Desertion

Jim Sullivan, a creature of habit honed by decades of relentless deadlines, typically awoke with the precision of an internal alarm clock at 6:00 AM. But this morning, the soft, encroaching light of dawn found him already stirring, pulled from the shallows of a restless sleep. The events of the previous day, a kaleidoscope of the impossible, had prevented any true, deep slumber. By 5:00 AM, the city still cloaked in the pre-dawn hush, he was up and out the door, the chill morning air a crisp counterpoint to the fire in his mind. Yesterday had been exhilarating, bewildering, terrifying; today, he knew, felt like the beginning of an entirely new existence.

For his entire life, Jim had harbored a quiet, unwavering conviction: there had to be intelligent alien life beyond Earth. It simply defied all logical probability, mocked any mundane explanation. With hundreds of billions of stars glittering in each colossal galaxy, and hundreds of billions of galaxies stretching into the unfathomable cosmic dark, how could there not be other intelligences? It was an intuitive truth. And now, after the impossible occurrences of the past twenty-four hours, that conviction had solidified into an absolute certainty.

Max Coulter, his old war buddy and the grizzled editor of the Las Vegas Desert, was, predictably, always at work before anyone else. Sure enough, the faint glow of his office light cut through the dimness of the newsroom as Jim arrived. Max was already hunched over his desk, a cup of steaming coffee his silent sentinel.

“You’re early this morning,” Max grumbled, his voice a low, gravelly rumble, as Jim walked into his office.

“I just couldn’t sleep, Max,” Jim replied, the words brimming with an almost manic energy. “This is a big story, Max. Bigger than a story; it’s going to change our lives forever. It’s going to change everything.”

Max took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee, his gaze unreadable. “Well,” he finally drawled, his voice a surprising calm amidst Jim’s fervor, “you better sit down. The clip is gone.”

“What?” Jim’s exhilaration evaporated, replaced by a sudden, icy dread.

“Disappeared,” Max clarified, his voice flat. “Deleted. Not on my computer anymore.”

Jim’s hand instinctively flew to his smartphone, his thumb swiping, searching. Sure enough, the attached video from Philip was gone. Vanished. “Give me a minute,” Jim muttered, his mind already racing, dismissing the impossibility. “I’m sure Phil will have it.” He knew Philip’s meticulous ways, his digital fortress of backups.

He called Philip, who picked up immediately, his voice a little groggy but present. Philip was a creature of the night, rarely touched by the sun, his sleep schedule a chaotic mosaic of naps and late-night coding binges. Sleep was merely a suggestion to Philip, not a command. “Phil, my hologram recording is gone; can you send me another copy?” Jim asked, trying to keep the tremor from his voice.

“Well, I would, Jim,” Philip replied, a strange, bewildered tone in his voice that Jim had never heard before, “but mine is gone as well. In fact, about 1:00 AM this morning, I was replaying the recording for the umpteenth time—still trying to figure out how it worked, you know—and in a flash, it just… disappeared. It was nothing I had any control over. It was just gone. I even checked Detective Murphy’s email account. It’s gone from there too.” Philip’s voice rose, a note of almost terrified awe entering it. “I even had copies made on an external hard drive. And my personal mini USB drive that wasn’t even attached to my computer. It’s impossible, Jim. All the copies are gone. Not a trace. It’s as though they never existed.”

A cold certainty settled over Jim. “Okay, Phil,” he said, his voice quiet, filled with a grim understanding. “I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up. “Thank goodness, Max,” Jim said, turning back to his editor, the words tasting like ash in his mouth, “you opened it last night, or you would think I’m hallucinating.”

Max, for his part, merely stared at him, his initial dismissiveness fading, replaced by a deep, troubled frown.

“I know this is going to sound out of this world, Max,” Jim began, choosing his words carefully, the reality of the situation beyond anything he’d ever reported, “but I really think we’re dealing with alien technology here.”

Max snorted, a familiar, skeptical sound. “Not that again, Jim! You and your imagination! Ha!” But the laughter was hollow, lacked its usual conviction.

“This is different!” Jim insisted, his voice rising, imbued with the certainty of direct experience. “You saw the hologram, Max. You saw how easily it disappeared from your computer. No one on this planet, no government, no secret lab, has the technology to do any of what I’ve witnessed in the past twenty-four hours. This isn’t imagination; this is irrefutable.”

Max rubbed his jaw, his gaze distant, processing. “Okay,” he finally conceded, his voice grudging. “It does sound a little strange. I’ll give you that. So, what do we do with the story? Do we run it as is? About the abduction?”

“No,” Jim replied, a profound sense of revelation settling over him. He thought of John Smith’s warning, his solemn promise of an exclusive. “I promised this John Smith I would wait, and I think he just made sure of that. My guess is, he had something to do with this recording being deleted. He just made sure I had no evidence to break my word with.” Jim ran a hand through his hair. “I need some time. I’ll get back to you when I have more.”