Matt Eaton - Blank

“They sound like Christian bikers, eh? They were also called the Anunnaki. Lived on Earth thousands of years ago. People worshipped them as gods. They from another planet.”

“And you’re saying PF is one of them?”

Pat’s eyes widened and he nodded solemnly. “Him Nephilim. Half-caste. He been alive since before Jesus was a boy. Father Clarence says PF was there when the Roman Emperor Constantine brought all the Christian bishops together at Nicea to make them toe the line. Back then half those bishops believed Jesus was just a wise Jewish prophet and nothing more. Those fellas were called the Arians, the followers of Arius. They reckoned God was without beginning and came before all things. So because Jesus was born, he had an origin. Arius reckoned this made Jesus inferior to God. It made him a man.”

“Makes sense,” Luckman conceded.

“But Constantine wanted religious peace, ’cos he thought it was the only way to keep his empire under control. So the bishops took a vote and Jesus was democratically elected the Son of God.”

“What’s PF’s view on the matter?”

“He’s with Arius. He says Jesus was a revolutionary, but a human being like the rest of us.”

“Them’s fighting words,” said Luckman. “The Vatican is harbouring a heretic.”

“There are bishops in Rome today who know the whole thing’s made up. But it’s only heresy when you say it out loud.”

“What was Paulson’s take on all this?”

“He said the spiritual search was internal – part of the journey to discover who we are. The external world is only a reflection of that. Clarence said churches are just middle men, that we should use them for guidance but never let them dictate the terms.”

“What about you?”

Pat smiled. “I was raised to be a God-fearing Christian. The fear part means you never question the stories you’re told. Father Clarence made me stop and think. A virgin birth, three wise men finding a baby born in a stable, the Son of God turning water into wine, original sin…”

“Rising from the dead was the one I’ve always struggled with,” Luckman admitted.

“It’s a fairy tale. It doesn’t hold up to rational analysis.”

“So you’ve lost your faith? You don’t believe in God?”

“Just not that version of God. I’m more of a God 2.0 type of guy.”

“Is that how you think of the Others? God 2.0?”

“No way. They’re more like God 1.666 – the corrupted version.”

“How is the Catholic Church connected with the Others?”

“The Vatican hates the Others. But they keep each other’s secrets ’cos it’s in their mutual interest. PF is Rome’s envoy. He keeps the two sides in contact.”

“And Paulson was the meat in the sandwich.”

“He and PF were playing both sides against each other.”

“And when Paulson decided to speak out they killed him,” Luckman concluded.

“The Others don’t tolerate dissent. The church isn’t too keen on it either.”

“I think I’ve heard enough.”

“What are you gonna do now?”

“I probably don’t need to tell you every intelligence service on Earth would kill to get hold of that viewing chair of yours. Surely it can tell me about the Others.”

“The chair’s no good to you. It can only view events in this world.”

“So the Others aren’t human?”

“They’re human all right. But they’re not of this world. Here, but not here… somewhere else. We call it the Dreaming. Science calls it another dimension.”

Luckman felt glad he was sitting down because his knees might have given way at that moment. Yet Pat was so at home with all of this he seemed unaware the revelations even had the capacity to shock. It could be the trance. Like everyone else in Alice Springs, he appeared to have no curiosity for events beyond the town limits. He hadn’t asked a single question of his visitor.

“You have to take me to Pine Gap,” Luckman decided.

“It’s not safe.”

“I’m a big boy. Humour me. I’m not talking about driving up to the front gate. I just want to have a look at the place – from a distance.”

Pat rubbed a finger on his cheek as he pondered the request. “You gotta do something for me in return.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I need to get my cousin Wozza outa jail. The cops are fitting him up.”

“I’ll do whatever I can,” Luckman heard himself say.

“Then I’ll take you out there,” Pat declared solemnly, holding his hand out. Luckman shook on it, although he had no idea how he might keep his word. Pat began to walk back toward the bunker entrance. He turned back when he realised Luckman wasn’t following. “You coming or what?”

“First I want you to take me back into the golden vault.”

There were a multitude of Earthly secrets he might choose to explore. The chair would reveal all of these and more. Pat Williams and the Verus Foundation probably already knew the answers to the planet’s greatest mysteries. But there was only one issue on which lives hung in the balance.

“I want to see what happened in Alice Springs on the 23rd of December. The day of the Sunburst.”

Pat retraced his steps to the rear of the chamber and took a firm grip on a small sink fastened to white tiles on the bunker wall. He gave it a sharp tug and the tiles hinged neatly off the wall to reveal a narrow tunnel entrance. There was no light beyond the entrance. Pat had to duck his head as he stepped through. Luckman followed, steeling himself to swallow the rapidly rising sense of claustrophobia. He was greatly relieved when Pat flicked on a torch. The narrow concrete-lined passageway was only wide enough to allow them to move single file and Luckman had to stoop to avoid banging his head on the ceiling. He felt his phobia screaming at him as they made their way along the narrow confines in the dim torch glow. Once or twice he stepped too close to the wall and scraped his knuckles. They continued for about 100 metres. The tunnel dog-legged twice but remained flat all the way to where it suddenly ended in a short 45-degree wedge, into which about a half a dozen steps were cut – a stairway to nowhere. Pat ascended three of the steps. Luckman was breathing heavily by now, his chest tight with anxiety.

“Come up here with me,” urged Pat.

When Luckman had done so Pat reached up to a section of the roof slab. A small piece of oxidised metal reinforcement was visible where the concrete had fallen away. The reo was actually a lever. Pat pulled it out, turned it through 180 degrees like a giant clock hand and then allowed it to click back into place. A wedge of the concrete roof swung down slowly and smoothly like the door of some massive aircraft. The slab touched down on the floor of their tunnel. A set of boxed metal stairs that was attached to the inside of that slab now faced them, having unfolded with millimetric precision to the edge of the step on which they stood. Luckman recognised the metalwork. As they climbed the stairs he saw why. It was the same set of stairs that descended from Paulson’s study – the last flight was hinged so it detached and moved along with the slab beneath it. That same set of stairs led them once again to the vault entrance, but now from below. On the keypad outside the vault, Pat pushed # and 0. The slab and the stairs swung back into place behind them. As the door to the golden vault once more swung open Luckman found himself squinting in the bright light after the darkness of the tunnel, but he was greatly relieved to be in a larger space. He focused his attention on the chair and was immediately reminded of Mel’s experience the previous night.

“This is going to wipe me out, isn’t it?”