The Administrator Read online

  He grimaced a gesture that would have been a smile if he had lips. “That’s okay. I really don’t mind it so much ... when it’s you ... the touching, I mean.” He swallowed hard and continued talking quickly to cover his embarrassment at admitting that he might enjoy her gentle touch on his shoulder. “Colonel Gordon will just say that I don’t need feet. Not to do what I do. You know that.”

  She relaxed and returned to her seat.

  “Well. We’ll see. I’ll talk to him. Now tell me about your project.”

  He laughed harshly. “Trying to change the subject?”

  “No. I just....”

  “That is the subject, Dr. Kate. Why am I here? Why have I had five mentors in the last fifty years? Why do you call yourself my mentor when we both know that you are my psychiatrist? Why do I need you? Why does my door open for you and the guards but never for me when I’m alone? Why are they hiding me seventeen stories underground?”

  Dr. Kate clasped her fingers together in her lap, lacing and unlacing them as though she couldn’t decide exactly what to do with them. “Adam, I....”

  “And the biggest question,” he interrupted. “What do you know about Roswell, New Mexico?”

  She coughed as if her mouth had suddenly become filled with cotton and covered her lips with one hand while grasping her throat with the other. Finally, she gasped, “Ros ... what has that got to do with you? Or any of this for that matter? That’s a left fielder if I heard one.”

  “Left fielder?”

  “It’s an expression that my father used to use when something caught him by surprise. ‘Right out of left field,’ he’d say. It’s a baseball expression.”

  “Oh.” Adam looked at his desk for a moment and reached for the document he had just downloaded. “This is about the big celebration they had in Roswell. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the alleged UFO incident near there.”

  She took the paper and read it quietly. When she finished, she dropped it in her lap and looked at Adam. “So? What has all this got to do with what we were talking about?”

  He wheeled his chair close to her and turned his back to the monitor. He leaned close to her and whispered, “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” She whispered back.

  Spinning his wheel chair around he said loudly, “I guess I just have too much time to think lately. Not enough work. Boredom does strange things to your imagination.” He swung back around to face her. “Do you think we could take a walk outside? It is night isn’t it? The sun isn’t out. I can’t take the heat of day, but it’s nice at night, especially if it’s cloudy.”

  She laughed throatily. “Well you’re in luck. There is a slight cloud cover, but you can still see the moon and some of the stars. Let’s go.” She looked up at the blinking red eye of the monitor and said, “I’m taking him topside for a while.” She grabbed the handles of his chair, palmed the doorway panel and ushered him into the elevator before whoever was watching the monitor had time to put down his coffee cup, get his feet off the desk and acknowledge.

  Adam chuckled quietly. He knew her reputation as a snap decision maker, and every one in the compound joked about her spontaneity in practicing her special brand of psychiatry. They’re probably joking about it right now, he thought.

  But tonight was one of the most serious nights of his life, and he suspected that, although she couldn’t know why, Dr. Kate felt it too. That was why she had spirited him out of his cubicle and away from the spy-eye, the name she had given the monitor, in such a hurry.

  Maybe I really can trust her, he thought, but his guts shivered with cold, icy dread while the elevator climbed swiftly toward the surface.

  Neither spoke as he activated the power on his chair and edged out of the elevator. She took long strides to keep up with him through the corridor and out the double doors that led to the enclosed patio.

  He steered over to a stone bench and parked beside it. He sat gazing at the moon and the few stars that peeked through hazy cloud cover.

  She came and sat on the bench without speaking.

  “The stars look like they’re draped with a sheer, silk scarf,” he mused.

  She raised her eyes to the sky. “Yes. They do.”

  “I wish that I could tolerate the sun.”

  She said nothing.

  “It must be wonderful to see everything bathed in golden light. To feel warmth on your skin without pain.”

  “It is,” she answered, still watching the sky. “Adam? What’s going on with you?”

  He turned round black eyes on her and said quietly, “Why am I here?”

  Her eyes met his, and she exhaled deeply as if she had been holding her breath. “As your mentor....”

  “Psychiatrist.”

  She smiled. “Okay. As your psychiatrist, I should let you tell me without offering any information because it could affect your perception. That’s what I’ve been trained to do. But after the time I’ve spent with you, I realize that you are more sane than anyone here—probably including me.” She clasped her hands in her lap and sighed. “Do you want what they told me ... or what I really think?”

  “I want the truth.”

  “I don’t know the truth, Adam. At least not all of it, but I’ll tell you what I know. I know that they call us mentors to avoid revealing what we really are. Spies! I and my predecessors were all hired to report your thoughts to the higher-ups. To help keep you calm and working, to keep you from thinking of anything but your job.” She turned to look at the wide, steel door that they had just come through. “They’ll be here soon to check on us. The cameras see us but the microphones can’t pick us up from here. “This will have to be fast.”

  “I know,” he said. “Tell me what you know. Do you know who I was before ... before the accident?”

  “You still don’t remember anything from before? Your mother? Father? Anything?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t help you with that, Adam, because I really don’t know. I was told that this was a matter of national security, and my top security clearance from my work with the NASA astronauts was the only reason that I got the job. I had to sign an oath that I would never speak of anything that happened inside this compound. If I do, they will deny it even exists and prosecute me for treason.

