Artur Zadikyan
Binary code Mystery number two

Chapter 3: Recognize me as a god or I'll die

Upon arrival in Denver, Rutra showered, ate, and contacted Hent via encrypted video link. It was morning in Russia, and Hent was fresh and dressed. The admiral's uniform looked great on him.

– Good morning," Ruthra greeted.

– Good evening," Hent replied with a smile. – How are you?

– It's mind-boggling, especially these ones from the 'zone'.

– Don't listen to them too much, they're all aliens. Don't trust them. They can be so brainwashed, but the goal will be completely different; there are many people there who are from Russia, – Hent smiled in his manner, with a serious face. – You must have met the daughter of that scientist, Alikhanov's friend?

– Yeah. (chuckles)

– What did she tell you?

– Told Lazarus about it.

– Oh, that obsessed man who didn't know anything and spread such nonsense all over the world.

– Is this all bullshit?

– Look, if you're not tired, I've got some time. I worked my youth, interned at this facility with Lazar. Just like you did at the firing range.

Ruthra raised his eyebrows upward in amazement.

– Surprised?

– I don't know what to be surprised about or how to react anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if alien contact is real, or at least has been.

– Look, I need you to be factual. I was in the process of transitioning from Echelon 1 to Echelon 2, so I was doing assignments for two organizations at once. I had to be in close contact with the entire scientific community, especially the young ones, for future endeavors. It was my duty to keep an eye on the cases, to follow their activities, to plant information from time to time and to control the development of events. That's why I know a lot of things from Bob's own mouth, he told me a lot of things, shared his impressions. He was a fantasist by nature, and we needed one. If you know what I mean, that's the kind of guy we have in our closed F Division. They're the only ones who can do what they imagine. You get the idea?

– Yeah. (chuckles)

– Before the zone, the young physicist Robert Lazar, whom we called Bob, worked at the world-famous Los Alamos National Laboratory. Once Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb," came there for a seminar. On Teller's recommendation, he was invited for his first interview. In December 1988, Robert Lazar was hired at Site S4, which was under the jurisdiction of Navy Intelligence. In service documents, the area is referred to as Area 51, unofficially it was called Dreamland, or Wonderland. When we visited the site, we were shown the "flying saucer" in real life, just like you. Then, when we parted ways, I went back to Zero, and Bob talked a lot, trying to get more money for his knowledge and silence, so he was left out of the loop. In March 1989, George Knapp, an NSA secret agent and at the same time an FBI investigator, officially working under the legend of a journalist, first introduced this man to TV viewers who claimed to have worked at the secret S4 facility. You probably already know that he was intimidated by the court?

– I already know. His home phone was tapped, his car was shot at.

– And what did he want, we wouldn't have been so ceremonious with him, but there, since there was a leak, they decided to present everything as fiction. Naturally, such experiments were carried out in secret laboratories, it is impossible to admit it, so it was a rule, following our example, not to release the scientist leading the project, until he has not completed the work. Many politicians began to wonder where Bob Lazar got such ideas. For Lazar, his stay at the S4 facility ended not so tragically, but suddenly and through his own fault: he decided to show his friends the "flying disks".

– Lev Khristoforovich, I think this whole thing is some kind of dark game.

– I didn't understand everything at the time, especially since we still had the USSR, but I immediately recognized that there was a tricky game going on. I accompanied him to various meetings and realized that he was running a show, but I didn't know for whom. According to Echelon 1, I had to find out, and according to Echelon 2, I had to promote the show.

– What if Lazar was shown all these things on purpose, perhaps to divert his attention from other things?

– Traditionally, all those who make sensational statements about aliens and "flying saucers", ufological organizations offer to pass a lie detector test. Lazar sat in the polygraph chair six times, and only once the test produced a questionable result.

– Have you ever encountered "little men" in hangars?

– No. But we got the information about the "little people" on the first day from the blue folder.

– I know that, I heard it from Gabo.

