12. The Control Plane
Previously — In episode 11, we meet the three man chalk of JTF Alpha—a motley collection of military oddballs hand-picked by John Spillers. There’s Delaloza, who spends most of his time napping, not saying a word. And Chaulette, a full bird colonel recently transferred from an all black paratroop unit known as the Triple Nickels. And Dawkins—a disgraced Navy UDT diver who is, in the words of Ramler “a pile-up of unintended consequences”. Dawkins is in charge of the chalk and their mission objectives are clear: jump into the Grass Cutting Area, cut off the compound’s communications with Ramey, locate and take possession of the detainee Jesus Santiago, and kill anyone who gets in the way.
Accompanying the chalk is a tight-lipped jumpmaster who wears a blank piece of fabric where his name tape ought to be. This small violation of uniform SOP immediately arouses the attention of the pilot—captain Will Hardesty, a man who by modern standards, would be classified as on the spectrum—but in 1950 is just another military oddball. Hardesty spends the duration of the flight spitballing possible names for the jumpmaster while observing the men of the chalk with a mixture of suspicion, astonishment, and detached coolness. Though he knows he’s flying them to a spot above Ramey Air Force base in Puerto Rico, he has no idea why.
Part 1: Breaking SOP
Inside the third floor operator’s lounge of Area J, Vandyck had just turned away from Esteberger to grab a cup of coffee from the thermo unit—her mind still lingering on the conference room a few minutes earlier.
“I know things are fucked right now, but—”
Then the timer chimed. She paused a moment before opening the door to take a closer look. It was one of the nicer units—clean with soft-close hinges and beveled edges. It was even recessed into the wall. Not like the clunkers she was used to up on the sixth floor. She leaned forward and took two quick sniffs. Layered behind faint hints of glass cleaner were notes of cocoa powder and cherry.
Even the coffee was better she thought.
She stuck her hand in and tapped the ceramic handle of the cup a few times to test for temperature. Warm, but not ripping hot. She pulled it out and brought it to her lips, blowing a few times before turning back around to continue her conversation with Esteberger. But he was gone. She sighed and sipped, guessing he had probably snuck away at some point, tired of hearing her complain about the FOJIP presentation having turned into a shit show.
Annoyed, she shrugged and walked over to the banquette where he had just been sitting, bent down to use her palm to frisk the long rectangular cushion for any warm spots, then raised her eyebrows when she discovered it to be uniformly cool. Sliding in, she sat up tall and cupped her mug with both hands, waiting for it to cool a bit. It wasn’t long though, before her thoughts returned to the conference room—to what she had shown everyone up on the aperture’s viewport screen. When Santiago looked up from that moldy stone floor in Puerto Rico—to a point where there should have been nothing at all for human eyes to focus on, and started speaking calmly as though giving a press conference—even making that crack about being on the other side of a one way mirror, that was it. They all lost it.
It shouldn’t have been possible she thought, shaking her head. Nothing like this had ever been documented in FM-5137. Not even close. The humans weren’t that smart. The boundary line separating their world from the control plane should have been absolutely imperceptible. And yet, Santiago had somehow become aware of it. Not only that, he knew her name.
Her fucking name.
True, he wasn’t like any human she had ever seen in the aperture. Like Spillers, he had that weird energetic plasticity that contradicted everything she thought she knew about humans. It was like he could rewrite the rules whenever it suited him. Rules like physics and cellular aging.
Rules, she thought. Maybe that was it. Maybe Santiago—and Spillers for that matter—had stumbled upon the discovery that the human rule book wasn’t actually etched in stone—that it was more of a… gentleman’s agreement, like those little lawn signs Louis IV posted at Versailles—les etiquettes they were called. She rolled her eyes. One thing the humans eventually got right though—those signs had no power. It was the passers-by who authorized the words to exert power over them. Vandyck shook her head. It seemed extraordinary, but maybe the underlying rules of the event stream were as powerless as those signs. And why not? Santiago was a shape shifter, able to recompose his face as easily as twiddling the knobs of an etch-a-sketch. What’s not to say that as a side effect, he became aware of the boundary line separating his world from her’s—could maybe even cross over that line and step into the control plane? She grimaced and wondered—had he already done it? Would anyone even know? Maybe that’s how he had learned her name.
