Out there in the Desert

Short Story by Maxojir (Michael)

"Out there in the Desert"



I always wondered like everyone else.

Everyone wonders about stuff. Even after you've grown up, there's still always stuff that you wish you could know . . . secrets. It might not necessarily be Santa Claus anymore, but you'll always want to know things. It's something in human nature, along with its counterpart truth: there are always going be things being kept from you.

Sometimes, you get to find out things. You catch the unguarded whisper, or knowing becomes part of your job. Most of the time though, you're gonna find out whatever secrets you get told are a lot less exiting than what you'd imagined about them. Some secrets also don't live long, and usually those are the one's you're going to be dealing with: new aircraft designs, combat plans for an upcoming military operation, the metallic composition of tank armor, or even the fact that the military actually does have a few railguns now. It's all stuff that everybody usually just ends up finding out in a few years.

Then . . . sometimes there's other secrets, ones that you're allowed to even walk right up to . . . but still no absolutely nothing . . . you never really get to know what's behind the curtain.

I got to be one of those people. I got to walk right next to a mystery without ever learning anything about it. No hints . . . no rumors . . . no leaks . . . it's the real stuff that you never find out about. It's only secrets that are so deep, so dark, and so darngerous that no one ever talks about. When the people who do know, even aside from that itchy human nature that's always begging you to tell someone, when they don't say anything . . . when they actually keep the secret above all else . . . that's when you know. You know, that it's real. You know that it's not just something being kept to avoid comprimising a field unit. You know it's not just some new kind of radar-cloaking paint you don't want your enemies getting ahold of. You know . . . it's an actual secret, the truest kind of secret, something that would only harm you if you knew . . . that would only make you afraid.

That's what one of the oldest modern secrets is like, though I guess modern is relative. Bases have changed, the names have changed, even jumped states a few times. Though, it mainly always stayed focused around Nevada and Utah. "Nellis," "Area 51," "Dugway," they're different, but they all hang around the same concept. They're all part of one of the mysteries I'd cared about the longest. It was just a simple question . . . but there was so much in it, and if you can wonder, you can feel it when it's asked.

"What are they hiding . . . out there in the desert?"

                                          ***

I fell in line with everyone else and waited. We all watched it coming in: a C-17. Not an unusual thing to see on a base . . . exept for the fact it was escorted by two pairs of F-22s.

The Globemaster touched down, and the raptors broke off into a low-altitude circling pattern. There were twenty of us, and we waited. We watched it back up to us after leaving the runway, and watched it's loading hatch open. All twenty of us, the only twenty on foot, at least, took our positions: ten on each side, while we heard the Bradleys rolling up close behind us.

They lowered it down the ramp: one piece of cargo. It was like a shipping container, almost, but it wasn't rectangular, it was octagonal, similar length and width of shipping container, but the front and rear faces were eight-sided instead of four. At first glance it might have resembled those things nuclear waste and fuel rods were transported in . . . but I think all of us knew . . . that's not what was in here.

It was heavy, clearly. The pressure being put down on the loader's tires was more than visible. It obviously wasn't made of the same cheap, thin metal sheets  containers usually were. These walls were thick, and dense. I don't really know how to tell each of the different metals apart on sight, but I'm pretty sure this thing had to be made of either Lead or Tungsten, or maybe both. And just looking at the side of it . . . there's no way this thing's walls were less than a foot thick.

Warnings were clear on it, on both sides and both ends. Every symbol was present in an arrangement: biohazard, radioactive, explosive . . . it was all there. And there was one other too, the only one I couldn't recognize, and I don't think anyone's ever going to see it anywhere else. It looked that curved V figure people use to draw birds, when they're flying away. But . . . it's wings were covered in flames.

The loader started moving, and all of us brought our weapons to ready, not aiming down sights yet, but ready to with no delay . . . all aimed at the container itself. We walked with the loader; it was slow enough to keep pace with. The Bradleys kept us flanked, rolling down the concrete. Jet engines roared, their thundering sound returning over and over again every two minutes or so as the raptors kept circling.

It was a ten-minute walk at the loader's speed, down to the base's special cargo ramp. It sloaped downward, below ground level, down to a set of blast doors that opened into heavy-load freight elevator. That's where we were taking it . . . escorting it, whatever it was. We were taking it underground. Every one that comes in, they all go down there. We lock them away . . . because that's all we can do.

We're the only ones that walk beside it, but there's always another squad at the blast doors, rifles raised as we start to get close. The Bradleys stop at the loading ramp, and it's only us from then-on-in. Everything stops for the minute it takes the blast doors to open, and it all stays just as still as we stand next to it in the lift, watching the world outside vanishing into a sliver as the doors close again. And then you're lowered down, as deep as it goes. It's not that far, not what people think at least, but it's at least a hundred feet, likely closer to two.

And down there . . . it's nothing but tunnels. It's just tunnels and vaults. Every one of them gets a vault, and walking it down to the nearest one that's open is the last part for all of us. Or for most of us. Most head out, but five stay behind. Two to guard while one oversees and the last two bring the contingency online.

I was ordered to stay once, one time, standing next to one other marine, armed and armored in the dark. I looked back, just like you're not supposed to, and I saw the fail safe set up. It was the utmost of last resorts . . . a warhead, a small one, tactical, it probably wasn't even more than ten kilotons if they'd been carrying it down in just a two-man crate. But they set it up, rigged to the door. If that container came open . . . well then it wouldn't be there anymore.

. . . What was this?

Fall out; seal the vault, and leave. We switched the lights to red. You have to mark the vault filled.

This is all this place was built for. No training, no testing, no stations. This was what it was for.

Someone shouts package secured when the world comes into view again. We step back out into it, and the doors close behind us again.

. . . But what was this?

I never got to know. I know I'll never know. Maybe that is better for all of us.

Why do adults not tell children about the horrible things in the world around them? Is that what this was like? I'd rather think that than anything else. Maybe it's better to just imagine something normal, just tell yourself that it was something that made more sense. . . like it was just nuclear waste . . . but you don't guard waste by pointing your guns at it. No . . . you don't aim at what you're protecting.

You wonder about what you'll never know; it's what we all do. And I wonder . . .

. . . maybe we really don't wanna know . . .

. . . what they're hiding out there in the desert.