The Confrontation

Jim Sullivan, his mind a tempest of bewildering images and impossible truths, finally allowed his body the luxury of collapsing onto one of Philip’s plush, dark blue couches. The day’s accumulated weight, physical and metaphysical, pressed down upon him. From this comfortable, yet now profoundly unsettling, vantage point within Philip’s technological sanctuary, Jim recounted everything that had transpired since the bewildering dawn: the impossible girl, the vanishing man, the amorganon, and the mesmerizing, terrifying clarity of the Anaphero.

“We need to learn more about this John Smith and his girlfriend, Samantha,” Jim articulated, his voice raspy from the relentless intake of the impossible. Philip, a blur of motion at his console, merely nodded, his fingers dancing across keyboards. Within minutes, the rhythmic hum of Philip’s high-speed printer began, churning out page upon page of data, a relentless deluge of information. It swelled into a tome, the size of a substantial book, by the time the machine finally fell silent. The raw data laid bare a profile: John Smith was a Vice President of a company called Verna Tech. He was an Iraq war veteran, a Green Beret, a graduate of the Citadel—a military university, akin in spirit and discipline to the West Point Academy.

“Nothing to be worried about,” Jim mused aloud, a wry, self-deprecating smile touching his lips. “I was a Vietnam veteran myself, so we have something in common. Hopefully, that’ll give me an edge when I get him cornered.” Jim’s resolve hardened. He was going to find out what was truly going on, whatever it took, whatever realities he had to unravel.

The trail was warm, radiating an almost palpable heat. He wasn’t about to let it cool. John Smith’s contact information lay before him, a simple, direct path. The best approach, Jim reasoned, would be precisely that: direct. Call him.

His call went straight to voicemail, a sterile, impersonal barrier. Jim left a message, his voice measured, professional, yet imbued with an unmistakable undercurrent of urgency: “John, this is Jim Sullivan. I’m a reporter for the Las Vegas Desert, and I have a few questions concerning your… unusual appearance and subsequent disappearance this morning at the police station. Please call me as soon as you can. I intend to run this story in the morning if I don’t hear from you.” It was a promise, and a subtle threat, designed to compel a response.

“It looks as though this Verna Tech has some pretty deep military contracts with the government,” Philip commented, his eyes still glued to a monitor displaying complex schematics. “But this just doesn’t make any sense. Like you said, Jim, this is alien-kind-of-stuff. Not something our government, or any government on Earth, would be capable of.” His voice held a note of profound, almost religious awe.

“I haven’t told you much,” Philip continued, his gaze finally lifting to meet Jim’s, “well, nothing, about my government work. But I can tell you this, Jim: I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Things that would make the average person question their sanity. And nothing—absolutely nothing—compares to this stuff. Look at this movie, the angle of the cameras, the sheer, impossible quality. These pictures were taken from a satellite, no, many satellites, and believe me, there is no satellite orbiting Earth right now that can take these kinds of images.”

Philip replayed the video of the abduction, stopping it at the exact moment the van began to pull away with Kerry inside. “Look at this,” he urged, his voice hushed with wonder. “You can walk right into the van.” Jim, mesmerized, felt the familiar disorientation of the Anaphero as their perspective shifted. Sure enough, they were inside the van, ghosts among the terrifying reality. “Look at the detail,” Philip continued, pointing to the interior of the vehicle, “there had to be cameras inside the van, man. But look—there aren’t any cameras. It’s impossible!” Philip’s excitement was palpable, a tremor of profound realization. “It means the satellites that recorded this could see through the walls of the van.” He fast-forwarded to the chilling conclusion. “Look here. We’re inside this guy’s garage, and the garage door is shut. This isn’t a story anymore, Jim. Forget you’re a reporter. This is bigger than us. Bigger than a news story. Bigger even than anything we can possibly imagine.”

“Have you… have you figured this out yet, Phil?” Jim asked, his voice low, his mind racing to keep pace with Philip’s accelerating thoughts.

“What do you mean, Phil?”

“I mean this isn’t just a picture of this one event,” Philip explained, his eyes fixed on the impossible data. “This was put together after the event. No one could have known that this event was going to take place in real-time. This guy, John Smith, somehow heard about the abduction. Then, he somehow rescued this girl. And then, he compiled this video. The only way he could do this was from a database that already had this footage. Which means… someone or something is recording everything.”

