Crescent Earth

There isn’t much to say about the diner. It takes up the first floor of a two-story building, and its large rectangular windows offer a look into a different, though some might say better, time a couple centuries back. Not that anyone truly remembers. I grab a table and hang my coat and hat on a wooden rack and slide into a cracked vinyl booth.

“Dr. Williams!” the waitress calls. Her name is Kris, and she wears black slacks and a silky white shirt with no collar.

“The usual?” I nod with a small smile Kris is used to, and she hurries away without conversation. Moments later, she returns with a pot of coffee and a mug. “Enjoy!”

I do as I watch the night outside beyond a curtain of drizzle. My date arrives sometime later, and when I turn to see her walk in, I have to brace myself for a long moment. She is just as I remember her, except not at all. Nineteen now. All grown up. She waves and smiles when she sees me. I return the gestures and stand up to greet her. A few inches taller than me, she wears a buttoned-up black shirt dress that ends just below her knees and black laceless tennis shoes with red holographic animals dancing on the vamps. She takes off her black hat, revealing a buzz cut.

“Carmen,” I say. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Of course,” she says, and she offers her hand. “It’s been a minute, huh?”

It’s a little awkward, neither of us sure how to proceed. The instinct tells me to embrace her, but I simply shake her hand and invite her to sit down. “It’s been more than that,” I say. Almost a decade, in fact. “Coffee?”

Kris sets another mug on the table, and Carmen asks for a light dinner.

“Dr. Williams,” she says when Kris is gone, “thank you for giving me this opportunity. I’m . . .” She laughs nervously. “This is so awkward.”

“A little bit, isn’t it?” I nod understanding. “How is your mother?”

Carmen sighs, and I almost regret mentioning the only thing we have in common. “Same old mama, always busy, always working. She oversaw my training until I enlisted, which—huge surprise!—she wasn’t a fan of. She wants me to stay in the family biz.”

“Have you told her about your promotion yet?”

“I haven’t,” she replies with a shrug, “but she knows. She always knows, doesn’t she?”

“She has always known,” I agree.

Kris brings her food, and I keep drinking coffee. Carmen pokes at her salad with a fork, and then looks up at me. “I’m not going to call you Dad.”

I utter a laugh and marvel at her. I say, “No, of course not, Carmen. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

She breathes out. “Good.” The pause lingers. We don’t have much to discuss, despite the years apart. She chews on a leaf of red cabbage and says, “Now, I’ve been briefed about tonight’s mission, but I still don’t understand what it entails.”

“I’ll say more on our way there, but a lot of secrecy surrounds it.”

“It’s not just us, is it?”

“Now that would truly be awkward, wouldn’t it?” I lean back in my seat, giving her some space, nursing the steaming mug in my hands. “It’s an interagency operation. You and me plus six federal agents.”

She only nods, not asking further questions, and works on her salad. I’d like to warn her, to tell her the truth and explain its inner workings. I’d like to say a lot, but I don’t, because now, absurdly, is not the time.

“It’s a nice place,” Carmen says. “Are you staying at the motel?” she asks, pointing at the ceiling with her fork.

“For tonight, yes. You are at the base?”

“Yeah. Speaking of which, I should probably head back. They gave me a two-hour leave, and I still need to get ready for tonight and all.”

I nod. “Listen, Carmen, it’s been nice meeting you like this.” I motion around. “In an informal setting, I mean.”

“I agree,” she says with little conviction.

She wipes her mouth with a thin brown napkin and gets up to go. I do too, and I hand over her hat.

“Thanks.” She puts it on, adjusts it, and the little red poppy embroidered on the crown compliments the holograms on her shoes. “How’s that?”

“Perfect,” I reply, and we both smile. “Have a good night.”

“Likewise,” she says.

There is another awkward pause, and then, once again, we shake hands, and she heads outside. The bell jingles, and a few seconds later, her car hums to life and drives off. I finish the coffee, and then I take my things and head to the back of the diner toward the stairs. My wrist blinks, notifying me that I paid for the dinner.

I don’t have much time to rest. My wristclock tells me it’s after one in the morning, which gives me half an hour before my colleagues arrive to pick me up. I get out of my evening suit, and it takes the place of the military uniform in my garment bag. I shower in the small bathroom and return into the not-much-bigger bedroom. I haven’t worn the uniform much, and it still looks good as new on me, its buckle shiny with polish.

This night will mark the beginning of the end in many ways. The next year or so will be the most crucial in my work, the hardest, if only for the fact that it’ll be largely out of my control. For too long I have been there to oversee the work when it needed me. After tonight, I will have time to rest.

I put on my navy blue hat with the black band, and the moment it’s on my head, there’s a knock on the door. We’re on schedule.

“Coming,” I call and get no reply, as expected.

