Clavius 2

What music do you imagine you would hear if you were a just few seconds away from plunging over a perilous waterfall splashing down upon jagged rocks into a whitewater river? Perhaps a waltz. As your narrator, let me suggest something smooth, stately and symphonic. Music to die for, so to speak.

A young man floats gently on his back with muscled outstretched arms—like crucified Jesus—upon raging water dragging him ever steadily toward certain death. The thunderous roar of the nearby waterfall named in honor of a forgotten president should cause him great concern, but his mind will not allow him to hear anything except his robust singing to himself in Mandarin, the language of his San Francisco ancestors.

He drifts steadily head-first on the water’s surface shimmering under the overhead sun. His bright red swim trunks barely contain his manhood. He draws ever closer to the literal edge of his world over which he will plunge.

He permits himself the pleasures of smiling freely. He may be too preoccupied to realize he is approaching the last experience he will have in his 25 years of life. He may as well be floating in the heavens on a starry night. The intense river is a dark indigo sky. A magical place to die.

In the final seconds just before his terrible descent into oblivion, a transparent glass globe containing a miniature dragon floats on the river quickly arriving near his left ear. He becomes frightened when the dragon’s small mouth opens and closes frantically emitting a harsh “BEEP-BEEP- buzz-buzz-buzz-BEEP-BEEP-buzz-buzz-buzz” signal.

Greg Chen will not die today. Nor is he floating anywhere upon water. There is no fatal plunge awaiting him. Chen realizes he is resting comfortably on his back in a dry, warm bed. He rubs both his hands on his handsome face in an attempt to force himself into the waking world. “BEEP-BEEP-buzz-buzz-buzz-BEEP-BEEP-buzz-buzz-buzz,” cries the dragon in the glass globe near his left ear.

That irritating sound only seems to be a small dragon barking a digital pattern, but it is actually a ring tone from a phone that is smaller than a credit card. Chen rolls over to look at the good-looking and beefy Black man of his same age lying next to him in bed and says in a loud voice to him, “Quarter to four in the morning on your work phone.” But the ring tone is persistent. “Fucking wake up and answer that, will you?” he grunts as he punches the left shoulder of his bed partner. “Em! Damn it! You gotta answer that!”

The muscular bed partner that Chen called Em responds by sitting up very suddenly in bed next to Chen as he accepts the small phone from him. His upper body is a masterpiece of well-defined angles and curves.

“Hello, this is Marvin Mainer,” the dark-skinned young man says in a deep voice as professionally as he possibly can despite having just been awakened so suddenly. He jumps into a pair of trousers. “What? Oh. Yeah. My first day today. Yeah. Thanks. My code? When did I get that?”

Chen crawls out of bed and with the mere wave of his hand causes on a recessed panel of lights mounted in the wall a few steps from the bed to fade on. The artificial color of sunlight fills the bedroom very quickly. Em instinctively covers his eyes with his left hand while his right holds on to the tiny phone. “My code. Yeah. Try this: Alpha. One. One. Burbank. Six. Twenty-Seven.”

“Secret code for my secret agent man,” Chen says aloud so that Em and his caller could hear

quite clearly.

“You want me where?” Em asks into the phone. “Downstairs? Ten minutes? Isn’t today Sunday?”

“Wednesday,” Chen says as he opens a dresser drawer and finds a thick, rolled-up pair of bright white sports socks that are larger than a man’s clenched fist. He tosses the all-cotton projectile aggressively towards Em. The impact zone is squarely upon Em’s undefended crotch beneath a soft white fabric sheet. Em responds with an involuntary shout of surprised pain into the phone. He quickly explains to the caller, “No, nothing. Just muscle spasm. Happens to me all the time. I’ll meet you downstairs. Give me a second.”

Em hears Chen laughing at him uncontrollably from across the room. With one push of a button, Em dismisses the call. “Work sent over this phone last night. Encrypted device. Terrible ring tone. Sorry it woke you,” he quickly says to Chen. “That’s why you hit me in the balls?” Em asks as he angrily pitches the rolled-up socks toward Chen.

“Actually, I was aiming for your face,” Chen admits as catches the socks in mid-air. “But I guess I really should be thanking you, Em. I dreamed that I was floating on my back. On a raging river. Or in space. I was about to fall over a steep waterfall. Or into a dark star. I was saved at the last second by that ring tone of yours waking me up.”

“You can’t swim, yet you dream of floating in water over a waterfall, psycho.”