– That's the kind of thing. Afterwards, when I became a person with a higher rank and clearance, I asked my colleagues what was really there. Everyone had a different answer. They all said different things. I can't go and check it out for curiosity's sake, because it's not a passageway, and besides, I would show them my distrust. There's state-of-the-art technology, you know that, there's probably no aliens, otherwise we'd have recorded them. Everything my colleagues from the collegium tell me in a friendly conversation – behind all this show they hide experiments on personality change, the consequences of changing the genetic code and the results of the process of "brain pumping". Therefore, it is not for nothing that Zhidkov constantly asserted that the strongest mafia is the mafia of scientists.

Hent said the last seriously, thoughtfully, then laughed and added:

– Maybe the aliens have already inhabited the scientists and changed the whole process of the world development? Maybe we are in such a global virtual reality created by them? And we are wondering whether they are there or not. After all, by all laws of logic, they must be somewhere.

Hent finished his story with a joke, with his hands spread apart as if he were copying Neznaika. Then he changed to a serious tone.

– Get some rest, go to Livermore tomorrow, find out what's possible, and come back. Events are escalating, and the battle for Baikonur will begin. Good night.

– Goodbye.

Although Ruthra wanted to sleep, he still decided to think about the subject a bit. Perhaps there was something in all this that he couldn't see.

He contacted the center, Christina replied. In order not to load up on nonsense, he asked her to make an urgent and brief analysis of the main provisions concerning this topic. While he went through the latest news, emails, and inquired about the children's activities, Christina responded with a report. A special tablet was equipped with a system that wirelessly downloaded information into Rutra's brain. That's what he was using. He couldn't tell Zero about his new abilities, it was forbidden. At the same time, Christine sent a report on the main job, the most important one. Rutra determined that Iran was actively preparing to test a nuclear device, Israel had received components for new missiles from the United States, the European Union was completing a secret project to build 500 floating nuclear power plants, and there was a strange unspoken decision by the Mormon Church to move its headquarters from the United States to Australia. Rutra decided to deal with these things on the way tomorrow, but for now, a quick look at everything on the subject of UFOs and the like.

Since the late 1940s, first in the United States and then around the world, following the example of the United States, numerous groups have sprung up to collect and study reports of sightings of unidentified flying objects. In addition to countless amateur ufological organizations, individual UFO research projects were organized by the governments of various powers. In 1947, after the UFO phenomenon began to be investigated, it became clear that "flying saucers" did not suddenly appear in the second half of the twentieth century.

There were reports of strange flying lights and objects during World War II and the Victorian era. Celestial signs are also mentioned in medieval church chronicles and the annals of antiquity. One of the most famous cases that brought the existence of unidentified flying objects to the public's attention is the 1947 sighting over the Cascade Mountains, Washington State. News of these "flying saucers" quickly traveled across America, resulting in UFO sightings almost every day. Soon they accumulated so many that the U.S. Air Force raised the alarm, suggesting that they are launched by the USSR. December 2, 1952 came out a memorandum from the CIA, where Marshall Chadwell wrote that "reports of such incidents convince us that something is happening that requires immediate action.

Several projects have been organized on this issue. 1. Project Sein ("The Sign"). On September 23, 1947, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Lieutenant General Nathan Toining wrote a secret letter to the Commander of the Armed Forces, in which he pointed out the necessity, by order of the Armed Forces Headquarters, to create a priority secret project under the code name for a thorough study of the phenomenon in order to summarize all available and relevant data, with their subsequent transfer to various centers of the Army and Navy, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Experimental Research Committee, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Armed Forces and NASA.

2. "Majestic-12" was a secret organization, apart from the study of unidentified flying objects, that dealt with the Roswell Incident. The "Magnificent Dozen," reporting directly to Truman, was described in a 9-page report dated September 18, 1947 and marked TOP SECRET // EYES ONLY. This group consisted of 12 politicians and scientists, including: a nuclear physicist at MIT, a former Secretary of Defense, the director of the CIA, professors and other scientists. All in all, extraterrestrial beings are pretty firmly in the heads of Americans, and at the highest levels.

