Chapter Fifty-One
IAPETUS
1
‘Maybe you’re just fucking with us, pal.’
‘Why would I do that? You have my ship and I have no idea where I am.’
He looked around. They were in a dimly-lit, grey cube with no visible doors or windows. They sat on grey, metal chairs on opposite sides of a grey, metal desk. On the desk was a small spotlight, which shone directly into his face.
‘You brought me here with a hood over my head and I am completely disorientated.’
‘OK, so you say your name’s Pete and that you’re from a planet called Rama, from the Andromeda Galaxy.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you reckon that you came here to surf?’
‘Yeah. Why is that so hard for you to believe?’
‘And you don’t have any other names?’
‘No. Pete is as close as you can get to my formal name, which is Iapetus. Just call me Pete. Look, I don’t want any trouble.’
His breathing was slow and relaxed and there was a look of total calm in his hypnotic, iridescent-blue eyes. He was tall, about 6’4”, tanned and extremely fit. He wore an old Dewey Webber T-shirt, a ratty pair of faded-blue, Okanui Baggies and a pair of fairly-worn, Huarache sandals. His sun-bleached, blond hair was long and untidy, and he sported a closely-cropped beard. He was extremely handsome and spoke with a manly voice. His overall demeanour was that of a man who was in total control, which made his inquisitors palpably nervous. Pike and Slaughter wore black suits and ties, black-leather shoes, white shirts, wraparound sunglasses and black, narrow-brimmed hats. Pike continued the questioning.
‘If you came here to surf, why did we capture you on top of a butte in the middle of the desert? And don’t tell us you were lost.’
‘I wasn’t lost. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see the place with my own eyes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it is historic.’
‘Historic?’ replied Slaughter angrily. ‘What is so fucking historic about a dump like Green River?’
‘Well, there have been many visitations to that place over the last eight years. I know you are aware of that.’
‘How do you know that, smartass?’ retorted Slaughter.
‘We get your TV. I’ve seen the documentaries just like everyone else on this planet.’
‘Bullshit, pal. How could you get our TV?’
‘Different people bring it over when they come back from here. It’s stored in sort of like digital form and brought over with other stuff.’
‘Other stuff? Like what?’
‘Well, we are particularly fond of your coffee. We have all your music and all your literature. Our archives of your artistic and intellectual endeavours are more comprehensive than yours. We also have all your movies, every single last one. Have you seen The Blues Brothers? They had similar taste in clothes to you guys.’
Slaughter rose to his feet and approached Iapetus angrily, ready to hit him. Pike stopped him by gently covering his fist with his hand. He calmly said,
‘Sir, we do grow some good coffee on this planet.’
Slaughter pulled back and dropped his arm to his side. He then ripped his sunglasses off his face and glared at the alien who remained totally tranquil.
‘Fuck you, Pete, or whatever your name is. Do not fuck with us, son, or we will fuck with you. We are trying to be nice here, so just don’t fuck with us, OK?’
‘I promise you this,’ replied Iapetus, ‘no lie shall ever pass my lips. In truth I am free and in truth I shall be.’
Slaughter and Pike looked at each other. Although they were extensively trained in every type of interrogation technique, they both felt out of their depth with this character. They turned their backs to him and Slaughter whispered a name to Pike.
‘Brent Dawes?’
Pike nodded his head.
2
Three days earlier, on September 23, 2022, there was mayhem in Green River. The normally placid town of some 12,500-odd locals was completely swamped by over 300,000 visitors. There were hippies, trekkies, conspiracy freaks, abductees, contactees, psychics, psychos, ascenders, descenders, new agers, Jesus freaks, hare Krishnas, prophets, seers, junkies, dope-heads, speed freaks, dealers, pushers, thieves, scammers, movie stars, rock stars, millionaires, billionaires, the army, the navy, the air force, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and hidden in the desert to the east of Green River, amongst the mesas, was the NWCS.
They came by chopper, plane, train, in their cars and RVs, some hitched and some walked like they were on a religious pilgrimage to Mecca. Every street and road was clogged with parked cars and camper vans. The Lincoln Highway was blocked for fifteen miles in both directions, as was Uinta Drive, which headed out of town in a south-westerly direction and was the only road that linked the town to the local airstrip. The town’s folk humorously named the tiny strip of dirt The Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport. No one ever imagined how prophetic that would become.