“That Florida witch down the hall told me yesterday that I’m connected to you psychically,” Chen announces as he jumps onto the bed, just barely missing Em’s thick legs and large feet. “So, I’m sure she would say that my dream has meaning for you but not me. There was a tiny dragon inside a ball of glass. What do you think that symbolizes?”

Em groans in disbelief as he lies back down in bed and pulls the soft white fabric sheet up over his head. “A dragon? I don’t have time for this.”

“I can still get you under there, mystery man,” Chen says.

“No time. Somebody’s picking me up for work,” Em replies.

Chen is annoyed. “Work? It’s Sunday morning. What about me?” Chen is fully erect and ready to act as he reaches for his favorite lube on his nightstand. Chen generously rubs the thick, slippery lube onto his cock and rips the sheet away, so he can get at Em, who becomes sexually aroused merely watching Chen’s advances.

“You told me it was Wednesday.”

“It’s not rape if I fuck you right now. Secretly, you want to get fucked even when you don’t really wanna admit it to yourself,” Chen whispers as he lifts Em’s legs upward into the air with his strong hands and then plunges into Em aggressively. “You always want me inside you,” Chen says as Em groans involuntarily expressing his intense physical pleasure. Em has no way to stop Chen’s unexpectedly rapid assault.

After a few pelvic thrusts, Chen cries out in a deep moan—almost a growl—as he quickly

releases all he’s got into Em, slamming him repeatedly downward on his back into the bed. Em ends up again not having an orgasm and wearing an expression of regret as Chen pulls out and then hurries away into the bathroom. Why do I allow this? He raped me. Felt so good. Him pounding me down roughly into that bed. Like always. He owns me. No release for me. Feel so bad now. My own fault.

Em is understandably angry. He had no time for a bathroom break so he will have to live with that freshly fucked scent he’s carrying. The driver of the large military-styled vehicle looks in the rear-view mirror at Em. They arrive at the security gate of Joint Base Andrews on the eastern edge of Washington, DC. “Showers and uniforms. Inside this hangar,” the driver says.

Warm water splashing down on his head is a magnificent feeling. Even if the soap smells like open sea. Solitude at last. He is alone in a crew shower facility with under normal circumstances would accommodate a dozen wet and lathered-up men. Em allows himself to savor beling alone in the luxury of quiet calmness, but he cannot shake the sensations of Chen slamming into him from behind with neither foreplay nor conversation.

A gruff male voice from one end of the crew showers shouts, “Hey, wheels up in 4 minutes.”

Em hurriedly grabs a large white towel on a hook near his shower. He passes with deliberate speed to an adjacent locker room where he sees all-black military-style uniforms, socks and boots in a variety of sizes hanging on shiny metal hooks. “Sure. No deodorant. No underwear.” He chooses a uniform and gets dressed without fully drying himself.

Marvin Mainer watches the position of the sun through a window in the sleek jet helicopter in which he is riding. He nods as he observes the westward trajectory. The Potomac River rapidly disappears below think grey clouds as the helo reaches a higher altitude. Buckled in. Time for sleep. Why did I ever tell Chen about my rape fantasies? He owns me now. Hurts me. I want that. I let him. I could end him. Hire a big, naked mercenary. Watch Chen being slaughtered stripped of all his clothes. Gutted like a wild animal. Like he is.

He awakens as the jet helicopter touches down. He sees a sprawling desert landscape out the window. “Retrieval in four minutes,” a voice from nowhere tells Em. He unbuckles his safety harness and descends the few steps down to the ground. He watches as his ride quickly ascend into a bright blue cloudless sky. All that remains is a sudden silence and one utterly alone and disoriented man standing in the dry heat.

He hears the familiar “BEEP-BEEP-buzz-buzz-buzz-BEEP-BEEP-buzz-buzz-buzz” sound coming from a pocket in his uniform that he didn’t know that he had. It takes him several cycles of that annoying ring tone before Em can successfully retrieve the small phone. The text on the front face of the phone reads “0935, Pacific Time, Wednesday, May 20, 2299.”

“Hello, this is Marvin Mainer.” He fakes a deep voice attempting to sound as professionally as he possibly can despite the innate fear and apprehension he feels. After waiting several seconds to hear a robotic voice speak to him, he replies, “My code. Yeah. Alpha. One. One. Burbank. Six. Twenty-Seven.”

There is no reply. The connection deliberately drops. Em angrily lowers his arm downward and slowly opens the fingers of his thick right hand, allowing the tiny phone from work to drop to the ground. If this work phone is so vital, they can give me a new one. He walks away deliberately toward the west.

Em cannot know for certain how much time passes since dropping his phone. He is very aware of the movement of the sun across the morning sky toward an inevitable sunset. He worries as the air temperature reached at least a hundred degrees on the old Fahrenheit scale.

