Lightspeed: Year One

trees moving a little. So the silence was just for me, somehow I’d been closed in some sort of bubble of soundlessness—

Then I stood up.

And then he spoke to me. I mean him, the man. The—I mean him.

He said, “Are you here?”

I said, “Who are you? Where did you come from?”

And he smiled.

He was so wonderful to look at . . . long black hair. He wore—I can’t remember. Just ordinary clothes I expect. Because in fact he couldn’t have been at all what he seemed. It was a sort of illusion he could create, just the way they do it in SF movies, CGI—in Dr. Who, for instance. Because he must be an alien, a species from beyond this world.

I was terrified. But then he touched me.

No, I’m all right.

This isn’t my blood.

Witness A (Four)

I slung the door open and I ran straight at them. They were by the wall. No need to guess what he’d been doing with her—

She just looked sad. That was all. She didn’t even protest.

And he—well, must have slipped out the side door while I was seeing to her, mustn’t he? Bastard. He never even tried to stop me.

Is she going to be—?

Okay.

No.

All right.

Yes.

Witness E (Seven)

Of course I never want him near me again after what he did. Sure, we’ve been married three years. So what? Yes, I’ll press charges. Look at me.

I don’t remember. Yes, there was another bloke. A stranger—so? So what. I don’t remember. I must have done.

Dept. RUP/sub 3x6: ps

My profoundest apologies that the enc: document did not accompany the (coded) transcript of this report.

Here then, belatedly, it is.

(I have to add at this point that whether it will shed any light of logic on the recorded eyewitness reports already deciphered and in your hands, remains to be seen. Those of us here are frankly baffled.

I will refer to that again at the end of the enc: document.)

Docu 97/77/ Six. Six. Six.

On the night of the July 20 (see transcript) a number of emergency calls began to be relayed to this department. They involved urgent requests for all emergency services: police, paramedics and, in some cases, firefighters.

The peculiar feature of all these call-outs was the basic similarity of the claims of all the participants. Each seemed to involve an episode which, though variable, mentioned similar events and actions, and, significantly, one particular male person (as described in the transcripts): a youngish man, tall and slimly built, having very long dark hair and dark eyes. All the living victims—some were no longer alive, and even those who did not regard themselves as victimized—were in a range of states representing shock, paranoid rage, or extreme exhilaration. All reported a fundamentally similar scenario, despite other countless unlike details. However, the occurrences took place on the same evening, and across the length and breadth of England. While the times, too, varied (incidents began quite early in the evening, and continued to surface until midnight), it is evidentially impossible the same dark-haired man, the main “suspect”—we use this term for want of another—could have appeared in so many widely disseminated areas during so brief a time period.

I will add, so far, we have been entirely unable to trace him, in this country or elsewhere. This is partly due, no doubt, to the lack of any recoverable DNA, or other clue, left behind with the subjects of his . . . visits.

Also, although sightings of UFOs are not uncommon, on this particular night, no one, apart from the people directly involved, called in with any queries about a fiery falling object, whether thought to be a meteor, a spaceship, or a light aircraft. No unusual reports either of an electric storm or alarming fireworks display.

The enclosed transcript relays to you only a sample of the huge group of persons who were subsequently interviewed, initially by the police of the ambulance service, and later on by ourselves. It is a sample of the most typical reports. Of which, in total there are to date some six hundred and sixty-six.

This number may, of course, not arouse any disquiet in the mind of a modern atheist. Nevertheless I am afraid, in order to preserve for the victims, where feasible, a modicum of the anonymity the Law currently prescribes, we have (perhaps frivolously) labeled each and all of them not by an actual name, but by the letter A, in the case of males, and E, in the case of females. Plus a differentiating number—One, Two, etc.: You may soon be aware why the letters A and E alone have been selected. And we trust you will overlook any perceived levity on our part. A stands for the Biblical Adam, naturally. And E for Eve, his rib-created partner. As I have said, we have not, here, included every single eyewitness account, but rendered for your consideration the most predominantly recurrent statements; that is, those most representative from all the six hundred and sixty-six interviews we were able to garner. (Of those individuals resultantly dead, or in a condition likely to lead to death—both male and female—we do not yet have conclusive figures.) The ultimate consequences of this replicated event remain, so far, unpredictable.

We shall be very glad to receive your input on this matter. To accept it at apparent (religious?) face-value would seem, shall we say, grotesque. But to ignore so widespread a phenomenon likewise itself poses many problems.

Code seal and signature attached.

Appendage PSX:

My last thought is, I confess, is this really then what is meant by Science Fiction? Or, more disquietingly, was it always? I direct your attention to the final words of the final, included witness.

Witness A (Two)

I’m very sorry I did that to her. Yes, I know she won’t speak to me. I can’t see her. Yes. I’ve never done anything like that before.

I can’t describe it. Can’t you try to fucking understand? She was lying on the bed with him. She was naked. He was—he was inside her. She was holding him in her arms—

I couldn’t handle it. You didn’t see. And there was this light in the room. Like a sort of bloody gilding. The whole scene looked like a pornographic oil painting from the Italian Renaissance.

I don’t remember what he looked like. Just another man. Some kid, twenties maybe. God knows.

He just moved away from her. There was something then.

He was—what? what?—sinuous, something sinuous about how he moved. That I do remember. He moved like a trained dancer, an athlete—no, like an animal. Like a big cat. A panther. Or a snake.

I know I hit her.

I’m sorry.

I never did anything like that before with anyone.

No, it wasn’t really because she’d fucked him. It was what she said.

She said I can see inside you.

Witness E (Two)

Yes, I could, I could see all through him. Through everything. No, I can’t explain. I would if I could, wouldn’t I? I