[M] Roswell: 1947 (IC)

[Lox]

"The atom was unleashed in 1945. And the bomb's incredible release of energy and light may have signalled somebody far away. It may have let them know that we are here." REDACTED * “I would see something that I would tuck away in my memory and hope against hope I would never see again for the rest of my life.” Philip J. Corso, The Day After Roswell

Roswell Army Airfield, Roswell, New Mexico June 8, 1947 - Four days before the Roswell Incident. The 509th Bombardment Group was the core of the Roswell Army Airfield. It was the unit that had dropped the bombs on Japan (THE bombs...), and its pilots were America's definitively foremost experts on deploying nuclear payloads. Captain George Henderson had been with the unit since the beginning of World War 2, and served with it throughout the war, mainly flying B29s over Japan and its occupied territories. Very few had flown as many hours on the Bomb Group's war horse, the B29 Superfortress, as Henderson and his co-pilot, Lieutenant Charlie Barks. Over Japan they had flown all kinds of runs - noon, midnight, in clear weather, and in the worst kind of stormy soups. Once, they had even flown through the outskirts of a full blown monsoon. He wasn't eager to do that one again. Even then, the weather this night was pretty bad. Not monsoon bad, or even hurricane bad, but pretty bad. Henderson was concentrating hard on trying to fly the airplane above the storm, but the vibrations were making his arms shake and his biceps hurt when trying to keep her straight. They saw very little ahead of them, and their navigator was struggling with trying to keep track of their position. They had left several hours earlier well aware of the bad weather that was coming. It was a scheduled practice run with a live payload - an actual, though not armed, nuclear bomb of the Fat Man type - the same type that his unit had dropped on Nagasaki on August 9 of 1945, and the same type that had been used during the nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll the year before - where once again, the 509th Bomb Group had participated. It was nerve wrecking to younger crews knowing that they carried such awesome power onboard. To Henderson, however, it was routine by now, having made many such runs before. Charlie Barks next to him felt the same way, though their young navigator was not of the same mindset. Fortunately, he had his hands too full to even think about it. "If this gets worse we're going to have to turn around." Charlie muttered just loud enough for Henderson to hear him over the thunder outside. The Captain offered a short nod. Neither one wanted to turn around, but if need be they would. There was a very clear line when the bad weather became less about nausea and more about not crashing and dying. So far that line was far away. "ETA to our destination, Corporal?" Henderson asked the navigator suddenly. "Twenty minutes, sir. Thirty in this soup." The Corporal added after a moment. Suddenly, a streak of silver flashed past the nose of the B29, only five feet or so from the machine. Henderson shouted in surprise, and yanked the controls sideways. The bulkheads of the airplane groaned under the stress of the sudden maneuver, but silenced when the experienced pilot straightened her out again. "What was that?" Charlie shouted. Before Henderson could reply, a yell came through the intercom from the fire control officer in the rear of the airplane: "Captain! Something is on our tail." "What is it?" "It's..." There was a moment of hesitant silence on the intercom before the fire control officer continued: "A silver disc. It..." His voice was interrupted by static. Suddenly, the silvery shining disc flashed by to Henderson's left, about fifty feet away from the plane, only to turn at a sharp angle around it and take place in front of its nose. "What the fuck...." Muttered Charlie, using the crudest of expletives. The disc seemed to move forward at the exact same speed as the B29, as it never came any closer nor went any farther away. It gave Henderson the chance to take a good look at it. It was indeed a disc, silver in color and about fiften feet in diameter, moving with fast, jerky motions, and with no visible doors, antennae or any external equipment. It seemed unbothered by the stormy winds, and contrasted quite clearly against the dark nightscape. Henderson had never seen anything like it before. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning seemed to shoot out from the disc and go straight into the nose of the B27. Henderson and Barks both screamed as the engines died and the storm grabbed a hold of the massive machine.