  He nodded his head as if he had expected that answer. “Did anyone mention why I am....” He raked his eyes over his legs and his spindly arms. He held his three-fingered hand up in front of her. “Why I’m the way I am?”

  “They told me that you had been in a terrible airplane crash that killed your family. The report said that you had exhibited extraordinary intelligence before then, and your parents were taking you to a special school for gifted children funded by the government. Apparently, it was just after the Second World War ended, and the country needed the brightest minds it could find to help get us get back on our feet.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  She didn’t seem surprised by his question. “Yes. Most of it. The part about your intelligence is obviously true. Look at the work you do. Lasers, holographics, micro-electronics and all that other technical stuff that I will never comprehend.”

  He looked back up at the sky. His oversized head swayed gently from side to side on his spindly neck as if keeping time to a private tune in his mind. Still gazing skyward, he asked, “Dr. Kate, why didn’t they just let me die?”

  “Oh, no, Adam. They couldn’t have done that. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  He held her eyes with his again and asked, “Wouldn’t have been right for whom? For me?”

  “Well, I—”

  “How did they save me? Have you thought about that? It was over fifty years ago. Where did the technology come from?” He grabbed the flesh of his forearm and pinched. The skin puckered like a gray, cotton ball between his fingers. “This covering is not available even today for burn victims. And this....” He turned his chair so his back was to the camera and hoped his body blocked i
ts view, then he trained his laser eyes onto a small Yucca plant beside her bench. For a second, nothing happened, then slowly, the tip of the sturdy, center spike began to smolder. Thin wisps of smoke curled upward to disappear into the night sky, and the spot it emanated from on the plant turned black.

  Kate gasped, “How did you do that? I didn’t know you could....”

  “No one knows I can do that. I modified the laser components of the optical sensor in the left eye.”

  “But how? Why didn’t you report your modification?

  He ignored her questions. “I got these eyes thirty years ago. Thirty years, Doctor Kate. Did you know that we had that kind of technology that long ago? Experimental, yes. But to make eyes with? Eyes that work better than real ones?”

  “I ... I don’t know.”

  “Roswell, Doctor Kate.”

  “Roswell? What’s that got to do with this?”

  “I’ve been researching. When Colonel Gordon discovered what I was finding, he blocked my access. I can’t crack the block, but I have other accesses that they can’t cut off. Top secret research files that I must have to do the work they want me to do.”

  “But don’t they monitor that too?”

  “Yes, but I have a little blocking trick of my own. When I’m in files they don’t want me to see, I program a sort of screen. When they trace it, it circles in on itself so it seems that I am accessing whatever material they think I need.”

  “I don’t understand. How does that work?”

  “Kinda’ like a mirror. They monitor what I did an hour ago and think that’s what I’m doing now. But none of this is really important. What matters is what I discovered.”

  She took another deep breath. “And that was?”

  “The alien landing in 1947 and the cover-up that the public claims the government perpetuated may be true. At least partly true.”

  She relaxed her tense shoulders and laughed. “Oh, Adam. You’re not falling for that crap, are you? How could anyone in government service keep their mouths shut about such an event for fifty years? They can’t even keep a scandal quiet for more than a few years at best. Mostly, not even that long. And I’ve had top security clearance for fifteen years. Surely I would have heard something if it was true?”

  “You’re probably right, but all the information I’ve gathered shows that something crashed there, and it was not a weather balloon.”

  “So what?”

  “I’m not sure, but something keeps nagging at me. I feel like I should know more than I do.”

  “Adam, you’ve been working too hard. That’s all. You’re letting this capitalistic frenzy in Roswell color your judgment. Those people are just promoting such tales for the money it brings in from tourists. You haven’t seen much of the world. You don’t know how devious people can be. They’ll do anything for a buck.”

  “I haven’t seen any of the world, Doctor. I’ve spent my whole life seventeen stories beneath this complex ... at least all of my life that I can remember.”

  Kate frowned and nodded. “Yes. I suppose you’re right, but believe me, as far as I know, there are no aliens.”

  Adam studied the two lumps under his robe that were his knees. “Doctor?”

  “Yes, Adam.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Why, we are at the complex.”

  “No. I mean where are we geographically? I’ve studied astronomy, and I’ve calculated the position of the moon and stars from my trips to the surface at night. We are in New Mexico, aren’t we? I’d say about fifty miles northwest of Almagordo. Somewhere in the White Sands vicinity. Am I right?”

  “Adam, I....”

  “Am I right?”

  She studied the still smoldering yucca plant and without raising her eyes, answered, “Yes.”

  “Only a hundred or so miles from the crash site. Right?”

  “I—” Her answer was cut off by a burly guard’s sudden appearance in the entrance to the complex that they had just come through.

  The guard strode over to them, stood at attention and saluted stiffly. “Ma’am. The colonel says to take Adam back to his quarters.”

