Ascent (2 page)

He hands me a gold envelope. Everyone knows what the gold envelope means.

You’re one of the chosen.

“You will report to Boeing Field tomorrow to take a private plane to Nevada. Pack all your personal items. If you’re accepted for Party membership you won’t be coming back.”

I turn the envelope over. It catches the light and the glitter makes me squint. The envelope is coated in 24 carat gold. The back of the envelope has a single star. I move the envelope back and forth, catching the light, and it casts beams across the room.

I’m one of the lucky ones.

Then the Party member salutes me and walks back to the van that is parked in front of our house. I look around, expecting news cameras or reporters, but the street is empty. They were able to show up at my house undetected.

Mom stands frozen after they’re gone. I can see the fear in her eyes. I’m an only child. If Mom had her way she’d lock my bedroom door and never let me out.

“Well then, maybe you should get packed. They don’t give you much time, do they?”

I shake my head. “They don’t want you to share information with anyone. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“Stay out of trouble while you’re there, do everything they say, stay off their computers …”

I know what Mom’s referring to. Of course I do. Occasionally I get in … trouble. But I’m willing to put that behind me now. And the Party can make it all go away.

“I won’t screw this up, Mom. I want to be a member of the Party. I’ll do exactly what they say. And I’ll stay in touch. I’ll call you whenever we’re allowed to make phone calls.”

She breathes a sigh of relief. She looks like the entire earth has been lifted from her shoulders. Like someone took the world away from Atlas.

I have a burst of energy even though it’s after midnight. “I’m going to pack.”

Mom looks the same, like she could stay up for days. “That’s great. I’ll call your father and let him know the news.”

***

In my room I open a suitcase and start packing. I don’t need much. The Party has everything. If I pass the initiation I’ll be provided with the Party’s uniform. As a Party member, I’ll have access to the world.

I pack clothes and technical manuals. I can’t wait to get to Las Vegas and find out all the Party’s secrets. It’s my big opportunity to find the answers. I know what they do out there in Las Vegas. I’ve been reading about it in internet forums my entire life.

Jonathan is the leader of Gov Cons, short for government conspiracies. But we call ourselves Cons for short, like conspirators. We started as a group of guys with high IQs who liked computers and math. We troll Internet chat rooms looking for conspiracies. The more research I did, the more I realized that not everyone who hangs out in Internet chat rooms is a total loon. What I realized is that some of the people in those chat rooms are on to something.

I have a theory. The theory came to me while I was watching the men working on the facility in the middle of the desert far away from civilization. They drive Hummers with special tires because there are no roads. They only work at night.

I know what they’re hiding.

I’ve heard the rumors. On June 2, 1978 an unidentified object was spotted flying over Eastern Washington. The object appeared several nights in a row, hovering over the Hanford Nuclear Plant before it sped straight up into the sky and disappeared. People who worked at the plant started talking and the government sent out a research team to look into the object.

That’s where things got weird.

A man with a ranch far outside of Richland was checking on his cattle at 3 AM. The cattle had been acting strangely and he was worried someone was trying to herd them away. He went out to the pasture and saw something.

No one believed him when he said he saw three human-like beings who were about four feet tall with glowing sapphire eyes. As soon as he saw them he sped home in his truck and called the police. The police thought he’d been drinking and didn’t send anyone out.

As soon as there was daylight, he went back out to the field. He found prints in the grass that looked like small feet with only three toes. And four of his cows were missing.

The next day military vehicles showed. He drove out to the end of his property to watch the military caravan. When his cattle started acting strange he looked into the sky. A football shaped ship hovered over his pasture. But this time he wasn’t alone: the military were there. They shot at the ship and blasted it with what he described as some type of laser before it crashed to the ground. The farmer watched them examine the ship. A huge truck drove out to the field and they drove the ship away.

It happened so long ago that now it’s like a folktale, but I don’t think it is one. My grandpa told me he saw the ship too. Grandpa was one of the few people in town who really believed.

And he took a cast of their footprints to prove it.

But that’s not the only reason I believe.

My grandfather was a believer. He grew up with the rumors about the ape-like humans who lived in the mountains in far Eastern Washington. Grandpa didn’t like people. People were difficult. Grandpa liked nature and quiet. Moving into the mountains away from people and in search of the truth fit him perfectly.

We stopped hearing from Grandpa when I was fifteen years old. We called him on Father’s Day and on his birthday. No answer, both times. Finally, we drove up to his cabin in the deep woods. When we arrived it was covered in a layer of dust and all the food in the house had rotted. The smell was so bad that at first we thought we’d find Grandpa’s body.

But the house was empty.

We called the police and reported him missing. Grandpa had been living by himself for years and no one had seen him for months.

While we were there, Mom and Dad decided to clean up the place. I guess they knew, even though they filed an official missing person report, that wherever he went off to, he wasn’t coming back. I wandered into his study. The few times we visited Grandpa he brought me in the room and showed me pieces of wood he had been carving and flies he tied for his fishing lines. I guess I was looking for some sort of clue of what happened to him.

He told me stories about a creature that roamed the woods.

Grandpa was convinced he had seen Bigfoot. He told me of a creature, like a man, that was nearly seven feet tall. That it smelled like it hadn’t bathed in its lifetime. That there was a
family
of the creatures that hid in the woods.

The same woods that were his home.