[Lox]

The heat was oppressive. Even the window rolled down did not help with the suffocatingly hot air. Fulbright already missed the considerably cooler temperatures of Washington DC, and even Europe. He took off his grey fedora and dropped it on the seat next to him, loosening his necktie slightly in the process. A sign was coming up on the side of the road which said, "Welcome to Roswell". He scoffed.

The city lay ahead. It looked like any other rural farm town, quite large but also quite spread out. Despite the buildings, some quite large and urban looking, it was a shithole, the kind where people didn't come unless they were pulled in by a job or were born there. As a big city person, James Fulbright was already feeling at odds with it.

The Agency had sent him down on a joint counterintelligence project between the Agency and the War Department. He was supposed to be lending his expertise to Roswell Army Airfield's intelligence officer to ensure that proper counterintellience measures were in place to prevent the Soviets from gauging any information from the country's only atomic bomb wing. It was a joint operation which included both military facilities and civilian agencies like Sandia National Laboratories and White Sands.

In the Cold War that had raged for the last three years between the former victors of the Second World War, NATO and the Western Block had one major advantage over the other; the Warszaw Pact did not have access to atomic weapons, and the Agency wanted to keep it that way. So they sent Fulbright, a burnt asset thanks to the Berlin Incident, to look over the base's security measures.

It was a crap job, but at least it was a job.

Since the incident in Berlin where he had gunned down a KGB officer a little too publicly (though it had been out of his hands thanks to the brutal fist fight that had ensued when the KGB officer in question attempted to stab him to death in a public restroom) he had spent the last few months doing paperwork at the Agency's Operations Department at the Navy Hill offices. Just to be out of the offices was a relief.

Roswell was your typical southern United States rural city. The downtown area seemed to be built around a single wide road, just as one imagined towns in the Wild West had once been, with long rows of businesses on both sides of the road. The pavement was rippling in the heat that the scorching sun rained down. The people walking up and down the sidewalks didn't seem to mind it, earning a disbelieving head shake from the government agent.

A motel caught his eyes on the right side of the road. He turned the car and entered the parking lot, backing the car into a slot. As he got out, he reluctantly put on his hat and suit jacket again, before stepping into the somewhat cooler building. A young woman at the reception greeted him with a smile as he stepped in. He took off his hat.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. I need a room. I'm not sure how long I will be staying, but I'll pay for two weeks up front." As a military man and a man with little patience he lay down the law up front, wanting nothing but to toss his bags in a room, get out and go get some dinner, and almost certainly a drink.

"Well, sir, we can certainly help you with that. Number 23 is free."

Fulbright paid her in cash - spending money given to him by the Agency for the trouble of driving all the way from Washington to some shithole nobody had ever heard of in New damn Mexico. After getting his key, he grabbed his bags from the car, and went up the stairs to the second floor. The room was small, with little in the way of comforts other than a bed and a bathroom. It didn't matter, as he wasn't going to stay there much anyway.

He took the time to change his dress shirt, putting on a striped white one which felt refreshingly cool against his skin, and a new tie, picking out a neutral dark blue acetate tie with an art deco pattern on it. He tied it, tucked it in under the vest, put his suit jacket back on, completed it by putting his hat on his head, and left the room once more. Foregoing the car, he instead walked out onto the street and down the sidewalk searching for a bar.

Fortunately, the sun was setting and the air was cooling off, somewhat. As he walked down the street towards the nearest bar, he pulled out his cigarette case, brought out a cigarette, and lit it. The nicotine cleared his head somewhat from its weariness.

Within minutes, he was sitting at the bar with a plate of hot food and a large beer. It wasn't a big city, but that small luxury was enough, and combined with the AC unit humming along somewhere in the ceiling, he felt like he was in Heaven. It was more than enough for him to forget the heat and the smell of cow shit that seemed to hang in the air, as if the farming settlement wanted to create the ambiance of some kind of redneck hovel.

