The Thing That Didn't Happen

Friday, September 20, 2019
Dawn
Groom Lake, Nevada
Approx. 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas

AKA: Area 51

"This is a federally restricted area. Turn back immediately," a terse recording blares from a nonthreatening arsenal of speakers affixed to each of the multitude of aggressively swooping helicopters overhead.

Dark mountains, silhouetted against a sky painted with brilliant streaks of orange, conceal the exact nature of the threat. Security cameras posted at close intervals across the landscape indicate that a merry band of yahoos, stirred up by wacky Internet trolls has, indeed, descended on the most well known secret base in the United States of America.

The raid on Area 51 has begun.

"Multiple bogeys proceeding north-northwest from southeastern quadrant, west of Gate 5," a detached voice crackles over the radio. Inside a darkened and well-secured room, an array of blurry, closed-circuit monitors verifies a large crowd moving, amoeba-like, across the desert landscape. Security specialist, 1st class, Rupert Bindlestaf, eyes the monitors nervously, glancing at his commanding officer, General Callahan. The General, lips curled, brow wrinkled in disgust, shakes his head.

"Go round those idiots up," he barks. "Every last one is about to spend the weekend in jail."

"Yes, sir," specialist Bindlestaf responds, turning to leave.

"Bindlestaf, don't do anything dumb," General Callahan says.

"Yes, general," Bindlestaf replies.

Alarms squawk all across the isolated airstrip, setting lockdown procedures into motion. Buildings and hangers, impenetrable on a typical day, become hermetically sealed self-sustaining bunkers under the threat of breach. Security personal move out to meet the waddling masses in nothing sexier than Econoline vans. The experimental thermo-magnetic hovercraft stay safely parked seventeen levels below the surface.

Specialist Bindlestaf unhurriedly straps protective gear onto his body while nibbling on a stale apple fritter from the break room. He checks Twitter and chuckles at something the president has tweeted in the wee hours of the morning. Everyone else has already geared up and headed toward the crowd. On a TV, there's a news report about tropical storm damage in Texas and another storm about to hit Cabo. Bindlestaf fondly recalls his time spent partying at Sammy Hagar's bar in the Mexican resort town on his recent vacation. Distractedly, Bindlestaf reaches into his locker and grabs his weapon and then, fritter finished, he sets off to locate a ride.

Out on the flat, dusty grounds of the facility the sun has risen and the sunshine illuminates nothing more than a typical runway. The people in the mob, surrounded by security staff, seem disappointed. There's nothing to see. Not up here on the surface, anyway.

Bindlestaf approaches in the only vehicle he could find, a golf cart. As his colleagues are beginning to load the trespassers into vans, Bindlestaf surveys the perimeter. He spots a second group of people running across the dry lake bed.

"I'm gonna need some back up," he speaks into his radio, jamming the accelerator into the floorboards. He sets a course to intercept this new group of intruders. There are about sixty of them. He expects that they will be reasonable and compliant when they see he has a weapon. At least he hopes so. He takes a quick look to make sure he hasn't actually lost his rifle again.

"Oh no," he murmurs. Sitting beside him in the golf cart is not his normal rifle, but one of the alien-tech weapons all security members are issued at the base, just in case there is a Code Green. (Code Green being shorthand for "aliens have landed and they want their stuff back," of course.) Bindlestaf looks up. He is right on top of the group. He can see the whites of their eyes.

"Stop!" he shouts. "You are trespassing on a federally maintained and operated facility. You are all under arrest!" The crowd slows down, but they just go around the lone security officer in his golf cart.

"I said stop!"

No one listens. He looks at the rifle that isn't supposed to exist and considers his options. After a moment, he flips the plexiglass windshield down, picks up the alien weapon, pointing it out through the front of the cart, and smashes the accelerator down. He angles around, trying to get in front of the group. He turns to confront them and is about stop when he hits a large crack in the dry earth, causing the golf cart to lurch violently to the right.

That's when it happens.

Bindlestaf's finger slips. A quick beam of white hot light is emitted from the weapon. There is no sound, rather the absence of sound; every sound for miles. In the millisecond that the weapon goes off, forty-two people in the crowd just simply disappear. No ashes, no screams. Gone. Rupert Bindlestaf is in shock. General Callahan, watching on the monitors grinds his teeth and exhales angrily. "Of course," he growls.

Far across the dry lake bed, a large-lens camera and a crew from Vice catch all of this on digital video. The producer is already duplicating the images. Without a word, the crew instinctively begins packing up. Soon the world will know about that one time a soldier inadvertantly gave away government secrets.

9-20-19