I knew Grandpa had a box of photographs he kept hidden in his study. Half-listening to Mom’s and Dad’s voices coming from the kitchen, I started rummaging through the room. They were discussing the fact that Grandpa shouldn’t have been living alone. I opened a drawer and found an old cigar box with what looked like a hundred rubber bands holding the box closed.

Inside the box were photographs taken in the woods.

Photos of the creature Grandpa told me about. Bigfoot. In the distance, next to the lake down the road from Grandpa’s place, was the creature he had told me about on so many occasions.

I grabbed the box of photos and hid it under the seat of the car while Mom and Dad worked in the kitchen.

I still have the box and now I’m looking for the answers.

***

When I finish packing my clothes I open the closet. Jonathan gave me a few items to sneak into my suitcase so I’ll be able to contact the group while I’m in Las Vegas.

I still have the box from Grandpa hidden in the deep confines of my closet – a place where not even my mom would dare to look. I open the box and take out the picture that has always stuck with me. It’s the clearest of the photos. The creature is sitting on a rock by the lake. Almost as if it’s resting. On the back of the photos is Grandpa’s clear handwriting.

Government trucks came, July 18, 1997.

Did they take to Area 31?

Area 31. I’m sure the area is under control of the Party.

Grandpa considered himself an investigator of the truth. He knew the government took the ship somewhere. And he knew Bigfoot was real.

Now I believe I know where they took the proof.

And now I get to be one of them. I have the gold envelope to prove it. I was expecting to be invited. I have no other choice.

You have to be a member of the Party.

It’s the only way out.

Chapter Three

Farrah-Kate

I’ve watched this scene a million times.

She reminds me of a woman from a 1970s
Good Housekeeping
magazine. The kind of magazine that’s kept in the back of the public library, covered in dust, locked in a room for anyone ancient enough to care about faded bell-bottoms and Farrah Fawcett hair. Not that anyone goes to a library these days. She reminds me of Jill Munroe from
Charlie’s Angels
. Of course no one my age can put the name to the face. She was always the second-class version of so many famous actresses. It’s how I got my name, after all. She couldn’t resist the combination of Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson.

In the glow of the TV I watch her walk across the hotel room and answer the phone. Her brow furrows, she places the phone in the cradle, listens to a voice, then hangs up. A man comes up behind her with a knife and lifts it above her head. She turns and screams.

It’s my favorite part and night after night, once dad’s gone to bed, I pop in the scratched DVD and watch this scene.

This is how I remember my mother.

***

The movie was actually filmed before I was born. It seems like a lifetime ago. At least it was for me. It was before everything changed. Back when people watched movies and families played in parks. At one time my mom was a famous star, hounded by paparazzi and recognized around the world. But then she married Dad and had me. I feel like I remember her well, but when I picture her I realize it’s the woman in the films, the films I watch over and over. Looking at her face, examining my own in the mirror. I have her nose and Dad says we share the crinkles under our eyes. Some days I stand in front of the mirror for hours, smiling back at myself, just hoping for the crinkles to appear. I remember her from pictures, the photographs I have stashed away, a photo album of us together. She’s a woman stuck in a time warp. But when I try to remember her smell, or her touch, it’s gone.

I wish I could meet her one more time, so I could have a better memory of her, something more than movie clips. But that’s going to change. I received my gold envelope. I’ve been invited to attend the Leadership Development program at IYD run by the Party. Their brochure says:
Join the brightest minds in scientific research and exploration and develop skills to be the world’s next leaders!

Now I know most people think the Party is only for the rich – the people that want to keep their tax rates at zero. But the Party is more than just money. Being a member of the Party is your way into Hollywood, to best jobs, and – if the rumors are right – it’s the key to returning to your past, a way to make all your wrongs right again.

Nobody understands why an aspiring actress would care about a political party. But they don’t understand my motivation. What I want more than anything is another chance with my mother.

“You’re up late.”

I turn around, startled, and see Dad standing in the hallway, watching me in the dark. He’s wearing flannel pajamas that haven’t been washed in weeks. Dark circles underline his eyes. I swear he’s been wearing the same clothes to bed every night since Mom died. And I know he’s worried about me leaving for Las Vegas.

I click stop on the DVD player and nothing happens. I hit it two more times but the batteries in the remote must be dead. It’s too late anyway. I’m caught, and Dad’s always telling me it’s not healthy for me to watch this movie so many times.

“Farrah, you should get to bed. You don’t want to miss your flight in the morning. You need to be alert for orientation. I’m pretty sure the esteemed professors at IYD don’t like sleepy kids.”

“I won’t, Dad. I’ll drink some Red Bull before I get on the plane.”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “You know you shouldn’t drink that stuff; it’s not healthy, it’ll stunt your growth.” Apparently Dad didn’t get the memo that girls stop growing when they’re like twelve. There’s a lot Dad doesn’t understand about me.

His brow furrows as he looks past me to the TV. “Are you watching that again? I thought we agreed we’d put the movies away so they don’t get ruined.” He walks into the room towards the TV and I cringe. “We only have a couple of copies of this movie and it’s hard to find.” He hits eject and the machine makes a loud clunking sound and squiggly lines move across the screen. Finally, the DVD pops out and he places it in a cover with Mom’s face screaming on the front. “You should get to sleep. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.” A slight pause, then he adds, “A long summer.” He turns to leave the room.