On a radio at the end of the bar, a voice broke through faintly:
"...and a series of strange lights were spotted over Los Angeles yesterday. Witnesses reported the lights as hovering in place, bringing back memories to some of the infamous Battle of Los Angeles. Army Air Force colonel Jeffery Danning issued a statement explaining the event as a result of Army Air Force weather balloons.

In other news, a heavy bomber from the Roswell Army Airfield has gone missing after a routine practice flight during last night's storm. RAAF turned down a request for a comment but press officer Walter Haut said that a statement will be issued when more information is available. This is KSFX Roswell, have a good night, everyone."

Fulbright made a grimace, making a mental note to ask the intelligence officer on the base about it the next day. He had a sudden, quite violently bad feeling.

[Yggdrasil_Hugger]

Anastasia watched the man in the suspiciously fancy suit watch the TV and sweat. Her eyes darted over to the television. Strange lights, huh? Interesting. Looking around the dingy room, she made her way over to Suit Man. Carefully stowing her camera in her bag, she sat down on the barstool next to him. "What do you make of all these lights?"

[Enigma]

"Sergeant!"

Joanna Wainwright scowled as she turned to see a 2nd lieutenant coming towards her in the hanger. Ihn, they get younger every year. The boy was still, what was that expression? "Wet behind the ears"?

Wiping her face with the sleeve of her coveralls, she transferred the wrench to her left hand and turned to face him, coming to attention.
"Lieutenant?" she asked neutrally.

He scowled at her.

"Where's your salute?" he demanded. Joanna quirked her eyebrow but saluted.
"We're inside, sir," she reminded him as he returned her salute.
"This is a hanger," he protested weakly.
"Yes sir. How can I help you, sir?"

"We have a missing B-27..." he began.
"You wish for the WACs to assist in the search?" she asked, surprised.
"Why would we do that?" he scowled. "No, we need to relieve some of the men so they can participate. I'd like your WACs to take over the motor pool for the time being. You can drive, can't you?"
"Yes sir," she said, saluting. You didn't exactly invent gunpowder, sir.

He saluted back by reflex, then walked out ramrod straight.
"Okay girls, you heard the man," Joanna said, turning towards the WAC crew. "We're on driving duty. Get this cleaned up and let's get over there."

[Nope]

Georgia finished sterilizing the table. Using the spray nozzle, she washed the last of the suds down into the drain at the foot. She watched the water spiral, sucking the bubbles down into the darkness, until the water ran clear.
“I can finish the instruments, if you want to go.” The student said from across the room. “All I have to do yet is the pliers and scalpel.”
Georgia replaced the nozzle and nodded. “Alright, Brant. But only this once.”
The student returned her nod and resumed his work. George was pleased she had been given a hand in the choice of assistant for the month, she always tried to choose the most entitled, trust fund baby boy the school had to offer. It helped, she thought, to round out some sort of personality, to salvage it perhaps, by beating some hard work and respect for a woman into it. Most students at the University that were choosing the department of Forensics came from the hard nosed world of male authority and always saw women as a delicate, yet dull witted little flower. Not here.
The department was recently founded, and funded, even though it remained a small offshoot lab within the NYPD. Crime solving technology was rapidly growing, improving, changing. Its become some of the best evidence used in courts. Most cases cant go to trial without it for lack of assurance.
Georgia was happy with her position. She dealt very little with the public, most of her discussions occurring between her and various officers, her and her assistant, or her and the corpse.
She’d taken to talking to corpses during the war. It made them seem human again. None ever spoke back, except for the odd moan of releasing gases.
To many bodies had been mangled, unrecognizable, and riddled with things she’d only see in the moving pictures. And yet, there she stood among them, soon becoming the only one that could come up with answers.
Biological warfare was a crime against God and humanity. And that all she could ever say about her time in France. That, and the pastries were much better, which her fiance never liked to hear. Especially not in front of his own customers in his own bakery.

