Chapter 1 Homecoming

By David Anthony Kearns

(Commercial reuse prohibited: Concepts, characters, storyline, dialogue is the coin of the mind of author David Anthony Kearns; sole owner of contents of this blog and all others listed in blogger profile. Commercial reuse or reprint in webspace, in printed material, within film or television venues constitutes copyright infringement and will be prosecuted legally)

The book, along with the first book in this trilogy, Monster Hole, is being published on the web for the pure enjoyment, entertainment, edification of the READER. That is to include every sentient member of the human species and other parties who may be so inclined to know we are aware of your presence. This book is an attempt to understand who you are and what precisely it is you want from us. In that your answer to this question is silence and evasion, one reasonably concludes your intent is HOSTILE!

Queries, comments welcome by one and all at the end of every chapter.

The Big Lie
Book 2: Monster Hole Series

It will spread like a sickness, infecting every system of human endeavor, until such time as they are enveloped and surrounded by it. It will become vital and necessary for the uplift of human institutions, while it is sucking the very lifeblood of freedom from them. In the end, they will not know where it ends, and they begin.
- The Oracle of Pantech

2014 Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton Ohio - Dr. Jeremy Sullivan sat in the computer lab with his close associate Dr. Dan Burnside.
“Burnside, let’s go over this again.”
“Look, Corso laid it all out for us in his book and this proves it, strange as it may seem. You know, it’s fiber optics, it’s semi-conductors, it’s cache memory, and random access, it’s genetics, bionics, all of that was found at Roswell,” Burnside said.
“Apart from any meaningful propulsion system,” Sullivan said.
“Right Jeremy, which means what?”
“I’m still not following you?”
“It’s a burnt offering. It was given to us. Not something we found, or even shot down. Can a Raptor even keep up with one of these things, today?”
“No.”
“And yet one of good ole Verner Van Braun’s V-2s at White Sands knocks one out of these babies from the sky, and oops something similar happens at Roswell?” Burnside said.
“….I’ll agree, Dan. This wouldn’t seem to make any sense, but what are you proposing?”
“Look at what the oracle was telling us. Read these symbols again,” Burnside said.
“I have read them. I’m still not sure…”
“These things were thrown at us, like spaghetti on a wall. They were hurling them at us, all but screaming ‘looky here! Here’s another one, you crazy-assed chimpanzees!’
“You’re essentially saying …”
“Combine this data with those kooky sightings in the 1950s; men in shiny suits collecting samples with little beakers, then turning in surprise, like ‘Ooops! Shit guys, the monkeys have seen us, run!’”
“Artificial…”
“Stage drama, a cartoon they kept repeating until we…”
“You’re telling me, you think that these things, whoever they are, knew we would take all this material they crashed and begin messing with it, to come up with, say, the internet?” Sullivan said.
“….call me loony if you will, this is THE, repeat THE logical explanation...”
“Glad you realize how crazy it sounds, Dan,” Sullivan said.
“Jeremy, think of where you were and what you were doing, two years ago. Did you ever dream in your wildest moment, you’d find yourself here today, doing this, knowing what you now know?”
Sullivan sucked on his teeth and winced. The man had a point there.
“I just wish we could see the rest of that cave. Get the rest of the text from the wall,” Sullivan said at last.
“Think of it, an entire ancient Native American culture co-opted by the United States Air Force,” Burnside said.
“Shhhhhh…” Sullivan said, nodding toward the camera to his right, mounted above the door.

#
June 3, 2014 Melbourne International Airport - When Lt. Colonel Sean Cogswell, USMC (Rt.) de-boarded Flight 973 from Baghdad via Munich, he was exhausted. Tim could see that much.
But he looked fit. His eyes carried the steady, hawkish gaze of someone taking a survey of the room for potential enemies. When they landed on Tim’s face they softened immediately.
“Hey man,” said Sean walking over to his brother’s best friend attempting to give him a bear hug.
“Holy shit, is it ever good to see you,” Tim said, staving off the hug.
“I didn’t think you’d be here. I’m hearing so many things about you these days. It’s hard to sieve truth from fiction.”
“That’s by design. I’ve picked up a few new enemies since I saw you last,” Tim said.
“So I hear,” Sean said. “I suppose one of these days you’re going to tell me exactly what the hell has been going on.”
“That day has arrived, Sean. But there’s time enough for that. Let’s get your gear squared away in the back of my limo,” Tim said.
“Your what?”
It was then Sean noticed Tim’s curious garb. He had been dressed more like a mortician than anything else.
Tim completed the act by donning a chauffeur’s cap.
“Oh my God. You’re serious,” he said.
