The Reality Conspiracy (2 page)

And—ahem—enjoy…

Stephen R. Bissette, Mountains of Madness, VT

February 2012

"God laughed,
 
and begat the Son. Together they laughed, and begat the Holy Spirit. And from the laughter of the three, the universe was born."

—Meister Eckhart

"Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord."

—Thessalonians 4:17

Excerpt from

The Reality Conspiracy:

An Anecdotal Reconstruction of the Events at Hobston, Vermont

We are born into a tiny room without windows and doors. Docilely, through unspoken consensus, we name the six planes that surround us; we call them reality.

Four walls, the floor, the ceiling, they define our limits and our aspirations.

Yet, there are some among us who say there is more. They place an ear against the wall and swear they hear a whisper on the other side. Some hear footsteps. A scratch. A gentle, rhythmic tap.

Others say they hear a chorus of voices chanting the unfamiliar words to an unfamiliar song.

While all the time our priests and politicians, our cynics and our scientists, testify that we are alone in the room, that its sturdy walls, infinitely thick, extend into eternity.

But wait! Now, from the far side of the wall, the gentle scratch becomes a tap.

And the tapper starts to pound.

Our wall trembles, begins to split. And now—oh God—something is coming through!

Boston, Massachusetts

Thursday, November 12

08:05 hours

D
r. Ian "Skipp" McCurdy led the man from the Pentagon along the narrow, neon-lit corridor.

The man, who had introduced himself only as Rex, carried a small leather attaché case and wore dark glasses, even in the basement rooms. His suit was obviously expensive, cut to complement his health-club physique. It seemed perfectly pressed, brand-new. McCurdy couldn't figure it: the man had flown in from Washington much earlier that morning; he had no doubt been jostled at the airport, bumped on the streets, and cramped in the cabs, yet he looked as if his suit had just come freshly from the closet.

For a moment McCurdy thought perhaps he himself should have dressed better for the occasion. Maybe his corduroys and sweater vest were not the most well-chosen attire. After all, there was a lot of money hanging on this demonstration, almost a billion dollars, another two years of generous research funding. McCurdy thought how horrible it would be if the whole project were shot down because there was no dress code at the Academy.

Absently, McCurdy clicked his tongue, "Tch, tch, tch."

"What's that. Doctor?" Rex asked.

"Oh, ah . . . nothing."

McCurdy stopped before a locked metal door. "Right in here, sir," he said as he punched in a numerical code that released the lock. He pulled the door open. The man nodded and preceded McCurdy into the dim, indirectly lighted chamber. The door locked behind them with a metallic thud.

The room was nearly bare. At its center, two canvas director's chairs faced two forty-five-inch Mitsubishi television screens about ten feet away. Without waiting for formalities, the man took a seat, placed the attaché case on his lap, as McCurdy walked over to an electronic control panel on the wall by the television screens.

"Are you satisfied with the briefing to this point?" McCurdy asked. "If I can answer any more questions . . . ?" His voice seemed weak and hollow to his own ears. He hoped his nervousness didn't show.

"Quite satisfied, Dr. McCurdy. I'm not here for more explanations. I'm here for a demonstration. If you'd be good enough to proceed."

McCurdy clicked his tongue. It was hard for him to come to grips with the fact that the entire demonstration was for the benefit of a single individual. He had expected some kind of committee. Three people, at least. He was uncomfortable that so much seemed to rest on the opinion of just one man. But as Rex had explained in military jargon, the fewer people who were "cognizant" of this, the better for all of us.

Well, if this was how it had to be, then so be it.

McCurdy turned the switches. The screen on the left began to glow red. A golden circle formed at its center. The circle expanded until it nearly filled the screen. White lines began to intersect the circle.

McCurdy said, "I'll turn up the volume so you can hear the sounds that accompany this. They'll continue throughout the demonstration, but we won't have to listen to them. I just want to give you the idea . . . ."

The man nodded impatiently.

McCurdy pressed the volume control and a guttural, synthetically produced dirge filled the room. McCurdy could pick out a word now and then, but his mastery of Latin had never been what it should be, and the electronically articulated syllables were really not that easy to understand, anyway.

For a moment he stared, almost hypnotized by the flowing, shifting patterns on the huge screen,

"Dr. McCurdy . . . ?" Rex urged.

McCurdy turned down the volume, and the dirge faded slowly into silence.
Here goes
, McCurdy thought.

He flicked on the second TV.

The video image was in black and white. The background was featureless, just a flat, white, nondescript wall.

In the foreground stood an empty chair. It was wooden. Square and solid-looking. McCurdy knew it was bolted to the floor. He had seen such chairs in Vietnam. No one sat in them willingly; they were for interrogation.

At the bottom of the screen electronic letters flashed on and off, reading: November 12 / 05:18 hrs.

McCurdy picked up a microphone and spoke into it. "Please stand by," he said. "We're almost ready to begin."

McCurdy turned to Rex. "This picture is coming to us via satellite all the way from California. The signal is thoroughly scrambled, indecipherable. That's all I know. Your people picked the location. It is unknown to anyone at this facility. You and I will see everything in real-time, exactly as it happens. We'll hear everything just as it is being said. The important thing to remember is that what we'll watch is happening four thousand miles away at an undisclosed location. And the only thing connecting us with them is the television signal."

