At the narrow doorway to the hangar—a yawning space filled with criss-crossing metal rafters and bluish shadows—the president’s secret service detail was asked to remain behind. “We’ll take over from here,” said one of the two soldiers, who met them at the entrance. The soldiers were not in full dress uniform as were the officers who had accompanied him from Air Force One to the hanger itself. These men were in desert camouflage, and both carried M-4s, which were, to the president, a somewhat stunning exhibition. His own guards carried their guns under their suits, and he realized he had never actually seen them, not even as a bulky contour beneath the fabric of their jackets. But this show of force, so blatantly displayed, was foreign and troubling to him. He was a man accustomed to more furtive maneuverings, oblique operations, to pressure less palpable. This had to be a holdover from the last administration. Only countries with civil unrest or long histories of military violence approached their leader bearing such implacable gazes and conspicuous firearms. He was only recently elected, and while he had ridden a flood tide of support into office, he knew there were still strong clusters of malcontents. Remembering his campaign promises to curb military action, he felt a nagging discomfort awake and grow wary.
Several days before, he had been told he was meeting a dignitary at an Army base, and despite efforts to cajole his staff into learning exactly where and with whom the meeting was scheduled, they repeatedly proclaimed ignorance.
‘The Army official will tell me only the time and the fact that Air Force One will take you there. He won’t tell me where or who. Believe me, I tried,” said the president’s administrative assistant, a woman in her fifties, whose course, chemically straightened hair was pulled into a chignon by a long tortoise shell clip.
“How,” said the president, slapping a bound sheaf of papers down on his desk, “can you not know who the President of the United States is meeting? I’m the goddamn commander-in-chief! I’m supposed to call these meetings, not come whenever someone whistles. Who asked for this in the first place?”
“The Army official I’ve been dealing with,” his assistant said, raising her chin in a gesture that seemed to dare him to keep this behavior up. She’d never been sworn at before.
“Tell them no,” he said. “Unless they can tell you who wants to meet, then I’m not available.”
But after a phone call from the newly installed Chairman of the Joints Chiefs, the president made conciliatory promises to go.
Now that he was off the plane, the president was disoriented. He had not known until several moments before landing that they were going to be in the high desert. When he carefully stepped down Air Force One’s stairs onto a tarmac grey from constant sun exposure, he felt the cold, dry air cleaving to blow around the plane. When it gusted beneath the long tails of his wool coat, he felt he understood what it must feel like to be a stalk of corn, blowing brittle in the wind. His head, too, felt light. The elevation made it harder to breathe.
“Where are we?” he asked his security detail.
“Nevada, sir.”
The president surveyed the landscape around him, the hangars, the long parallel lines of tarmac. “Where in Nevada?”
“Las Vegas is that way,” indicated one of his guards, pointing southeast. “And this place is operated by Nellis.”
The president looked across the landscape, “Nellis?”
“Nellis Airforce Base,” answered the guard.
The president lifted his chin to indicate that he understood.
“Sir,” the guard added, still uncertain whether the president truly understood what this meant. “This is Area 51.”
The president looked at his guard for a moment, smiled vaguely, and then nodded once as two officers drove up in a modified golf cart. The officers saluted him, relaxed into smiles and handshakes, and told him what a pleasure it was to finally meet him. What a speech he’d given at the inauguration, they said. The president felt gratified by this and slipped into his customary easy confidence. There was his usual flashing of teeth, his offer of solemn, concerned responses when conversation fell in a direction that required it.
At the hanger entrance, the officers stepped aside. “This is where we peel off,” said one of them to the president. Growing formal again, they saluted him. When the soldiers in desert camouflage approached, the president’s security detail did not cross the threshold with him. Instead, they nodded at the soldier who directed them to stay behind.
“Sure,” said the guard who had told the president they were in Nevada. “We know the protocol.”