“Yes sir, colonel. Right this way!” Tim said loudly “Yeah and you might just have blown my cover,” Tim said sotto voce as they walked to the baggage claim and grabbed the olive drab hang-bag carrying Sean’s dress blues.
“Is this it?” Tim asked.
“Most of my life has been carry-on since I returned my weapon to the armory,” Sean said. “That and a sea of fucking paper-work that I am finally finished with.”
They walked through the busy airport lobby. Tim played his part dutifully carrying both the hang bag and the wheeled carry-on for Sean.
Through his darkened lenses, Tim looked up at CNN internet news blaring from one of the frame plasma screens hanging over the sushi lunch cart where six or eight businessmen shoveled marisco wonders into their mouths before their flights.
Deposed former Cuban president Raul Castro had been assassinated earlier in the day by the Marchistas but, no one was admitting who precisely had done the killing. A special session of the Revolutionary Parliament was set for tomorrow to decide the fate of Cuba. Its brief, two year taste of pseudo-freedom was drawing to a close, thought Tim.
At least three of the businessmen were now staring intently up at the screen, realizing that their first class return tickets might not be worth a damn if La Habana Airlines – which had been doing extremely well in recent years – was nationalized by the time they touched down. To go or not to go?
Here it comes, thought Tim. Game on.
“Where to, driver?” Sean asked.
“Somewhere safe, where you can be briefed,” whispered Tim as he ushered Sean to the limo door.
“Briefed?”
“Briefed,” said Tim in utter seriousness.
Sean sat down in the back.
“Thought I was through with being briefed,” Sean complained.
“Everything back there is for your personal use, Sean. Everything,” Tim said.
Sean looked around. He had a holo-tube at the ready at the touch of a button, a glass of Scotch and a Cojimar. After lighting the cigar he partially rolled down the window which rolled right back up. He looked into the rear view mirror to see Tim shake his head in the negative; that had been a mistake. Instead, the overhead glass slid back slightly letting the sweet smoke escape through the late afternoon breeze.
“Kick back, have a drink,” Tim said.
“I was thinking about it,” Sean said.
It was clouding up to the west.
“Rain, or it’s getting ready to,” Sean said.
“You were thinking of paddling out?”
“Yeah…have to admit I was thinking about that too,” Sean said.
“It’s been so flat recently. Only means one thing,” Tim said.
“Storms in August. Look out,” Sean said.
“Got that right, brah.”
Sean watched CNN again on the holovision as the report on Cuba continued. Tim had been listening to it.
“What a fucking mess,” Sean said taking a sip of Scotch.
“Today or tomorrow Cuba will dissolve its congress and wipe away any pretense,” Tim said. “Marchistas will insert their candidate and Cubazuela will take its place among the nations of the earth.”
“And you think this is what they will really call it?”
“Who knows, Sean. Maybe they’ll go back to the Sovietsky way; something really long, and radical just to piss us off.”
“I hear they got Chinese diplomats all set up, ready to go, ready to recognize them at the UN.”
“So you have been watching.”
“A little,” said Sean
“Then that’s good. This is going to be a big deal in the upcoming election here, Sean. You have to know how to react to it,” Tim said.
“Election?”
“Indeed Senator, otherwise, how will you become one?” Tim said.
“Oh shit.”
“Lot of catching up to do, Sean. A lot,” Tim said.
“And here I thought I was my own boss,” Sean said.
“Everyone feels confident that once you hear what we have been hiding from you for the last few years, you’re going to come to the conclusion you have to do something to help,” Tim said.
“And fortunately for me, my manner of doing so has been all mapped out for me,” Sean said.
“Since the day you saved my life, you’ve been an integral part of this,” Tim said.
“I just haven’t known it,” Sean said with a bemused smile.
Tim nodded; “Precisely.”
A light drizzle turned the streets glassy. The steamy hiss of cars slicing through puddles could be heard. The limo headed east, turned south and glided down Babcock Street missing the 192 interchange for A1A beachside.
“What gives?”
“Your house in Melbourne Beach is bugged to shit,” Tim said.
“Bugged?”
“Since before your mom died. They wired that place up like a zip-lined jungle. But that’s alright, we want it that way,” Tim said.
“Wired? Who wired it?”
“Feds, goons, MIBs, NSA, CIA, FBIs….all the letters of the alphabet,” Tim said. “You’ll see soon enough.”
“You’ve been watching the news lately?” Tim asked.
“Here and there, when I can,” he replied.
“You’ve heard of the cryptos?” Tim asked.
“No, can’t say as I have. What’s a crypto, something you smoke?”