The Sherriff did his best to keep the road to the Intergalactic Spaceport open as that was the only way that additional food supplies could be flown into town from Salt Lake City. That was also where a small military contingent set up their base.
The town was crawling with media, a whole army of it, from all over the world. The big US networks got there a week early in their huge trucks and set themselves up in and around Stratton Myers Park, which was located on the south-eastern edge of town at the end of Bridger Drive.
Stratton Myers Park was a 17-acre community park and a popular recreational area for the locals. It had a large open space, baseball fields, soccer fields, an amphitheatre for summer events, picnic areas and grills, designated parking areas, restrooms, garbage receptacles and access to the river. The most significant thing about Stratton Myers Park was that it was located directly opposite, and just over the river from, the butte on which the UFOs landed every year.
3
2022 was going to mark Snake’s eighth revision of Incident at Green River. Seven times before, the aliens returned like clockwork just after 2.00pm on the 23rd of September. Seven times before, Snake and his faithful crew were there waiting for them. Seven times before, they ‘got the shots’ and updated the documentary. The subsequent global sales of the show raked in more money than any of them could ever have imagined. One of Snake’s favourite comedy routines was lighting one of his huge cigars with a hundred-dollar bill.
As a consequence of his obscene newfound wealth, Snake formed his own production company, which he called Hisss Productions. He bought a small, desert ranch just outside of Las Vegas. On it he built his dream house and studio, and a huge hangar for his new helicopter. These days he and his crew flew to all their assignments in his customised, Bell 525 Relentless, which was set up as a state-of-the-art flying studio. The exterior of the sleek chopper was painted up to look like snakeskin.
Trixie, Snake’s voluptuous private secretary for the last five years, had organised a permanent, annual rental of a house in Colorado Circuit, which was located just across the Stratton Meyer Boat Ramp Road and which backed onto empty land on the western side of the river. Snake got the local Mayor to OK the landing of the chopper behind the house by buying a new fire truck for the Green River Fire Department and making a generous annual donation to the Sweetwater County Museum.
They flew in and settled into the house three days early, on Tuesday, September 20, 2022. They all got together at Snake’s ranch and flew to Green River from there. There was Ludwig, Cowboy, DeRongo, Melvin the cameraman, Ace the pilot, Trixie and Snake. Jonesy rolled into Green River a couple of days before Snake arrived and parked his RV in the driveway of the house. These days he didn’t mind sharing his trike with Cowboy, seeing as they had become pretty good friends over the years, and anyway, Jonesy could afford to buy a new trike every day of the week if he wanted to. He parked the trike in the back of the house where there was enough space to launch from.
In the evenings they liked to hang around the barbecue in the back of the house. Snake either wore his Snake’s Steaks or Fangs for The Memories barbecue aprons and rotated between having a suck of his beer bottle, a drag of his Cuban or flipping a burger. Trixie made the salads and buttered the buns while Ludwig was in charge of the beers. Jonesy brought a big bag of ‘maryjahooney’ for himself and anyone else that felt so inclined. Cowboy had the best collection of music so they spent most of the time listening to that through his Bose player.
On Wednesday night, Jonesy sat down next to Snake and reminded him,
‘You remember that message the alien lady gave me, Snake?’
‘You mean the one you wouldn’t let me use in the show?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one. Well, I don’t know if you remember, but I won’t be comin here next year cause I’ll have to be someplace else.’
Snake looked into Jonesy’s eyes and responded,
‘I understand, Jonesy. Don’t think nothin of it. You got to follow your instincts. It won’t make no difference to our deal, compadre. It’s always been 50/50 an it’s always gonna be 50/50. Anyhow, Cowboy will be there to cover for you, just like always.’
‘Thanks, Snake.’
‘She told you to be someplace on that day, didn’t she?’
‘Yeah, me and the fam. Pike’s Peak, out the back of San Fran.’
‘Up in the Sierra Nevadas?’
‘That’s right. I’ve scouted it all out and I’ve got it all planned out. Lori and the kids are all in on it. I’ll be here the year after, though, Snake.’