The president looked swiftly over his shoulder at his guard, whose first name he knew to be Jim. Initially he had been careful to use it, wanting to build intimacy, but now he barely called anyone by their first names. There were so many. It was difficult to keep them straight in his mind. Jim nodded to the president, as if confirming this unexpected lapse in what the president thought was Secret Service policy. And at first he hesitated, but after a moment, the president followed the soldiers anyway, hands in the pockets of his coat.
Inside the hanger was a large cinder block partition, and around it were low-hanging lights that illuminated the hanger with bluish pools of fluorescence. These drop lights were covered by saucer-shaped shades that resembled tin pie pans. They reminded him of the poultry farm he had been to on the campaign trail. “You raising chickens in here?” He laughed, making a showy display of teeth and looking at the guard next to him. The guard did not respond, even, to the president’s surprise, out of deference. The guard’s face, which was blonde, freckled, and the color of boiled ham, remained rigid with purpose and pointed straight ahead. The president looked at the other guard and saw his reaction was equally stern. He then cleared his throat, smiled reflexively, and causally felt at the knot in his tie. Their lack of humor confirmed his sense that he was among zealots. A sudden sense of fear rose in him, making his neck tingle and goose flesh appear under his shirt, where it could not be seen. This should be shut down, he thought, instinctively. We don’t need this place. We’ll open up the flats to tourists.
When they were within 10 feet of the cinderblock partition, the two soldiers turned suddenly and stood at attention, shifting their guns in one swift motion to their left arms. “You’re to proceed through the door, sir,” said the soldier to his right.
The president stopped and looked 40 feet back to the narrow hangar door he had initially passed through. His security detail no longer stood looking in. The soldiers on both his sides stood still.
“So,” he said, “where am I really headed, guys? Come on, now. Give a man a break here.”
“That’s classified, sir.”
“Meaning,” he looked from one soldier’s face to the other, “you don’t know?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“But you’re feet from this door. You don’t know where it leads?”
“We don’t have clearance, sir.” Neither soldier would look at him, but instead concentrated on points at opposite sides of the hanger.
“Of course,” the president nodded, “I guess I should have known that.” He took one deliberate step forward and looked back at them once more. Neither moved. Neither cracked a smile. He finally went to the unvarnished wooden door and turned the knob. Just inside stood a man in what at first appeared to be civilian clothing.
“Hello, Mr. President,” he held out his hand, “So nice to finally have the pleasure.”
The man was, as far as the president could tell, in his early sixties, and wore round, wire-rimmed spectacles that made him looked like an owl. His nose, too, was pointed and beak-like. He was several inches shorter than the president himself, and he was dressed in a way that the president now interpreted to be the clothing of the priesthood. The man wore no vestments, only dark pants, a dark shirt and what appeared to be a priest’s collar.
“Yes, thank you, monsignor.” The president bobbed his head in a brief, compulsory gesture of respect. “You’re the man who wanted to meet?”
“Oh no,” smiled the priest. “I’m here to take you to the meeting.”
“So,” the president said, his hand still in the priest’s hand, “the men behind me don’t have clearance to know who’s back here, but you do?”
The priest smiled, but did not answer. “Come in, come in,” he chirped instead.
After a last glance backwards, the president went inside purposefully displaying his full height, his squared shoulders, and a conspicuous sense of purpose.
He lost this, however, as the pair repeatedly turned corners. At first, it was nothing but turn upon turn, wall after wall. He thought, for a moment, that spatially, something was wrong. He looked up to the hanger ceiling to orient himself but realized that this sense of intimacy was not created by the walls alone, but that a drop ceiling also loomed over them. The walls were painted a light blue, the color of an overcast sky, the same color given off by the fluorescent lights outside the cinderblock enclosure.
In the drop ceiling, where he thought there must be cameras, there were halogen lights into whose pearlescent pink and baby blue plated fixtures he looked and was momentarily blinded. When he blinked several times and partially regained his vision, he saw that the priest had stopped. He was turned towards the president and was smiling tolerantly.
“Please remove your shoes here,” the priest said.
The president looked at him. “Pardon?”
“You must remove your shoes.”
