The Apocalypse Contract

CHAPTER 52 - GWYNETH

"Faceless, pale manikins," Gwyneth repeated.

"Yes, that is what people say they look like," Felix confirmed.

"Not grey skinned, big eyed humanoids?"

He shook his head, "Nope, those have totally fallen out of favor in the UFO chatter-space."

Gwyneth smirked. "You realize that is a Doctor Who episode, don't you?"

"Hey, I'm just reporting what people are saying." His voice echoed through the section of mine tunnel they were using as office space.

"That is how these things happen," she replied, "people see something in popular culture, and they incorporate it into their delusions, creating a self reenforcing cultural feedback loop."

"Or is it the other way around," Felix countered. "Maybe popular culture is taking its cues from reality, speaking truths that have always been there just under the surface." He raised his eyebrow and nodded his head, agreeing with his own cleverness.

Gwyneth returned to her notes. She wasn't sure if she was exasperated with this current absurd notion or the fact that some of his previous preposterous theories had led to useful avenues of inquiry. They had been exploring this abandoned mining site for nearly two days, and while it had turned up many intriguing mysteries, it had not generated any firm answers regarding the approaching alien ships.

A melodious tune emanated from her laptop; someone was initiating a video chat session. "It's Lisa on the secure channel," Gwyneth called over to Felix. He moved closer to watch over her shoulder.

Corporal Lisa Bolokowski appeared on the screen. "Professor, I hope I'm not interrupting anything important."

"Not unless Felix spinning more alien conspiracy theories count's as important," Gwyneth answered.

The corporal laughed. "Normally I would say no, but we live in strange times. I just wanted to check in and give you a quick update on events in the outside world. I just got word that Christoph has arrived in Italy. He promises to report back ASAP if he and his archivist friend come up with anything. I've also got updated trajectory data. We've confirmed the alien objects are moving in two groups, and they are diverging. The forward group is on course to make either an arcing flyby of the planet, or they could settle into a very high orbit, depending on how much they decelerate. The second group is still headed straight toward Earth. They are close enough that civilian observatories have finally spotted them. The news broke on both CNN and MSNBC just a little while ago. I expect other networks will be all over it shortly.

"The news also reported a meteor entering the atmosphere somewhere over the mid northern Atlantic before burning up or crashing into the ocean. What those news stories didn't include, because they didn't know, was that it actually decelerated at the last moment, headed west, then disappeared somewhere off the coast of Massachusetts. NORAD has kept a lid on that bit. Be on the lookout for little green men, I guess. Oh, and we've retasked a couple of military communication satellites to send your greeting message on loop to both sets of ships, but still no reply. Anything to report on your end?"

Gwyneth let her breath out in a slow whistle. "Not much compared to all that. The surface teams didn't find anything unusual in the Bergbau offices. We've mapped most of the mine tunnels and mostly just found a bunch of walls covered in that superplastic. There are spots where we think there used to be equipment that got torn out. Lots of cable like things hanging all over the place. We took samples and sent them off to the labs at Wesmund Dunlop. Elizabeth says the R&D people are going nuts over it. They're talking about room temperature superconductors and a whole new era of materials science. We think there might still be equipment buried in some of the walls because some of the cables are carrying a weak current, but that superplastic is damn hard to get through, and we are being cautious so we don't break anything.