Truth Or Consequences

ANT/BPL

And Nothing But The Truth

Approx. 2000 words

Ben Lacy

It was past 9:00 PM when Professor Goldman walked into his office in the electrical engineering building on the UNLV campus. These days, the emeritus professor normally left by four, but twice a semester he gave an evening seminar on the mathematics of gambling. These talks had become extremely popular and he enjoyed giving them. So despite the hour, he was in an excellent mood. He just wanted to check his emails then he planned to head to the Riviera for a low priced supper buffet. Just as he was logging off the computer, a young man tapped on the door sill and stuck his head into the office. “Do you have a moment, sir?” he asked. The young man was very thin and pale. He had a scraggly goatee and short bleached hair. He was wearing ripped jeans and a tee shirt under a leather jacket that looked out of place in the desert heat of Vegas. Goldman didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t concern him; the kid was probably some slacker liberal arts major. His gambling seminars drew people from all over the campus. “Certainly, what can I do for you?” The young man walked up to the edge of Goldman’s desk. For a moment, he just stood there tapping one hand nervously to his leg, then, “My name is Tony Jacobs. I wanted to talk to you about your earlier work for the army in New Mexico?” Uh-oh, Goldman thought with a sinking feeling. He didn’t like where this was going. He decided to just wait silently for Tony to continue. “In 1947, you worked for the Army trying to detect fallout from Soviet nuclear weapons testing,” Tony stuttered as he tried to speak slowly. Goldman noticed that Tony could barely contain his excitement. “Then, just two years later, you moved to Nevada to work on weapons testing. You were assigned to Area 51.” He had not paused for breath once during his speech and finished with a gasp. Goldman looked at the young man for a long moment. He was too old for this kind of crap. “Look,” he sighed, “my specialty was the measurement of radiation. I went where the jobs were. There’s nothing mysterious about this. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Goldman picked up his briefcase and stepped out from behind his desk. Tony moved in front of him. “No sir, I’ve been researching this for a long time. You’re the missing link everyone’s been looking for. The only man living who was both at Roswell and at Area 51. You must know the truth.” Goldman felt his temper begin to rise. He remembered his doctor’s warning about his blood pressure and breathed deeply to calm himself before speaking, “Young man, you have exceeded the limits of my patience. Leave or I will call security.” He held his hand over the phone on his desk.

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“No sir,” Tony pulled a gun out of the leather coat, “I’ve driven all the way from Austin and I’m not leaving until I get some answers.” Goldman’s face drained of color. For a moment, he considered faking a heart attack, if he didn’t have one for real. Instead, he backed up to his chair and sat down. “Now, I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to ask you some questions and get some honest answers.” Goldman looked at a spot on the wall behind Tony’s head for nearly a minute. He considered telling Tony to go jump in a lake. Goldman was an old man, so what if the kid killed him? The truth though was that Goldman still liked living. Besides, Goldman thought with a smile, what harm would it do to give Tony what he really wanted.

In fact, there might be an opportunity to teach the young man a

valuable lesson. Goldman had always prided himself on his ability to provide instruction to young people. He stood. Tony stiffened and extended the gun. “All right young man, follow me.” Goldman walked around his desk, made a circle around Tony and headed for the door. “Where are we going?” “To what you want to see. It’ll be easier to show you than to tell you.” “All right, but don’t try anything. I’m not afraid to use this if I have to.” Tony shoved his gun in his coat pocket, keeping his hand on it. Goldman led them to the elevator. They went down and walked out of the building. When Goldman walked past the parking lot, Tony said, “Hey, how’re we getting there?” Goldman looked back at him, “We’re walking. It’s in the mechanical engineering building’s subbasement. Nobody would ever find it if they didn’t know what they were looking for.” The two men slowly walked across the campus. Tony was becoming more and more excited. He was starting to crowd close to Goldman, wanting him to go faster. This only annoyed Goldman more, “Young man,” Goldman admonished, “I’m 83 years old. You are just going to have to be patient.” Tony nodded and fell back. “I’m sorry. I really don’t want to hurt you.” “How nice,” Goldman responded a bit sarcastically. “Since we have this time together, I wonder if you could answer a question of mine?” “Sure.” Tony moved up to walk beside Goldman. “I’d like to know why you think we’d lie about an alien landing, now that the cold war is over anyway. I mean, what would our reason be, other than just plain meanness?” Goldman regretted the question as soon as he asked. From the look on Tony’s face, Goldman knew he’d be getting yet another damn conspiracy theory. “I’ve thought about that,” Tony began, “no offense, but I think it’s because guys like you want to take all the credit for all the new inventions alien science has brought about.” Goldman had to struggle to keep from slapping the kid. Instead, he looked away and picked up his pace. “Yeah, just look at all the Nobels I’ve won,” he grumbled.

