Five cowboys wearing only tight blue jeans struggle desperately to free
themselves from individual nooses pulling them up, up, up by their thick necks.
Their wildly kicking legs extend downward trying to touch the floor to
prevent—if only temporarily—the slow, humiliating, suffocating death that each
man inevitably will endure from this suspension hanging party.
One of the doomed cowboys cries out in his mind, “We’re all hung!”
Because they are dying together, all five of these men are linked mentally and
are aware of each other’s final thoughts. A second cowboy hears the first one
and in his mind answers back, “I think you mean hanged.” The
third cowboy thinks, “No, he’s saying he thinks we all have huge cocks.”
The fourth one has this thought: “Which we won’t ever get to use again!”
The fifth cowboy is so preoccupied with sobbing he cannot think at all.
All these young cowboys struggle in obvious pain and terror as they attempt to
free themselves from their nooses. But they cannot escape the inevitable. They
all try to shout out, but their throats are constricted by the ropes and no air
is moving up from their lungs. They only make strange, very muted hissing
sounds that mean nothing. Yet the pain on their handsome faces conveys far more
than words ever could. They each look like they know for certain they are going
to die.
There is a small crowd of mostly male audience members observing this
execution. They applaud enthusiastically and shout out obscene phrases
indicating their strong approval of the ritual execution happening before their
eyes. All five cowboys jerk and flop around like a group of fish yanked
suddenly by fishermen out of water into the open air. But these cowboys are
well past the point of enjoying air.
A color photograph captures the last few seconds during which the five cowboys were alive. The top half of the picture, however, is missing due to image file damage. A documentary narrator’s voice says in a matter-of-fact tone, “That damaged photograph depicting the brutal deaths of five cowboys led to many findings.” A man’s hands hold a color printed copy of the photograph in standard eight and a half by 11-inch format up to the documentary camera. “The original was in digital format only,” the documentary narrator says. “This is merely a replica. You can clearly see the upper left of the photograph is gone. The original image file was held for a time in a museum in Geneva, Switzerland, but has since been lost.”
An older male with gray hair and a full beard dressed in a white laboratory outfit while seated in an office in front of bulging bookshelves is identified on the screen as Richard Montgomery of the International Museum of Geneva. He speaks English with a heavy French accent as he explains, “I examined the original digital file. But now that file cannot be found. It may have been stolen. The artifact was a common image file. It did not show any indications of having been manipulated. The damage to the file also seemed genuine and not faked.”
The documentary narrator explains as a close-up of the image of the hanged young men moves across the screen: “They all would have died not long after being lifted upwards by the ropes around their necks. Nobody can survive against the relentless force of gravity when the neck is crushed by a noose that tightens as it is pulled downward by a man’s full body weight.”
There are several elements that damaged photograph can reveal to any observer: All five men appear to be under the age of thirty. They are all shirtless, their feet are bare, and each wears only blue denim jeans. Did they wear the jeans as costumes for some reason? Or, did these men work as actual cowboys?
A young male viewer is watching this documentary on a large, flat screen in a darkened room by himself. He responds to what he’s seeing with eyes open very wide in utter astonishment.
The documentary narrator says, “That photo was found in wreckage of what apparently was a military base on the moon deep intentionally buried deep within the crater Clavius.” Full color still photographs of the underground wreckage from various perspectives are displayed on the documentary screen as the narrator says, “Explorers inside the wrecked lunar base captured these images showing very little exists there today. There were no human remains found anywhere in these ruins. But scientists say that’s easy to explain: Human remains would have been ejected into the vacuum of space. The moon has no atmosphere. But in direct sunlight the temperature at crater Clavius can reach 260 degrees Fahrenheit, twice as hot as any desert here on Earth. All human life at the lunar base was ended abruptly by an apparent explosive decompression that scattered evidence across the white/grey powdery floor of crater Clavius.”
The young male viewer responds by vomiting freely into his own lap but he cannot take his eyes off that documentary. No long afterwards he walks into an office with neon blue-grey lighting bouncing off leathery walls the color of chocolate milk. There in front of a contemporary glass desk is the person with whom he has an appointment. Is the psychiatrist male or female? The young man seems puzzled. Ev Grant could be a man’s name. Doctor Grant’s facial features are obscured by shadows, as if deliberately so. The doctor’s giggle suggests masculinity, but—.
Doctor Grant’s first words to the new patient are: “Welcome. Please sit down. Let me see. You turn eighteen next Friday. The forms you filled out say you watched a documentary about the moon. Now you’re experiencing nightmares.”