Snake looked up into the starry night sky, toked on his stogie and replied, ‘And we’ll be glad to have you back, son.’
4
At the earliest sign of dawn, on Friday, September 23, 2022, 300,000 people began to converge towards Stratton Myers Park. The local police and community groups attempted to prepare the area for the crowd by trucking in dozens of portable toilets and thousands of gallons of drinking water. Many of the local merchants set up food and drink stalls around the perimeter of the Park. The three local Churches of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints also provided a band, named Rapture, to play in the amphitheatre.
There were prophets of doom and prophets of salvation everywhere. Some were saying that the ETs were devils while others were saying they were angels come to save us. There was a guy selling T-shirts that said Take Me and Welcome to Earth and another guy who was selling ones that said Invaders Go Home. Snake summarised it well.
‘It’s like a friggin wacko convention. Every nut-job in the country is here.’
The mass of humanity had all been made aware of the alien visitations by Snake’s documentaries. They all knew the whole story and they all knew Dirk DeRongo and Clint Rodgers, who were both national celebrities by now. They had heard of Tommy Jones, but their memory of him had faded away years before. He and Snake had always intentionally stayed out of the limelight. Neither of them ever gave an interview.
Every year it became more difficult to film the documentary because of the increasing crowd. The previous year they even had to compete for airspace with the media helicopters. Snake stayed positive about the project, but he was beginning to sense that the good days were coming to an end, fast. He was hoping that this year they would be able to get close enough to get some decent shots, but he knew that it was far from ‘a done deal’. There were just too many media, police and military helicopters around town to be sure of anything. He even got a peculiar premonition that this year could be their last visit there.
5
Everyone in the house was up early. Ludwig began organising the day while DeRongo practised his lines. After having their morning coffee, Ludwig and Melvin went walkabout with a camera and shot plenty of footage of the gathering masses. Ludwig was seeing a whole new dimension opening up in his documentary. He was now not just documenting an alien visitation, he was also documenting the human reaction to that visitation, and that reaction, Ludwig observed, was profoundly disturbing. However it was, though, he was determined to capture it on video.
By midmorning, Ludwig directed DeRongo through some narration shots, Cowboy and Jonesy fuelled up the trike and Ace did a walk-around preflight of the Bell 525. Snake noticed how a small contingent of military had set up on the other side of the river. He observed,
‘I don’t think those sons of bitches are there for their own amusement, Jonesy.’
‘It don’t appear that way, Snake.’
‘I wonder if they got intentions of gettin in our way?’
‘Can’t see why they should. You got it all sewn up with the Mayor, ain’t ya?’
‘Sure, but I don’t know if he’s got any pull with the military.’
‘I reckon we just do our thing an see what happens.’
‘I reckon so too, Jonesy, but I gotta be honest with ya, I woke up with a decidedly negative feelin this morning.’
‘That ain’t like you, Snake.’
‘This could be our last year here, amigo. Too many people gettin in the act.’
‘Yeah, it’s a damn shame.’
‘Yeah,’ sighed Snake as he removed his Stetson and wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. ‘We were startin to feel like real family.’ Jonesy’s eyebrows suddenly shot skyward.
‘Snake …’
‘Yeah?’
‘You remember what the alien said to me all those years ago?’
‘Not word for word.’
‘It was about bein at Pike’s Peak on September 23, 2023, that’s next year, and bein bound to my family. Well, you are my family as well, Snake, so maybe you should all be there next year as well. The alien told me.’
‘Shit, Jonesy, let me ruminate on that for a spell. Let’s get this chore out of the way first and chew the fat on it when we get back to the ranch.’
‘Sure, Snake, sure.’
6
By 2.00pm, everyone was organised and poised. Ace had the Bell 525 fired up and ‘ready to rumble’. Melvin stood outside the helicopter with the camera on his shoulder. Snake and Ludwig scanned the sky with their binoculars looking for the expected UFOs. Cowboy sat in the trike all set to launch. DeRongo shuffled around nervously, standing next to Melvin and adjusting his headgear, while Jonesy sat in his chair under a beach umbrella and sucked on a Bud.