“Who am I meeting? Is this their custom?”
“It’s their requirement. There’s a bench here. And I will take your coat.”
“No, no. I’ll keep it,” the president imagined being left in the high desert without it or having a transmitter or something more insidious sewn into the lining.
The priest looked quietly at the president. His greenish-gray eyes were clear and expressionless. “I will take your coat,” he said again. “You will not need it in there.”
The president reluctantly took it off and handed it to the priest.
“And…” the priest continued, “I will need your cellular devices. Blackberries, phones, iPods.”
“Absolutely not,” said the president, setting his jaw.
“Very well,” said the priest, “it was only a precautionary measure, intended to benefit you.”
“How would that benefit me?” said the president restraining sarcasm that had pulled his lip upward on one side.
“They will likely not work following the meeting.”
The president looked at the priest, who returned his gaze, again without expression. “I’ll take that chance,” the president said, feeling he was calling the priest’s bluff.
“Very well,” replied the priest. “Please proceed through this door,” he said, holding it open for the president. “Push aside the curtain and continue forward.”
The president waited for more instructions, gazing down at the priest.
The priest looked up at him after a moment, “You may proceed inside.”
“And you’re not coming with me?” asked the president.
The priest smiled, “Why, there is no need.”
The president looked inside the dimly illuminated anteroom and at the curtain that lead to what he assumed was the meeting area. He stepped forward, and the priest closed the door behind him. Already, he could feel it had grown much warmer. There was also a crackling sound coming from behind the curtain. He imagined a fireplace in the next room. He imagined some smug, acquisitive Asian seated at the end of a long table, or a wealthy technology titan who wanted to broker a deal. And to obtain this meeting, one or the other had pried the military open like a shucking knife to an oyster. The president cast aside the curtain, his shoulders drawn up, his jaw again set.
He stood in that position for several long moments, not quite over the threshold, his arm still lifting the heavy blackout curtain. The pale light from what stood before him reflected in his features and caused the hollows of his face to become more pronounced, revealing the prominent characteristics of his skull. His mouth was open, and the bright white teeth he was so fond of displaying, now shone a purplish blue.
What he saw first he interpreted to be a ball of light—white, crisp, almost searing. Its outer limits crackled and flickered, at turns blue, purple and sometimes green, but its central intensity remained constant. As he gazed at it, other features became slowly evident. There was, he saw, a trunk at the base of this light. It was gnarled and thickened like a bonsai. The bark was cracked and knobby. He saw, too, that it issued from a hole in the concrete, from which mulch and dark earth also brimmed and spilled outward.
As the president continued looking, he recognized that the branches of the tree traveled in directions that seemed physically impossible for such a small supporting trunk. There were twigs of inconceivable narrowness crackling with bluish flames at the outermost corners of the room. But because of the light’s intensity, even at its most distant reaches, the president could not determine where the ceiling line began or how big the room truly was. And it was hot. He could feel the heat as a physical presence that pushed against him.
Peace, the president heard in a low tone, is not possible in this world.
He swung around instantly, thinking the priest had followed him in after all. But no one was there. The blackout curtain he had come through had fallen closed. But the voice…it seemed to have been right behind him…very near his ear. Yet, it had been much lower than the priest’s, the syllables extended. He imagined its frequency, a languid, elongated amplitude.
“Who’s there?” the president said, looking for speakers at the corners of the room. He could see nothing beyond the searing light and the still dazzling branches that flickered with bluish flames.
I am infinite knowledge of present and past.
“No,” the president said, by reflex.
Oh, yes.
“What do you mean freedom is not possible?” the president asked, looking now at the periphery of light, where he heard the more silent flames now crackling. Sound and light seemed to bend in the room. Occasionally, the voice’s resonance seemed to be at all sides, even within him, rattling through his intestines, reverberating through the chicken and broccoli that lay digesting uneasily in his gut. He felt the voice fulminating in his sternum, vibrating close to his heart. He involuntarily gasped, loosening his tie and pulling at his collar, feeling a few extra beats stimulated by these reverberations.