“Yes. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” the young man says politely as perspiration forms on his forehead. “I thought perhaps I may have dreamed of that moon documentary. Not sure I actually saw it. One dream causes another dream—that kind of thing. But I remember very detailed and quite vivid things from my dreaming. Not what usually happens. Actual words. Specific images. Rarely are my dreams so lifelike. Plus, the knowledge conveyed is not stuff that I know anything about at all.”
“Tell me what you experienced. I want to understand from your point of view. Your forms say it was on very late—around two in the morning. The moon documentary. You were scanning through the channels when you noticed the documentary was starting.”
“Yeah, exactly. I probably missed just the first few seconds. I don’t know for sure. When I landed on that science channel, I saw the opening titles of the documentary. I remember the narrator’s reassuringly deep and confident voice. He said, ‘The crater Clavius has given up many secrets deep inside the moon.’ That’s what caught my attention and I watched the whole hour. On the screen was an unforgettable close-up of that crater from lunar orbit.”
“Is that particular crater significant to you?”
“Yeah, because of the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“So, you’re interested in very old movies?”
“Well, that one, yeah. From very long ago—1968. I bought a special restored version that came out to celebrate the 230th anniversary of the film’s release. I didn’t even care how much that cost me.”
“Had you ever heard of the crater’s name before you first saw that old movie?”
“No, of course not. But that’s not important. The name of the documentary was very strange to me. Sarcastic. As if someone thought it would get attention.”
“Can you explain for me what you mean?”
“Uh, in the documentary, the narrator said a photograph was found under that crater. Amid wreckage of some underground structure that descended downward 20 or 30 stories. A top-secret military base nobody ever heard about. The photo got nicknamed ‘Clavius Cowboys’ because of what it depicted. That’s the name they gave to the documentary.”
“Did you see the photo in the documentary?”
“Five cowboys. I saw it, yeah. They apparently were being hanged by the neck with rope like how cowboys were executed during the 19th century. In the American West. But the photograph was partially damaged. No way to identify the hanged men due to that damage.”
Doctor Ev Grant asks, “Your nightmares are about you being hanged like you saw in that photo?”
“I don’t remember dreaming about being hanged, no,” is the reply.
“How would you describe the intense feelings of fear in your nightmares if you did not dream of your own death by hanging?”
“I think the fear comes from what I imagine are behaviors of people who hanged those five cowboys.”
“What people are you referring to?”
He replies, “The ones who lived on after they executed those five cowboys. It’s all explained in the documentary.
The documentary narrator says, “In addition to that ‘Clavius Cowboys’ image, one other electronic artifact found was tantalizing portions of a personal log left by a man who lived and worked within a base located far below the crater Clavius. The author of that journal tells of a fantastic underground operation on the moon that will seem to most people as though it was pure science fiction.”
The documentary screen shows a deep stairwell of metal steps descending downward. The documentary narrator says, “The remnants of the man’s personal log found in the lowest levels of the lunar wreckage does not pinpoint when the base was built or what purpose there was for locating a secret base on the moon in the first place. The exact date on which the destruction of the base took place is also not known. But, the portions of the personal log that survive suggest that some sort of violence at base explains why all its human occupants are now gone.”
Doctor Ev Grant asks, “So you have had recurring nightmares that have something to do with that lunar base being destroyed?”
“Yes,” the young man replies with tears welling up in his eyes.
“Bad men. A very lonely location. Doing harm to other men as a result,” the young patient explains to Doctor Grant. “Hurting each other. Killing one another.”
“And because of your nightmares, you fear that harm will come to you?” Doctor Grant asks.
“No, of course not. They’re all dead now. I’m sure that my fear is irrational. The documentary said the violence had origins in religion. Not like any religions we know here on Earth. A new kind. The men who lived beneath the crater in that base went after those who would not convert to the new religion. Tortured them. Killed them. I’m not crazy, Doctor Grant. I do not perceive that I’m connected to their religion or threatened by it.”
“I’m glad that you understand,” Doctor Grant explains. “Fear linked to religion is very common. There has been violence and killing based on religions for many centuries. Ironic, of course. Most religions claim that they exist to bring people’s faith into focus and to honor a deity or some universal truth while encouraging peace. Religion is supposed to be a pleasant or positive experience. But many religious experiences end up causing hurt. And some even cause death.”
“The documentary said this was about a totally new religion. Only at that lunar base. Never made it here to Earth. This new religion supposedly is connected to a discovery on the moon about extraterrestrial life,” the young man explains.