They didn’t have to wait very long. Suddenly, someone in the huge crowd screamed out at the top of their voice, ‘There’s one of em!’ He pointed into the sky in a northerly direction. Everyone looked that way. In one second, 300,000 fingers rose above the sea of heads and pointed in the direction of a small, polished-silver, almond-shaped disc silently descending from the north and heading directly towards them. Some people were struck mute, some laughed and many cried, while others, mainly the women, began screaming.
Ludwig and his crew were all wired up with communication headgear. He calmly directed,
‘Action, Melv. Dialogue, Dirk.’
Melvin began capturing dramatic footage as DeRongo kicked off a running, highoctane commentary of the spectacular event.
The UFO flew slowly and glided in over the gridlocked freeway. It kept descending as it crossed Flaming Gorge Way, in downtown Green River, then the railway line and finally the river. There were oohs and ahhs and gasps as the UFO silently passed no more than 100 feet above the heads of the crowd gathered in Stratton Meyer Park.
‘Hold it, hold it, boys,’ said Ludwig, ‘let’s not jump the gun. Keep shooting, Melv, let’s see what they do first.’
Everyone was wound up like a spring.
The beautiful spaceship glided right over their heads then turned east and flew low over the river again, low over the army contingent on the other side, then up the west side of the butte upon which the UFOs landed every year.
‘OK, into the chopper, boys,’ instructed Ludwig. ‘Get airborne, Cowboy, and give us a good show, eh.’
Ludwig, DeRongo and Melvin jumped into the chopper. Melvin kept recording through the open, side door and DeRongo kept documenting as the sleek and powerful Bell 525 launched in a cloud of rotor dust. Cowboy pressed record on his GoPro helmetcam and fired up the trike motor. As soon as the chopper was clear, he roared out of the clearing and pitched up into a steep climb-out.
By now, the crowd in the Park was going completely nuts. The saucer rose to the top of the butte and settled into a hover about a foot above the ground, right on the edge where everyone below could see it. A panel opened underneath and a man stepped out.
He looked like a normal person dressed like a surfer.
The media were caught slightly off guard, but they quickly organised themselves and took to the air in their own helicopters.
Ace was first on the scene. He rose above the top of the butte and settled into a hover about 300 feet out and level with the landed UFO. Cowboy flew into the scene next, right in front of the alien standing on the edge of the butte. They were visible to everyone down below. Melvin’s camera rolled while DeRongo delivered a riveting commentary.
‘This is incredible, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time in eight years that we actually get a good look at the alien … and he’s human! He looks like, dare I say it folks, a beach bum.’
As the media helicopters appeared on the scene, Ace cleverly manoeuvred the Bell 525 in such a way as to keep them away from the prime shooting position, right in front of the butte. They didn’t call him Ace for nothing.
Cowboy began doing lazy 360s just above the alien’s head. He waved to the alien and the alien waved back. Melvin ground out the hi-def footage while DeRongo barely managed to get a breath in between the words, when suddenly, faster than suddenly, an all-black, completely unmarked helicopter dropped out of the sky like a stone and parked itself between the Bell 525 and the alien spaceship. Ace screamed out excitedly, ‘Whoah! Where did that thing come from?’ ‘What the hell, Ace?’ exclaimed Ludwig.
Suddenly they noticed the side doors of the black menace open and two men dressed in all black, including balaclavas, point assault rifles at Ace and his crew. One of the men gestured with his finger that he wanted them to fly away.
‘Shit, Ludwig, they got guns pointed at us!’ exclaimed Ace at the top of his voice. ‘I think they want us to clear out.’
‘Fuck that!’ responded Ludwig. ‘Hold station, Ace! Keep recording, Melv, and you keep talking, Dirk!’
DeRongo’s mouth was going off like a Gatling gun.
When it was clear that the Bell 525 wasn’t moving, two bullets pinged off the Lexan windscreen right in front of Ace’s face.
‘Jesus H, Ludwig, they’re shootin real bullets at us. I’m gettin outa here.’
‘OK, Ace, back up a quarter mile.’