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Goldman led them into a large four story building. They went down two flights of stairs, then came to a halt in front of a windowless steel door. Goldman fumbled in his pockets for a moment before pulling out a large ring of keys. After several tries, he found the right one. The door opened into a pitch black room. Goldman turned on the lights, then stepped aside and waved Tony inside. The room had been a rather large lab, but now it was used mainly to store old junk. The floor was cluttered with heavy machinery and benches stacked with tools. Goldman pointed to another door at the opposite end of the room. Tony threaded his way through the junk with some trepidation. Goldman watched Tony with some amusement; he knew exactly what was going through Tony’s mind. Goldman had brought him to a long abandoned lab. If something or someone was here, he might be the one in danger. He pulled his gun out of his coat and held it in front of him. Goldman dropped back; let the kid get a little more scared, Goldman thought. “It’s unlocked,” Goldman said. Tony reached for the door knob. Goldman decided that an obligatory warning was in order, “Mr. Jacobs, I should warn you, you may not like the truth when you find it.” Tony nodded. As Goldman had expected, Tony misunderstood the warning and released the safety off the gun as he opened the door. Inside, the room was empty except for a large, white sphere, maybe eight feet in diameter. Tony gasped. Barely conscious of it, he pulled off his jacket and dropped it to the floor. He carefully placed the gun on the jacket, all the time keeping his eyes on the sphere. He walked up and put his hands on it, then he placed his lips on the cool surface. He stood there with his eyes closed. Goldman eyed him with a cross between amusement and disdain. Tony was behaving exactly as expected. Better in fact, Goldman hadn’t dared hope that Tony would actually put the gun down. Slowly he made his way toward it. Tony’s moment of ecstasy passed and he began to examine the sphere. At first glance, the sphere had appeared to be perfectly round and of a pure white color. Tony could now see that it was actually pretty banged up. Scorch marks covered the thing. Some of the white stuff had chipped away exposing the metal underneath. Tony began circling it, sweeping his hands along the surface as he moved. A quarter way around, he came to lettering. It was still visible; more importantly, he could read it. “Transport pod, UCS Champion. Constructed June 23, 3452 at Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia?” he read. “I don’t understand?” “Its very simple, Mr. Jacobs. It isn’t an alien craft, it’s a human one, from the far future,” Goldman answered, now merely a step away from the gun. “It came down hard in July 1947. Not in Roswell, but about a hundred miles due west, near a town called Truth or Consequences. Roswell just helped to throw people off. Keep going round, the best is yet to come.” Tony continued to circle the pod until he came to a large opening. Looking inside, he could see that the pod was filled with a thick foam into which a small cavity had been carved. Deep inside, he saw a book. He pushed his body into the pod and grabbed the book. It wasn’t much bigger than a textbook but it

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was so heavy he could barely pull it from the sphere. When he got it out, he saw why. The entire book, pages and all, was made of metal. “We think the mother ship used the pod to send that book back to Earth. The ship probably launched the pod through some kind of warp space, only somehow it was sent through time as well. We studied it for about five years, than dumped it here, where it’s been ever since. We were very disappointed. You get something from fifteen hundred years in the future and all it turns out to be is a hollow steel sphere, covered in ceramic, carrying a titanium book.” Goldman had retrieved Tony’s gun and moved to stand behind Tony. He double checked the safety. It had been a long time since he’d fired a gun, but it didn’t look like they’d changed much. “No Nobel prizes for anyone. At least we don’t have to worry about any space/time paradoxes.” Goldman smiled as he looked at Tony. Tony wasn’t listening. It didn’t matter, the book would provide Tony with the lesson Goldman had intended. The first few pages contained a copy of orders and security statements, but then Tony found a summary of the contents. The book was a report on the results of a galactic survey. Tony began to read. “Oh, no,” he gasped. “No, this can’t be!” He read it aloud this time. “Intergalactic Probe 26 has been completed. Scans made of sector assigned covering 11 galaxies. Results identical to previous twenty-five probes. No sign of intelligent, non-human life detected. With completion of this probe, scan of 196 galaxies complete. No sign of intelligent, non-human life detected. Recommend project termination. New orders requested.” The rest of the book was a blur to Tony, drawings of star clusters, scan results of individual planets, and a ton of information Tony couldn’t even begin to comprehend. The book slipped from his hands. Tony turned toward Goldman. Goldman pointed the gun at Tony’s chest. Tears began to form in Tony’s eyes. He slumped against the pod. Goldman smiled cruelly. Normally, Goldman didn’t like to spoon feed his pupils but Tony needed to learn the hard truth, and Goldman was going to make sure he learned it. “You wanted the truth. Well, now you have the truth. The truth is there are no aliens. There never have been any aliens, and there never will be any aliens.” He moved closer to Tony, who backed up further against the pod, and continued, “The truth is we’ve been telling you the truth all along, but you were so convinced that we couldn’t be trusted, you were blind to it.” Goldman leaned down to look close into Tony’s tear stained eyes. He chuckled mockingly, “Now, let me tell you the best part, the really ironic part.” He paused for effect. “The truth is that we never wanted you to believe us.” Tony lifted his head in surprise. “The more we told the truth, the more you believed a lie.” “But why?” Tony croaked, barely able to speak. “For the space program, of course. Take away all the science and all the high ideals, and the real reason the public foots the bill is because they hope someday we’ll all fly off and meet those aliens. That

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won’t happen, but at least we know that someday we will fly off.” Goldman rose up and backed away from Tony. “Now, get up.” Tony looked at the gun as if just realizing that Goldman was pointing it at him. Fear started to overwhelm his feelings of loss. “You’re going to kill me?” For a moment, Goldman was unsure if Tony was making a plea for mercy or a wish. Of course it didn’t matter, “Don’t be ridiculous, why would I have wasted my time explaining this to you just to kill you?” “Then what happens now?” “Why, you leave and never darken my doorway again.” Tony got up and started to walk toward the door. He could barely think straight but he clearly didn’t believe Goldman would just let him go. “But I know the truth now. The real truth.” Tears started to flow down his face. The stupid kid probably expected to be shot in the back, Goldman realized. Clearly, Tony would benefit from one final lesson. “So what,” Goldman replied triumphantly, “nobody believes us. Why would they believe you?” He began to laugh and laugh. His laughter was still echoing in Tony’s ears as Tony ran out of the building and into the dark, lonely night.

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