SCENE 02-4 – The Dream
Location: Nazca Plateau. Military hospital. Helicopter emergency take-off zone for medical evacuations, 112 km from the alien site.
Time: +01.01.23. 09:30:00 UTC?5
Setting: Ongoing medical evacuation procedures following the Nazca incident.
After takeoff, the helicopter flew almost silently, straight above the Nazca lines. I was genuinely excited: they had just discharged me. I’d been lucky, all things considered — a few abrasions and a concussion at the nape of the neck that was already healing.
I began to think to myself, almost speaking aloud: “Damn — I discovered a site of alien origin. — I thought this would be a great day for humanity… — and meanwhile the helicopter is flying over the Nazca lines. A perfect vantage point for observing them…”
I watched the figures on the ground: the hummingbird, the pelican, and… the astronaut. My trip was supposed to be short: about an hour, they had told me. Had I been able to imagine what I would soon see and experience, I would have thought that everything had already been written in those lines of sand — visible only from above.
What was I looking at? An artistic expression of some ancient fantastic creation, the remains of a lost world, or forgotten technologies in which beauty was an essential part of their nature?
I slipped into an open-eyed dream. I felt dizzy, as if I were looking at everything through a screen. The helicopter blades turned in slow motion, cutting across the figures on the ground. The hummingbird seemed to come to life and flew away from the Earth toward the Sun. Its wings moved in slow motion too, and the bird grew until it became immense: beautiful, radiant, colored like a rainbow swimming in the sky. The wings stopped, motionless, like two opposing lunar sickles. Then they began to vibrate rapidly. The flight ended with an explosion of sparks in the air. Feathers fell everywhere, mixed with long shards like needles and arrows, with ash and lapilli raining down like sandy hail, breaking apart.
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“Sir, sir, are you all right? Is everything okay?”
The voice of the soldier escorting me brought me back. I tried to look as natural as possible.
“Oh yes, all fine. I must have dozed off for a moment. Maybe I’m still a little dazed from the helicopter… or from the blow to the neck. But I’m fine, thank you.”
We had to get out. The blades were still kicking up sand as we prepared to exit. We had landed and I hadn’t even noticed the passage of time.
The emblem of the WO army was displayed everywhere around the opening I had discovered with the help of the steel scorpion. Soldiers were going in and out of the cavity. There was agitation, and the faces of those emerging were marked by astonishment. The entrance led, after a short circular chamber, into a long gallery that ended in an enormous square hall at least one hundred metres on a side. In the centre stood two monoliths: one apparently a quartz crystal, octahedral and composite in shape, at least four metres tall, and at some distance another crystal, apparently black quartz, of equal height. They looked like gigantic menhirs. The white crystal emitted light, the black one seemed to absorb every ray. What they were was not clear — functions unknown to me; the black one appeared completely inert, while the white crystal at times became iridescent, then white or transparent, in response to light stimuli… or without any apparent cause.
Since control had been entrusted to the military, a debate quickly arose about what to do. The prevailing idea was to detonate a charge to open a breach in the wall and see what lay beyond.
I watched the soldiers as they placed the explosives at the edge of the structure. I stepped between them and the charges, on impulse.
“Stop immediately!” I ordered, in a peremptory voice.
The operations officer turned toward me; with an irritable tone and a sharp voice he addressed me:
“Who are you? Where do you come from? Who gave you the authority to give orders?”
“Eugene HSP328,” I said, showing my badge. “I discovered this site. I am the mission’s scientific officer, accredited by the WO.”