Two men meet me in the narrow hallway, both wearing black hemp trench coats, tied at the front, and black fedoras earning their famous moniker. “Gents.”

Both men are pale and don’t react to me when I step out and the lock clicks. They follow me down the hallway and then downstairs, and the three of us exit not through the diner but out into the motel parking lot in the back where two identical cars are waiting. Two more men in black sit in one of them, their pale faces even paler in the white light of the car’s dashboard, and they both watch us exit the building.

As we approach the second vehicle, its smooth uniform body comes to life; blinding headlights shooting forward as the windows become transparent and smaller details of its body take shape. I get into the back seat. No one speaks during our ride to the Black Mountain Training Camp in Nevada, but then these guys rarely do. I kick back in my seat and close my eyes.

Our small procession turns off US 395 onto an unnamed single-lane dirt road, the lead vehicle raising a cloud of dust. We head toward the mountains now, although the only indication of that is a couple of blinking red lights in the sky on the horizon. We stop at an ancient metal barrier, and one of the men in black steps out to raise it. He joins us on the other side, and we move on. A mile later, we cross Owens River and drive past the Owens Valley Radio Observatory and the VLBA—the antenna illuminated brilliant white—onward for the mountains.

“Dr. Williams,” the guard at the checkpoint confirms my credentials and lets us drive through. He pays no attention to my entourage.

The dirt road becomes smooth tarmac, and the car is truly gliding now on its soft suspension. When I close my eyes, it feels like we’re floating through space.

We turn left at the main building that sticks out of the mountain above us and drive past barracks and the mess hall, all the way into the back of the compound, where we pull up next to an Oshkosh 200MTV, a marvelous light-brown, ten-ton cargo truck resting on six massive wheels with airless tires. Supply crates fixed in place with nylon straps fill its trailer; its engines are silent. Carmen stands at attention next to a fellow soldier. They both wear black berets and swamp-green belted jumpsuits with shiny side- arms. Her army boots are shinier than mine, and her head- dress is immaculate.

Two of my companions step out with me, one from each car, while the other two stay behind the wheels. Both Car- men and Sergeant Bailey salute, their right hands shooting sharply to their brows.

“At ease, soldiers,” I say without returning the gesture. They relax, but only just so. “You are free to go, Sergeant.”

Bailey nods and walks off, a little too fast, as if the truck is about to explode. It isn’t.

“Private.”

“Dr. Williams.” Carmen is dead serious now, no pauses or awkward little smiles. She glances at the two men standing behind me, sizes them up.

“At ease,” I repeat, and she relaxes her shoulders. “You can speak freely here and all that, Carmen.”

She nods, looking at the men in black, but doesn’t say a word.

“Shall we go, then?” I say, and I turn to my escorts. “Gents, you have your orders.”

They don’t react but climb back into their respective cars. Carmen gets into the driver’s seat of the truck, and I circle it and get in next to her. The dashboard lights up, headlights illuminate the parking lot, and we take off after one of the black sedans while the other one joins behind us. A few minutes on another nameless dirt road and our convoy enters a tunnel through the mountains. Our headlights provide some light, but it is otherwise pitch black—no pavement, no lights, and no signage of any kind. A cool breeze rushes in through our rolled-down windows.

I say, “I didn’t express myself fully at our dinner, but it does fill me with happiness to see you again after all these years, Katie. I mean, Carmen. I’m sorry.”

My daughter holds on to the wheel, her eyes trained on the car in front of us. She says, “Likewise, sir. Dr. Williams. I’m happy to see you.”

It’s too dark to tell, but she must be blushing. I must be, too. What else could she say? I doubt she remembers me that well.

“Are you excited?” I hear myself ask and realize that my own heartbeat has elevated.

“I can’t say I am, Dr. Williams. I prefer to save my emotions for after the mission.” We both nod. Carmen flexes her fingers, her palms never leaving the wheel.

“Well said, of course,” I reply. “I know I can count on you.” Knowing the future, as much as I may want it to be, is not an exact science. I know what will—and must—happen, but I don’t know exactly why. Tonight, it feels like walking in the dark, expecting to be punched in the face at some point, wincing helplessly.

The tunnel seems to stretch on for ages. Space is uniform and time is lost here, and if it weren’t for the gentle sway of the truck, you’d think we were standing completely still.

And then it opens, as if the walls got torn off, and space expands upward and to our sides, bringing a rush of some- thing like agoraphobia with it. We are once again driving under the cover of a starry sky. The moon in its first quarter, almost half of it visible, shining like a discolored orange slice somewhere to our left.

“Whoa,” Carmen breathes out. “Never gets old. We’re almost there.”

The dirt road leads to a middle-of-nowhere dusty plain in Esmeralda County, somewhere between Silver Peak and Lida, but the night hides anything man-made here. Satellites only show deserts in this area, and the locals know to keep away, but as we drive on, a black silhouette of a warehouse- like structure becomes visible in the distance.

