Blind Lake

Chris was spending his last year at home when the first images of HR8832/B were released to the media. His family hadn’t paid much attention. Portia by that time was a bright teenager who had discovered politics and was frustrated that she hadn’t been allowed to go to Chicago to protest the inauguration of the Continental Commonwealth. His parents had withdrawn from one another into their own pocket universes — his father into woodworking and the Presbyterian church, his mother into a late-blooming bohemianism marked by Mensa meetings and Madras blouses, psychic fairs and Afghan scarves.

And although they had marveled at the images of HR8832/B they hadn’t truly understood them. Like most people, they couldn’t say how far away the planet was, what it meant that it orbited “another star,” why its seascapes were more than abstractly pretty, or why there was so much fuss over a place no one could actually visit.

Chris had wanted desperately to explain. Another nascent journalistic impulse. The beauty and significance of these images were transcendent. Ten thousand years of humanity’s struggle with ignorance had culminated in this achievement. It redeemed Galileo from his inquisitors and Giordano Bruno from the flames. It was a pearl salvaged from the rubble of slavery and war.

It was also a nine-day-wonder, a media bubble, a briefly lucrative source of income for the novelty industry. Ten years had passed, the O/BEC effect had proven difficult to understand or reproduce, Portia was gone, and Chris’s first attempt at book-length journalism had been a disaster. Truth was a hard commodity to market. Even at Crossbank, even at Blind Lake, internecine squabbling over target images and interpretation had almost engulfed the scientific discourse.

And yet, here he was. Disillusioned, disoriented, fucked-over and fucked-up, but with a last chance to dig out that pearl and share it. A chance to relocate the beauty and significance that had once moved him nearly to tears.

He looked at Sebastian Vogel over the breakfast-stained plastic tabletop. “What does this place mean to you?”

Sebastian shrugged amiably. “I came here the same way you did. I got the call from Visions East, I talked to my agent, I signed the contract.”

“Yeah, but is that all it is — a publishing opportunity?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I may not be as sentimental about it as Elaine, but I recognize the significance of the work that goes on here. Every astronomical advance since Copernicus has changed mankind’s view of itself and its place in the universe.”

“It’s not just the results, though. It’s the process. Galileo could have explained the principle behind the telescope to almost anyone, given a little patience. But even the people who run the O/BECs can’t tell you how they do what they do.”

“You’re asking which is the bigger story,” Sebastian said, “what we see or how we see it. It’s an interesting angle. Maybe you should talk to the engineers at the Alley. They’re probably more approachable than the theorists.”

Because they don’t care what I told the world about Galliano, Chris thought. Because they don’t consider me a Judas.

Still, it was a good idea. After breakfast he called Ari Weingart and asked him for a contact at the Alley.

“Chief engineer out there is Charlie Grogan. If you like, I’ll get ahold of him and try to set up a meet.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Chris said. “Any new word on the lockdown?”

“Sorry, no.”

“No explanation?”

“It’s unusual, obviously, but no. And you don’t have to tell me how pissed-off people are. We’ve got a guy in Perso

His situation wasn’t unique. That afternoon Chris interviewed three more day workers at the Blind Lake gym, but they were reluctant to talk about anything except the shutdown — families they couldn’t reach, pets abandoned, appointments missed. “The least they could do is give us a fucking audio line out,” an electrician told him. “I mean, what could happen? Somebody’s going to bomb us by phone? Plus there are rumors starting to go around, which is natural when you can’t get any real news. There could be a war on for all we know.”

He could only agree. A temporary security block was one thing. Going most of a week without information exchange in either direction bordered on lunacy. Much longer and it would look like something truly radical must have happened outside.

And maybe it had. But that wasn’t an explanation. Even in times of war, what threat could a web or video co

Who was hiding what, and from whom?

He intended to spend the hour before di

A project like this would be good for him, maybe restore some of his faith in himself.

Or he could wake up tomorrow in the usual emasculating fog of self-revulsion, the knowledge that he was kidding absolutely nobody with his handful of half-transcribed interviews and fragile ambitions. That was possible too. Maybe even likely.

He looked up from the screen of his pocket server in time to see Elaine bearing down on him. “Chris!”

“I’m busy.”

“There’s something happening at the south gate. Thought you might want to see.”

“What is it?”

“Do I know? Something big coming down the road at slow speed. Looks like an unma

“Sure, but—”

“So bring it. Come on!”

It was a short walk from the community center to the crest of the hill. Whatever was happening was unusual enough that a small group of people had gathered to watch, and Chris could see more faces leaning into the windows of the south tower of Hubble Plaza. “Did you tell Sebastian about this?”

Elaine rolled her eyes. “I don’t keep track of him and I doubt he’s interested. Unless that’s the Holy Ghost rolling down the road.”

Chris squinted into the distance.

The sinuous road away from Blind Lake was easily visible under a ceiling of close, tumbling clouds. And yes, something was approaching the locked gate from outside. Chris thought Elaine was probably right: it looked like a big eighteen-wheel driverless freight truck, the kind of drone vehicle the military had used in the Turkish crisis five years ago. It was painted flat black and was unmarked, at least as far as Chris could tell from here. It moved at a speed that couldn’t have been more than fifteen miles per hour — still ten minutes or so away from the gate.

Chris shot a few seconds of video. Elaine said, “You in good shape? Because I mean to jog down there, see what happens when that thing arrives.”

“Could be dangerous,” Chris said. Not to mention cold. The temperature had dropped a good few degrees in the last hour. He didn’t have a jacket.

“Grow some balls,” Elaine scolded him. “The truck doesn’t look armed.”

“It may not be armed, but it’s armored. Somebody’s anticipating trouble.”

“All the more reason. Listen!”

The sound of sirens. Two Blind Lake Security vans sped past, headed south.

Elaine was spry for a woman of her age. Chris found himself hurrying to keep up.