George chuckled to herself at the thought and went about tossing her coat into the dirty bin and changing out her clothes to something more presentable.
The women’s bathroom in the locker of the PD was another accomplishment she was proud of, even if it seemed to be a common sense requirement. Ruffled feathers among staunch manly men types seemed to follow her wherever she went, not that she ever set out to do so.

She gathered up her bag, and calling a goodbye to Brant, left.
The wind pushed on the glass door, trying to keep her inside the building. An officer in uniform stood behind her, his arms folded, waiting. She’d already turned him down for help and her stubborn flare was eating at her blood, boiling it.
She set her shoulder into the glass, leaned in, gave the cop another smug glance and pushed. The soles of her flat slipped on the marble floor and she scrambled to gain traction.
FInally, the door gapped, caught the wind, and snapped open violently.
George stepped through it, straightening her skirt as she went, head held high.

Two blocks away was the Last Crumb . Her fiance had opened it at her insistence shortly after they started dating. He’d always wanted to, and his buns were fantastic, so why not? They’d even moved in together, much to the dismay of both their parents, to allow for more money to put into the business.
And even in New York where a bakery sat on every corner, his was successful enough to stay. He’d even recently hired a new employee, a single mother with two young children who kept them in the back room during her shift. They were well behaved children, and she never minded him working with another woman in such close confines.
The woman was behind the counter now, boxing a babka for a customer, as George went in.
The bell above the door gave a jingle, and the girl looked up.
“Hi, Maria, is Jacob here?”
Handing change across the counter, she shook her head. “Hes went home already, Miss McClaire, said I should close up.”
“Oh. Will you be alright then?”
“Yes, of course.”
“How are the kids?”
Maria dusted her hands on the apron around her waist and cocked a thumb over her shoulder. “Theyre fine. Out back playing in the alley. Oh, could you please tell Mr. K the currants are getting low? I forgot to before he left.”
Georgia nodded and bid her farewell.

She took the tramcar through Times Square, out of the hustle, and dropped off near a quieter street. She wondered up it, rummaging in her skirt pocket for the apartment keys.
When she looked up again, she was two stoops away from her own, and noticed the man sitting on the steps. He stood when she approached. He was stocky, dark haired, and had a shy flutter to his movement. He rung his cap in his hands.
Georgia quickened her pace into almost a run, and slung her arms around him. She buried her face into his neck, inhaling the scent of his cologne.
“Something pretty special must be on your mind for you to leave the babka this early!” She joked, pulling away just enough to look into his face. She smiled, warmth spreading through her limbs. A year and a half of engagement and she still fluttered at the sight of him like a school girl with a crush. “I saw the most amazing thing on this body today- youre never going to believe it! Lets go get some supper and Ill tell you all about it!” She grabbed his hand, to tug him after her but he didnt move. Usually, he followed her whims with a light hearted chuckle, matching his smile to hers.
But this time, his face did not.
George felt her face fall. Her heart started beating quieter, colder, as if hiding from something unfortunate. As if, if it hid well enough, whatever was about to be said wouldnt find it.
“What is it, snuggleby? Whats happened?”

------
Georgia scrubbed at her face with the hard tap water. Her body felt like a husk. Emotions, hopes, thoughts, all of it scrubbed clean from within. She studied her face in the mirror and felt a flush of shame. Maybe if she’d been prettier.
She poked at the mess of her hair, her eyes red from crying. Being better looking probably wouldnt have helped anyway.
Georgia ran a bath, letting the tap burn as hot as the old basement boiler tank would allow. She watched the steam curl up from the water.
She grabbed the wine bottle from where it rested on the toilet lid, and slipped into the water.
It burned her flesh, cooking it, searing away any pain or love she’d ever had.
In a single motion, she wretched the ring from her finger and tossed it into the sink.
There it swirled, once, twice, toying with the darkness, before finally dropping into the abyss.

