“Let’s get back to their interventions in human minds,” said the colonel. “Tell us more about these.”
“At first, they mostly tried to influence dictators and psychopaths to get them to destroy the world. But these were obvious targets already on our priority lists, ones we were continuously monitoring. So we were able to easily thwart their efforts every time.
“Because of this, they changed gears. They began to focus on relatively inconsequential humans who weren’t on our radar. We still keep tabs on millions of key people, as I’ve said, but none of them have been tampered with since the late fifties. Which makes sense. The effort required for the Swarm to exert influence at this distance, even given quantum considerations, is enormous. So rather than waste it on targets obvious to us, they came up with a more subtle plan, one we have no way of stopping.”
“Which is?” I prompted.
“They excel at invoking complex dream states during sleep. Nightmares, actually. Barely remembered in many cases, but terrifying, traumatic. These don’t impel desired actions, but they get the victims to feel certain emotions.”
“Like what?” asked Tessa.
“Like panic. Fear. Distrust.”
“Of what?” I said. “Or whom?”
Nari blew out a long breath. “Of Federation leaders,” he replied. “My people in particular. Because we’re leading the Earth expedition. They’re trying to make sure humanity has an almost instinctive distrust of us. They want us discredited, feared. They’re playing the long game, and they’ve done an admirable job of boxing us into a corner.”
“I still don’t get it,” said Tessa.
“They’ve been creating horrifying hallucinations and nightmares, starting in 1961. Implanting hazy memories in various people around the world. Memories of being abducted and experimented upon. By us. Of undergoing horrifying and invasive medical procedures, and psychological ones as well. We come across as sinister, enigmatic, uncaring—even evil. It’s a false flag operation, and they’ve been successful. Stories of these abductions have become part of your cultural zeitgeist. Ingrained.”
“I don’t remember any abduction stories involving aliens who look like you,” said Brad.
“Precisely,” said Nari.
My jaw dropped open as everything suddenly became crystal clear. The Swarm had begun this frame-job in 1961, which was long before the aliens had made first contact with Damian Spooner.
“I get it now,” I said. “Most of these abductions have reportedly been perpetrated by a species now known as the Grays. Small gray humanoids with smooth skin, large, hairless heads, and big black eyes. That’s who you actually are, isn’t it, Nari?”
The alien nodded somberly.
“So they did box you in,” I said, impressed with the Swarm’s plan, despite myself. “After these mind-implanted abductions became common knowledge, you couldn’t make first contact as yourselves. They had already sown too much distrust.”
“That’s right,” said Nari miserably. “They poisoned the image of our entire species. So Michelle was correct in saying we don’t look like the form you see in front of you.”
“And she was right about something else,” I said. “Something I thought would never make sense. But it does. You really shouldn’t be called the Rho. Because you don’t really hail from Rho Cancri. You’re really from Zeta Reticuli, which is also about forty light years away from Earth.”
“We are,” said Nari. “The Swarm made sure our home star system became part of your lore also. The Grays from Zeta Reticuli, a truth they managed to turn toxic. They framed us for abductions we didn’t commit. Abductions that didn’t happen, but were implanted in victims’ minds. We had no choice but to lie. If we made first contact as ourselves, it would end in disaster.”
“But you caught their strategy in time,” said Tessa.
“Yes, but eventually our true appearance and origin will become known to all of humanity. And then it will be much worse. Not only are we the famed Grays of nightmares, which few will believe were implanted in human brains by our enemy, but we’ve been purposely pretending otherwise since the very beginning. Talk about suspicious. So they’ve penned us in. If we didn’t catch their ploy, our first contact with you would have blown up. And even though we did, we were forced to begin the relationship with a big lie.”
I could see his predicament. And if this was his only lie, it would be easily forgivable.
But the actual number of omissions and mistruths were too high to count. Nari had told Brad that the Galactics knew nothing about these abductions, and suggested they were mass delusions. He had withheld vital information. Like the presence of the Swarm. Like their manipulations of human minds. And so much more.
Nari had done a spectacular job of providing compelling rationale for each and every mistruth, but collectively, the weight of these deceptions was bearing down on me like an elephant, crushing my ability to trust. And Nari’s greatest deception, at least as far as I was concerned, had yet to be discussed.
I thought back to what Nick Nicola had said about Tessa in the woods, and the entire scene flashed into my mind with perfect clarity.
I barely managed to stifle a gasp.
It was as if I was there again. As if I was watching everything I had seen at the time on a large monitor, frozen in place, as vivid as it was in real life. The same with sounds. And I realized I could play back my conversation with the captain as if it were a video recording. I could walk through an instant replay of everything we had said, word for word.
Not only that, but I could focus on things on the periphery of my vision and hearing I hadn’t focused on before. Insects clinging to nearby leaves in the darkness. The calls of owls off in the distance.