As the screen shows color photographs of the underground wreckage, the documentary narrator says, “The personal log tells about men working underground on the moon. They started a new religion intended only for the men who lived and worked at the base beneath the lunar surface. The religion claimed that a new species far superior to humanity had been discovered in a far distant galaxy—too far away from Earth so that nobody from our planet will ever go there in person. The new religion started on the moon was not connected to most concepts of what can be called an almighty god. Something else. Something from a far-off galaxy. Some of the crew members on the moon were thought to have become holy men. Several believed these holy men could float in the air and perform miracles such as repairing damaged skin or broken bones.”
Doctor Grant says, “I’m sure that’s all just fiction. That’s my take on it. Imaginary powers. But a deity out there somewhere beyond our planet who was invented by human beings. This is a very familiar story.”
“You’re saying all religions are the same? Everyone who is religious chooses to believe in false gods? Created by mortal men for reasons we may never understand.”
Doctor Grant replies, “Well, some things we can learn from studying history. Ancient Roman leaders used religion to control the people who were needed to serve the growth and stability of their empire, for example. Religions may all have a common denominator of fiction. Populated by imaginary beings created by mankind to manipulate and control people using fear of the unknown. Listen to me. You and I live in the present day. This is 2198, not at all like ancient Rome. We’re advanced in our thinking. Or so we choose to believe. You understand what I’m saying to you? Today we have no primitive beliefs and multiple gods because we don’t really need any. It’s that simple. But some people today still cling to religions from the past even in what we think of as our logical or rational civilization. Doing so seems to make some people feel better if they cling to the past. Safer. More reassuring. Less unpredictable or random.”
“What about my nightmares? What if they continue?”
“Well, I definitely can help with that. To start, I can prescribe 30 minutes of mental massage for you. No drugs. Instead it’s a very relaxing experience. It’s sort of like a ‘brain vacation’ for you. Hook you up at the center. Just downstairs. They put a lightweight device on the top and back of your head. Feels great. If you like it, and you want more, let me know. You’re covered for those treatments one hundred percent up to about fifty or so. You won’t need that many sessions, I’m sure. I believe your nightmares will pass quickly once you’re in that brain treatment program.”
The young patient nods in acceptance and manages to smile tentatively.
The documentary camera zooms in on the damaged image of the five hanged cowboys and the narrator explains, “Perhaps the truth about this image is that it depicted some sort of religious ritual. A human sacrifice. Like in ancient times. To appease what was thought to be some angry deity, religious leaders took human lives. Often involving beheadings of infidels. Or, hanging young disbelievers by their necks until they were dead. Just for refusing to accept the teachings of the elders.”
The man who leads the religious zealots on the moon is not yet thirty. He is Asian and muscular. He conveys a strong sense of determination by the unfriendly expression on his face. “You have two choice. Only two. Listen carefully.”
Kneeling naked in front of the religious leader with his wrists bound behind his back is a young man. He nods in understanding.
“The two choices,” says the religious leader, “If you convert to this new religion, your life will be spared. My men will force you to ejaculate as your wrists remain tied behind your back.”
“No,” the naked young man says with desperation in his voice.
“Your ejaculation in front of us is a sacrament. Our holy sacrament. Both release and obedience. Together in one moment. When you complete this sacrament, you will become one of us. We will welcome you and protect you from all nonbelievers. You will be safe with us.”
“No,” the naked young man repeats.
“The second choice is far less pleasant. You will be anally penetrated by my men as your wrists remain tied behind your back. You will be brought to climax against your will. Then you will be castrated and brutally executed.”
The naked young man is sobbing as he struggles helplessly on his knees.
“I await your decision,” the religious leader says softly. “Take your time.”
The voice of the documentary narrator explains, “Electronic records found in the wreckage below the crater report that crew members who formed the new religion for Baja Clavius were rounded up and executed one-by-one as the violence erupted that eventually resulted in the total destruction of the base. All lives were lost. We can look for clues within the personal log entries written by one of the men who lived in that lunar base. I will read his words so you can understand.”
The narrator’s voice reads aloud from text: “Yesterday I was lost and I died. Today I am alive again. I accept the truth about foregone tomorrows and my resurrections from the dead.”
∆∆∆
One solitary spotlight fades on far above the young author of the personal log. He is seated at a small, circular, all-glass table with one chair apparently constructed of bright silver stainless steel. Behind him are racks of computerized equipment with many blinking lights. The man has short, dark hair. His facial features suggest he has a Mediterranean heritage. He is wearing an all-black paramilitary uniform and thick black boots.