[Yggdrasil_Hugger]

<Hey Nope, I know I'm not allowed to chat in the IC thread, but this is where you are. You give up on Crikey!?>

[StormWolf]

In Roswell, every day was a long day when you wore a badge. The Sheriff was getting along in years, growing lax in the sleepy comfort of the county and fat off the bottle of Wild Turkey he had in his desk that no one knew about. Proving to be a perfectly average day in Roswell, the greater majority of Earl's calls had been terribly pedestrian and domestic.

Shaded by the brim of his officer's stetson, Earl sighed as he sent yet another contingent of loitering Greasers packing with the briefest flashing of his cruiser's lights. It was almost infuriating. They were supposed to be tough anarchist types, all switchblades and motor oil, but they always ended up being a punch of colts too big for their britches, bumming cigarettes and booze. They ran, swift as the wind, and rather than chase them in this godless heat, Earl just let them go. Sitting back on his heels, Earl plucked up cigarette butts and beer cans, turning a deaf ear to the mutterings of passers-by as he cleaned the curb the Greaser boys had been squatting. Earl was a patient man, it was a requirement for a marksman, and doubly so for a Chief Deputy, but he could not abide litter. He'd grown up on these streets, and he'd torn up his share, but he had enough respect for the town and the people in it to not leave a mess wherever he turned.

Dumping the garbage in the bin outside the liquor store, Earl stepped inside and saddled up to the counter.

"Oh, hello Deputy," called the clerk.

"Howdy Ferg," Earl replied with a nod, rummaging in his pocket for a fistful dollars. "Carton of Lucky's, if you got 'em." Ferguson, a post-middle aged man with a steadily receding hairline, shook his head, jowls trembling.

"Oh, go ahead and take them, Deputy. A thank you for-for driving off them hooligans... and you know, for your service" Ferguson stuttered, shoving the carton of Lucky Strikes across the countertop. The red dot on the packaging glared up at Earl as he flattened out a rumpled five and a couple ones on the counter with his calloused hands.

"Officers aren't allowed to take gratuity, Ferg. A pack of Bud, too." Earl said low and even. Ferg's bushy eyebrows shot up towards his hairline, turning to reach for a bushel of the copper-toned cans.

"You aren't? All the others do," Ferg said, incredulous.

"It's there in the handbook, Ferg. Most just don't bother to read. You still got that howitzer under the counter?" Leaving the cash, Earl took the smokes and the brew under his arm.

"Oh. What? Oh! Yes...?" Ferg responded, dry-washing his hands.

"Good. Next time, shoo 'em off with that before calling the office. That way, we won't need to get involved unless you discharge that weapon. See you around, Ferg." Earl tipped his hat to the aging clerk and left him to flounder in his business. Opening the carton of smokes and taking a pack, Earl shoved the rest under the passenger seat of his cruiser, ditching the six pack of beer beside it. Starting up his cruiser and giving his sinuses one last pinch, Earl drove to his favored watering hole.

[Lox]

Fulbright looked up when a woman sat down next to him. He sized her up quickly. She was short, with obvious, defined muscles, dressed in an overall, a white shirt and green jacket - obviously a woman of the blue collar class. There was something about her that rubbed him the wrong way, almost instinctively. Perhaps it was her decision to sit down next to him and snare him into a conversation, that was bothering him. He knew from experience that ordinary people don't walked up to and engaged in conversation with strangers, even in a bar, unless it was a man seeking the attention of a woman. Somebody who did that was either looking to recruit you as an asset of a foreign intelligence service, or they were a journalist trying to pump you for information in search of a story. (It wasn't necessarily true, but Fulbright's personal experiences indicated it was.) Either way, it put the seasoned intelligence agent on his guard. He drank some of his beer before acknowledging her question with a disinterested, slightly dismissive shrug. "Little green men from Mars, maybe, ma'am. Who is to say?" The going theory at Navy Hill, where this strange, recent phenomenon had become a subject of great interest, was that it was some type of new Soviet experimental aircraft. But without the Agency laying their hands on one, it was a hard case to make. Their usual eyes and ears behind the Iron Curtain professed ignorance of any such aircraft within the Soviet Air Force, leaving little in the way of clues for the Agency to follow. And so the source of these strange lights remained elusive until such a time that one could be shot down or captured. "I guess a more likely explanation is that it would be the Soviets trying some new devilish trick on the people of America." He added, raising a finger and with a gesture ordering two drinks. He was getting sloppy, daring or arrogant, by almost, but not quite, inviting a continuation of the conversation. Playing with fire, his former trainer at the OSS had called it. To flip enemy agents one sometimes had to play with fire, but doing it for any other reason was reckless and stupid. He did it anyway. Outside, the cool air was soon followed by pouring rain, as if the skies themselves had opened up. Thunder was close behind. It was that time of year. The wind began to tear at the buildings, and a small stream of people hurriedly sought shelter from the weather in the bar, surprised as they had been by the sudden bad weather.