“Funny. Good one. Keep that response for now. It suits you,” Tim said.
“Why would someone ask me about crytpos?”
“Because of Ryan and his associations. They’ll want to link you to them, right away. To discredit you as a candidate,” Tim said.
“But what are they?”
“Cryptomorphs; you know, chupacabra, Big Foot, mothman; that sort of thing,” Tim said.
“Ryan was looking into this?” he said rather incredulously.
“Ryan was helping design them. His software was being used as a means to construct them. One of the things he found out,” Tim said.
“Cryptos…yeah, you know, Tim? I’m wondering if there isn’t a better time to introduce me to all this stuff? I’ve kinda been through a lot in the last few days?”
“I know, Sean. I am sorry. I wish there was another way,” Tim said shaking his head.
What really sucked about the Big Lie, was, every time you found someone new you wanted to bring into the underground you have to go all the way back to the drawing board with the new guy. Including that troublesome phase where you had to prove to them you weren’t crazy and you weren’t full of shit. You had to audition the information, fight it like case-law; justify it like an expense report. It was frustrating as hell.
It made it very hard to get anything in the way of forward progress when it came to understanding these things.
Ryan never had to train, recruit and do background checks. But it would have been good to have Ryan here now for his scientific mind. Sean might be an excellent leader, just like everyone thought he would be. But did he have his older brother’s mind for science? Who knew?
And with that began a labyrinthine effort to shake any surveillance on the limousine involving a circumlocution of five blocks of downtown Palm Bay.
That completed, they drove to the Ramada Inn located at the intersection of I-95 and Palm Bay Road. There they were met by a cab parked beneath the alcove.
“You are to get out of the car, greet the woman who steps out of the cab,” Tim said. “Then you two are to ascend the elevator to room 422.”
“Ascend?”
“Don’t be a wise ass, this is serious,” Tim said.
“So I gather,” Sean said.
Sean looked at the woman in the white sequin dress and high heels standing on the curb now waiving to him.
“Who the hell is she?”
“A paid actress,” Tim said.
“….That’s too bad. She’s pretty hot,” Sean said.
“Seanny, we don’t have much time, man. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t crucial,” Tim said.
“I can see your point,” Sean said.
“How?”
“Same Crown Vic that was parked outside the airport is right over there. It just pulled up,” Sean said.
“Damn, they’re not even trying to be discreet about it. Not good,” said Tim. “Look, dig into your wallet and hand me some cash, alright? Then get moving.”
“Alright…”
“Try to act a little drunk when you get out. Sell it hard,” Tim said attempting to hand Sean some change.
“Keep it buddy. I just came back from the wars,” Sean said.
Tim popped the trunk and handed him his carry-on and his hang bag.
Tim then handed Sean the card key to the room.
Sean held a cigar in his hands, loosened his tie and walked unsteadily across the alcove toward the beautiful woman in the white dress. He slipped his hand around her waist, kissed her on the cheek and they moved through the front doors and to the elevators.
They exchanged small talk the way lovers would.
“How have you been?”
“Dying to see you,” she said.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“After you didn’t call me I was worried,” she said.
“It’s been so hectic over there,” he said, marveling silently at what a good actress she was.
Once inside the elevator she held her fingers to her lips. Then she leaned in and kissed him, hard.
Amused at his predicament, Sean kissed her right back. She smelled heavenly whoever she was. It was seriously turning him on.
“They’ll eventually be checking the security cameras,” she whispered to him.
“Then why not give them something to talk about,” he whispered pushing the stop button.
The tinny sound of the alarm echoed off the walls of the elevator shaft as he descended her neckline with kisses.
“Don’t be a bastard,” she whispered.
“Lady, in five years, the closest thing to an eligible female I’ve seen, had humps on it,” he said.
She pushed another button on the wall and the elevator began to move again.
“Let’s wait ‘till we get to the room, darling,” she said.
“Fine by me,” he said.
They entered the room and the woman immediately turned around a slapped Sean.
“Asshole,” she whispered.
He stood there for a moment rubbing his cheek. She smiled and so did he.
They were all over each other in a matter of seconds. By the time the knock came to the door, he had nearly stripped his shirt off.
“Go see who it is,” she said hitching up her dress.
The door opened to reveal a bell-hop with a dinner cart, the top of which was brimming with plates as well as an icy silver bucket with a bottle of chilled Moet stuffed into it.
As the door closed the bellhop began issuing orders.
“Get the plates off quickly.”
He lifted the skirting around the cart to reveal a space where Sean was to crawl for his exit from the room. He looked over at the blonde who smiled sheepishly and shrugged.
“Damn it, I was just beginning to like her,” he said.