"Yes, yes, I understand, Dr. McCurdy. Now if we could begin . . ." McCurdy picked up the microphone again. "You're on," he said. This time his voice cracked like fragile ice.

On the screen two men in black suits, with ski masks over their heads, led a third man into the frame. The man was naked. He didn't struggle. There was a vapid glaze to his eyes. His mouth hung open.

McCurdy noted how skinny he was, took in the filthy, dark hair tied back in a ponytail. A ring in his left ear caught the light; a homemade tattoo blemished his left shoulder. Some kind of scar was visible on his abdomen. Surgery or knife wound, McCurdy couldn't tell.

The men in black worked like a well-practiced team. They pushed the naked man into the wooden chair and efficiently bound his arms at the wrists and elbows with nearly invisible monofilament ties. Then they bound each of his legs at the ankle and at the knee. One of them tied a final loop around his throat. It held his spine tightly against the chair.

With a terrified expression on his face, the seated man watched the men in black. When he made as if to say something, the man to his left jerked a flattened hand to chest level, poised for a karate blow. The naked man fell silent, eyes downward. There was no further struggle or protest. No further attempt to communicate.

The monofilament held his legs so that they were slightly apart, butted against the frame of the chair. McCurdy could see the man's penis, a hairy gray knob of putty between skinny thighs.

Without taking his eyes from the screen, McCurdy sat in the director's chair beside Rex.

He watched the two men in black leave the frame, abandoning the tethered man to the TV camera. The man looked imploringly into the lens, then looked away. McCurdy looked away, too.

A fourth man, dressed in a white smock, entered the frame. He wore a surgeon's mask and a tied cap that covered his face and hair. He taped sensors on thin wires to the man's skin. McCurdy could hear him muttering to the man, "This won't hurt at all. We're just going to track your vital signs. It's no more painful than a lie detector test."

The man nodded. Tried to smile.

The doctor worked rapidly, then left the screen.

In a monotone, an electronically altered voice spoke clearly through the speaker between the two TV screens, "Can you hear us, gentlemen?"

McCurdy cleared his throat, "Perfectly."

"Then we'll begin. I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Denton Rene LaChance, age forty-seven. Denny, his friends call him."

Denny's eyes flicked back and forth. He shifted his weight in the wooden chair. A light rime of sweat glistened on his forehead. McCurdy could see how the invisible monofilament made grooves in his arms and legs.

The voice continued, "Denny's in excellent health for a smoker and frequent drug-user, our medical assures us. But Denny's not a very nice guy. Got kicked out of the Army for playing with heroin. It was planted on him, he says. Might be true, I might add. Like everybody else, the Army was anxious to get rid of him. Overwhelming evidence suggests he put a bullet through his lieutenant's head. We had enough trouble with the Cong without Denny blowing our officers away."

"Tch, tch, tch," McCurdy said.

"Stateside, he's got an arrest record that oughtta go platinum. Armed robbery, assault, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking. All low personal risk occupations, 'cause that's the way Denny likes it. Not enough convictions, though; he's been lucky. In fact, he likes to brag that his name, LaChance, means 'luck'. But his luck ran out the day he picked up a ten-year-old on Ventura Boulevard, brought her out to the canyon, where he had some fun with her. Then, to keep her from identifying him, he punctured both her eyes with a screwdriver. To make sure she wouldn't talk, he cut out her tongue with tin snips. And so nobody could identify her, he sliced the skin off her hands and face, using a knife for the rough work and sandpaper for the finish. When a couple of campers found her they discovered the worst crime of all: the poor kid was still alive. The police got him though; someone saw him pick her up. The D.A. proved he took her all right, but couldn't prove he did her. He got off. Nice guy, Denny LaChance."

"Soulless," McCurdy whispered. His stomach heaved. Acrid gas bubbled into his mouth. He blew it out silently and looked over at Rex who stared stone-faced at the screen.

"So, gentlemen," the electronic voice said, "if you're tempted to feel badly about anything that follows, save your pity for someone who needs it. Our friend Denny's a real scum-bag . . . a perfect candidate for the garbage disposal. That's it for us, I guess. Your move, gentlemen."

McCurdy moved to the control panel and turned a button. "I've just activated the computer link," he told Rex. Again he sat in the director's chair facing the twin screens. He crossed his legs, trying to look comfortable.

The patterns on the left-hand screen began to undulate and twirl. The background flashed red, neon green, blaze-orange. White spark-images jumped and danced.

What seemed to be a length of white cord, almost like an animated drawing, appeared, crossed and uncrossed, looped about itself, changing patterns as it seemed to tie itself in knots. It became a square, a star, a rectangle. When it turned into a circle, a 3-D computer graphic replication of Denny's face materialized in its center. The circle blinked like an eye and the face was gone.

On the other screen Denny fidgeted a bit. He pressed his lips together. His eyes darted back and forth. The wires taped to his skin swayed slightly.

Numbers at the bottom of the screen blinked and vanished: 05:29 hrs.

Nervously, McCurdy clicked his tongue. He wanted to watch; he wanted to look away. He had a pretty good idea what was coming.