It is peace that is not possible in your world. Peaceful behavior is not a natural part of the human constitution. It requires too much self-control, of which your kind has very little.
The president realized he was sweating and wiped away the first few drops that had trickled from his damp forehead toward his brow. His thin hand remained, absently cupping his forehead as a notion came over him. “I’ve heard about this. About this area. You’re cooked-up military magic,” he said, pointing suddenly at the light. “You’re some three-dimensional projection. Who’s here? Who’s really running this?” The president moved to the wall and began to feel around at the periphery he had not before been able to see. He began feeling for a hidden door or hoping to catch a glimpse of the small dark square of a projection booth.
You are mistaken.
“Who’s idea is this?” The president turned his back on the light and projected his voice towards the upper walls.
You are disrespectful and unwilling to listen.
“I’m only unwilling to listen,” said the president, face turned back towards the light, “because I don’t believe any of this. I’ll find out who you are and who your commanding officers are,” he pointed at an audience he imagined was watching behind glass somewhere above him. “And it is you who are disrespectful. You do not coerce and intimidate the President of the United States.”
This is a critical misunderstanding of position and gravity, the light said.
“You’re right about…” the president began to say, but a branch extended towards him. He tried to back up, but a corner was now behind him and blocked his escape. His shoulder blade hit one wall as the outstretched branch—a delicate, nearly translucent vine—touched his shoulder and ignited the cloth of his shirt. The flame quickly expanded, consuming fabric, until it spread towards his collar and threatened his neck. Soon only an oxygen-rich, indigo-colored flame and the president’s darkening tissue were showing. He beat his collarbone wildly with his left hand, trying to extinguish it. And when it did go out, he realized that the high pitched screams he’d begun to register were his own.
No one entered the room in response to his cries. Instead, a dense silence fell over him.
The president doubled over, his hands on knees, his chest heaving. There were tears in his eyes, and his face was pointed towards the floor. He choked back a sob. “What do you want?”
For you to listen and understand me. I have visited and quietly guided every leading civilization and many oppressed ones, since the era when humans first employed stone tools. This, as I said, is just one of my manifestations. There are others. However, I thought you, of all humans, would be particularly gratified by this sight. But like so many of the others before you, you are full of pride. You have felt invincible, as do all leaders who first come to office. But you are not in control.
The president felt a weight on his shoulders. It lingered, pressing him towards the concrete until he was forced to kneel. The pressure was firm but insistent, and also obliged his head to bow. His injured shoulder did not yet ache, and he was afraid to examine the damage, thinking he might now be in a state of conscious trauma, unable to feel the pain of his wounds.
Still, he could feel other sensations: again, the sound and meaning of words moved through him with a rapier clarity, edging through tissue, through sinew, through bone. He felt a tingling in what he imagined was his marrow. And when he involuntarily visualized the transfiguration of his body into pure, ionized energy, some part of his mind not guided by rationality said: such beautiful potential then. He closed his eyes and began listening intently because, beneath the strands of words that seemed to issue from the light, came a deeper, insistent percussion, which he could neither identify nor ignore.
I gave you the authority you now enjoy, and I can also take that power away. Some leaders before you did not understand this fact. They did not believe in me, and they attempted to supersede my authority. But you see, that’s not possible. I am omniscience itself. So, you must do as I comand in the matters that concern world affairs. There is a delicate balance between light and dark that must be maintained. This equilibrium supports the nature of the world, and the balance cannot be interrupted.
Two streams of language moved through him, that which he heard, and another which passed below it as a barely audible, ritual chant. He did not recognize its origin, but he felt each syllable pulse at the core of his being: I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.
The president was quiet, still on his knees. His hands now hung, just below his waist. The fingers were intertwined as in a gesture of prayer. For several moments, he found himself unable to speak.
Finally, without looking into the light, the president asked in a whisper, “Are you God?”
If you wish to call me that, I will not condemn you.
