The Binder Room
by Tony Rauch
Tony Rauch has four books of short stories published –
“I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press),
“Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press), and
“What if I got down on my knees?” (Whistling Shade Press).
He has been interviewed and/or reviewed by the Prague Post, the Oxford Univ student paper in England, Rain Taxi, the University of Cambridge paper, MIT paper, Georgetown University paper, the Savanna College of Art and Design paper, and the Adirondack Review, among other publications.
He is looking for a publisher for titles he has finished and ready to go. Find him at: http://trauch.wordpress.com/
Other TTTV Stories by Tony Rauch
“Who else knows about this?” you ask as you look around the small office. Everything is an institutional light gray or creamy yellow, very stiff and proper, very straight, neat, crisp, and clean – very ordinary. The room couldn’t be more clean, more ordinary, more unsuspicious.
“Almost no one,” the Colonel nods, thinking to himself. “We just tell people they’re old manuals. Part of the training. Tests. . . Just tests. . . Testing the equipment. Testing personnel, parameters. . . Things like that.”
“Everything is funneled into this room,” the Major reports. “All the messages. The translators are told it’s part of a test. Psychological tests. Testing the equipment. Reaction times. The translators. See if they could break various codes. . . Encryptions. So no one has all the info, the complete . . .”
“No other branches know?” you gesture around at the clean, crisp lines of shelves and countertops stacked with crisp, tight binders. All the binders have dates on their splines as labels.
The Colonel shrugs and repeats, “Almost no one.” The Colonel nods, “They’d all be fighting over the information. . . Leaks would be inevitable. Word would get out. People’s lives would be in danger. Industries and governments fighting to get the technologies hinted at in the messages. . .”
“We just divide it up? Farm it all out?” you shrug, looking around. One of the two small desks behind you has a small radio with a long antennae and a binder open in front of it. The other desk has a small computer on it.
“That is exactly what you are to do,” the Colonel nods. “Figure out what needs to go where. Which industries need what information. . . Which branches of the military need what. . . Divide it up. Deal it out. Track and manage the findings and progress. . .” The Colonel looks around at the two small, light gray desks behind him, at the creamy window blinds, down at the creamy tile floor, up at the dotted acoustical tile ceiling. “We’ll assign another staff person. . . You’ll be given a list of contacts. At industries. Research facilities. Laboratories.”
“Compile and summarize. Break up what needs to be done, what needs to be fabricated,” the Major gestures to you. “Separate the info. We’ll need the components fabricated away from where they’re assembled . . .”
You look at the Major.
“. . . To form the devices,” the Colonel finishes.
“What devices?” you ask.
“The devices described in the messages,” the Major sighs. “Hopefully these devices will allow us to help somehow. Apparently to send messages back to the nineteen forties. The fifties. . . That’s what we think these messages are about.”
“We may need to go back even further,” the Colonel shakes his head, almost a defeated tone in his voice. Something in his throat. Something in his words suddenly making him smaller, making him slouch just imperceptibly, making him more worn down.
You look to the Colonel.
“To warn our past. To avoid future problems,” the Major explains with an exhausted sigh. “Maybe we can help our future. Or possible futures.”
The Colonel nods to himself. “And coordinate any future messages.”
“Apparently what we get, what we receive from the future is faint,” the Major continues. “They can only send them back so far. We will need to relay them back further. . . We don’t know yet,” he shakes his head. “We don’t know,” he whispers to himself.
“What happens if we don’t?” you ask. “If we just ignore . . .”
“They’re dead. . . . All dead, . .” The Colonel shakes his head. “Everyone you know. Everything you know. Everything you care about. . . Scattered about like the stars. . . Disconnected. Just scattered. Lost. Never to be brought back together.”
“You think they’ll be more?” you ask, pointing to the binders, trying to anticipate future workload.
“Seems every few weeks we get another message now,” the Major raises his arm to the shelves lined with binders. “Another piece to some puzzle. That’s why we need more bodies. Things seem to be coming together. But to what?”
“Life is a puzzle,” the Colonel mutters to himself. “Just another puzzle. Just another piece.”
“Where’re they from?” you nod to the shelves, to the binders.
“We don’t know,” the Colonel shrugs. “They’re just messages. . . Just fragments.”
“The future,” the Major announces. “. . Or a possible future. Maybe several futures. . . But their signals are weak.”
There is a long pause.
“Someone has a clear purpose. A clear procedure,” the Major sighs. “For whatever these are.”
“Scenarios,” the Colonel shrugs. “Events. Possible events. Possibilities. Incidents. Each listed in order. The time. The place. The manner. All in binary code. A seemingly endless stream of ones and zeroes. Zeroes and ones. Rows and rows being broadcast. All translated and kept here. The greatest of secrets.”
“But how?” you ask. “Shouldn’t we warn others?”
“Secrets are for the best,” The Colonel nods. “Best to avoid panic. Best to keep from our enemies.”
“How, you ask?” the Major stops to consider. He thinks a moment. “I guess you should know, since it’s being handed over to you. . . The messages. . . Well, the signals. . . Well, what seems to be here are descriptions. Received by various military personnel. Over time. The last thirty years. . .” the Major looks around. “. . We didn’t even know what they were at first. We assumed a trick. From our adversaries. . . Signals broadcast from objects. A metallic cube would descend outside a base. In the woods. Maybe sent back through time. Or left here. . . A team would be dispatched to investigate. . .”
“Spooky,” you exhale to yourself. “There’s no briefing papers to review?” you ask, looking around for the typical blue folders.
“Too secret,” the Colonel shakes his head. “Locked away. . . I don’t even know where.”
“The messages are somehow beamed into the personnel. By a light,” the Major continues. “They’d pass out. Or get knocked out. Wake up in the middle of the night a few days later and begin scribbling frantically. The series of ones and zeros. . . always the zeros, always the ones. . . Some type of code. Some message. Pages of them. . .”
“We hope we’re at a point technologically where we can maybe do something,” the Colonel nods. “But you’ll have to work fast. There are other factions. Other concerns. Factions of the military. Within various governments. Industries. Who would like these binders. Some wanting the secrets. Some wanting things to remain as they are, let things take their natural course, let things play out, that we shouldn’t interfere. Selfish groups who don’t want to share resources, don’t want to be underfunded. . .”
“You must see that a device is built,” the Major sighs. “Send messages back. Radio signals. Send messages. Way back. . .” the Major moves to the door, opens it, but stops.
“A device?” you ask.
The Colonel shrugs. “We think maybe some kind of gravity manipulator. Perpetual motion. Emission free energy,” he shakes his head and looks down. The Colonel slowly, quietly walks out the door, into the long hallway.
“There are possible futures in there?” you ask, nodding to the binders all neatly lined up and tucked away, entire rows of them from the countertop to the ceiling. Dozens of binders.
“Many of them are different,” the Major swallows and sighs, holding the door open, but looking out into the hallway. “Different futures. Different possible outcomes. Many possible scenarios. . . All waiting out there for us. Wars. Pollution. Overpopulation. Famine. Plagues. . . . Unless we can prevent them.” The Major closes the door, leaving you inside with the binders, in the very ordinary, small office.
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