As Good as Dead

by O. J. Anderson

Chapter 8

Command Van

Joshua: “So there’s probably no biosphere.”

“Not necessary,” David tells him. “The biosuits were made here, and they don’t breathe, so there’s nothing to adapt to or protect from.”

Joshua looks disappointed, like he just opened his biggest Christmas present only to find a homemade sweater with a moose embroidered on the chest.

“If there is a biosphere it’s for the humans... for whatever event they have planned or know about happening on the surface.” David drinks the last of his coffee — his fifth cup. He’s been chuggin’ joe like the bilge pump on a fishing trawler. Hands jittery with caffeine. He quickly gets to work on another pot. Jack Creed left explicit instructions before moving out: “The coffee will he hot, black, and lots of it when we return.” It wasn’t a request. And David knows from their short trip together that Jack does not take his coffee lightly.

Joshua: “Why is it easier to believe that the grays come from stars billions of miles away rather than right here on earth?”

“That’s a programming wall,” David says. “You’ll fight through it.”

“I know. I know. It’s just...”

“It’s the deviousness. The sheer wrongness of the whole situation. I know what you’re feeling. I went through the same thing. Much of ufology assumes the chance that some extraterrestrials may be benevolent. And that maybe someday they will provide something to solve some of our major crises.”

“But they’ve only been using us,” Joshua says flatly. “We’ve been creating our own demise.”

“It’s a bitter pill.”

There are silent for the few minutes it takes David to finish getting the coffee machine ready. Then Joshua says, “There’s something else I can’t get straight in my head... if modern man helped create the biosuits for the Forces of Darkness, then how have they appeared in the same likeness all throughout history? I mean, even thousands of years ago in Egypt and Sumeria. How is that possible?”

“There are only three possibilities,” David tells him. “The first is that I’m wrong about the whole thing, but I’ve learned too much to give that much consideration. The second is that there do exist aliens in the traditional sense. Real grays, but that too is a proposition I am no longer prepared to accept. And the third, the most reasonable, if you ask me, considering everything is...”

“Time travel,” Joshua says.

David nods. “You got it.”

Humanity has proved to be horribly unpredictable, David explains. The dark forces have had to make some revisions. Tremendous amounts of knowledge have been given to vast empires, only to disappear later under the rubble of their collapse. Time and time again. Cities razed. Whole libraries filled with dark secrets burned. Mystics hunted down and given the boiling oil bath. The Forces of Darkness had to hide their information within symbolism, then bury it deep within the mystery schools to preserve it. They then set out to corrupt the systems of control until it could be brought to light again.

“This intense interest in human DNA is also highly curious,” David adds. “It’s like they’re trying to get at something inside us. Maybe trying to taint or violate it; encode some kind of kill switch or something. But the ongoing experiments makes me think that they haven’t succeeded. It could be that they can’t, are unable to for some reason.”

Joshua says, “Maybe they can’t build the next generation semi-human biosuit as it stands now. Maybe there’s something inside us, some natural instinct, spiritual perhaps, that can’t be removed and changed like a carburetor.”

David lifts his eyebrows. Nods.

“So there’s still hope.”

David nods again. “There’s always hope.”

* * *

Proceed to Chapter 9...