“Do you know a Dr. Dan Cane?”
“Dr. Cane. Sure. He was one of the MJ-12 Group,” Lake said.
“He was. I talked to him and he told me about the Magnificent 12 Group but didn’t mention that he was a part of that group,”
“Not the original group. I think he was like the fourth or fifth replacement person chosen. He is really quite brilliant, certainly the best in his field,” Lake told him.
“Replacement?”
“Sure. As someone would die or leave the program they would find a top person to replace them”
“I see. He recognized you as Dr. Robert. Is that the name you went by at S–4?”
“Yes. They always change your last name. They say it is for security reasons. I think it’s so that it will be easier to deny your existence if necessary.”
“Did you know any of the others?”
“I knew several by their cover name, later I was able to find out a couple of their real names,” Lake told him.
“Who were they? Anyone the average person would know by name?”
“Sorry, no Doctor Spock. These are real people.”
“Give me a couple of names so I can check this out as well,” Snapp said.
“Sure. Let’s see. I remember Vannevar Bush. That’s rather ironic when you think about it.”
“Bush. Yes, it is ironic,”
“Someone named Detlevv Bronk, a Hungarian, very heavy accent. Couldn’t understand half of what he said. Seems like someone named Hunsacker or Hunsaker, something like that, was also one of the twelve.
“Who was the head honcho?”
“Overall? Kennedy when I was there.”
“I mean under President Kennedy?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“What about people like Einstein and Oppenheimer?” Snapp asked.
“I’m sure they were considered, probably on the original list of prospects, but I doubt they were actually a part of the MJ Group. They were far too famous and it would have been much harder to hold them back. They were not afraid of the government so controlling them would have been next to impossible. It would be hard to make either of them disappear don’t you think?”
“Yes, I see your point,” Snapp said. “You were working on propulsion weren’t you?”
“I was on two projects. Reactor flux impulse propulsion and reverse engineering a system that uses Element-115. Element-115 is UnUnPentium, usually referred to as UuP.”
“And this element is the key to space travel?”
“Well, it certainly is one step in the process. Element 115 creates an anti-matter effect that will allow a gravitational field to be formed. This field can be folded, allowing people to travel huge distances in virtually no time at all. If this process can be duplicated and controlled, visits to other solar systems would take minutes instead of light years,” Lake said.
“And we have this technology?”
“We have access to it. We don’t understand it and we have not found a way to produce UuP. It takes a huge amount of energy to produce it and we simply do not have that kind of technology at present.”
“But we are working on it?”
“Heavens yes. That is exactly what I was doing at S–4,” Lake confirmed.
Snapp leaned his head on the back of his chair and pressed his palms into his eyes. Was this true? Did we have technology from distant planets?
“Do you know who this J — Rod character is?” he asked at last.
“J? Sure, everyone knows him. At least we call it a him. Damned if I could tell.”
“You actually saw an alien?”
“Probably everyone at S–4 saw him at one time or another. Rumor was that his health was failing and Dr. Cane and his people were working on a cure. They were doing more than that from what I heard. There was talk about splicing human genes to alien genes to produce a new hybrid species. It seemed far-fetched to me but I suppose antimatter seems just as far-fetched to others,” Lake told him.
“Have you ever seen one of the space ships actually fly?”
“Once. We were able to make it hover a few feet off the ground and to maneuver a bit, but it didn’t take off like a bat out of hell.”
“And you are trying to duplicate the technology?”
“That is just the tip of the iceberg. There is something much bigger than what I was working on. They have some kind of master plan that is much more involved. I wasn’t privy to that,” Lake said.
“My God. What could be bigger than aliens visiting Earth with technology that would allow us to travel the Universe?” Snapp asked, astounded.
“All I know is that far below the mountain something enormous is going on. I don’t know who is working on it. I suspect many of the MJ people do. Maybe Dr. Cane had something to do with that as well. I just don’t know,” Lake said.
“How long has this been going on?” Snapp asked.
“A hell of a long time. Ever since we started tracking the first fastmovers.”
“Fastmovers?”
“What most military people call UFOs. Obviously they got their name from the speed they moved across the radar screen,” Lake replied.
“And these fastmovers have been coming to earth since when?”
“No one knows for sure. All kinds of theories exist. You know that some believe the Egyptians were so advanced because of alien help. I don’t buy it, but many others do,” he said, “You know Roswell got the most press but actually we have other ships that we have recovered. The Air Force learned a valuable lesson with the Roswell crash that has served them well. They now have specialized teams that handle all phases of the situation down to the last detail. At Roswell all they could think of was blaming it on a radar target balloon from the Mogul Experiment. It worked to some extent but it was full of holes. They are a lot more sophisticated now. Take the Aztec New Mexico crash for instance,” he told Gorge.
“What is that?”
“My point exactly. They were much more clever by then. They had a process in place so that they didn’t bungle it like they did at Roswell. They actually gained a great deal more from that one than they ever did from Roswell. I am sure it is the origin of the super-secret project.”
“The Aztec crash was more important? How could that be?”
“They were able to recover more bodies, someplace around 14, I believe. Also, it was a much larger craft, 90 feet or so in diameter. You probably never heard about it because they took the rancher and his family into custody and used trucks that looked like oil rigs to get the craft out of the area. What they found must be the key to whatever is going on,” Lake said.
“You must have some idea about the underground project. Some speculation,” Snapp asked.
“Not really. I have my own theories but I have absolutely nothing to base it on.”
“I’ll settle for speculation.”
“Anti-matter weapon.”
“Weapon? You can use this as a weapon?”
“Of course. If you can control matter or the gravitational effect on matter, you can create a weapon with unlimited capabilities. At one time I thought they may be building an interplanetary space vehicle of some kind but knowing our government’s propensity to want to control everything, a weapon makes more sense to me now,” he told Snapp.
“Wouldn’t we be better off to use this technology to explore the universe? I mean, according to you and Dr. Barnett, alien life does exist,” he asked.
“Who is Dr. Barnett?”
“Sorry. I was thinking of something else. I meant Dr. Cane."
Dr. Barnett is my hygienist,” he said, trying to cover up his blunder. The last thing he wanted was to have them get together before he was ready. He didn’t want there to be the least indication of manipulation of information.