Indeed, as the saying goes, whether there is a God or not is not known, but people talking about it means they want there to be one.

Initiative study of UFOs in the USSR began in 1946, when science fiction writer Kazantsev hypothesized that the cause of the Tunguska explosion in 1908 could be the accident of an alien flying machine.

Among these mysterious cases, there was even one that did not add to the disbelief in these incredible phenomena. Donald Kehoe, an American ufologist and retired Navy major, was once speaking on television; when he uttered: "Now I'm going to say something that hasn't been reported before!" – the program was interrupted. Authorities subsequently justified the act on the grounds of national security. Kehoe served as acting director of the National Research Committee on Aerial Phenomena until 1969.

The information received was enough to "believe" in the existence of UFOs, at least – definitely enough to doubt the absence. So, among other things, Rutra decided to analyze the mysterious events surrounding all this. Those that had a purely earthly basis, quite provable. He was interested in the suicides of people involved in such matters, under mysterious circumstances. He identified a number of suspicious facts:

– in October 1986, astronomer Professor Sharif left London for Bristol and hanged himself from a tree there, a distance of 100 kilometers;

– a few days later the same Professor Dazibai of London threw himself from Bristol Bridge, etc.

Very many people involved in this topic were haunted by an evil fate, a certain fatality: missing in action; run over by his car; crushed to death by driving at high speed into a cafe building; hanged; killed; fallen off a bridge, drowned; killed in a car accident. And even – committed suicide by locking himself in the interior of his car and hanging a hose from the exhaust pipe. Even the expert's contrary opinion, if listened to, was dangerous. For example such – considers the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs "extremely unlikely": this man died under mysterious circumstances.

There was also a great deal of classified information, including very "fresh" information concerning the present day, both about UFOs themselves and about those who studied them. To these, as Rutra noted to himself, could be attributed the mysterious death of Alikhanov. However, he was mostly interested in the events and cases preceding the idea of creating an autonomous, intelligent system "Perimeter". Few people, even from the special services and military, knew that one of the first secret agreements between the so-called U.S. group and the USSR group was a treaty on a joint act of mutual assistance to each other and resistance to extraterrestrial aggression.

Rutra's conclusion was unambiguous: the range of specialists interested in unusual UFO-related phenomena is very wide, and the nature of this interest is heterogeneous: from strict scientific research to paranoid ideas and outright charlatanism. Hent was right; it was not worth cluttering his head with it, for the search for answers was like a drug addiction. Though Ruthra already felt the uncertainty and what he had heard in S4 urging him to find some sort of calming answer. To this end, he decided to contact specialists in Russia.

Public criticism of the "problems" of ufology in Russia is handled by the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research at the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Rutra fell asleep with the thoughts that now kept him awake (whether there were aliens or not). He slept restlessly, the emotional excitement of the previous days having taken its toll. In the morning he awoke abruptly from a nightmare. He dreamt that someone was calling him and saying:

– Just don't hang up, I've already called everyone on earth, you're the last one.

– What happened? – Ruthra asked.

The caller answered in an excited and begging voice:

– Listen to me, please.

– What's the big deal?

– I need help, you have to believe me. You have to recognize me.

– Recognize? Recognize what?

– You must recognize that I am your God, or I will die. I've called every person on earth, and no one recognizes me. They don't believe I'm their God. If you don't believe me, I'll die. How will I exist if you don't recognize me, you don't know exactly what I am? This is who I am, I've decided to show myself as I am. Just believe me, or I'll die.

– Yes, I do, of course I do, of course I do. And if I don't, it's okay, because gods can't die. Energy doesn't go anywhere, it goes from one state to another.

The interlocutor changed his voice and stated solemnly:

– Thank you, God save you. You have given me a new life, I will be as you imagined me to be.

With those words, the fiery mushroom of the atomic explosion flashed before Rutra's eyes, growing enormously, appearing before him as a vast mystical, awe-inspiring wonder.