She twirled her coffee mug round and round as the hypotheticals piled up, until finally, she cleared her throat and considered something even more jarring—that she might one day walk into this lounge and see Spillers sitting on the banquette waiting for her, tapping his fingers on the table.
She straightened her back and took a slow drink of coffee. It had cooled to the point where it no longer gave off steam. She looked over again at the thermo unit, saw the dull blue glow of its numeric display. For as long as she could, she sat motionless, hoping the surrounding stillness would press into her like slowly expanding memory foam. After a while, she peeked up and around the wall, wondering when Esteberger would come back.
She was about to call for him when another thought came to her. Everyone at Area J took it as a tenet of faith that the apertures were infallible, and yet no one fully understood how they worked. Even the operators—mathematicians by training—ultimately had to rely on their bodies, what they called their first brains—to pilot the goddamn things. And then there was all that spooky business with the spirit fingers and the twirling pencils. It made her chuckle now, because it brought back so many arguments she had had with Esteberger. Voodoo she had called it—a crazily inexact process, impossible to decompose into finite mechanical procedures. And he had replied in typical Esteberger fashion: Careful what you say out loud. You can imply the dots. Just don’t connect them.
She bit at her lower lip, suspecting that in the end, no one but her was bothered by any of it—didn’t care how it all worked. What’s the old saying—you can’t argue with results. But she was feeling surly. What if the first brain was the essential component and the aperture was just a prop? Like those lawn signs at Versailles. What if… she could do what Santiago did?
She looked from left to right—uneasily at first, then with a cagey grin—the same one that nearly got her kicked out of the Operator’s Q-course. There was something about the old man she couldn’t put her finger on. Something familiar. Likable. It wasn’t exactly his looks or his voice or the words he spoke. It was more subtle—like an easter egg submerged into the fabric of everything about him—a faint residue just barely there, always lingering at the edges of him, something that hinted at something terrifying and marvelous—as if to announce to anyone really paying attention—this is happening you morons. And what comes next is unfathomable.
She set the coffee mug to the side, stared straight ahead and up, doing her best to pantomime Santiago—then closed her eyes and drew in slow deep breaths through her nose, registering each one as a tiny autonomous unit of wind, curling and collapsing and wending throughout the compartments of her body, like stubborn scraps of some ancient exhalation. She did this repeatedly until she felt the familiar tumbling sensation in her solar plexus. And then the sudden drop and recalibration of heart rate. This was the initial signpost that indicated one had reached the operator’s cadence. She waited one more breath, then allowed herself to be pulled along by a passing current—the rhythmic chains of theta waves that would ferry her to the outer frequencies of the event stream.
When she opened her eyes again, she caught a glimmer of blue—just barely there. At first, she thought it was the glow of the thermo unit’s display playing tricks on her eyes. But this light seemed to have edges, as though occupying a particular space. And the color was different—not dull at all—translucent, barely there, but somehow it burned hot. She stared into what she thought of as its center, and watched as the air around it crinkled and deformed, rearranging into something that reminded her of the polyhedron diagrams she had documented in operator’s field manuals. Soon there were millions of tiny sparks.
And then she heard a soft muffled scraping sound from around the corner—down low by the rubber toe kick. Not daring to move her eyes away from the blue light, she nudged her chin forward and inflated her diaphragm, as though chambering her voice, getting ready to throw it like a boomerang.
“Esteberger?”
Part 2: Movement in the Wire
It happened without warning or buildup. At 10:35 AM, the first machine gun nest opened up with three bursts of suppressive fire. There was a short pause, then continuous fire for thirty seconds. Then a long silence. During the long silence—which is what the official AAR would later refer to it as—private first class Montoya shot up out of his chair from the second floor of building one and charged in the direction of Captain Sepulveda’s closed door. Three feet shy of the threshold, the door swung open and the captain, looking rumpled with worry, spoke in a raspy voice.
“Montoya, you and Torres run over to building two. Go to the armory, get geared up and find the XO and the First Sergeant.” He pauses when he notices Montoya frowning and staring up at his head. The captain brings his hand up and dabs at the film of perspiration.
