A Perfect Counterpart: Chapter 6

The documents seem to be multiplying; this is only because they have been separated from each other, from their bundle, and now cover a goodly portion of the floor, the table, the windowsills. Some documents are instead collections of color printouts of digital photos of some of the books and papers and wallplates found in the bases and spaceships.

The script is clearly human; it is, as has been said, somewhat reminiscent of cuneiform, but at the same time it is not cuneiform. There are few breaks between characters, or groups of characters, whatever they are, and the text is dense wherever it appears.

Tentative translations are found in handwritten notes in the margins: “this is the ship [unknown]”; “go quick[xxxxx] [unknown] [unknown] sky”; and the like. Questions make up most of the notes: “related to Assyrian?” “Hebrew cognate?” “Egyptian?” Two hands wrote these notes, and there is little agreement to be found in their understanding (if it can be called that) of the text. Statistical analyses are cited; comparisons with known languages and writings systems are made; confusion and frustration predominate.

A Perfect Counterpart: Chapter 5

Discoveries come quickly; page 55 was read, and soon understanding came; outside documents were consulted and names began to emerge from the fog, names unexpected, names not-to-be-repeated unless entirely certain that those were the names, that those names referenced the right people, that those names were not inserted later to distract, redirect, or mislead.

What was discovered was either a true report of what was found or the work of a jokester or madman: spaceships, ancient spaceships, had been found in various orbits around the sun, mostly outside of Earth’s orbit, all derelict.  Similarly abandoned or dead stations were found on the Moon, on Mars, in a spot here and there in the outer Solar System, stations filled with water and the frozen bodies of ice-locked crew.  Some crashed vessels had been found in the Antarctic, also frozen solid in and out, metal-jacketed ice cubes, filled with clear and solid ice, filled with crew caught without warning, all victims of drowning.  Indeed, all crew of extra-Earth vessels and stations whose cause of death could be identified endured the same, awful death: drowning.

These were not aliens; these were human, tests had proven so (though the millennia of ice had made them nearly unrecognizable as human, much less once of this world), and they had clothing and writing (or so it seemed; none of it was related to any modern form, though some appeared to be at least related to the same basic ideas as those which lay behind cuneiform; none of it has been translated according to the documents secured from the archive) and toothbrush-like implements and all the sorts of things (personal things: things like photos, and drawings, and what can only be called child-molded paperweights) you would expect to find in the lockers and cabins of any contemporary sea-going vessel.

The ships and vessels investigated up until this point were identical in other ways: their computer systems were all of the same design, as were the engines, basic layout of the vessels, and foodstuffs found in the kitchens and (now-redundant) freezer units. Earth animals were also found on the bases (with the occasional mouse, spider, or other similar creature found in the smaller, mobile vessels), such as dogs, cats, and, surprisingly, a dodo or two (giving hope for future cloning efforts).

The control systems had been dissected and understood; the basic function of the computers was clear. The engine designs were excellent and easily adapted to currently-available spaceships. Much could be learned from these ships; much had already been learned. What was still unclear was what had happened: how had an entire spacefaring group of humans built up the technology to get into space, but not left a bolt or building behind? What happened to these ships — why were they filled with water? It was possible — though unlikely — that the main water tanks had a catastrophic failure on a moon base, managing to flood the entire base; it was impossible, however, for such a thing to happen to a lone ship navigating its way through the asteroid belt or amongst the rings of Saturn. What sort of threat was out there? And dare we send more ships out there — and crews — until we knew what was going on?

This was the secret hidden in the archive and now released; this was the dangerous secret which threatened lives, and caused people to hide themselves in backwater towns, hoping to escape death for at least a few more days. Thus the thought: this was the dangerous secret? Really?

A Perfect Counterpart: Chapter 4

The knock came early; the knock brought back memories of the events of 1958, in New Mexico, in Burma, events recounted in Document #4, the document which fed the nightmares which had rampaged across the mind throughout the night.  The knock came again, this time followed by a small voice, a female voice.

— Hello?  Is anyone there?

Answer or no?  Best to go to the door, be sure not too disheveled, a quick brush with the hands and to the door; there she stands, a pretty thing in her youth, now a little older, a little wiser, a little too careful with her appearance, and she has something wrapped in foil she’s trying to hand over.

— You must be the new neighbor!  It’s good to have more people in the building.  Thought you might be able to use something to eat, so here’s some bread for you, hope you’re not allergic to bananas, it’s very good my husband thought it was great stuff when I made it for him before his accident.  My name is Tess, you will find the rest of the building knows to come to me when they need something, just ask for Tess.  So, it’s good to meet you, sorry to bother you, I hope you enjoy the bread!

The doorway is empty as soon as it was filled, and the door is quickly shut once the hall has no one in it, though her shoes can still be heard on the stairs, going up.  The bread smells good; a plastic knife does the trick and a hunk of it is liberated, the rest in the fridge, and it tastes as good as it smells.  Something to keep the body going, something to go along with some coffee, keeping the eyes open to pore over more documents, to find more information, to make the necessary linkages all while preparing for the worst.