Ruthra jumped out of bed. It was one of those kinds of dreams he often had, the kind where he thought it was real, and when he woke up, he was glad it was a dream. "What a dream," Rutra thought as he took a shower. He then went with his staff to breakfast, after which all three of them flew to Los Alamos. "What a treat not to be sent in a capsule," thought Rutra.

Los Alamos translates from Spanish as "poplar trees." It is a township and county in the state of New Mexico and has no city or township status. An hour and a half later, they were there. They were tacitly escorted, and very heavily. They were met formally by several Ph.D.'s and one professor. After the meeting, they were taken to the laboratory complex, which itself seemed outlandish among the surrounding area.

Chapter 4: Poplars and "poplars"

The laboratory director himself came out to them and introduced himself in American – Sir Charles. Rutra decided to keep up with his "colleague" and introduced himself with the prefix "Mr.". Sir Charles invited the guests into his office, offered coffee and soft drinks, asked them about their impressions of America, how life was in Russia, and for some reason, what we would do in case of failure. The officers accompanying Rutra smiled understandingly, and Rutra said, to make it more convincing, that they had already prepared a scenario for that eventuality.

After a few jokes about the Russian leadership, Charles proudly began to talk about his work, in a purely American manner – to praise himself and his own, although he was well aware of the awareness of the guests, at least – the chief guest.

– Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the sixteen national laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy. It houses the most powerful supercomputer in the world, the IBM Roadrunner-3. Los Alamos is one of two laboratories conducting secret nuclear weapons work in the United States. The other is Livermore National Laboratory. Incidentally, in December 2011, it was officially proposed to name chemical element #116 livermorium, which was subsequently approved. Supercomputers were installed at the Laboratory, which were among the most powerful supercomputers of their time. Following the example of the Internet – the world's global web – we decided to unite the world's major supercomputers into one network. This allows us to reduce the time it takes to solve multi-level problems. I can offer to run your program through this network.

– What centers will be used? – Ruthra inquired, since the transition from the introduction to the matter at hand had been made so soon.

– The major supercomputing centers with which we are networked are: Argonne National Laboratory; Livermore National Laboratory; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; National Computer Center for Higher Education and the Center for Computational Research and Technology in France; National Supercomputing Center in Sweden; National Center for Supercomputing Applications, located at the University of Illinois; Center for High Performance Computing, Stuttgart, Germany; Jülich Research Center, also Germany.

– A global solution," Ruthra marveled, which flattered the head of the lab.

– It is not for nothing that our laboratory is named after a great man," he said proudly and went on with his story. – The American physicist Ernest Lawrence was fascinated by invention from childhood. Together with his neighbor Merle Tuve, who also eventually became an outstanding physicist, they created their own system of wireless telephone. Back then, you know?

– Oh, yes, he was a gifted man," Ruthra said, again expressing his admiration, and politely decided to change the subject to work. – We're not in danger of losing program data or copying it, are we?

– No, we'll control the whole process from here. The other centers will help us solve the problem in blocks. Each center will do its part.

– All right, then. When do we start?

– Let's get started, we're prepared. It is also interesting for us, as it is for any mathematician to find a solution.

They took the elevator down to the operations room, passing through two checkpoints. Rutra's escort was not allowed through the last checkpoint. Rutra ordered the suitcase to be unbuckled, picked it up, and went on his own, accompanied by a receptionist.

In the operations room, Rutra performed identification for unlocking the lock, received a confirmation reply via satellite, called the Zero duty officer just in case, received confirmation, and opened the case. The device with the program was interfaced to the supercomputer system. Rutra sat down in the operator's seat, entered the unlock code, which consisted of forty lines of five digits, and surprised the people present by memorizing it and not hiding the action; they did not know about his "advanced" brain or the fact that the password was new each time. There were moments when Ruthra forgot that the unusual skills for people were the ones that were now commonplace to him.

The program began to integrate with the system, and operators began assigning "duties" to computers on the network.