“What do you mean, everything?” Jim whispered, the words forming a cold knot in his stomach.

Philip’s gaze met his, grave and utterly certain. “I mean everything in the world.”

“Keep a lid on this, Phil,” Jim commanded, his voice sharp with a sudden, protective urgency. “This could be potentially dangerous stuff we’ve stumbled upon. More than dangerous, it could be… terrifying. I’m going to go home and try to get a little shut-eye. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.”

“Sure, and you be careful, Jim.” Philip’s voice was uncharacteristically serious.

“I always am, Phil.” The words, a reporter’s creed, felt flimsy in the face of what they had just seen.

On his way home, the silence of his car filled with the impossible echoes of the day, Jim realized with a jolt that he had forgotten to get a copy of the video from Philip. He barely had time to register the oversight when, suddenly, a sharp beep emanated from his smartphone. A new email message appeared on the screen. Sure enough, it was from Phil, with the video attached. Philip, ever the hyper-efficient digital savant, never missed a beat.

He had been back home for only a few minutes, the familiar confines of his apartment a strange comfort, when his phone rang. It was a return call from John Smith. Okay, Jim thought, a familiar thrill mixed with trepidation, keep calm. Don’t be threatening. Let him talk.

“Hello, John, thanks for returning my call,” Jim said, his voice as steady as he could make it.

“Hello, Jim,” John Smith replied, his voice calm, measured. “How much did you see?”

“I saw everything, John,” Jim answered, his words precise, deliberate. “I saw you appear and disappear. I saw Kerry appear out of nowhere. And I saw the… the hologram of the entire abduction. What’s going on, John?”

A pause stretched between them, heavy with unspoken implications. “Please, Jim,” John’s voice finally came, earnest, urgent. “Don’t run your story. Give me some time, and I’ll explain everything. I can tell you this much right now: This is the biggest, most unbelievable event that has ever happened. This will rock—no, it will destroy—the very foundation of human society. We will never be the same again, Jim.”

“I will give you not only an an exclusive,” John continued, his words gaining a quiet, profound conviction, “but I will personally show you everything, just as soon as possible. Give me a day or so to collect myself. I only stumbled upon this myself today, and I need some time to figure out what I’m going to do. What do you say? Will you keep it capped for now?”

Jim took a long, deliberate pause. The magnitude of what John was offering, and the sheer impossibility of what he was hinting at, settled over him. This wasn’t just a scoop; it was an earthquake. Finally, he spoke. “Okay, John. I’ll plug it. But… I will hear from you soon, though?”

“Yes,” John affirmed, his voice resolute. “As soon as possible, but certainly no later than the day after tomorrow.”

“Be careful!” Jim urged, the words a genuine plea.

“Thanks, Jim. Bye!”

My boss, Max Coulter, was more than a little impatient when I finally called him. His voice, when he picked up, was a low growl of frustration.

“I’m sending you over the abduction story as we speak, Max,” I said, knowing my excuse was thin. “Sorry, it’s a bit late.”

“A bit late, my ass, Jim!” Max exploded, his impatience evident. “The story’s everywhere else but here, at the Desert. All the other news outlets have been discussing it since this morning.”

“Well, sure they are,” I countered, a knowing confidence in my voice. “But then, they don’t have the whole story either, my friend. There is more to this than meets the eye. And, the story I just emailed to you will be a little different than the ones you’ve been hearing, so you’ll have one up on the rest of them.”

“I see that!” Max’s tone shifted, a flicker of curiosity overriding his annoyance. “What’s this attachment that you say not to open?”

“I think it would be best if you wait until the morning when I get there,” I replied, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “I’ll explain then.”

“Too late,” Max chuckled, a strange note of wonder in his voice. “I already opened it. This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. I’m in the middle of a movie. How on earth did you do this?”

“Look, Max,” I said, exhaustion finally creeping into my voice. “I promised to keep this quiet for 24 hours, so you can’t run it tomorrow. I’ll be in first thing in the morning to explain. I need sleep.”

“Okay, Jim, see you in the morning!” Max’s voice, for once, was genuinely intrigued rather than merely gruff.

Max Coulter, my old war buddy, was the major reason I had come out to the Desert. And in a world that had suddenly turned upside down, I knew, with absolute certainty, that I could trust him with my life.