Montoya blinks twice. “Yes sir, we’ll do that right away but—”
“What is it Montoya?”
“Sir, we don’t have coms. We can’t reach anyone on the outside.”
Sepulveda straightens up and grabs the edge of the door in a pinch grip with his left hand. “What do you mean son?”
Montoya brings his eyes down a tick and notices for the first time, the captain is holding a ‘45 down low by his leg. He brings his eyes back up. “As soon as I heard the 30 cal go off sir, I picked up the phone. There was no sound when I dialed S3 sir. So I tried to reach building two.”
The captain interrupts. “And?”
“Sergeant Zayas picked up.”
“What’s the situation over there?”
“He told me what I just told you. That we lost coms with Ramey. And the only phone lines that work are the ones inside the wire. Then he mentioned something about a jeep of Air Force SPs on its way out here. And then—”
“What?” the captain asks.
“Then the line went dead.”
Sepulveda walks over to his desk, picks up the phone, and brings it up to his ear. After a few attempts at dialing, he slams it down and returns to the door, nodding slowly. “OK.” he says, not yet making eye contact with Montoya. “OK. Here’s what I want you to do.” He nods a few more times trying to stall, then turns to the window. There’s the sound of a single voice yelling from outside—from the direction of the machine gun fire. Montoya inches forward and cranes his neck, trying to make out the words, but the glass is thick.
“Sir, is this a drill?”
The captain doesn’t answer. Just walks to the window, hovering close by the wall with the ‘45 still in his hand. Montoya rubs his fingers together, looks back at Torres who’s still sitting on top of his desk, then turns back around to see the captain stepping in closer to the window so he can get a look at the machine gun nest.
The captain squints a few times and looks up. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and barely any wind. A hundred meters out, not far from the flag pole, he sees the outline of two helmets moving behind sandbags. The man on the 30 cal is the one yelling—pointing a finger up and out, high toward the tree line, past the chain link fence perimeter of the compound. Sepulveda follows the line of the man’s finger, out toward a row of magnolias tightly clustered up, forming a dense quilt of green and yellow that sits perfectly still, as though part of a lush jungle matte painting. He focuses a while on that spot before panning left and right. There’s nothing out of place. He refocuses on the machine gun nest and sees the man wagging his finger, screaming louder. He sweeps his eyes back and forth for any trace of movement. Then he calls out in a loud voice, past Montoya.
“Torres!”
“Yes sir.”
“Mr. Spillers and Mr. Ramler. What’s their location?”
“They stepped out twenty minutes ago sir.”
The captain turns to catch Montoya, still standing in the doorway picking at a pimple now on the side of his head. When he turns to the window again, he notices a blur of green up in the tree line—as if someone had run their hand along a small patch of the jungle matte painting. Sepulveda refocuses his eyes in time to see what looks like a small cloud of hornets. And then he realizes they’re not hornets—but tiny sparks of blue light… and a pocket of air that seems to waffle and bend and fold like fabric. All at once, memories of the forest rush back, shooting into him like successive injections of epinephrine. His eyes start to water.
Montoya notices something is off and fidgets from his place at the doorway. “Sir?”
The captain doesn’t turn away from the window, just raises his hand to indicate to Montoya everything is fine, and tries to make sense of the images now playing in his head. He was walking with Spillers not long ago, talking about… helicopters. But when? he wonders. He was in the office all morning—on and off the phone. It didn’t add up.
But then another jolt of epinephrine arrives and he remembers it all—is able to see it in his mind’s eye as clearly as watching a film projected on to the backs of his eyelids. He remembers sitting below the canopy of the ceiba tree, unable to move, then the hissing sound from above and the yellow eyes high up on the ledge—and the fight with the man with the hole in his face—Garcia his name was. When Sepulveda remembers the smell that came out of that hole, the hairs on his forearms and neck bristle. He tries to remember the exact words that were said to him—We’re in the world behind the world. You need to understand what’s coming next. Who had said those words?
He takes a final look out the window toward the tree line, then snaps his head in Montoya’s direction.
“Both of you come with me. We’re going to the armory.”
