Declan Andreas is seated in his black MMDI uniform across a small circular white table from his boss in another all-white room.
“Welcome back, Agent Andreas. I need you to tell me quickly what you learned in Nevada,” Colonel Burke says.
“I’m losing my fucking mind. That’s for sure,” Andreas replies. “You won’t believe where I just was.”
“Come on, Andreas. Skip the drama and focus. I need you right now to brief me on what happened to you in Nevada.”
“Yeah, colonel. Of course. My mission. Just got back. The Ezuoia set up a ranch in Nevada in the twenty-first century. Out in the desert. Near what once was called the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Where the government in the twentieth century exploded nuclear weapons above ground right into the Nevada atmosphere. The ranch itself is within Amargosa Valley. A small community just south of where the nuclear tests took place. I can confirm from personal experience. The Ezuoia somehow alter the structure of a man’s mind. Some sort of energy wave. Never actually touches a man’s body.”
“Maybe something a man walks through when he arrives at the ranch?” Colonel Burke asks.
“Could be. The ranch has employees who are artificial humans. Is that the right term? Built using technology that the Ezuoia must have provided. As such, they are never gonna be affected by any remnants of the nuclear fallout. They are not human. The one they call the rancher is in charge. He’s another artificial person. Then there are a bunch of cowboys—all artificial. Part organic. Part machine. Part computer. The cowboys at the ranch are there to have sex with human male visitors who arrive from Las Vegas. Visitos don’t care about the likely nuclear contamination in that area. The men who visit that ranch in Nevada go there for sex with males. First the visitors have their minds altered. The Ezuoia want that alteration for some reason. The strangest thing. At the ranch they consider a man’s ejaculations as some sort of holy sacrament to honor the Ezuoia. Wrap your mind around that one.”
“Thank you. You were far more successful in your mission than I could have dreamed. You confirmed what this agency only suspected.”
“I just cannot figure out what’s the point of altering a man’s mind in the twenty-first century before they have sex with the cowboys at that ranch.”
“This is highly classified information but I’ll share that with you. But then I’m going to have to kill you.”
Andreas laughs at what he assumes is Colonel Burke joking around. But if Colonel Burke is joking, he does not smile as he continues: “The brain alteration does one specific thing. Very important thing. The alternation allows the Ezuoia to feel a man’s ejaculations. Across billions upon billions of miles of space. That’s the significance. The Ezuoia feel a man’s ejaculations in real time. More classified details: Each man here at Clavius Base also has had his mind altered for the same reason. Your mind was altered. Otherwise you could not work here. You would be unable to travel in time for this agency.”
“What? I didn’t learn this during my MMDI training.”
Colonel Burke leans forward and stares directly into the eyes of Agent Andreas as he explains: “Yeah. Course not. Classified. Told you already. After the brain alteration, a man who works here at Clavius Base is networked, so to speak. Connected to the Ezuoia across space and time. Instant and in real time. Because of that connection, the Ezuoia discovered that they could experience for the very first time what we men have always taken for granted. What an erection feels like. How sexual interaction feels. The amazing feelings we get from an ejaculation during orgasm. The Ezuoia knew none of this before they became connected to us.”
“Sound creepy. Are you sure what you’re telling me is true?” Andreas asks.
“Yes, for the Ezuoia it is a unique and wildly powerful experience. They never previously felt these sensations that we men from Earth have always known. For the Ezuoia, the experiencing of these sensations became critically important. Because they are connected in real time to all men whose brains have been altered they feel what we feel when we have orgasms, and well—. You discovered that the Ezuoia were able to create artificial persons, whose purpose is to cause human men to ejaculate during sex. But an artificial person is merely a tool for the Ezuoia to use. The important thing is to alter men’s brains. The brains of the visitors to that ranch. That connection allows the Ezuoia to experience human male sexuality and pleasure. Something they never experienced before.”
“Why would the Ezuoia set up this ranch in Nevada back in the twenty-first century? Isn’t the real-time connection here to all of us at Clavius Base good enough?”
“I’m getting to that, Andreas. Here on the moon, some of our agents have become part of a religious cult to worship the Ezuoia. You have seen some of this. It’s a movement happening right before our very eyes. Their sacrament to honor the Ezuoia is ejaculation during orgasm. You confirmed that on your mission to that ranch in Nevada. The religion must have been instituted back in the twenty-first century by artificial humans at that ranch in Nevada. But we are here some two hundred years in the future compared to that ranch at Amargosa. We are seeing signs that the religion has somehow spread here to this moon base from Earth. This new religion threatens the very existence of Clavius Base. Already there has been violence. Soon the violence will destroy all that we have here.”
“How do you know this? Just some religious zealots. Some crazy cult. That’s all.”
“This, too, is classified information. And I will end your life after I tell you this. I went forward in time, Andreas. Forward. Not into the past. I went on missions to the future to learn more about who were the men responsible for this religious cult and for what they consider to be a religious sacrament. I found some agents naturally are against this whole religious cult and shooting one’s load as part of some sacrament to an alien lifeform. A dozen or so agents who are considered nonbelievers are forced by the zealots to ejaculate and then all of them end up with their throats cut. Or beheaded. Some were burned alive. Horribly painful death.”
