Sleeper Seven (24 page)

Jess was momentarily speechless — she had never thought of the ship as a
starship
before. Regaining herself, she accepted the charge proudly.

"Guilty."

They both exploded into peals of laughter from their seemingly bottomless well of mirth, Roper leaning back so far the bong in his lap tipped backward, spilling more water onto him — which just tickled Sag's funny bone even more.

"But how do you know all this?" Jess asked, after they had calmed down somewhat. "And what's the backstory on you guys?"

"Ha. Well," Roper replied, setting aside the bong and wringing his shirt out onto his shorts. "Refugees, man. Or escapees, maybe. We're Sleepers, mostly, like you. Couple of us came from Gateway, few younger ones like Sag here, Terry sent our way. We just want to raise the vibrational level of this planet, man, strap a booster rocket onto human consciousness, man,
straight up!
Sixties never
died,
man; they live on, just below the surface."

He took another long gurgling hit while Sag drove on, paying more attention to Roper's speechmaking than the road.

"But we had to change our
tactics,
man. Government-endorsed, tax-deductible, neo-Randian, Calvinist-capitalized fuck-your-neighbor, advertising-sponsored, high-fructose injected, parent-approved, patriarchal, protectionist, NSA monitored, and hand-sanitized for your protection bullshit culture co-opted
them,
" he railed, motioning towards Sag, "and made
us
out to be the freaks."

"They're not freaks," Sag called out in solidarity, "they're Trust to Power!"

"
Truth
to Power, man.
Truth
to Power," Roper whispered to Sag, before turning his attention back to Jess. "But we're
not
freaks, man, we're
them
— unshackled. That's what they've always been afraid of." Roper said all this with a painful seriousness that was almost touching.

"They put lead in the gasoline to stop the magic from happening, man, poisoned the atmosphere and made a whole generation of dulled, angry, competitive people that were easier to contain and control. We finally got the lead out back in '84, man — like, literally — and you're seeing the fruits of that in the young people now." Again he waved his hand towards Sag, which to Jess was not exactly a ringing endorsement of his theory.

Sag looked confused. "You really think they did that on purpose? With the leaded gas?"

"Yeah, man!" Roper responded angrily. "Well, who knows?
I
don't know. Do
you
know?
Someone
knows!"

"I dunno man...that's pretty out there," Sag countered timidly.

"Fact is, lead's a known developmental neurotoxin. Fact is, atmospheric lead emissions reached their peak in 1979. Fact is, our movement was a joke by the 80's. We went from 'Peace, Love, and Harmony' to 'Greed is Good'. Woodstock to Wall Street. Put it all together, man, it's causality in action, tic-tac-toe. A little too
convenient,
wouldn't ya say?" Roper shot back.

Jess jumped in, short-circuiting this convo that had veered way off course already. "That's Cool and the Gang, but how does a group like you, ah, get into this business, and, like,
why?
"

Roper closed his eyes, allowing his anger to dissipate before responding. "Global transformation is only possible at the level of the individual," he replied softly, eyes shut. "We learned that decades ago. We're out doing the same thing they're doing, but our intentions are different, and that
matters,
man. We enlighten, and yeah, sometimes we 'scare', but we don't intimidate like they do. That's not our bag. If we scare someone, that's just the Ego getting a jolt, the Ego that thinks society's got it all figured out; we're not concerned with that vestigial organ. In the long run, the experience gets integrated. It opens them up. It expands 'em. Brings 'em to a higher place," he explained, spinning his fingers upwards in a spiral.

"Just so we're clear on this, you guys have ships, that you take out and terrify people with, just like the government does?" Jess asked incredulously.

"C'mon man. Now that's just
unfair.
There's a difference. What we do
changes
people. What they do
conditions
people. Totally different. Skinner is alive and well mi amigo, don't let anyone tell you different."

"I still don't get why the government would do this to their own people, there's gotta be billions of our dollars in these things, we've got a right to know about these things we bought and paid for!"

"Well, they got a lotta dough in makin 'em, yeah, but they sure didn't invent 'em," he replied. Then, rubbing his stomach, he reached over and began searching the back of the van for something. "Hey Sag, let's get off at that Shoney's outside Rockford. I'm gettin' the munchies
real bad
back here."

