– What?

– Aliens.

– I always suspected you had a center like this. There's good reason to think so.

– Calm down, we go out early in the morning, especially after the holidays, there are so many aliens around, swaying, holding on to trees, the laws of gravity act differently on them.

– There you go again.

They both laughed and shook hands. As Rutra left, Gabo said to him: "I want to go to the sea." Rutra became convinced that this was a code phrase; either the sea was the peak of bliss for them, or they associated it with freedom. Probably the latter.

As he thought about what he had heard, he reached the administrator's compartment, who was in his quarters.

– Delighted? – He asked as soon as he saw Ruthra.

– Super," Rutra replied, smiling in his American way.

– You must be hungry, tired? – the administrator asked.

– Tired, yes, but not hungry. I ate in your dining room, thank you.

– How are the results of the scientific endeavor?

– Well, not really.

– I see, they must have messed you up with their aliens. It is because of them, scientists, all this nonsense has become a cult. They are people of science, and their opinion is listened to as an expert. From time to time they try to make a sensation, leaving, so to speak, from scientific work to show business.

– I want to come back soon and try one experiment.

– What's that? It's a restricted facility.

– No more than what's in the contract.

– And yet? I mean, it's got to be documented, accounted for.

– Long-range signal transmission using a reflector. Perhaps an extraterrestrial reflector, somewhere in orbit, or even further away.

– I see you're infected. Everyone here gets infected, then they get delusional. The technology that's official for civilians is a notch or two below what we have. Otherwise, how do you run a society? You probably know that, since you're here.

"Yes, it's very familiar to me," thought Ruthra.

– Yes, I realize that, but everything else I've already checked, it's still like this.

– Okay, no problem.

They said their goodbyes, Rutra was escorted to the capsule conduit, and he left for the base below the airport.

Upon arrival in Denver, Rutra showered, ate, and contacted Hent via encrypted video link. It was morning in Russia, and Hent was fresh and dressed. The admiral's uniform looked great on him.

– Good morning," Ruthra greeted.

– Good evening," Hent replied with a smile. – How are you?

– It's mind-boggling, especially these ones from the 'zone'.

– Don't listen to them too much, they're all aliens. Don't trust them. They can be so brainwashed, but the goal will be completely different; there are many people there who are from Russia, – Hent smiled in his manner, with a serious face. – You must have met the daughter of that scientist, Alikhanov's friend?

– Yeah. (chuckles)

– What did she tell you?

– Told Lazarus about it.

– Oh, that obsessed man who didn't know anything and spread such nonsense all over the world.

– Is this all bullshit?

– Look, if you're not tired, I've got some time. I worked my youth, interned at this facility with Lazar. Just like you did at the firing range.

Ruthra raised his eyebrows upward in amazement.

– Surprised?

– I don't know what to be surprised about or how to react anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if alien contact is real, or at least has been.

– Look, I need you to be factual. I was in the process of transitioning from Echelon 1 to Echelon 2, so I was doing assignments for two organizations at once. I had to be in close contact with the entire scientific community, especially the young ones, for future endeavors. It was my duty to keep an eye on the cases, to follow their activities, to plant information from time to time and to control the development of events. That's why I know a lot of things from Bob's own mouth, he told me a lot of things, shared his impressions. He was a fantasist by nature, and we needed one. If you know what I mean, that's the kind of guy we have in our closed F Division. They're the only ones who can do what they imagine. You get the idea?

– Yeah. (chuckles)

– Before the zone, the young physicist Robert Lazar, whom we called Bob, worked at the world-famous Los Alamos National Laboratory. Once Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb," came there for a seminar. On Teller's recommendation, he was invited for his first interview. In December 1988, Robert Lazar was hired at Site S4, which was under the jurisdiction of Navy Intelligence. In service documents, the area is referred to as Area 51, unofficially it was called Dreamland, or Wonderland. When we visited the site, we were shown the "flying saucer" in real life, just like you. Then, when we parted ways, I went back to Zero, and Bob talked a lot, trying to get more money for his knowledge and silence, so he was left out of the loop. In March 1989, George Knapp, an NSA secret agent and at the same time an FBI investigator, officially working under the legend of a journalist, first introduced this man to TV viewers who claimed to have worked at the secret S4 facility. You probably already know that he was intimidated by the court?

– I already know. His home phone was tapped, his car was shot at.

– And what did he want, we wouldn't have been so ceremonious with him, but there, since there was a leak, they decided to present everything as fiction. Naturally, such experiments were carried out in secret laboratories, it is impossible to admit it, so it was a rule, following our example, not to release the scientist leading the project, until he has not completed the work. Many politicians began to wonder where Bob Lazar got such ideas. For Lazar, his stay at the S4 facility ended not so tragically, but suddenly and through his own fault: he decided to show his friends the "flying disks".

– Lev Khristoforovich, I think this whole thing is some kind of dark game.

– I didn't understand everything at the time, especially since we still had the USSR, but I immediately recognized that there was a tricky game going on. I accompanied him to various meetings and realized that he was running a show, but I didn't know for whom. According to Echelon 1, I had to find out, and according to Echelon 2, I had to promote the show.

– What if Lazar was shown all these things on purpose, perhaps to divert his attention from other things?

– Traditionally, all those who make sensational statements about aliens and "flying saucers", ufological organizations offer to pass a lie detector test. Lazar sat in the polygraph chair six times, and only once the test produced a questionable result.

– Have you ever encountered "little men" in hangars?

– No. But we got the information about the "little people" on the first day from the blue folder.

– I know that, I heard it from Gabo.

– That's the kind of thing. Afterwards, when I became a person with a higher rank and clearance, I asked my colleagues what was really there. Everyone had a different answer. They all said different things. I can't go and check it out for curiosity's sake, because it's not a passageway, and besides, I would show them my distrust. There's state-of-the-art technology, you know that, there's probably no aliens, otherwise we'd have recorded them. Everything my colleagues from the collegium tell me in a friendly conversation – behind all this show they hide experiments on personality change, the consequences of changing the genetic code and the results of the process of "brain pumping". Therefore, it is not for nothing that Zhidkov constantly asserted that the strongest mafia is the mafia of scientists.