“It’ll have to wait,” said the bellhop sardonically.
The bellhop wheeled the cart, now containing Sean, hunched over in a ball. They rolled out of the room and down the hall to a service elevator. From there the elevator descended to the kitchen. Sean could see the stained linoleum tile of the kitchen moving beneath the wheels of the cart but not much else. He fought hard to suppress his laughter. This was either very serious or the most elaborate welcome home gag he had ever heard of.
The cart negotiated a bump then traveled down a receiving area access ramp to garage beneath the building. The skirt came up to reveal a van from Germann’s Cleaning Service waiting for him.
Sean stood up unsteadily, dizzy for a moment, when a driver told him to get into the back of the van.
“Can someone please tell me…?”
“There’s no time, Sean. Move. We’ve been setting this up for months now. Don’t blow it,” the man said ushering him with shoves.
Sean complied and within seconds he was in the back of the empty van holding on to the walls while it traveled up and out of the garage and back onto the main streets of the city.
“Welcome home, Seanny boy,” came a voice from the passenger side. It was Tim’s.
“Geez Louise! What the fuck is going on, guys? Where the hell are your taking me?” he asked.
“All in good time,” Tim said.
“Feel like I’ve been kidnapped by Shia militiamen, for God’s sake,” Sean said.
Tim and the driver looked at each other and smiled.
“I told you,” the driver said to Tim.
“Had to be this way,” Tim said. “Sorry Sean.”
“Yeah, and I was just having the first good time I have had in like, three years back there!” Sean said slamming his fist on the roof of the van.
They drove the streets of Palm Bay for an hour until they were absolutely sure they weren’t being followed.
Sean was introduced to the driver, a black guy named Gus Torrence, who, it turned out, was also a structural engineer for Camerdyne who had known Sean’s brother, Ryan.
They pulled into the garage of an innocuous house in Southwest Palm Bay.
“The home is owned by an alias named Mark Stebbins,” Tim said. “He runs Germann Cleaning Services, out of this house with his unhappy wife.”
“Who’s the wife?”
“Oh, don’t you know? You’re sleeping with her at this very moment. Mark is totally unaware, of course. Her name is Lorna. How is she, by the way?”
“Never laid a hand on her,” Sean said.
“Yeah, that’s some bullshit, right there,” Tim said.
“Okay, she’s one hell of a kisser,” Sean said.
“Uh-huh, I thought so. You’ve got to learn to lie better,” Tim said.
They got out of the van.
“When they run NORA software on Lorna’s face, they’ll hit this address which is okay, we expect that, but after this meeting, we’ll have to relocate the safe house.”
“NORA? Isn’t that…”
“Intelligence software used to recognize faces, absolutely right. But that’s good, see? You’re having an affair with a gorgeous married woman, senator, not working in league with some underground shadow organization that may or may not be dangerous to the US Government,” Tim said.
“Man, Tim. You’ve really changed,” Sean said after a brief, surprised lapse in the ability to speak.
“You’ve got to misdirect the enemy, Sean. Then you’ve got to do it again, and again, when you’re fighting the sort of war we are faced with,” Tim said.
“Oh yeah? What sort of war is that?”
“Guerilla war, pure, and simple. Before long it will be a bare-knuckles brawl. Now you’ve been on the other side of just such a war for years. What do you think that does for our cause?” Tim said.
“Gives you the other perspective,” Sean said.
“Precisely,” Tim said.
“Tim I certainly appreciate you doing all this for me, but can we get down to…?”
“Right this way. Everyone’s waiting for you,” Tim said.
They entered the living room and Sean was amazed to see Smokey, Gary, Tom, Chuck, and Dave, along with about seven other people Sean had never seen before.
“Oh my Lord! What the hell are y’all doing here?”
“Hey we didn’t like riding in the damn van either, my friend,” Tom said.
After a few back slaps and hugs Tim began.
“The man who was your bellhop is Antonio Souza. He’s a graduate of Gary’s high school program for at-risk kids with a degree in business administration and with experience as a network administrator. He works at the hotel in his spare hours getting ready to put himself through a master’s program,” Tim said.
The young man stood up and smiled.
“Gus still works for Camerdyne as does his colleague Dr. Jennifer Epstein who is sitting by the fireplace,” Tim said.
The pretty, slim woman in her thirties raised her hand and smiled. She had jet black hair and sharp features.
“We have the former Florida director of MUFON, sitting to her right, Dr. Clyde Wellington,” Tim said.
“MUFON?”
“Mutual UFO Network, correct,” Tim said.
The academic looking gentleman in his fifties stood and took Sean’s hand.