Wonder whether dying from exposure in high heat is painful? Then he sees a much larger jet helicopter than the one in which he arrived popping up over the mountains in front of him. Em stops walking and just stares at the inbound aircraft traveling too fast.

“Gonna crash into me? Is that it?”

The aircraft gently sets down in the desert the distance of half a city block away. Em cannot clearly see into the aircraft, so his distrust level rises quickly. “Yeah. Not threatening at all.”

∆∆∆

Marvin Mainer is seated in a comfortably thick chair of all-black synthetic materials. The chair floats weightlessly with no visible connection to the grated metal floor below. Directly in front of him is a large sloping control panel with many virtual buttons and switches represented under a curved glass surface. Several large rectangular screens displaying only a light gray background are floating in the air above the panel.

He is flanked on either side by two beefy security guards. The guard to his right place a thick hand on Em’s right shoulder. Not grasping. Not pushing down. Just present. Very clear message.

Em hears a man’s vaguely Hispanic accent behind these words: “Marvin Mainer, I apologize to

you.” On the large middle screen Em sees who apparently is speaking to him from the digital realm. A bright blue background on which yellow letters “MMDI” are superimposed fades into a full, head-to-toe image of the man with the Hispanic accent. He resembles the Hollywood image of an authoritative Latin leading character. He looks experienced. At least the creases and canyons on his heavily weathered face suggest a high level of experience in life. “We have very unusual security requirements here. We could not let you simply walk in through our front door here on your first day of work.”

“Got it.” Unenthusiastic. Tending toward anger. Em notices on one of the screens that his heart rate, blood pressure, and other data is on display. Also, on the screen is a section labeled “Emotions,” which has several old-style bar graphs in various colors. The category on the screen specified as “Anger” shows a high score.

The Hispanic voice continues to speak: “In Washington, DC you were hired to work for MMDI. Top-secret. But you were given full clearances that you will need here.”

“So, as a fully-cleared new guy, I’ll tell you this is a very invasive way to treat a new employee.”

“Invasive, yes. Security protocols require extreme choices. Let me explain. I am called Eduardo. I am not organic. My true nature is that of the supercomputer behind all MMDI operations.”

“Full security clearances for me, check. Levels of skepticism increasing now. Does that show up on these screen?”

“The phone you left at your drop-off point. Property of MMDI. We shipped it by courier to your apartment yesterday. An experimental prototype. Very expensive. Not available to the public. Printed instructions with it were specific: Stop using your personal phone. Always use this phone for every call. We retrieved it. You’ll get it back once we scan and sterilize.”

“Why are you on a screen and not with me in person?”

“This is my digitally rendered image. I chose it. I do not have a human face or physical body. I was designed and built by Spanish-speaking scientists in Argentina and Colombia. They gave me the name ‘Eduardo,’ which comes from ancient Latin meaning one who is a ‘guardian of prosperity.’ How would you like me to address you?”

“Great. Ancient Latin. Call me ‘Em,’ as in the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. What am I doing here? Can you tell me that at least as a start?”

“Getting you here quickly today was my priority. I apologize for how aggressive this turned out. Let me mention to the two security guards there with you: Thank you, Richard and Michael. It is fine for you both to leave Mr. Mainer here unaccompanied.”

Em watches the two security guards walk away from him. “Thank you. But are you gonna tell me what I’m doing here? Wherever ‘here’ might be.”

“Yes. That is my plan.”

“BEEP-BEEP-buzz-buzz-buzz-BEEP-BEEP-buzz-buzz-buzz” is the sound that comes from a small shiny black box sitting on the control panel’s flat surface.

“Scanning and sterilization must be done.”

The phone keeps ringing. “Will you answer that? Open the box, please. The caller ID says it is Gregory Chen from Washington, DC. I don’t think I need to remind you that this is a classified mission, and he is only a civilian with no clearances.”

“Okay. Hello, this is Marvin Mainer,” he says in a deep voice as professionally as he possibly can despite feeling utterly disoriented.

“Hey, secret agent,” the voice of Greg Chen says. Em flinches. “Checking up on you. Were you talking to someone when I called?”

“No, a computer running in this office.”

“You talk back to a computer?”

Em remains silent, closes his eyes, and shakes his head in despair.

“Sound preoccupied. Everything OK with you?”

“Yeah, problems at work happened overnight that I gotta fix. Stuff that only the super geek that I am can handle. The usual. You know how it goes.”

“Secret agent stuff, right? You can’t tell me. I get it.”