– You can go rest, it's not a quick job," Charles Rutre said.

– Okay," Ruthra answered again in the American manner. – Only on the condition that you include the IP address of my device in the network and ensure uninterrupted wireless communication between the terminal and my case.

– Give me your information.

After a while, Ruthra, with the help of the hardware in the case, was fully able to observe what was being done with the program.

– Come on, I'll show you around," Charles suggested.

They went out, went upstairs, the receptionist invited them to a gazebo outside.

– What are your plans, where will you stay? We have prepared a hotel complex for you.

– Thank you, much appreciated. Perhaps we'll take a walk around your village today and think things over a bit about the second purpose of our visit.

– Can I ask you which one?

– We're interested in the possibility of sending a signal from an unidentified clandestine source, the location of which can be concealed. A high-powered signal, sustained and controlled by a system integrated into something like your center. That is, something with the ability to operate, calculate and decipher complex, multi-stage codes.

– Why do you want to know why, may I ask?

Ruthra gestured to the accompanying officers to leave. He decided to disguise his answer. He moved closer to Charles and whispered:

– This will seem implausible and fantastic to you, but as a colleague to a colleague, I will say this: we have received an unidentified signal from an unknown source. Earth origin is not confirmed.

– Are you kidding me?

– If only.

– So it's a sensation.

– Yeah? What if we're wrong? We need to check everything. The thing is, the signal penetrated the codes of the military satellites, unlocked them and tried to change the program.

– You know, this is not the first time this has happened, which surprised me.

– Was there something like that?

– If you don't know, I'll tell you, all of America is raving about aliens, and the fact that this signal penetrated the satellite control system in the first place confirms it.

Rutra thought, "I'm already convinced that all of America is delusional."

– I have been involved in many closed projects in my line of work, I have been to different sites, and everywhere there was a spirit of the unidentified.

– Can you elaborate on that?

– Prior to Los Alamos, I worked at Oak Ridge Laboratory, K-25 and Y-12 facilities.

Rutra didn't give any sign of his knowledge of the subject. He needed to be mistaken for an obsessed scientist, an image Rutra maintained.

– What's in there?

– What is Oak Ridge National Laboratory – you know. It's a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. It is the largest science and energy laboratory in the Department's system. The lab has several powerful supercomputers, including Jaguar and its updated version, Titan, as well as several neutron research facilities. The K-25 facility was located in the southwestern part of Oak Ridge. The K-25 plant, when completed, was the largest building in the world. During the project, the main goal of which was to build an atomic bomb, workers labored in secret, not even realizing what would result from their work. An acquaintance of my mom's, Gladys Owens, didn't know what she was doing until she saw herself in a photo 50 years later at a public exhibition. The X-10 graphite reactor was the world's second man-made nuclear reactor and the first designed and built for continuous operation. It was used to build the first nuclear reactors in Iran, mind you, and Pakistan.

– You said, "pay attention." What was that about? – Ruthra asked.

– Someone needs it to be so, but officially it is declared otherwise.

– Well, well. So what's next?

– The Y-12 National Security Center is a U.S. Department of Energy center in suburban Oak Ridge, near the National Laboratory. The center manufactures components for nuclear weapons and stores the bulk of the U.S. stockpile of enriched uranium. Construction of the center began in February 1943, as part of the Manhattan Project. At Y-12, among other things, fuel was created for the bombs used in 1945 against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

– Quite interesting, just what is the news, let me put it this way.

– The fact that in such centers, in addition to official, declared activities, albeit classified, there are other activities, classified even from those who have access to them.

– Like what?

– For example, I was involved in the SSP program; it is a nuclear arsenal management program in the United States. Nuclear weapons have not been produced in the United States since 1992, and the reliability and safety of nuclear weapons is ensured through simulations of nuclear explosions on supercomputers. Nuclear weapons storage and maintenance is handled by the U.S. Department of Energy, and more specifically by its three main national laboratories: Livermore National Laboratory, our Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. So, among other things....

