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Chapter One
Earth—2172
Cosima
There it was. Right fucking there. I was so close.
The infamous Echelon 67.
Sitting outside on the perimeter, listening to the trees and brush sway and the birds chirping around me, it didn’t seem too foreboding. It looked like just a normal nature preserve, safe from urban development, people, and pollution. It seemed harmless, a serene escape, but I’d been told it was anything but. I chewed my lip, thinking over what I knew about it already.
Echelon 67 was a top-secret government facility or at least, that’s what the conspiracy theorists have been saying for years. It was rumored that countries from all over the world had operatives stationed here. A lot of the information circulating out there was conjecture and straight-up gossip, but it was my job to find out the truth.
One thing was for certain. This place was deadly.
There had been a handful of deaths, both men and women. The newspapers called them animal maulings, but I’d seen all the pictures. I knew even a bear couldn’t do damage like that. The people in the small towns surrounding the area blamed it on aliens, whispers of escapees bound to destroy the world. Some even believed a UFO crash landed a few hundred years ago or so and that the government had covered it up, using Echelon 67 to investigate the phenomenon. I hadn’t believed a word of it. I figured it was just some sort of military cover-up for some sort of human testing of some kind. I didn’t exactly know what, but I was going to find out.
A twig cracked in the distance and I jumped. I remained still for a long time, watching and waiting for anything more to happen, but it never did. Out there in the wilderness, I was strangely alone. Not a camera, soldier, or even a single drone reacting to my presence as I’d expected. It was oddly suspicious. Maybe this place wasn’t special at all.
I palmed the laser gun at my waist, a new Smith and Wesson model that had an automatic sight and built-in mini silencer, with almost zero kickback. Most journalists didn’t carry guns with them, but I did. I wasn’t taking any chances. The wind rustled the brush once again.
I took a deep shaky breath, gazing out into the wilderness. I couldn’t make any more guesses based on what I knew already. I had to know more. I had to get down to the bottom of the story and figure out exactly what was happening in Echelon 67. Alien cover-up or not. The world deserved to know the real story. We deserved to know if we were in danger and I was going to be the one to find out, the one to break the story.
The breeze picked up around me and I rose to my feet, my eyes searching along the thick metal wire fencing. It had taken some time to reach where I was and now the sun was beginning to drop in the sky. Fortunately, I’d found a hole in the electric fencing around the compound, probably cut by someone trying to break in years ago. I heard an automated hovercraft high overhead and ducked down, hoping my specially made body temperature-blocking clothing would hide me from any heat-sensing tech on board.
It passed by without pause and I sighed with relief. It must have worked.
Quickly, I ducked inside the thick brush, using the tree cover to shield me from view. I pulled my hat lower on my head, feeling the chill of the breeze around me. I shivered, not entirely sure if I was cold or just a little anxious. My heart pounded in my chest and my blood rushed through my veins, my nerves keeping me on edge. A branch cracked nearby, and I almost jumped out of my skin, but it just turned out to be a squirrel scurrying along the ground.
I sighed and shook my head.
Fuck. Get your head together, Cosima. Jesus.
I squinted into the distance, trying to find some semblance of a path that I could walk down, but found none. Pushing one branch after another aside, I wandered carefully into the woods. I felt like I walked for hours, but when I checked my comm, it had only been a half hour and I’d trekked about half a mile. I wasn’t anywhere near the center of the compound and the sun was already beginning to set in the mountains. I may have severely underestimated the journey into the area. I chewed my lip, looking nervously from side to side, ready to run at a moment’s notice, expecting an entire busload of soldiers to rush out at me at any second.
Nothing.
Just me, the squirrels, and the bugs in the woods.
And the potential human-murdering bears.
I rolled my eyes at my jumpiness and trudged onward, leaves and branches scratching against my camouflage khakis and tearing holes in my beige top. The temperature was beginning to drop, so I unpacked my dark jacket from my backpack and shrugged it on. I looked above and saw stars beginning to wink into the night sky, the moon hidden by the treetops. I knew night would come very soon, so I also dug out my night vision glasses. I pushed them up my nose and clicked on the power and was suddenly awash with light. The woods around me looked just like it was the middle of the day, it was so bright.