“The honor is all mine, mate,” Wellington said in a pleasant Kiwi accent. “This is my wife, Meghan.”
Sean shook the woman’s hand. She rendered a sweet smile for him and said “so pleased to meet you, finally. We’ve heard so much about you.”
Sean began to feel dizzy. What the hell had his brother gotten him into?
“Sean, we’ve got this Lazy Boy ready for you. Would you like a beer, a glass of wine, or something stronger? The show lasts about an hour and you’re in for a few shocks,” Tim continued.
“Beer is fine,” Sean said.
“Tony, bring the man a shot with that beer. If he won’t have it, I will,” Tim said.
“When all of this came about, Sean, I lied to myself and said that I would make all the preparations necessary to hand all the details of the operation over to you and return to my family,” Tim said.
“But, that was not to be. Sheila left me, and I don’t blame her for that. What sane woman wouldn’t? That also fits in with their plans to weaken us, I guess. And that’s fine.”
“As you know, I started a few companies with some of the money and a few tools your brother had given me. The IRS is still sorting through the red tape and documents trying to discover how, out of no-where, in three years I was able to amass more than a half billion dollars industry,” he said.
“Highjump Products, produces high quality survival gear for a reason. We have opened up shop in seventeen countries, including Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Ireland, Costa Rica, Spain, Canada, and Great Britain.
“We have about thirty-thousand employees worldwide, in those countries, of which one hundred managers have a fair idea what my plans are for the next five years,” Tim said.
“You want me to come work for you? This is a sales pitch?”
“God, don’t I wish. No, Sean. We want to put you in the senate, then the Whitehouse; to turn the tide on an alien invasion that has been going on since before the 1940s.
“Why me?”
“Because your brother wrote this document, which we all signed, just before he was murdered,” Tim said handing Sean a copy of Ryan’s Human Declaration of Independence.
“Now some of the language in this document is rather harsh when it comes to the U.S. Government. But if you remember back to when Ryan died, he knew what was coming in the near future, and while the exact dates of some of his predictions have since proved inaccurate, basically everything he told us has come to pass,” Tim said.
“If they’re so accurate, why don’t the dates match?” Sean said.
“Quantum physics. It has something to do with changing an outcome by knowing it, or seeking to know it,” Tim said. “It means there’s some interference in the works but, basically things work out in the direction which history is progressing.
“The fact the dates don’t match the predictions exactly says that just by us meeting and sharing with each other what we know about our common enemy we may have been partially successful in the future, but, that means there is a lot of work to do, to free mankind entirely from a parasite that has been at our throats for years and that’s where this presentation comes in, to tell you what we know, all of it. Hang on to your hat brother,” Tim said.
“Why?”
“You are about to experience a sort of decompression sickness,” said Gus from the back of the room.
The lights went out, and Sean was handed his beer and his shot, which by now he couldn’t resist.
The image came on a wall in front of the recliner. It was obviously a theater-styled classroom of some sort.
Gus continued; “Dealing with the day to day life of knowing your society is being invaded by hostile alien elements produces a sickness akin to battle fatigue. It also produces a kind of psychosis if you will.”
“If you look up on the screen you will see a presentation given by Doctor Epstein at Camerdyne Systems Space Labs in San Diego California during the summer of 2013. This is the day I first met her, at your brother’s urging. Just as Tim was urged to meet her, and just as we are urging, for you to listen to her and learn from this amazing woman, by watching this presentation.
“I recorded the event using a tiny camera I secreted inside my Jacksonville Jaguars sidelines cap. I doubt if anyone suspected I would record the presentation, I’d still be living today,” he said.
“Why did you record it?”
“Because I knew what she was about to tell the group of us aerospace engineers, would be earth shattering, and I wanted a record of it. I guess, I also got sick and tired of being followed, of being asked to make out two itinerary’s for myself so that someone, somewhere, would be thwarted ever so slightly in their efforts to constantly monitor my every action. I guess it was just part of my stubborn pride that said, I will not be controlled. Instead, this time, I will do the controlling,” Gus continued in that deep baritone everyone was soon hypnotized by.
“So about this decompression sickness. What you’re about to see is the room full of us, all engineers, all schooled, mature supposedly, being turned into babies by the information in front of us; information that lets all of us know, we are being indoctrinated into a university of sorts, for the reverse engineering of alien technology.
“Once this dawns on you, as a member of the freshman class, your life turns upside down. You can see glances shoot around the room alerting every sentient human in the room, that they have become part of a conspiracy to overrun the world by a species comfortable or lazy enough, to allow us to do some of the work for them. Just take a look…” Gus said as the lights dimmed.