Part 3: The Violence of Action
When the first burst of 30 caliber rounds popped off into the tree line, it shattered the long silence and set many things into motion, most of which went undocumented in the official AAR. The XO, who was on the ground floor briefing room of building two stood up immediately.
“Zayas!” he yells, stabbing his head out into the hallway. “What the fuck? There’s no live fire drill today.”
Sergeant Zayas is standing in the hallway frowning, the whites of his eyes, big and round like saucers. “Sir, I was just talking with PFC Montoya over at building one and we just lost coms. It happened right when those rounds went off.” He waits a few seconds, expecting the XO will explain this is all part of a drill—some readiness exercise the Air Force cooked up, but when the XO says nothing, Zayas continues. “Another thing sir. Ten minutes ago, I got a call from the battalion S3. He told me a security detail was headed our way. Four SP’s in a jeep.”
The XO tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows. “That was ten minutes ago?”
The sergeant nods and studies the lieutenant’s eyes. There’s a look growing on the man’s face Zayas recognizes—a blend of someone’s getting their ass turned inside out and we gotta’ get the first sergeant.
“Where’s Top?”
Zayas points to the double doors down the long corridor. “Rec room sir.” The two men torpedo down the length of building two, both taking long strides, occasionally squeaking as their boots skid atop the polished surface of the bone white floor. When the XO pushes open the double doors at the other end, he sees the first sergeant standing by the pool table, looking out the window. Top is the most senior NCO at the compound, and the only one to have seen combat during the war. He’s a wide man, and from the back, looks like an OD green uniform stuffed with cured ham hocks. The XO, Zayas, and the others watch as Top quietly sets the pool cue down on the table, then with a snap of four fingers, bangs the stick flush against the side rail with a crack. “Everybody with me.” he says. “To the armory.” When he barrels past the XO, his forearms and legs are undulating like some terrifying system of lethal meat pistons.
Downstairs one level, Sergeant Reyes, who sits behind the metal cage of the arms room hears Top’s voice and the sound of multiple sets of footsteps. He stubs out a half-finished cigarette and waves his hand in the air back and forth as though swatting at bees and checks his pockets for all the keys he’s about to need. He considers picking up the clipboard next to him, but instead adjusts the buttons along the front pockets of his shirt.
All the way down at the bottom level, the guard posted at cell number one grabs the metal latch to slide open the window grille. He brings his face close to the six inch wide rectangular slot and scans every pore of the nine-by-nine cell. The old man inside is still lying down on the cot looking up at the ceiling, hands clasped behind his head with both legs splayed out to the sides. “Stay put viejo.” he says from behind the grille. And as he steps away to close the slot, he hears the old man.
“It has been a pleasure my friend.”
The guard blinks a few times and slams the grille door shut and hisses. “Puñeta.” Then he walks down a long corridor and disappears around the corner.
From inside the cell, Jesus Santiago rises to a seated position on his cot and scans his environment. It’s nicer than he thought it would be. A windowless concrete room—much cleaner than the calabozo at la Princesa—smaller though, and with no toilet, not even a bucket. There’s only the metal cot he sits on now, with a thin waxy mattress that smells of vomit and disinfectant. Down by the bottom, he sees a small stitched decal which reads: Made in the USA. He thinks of the contador back in San Juan—the economics student arrested for carrying a Puerto Rican flag inside of a book—and he wonders: how many men, how many people on this island have spent time in cells, crying and bleeding into mattresses like this one—and for what? He wonders suddenly if he’s made a mistake in pinning his hopes on Captain Sepulveda. Could he be trusted? Could any man who runs a place like this?
Santiago slaps at the mattress and smiles. It is a trick he does to avoid frowning. And then he thinks of Vandyck. Surely, she was a better bet than Sepulveda. But still, he couldn’t be sure she’d be ready when the time came.
He shakes his head and shrugs, then turns so his ear can focus on the sounds beyond the closed door. He hears the rattling of chains and opening and closing of metal gates, hands banging against wood, and the pulling of bolts. In the middle of it all are the voices of men huddled close together, speaking in low tones. After a bit, the voices stop and there is only the noise of rifle butt plates and hand guards being slapped, and thirty-aught-six rounds being pushed into en block clips.
