Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [32]
It’s the Phoenix Sandbowl. The state’s most famous city used to stand here, but of course, there hasn’t been anything worth seeing since the Wars of Independence. Most of Phoenix vanished in less than a minute, they say. The people living on the outskirts moved out after that, as their homes began to slide and sink into the Sandbowl. Nobody’s quite sure why the city was taken out, even today. They say it was a Tesla bomb, planted in the city foundations by terrorists from the breakaway Southern states, but no one’s ever been able to explain why they’d want to get rid of a city all the way out in Arizona. Besides, who cares what they say?
So we keep turning, taking in all the little motor-home villages in the desert around us, the camps where the descendants of the city’s refugees have been living since ’37. There are trailer parks as far as the eye can see, battleship-sized caravans built to house hundreds, their wheels rusting away and sinking into the dust. But it’s not the vehicles we’re interested in. The camera is zooming in, auto-focusing on a patch of empty white sand off on the horizon.
There aren’t any caravans there. All the people have been moved away. The area’s blocked off by “extreme force” cordons, great screens of transparent plastic wired to miniature plasma generators. The only vehicles inside the cordon are government vehicles. You can tell they’re government vehicles, because they don’t have registration plates.
The camera goes to maximum magnification. We see people inside the enclosure, mostly men, dressed in heavy black suits despite the Arizona heat. Most of them are wearing shades, even though the fashion this year is for self-polarising contact lenses (everybody knows that).
There’s something in the centre of the enclosure, surrounded by vehicles on all sides. Something the men-in-black are guarding. Something they don’t want us to see.
Geneva, Earth, April 2069
‘It’s a hole in the ground,’ said General Tchike. ‘We took a satellite picture, before the Americans shot down the last RetCon probe. We think it’s an impact crater. A pinprick, next to the Sandbowl.’
He slid his fingers across the contact panel, and the picture froze on the cinevid screen. The screen was a holograph, so the image hovered above the surface of the table at the dead centre of the War Room. The cinevid’s controls were set into the arm of the General’s chair, and you had to open a secret compartment to get at them. Childish, thought Tchike. He wondered if the technical staff were still fitting ejector seats in UNISYC staff cars.
There were five individuals at the table, the minimum number required for any UNISYC Conclave. It was a Zodiac Level meeting, 60-L clearance and above, so there were none of the usual secretaries or security guards in attendance. The War Room looked empty without them. Bleak. The walls were sheer black, which didn’t help, the only decoration being the old UN insignia stamped across the tabletop. The UN was a joke, and had been ever since Whiteacre had signed the World Zones Accord in ’38, but UNISYC still liked to pretend it took its mother organisation seriously.
‘Government agents,’ said Brigadier Renault, with a nod towards the frozen men-in-black on the screen. ‘Dinner suits and dark glasses. The usual dress code.’
‘Protecting a hole in the ground?’ queried Dr Martinique.
Renault turned his swivel-chair towards Tchike. ‘I assume we’re not just talking about a meteorite strike here, General.’
‘Skydrop Scenario Four,’ Tchike replied. ‘Whatever hit the ground was artificial. Alien. Our sources tell us it landed near the Phoenix Sandbowl on March 26th, at around 11:30. This footage was taken on the 27th, using an MI7 microcamera.’ His hand moved back to the contact panel. ‘There’s more, of course.’
So we’re back in the desert, but the picture’s wobbling. The cameraman is running, darting between apartment-sized mobile homes with portable suncatcher generators