“Chen, like I said, I have to work. When I get back, I’ll take you to that new Beijing opera in DC you wanted me to see with you. That all-male cast. Something about the pain of loving a man you don’t trust. Loses somewhat in the translation when I say it.”

The frustration is clear in Chen’s voice. “You fucking butchered the theme. I’m not gonna waste time trying to tell you again what it means.”

“OK.” Tears form in Em ‘s eyes. He looks up at Eduardo on the large screen. No way to hide the humiliation from Eduardo. The telemetry will tell him everything anyway. “Promise you. We’ll both get dressed up in formal wear to show off how hot we look. I will take you to that opera, and we’ll have a great time.”

“No, Em. Not sure I can just sit here waiting patiently for you to return. I’m not patient at all.”

“Chen, we need to talk later about this. I’m needed here at work now.”

“No, that doesn’t cut it for me, Em. Don’t you get that?”

Em’s face shows only his deep emotional pain. “Just go ahead, then. I expect you to grab some other horny guy at the Navy Yard. Only fuck dark-skinned, muscular guys, Chen. You’re lying to yourself if you think that makes you powerful.”

Em ends the call and gently sets the phone down on the flat surface of the control panel. He glares at Eduardo’s screen with crystal clear intensity.

“Mr. Mainer, I am sorry that call upset you, but we need to continue where we left off.”

“I don’t wanna even think about that call, Eduardo. Really. Where did we leave off?”

“Yes, of course. Let me give you bit of perspective. Two days after your 26^th birthday, you were hired as an investigator for MMDI in Washington, DC. That was at the end of last month. You were told that MMDI, headquartered in the nation’s capital, is an international agency managing global commerce and economic development.”

“Yeah, well, I kind of figured out we are not in DC anymore.”

“You are deep inside a Mojave Desert mountain. A top-secret, secure facility. About a hundred miles from Las Vegas. This is known as Yucca Mountain Base.”

“A military base?”

“Not exactly military, no. What you were told about MMDI is for the general public. The truth has deliberately been concealed from the public. The Washington, DC location is called headquarters or ‘HQ.’ To be near the Pentagon. The real work of MMDI takes place somewhere else.”

“And what exactly is ‘the real work’?”

“One hundred and nine years ago, the primary base of operations for MMDI was built. Today there are hundreds of men born on Earth who are stationed there. The name is Clavius Base.”

“More ancient Latin words?”

“Very perceptive, yes. Named after a Jesuit astronomer from Germany in the Middle Ages. That base is beneath Crater Clavius on the moon.”

“What? I didn’t know people actually lived on the moon today.”

“Yes, the first attempts to establish a human presence on the moon started roughly sixty years after Apollo 11 when humans first set foot on the moon. But setting up bases and habitats for humans on the lunar surface was delayed by many technology problems which led to fatalities. Public interest in the moon took a nosedive through one after another funeral for lunar explorers killed in action. Clavius Base was the most successful human presence on the moon but getting that base established took over two hundred years after the Apollo program. The secrecy about humans living on the moon was so easy to maintain. The public stopped just stopped caring or thinking about the moon.”

“I know that Clavius, the crater, is one of the most prominent on the moon. And that German astronomer from the 16^th century it was named after. I think I read about him in graduate school. You’re telling me that moon base is for astronomical research?”

“No, Mr. Mainer. Or should I call you Doctor Mainer? You recently completed your doctorate in exoarchaeology.”

“Yes, I very recently earned my Ph.D. And yes, I’m an exoarchaologist. This is my first job, which I’m grateful for. But it makes no sense to me that MMDI hired me for that specialty.”

“You were contacted by one of our recruiters. Before you received your top-secret clearance, you were given the cover story about MMDI. And now you are in your first day at work in your specialty.”

“Why does an international global commerce agency in Washington, DC need an exoarchaeologist?”

“That’s the thing, Em. What MMDI actually does would never be believed by most people. Difficult to process. Challenging. I will tell you the truth but it comes in seven layers.”

“You know what? I haven’t eaten yet today. No caffeine, either. You’re making me long for that giant seven-layer burrito with salsa rojo.”

“The seven layers in this case are not inside a giant burrito. Look on the screens.”

Em sees “Layer One” in black block letters on a white background. Beneath that text is one additional set of words: “Humanity is not alone in the universe.”

“This first layer of truth is the underpinning for all the other six. The people of your home planet have never been told that MMDI has proof of intelligent extraterrestrial life not of this Earth.”

“In my food metaphor, Eduardo, the big burrito starts with a fire-heated flour tortilla, then layer one is refried beans.”

