Authors: Robert Jackson Bennett

American Elsewhere (48 page)

The facts are simple:

On Monday evening, Dr. Alvarez did a final check on the lens equipment. This is standard operating procedure for us, after which we always lock up the chamber.

Approximately four minutes into her check, she began to shut down the recording equipment.

Not long after that, the power flow to the lens abruptly spiked. This we know due to the electrical monitoring systems I insisted be installed (which we now all agree was quite wise). The duration of the spike was a little over forty seconds.

Three seconds into this spike, the lens plates rotated a full twenty-three degrees, clockwise. Then they stopped.

The spike persisted for another nine seconds. Then it ended.

And this, really, is all we know, which is not much. There is a lot of hoopla going on about the data outputs, and though what was recorded does suggest something very close to suspended bruising,
But we obviously cannot trust it because it occurred during what honestly seems to be either equipment malfunction (unlikely) or sabotage (in my opinion, much more likely).

There is also the position of the plates. While a reenactment of the incident does suggest that the plates rotated to point toward Dr. Alvarez’s position in the chamber, I do not lend this development much credence. It does not stir any suspicion or concern in my mind. The position of the plates has so far proven coincidental to any success at suspended bruising.

What concerns me most—as it must also concern you—is

However, none of this can be proven to any satisfactory degree.

Dr. Alvarez remains an exceptional scientist—possibly, except for myself, the most exceptional one I have ever known—and she herself did not register anything out of the ordinary during her time in the chamber. Due to the nature of the lens, she did not even hear it rotate. And she did not notice anything during the time that, per the reports, suspended bruising was achieved.
Though there was some concern she had been exposed to
but totally ridiculous. I also have no reason to believe she was involved in the change in the lens.

To be frank, the behavior of the lens can only lead me to think it was the result of external control. I am not sure if either Dr. Bintly or Mr. Helm has the means of setting up this sort of control. But the sequence of events—power, rotation, data output—does not seem accidental. Someone, somehow, was controlling the lens.

I have requested your security teams examine and interrogate the facility staff in detail as a result. I am quite eager to hear what they will find.

INVESTIGATION INTO DISAPPEARANCE OF LAURA ALVAREZ
TAPED INTERVIEW c10.36-aB
CONDUCTED BY CHIEF OF STAFF MICHAEL DERN
SUBJECT: ERIC BINTLY
DECEMBER 14
^TH, 1975

MICHAEL DERN [CLEARS THROAT]
: This interview is the first of the staff-conducted investigation into the disappearance of Laura Alvarez. It’s, uh, important to note that, as of right now, this interview is not… officially sanctioned. Our instructions are still forthcoming. For now, we’ve been told to sit tight, but I figured that we… well, we needed to do something now, to prepare ahead of time, so no one got the idea that we were preparing statements.

ERIC BINTLY
: So how do they know this isn’t a prepared statement right now?

MICHAEL DERN
: I think it’s likely they’ll understand we haven’t had the time to prepare anything.

ERIC BINTLY
: How do they know that? These aren’t the most understanding guys in the world, am I wrong? Are we just promising them that we’re making it right after she left?

MICHAEL DERN
: You know you’re on tape, right?

ERIC BINTLY
: Yeah, yeah. But how do they even know when she left?

MICHAEL DERN
: Eric, I’m going to level with you right now and say that… they have a lot more ways of keeping track of things out here than you’d expect.

ERIC BINTLY
: Like what?

[
SILENCE
]

ERIC BINTLY
: Cameras? Mikes?

[
SILENCE
]

ERIC BINTLY
: Jesus Christ.

MICHAEL DERN
: Let’s just start from the top. Start from your return from your…

ERIC BINTLY
: From my vacation?

MICHAEL DERN
: Sure, let’s call it that.

ERIC BINTLY
: Well… it wasn’t that long ago, but… things had obviously changed. We’d made huge advances. They had, I mean. I hadn’t been there for it. They’d actually simulated bruising several—

MICHAEL DERN
: No, Eric, what they want to know about is Laura. Tell them just about her. Just Laura.

ERIC BINTLY
: Okay, okay. Let me think. Now… now, there were marked differences in how she, uh, acted since when I left and when I came back. I was only gone a couple of weeks. But I could tell… something was off. Something was wrong, I guess. She was… [
PAUSE
] Can I ask you something, Mike?

MICHAEL DERN
: Me? Sure, I guess.

ERIC BINTLY
: Did you… think I went crazy?

MICHAEL DERN
: I’m sorry?

ERIC BINTLY
: When they sent me away. Did you think I’d had a, a psychotic break? Because I don’t. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am.

