactors are at around 60%.”

No one said anything.

Jason continued.

“They're covering for the lack of power coming from reactor one. Lowering their output so it looks like all three reactors are running when in reality, reactor one is offline. Reactor one may not even be there anymore. They're faking it.”

Lachlan nodded, smiling as he said, “That's what we thought too, so we conducted some aerial surveillance.”

He handed around some more photos.

Jason looked at the color images of the nuclear power plant from a variety of angles. Unlike the archetype nuclear plant with large cooling towers, North Bend was surrounded by cooling lakes. Large, artificial ponds dominated the landscape to the east, with roads running between them on raised embankments. A series of canals ran between the ponds and the power station.

“It's situated on the banks of the Coos river,” Lachlan said. “We think that's how they got the craft there. It's an estuary system, with large mud flats. They must have floated the UFO in under wraps at high tide. Probably on a barge.”

“I thought the craft crashed in the sea off North Korea?” Jason asked.

“It did,” Lachlan said. “They spent twenty-two months raising the craft with submersibles, inching it away from North Korea while keeping it underwater. It took another year to tow the craft across the Pacific, all under the guise of ostensibly conducting naval training exercises. I've spoken to sailors on those exercises. They thought they were towing a crippled Chinese submarine. We think the sub was the cover story for the craft.

“From what we can tell, they towed the craft starting in late spring and went through most of the summer. There are public records of naval exercises off the coast of Washington and Oregon that coincide with power outages blanketing the North Bend area.”

“They wanted to move under cover of darkness,” Bellum said.

“Exactly,” Lachlan said. “And get this, the training exercises coincided with a new moon, and culminated with a Marine landing at Cape Arago, not more than 10 miles from North Bend.”

“So,” Stegmeyer said, “there's no question that there were Navy ships in the area.”

“And look at this,” Lachlan added, holding up a photo of a barge. “They spent three months dredging the channel prior to the exercises. By this time, we think the craft was out of the water. They must have brought it in on barges similar to this one.

Lachlan held up another photograph, saying, “See that large, elongated building right here in the complex? That's roughly twenty stories high and it houses reactors two and three. But it's this one over here, with the old circular dome that houses reactor one. That's where we think the craft is located.”

Stegmeyer interjected, saying, “It all sounds convincing, but you've got to have more than some fishy power readings to go on.”

Lachlan cleared his throat, saying, “That dome is over two hundred feet high. It's within a few hundred yards of the river, but it's part of a separate annex inside the complex. We've been watching the area for months. See that nearby parking lot? The cars there never move. They're window dressing, just props. All the deliveries go to the administration buildings at the front, or the main reactors inland. No deliveries to the dome, and no external traffic. At least, none that we can see. There must be personnel moving around, but they're doing so via internal walkways.”

“I don't buy it,” Bellum said. “We need more to go on than a hunch. What are you proposing we do? Storm the place? What if the UFO isn't there? We'll have played our hand.”

“Everything we've observed,” Lachlan countered, “has revolved around Seattle, but even that seems to be a feint. Intercepted communiques, travel itineraries, credit card records. And it's not just that Seattle is a hub for the Northwest, we think it's more than that. They've got to have this thing nearby, and North Bend is the perfect location.”

“Why not New York?” Bellum countered.

“It would be too difficult to get the craft into the Atlantic,” Lachlan said.

“What about LA?” Stegmeyer asked.

“Too obvious. Too many people coming and going,” Lachlan replied. “No, they need to keep this some place sleepy, some place no one would suspect. Don't forget, this thing has been causing international tension for decades. Oregon provides DARPA perfect cover: no one would take rumors from there seriously.”

“No one but you,” Stegmeyer replied.

Lachlan laughed.

The RV swerved suddenly, causing Lily to crash into Jason. Lachlan braced himself against the ceiling. Stegmeyer fought not to fall out of her chair.

“Shit!” came the cry from the driver.

The RV lurched, riding up over something on the road. The sound of breaking branches and wooden logs slamming beneath the chassis caused Jason to grimace, anticipating a sudden impact. The RV braked, sliding slightly, but the driver kept the bulky vehicle under control.

“What the hell happened?” Lachlan exclaimed as the driver pulled over to the side of the road. In the panicked confusion of those few seconds, Lachlan had dropped his folder, scattering photographs across the floor of the RV.

“There were fallen tree branches all over the road,” the driver replied. “I think we may have lost a tire.”