  She stood up, faced the soldier and asked, “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Ma’am. My orders are to escort the two of you to Adam’s quarters and then see you safely to yours.” The stone-faced guard rested his right hand lightly on the butt of his rifle as he spoke.

  Kate turned to Adam. “We had better go. We will talk more tomorrow.” She led the way inside the door and to the elevator.

  Adam followed, keeping his powered chair at its minimum speed and noticed that her hands were trembling almost imperceptibly as she shoved them into her sweater pockets.

  The guard strode rigidly behind them.

  * * *

  Adam heard the soft click of the lock sliding into place on his door as the guard silently closed it. He stared at the locked door that seemed to be a seamless part of the wall for a long time. His thoughts tumbled over each other, falling into a jumbled chaos that he could make no sense of. Eventually his mind grasped one indistinct, fleeting thought and recoiled immediately. It was too repulsive for him to comprehend. He lifted himself from the chair onto the bed and tried to sleep, but one thought kept flaring up in his mind even as he fought to keep it from surfacing. It can’t be true, he told himself. He glanced at the spy-eye gleaming ruby red as it focused on his bed, then swiveled slowly to pan the room. Its beam fell onto the computer, onto his biological equipment-ladened work bench crammed into the opposite corner from his bed, onto the closet-sized cubicle that was his bathroom, and finally swung full circle to rest its gaze again upon Adam lying quietly on his bunk.

  He finally fell into a fitful, phantom filled sleep.

  When he woke a few hours later, he didn’t—couldn’t—move for a moment. He was frozen with horror at what he had dreamed. While he slept, his brilliant mind had pieced together the puzzle, but it was almost too much for his conscious mind to assimilate.

  He kept his eyes deactivated and mentally reviewed the printouts he had downloaded earlier that evening. That undertaker, he thought. He said they asked him for child size coffins. The nurse who talked to the undertaker—she was transferred the next day, then killed in an airplane crash. The people who disappeared shortly after 1947 ... the suicides ... the nurse ... the nurse. The cruel fist of fear punched deep into his stomach, and his heart filled his throat. The nurse—something about the nur—Oh, God! He searched his mind for a picture of her. He found it. A blurred and yellowed black and white photo in one of the files. I know that face!

  * * *

  That evening, Dr. Kate palmed the door and entered his room. She glanced at the camera and said, “Well, Adam, want to go outside again tonight? It’s a beautiful night.”

  Before he could answer, she grabbed the back of his wheelchair and pushed him through the door. In the garden, she strolled over to the stone bench farthest away from the entrance to the underground compound. Adam followed silently, and only the soft “whishhh” of his chair’s motor broke the stillness of the dark night.

  Kate sat down and spoke quietly. “I have given what you said last night a lot of thought, Adam. I can’t answer many of your questions, and I’m not sure what you were leading up to. Exactly what were you trying to tell me?”

  He positioned his chair next to her so he would have a clear view of the double doors to the complex. “Doctor Kate, I remember now.”

  “Remember what?”

  “Who I was before the accident.”

  Her expression hardened almost imperceptibly, and the frown on her forehead deepened. In the dim light, Adam couldn’t tell if her face mirrored surprise or agitation, but her voice was cool and controlled. “When did you remember?” She asked quietly.

  “This morning. I pieced it all together.” He laid his hand on hers. It was the first time he could remember voluntarily touching anyone. “I need your help, Doctor. If I tell you what I know, you have to promise t
hat you will go public with it. Not to the authorities. I don’t know how high up on the chain of command the conspiracy goes.”

  “Conspiracy?”

  I don’t know if I can trust her, he thought. But I’ve got to trust someone. He took a deep breath and said, “Do you promise? It may be dangerous. I believe that the last few people who tried to expose them are all dead. Suicides and accidents. At least they seemed to be suicides and accidents.”

  Her face paled visibly even in the dim light. She swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Doctor Kate, you said last night that no government official could keep his mouth shut about anything for fifty years.”

  “Yes.”

  “But military people can. At least the upper echelon. They are trained for secrecy. Like the personnel here in my little prison.”

  “Adam, it’s not a pris—”

  “Yes! It is, and you know it. I’ve been here for fifty years. I have never been outside this compound even once in all that time. I’ve studied fiberoptics, lasers, DNA, cloning and much more. My job is to identify certain traits or characteristics of whatever task I’m given and come up with a workable idea.”

  She avoided his eyes and looked at her hands. She didn’t answer.

  “What happens to those ideas? I theorized about micro-electronics, and within a few years, laboratories everywhere were experimenting with personal computers. I isolated DNA patterns in lab animals, and a short while later, medical experiments based on my idea began. The list is long, Doctor, very long.”

  “Yes but I don’t see what this has to do with a conspiracy. It seems that your work is made public knowledge so experts can take your seed theories and build on them for major, scientific breakthroughs.”

  He sighed, then retorted in uncharacteristic anger, “You don’t get it, do you? Is it public knowledge that I was used in biological experiments from the moment of my birth? Is it public knowledge that I and other children were artificially enhanced both physically and mentally? Is it public knowledge that I was not aboard that experimental aircraft with my parents, but that I was the pilot?