Andreas says, “Yeah, well, I know something about how that feels.”
Colonel Burke continues: “In the very near future from right now, violence breaks out here at this base between those who are religious and those who are not. Many agents are killed, and our entire base becomes jeopardized. The Ezuoia do not want this base to be destroyed. Or at least the Ezuoia want to maintain that real-time connection to human males for obvious reasons. MMDI may not have any concern at all that this base gets destroyed. Now that the Ezuoia have that ranch in Nevada. This lunar base becomes expendable. That ranch supplies are large supply of male visitors whose minds get altered. More men than this lunar base ever could supply. The Ezuoia will keep feeling mens’ ejaculations. That’s their main priority. Not the safety of this lunar base.”
“What are we going to do, colonel?”
“I was sent forward in time to learn what I could to stop the destruction of this base from happening. But I was killed by MMDI agents who discovered my mission. I was retrieved and restored. Dead and then brought back to life multiple times. So many times. Then I assigned you to go back in time on multiple missions to visit that ranch outside of Las Vegas. So that you could confirm what we initially thought was going on.”
“And I succeeded after multiple missions in learning what he needed me to learn, colonel.”
Colonel Burke nods in agreement as he pulls out a small glass cylinder. “So fucking sorry, really,” Burke says softly. He quickly slams one end of the device into the back of Agent Andreas’ right hand. The agent winces and looks utterly baffled.
“This injection rapidly will stop your brain from functioning. You won’t feel any pain. Everything will just go dark in your mind. And you’ll be dead. No pain. No suffering. Very simple.”
“What the fuck? I thought you were kidding about killing me!”
“Told you. All that classified information. Can’t trust you to keep your mouth shut, Andreas. Only a few seconds of life left. Try to make your final thoughts be filled with images you find pleasing.”
Andreas suddenly has a look on his face that shows how hurt he feels for being betrayed by Colonel Burke. But suddenly his face loses all emotion completely and Andreas has an unexpressive face like that of a mannequin. He slumps forward in his chair. His powerful arms drop to his sides. His neck goes limp and his upper torso smashes downward under its own weight onto the small circular white table. Colonel Burke reaches up and with both hands gently caresses the back of the agent’s thick neck with genuine affection.
On a rectangular screen in front of him, Colonel Burke sees a vertical, head-to-toe image of General Yang. “I believe that I have covered everything,” Burke says to his boss.
“Yes, you have,” General Yang says. “Very resourceful. Very clever, too, I will add.”
“I really did not want to kill Andreas. Only to convince him that I had injected him with a fatal dose of some scary chemical. He bought it totally. The drug caused him to lose consciousness quickly. He’s not really dead. Then, Doc Ozzie was able to erase parts of Andreas’ memory that we needed to be gone.”
“When will you talk with Andreas? To debrief him. Reestablish his trust in you.”
“General, Andreas has been sleeping it off for quite a while now. Probably will process this memory adjustment like he’s just woken up with the worst hangover and headache ever in his life. I’ll send him back to work. It will be as if nothing at all ever happened to him.”
General Yang says, “Colonel Burke, tell me your thoughts about that Nevada ranch.”
“I need to send Andreas back there again. I will let him keep his original memories of that mission. But everyone he meets in Nevada will perceive that it’s the very first time. I need him to learn more about that ranch.”
It is Thursday, the 11th day of October 2012. Severe thunderstorms are lingering over the entire Las Vegas Valley. The rancher drives his brand-new white pickup truck from the airport onto the nearby Interstate 15 freeway with Agent Andreas as his passenger. The crowded freeway is packed with slow traffic going no faster than 25 miles per hour because of the heavy downpour and sheets of water on the pavement. “Maybe we need to get off this freeway,” the rancher announces as he takes the exit to Sahara Avenue.
“Any other way to get to your ranch?”
The rancher looks over at Andreas and replies, “One way in. One way out. I just wanna take surface streets to avoid this flooding.” But, while looking at Andreas, the rancher fails to see the out-of-control garbage truck heading in the wrong lane towards a head-on collision with the brand-new white pickup truck on Sahara Avenue. The rancher and Andreas scream together in great pain as they are incinerated rapidly in the flames resulting from the fire that erupts when the two vehicles collide.
This group photograph for historical purposes was ordered by Colonel Burke:
[three shot–Brandt, Burke, Andreas]
Left to right are Robert Brandt, MMDI Agent; Thomas Burke, Director of MMDI; and Declan Andreas, MMDI Agent.
All three men sit in a main conference room across a round table from each other. They are wearing identical black MMDI uniforms and boots. Despite the look of unanimity, Burke is clearly the man in charge. He says, “What I’m about to tell you to here is highly sensitive. Classified, of course. But you both are going on a mission together where you need to know all this. Do you understand?”
Andreas and Brandt nod their heads in the affirmative.
“Good,” Burke says. “The mission is a unique one for you both. I have been on missions exactly like you will soon be going on, so I know what’s what. The mission is here at this lunar base. Not on Earth like you have been used to. The mission is a few hours into what I will call the ‘immediate tomorrow.’ After you have completed your mission together, you will be returned here to the ‘immediate yesterday.’ Are we good so far?”