Upon closer inspection, there’s a second, lower building next to it, and two motionless figures keep watch outside. The barn itself is not tremendous in size but towers forty feet over the two figures. It’s maybe a hundred feet wide and about as deep, from memory.

The black sedans break off, and I say, “Drive up to the warehouse, please.”

Carmen does, the headlights of our truck revealing the two figures to be men in black trench coats and hats, and she stops a few feet from the tall sliding doors of the building as they open them for us. Inside is completely empty but for a handful of white lamps hung on the walls—there is no ceiling.

Carmen frowns but keeps her curiosity bottled up. “Stop here,” I say once the truck drives halfway into the building, and it stops just short of a yellow line painted on the polished cement floor. “Power down.”

She presses a button, and we step out and meet the six agents at the back of the truck. I consult my wristclock. “Chop-chop, gents, you have fifteen minutes.” When they move, two of them climbing into the bed of the truck, I add, “Cutting it a little close.”

The men in black unload the crates in a chain—two men up in the bed, four down on the ground—and they work efficiently, passing each crate to the next man with precise swinging motions, working with no visible strain, as they carry them inside the warehouse and stack them up at the wall between the yellow line and the entrance.

The crates bear no visible markings except metallic plates with tiny text on them. As we watch them, Carmen asks, “What are we doing here, Doctor?”

“Come.” We step away and stop about twenty feet out. I point at the night sky, heavy gray with a hint of orange and littered with stars like endless freckles. “Watch,” I say, and Carmen does.

A few minutes pass, and as we stand transfixed by the infinite universe, a new light pops up above us.

“Do you see that?” Carmen says.

“I do.”

The light stands still for a moment, and then grows. “Wait a minute.”

It keeps growing and then seems to abruptly split into several smaller lights. It takes shape now.

“Holy . . .” Carmen whispers in a reserved, even tone. The craft—and it is a craft—is perfectly round and descends at a steady speed, rotating slowly. “Is it . . .”

“A flying saucer, yes,” I confirm.

“Not . . . aliens, surely?” she says.

The craft does look alien as it lowers above us, adjusting its position over the warehouse. There is no engine sound, not as much as a whirl, as it goes in for the landing, but it does distort the space below it.

“An experimental craft?” Carmen asks, her eyes never leaving the metallic object.

“Of sorts,” I say, and then she glances at me for the first time, that quick look full of hunger for answers, and then right back to the craft, as if it may disappear otherwise. I say, “Like most flying saucers you’ve heard or read about, like most UFOs documented throughout history. . . this one is piloted by a human, a traveler through time.”

Carmen doesn’t speak, and we watch the flying saucer lower gently into the warehouse and touch down without a sound.

“They’re waiting to greet us,” I lie.

She wrings her wrists, and we walk back toward the building and the truck where my colleagues are finishing up with the crates. “Let’s move it, gents,” I order as we approach, and gusts of wind ruffle my hair.

The saucer is still shiny as new, its dark gray surface shimmering in the lights, its domed cabin almost reaching the ceiling line. As we step up to the yellow line, the ramp lowers, and a young man walks out and stops halfway down. He wears a dirty white-and-green jumpsuit, his face unshaven, his hands shielding his eyes from the light as he surveys our welcoming party.

And then we make eye contact, and his face flashes with recognition and pure hatred. His hands reach for his gun.

“You fucking lied to me!” he yells, but he doesn’t move. “You promised me, you piece of shit!”

I only stare. What’s there to say? He’s right, and I make not a move to provoke him.

“Why?” he asks.

“Everything happened the way it should have.”

He wrinkles his nose and glances quickly at Carmen and then back at me. Shots thunder throughout the warehouse, at least five in quick succession, but I feel none of them because Carmen shields me. They push her backward into me, and we both fall down.

In the corner of my eye, I see men in black subdue the Time Traveler, but my attention is on Carmen, who bleeds out in my arms. I wipe blood off her grazed cheek. “Shush,” I tell her. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Dr. . . . Dr. Williams.” She groans. I put her hands on her own wounds and say, “Apply pressure.”

I set her down on the floor and wipe my hands on her jumpsuit as Carmen reaches for me.

“Help her,” I order one of the men in black. Two of them drag the Traveler into his craft while the other three carry in the supply crates.

“Dr. Williams . . .” Carmen cries as I go to pick up my hat. “Please . . .”

“You’ll be fine,” I assure her. “I have places to be.”

I don’t dare look back on my way to one of the black sedans.

“Dr. Williams!” she calls, and then the flying saucer hisses and drowns out her pleading.

I do glance back then, just in time to see the craft pop out of existence, out of today. Next to the truck, two men in black pick up Carmen.

My ride comes to life when I get in, and before I shut the door and leave, I hear my daughter cry, “Please! Dad!”