Twenty minutes later, they were off the highway and seated in the restaurant. While Roper and Sag argued over which menu item could best be passed off as vegan, Jess continued to question them.

"So how many ships do you have, and how did you get them?"

"We got three," Sag answered, as Roper pondered the menu intensely, "two smaller ones, Libra and Scout, and Big Mama. Libra's a Gen-one and is out of commission, she ran outta juice back in '02, so she's just a museum piece now. Scout's a newer model, mid-nineties, and at nineteen percent, so she's good for another decade or so, we think. Big Mama's almost brand new, though, provisioned in '08, and we picked her up in '12. We have a
lot
of fun with her."

"And how did you get all these ships? Government surplus auctions?"

"Ha, naw. We stole 'em, just like you."

"We'll...I didn't really
steal
it," Jess rationalized, taken aback by his bluntness, "more like
borrowed
it, for a time, ahhh, yeah." She looked up to find the server waiting on them with an upraised eyebrow.

"Borrowing ain't stealing, in my book," she confirmed, "now what can I get you all?"

After a quick and greasy meal, they were soon back on the road. Jess had joined Sag up front in the passenger side captain's chair, which was springy and comfortable despite the various ancient stains and burn holes. Roper, sporadically nodding off in back on the shag carpet, lazily munched from the decidedly un-vegan bag of Doritos he insisted on getting.

Awakening from his stupor several minutes later, Roper broke the food coma silence that pervaded the van.

"
Sag,
" he scolded accusingly.

"What, man?" Sag replied, a bit defensively.

"Dude, there's a lady with us. Manage yourself, bud."

"Sorry," he confessed sheepishly, "I couldn't hold it anymore. It
hurt
dude."

"Saaaag," Roper sang out, angrily now.

"What!"

"Please tell me you didn't fish those Spawn-of-Satan fiber bars out of the trash did you?"

"But they were sooooo goooood..."

"
C'mon man!
" Roper shouted, severely harshing the mellow. "Now we gotta live through this, like, literal
shit,
for the next two hours? Dude, how can you let this happen again? I told you never to eat anything with that nasty chicory..."

"...root extract," Sag added. "I know, I know. Yeah, I'm payin' for it now. I won't do it..."

"We're
all
payin' for it now, friend," Roper interrupted angrily. "Oh, we are
all
payin' for it. No more! Where are they. I should'a chucked 'em at the gas station. Where
are
they!"

"Ummm..."

"Where. Are. They."

"...I ate 'em all."

Roper sat with his back against the wall, defeated.

"Damn you, Sag," he grumbled with disgust, "Damn you and those fiber bars straight to
Hell
." Ducking into the back of the van, he opened the vents on the rear windows.

"Huh, Huh, Huh," Sag muttered, cracking his own window open.

"NOT funny. NOT funny, man," Roper scolded from the back. "Jess honey, I'm gonna set up camp back here for awhile, feel free to join me. Or stay up there with the Sag-stench, if you dare. Dude's
fermenting
up there."

"I'm...fine," Jess replied, half-laughing and half-gagging, as she pulled her shirt up to her face and stared out the window.

A few minutes later, she rose and quietly joined Roper at the back of the van.

~ 53 ~

T
he rolling countryside gave way to picturesque turn-of-the-century hotels, curio shops, and restaurants as they rolled down Galena's South Main Street a few hours later. Instead of stopping to join the other antique hunters and bed-and-breakfasters, however, they continued heading north, out of town. Ten minutes on, they turned into the circular drive of an old whitewashed farmhouse, set on a large expanse of gently rolling green fields.

"Star must be out back," Roper surmised, "no lights on."

Sag continued driving past the house, turning onto a dirt two-track that trailed off behind it. As they crested a rise, a collection of far-flung outbuildings came into view, all dwarfed by a very low and wide structure set back into the tree line at the far edge of the property.

As they approached this long building, Jess noticed a set of twenty-foot wide doors hinged together to open like an accordion. Built with wood timbers, the building resembled a cross between log cabin and gigantic garage, reminding her of an uncle who lived in a runway community where the preposterously large garages held planes instead of cars. A diffuse bluish-white light, emanating from the door panel seams, suddenly blinked out as they parked the van in front.