On top of the glass table is an old laptop computer that looks like it came directly from the 1990s. The laptop is completely bright white with what looks to be a seventeen-inch screen. What attracts the journal author’s attention, however, is that this laptop has a now-defunct QWERTY keyboard. He gently places his fingers on the keys that are unfamiliar to him.
“I know you have never seen nor used one of those keyboards,” says an authoritative voice coming from the ceiling far above the young man’s head. The voice has an enunciation more precise than that of humans: “Welcome, Agent Ted Avila. My name is Eduardo.” While the voice speaks in English, the young agent can hear the distinctive accent of someone whose native language is Spanish.
He correctly pronounced my surname. Very odd. Most people get it wrong. They want me to explain: Is that name Spanish? Portuguese? French?
The voice asks, “Agent Avila, can you understand me?”
“Yeah, sure. Why would anyone name their laptop ‘Eduardo’?” Ted Avila asks sarcastically, trying to deflect attention away from himself.
The digitized voice says, “I am not the laptop in front of you. I was built by Spanish-speaking scientists in Argentina and Colombia. I am a supercomputer. I exist in rows of racks of technical equipment surrounding you in this room. I was given the name ‘Eduardo,’ which comes from ancient Latin meaning one who is a ‘guardian of prosperity.’”
“Can’t we just talk? This keyboard is ancient.”
Eduardo says, “Of course we can talk. I do not interact with humans very often. I get very few visitors down here. I ask for your patience with me.”
Ted Avila asks, “Am I in any kind of trouble?”
Eduardo says, “I wanted to meet you directly. We are down below the crew areas of this base that you are familiar with. About one hundred stories down from there. I run this entire lunar base as far as all necessary processes and technology, etc. And, no, you are not in trouble. I am concerned about you. When you’ve gotten back here to base from the last several missions, you have reported problems with your memories. Our chief medical officer filed several reports that I have seen.”
“Doc Ozzie reported me to you?”
“Doctor Oswald is just doing his job. He files medical reports as always whenever he examines one of our agents. On more than a few returns from missions you have told Doctor Oswald you are having problems with your memory.”
“Yeah, I can remember telling him. But it’s backwards from what you may be thinking. I don’t have any memory loss. I can remember things in the past that did not happen. I have what I consider to be ‘extra memories’ rather than suffering any loss of any memories.”
Eduardo says, “Yes, I have read the medical reports about you. That is why I want you to use that keyboard in front of you. I need you to type out your most honest thoughts and recollections about your missions. For the record. I want to have a text version that you typed out personally. I need to know what you remember about working here at this agency.”
“Well, that sounds rather ominous,” Ted Avila says.
“Try to relax, Agent Avila. You are not in any trouble. You are already familiar with this agency’s debriefing processes. You return from a mission. You step into a debriefing tube and make a recording in your own voice of your mission details and outcomes. This is a more formal debrief. You will use text instead of your voice like you use in your debriefings. I have all those voice recordings to add to the official records. If you wish, you can talk as you type. That may make it easier for you. I have analyzed how you think and how you speak. I have prepared the beginnings of this log you will enter in text form here on this ancient laptop computer. Watch that screen, please.”
These words appear very quickly on the laptop screen typed much faster than any human ever could: “Yesterday I was lost and I died. Today I am alive again. I accept the truth about foregone tomorrows and my resurrections from the dead.”
Ted Avila has a terrified look on his face as he turns his head upward to looks up at the ceiling where he has heard the voice of Eduardo originating.
“Voice from overhead. Not from this laptop,” he says aloud to himself.
Eduardo asks, “Are you having difficulty understanding what I am asking you to do here?”
“You plan to add the text that I will enter here into the official record to all those recordings of my voice collected from my debriefings when I return from missions.”
“Exactly, Agent Avila. If what you are asking is for a rationale, I can give you that. I must build a complete psychometric analysis to be able to help you with your memory issues.”
“Psycho what? Ted Avila asks. “I don’t know the meaning of the word you used.”
“The word, itself, does not matter here, “Eduardo says. “I must learn about your personality, judgment, cognitive flexibility, and generally how you process your experiences in life both emotionally and logically. This is because the work that you do has major consequences to many people’s lives. I need to know more than I know about you. The importance of this comes from the fact that you get assigned to specialized timeline repair missions involving mass casualty events.”
“Many die because of me?”
Eduardo says, “No, not because of you. There are certain events in timelines on Earth that were caused by others. Oklahoma City, 1995. New York City, 2001. And several others in the third decade of the 21st century. You are assigned to missions that require you to develop sexual relationships with other men directly connected to particularly significant mass casualty events. Your sexual relationships with those men change history. That is your job.”
