Dr. Kadri Zanna stared at the crescent of fiery sunlight rising over the horizon as she waited in line to enter Holloman Air Force Base, NM. Long lines of cars stretched in front of her. Or not so long she realized taking a second look. Just very slow lines of cars. She could see trunks and hatches rising into the air as each vehicle was carefully inspected. Excitement and boredom swirled within her at the prospect of her first day in a new job and all the new security measures it would entail. Her excitement was particularly piqued because despite her Top Secret clearance the details of this gig (orzo appointment) remained elusive. It required significant travel, though that was no different from her work with the Foreign Service. It also required excellent physical health, a small change there, and an incredibly invasive background check.
As part of getting Top Secret clearance her medical records, family history, criminal record, school record, financial record, and many other records had all been investigated, poked and prodded for weaknesses. Her family and friends had been interviewed, some of them multiple times, to ensure there were no points of vulnerability that a foreign national or organization could take advantage of. But that was standard. It happened to everyone. Yes, perhaps they had looked at her a bit more closely because of her Turkish mother and her side of the family, but it was still part of a standardized process.
For this job though all the checks and questions and interviews were personalized. That alone had made Dr. Zanna curious. She’d grown up as an Air Force brat and between that and her own career with the government she was intimately aware of how and why the government conducted its investigations for sensitive posts. It was never personalized. There was always a program, a strict set of guidelines hammered out over years and changes in the executive branch or something cobbled together out of quick compromises to fill an urgent need. This was neither. This was questions from every direction, a dissection of her papers regarding xenoanthropology, something she’d mostly done on a lark. This was a question about how language might develop in non-humanoid species. That was the meat of round one through three of interviews. They’d tried to hide it, interspersing those questions between others about who she’d dated, what foreign nationals she owed favors to, etc., but her opinion on other potential sentient life forms was what they were really after.
When she realized that she’d become determined to get whatever this posting was, because the US government needed her to do something with extraterrestrial intelligence. By interview round four with General Bradley Dawson she was convinced that this wasn’t just some wild goose chase like SETI, or a hoax like Area 51, no, this man had seen things. This man had knowledge of an alien presence on our world. It was in the way he asked particular questions, a tiny pause before starting them as though he needed to remind himself that this was really happening. It was in the way he listened to her answers. The way his attention never waivered when she spoke about how our environments shaped our cultures and vice versa, but his attention did waiver, just briefly, when discussing how not being able to breathe the same atmosphere might affect a first contact. That wasn’t something he was concerned about, because it had already happened!
A car honked behind her, jerking her out of her thoughts. She pulled up the one and a half car lengths to be bumper-to bumper again and continued to wait.
Past the gates and tall wire fence topped with barbed wire was well manicured scrub brush and the occasional bit of green grass. The streets were wide, far wider than Dr. Zanna was used to. Of course, some of the roadways she was used to were hundreds of years old in places where cities had been built, then crumbled down over time and conflict, and built again. So perhaps her perspective was skewed.
She wended her way through the wide streets past men and women in and out of uniform. She was glad to see the mix, she’d been worried that she’d stand out like a sore thumb in her civilian attire. People were going in and out, though mostly in given the time of day, to squat tan buildings. All over people were going to work.
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By the time she got to the enclosure, an area of tighter security within the base at large, the sun was over the horizon and light was starting to glare off whatever reflective surface it could find. Once again her, her ID, and her car were inspected, though this time the security guard was somber and she found herself missing the cheer of the front gate. For a tiny fraction of a second she debated turning around. But then she laughed it off and drove through the meter plus thick walls.
Inside the buildings were constructed along the same lines as those in the main base, but with less wear and tear. A more interesting difference to Dr. Zanna was how the people moved. Everyone moved with purpose, with intent, like they knew what they were doing was important and they were ready to be about it. She saw army and air force uniforms, the occasional navy uniform, and even several civilians, unusual in a project with this level of secrecy. Whatever was going on was taking a lot of governmental cooperation and Dr. Zanna found herself a little jealous and a little glad she hadn’t been at the meetings such cooperation required. On the one hand there were exciting compromises to be made and secrets to be leveraged, but on the other hand so much posturing and time wasting.
No matter, she parked and examined the printout map she’d been given by the enclosure guard. No wifi and barely any cell service here so the relic was necessary. Or, she could just go where most of the other people were going, into what looked like a university building with wide windows across the street that also had people in uniforms out front giving directions.
A few minutes later found Dr. Zanna, after her ID was checked a third time, in a small-for-its-function auditorium that was rapidly filling up. Here and there were little groups chatting and shaking hands, but most people were milling about as individuals. For herself, Dr. Zanna gave brief smiles to persons who made eye contact, but otherwise kept to herself. She remained standing in the space between the front and back seating areas observing and listening.
Around her she could make out conversational fragments from a wide variety of topics. Behind her were two people in army uniforms talking about the steroid and xenobiotic receptor and it’s analog in other species. Interesting to someone probably, but Klingon to her, so she turned her attention to the group on her left. These were two soldiers and two civilians reminiscing about a close call in Afghanistan. To her right and forward a little bit, her “two o’clock” were two people, one in civilian clothes although clearly ex-military from his posture, and one asian woman in Air Force uniform talking about the tensile strengths of various exotic materials. In front of her was a rapidly approaching young man in professor garb that looked like it belonged to someone a generation or two older. He stuck his hand out and before thinking about it her own responded and they shook.
“Hi, I’m doctor Michaelson.” He pumped her hand enthusiastically and she had to practically wrestle it from his grip.
“Dr. Zanna, pleased to meet you. We haven’t met before, have we?” She asked, although she was fairly certain of the answer.
“No, we haven’t met, not exactly.” He said with a nervous chuckle. “Your article on the development of cultures in biomes without atmosphere, without sound, was mind blowing to me!” He gestured wildly enough to set his glasses askew, then pushed them up the bridge of his nose with a finger. “It really helped inspire me to write my own doctoral thesis. The things that we take for granted, that we assume without even realizing it despite our best efforts to the contrary, simply amazing.” He paused as people passed close by them to take their seats. “And oh my gosh, the paper you co-authored on interactions between artificial intelligences designed by programmers of distinct cultural heritages!” He kissed his fingertips and flexed his hand in appreciation.
“All theoretical of course.” She said, charmed by his flattery.
“Well, but how theoretical?” He asked, waggling an eyebrow.
A tiny woman came up to him and reached her hand for his elbow. “Dr. Michaelson? It’s me, Thelma!”
He looked down and gently patted the older woman’s hand. “Dr. Slusarski, how nice to see you.”
The lights dimmed for a moment. “Ah, guess we’ll find out won’t we?” He practically giggled before moving towards one of the padded seats with a wave in her direction.
So, she wasn’t the only coming to that conclusion. She pressed forward into the crowd, eager to get this show on the road.