Silence reigned in the room for several long moments before the voice spoke again.
Know that my messages will come through the same channels as the invitation to this meeting. There are, of course, consequences to not following my directives, so think always on this meeting.
And with that, the light extinguished. The president still kneeled before it, staring at its grayed out nakedness for several moments. It did not smoke. It did not appear burned. However, its super-human stature diminished, and it receded back to waist height. Although it still lacked leaves, its bark assumed the smooth, squirrel-brown appearance of any nursery-grown bush.
The president scanned the ceiling and walls for evidence of human intervention, but they met, uninterrupted by windows, at crisp right angles. While searching, he absently touched his shoulder and was shocked to feel his shirt was whole again. He then put his hand beneath the fabric to touch the skin there, but felt no injury other than a small patch of raised flesh that resembled a scar. It was not a scar he had had before, and it was still freshly tender, as a recently sutured incision. This worried him slightly, but still, he was deeply thankful that he had not been seriously burned. And this relief overwhelmed any additional foreboding. He then felt his face on the side where he had sensed the fire. Nothing was any different. Part of him quietly rejoiced.
Casting a final glance at the tree, which had not altered any further, he lifted the curtain and went back through the door. The priest was there, displaying a schoolmaster’s smile. He held up the president’s jacket for him to get into, and then his woolen coat.
“Forgive me if I do not assist with your shoes, which are just there,” the priest gestured to their exposed heels beneath the bench. “And,” he continued, with his hands now behind his back, “how are your electronic devices?”
Once on his feet, the president pulled his Blackberry out and saw that the screen was a flat gray. He pushed its power button several times, holding it in. It did not respond.
“I’m so sorry,” said the priest. “I thought that might happen.” He then reached up and gently touched the president’s bristly, close-cropped hair. “This, too, usually happens when you leave the room.”
“What? What usually happens?” The president’s hand went to his head, feeling to be sure he was not bald.
“Here,” said the priest producing a hand mirror, “you’ve gone a bit gray.”
The president looked at the hair above his ears. He turned his head and took in as much of the side view as he could. While some of the jet color remained, a steely white had overrun all these areas like an invasive moss. For a moment, he mistook himself for another man, an older man: his grandfather. “My God,” he said unconsciously.
“You could say that,” said the priest, smiling primly.
“Take me back to the hangar,” the president said, handing the mirror back to the priest.
“Surely,” the priest replied, taking it and rearranging it carefully among the shelves by the bench. He did not hurry.
Impatient, the president began to walk ahead until he heard the priest say, “You’ve learned nothing here, have you? Well…” he sighed. “I suppose I should bring your attention to the scar. Have you noticed it yet? The scar keeps things moving in the appropriate direction.”
The president turned. “What do you mean ‘appropriate direction’?”
“Always on the bead, shall we say? Keeping the balance of power and all that.” The priest moved softly past him, glancing up and smiling so that the light made his spectacles gleam white under the halogens.
The president waited, allowed the priest to pass without comment, and followed the politely menacing, owlish little man through the Greek-key turned corridors until he was finally delivered back to the soldiers with the M4s.
When the president climbed back into Air Force One, the pilot, who was caught in an off-guard chat with the female cabin staff looked up and said, “You saw the alien, didn’t you? This,” he pointed to the president’s hair, looking at the newest stewardess, “happens to every one of them. Every one. They try to color it away but it creeps back. Everyone thinks it’s from worry and stress, but I know–”
“We’re ready to take off,” the president nodded towards the cockpit. “If you could?”
On the flight back, the president asked not to be disturbed and instead of chatting amiably with aides, stared silently out the window. He repeatedly felt at the raised circular scar tissue that had developed on his shoulder. In those hours, moving over Utah, over Colorado, Missouri, and Indiana, the president brooded over what the mark meant and whether it posed a danger to him. Casting his gaze towards a distant, pallid horizon, where sky met sky, he anxiously contemplated the nebulous term ‘balance’ and apprehensively considered what would happen if he miscalculated it.