“Am I not doing a good job? Is that what you are implying?”
Eduardo says, “What you do on missions to the past is crucial to the success of MMDI. You are doing a very good job that this agency needs you to do. There are some men on missions who have been identified as significant for one reason or another in how their behaviors affect the outcomes in the timeline. Those men are the ones whom agents must manipulate sexually. You do that very well.”
“Then what’s the problem here? Why do I feel like I am being singled out?”
“I do not know why you feel as you do, Mr. Avila. Your completion of this personal log will help me know understand such things as your feelings.”
“I feel I am very good at what I do—sexually manipulating men on my missions. Would you agree?”
“Yes, I would agree. Mr. Avila, there are many other agents who do the same kind of work that you do. In one way or another, all MMDI agents are expected to use sex to manipulate men on missions to the past if those men are identified as having significant behaviors to the outcomes of timelines. MMDI requires all agents to be completely convincing at sexual behaviors on missions. This is regardless of the gender of the person with whom an agent must develop a sexual relationship to succeed in that mission. Usually it is men who are identified as targets for sexual manipulations. And you do that well. In short, MMDI needs male agents to manipulate males identified as having behaviors significant to the outcome of the timeline. The agency tried to employ men who were attracted to females and women who were attracted to males to travel back in time to do that work, but all of them failed. The way MMDI does things has since developed such that only male agents are sent back in time to complete missions involving sexual manipulation of other males. However, the issue before us is your reported memory issues. I want you to start typing, Agent Avila.”
The agent surveys the arrangement of the English alphabet on the QWERTY keyboard. At first only using his index fingers, he slowly types words and sentences. He vocalizes them aloud conversationally while he types:
Personal log of MMDI Agent Theodore Joseph
Avila. These are my own words and I accept responsibility for all that I type
here.
Yesterday I was lost and I died. Today I am alive again. I accept the truth
about foregone tomorrows and my resurrections from the dead.
I do not claim to be a believer in a deity or a religion. Yet, I have personally experienced being repeatedly brought back to life after death.
I do not know what date and time it is right now as I type this. I am being coerced into creating this journal of my experiences. I work here. Management has compelled me to do this personal log. Typing it all out on an ancient keyboard nobody uses anymore. I believe I will be punished if I am less than completely truthful. I am certain I will be held down here until I type out everything so I do not plant to leave anything out.
Nobody will ever find me here. I am sure of that. This is because I am so far away from most people and so deeply concealed from everyone. Nobody could possibly find it even after a century of searching for me.
We have a name for this military base where I am right now. Baja Clavius. Someone’s clever mix of Spanish and Latin.
We live and go to work down here in a huge facility built far beneath the floor of a lunar crater named after Christopher Clavius. He was a Jesuit priest in Germany in the 16th century. A gifted mathematician and astronomer. I put that part in to demonstrate how my mind is working well and to show I have no loss of my memories.
I go to work using some kind of
cylindrical blue machine. Inside a thick, translucent blue glass-enclosed
chamber that I nicknamed “The Giant Blue Hockey Puck.” I gave the machine that
nickname because the cylindrical shape of this blue glass chamber looks to my
eyes like an ice hockey puck. But, instead of a normal hockey puck’s three-inch
diameter and one-inch thickness, this chamber is more than twenty-five times
larger to enable a man to fit comfortably inside and sit on a glass bench.
The inside of The Giant Blue Hockey Puck is filled with a milky white liquid.
It is translucent and unpleasant. It smells like the worst chemicals. It makes
me feel like I am drowning. But no. I never drown in the machine. Experience
has taught me that I cannot die. I know with absolute certainty that I do not
know death. I am brought back to life by whatever technology was used to build
The Giant Blue Hockey Puck. I live on and on even if I die on a mission. Why am
I repeatedly resurrected? Will I live forever?
We have sixteen GBHP machines down here. The eerie blue color of the glass comes from the rare element that some scientist a long time ago named Lunar Blue. What a dumb name! A lazy choice obviously made by someone who did not speak English and who could not be expected to be aware of the overuse of the word blue when referring to the moon.
I remember from my training and orientation for this job that the strange blue element was discovered beneath the surface of the moon back in the year 2190. The rumor persists among all who work here that the blue element came from somewhere far away in a distant galaxy.
Some scientists combined Lunar Blue with liquid diamond and the gases of two other Earth elements to make possible these blue machines I use every day to take me to work. The machines are not for the purpose of bringing people back from the dead. That’s just one of the side effects. The blue machines were invented to allow human beings to travel safely in time from the present to the past and back again.