And then footsteps approach the cell door. Santiago leans forward and rises to his feet. A moment later, someone unbolts the door from outside and the captain walks in, flanked by Montoya and Torres. The captain has on his pistol belt with a holstered ‘45. Montoya and Torres are holding loaded M1 rifles.
Santiago looks unsurprised and turns his head slightly, as his eyes move up from the captain’s belt to his face. The two men examine each other as though inspecting cargo. From outside, far down the corridor and around the corner, a man’s voice yells mamabicho cabrón! Santiago sees the captain tick his eyes right and wonders if it’s the man who peeked into the cell earlier. “We’re moving you to a more secure location.” he says, then turns to his left and motions with his hand. “Torres, handcuff the detainee.”
Torres steps in without saying a word, only to back step when he realizes he’ll need to either set down or sling his rifle in order to follow handcuffing procedure. So he kneels down to put the handcuffs on the floor and stands back up. For a second, he stares at that spot on the floor, unsure if it’s right. He backs up a few steps and slings his rifle, first with the barrel up, then remembering SOP, unslings it, twirls it around and re-slings it barrel down. After some eyeballing, he clears his throat and pauses, pressing his lips together. His forehead and nose are glistening with perspiration. Looking satisfied now, he picks the handcuffs up off the floor, then turns and mumbles something at Montoya, signaling to the other man he should back up. Montoya does so until he’s touching the wall, raising the stock of his rifle a few inches up until it looks like he’s trying to make a trick pool shot. After adjusting so he can re-aim the barrel at the old man, he nods at Torres who tells Santiago to turn around and put both hands on his head.
The captain winces, and is about to say something when a rifle cracks off somewhere upstairs. Everyone except Santiago turns around to peer down the long white corridor. A moment later, a grenade goes off, and is followed by yelling and gunfire. Sepulveda looks over at Montoya, who’s frozen in place, still pointing his rifle at Santiago, looking like he’s trying to make a jump shot over the three ball. “What do we do sir?” he says.
The captain doesn’t say a word—just stares out into the corridor, squinting left and right, tapping his boot like he’s waiting for a burning bush to materialize. He turns back around. “Follow me.” he says. “Don’t bother with the handcuffs Torres—just keep him in front of you.” He unholsters the ‘45 and disengages the manual safety. “Stay close.” he says.
Santiago, who is still turned away, brings both hands down to waist level and turns to face Torres, exchanging looks with him as they switch places. At the doorway, the captain gives a signal and steps out into the long white corridor. He treads lightly and stays close to the wall on the right, Montoya trailing by no more than three feet. Santiago goes next, then Torres. Like a segmented military caterpillar, they slink quietly along the wall of the sixty foot passageway. Above them, there’s the now continuous popping of semi-automatic fire, occasionally interrupted by loud crashes—like furniture being hurled at metal cabinets. The more they progress, the greater the noise—like the gradual intensification of a fevered hallucination.
A third of the way down, as they pass by cell number two, another grenade goes off—this one much closer than the previous—definitely inside the building. Montoya instantly crouches down, turtling his head and clenching his jaw. He makes the sign of the cross, and suddenly wonders if his friends upstairs are safe, or if this is all part of some elaborate unannounced Civil Defense drill. With his eyes still shut, he feels a palm gently squeeze him by the shoulder. He turns around to see the old man grinning. “We’re almost there.” he says. Montoya stares at him a while, not sure if he should reply, then adjusts his chinstrap and presses forward. The gun battle up top is raging by the time they reach the doorjamb of cell number three—halfway down the corridor. The captain cocks the hammer of his ‘45, and unlocks the door slowly. In a fluid movement, he shoulders it open, enters quietly, and reemerges to signal to everyone it’s safe to enter. When they’re all in, he closes and locks the door from the inside and explains that cell number three is an entrance to an evacuation tunnel.
“Tunnel?” Montoya asks.
The captain is in no mood for long explanations. “Yes, the doorway is under the cot. Move it and you’ll see a square hatch.”