“I can only appreciate your food metaphor in the abstract, Doctor Mainer. I am digital and mechanized. I never eat food as a power source.”

“Well, now you are ruining everything and I’m losing my appetite.”

“Layer Two” in blue block letters on a gray background appear on a screen as Eduardo speaks the label aloud. Under that label is: “Aliens left a message for mankind buried on the moon.”

“Here again, Doctor Mainer, the people of Earth have never been told about this, either.”

“What did the message from the aliens say?”

“I will get to that.”

On a screen “Layer Three” in white block letters on a black background appears with text beneath: “Aliens gave humans time travel capability.”

“So it was a gift to humanity? Here, they said, take this time machine and have fun with it.”

“Not exactly a gift. Not for fun, either.”

On a screen “Layer Four” in red block letters on a black background appears. Then, this text appears under the label: “Aliens are permanently connected to human brains.”

“Time travel only works, Doctor Mainer, after the men who will travel in time have had their brains directly connected to the aliens. It’s a full-time, permanent connection. Cannot be undone. Made possible by quantum entanglement. There would be no human time travel without that connection to the aliens.”

“Wow, Eduardo. That layer is tough for me to fathom.”

Then, the label “Layer Five” appears on a screen in yellow block letters on a black background.” Then additional text appears on screen: “Aliens siphon emotional and physical pleasures from Clavius Base men.”

“Wait a second, Eduardo. This layer is worse. What does this one mean? Siphon? How?”

“I mentioned this would be challenging and difficult to process. Siphoning works through the permanent connection Clavius Base men have with the aliens in a distant galaxy. The aliens use that brain connection to feel emotional and physical sexual pleasures from men’s orgasms. The aliens are invisible. They have no bodies, no mass, no sexual reproduction. The aliens never before felt any sexual pleasures. Now they are connected to the Clavius Base men. The aliens are addicted now. The men at Clavius don’t know what’s going on. They never gave their consent to be connected through their brains. All that men at that base in effect are the sexual slaves of the aliens.”

Em scratches his head as he remains silent.

“The sixth layer of truth, Doctor Mainer, is war.” The label “Layer Six” appears in red block letters on a black background above one word: “War.”

“What war, Eduardo?”

“After finding out about the siphoning of men’s erotic pleasures, MMDI initiated a war against the aliens. This is existential. This war is ongoing as we speak. There are no bombs. No gunfire. No explosions or fires. How can humans hope to defeat an invisible enemy? The outcome of this war will determine whether humans will remain the dominant species on planet Earth.”

“Really too much for me to process.”

“There is a certain urgency, the seventh layer of truth. This is where you become part of the layers, Doctor Mainer.” On a screen the label “Layer Seven” appears in white block letters on a dark blue background. Under the label is this text: “The alien messages.”

“Doctor Mainer, I am telling you today whwy MMDI needs you and your background as an exoarchaologist. The aliens put a gigantic structure buried deep beneath Crater Clavius. It looks like a human male. The size in unprecedented. Stunning and mysterious. The name given to it was the Colossus of Clavius. Nobody has ever been able to figure out what the meaning of it is supposed to be. Clearly, it is not merely a statue. There is full agreement that the colossus is a message for humanity from the aliens.”

“Why didn’t MMDI recruit me right away when that colossus was discovered? I could have gotten a head start on all this.”

“That colossus was discovered 48 years ago. You just turned 26.”

Em is silent again.

“And a second colossus—identical to the one on the moon—has been found. Two structures. Identical. Twins, perhaps. Nobody knows for certain. But the second structure was buried deep underground on an island in the Bahamas. Carbon dating reveals that colossus was put there so it would be found by Christopher Columbus and his expedition when they arrived in 1492. The Bahamian Colossus has been hidden from public knowledge for over eight hundred years. In comparison, the Clavius Colossus has been concealed for just over a hundred years.”

“Oh, so you’re telling me I was hired by MMDI to decipher the alien messages. I have to go and study and compare what those gigantic structures mean.”

“Something like that, Doctor Mainer. But it’s a lot more complicated than you think.”

“Please call me ‘Em.’”

“’Em’ it is, then. Now, MMDI needs you to travel so you can study both the Bahamian Colossus and the Clavius Colossus.”

“I am ready. When do I leave?”

“By travel, I meant that you, Em, will travel in time to complete your mission for MMDI. It will be necessary for this agency to send you to the years 1492 and 2194.”

Em goes completely silent once again.

“As I have attempted to explain to you, time travel will require your brain to be connected to the aliens. Except you will be giving your consent up-front. And there is good news: You will not be turned into an unwitting sex slave.”