A Perfect Counterpart: Chapter 3

While the document was dangerous, filled with amazing revelations, and could change the course of world events, it was soporific, at best. Details, details, details. Unremitting lists of names, events, objects, places, foods. References and cross-references littered the pages, all 118 of them. The page to which the sheaf was opened was 54; the very next page contained the central piece of information, the very central piece of information which would bring down governments, empires, businesses, homes, churches, dogcatchers, sheriffs, mayors, governors, senators, dictators, kings, queens, teachers, generals, privates, and traffic cops.

That bit of information, however, was left unfound, unread, and ignored; breakfast intervened. Sausage and eggs, toast and jam, the Monster Express Golden Dish at Robin Wood Breakfast House, only $3.95 for the meal, with an additional $1.50 for unlimited cups of coffee — three were consumed, and the plate was left clean, an additional $2.75 left beside it as a tip, a newspaper, partially read, abandoned in the booth. No documents were read during breakfast; just the paper and the information concerning the history and progress of Robin Wood Breakfast House and the chain of restaurants sharing the same name, logo, ownership, menu, and central warehouse.

Back in the apartment more documents were consulted; notes were taken, linkages found, but page 55 was left unread; the guiding piece of information, still unknown, kept many things from being understood, things which would have made life much easier much sooner for all of us. Special interest was taken in the most recent documents, documents made up of words, concepts, and thought-structures dependent upon the words, concepts, and thought-structures found in the older documents. The unintelligibility of the later documents was troublesome; it was only after many hours of labor that the older documents were consulted, and light began to spread across what had been so much darkness and seeming madness.

At sundown things needed to change: a trip to Wal-Mart, for paper, for writing implements, for food, for a chair and table, as sitting on the floor and leaning back against the wall was far from comfortable. A sleeping bag, some sheets, some pillows, and some foam upon which to place the sleeping bag were also obtained, and also obtained was clothing, toothpaste, and the like. The car was full on the trip back to the apartment, and it took quite some time to unpack. Welcome sleep came soon after.

A Perfect Counterpart: Chapter 2

The first document is found on yellowed paper, and clearly comes from a partially-malfunctioning typewriter, as “K” appears only every third time it ought; the first page of this stapled-together sheaf has the agency logo at the top, clearly from a commercial printer, with the bottom of the page holding three sets of initials: K.L.A., W.E.R., and T.G.B.; each set of initials is found on all successive pages of this particular document.

The sun has risen and decisions must be made: a nearby backwater and a new identity (with all the work which comes with that, including the back-breaking labor which is the only true place to hide) or a tropical paradise, filled with heat and lassitude and poor folks willing to do whatever it takes to get that greenback, willing to love and hate and kill and caress and actually enjoy the thwack of the strap because it puts food on the table, gives meaning to the day, and provides something to look forward to, something to expect, bad as it may be.

Thus a coin-flip: dew-sweaty native girls walk past and sweatshirt-and-blue-jean-clad girls, dirty blondes and muddy brunettes take their place, men in the same clothes but cut a bit differently, houses and lawns and cars to wash come right along with them.

This town is mentioned on the third page of the first document; no one, not even those who would seek the return of these documents, would expect the one who has spirited them away to stop so soon, to stop in a place the name of which is known, a place intimately related to the papers kept safe within the satchel, its dark weathered leather shielding them from wind and rain and children shooting spitballs on the bus.

So an apartment is procured; cash exchanged, a happy landlord, neighbors who speak a bit too loudly and have their TVs turned a bit too low, with late-night alarms and early-morning sirens — a perfect place, a comfortable place, the first night kept on the floor, the satchel a pillow, that first document half-read, lying on the reader’s chest when morning fills the room.

A Perfect Counterpart: Chapter 1

Documents everywhere; real documents, documents straight from the source; documents which, had they been forged, would have been far more unsettling even than they already were. Yet what to do with them? No reporter would believe them to be real, no publisher would allow them through their presses on the fear of lawsuits or worse; not even a blogger would touch them, knowing they would likely be killed in their beds, their murder chalked up as the result of a robbery gone wrong, or even as a suicide.

There was no way of knowing when their absence from the archives would be discovered; it could be hours, days, or even years. If hours, there would be no escape; if days, there was a chance to cover tracks and dive deep into some backwater and hope for the best; if years, a chance to use them well may appear, but carelessness due to the march of time would likely end with an awful death once the missing documents were discovered.

Time could not be wasted. The documents were gathered together, placed in a leather satchel, which was in turn thrown back over the shoulder. The satchel-bearer turned off the lights, shut the door, and fled down the hall, one hand clutching the bag’s strap, the other making sure the gun was still in its belt holder.

Out the door and into the car; soon the hotel and its town were no longer in the rear-view mirror. A case of Coke sat on the floor on the passenger’s side of the car, a case which was emptied at a surprising clip as the car hurtled down the highway on its way south, on its way away from immediate danger.