As they backed away from the butte, two more matt-black helicopters flew into the scene and proceeded to chase away the media helicopters. Cowboy, who saw the whole drama unfold above him, banked west, flew over the edge of the butte, pulled up into an extreme stall then pitched forward into a near vertical dive down the front of the west face of the butte. He dove out of the sky under full throttle and didn’t pull out until he nearly hit the deck at the base of the hill. He raced across the river and landed back in the clearing behind the house. He jumped out of the trike, stumbled over to Jonesy and yelped,
‘Jonesy, I need ya to roll me one of them doobies right now, buddy, before I crap my pants.’
Jonesy put his beer down and retrieved a small, red, antique Buckhorn Tobacco tin from a shoulder bag that hung off the back of his chair. As he rolled the joint, he commented,
‘Man, that was some of the best trike flyin I ever seen, Cowboy.’
Snake hurried over and asked,
‘What the hell’s goin on up there?’
‘Some kind of black ops gettin in the act, Snake. They’re forcin everyone out of the sky.’
‘I hope Ludwig’s gettin it all,’ replied Snake.
The three, black helicopters established a perimeter keeping everyone else out.
DeRongo described the dramatic events as they unfolded.
‘These guys mean business, folks, they shot at us using real bullets.’
The 300,000 witnesses in the Park stood as one in a stunned silence.
When the airspace around the UFO was cleared, two more black helicopters came flying low out of the east, from between two mesas. There was a smaller one and a much larger one. The smaller one came to a hover about 50 feet above the alien and three men, dressed in all-black, slid down ropes and surrounded him. The alien didn’t appear to try to escape. A cable with a harness attached to the end of it was lowered and the three black men secured it to the alien’s body. Within sixty seconds, the alien was winched up into the helicopter and flown away.
Many people in the crowd screamed, many cried and some yelled out, ‘They’ve got the alien. They’re taking him away. Noooooo …’
As soon as the smaller helicopter flew away with the alien, the larger one moved in and came to a hover about 100 feet above the space ship. It lowered what looked like a suitcase-sized package to about ten feet above the silver disc. When the package was in position it exploded and changed into a large, circular net, the sides of which ended up hanging down past the edge of the disc. The three black men, still on the ground, secured the bottom of the net around the spaceship and stood back. The big helicopter lifted into the sky carrying its intergalactic cargo beneath it. The last time anyone saw the UFO was when it disappeared behind a mesa as it was being flown away to the east hanging under the huge, black helicopter.
One of the three remaining black helicopters flew down, landed on top of the butte and picked up the three black men. It then re-launched into the sky and was immediately joined by the other two. They all flew away, at rapid speed, in the same direction as the first two helicopters, and disappeared.
7
‘What do you think the most attractive thing about life is, Dawes?’
‘Do you mean human life, or life in general, alien?’
‘I mean human life.’
‘That’s easy. A good whore.’
‘Why is it that you don’t surprise me, Dawes?’
‘Life’s too short for bullshit, that’s why.’
‘What about love?’
‘Love is a myth.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, big time. So, you think it’s love?’
‘Not exactly. Actually, I think the best thing about life is death.’
‘Wow, I didn’t expect you to say that. Why?’
‘Because it is the thing that makes life so exciting.’
‘How so?’
‘You like your job, don’t you, Dawes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Could it be the occasional brush with death that is the drug?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Like the sweetest meat is closest to the bone, the sweetest life is closest to death?’
‘I get your point.’
‘Not completely, but you will soon enough.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Why don’t you ask me some more questions? I think your superiors, who are spying on us, are becoming impatient.’
‘OK, so you say you came from Andromeda. We find that very hard to believe seeing as it is two million light years away.’
‘I sailed here on gravity at the speed of light squared.’
‘Er, OK, whatever that means.’
‘It means no engine and no fuel, Dawes.’
‘Yeah, OK, right.’
‘I know that you have been chasing our technology for decades, and that you’ve been harassing some friends of mine back in Australia for years, but let me assure you, even if I wanted to give you our technology, which I’m indecisive about, it would be like giving a computer to a monkey.’
A wave of anger flushed through Dawes. He raged at the alien, who was tightly bound to a chair with his hands cuffed behind his back, stepped up to him, made a fist and swung at his face. Before Dawes’ fist could make contact with the alien’s cheekbone, he collapsed unconscious on the floor in front of him.