As he heard those words, Jason recognized the familiar thump of a lazy, flat tire. The RV leaned slightly to one side as the driver pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

“Stay here,” Bellum said, pulling out a revolver and stepping down into the footwell of the RV.

“Could it be a trap?” Lachlan asked.

“Not likely,” the driver said. “I doubt they've traced our movements yet. They won't have picked up our trail.”

Bellum, Lachlan and Stegmeyer got out of the RV. Only Stegmeyer had the foresight to don a jacket against the rain. The other two seemed oblivious to the weather. Jason could see them standing outside, talking. Bellum moved out of sight. A few seconds later, Jason saw him moving through the trees, barely visible at the edge of the headlights as he crept in front of the RV.

“He's moving into a covering position,” Lily said as though that was somehow supposed to make Jason feel better.

A few minutes passed, a cold draft coming in from the open door.

Spitting rain peppered the cabin, swirling in through the opening.

Jason looked at the photos lying scattered on the floor and thought he should pick them up before they got water damaged. He got to his feet. Lily seemed content to watch, which was nice. If she'd jumped up beside him he would have felt like a prisoner under her watch.

As he stepped out from between the chairs, Jason glanced at the photos.

Several of the pictures had fallen overlapping each other. Most of the photos were of scientific calculations, similar to those he loved to sketch on his notepads, only these formulas looked like they'd been carved into the hide of some dark animal. There were fine scratches crisscrossing a black hide with rough calculations carved into what looked like leather.

Jason started to pick one of the images up when he realized they had fallen in such away as to spell out a word. Each of the overlapping images formed part of a single word, a word that would only be visible if they fell in this exact manner.

fe ED b A ck

Ordinarily, Jason wouldn't have thought of this as anything other than an unusual coincidence. He was well aware of the human tendency to read more into shapes and figures than was there. The overactive imagination of
Homo sapiens
has given us the Virgin Mary on a slice of toast, he thought, along with Elvis on a burnt cheese sandwich.

Jason wasn't one to fall for such mental tricks, except that another bunch of pages had fallen to form another word.

d E st R oY

What were the odds?

He wondered just how much of a freak chance it was to see two English words being spelled out from a scattering of loose papers.

It was nothing, he reassured himself. This was no omen.

Jason never allowed his mind to run to such nonsense.

The term
feedback
did get his attention, though, and he picked up a couple of the photos, looking at the calculations on them, thinking about their relationship to the concept of time travel.

“Like a message in a bottle,” Lily said, picking up the photos that had comprised the word “destroy.” Jason noticed how the simple act of moving the photos snapped the illusion, allowing any meaning to dissolve back into random, chaotic letters.

“What's the significance?” Jason asked absentmindedly looking at one of the photos.

A formula had been carved into the surface of the UFO like love letters might be carved into the trunk of an oak tree. But in addition to the formula, a trail of
d's
ran in an arc, leading to the corner of the photo where the
d
had been in
d E st R oY
.

Jason counted the
d's
. There were five of them. They caught his eye because they clearly held some meaning, but whatever their significance was wasn't apparent. As unusual as it was to see scientific formulas scratched into a leathery hide, at least they had a purpose. However the curved row of
d's
looked meaningless. Why would anyone bother?

Lily didn't reply to his question. She seemed as lost in thought as he was. She flipped through a few photos, pointing at a similar pattern with several other letter combinations that had gone into making up that cryptic phrase:
feedback destroy
.

“It's nothing,” she finally said. “It is the equations that are important.”

Lachlan poked his head back in the door of the RV. Water dripped from his face.

“We've blown two tires,” he said. “It's going to take us a while to change these.”

Jason yawned.

“Listen,” Lachlan added, pointing toward the bedroom at the back of the RV. “It's going to be a long drive. Why don't you get some shuteye?”

With that, Lachlan was gone, disappearing back into the darkness and the drizzling rain.

Lily gathered the photos, stacking them neatly on a bench beside the kitchen.

Lachlan was right. Jason had had no idea how exhausted he was until they'd stopped. The shift of attention had allowed fatigue to catch up with him. He left Lily in the main cabin and slipped into the darkened bedroom.

Jason decided he'd rest for a moment, perhaps just close his eyes for a few minutes before they got underway again. He kicked off his shoes and flopped facedown on the bed with his feet dangling over the edge. Burying his face in a pillow, Jason was asleep in seconds.

He woke to the sound of birds outside. For an instant, he thought he was lying in bed in his apartment, but those weren't pigeons cooing. He could hear half a dozen different birds calling, and as he opened his eyes, at first he thought he was in a darkened forest. How could he be in a forest?