Pete Cawdron - Feedback

Lee stamped his foot, signaling his disapproval of the guard’s fleeting glimpse. Living in a totalitarian state, Lee hoped the man’s inherent fear of authority was sufficient to paralyze him with inaction. If their eyes met, the game would be up.

In that fraction of a second, the soldier’s nostrils flared, his jaw clenched, and his head dropped in begrudging submission.

“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.”