—Dr. Franklin certainly thinks so. I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to disagree with her.
—I wouldn’t dare either. She’s very motherly. I can’t imagine what she’d be like if she were mad. I’m sure it’s not something I want to find out. She’s very nice. And she’s incredibly smart. She tries to dumb things down when she talks about what she does, but there’s still a lot I don’t really understand.
—That is why we chose her. How are things in the laboratory? Is everyone getting along?
—Yes, sir. Dr. Franklin is in a great mood. Kara—sorry, Chief Resnik—and her, they get along great. It’s hard to tell at first, but they’re a lot alike. They have completely different manners but they both have that drive, that sense of purpose. I think they even look alike, when you get a good look at them together, like sisters, or cousins. They have the same dark hair, the same intense stare. They seemed to make a connection right away.
—I was told Mr. Couture has arrived.
—The linguist? Yes, he showed up. Some cocky French-speaking kid from Montreal. Vincent, I think that’s his name.
—Have you two had a chance to interact?
—Not really, we don’t see much of him. They moved the panels to another room; that’s where he spends most of his time. They say he’s real smart. I thought he would have a French accent, but it’s nothing like I imagined. He sounds…German, or something.
—He is Québécois, not French.
—I know where he’s from. I just thought they spoke, you know, French. He sounds funny when he speaks any language, actually. Dr. Franklin has him speak to her in French. She says she never gets to practice. Even Kara gets a word in here and there. I think I’m the only one who can’t understand anything he says.
—It sounds like you do not really like him.
—I wouldn’t go that far. We’re just very different people. He reminds me of the kids we used to pick on in high school. I don’t like to think about that.
—You are not proud of the way you treated people as a teenager? You do not strike me as someone who would take pleasure in bullying others.
—Well, it’s not like I beat up or tortured anyone, but I wanted to fit in as much as the other kids. Football team…you know how it is.
—I do not.
—The guys on the team used to make jokes about kids that were less athletic. They would pick on them in the hallways, any chance they got. I was smart enough to know it was wrong, but not brave enough to stop them. I didn’t stand up for the weaker kids and maybe I should have.
—You were a teenager yourself. It seems unfair to judge your actions through the eyes of an adult.
—Maybe. Look, I don’t lose any sleep over it. You just asked why I don’t…I thought it might…It doesn’t matter. I’m sure we’ll get along fine once I get to know him. Can I ask you a question?
—Certainly.
—Why are we doing this?
—Do you believe that artifacts left on Earth by an ancient alien civilization are not worthy of our attention?
—No, I mean why are we doing this? I understand how amazing this is, and I can see why Rose is on board, but why is the military involved?
—First of all, the military is not. As far as the Army is concerned, you and Ms. Resnik are on a training assignment. But to answer your question, I feel a discovery of this magnitude might have repercussions that the scientific community is not best suited to handle. You saw what happened in Turkey. We needed crowd control, an extraction team, someone to handle the local authorities. I feel these are all things best accomplished by people with military training.
—Do you think what we’re after has military applications?
—That is not my primary concern. I do believe we might learn something—a lot, actually—from this discovery. Whether what we learn is of military interest or not, only time will tell. I am absolutely certain, however, that this project has a better chance of success with you and Ms. Resnik on board.
—Thank you, sir. I just don’t wanna find out I was part of someone’s secret agenda.
—Do you think I would tell you if you were?
—Probably not.
—Then rest assured, Mr. Mitchell, we are all in this for the greater good.
FILE NO. 031
PERSONAL JOURNAL ENTRY—CW3 KARA RESNIK, UNITED STATES ARMY
We killed a child today. We killed a little girl!
We should have seen this coming. It was bound to happen at some point. The highway should have been a wake-up call, but we were so caught up in finding the next piece. It’s easy to forget that when these things were buried, there was basically nothing around, just woods and plains. It was just pure luck that we found the first four pieces where we did. And now that little girl’s dead! They’re all dead!
We were so happy. We were making good progress, moving through our grid faster than we had planned.
It was such a beautiful day too. I got up earlier than usual and made it to the lab early in the morning. Since we fly at night, we never really get to spend time with Dr. Franklin or anyone else at the lab. But they were all there and we got to talk for a few hours, swapping anecdotes, learning about one another’s work.
Mitchell and I left around 10:30. We drove over to the base to prepare our flight plan. We flew straight to Nellis Air Force Base, near Las Vegas. My eye didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it gets watery after a few hours. It’s not so bad at night, but this was a long trip during daylight and it had me worried a bit.
We slept for a couple hours when we got to Nellis, then we took off again. We had to cover the northern part of Arizona. This was the farthest we’d gotten from the base. It was a long day, but we were excited to fly over the Grand Canyon, neither of us had ever seen it. We wouldn’t really see anything at night, from this altitude, but it still felt good, like a layover in Paris. You never leave the airport, but even so, you’re in Paris.
Our flight was uneventful, right up until the end. We were heading west near the south edge of the Grand Canyon when I noticed some lights flickering to my left. This was different from the other times we found a body part. There was a patch of white lights. It was there before but neither Mitchell nor I had been paying any attention to it. There was a turquoise spot right in the middle of it, and lights flickering all around. I’ve been in Iraq. This looked like someone had dropped a bomb in the middle of town. I looked at our map. It was Flagstaff.
I dove down and headed south toward the turquoise spot. As we drew closer, we got a bird’s-eye view of the damage. The piece—from above, it looked like an upper arm—had obliterated a whole city block. Some houses on the edge had been torn in half. There were electric poles down; sparks were flying everywhere. A lot of the remaining houses were on fire.
I landed in a restaurant parking lot, about three blocks away. We started running toward the flames. Several people wearing next to nothing were running the other way. It was chaos. The fire department hadn’t arrived yet, neither had our recovery team. A few people were fortunate enough to get out of their homes in time to see them reduced to nothing. They were running in the streets, trying to avoid fallen electric lines. I could see the telltale glow coming from a large crater where two large houses used to stand.
A woman in her nightgown ran out of nowhere and latched on to me, screaming, “Amy! Amy!” She kept screaming her name, pulling me by the arm toward the edge of the crater. “She was in her room! Amy was in her room!”