MICHAEL DERN
: That’s not really what we’re asking about.

ERIC BINTLY
: Yeah, but, see, it kind of is. You think Laura’s disappearance is an aberration. You think it’s unusual behavior. But I’m not so sure it is. Maybe it’s something else.

MICHAEL DERN
: So you think it’s perfectly reasonable to just jump in your car, with no preparation at all, and leave, all the way out here in the desert?

ERIC BINTLY
: I’m not saying it’s reasonable. I’m saying… there might be other factors at play. Listen, Mike, I know that, on paper, I am a wildly untrustworthy witness. I am an untouchable, really. I’m here solely because Dick likes me, and I know it. But… that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

MICHAEL DERN
: Wrong about what?

ERIC BINTLY
: About the lens. About what it does.

MICHAEL DERN
: I know what the lens does.

ERIC BINTLY
: You know what it does on paper. But it does more than that.

MICHAEL DERN
: For God’s sakes. You sound like Steven.

ERIC BINTLY
: And maybe we should have listened to Steven. I mean, he had problems with it well before all this happened. Before I… left. Before Laura.

MICHAEL DERN
: Okay. Fine. Keep telling me about Laura. What was different about her?

ERIC BINTLY
: Well, she used to be… to look quite… vivacious. There was an aliveness to her. You know? She used to run laps around the mesa like it was nothing. But when I saw her again, she looked unhealthy. She looked tired. Like something was being pulled out of her.

MICHAEL DERN
: That was noted. We did two physicals, nothing showed up.

ERIC BINTLY
: Right, and you attributed it to exhaustion. Which is a rational thing to do. But Dick was working just the same amount, right? And he didn’t look that exhausted. And yeah, yeah, maybe it was all the meditation and the green tea.
Jasmine
green tea. But I don’t think so.

MICHAEL DERN
: So what was it?

ERIC BINTLY
: I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure. But sometimes while I was talking to her, she’d suddenly look to the side, like she’d seen something, but nothing was there. Or she’d wince, like she’d just heard something loud or grating, right in her ear. It was like… me.

MICHAEL DERN
: Like you?

ERIC BINTLY
: Yeah. Like how I was. That was why you all thought I was crazy. Because I… saw things.

MICHAEL DERN
: You said you saw the members of the research team in random places throughout the facility.

ERIC BINTLY
: Yeah. I saw them. And we thought it was a hallucination. I did, too. But maybe not.

[
SILENCE
]

ERIC BINTLY
: And maybe Laura was seeing and hearing things, too. Things that were actually there.

MICHAEL DERN
: But things only she could see. Right. I’m gonna go ahead and remind you, one more time, that you are on tape.

ERIC BINTLY
: I didn’t just see staff, you know. There were some things I… I didn’t tell you.

[
SILENCE
]

ERIC BINTLY
: So that makes me wonder—what did Laura see?

MICHAEL DERN
: Are you serious?

[
SILENCE
]

MICHAEL DERN
: You saw this, and you didn’t tell us?

[
SILENCE
]

MICHAEL DERN
: It’s really… it is
so
irresponsible that you were… that you withheld things from us, Eric. You were in danger, you should have told us
everything
.

ERIC BINTLY
: I know. But I didn’t want it to be real.

MICHAEL DERN
: Want what to be real?

ERIC BINTLY
: Well, it’s like you said. I saw the lab crew, and I saw them in different places… but in different sets of clothing, at different
ages
. I didn’t tell you
that
. Like, I saw you and Dick walking around, examining the facility, but you had hair, Mike, and I
swear
Dick had like half the wrinkles he has now. I saw Laura, and she looked about five years older, but she was filthy, dressed in a tank top and cargo shorts, and she was carrying around a fucking
gun
, for whatever reason. And I saw
myself
. When I didn’t need glasses. Just doing whatever. Paperwork. Smoking. And once I saw…

MICHAEL DERN
: Saw what?

[
SILENCE
]

MICHAEL DERN
: Saw what, Eric?

ERIC BINTLY
: I saw you. And Dick. And a lot of the other staff. Screaming. The walls were shaking. And the floor and ceiling were cracking. Lights going out. And someone said… “There’s something up there.”

[
SILENCE
]

MICHAEL DERN
: What did he… do you mean?

ERIC BINTLY
: I don’t know. But… I thought he meant that there was something on top of the building. The mesa, I mean. I don’t know.

[
SILENCE
]

MICHAEL DERN
: Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you say any of this?

ERIC BINTLY
: Because I wanted to come back. Because I wanted to keep working. But now I know I shouldn’t have. When I saw what Laura was doing… well, why tell you this. I’m sure you have it on film.