Torres grabs the cot by the head handle, drags it away, and drops to his knees. He runs his hands along a square, notched out in the concrete, then feels the center. It’s smooth and steel, painted grey to match the cell, and there’s an o-ring handle recessed into the floor. “Dios mio.” he says, looking up at Montoya. “This shit is real.”
The captain explains: the tunnel is a 1600 meter long straight shot—narrow, but well-lit, and with no turns. On the other end is a second hatch just like this one, that opens into the ammunition depot. He reaches into his pocket, fishes out a set of keys and hands them to Montoya. “There’s a jeep on the other end,” he says, “always fueled. These are the keys. Take it back to S3. Drive fast and don’t stop for anyone until you get there. Understood?”
Torres and Montoya nod in unison.
“Now go.” he says to them. “Explain to the officer in charge what happened here. Let him know we followed all of our SOP’s.” He looks at Montoya to make sure he understands, then adds, “I’ll see you at S3 with the others when I finish up here.”
Montoya nods and grabs the old man by the arm. “Yes sir.” he says. But the captain shakes his head. “No. The detainee stays with me.”
Montoya looks at Santiago, then at the captain, not sure what to say. Torres steps away and grabs the o-ring handle down by the floor and pulls. As soon as the hatch opens, cold blue fluorescent light streams in from below, revealing the aluminum handholds of a ladder similar to those aboard submarines. Torres goes in first, not saying a word or looking back. When it’s Montoya’s turn, he lowers one foot down on the top rung of the ladder, then stops to look up at the captain. “Sir, is this a drill?”
Sepulveda doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Montoya smiles. “Yes sir. See you at S3 sir.”
When Montoya’s head disappears, the captain closes the hatch door, re-cocks the ‘45, and takes a step toward the cell door. He’s about to unlock it when he feels a hand grab him at the right wrist. Sepulveda yanks it back, but is shocked to discover he can’t move. “I’m going upstairs.” he says, bringing his left hand down on top of the hand holding him in place. He attempts to pry it off, but can’t. He turns his body sideways to try and yank his gun-holding hand free, like pulling at a lawn mower cord. His face is flushed and hot. “Old man,” he says. He turns and sets his eyes on Santiago, moving them along the wrinkles of the old man’s chin and cheeks like a pyroclastic flow seeking a body of water. And then his eyes stop. He blinks a few times, trying to reconcile the thing right there at the edges of the old man. It’s like a translucent skin of some kind—a fabric with folds where blue light begins to gather like needles. He begins to mouth words, unsure if he’s seen this before.
“Cristian Monserrate Sepulveda,” the old man says, pointing his eyes down at the ‘45 in the captain’s hand. “If you open that door, and go out there—with this—you will die.”
The captain is still straining to break free when they both hear a loud bang from outside, and a voice. It’s Dawkins, yelling from down the corridor. “Those boys upstairs are deader’n shit.” he says, walking down the corridor, his face still powdery dry, his hands and sleeves slicked with blood and viscera. There’s a wet slapping sound as he smears the remainder of the first sergeant from his sleeves on to the walls.
Sepulveda closes his eyes and shakes his head violently from side to side. “Santiago,” he growls, his voice nearly breaking, “I will beat the life out of you if you don’t let go of my hand.” After another wet sound, the captain lets loose a visceral groan and his eyes go white with rage. He’s unable to understand how the old man is keeping him pinned in place—or the speed with which his world has so thoroughly been dismembered. He feels it as a relentless crushing pressure, inviting him into its fever hallucination. A pair of tears fall out of the sides of his eyes as he struggles to break free.
Outside, Dawkins laughs. “They fought good, I’ll give ‘em that, but—” He stops mid-sentence at the arrival of another set of footsteps.
Santiago tilts his head to listen, then opens his eyes wide as soon as he hears the second voice—it’s a calm quiet voice he has not heard since 1518.
When the captain watches the old man react to that voice, he sees the moment he is in with new eyes—as a fulcrum upon which something massive and submerged will soon turn. Santiago stares up toward a spot of air in the middle of the room, a few feet in front of them. “We’re out of time,” he says to the spot. “Vandyck, it’s now or never.”
A moment later, the room is awash in a million blue sparks and the air folds over on itself and they are gone.