Roper led them around the side, revealing a nicely landscaped garden accented with a flagstone patio, cedar chairs, and a fire pit. Jess imagined them eating brats and sipping lemonade after taking their starships out for a Sunday drive.

"Come on in!" Roper proclaimed, opening a screen door on the side of the building with a rusty yowl. While ushering them through a second inner door, the first thing Jess noticed was the cool, dry air that whooshed out, as though the building was pressurized. Closing the door behind her, they were all temporarily plunged into darkness. As he led them down a set of stairs to the concrete floor six feet below ground level, Jess' eyes adjusted to the dim blue lighting. She noticed a wide platform extending across the open space, creating a loft-like area above. Looking closer, however, she was shocked to discover there
was
no second level, and the platform was actually the edge of an enormous ship.

Similar in shape to the triangle ship she had taken, this one seemed a bit larger: it looked to be at least three hundred feet on a side, and easily twelve feet thick. The edges, also rounded off and beveled, contained the same recessed circular openings on the underside of each corner. Unlike her ship, however, this one had a row of smaller openings around the bottom edges, connecting the larger ones.

The color of this one was different too — it wasn't flat black like hers, but had more of a dark grayish-greenish color to it, and the texture wasn't tiled and bumpy, but smoother — more like suede. It appeared sleeker, and certainly more awe-inspiring, but Jess also realized this was the first time she viewed a ship like this up close with her physical senses, which seemed to impart a more emotional reaction.

It sat, silently suspended, eight feet above the concrete floor. Squinting her eyes, she searched for the tripod supports, but found none; it simply sat fixed in place, as if it were bolted onto the ceiling somewhere.

Jess turned back to Sag. "This ship is
huge,
" she marveled, "how is it being held up?"

He looked at her strangely. "Ah, whatdaya mean 'how is it being held up'?"

Roper intervened before she could reply. "Well here's the thing, we don't shut 'er down..."

"You don't shut it down?"

"Well, we shut down everything but the ring."

"So you just let it sit here hovering twenty-four-seven? That's crazy!"

"Now listen here, young lady, I don't suppose you know how much energy it takes to get the ring up to speed do ya? You keep shutting it down and powering it up every day you can almost watch the juice leak away. Easier to just keep it running."

"But what about the thrusters? They must be off, right?"

"Yeah, but remember, this is a Gen III — they got the ring efficiency up to a hundred percent, so the thrusters are only for relative motion. Maneuverability is amazing when you don't need 'em for lift."

"Still, seems like such a waste of energy..."

"Your thinking is stuck in the past on this Jess, energy ain't an issue. Big Mama, as she sits, is good for another quarter-century, assuming three missions a week. Maybe longer, who knows."

"Twenty-five
years?
That's insane! What do these things run on anyway? And can't you just recharge them?"

Sag snorted, and Roper gave him a look as if to say
This lady has a lot to learn
.

"Jess, we can't recharge them. Don't know how. To be honest, we ain't qualified to anyhow, even if we did know. There's somethin' pretty close to a reactor that powers her."

"You mean these suckers are nuclear?" Her stomach dropped as she realized she had piloted a nuclear reactor over her hometown, and landed it in a stadium full of people. She crouched down and put a hand on the floor to steady herself. The boys, sympathizing with her reaction, bent down to console her.

"Listen, Jessica," Roper said gently, "we're against nukes more than you even know. But these aren't like what we have now. Not even close. What's out
there
is fifty-year-old tech.
This
is fifty-year-new tech, and it's safe. It's all self-contained. You could turn off the ring at the edge of space, drop this thing ten stories into the ground, and it would just sit there, happy as a clam, for centuries."

Still a little dizzy, she steadied herself, and as they helped her up, a voice rang out from the darkness.

"Quite a sight, huh?"

An older woman, red-haired like Jess and dressed in work coveralls emerged from the shadows, walking towards them with a slight but noticeable limp. After wiping her hands clean with a handkerchief, she pocketed it, and was about to offer her hand to Jess in greeting when she noticed the boys holding her up.