MICHAEL DERN
: Have what?

ERIC BINTLY
: What she was doing with the lens.

MICHAEL DERN
: We don’t… [
PAPER RUSTLING
] I don’t, uh, think we have any recorded examples of any… uh, misbehavior with the lens.

ERIC BINTLY
: You don’t? At all?

MICHAEL DERN
: No.

ERIC BINTLY
: Well… I swear, she would just do it for an
hour
or something…

MICHAEL DERN
: Do what?

ERIC BINTLY
: Just… stare into them. She would just stare into the lens plates. With her nose about an inch away. Like she was transfixed. I caught her several times. That was when I really knew something was wrong.

MICHAEL DERN
: I don’t have any… God. I don’t have that at all.

ERIC BINTLY
: Then I guess she was screwing with the records.

MICHAEL DERN
: She
couldn’t
.

ERIC BINTLY
: Well, she did, or someone did. I think I found her like that at least three times. And each time I caught her, there was something wrong with her
eyes
. It was like there was something else in there.

MICHAEL DERN
: What do you mean?

ERIC BINTLY
: I wasn’t sure until I stopped her, on the day she left. The day she just jumped in her car and started driving east. Before that, I stopped her in the hall and asked what was wrong, because she looked troubled, and she stopped and looked at me and… it was like… it’s impossible to describe. It’s like there was someone else in there. In her head. Someone who wasn’t Laura at all.

MICHAEL DERN
: I’m going to just say, once more, with feeling, that you are on tape.

ERIC BINTLY
: I know.

MICHAEL DERN
: A tape that will be heard by important people.

ERIC BINTLY
: I
know
. And I also know what I saw. I’m telling you, she didn’t know me, Mike. Total lack of recognition. She wasn’t sure who or maybe even
what
I was. And there was this shivering, or wriggling, all in her corneas, as if behind her eyes there was nothing but worms…

[
SILENCE
]

ERIC BINTLY
: I let her go. I was so unnerved, I let her go. I shouldn’t have done that.

[
SILENCE
]

MICHAEL DERN
: No. You shouldn’t have.

ERIC BINTLY
: The lens does something, Mike. I’m sure of it. It pushes at the boundaries of things. I remember Dick once said the way it transports is like a kid throwing a ball up through one skylight so it comes down through another skylight a couple of walls away. And that just stuck in my head.

MICHAEL DERN
: Why?

ERIC BINTLY
: It was actually something you said before, about another metaphor of Dick’s. The ant on the string in the room.

MICHAEL DERN
: Oh. I think… yeah, the thing with—

ERIC BINTLY
: The corners. What’s in the corners?

MICHAEL DERN
: Right.

ERIC BINTLY
: Yeah, so… while his comparison with the skylights isn’t correct—because that’s
not
really how the lens works—it just makes me wonder if we are making holes somewhere, in some part of the world we can’t measure or quantify, and if the holes are there, then… what else can come through?

MICHAEL DERN
: You sound like—

ERIC BINTLY
: I know. You said it already. Steven.

MICHAEL DERN
: Did he—did he tell you everything, Eric? Because Steven told
me ev
erything. After all, he couldn’t go to Dick, so he came to me. And it was fucking. Insane. It was fucking
insane
, Eric.
He said the, the lenses were windows, and there was someone on the other side of them. That’s what he said, to me. He said there was someone on the other side, watching, and then—I swear I am not making this up, this is what he said—he corrected himself, and said, “or some
thing
.” And he was dead fucking serious. Now, is this really something you want to get behind, Eric? Do you really want to discuss this, seriously, on tape, with me, and throw your career behind this sort of shit?

ERIC BINTLY
: I don’t know. I saw what I saw. There’s no way around it.

MICHAEL DERN
: Christ.

[
SILENCE
]

ERIC BINTLY
: They’ll have set up a perimeter, right? One of those search nets? APB, all that stuff?

MICHAEL DERN
: I think so. I assume that’s why no one’s here to tell us what to do. They’re all looking for her.

ERIC BINTLY
: I ask because… I think she made a lot of changes to the lens before she left.

MICHAEL DERN
: What kind of changes?

ERIC BINTLY
: I don’t know. I’m not allowed to be around the lens that much since I got sent away. And besides… I was never as good as she was.

MICHAEL DERN
: You’re sure? Sure she made changes?

ERIC BINTLY
: Pretty sure.

MICHAEL DERN
: Well… fuck, man. Let’s hope it wasn’t anything important.

ERIC BINTLY
: Dick will take care of it.