[Lox]

Meanwhile... New Mexico Airspace "Hotel Homey, this is Hunter Squadron. Heading south by southeast at 400 miles per hour. We re on intercepting trajectory of the target." After a quick calculation in his head, the fighter pilot in the dark-dark-gray painted F51 Mustang, added: "Estimated time to visual contact, eight minutes. Over." The fie airplanes were painted in a dull matte, dark grey color, with no identifiers. Each airplane was an exact copy of the next one. The pilots' faces were masked by fully enclosed flight helmets. Machine guns and rockets were attached under the wings of their machines. "Understood, Hunter Squadron. Be advised, you have permission to engage on visual contact. Object is maintaining current trajectory. Over." "Hotel Homey, roger thart. Hunter Squadron, out." The weather ws bad. Very bad. It was night, but the normally velvet sky was an ugly dark gray and black, with violent flashes of lightning, and rain audibly hammering the metal body of the Mustangs to the eerie wheezing pull of the violent winds. Visibility was minimal, near zero. That, however, ironically, was perfect weather for their secretive mission on this haunting night. The squadron leader threw a glance at his wristwatch, and gritted his teeth in concentration as his eyes focused on trying to see something beyond the opaque gray wall of deadly clouds. The target appeared before them soon. Suddenly, there it was, its disc shaped, chrome body presenting a clearly contrasting view with the dark background. Roughly fifteen feet in diameter, it travelled through the storm seemingly unaffected by the strong gale force winds. The fighters split up without a single word uttered on the radio. Three took hgiher altitude. One veered left. The squadron leader then went in for an attack. The F51 coming in from the left opened fire first, however, releasing several rockets towards the disc shaped object, drawing its attention. The object reacted instantly. A bolt of light shot out, hitting the airplane, which instantly became enveloped by a fireball. The light them hit the rockets, which detonated in mid air, causing it no damage. The squadron leader acted, based on the experiences they had drawn in past encounters such as this. He turned off the engine of his airplane. An eerie silence came as the engine sputtered, and the sound of forceful air rushing through the wings took over. The wind immediately grabbed a hold of the airplane, and the squadron leader had to hold on tight not to lose control. His finger squeezed the trigger, and the six .50 caliber Browning machine guns came to life, spraying death and destruction straight into the disc shaped object. The disc spun and wobbled, sparks flying off of it in a thick rain as the airplane sprayed it with no less than 1840 rounds of .50 rounds bigger than a man's finger. The effect was devastating. A flaring explosion broke the shell of the disc. Another ray of light hit the squadron leader, incinerating him and his airplane instantly before he could even realize what was happening. Moments later, the disc jerked towards the ground several thousand feet below, at light speed. The three surviving aircraft turned north west and began their return to base. The ground shook with an explosion so violent it may very well have rivalled that of the legendary Tunguska event. Most living in the area, including the Foster homestead, would chalk it up to a lightning strike hitting the ground very close to them. They were wrong.

[Yggdrasil_Hugger]

"Maybe." her eyes searched his face. "Maybe. Could be the weather. It's been... acting up lately. As you can see." she gestured out the window to the storm.