A door burst open into the featureless room. Pike and Slaughter bounded in followed by two, armed guards. Slaughter angrily asked,
‘What the fuck happened to Dawes?’
‘We were having a nice chat and in the middle of it he decided to take a nap.’
Slaughter glared at the alien then ordered the guards to,
‘Pick him up!’
Dawes was beginning to wake up as the two burly guards picked him up off the floor and sat him on a chair. Pike asked him,
‘Are you all right, Dawes?’
‘Bl mlabl glubl muglablu …’
‘What did he say?’ asked Slaughter.
‘Do you want to repeat that, Dawes,’ said Pike.
‘Glabl bundlab glbadglabl.’
One of the guards noticed,
‘Look, sir, he has urinated in his trousers.’
This was followed by Slaughter exclaiming,
‘What is that fucking smell? Has he crapped himself as well?’ Pike checked.
‘Er, yes sir, big time. He’s a mess down there.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ exclaimed Slaughter, ‘get him out of here and take him to the ER … and check his pill box while you are at it.’
The guards dragged Dawes out of the room. He kept blabbering like a baby. Unbeknownst to all but Iapetus, his brain had been completely short-circuited by telepathic means. Essentially, all his memory was erased in an instant and he became like a newborn babe. To live independently again, he would have to re-learn everything from scratch. Iapetus was tempted to say, ‘he’ll be wanting his mommy,’ but he held his tongue and just sat there like he didn’t have the faintest idea about anything that was going on. For a moment, there was just Slaughter and the alien in the room.
‘You smartass freak, I don’t know what you’ve done to Dawes, but be sure of one thing, your ass is mine now, and you will talk … and then you will die. How soon that happens totally depends on you and on what you tell me.’
‘Death is certain for us all.’
‘That may well be, but rest assured that we specialise in the most creative methods. I urge you to be as co-operative as possible because you do not want to get me angry. Dawes was the good cop, freak. We also have a man called Ivanovich, who’s the bad cop, and he has a whole suitcase full of, er, instruments, designed to help you sing like a canary.’ Pike returned into the room.
‘Sir, I checked Dawes’ pill box and his medication is up to date.’
‘Hmm, so it wasn’t that. I keep thinking that the freak here had something to do with it.’
Iapetus looked at the two men,
‘I am bound and handcuffed, how could I do anything?’
‘Shut the fuck up, freak!’
‘I thought you wanted me to sing like a canary.’
‘You smartass piece of shit, we have your ship and you are stranded here. You will tell us how your ship flies, one way or another.’
‘I never said I wouldn’t.’ There was a pause. After a few moments, Iapetus looked directly into Pike and Slaughter’s eyes and said, ‘You have been harassing my friends in Australia for many years. That is part of the reason why I’m here. Do you mind telling me; how are all your spy goons faring anyway?’
Pike placed his arm in front of Slaughter to temper his anger and replied,
‘I suspect that you are fully aware that they are all dead. They have all been involved in fatal accidents of various kinds. Three of them wrapped their cars around telegraph poles, two of them fell from their hotel balconies, one drowned in a pool, one got hit by a bus, one got mugged by a bunch of thugs, one got bitten by a poisonous spider and one of them, our special agent, Drek, choked to death on a French fry.’ ‘What an unfortunate set of circumstances,’ replied Iapetus.
‘Let me kill him, Pike,’ Slaughter insisted.
‘Sir, he has indicated that he is willing to co-operate and explain his technology.’
‘Sure I am, why not?’ said Iapetus. ‘But you have to take me to my ship for that, although let me assure you, like I tried to explain to Dawes, it won’t do you any good.’ ‘Let us be the judge of that, freak,’ snarled Slaughter.
Slaughter and Pike stepped outside the room for a few minutes.
‘So, what do you think, Pike?’
‘Well, sir, it’s hard to know what he is capable of. We have his ship in a hangar at the power station. Apparently, it’s just floating there and no one can find a way into it. It has no seams or joins and is seemingly impervious to drills and torches. Bullets just hit it and fall to the floor. If we raise it or lower it, it just stays at whatever altitude we set it at. I think that we are going to need the alien’s help to get into it.’