He leaned over to Ruthra and said in a whisper:

– …I was part of a program to study the effects of a nuclear explosion in a different environment than the Earth. Nobody said anything about it, but the mission was to see what would happen if the explosion occurred in a different physical environment. And later I would learn that NASA had conducted a "bombardment" of the moon. Two vehicles crashed into the Earth's natural satellite at a tremendous speed. It wasn't the first time. I'm surprised you don't know anything about it.

– Why. The dust cloud was studied by two vehicles – the Russian LEND and the American LCROSS probe equipped with spectrometers and infrared cameras. They collected information on the chemical composition of the particles and – most importantly – on the amount of water.

– Yeah, and you know that the experiment cost NASA 80 million dollars, too? Do you think the main goal is to understand whether there are ice crystals under the surface of the Earth's satellite? And if there are, then in the future to build inhabited scientific stations or even whole settlements on the Moon? Doesn't it seem to you that this is a war, and these very inhabited scientific stations and whole settlements already exist?

– Well, I don't know what to say. Aren't there any spies among your acquaintances? You can't hide everything, can you?

– As in Russia, and everywhere else, here you cannot hold a position like mine without approval, or rather, scientifically speaking, some integration into this very intelligence community.

– And which one are you in…

– There are many of them, none in particular. Do you have any idea of their structure?

– I have no idea.

– The United States Intelligence Community is a collective term for 17 separate U.S. government agencies. I'm going to educate you a little bit on the subject. I am sure if we cooperate, you will need information about them. The Director of the U.S. Intelligence Community is the head of the government apparatus for coordinating the work of all U.S. intelligence agencies, he is responsible for the work of the intelligence community to the President of the United States. By the way, they have a budget of $43.5 billion.

– Interesting things you say.

– If you're not too busy, we can have a chat in your spare time.

– I will. I will also tell you about scientific work together with specialists from the "zone".

– Fifty-one?

– Yeah. (chuckles)

Charles smiled, nodding as a sign that he understood. They stood up, said their goodbyes, and separated. At the gatehouse, Rutra and his companions were waited for by a lab employee who escorted them to the reception center. Rutra settled in, checked the program through the briefcase, then contacted Isa. After going through a procedure that had become routine, he heard the voice of the computer in his head.

– Good afternoon. How are you?

– I need information on the director of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

– Which one?

– His connection to an intelligence community unit.

– I don't have that information in me.

– Why is that?

– It's not my field.

– Whose is it?

– Yours.

– Stop "showing off", if I ask, I don't know.

– The information's in your department's cell block, I need access. You can give it to me.

– Uh-oh, I forgot. Okay, thank you.

Rutra contacted the Zero Center through the briefcase and requested information about these intelligence communities, who was in charge of what. It was night in Russia, and the Zero operative on duty had dumped everything at once, unprocessed, something Rutra already knew, but it didn't hurt to refresh his memory. There was a lot of detailed information in the message, with order numbers, names, ranks, service records of important officers and service chiefs, and operations. He didn't find anything particularly new, but still, after a brief analysis, he singled out information that was now worth looking at from a different angle.

The U.S. CIA is the primary political intelligence service of the U.S. government, independent of other ministries and agencies. According to Executive Order No. 12333, the U.S. Intelligence Community has six primary purposes, and the most specific of these, which all intelligence agencies of the world have faced willy-nilly, is special events (paragraph 4). This item is defined as activities conducted in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives abroad that are planned and executed where "the role of the United States Government is not apparent or publicly recognized."

The U.S. Intelligence Community is an administrative, not an intelligence structure.

It includes:

1. U.S. CIA;

2. The U.S. Department of State, specifically the State Department's Information Office;

3. the U.S. Department of the Treasury, specifically the Office of Intelligence and Counterterrorism;

4. U.S. Department of Defense, namely the National Security Agency; the Office of Space Intelligence and Mapping; and the Office of Satellite DER;

5. U.S. Department of Energy, specifically the Office of Nuclear Intelligence and Security;