“It’s been attempted,” Justine said, avoiding our eyes and studying her hands.
Another cagey answer. I couldn’t get much from her thoughts, but I could put pieces together from the obvious gaps in her answers. “Meaning either you lack sufficiently advanced technology to speak to them, or they lack sufficient interest in hearing you.”
“Us,” Justine emphasized, pointing first at herself and then at me. “Remember, you were born here. You are as much one of us.” She nodded fiercely, as if confirming the answer to an unspoken question.
I sat back, startled. Her approach was the exact opposite of Dr. Jacobs’s, who had sought to make it very clear that even a little alien-ness invalidated my humanity, made me lesser.
“But I’m not quite one of you, or else I wouldn’t be useful for whatever it is you need, right?” I asked. She wanted me, specifically me, for something, and whatever it was, she’d gone through a lot of trouble—and possibly a lot of money—to get to me. Another thought occurred to me belatedly. “Why didn’t you just ask Dr. Jacobs about me? I’m sure he would have been happy to sell to the highest bidder.”
She shook her head. “This is an off-the-books operation. We can’t have any record of it for the DOD to find, for anyone to find.” She paused. “And as I’m sure you are aware, Dr. Jacobs is far too interested in public accolades and fanfare. We couldn’t take the chance of trusting him.”
“Because if it blows up right now, it’s officially the DOD’s project and it’ll be the other guys’ responsibility,” I said, finally getting it.
She nodded. “Exactly.”
“Wait, wait.” Zane held up his hands, stopping the conversation. “I have a question. About the…about them. If they’ve been coming here, looking for Ford, Carter, and Ariane, how did they know where to find them? And what’s in Phoenix?” He paused. “Or should I say, who?”
A secondary lab, a beta site with a backup copy of the research, including one or more hybrids? It wasn’t unrealistic that Laughlin or Jacobs would take that precaution, though this was the first I’d heard of it.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Justine hedged.
“Of course it is,” I muttered.
“What I told you earlier was correct,” Justine said. “The technology recovered from the desert—”
“Roswell,” I snapped, suddenly weary of her circumspection. It felt like another polite term to cover up an ugly truth. Like saying, “Native American Relocation program” instead of “rampant colonization and displacement and abuse of an indigenous people.” Or “economically advantageous labor force” instead of “slaves.”
“Just say it,” I said to Justine. “Roswell.”
“Fine,” she said evenly. “The technology recovered from Roswell has a genetic component,” she said. “From what we can tell, it would likely form a connection with individuals from that background, for control, communication, everything. Our scientists are hypothesizing that it’s related to the way their society is structured. In the same way we might use voice command with our phones or cars, these vehicles are likely responsive to telepathy.”
Because that is their…our…the primary mode of communication. It made sense. They created their tech to meet their needs. Humans have buttons on their phones because they have long, skinny digits that can push the designated numbers. If they’d had tentacles instead, the tech would have developed in some other way to accommodate that physicality.
“In any case, that genetic portion of the technology is likely detecting Ariane and the others. A specific brain wave pattern or some genetic kind of marker that their ship has programmed to pick up.” She sighed. “We aren’t sure. It might be that they’re searching for those who were lost all those years ago, or it might just be chance.”
“And Phoenix?” I asked, still envisioning a lab underneath the desert sands, another pale-skinned, white-haired child stuck behind a glass wall. Alone.
Justine tugged her sleeves down, absurdly interested in the evenness of sweatshirt cuffs. “A storage facility.”
I gave a sharp laugh. “What, no Area Fifty-One?”
“That’s DOD territory,” she said. “Not us.” She shook her head. “We presume that something within the wreckage may still be active in some way, though no one here has been able to detect it. It may be, again, that telepathic component.”
I eyed her carefully, searching for the telltale signs of deception. She spoke clearly, concisely, and without hesitation. She was uncomfortable at times, but nothing indicated that she was lying. Then again she would be better at it than most, wouldn’t she?
“Everything you’ve shown me could have been easily falsified,” I said, nodding my head toward the folder. “Created to convince me for your own purposes.”
Justine raised her eyebrows. “You want proof?”