Again, the two MMDI agents remain silent and nod to indicate that they understand.
“Thank you,” Burke says. “The purpose of your mission together is to bring an end of the religious cult that has been formed here on the moon to worship the Ezuoia from another galaxy. This is an extremely prejudiced kind of mission. Your motivation is revenge. MMDI is not in favor of having its own agents forming a religious cult and recruiting other agents. So, the decision has been made above my pay grade to bring to a complete end that religious cult here on the moon by ending the lives of the agents who embrace the religion. With extreme prejudice. As I already indicated.”
Andreas raises his hand to get Burke’s attention. “What is it, Andreas?” Burke asks.
“I never worked with Brandt before. We barely know one another. Why did you include Brandt on all this?”
Burke’s face reveals no indications of his feelings. “Fair question, Andreas,” Burke replies. “I was just getting to the explanations as to why I selected you two agents for this mission.”
Andreas remains silent and nods again.
Burke says, “I selected Brandt because of his proven skills in using violence and homicide to complete missions on Earth. Those are classified, Andreas, and I’m not going to get into any specifics here. But, let’s just say that Brandt here is the best agent I’ve got here at this base to succeed in the use of violence and homicide on missions.” Burke notices that Brandt wants to speak, so Burke quickly adds, “Now is not the time to discuss any of what Brandt accomplished on his missions to the past. We need to focus on the immediate tomorrow. So, let me turn now to the purposes of the mission that the two of you will be going on together. I ask the two of you to just listen to me for a while and make no further comments here.”
Andreas and Brandt look at each other and then both men return to looking at Burke and nod in agreement with what Burke has just said.
“The MMDI agent who is the leader of this religious movement is named Yotaro Tai. Those who are followers of this lunar religion consider him to be a holy prophet. He was born on December the 25th in his native Tokyo. He is to be considered very dangerous. I am going to play for you a confidential excerpt from his personal logs.” A large rectangular screen materializes as if floating in the air above the conference room table. A head-and-shoulders perspective of a young man of Asian ancestry appears on the screen.
Personal log of Yotaro Tai, MMDI Agent: Log entry #66853123.29 — Twenty-seven minutes, ten seconds into the ninth hour, Luna Time. Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Two-Forty-Three: “I am Yotaro Tai. This confidential personal log is not to be shared with anyone unless authorized by me. A fellow agent here at base provided the military-grade encryption to protect this log entry from prying eyes.
After considerable effort, I have finally located two of our top agents at this base—Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka. They are not dead as many here at this base had speculated. They are alive and being isolated from contact with any other men here at this base.
I believe they have some special and unique connection to the extraterrestrial life that MMDI officially remains silent about. It could be that MMDI knows the extraterrestrials made time travel possible for humans. That could be why MMDI is keeping this under wraps. I cannot accurately determine what is true versus what is merely rumor.
What I do know is Avila and Wauneka are being held in sequestration against their will. They were sent on a mission to Geneva, Switzerland to the year 2194 where they took photographs of a gigantic blue statue of a naked man. Some of the Avila and Wauneka photographs from Geneva were stolen by one MMDI agent working in the Time Travel Hall when Avila and Wauneka were retrieved from their Geneva mission two years ago. Those photographs circulated around to all the other agents here at Clavius base and caused quite a problem for MMDI because the men stationed here at this base wanted to know what significance that statue has to our species.
I believe as do many men here on the moon that the photographs prove some sort of extraterrestrial life form is connected to us time travel agents who work for MMDI. And MMDI has taken actions to conceal what those photographs represent so that we agents will not find out. That must be why Avila and Wauneka have been sequestered for two years. The statue might be an artist’s interpretation of what he imagined the extraterrestrials would look like if they had bodies like human men. Apparently, Avila and Wauneka stared at that statue and studied it when they first saw it in Geneva. Like it gave off some kinds of vibes that they felt. Even though Avila and Wauneka were told it was only an artist’s interpretation, somehow Avila and Wauneka developed a deep connection to that statue.
I don’t care that some may call this a cult on the moon, but I am organizing a group of agents here at Clavius base to free Avila and Wauneka since we are so close to finding out where they are being sequestered. There must be something significant about that blue statue in Geneva otherwise Avila and Wauneka would never have been sequestered for two years. My group of followers will help me discover the truth that MMDI is hiding. The statue seems to be very important to Avila and Wauneka so me and my followers will accept that as reason to stage an insurgency against MMDI here on the moon.”
Burke explains, “So, gentlemen, your first priority on your mission to the future is to eliminate Yotaro Tai. He is to be removed by you two by any means necessary to neutralize the situation by ending his current role as the leader of the religious movement. I insist that his body be pushed into an airlock and out onto the floor of Clavius Crater. There it will never be found. No traces. No evidence left behind. Are you clear about what I am saying?”
Andreas and Brandt simultaneously say, “Yes, sir.”
“This mission also includes the two of you eliminating two other MMDI agents. The men are followers of Yotaro Tai and they serve him. They are at his side with the specific purpose of advancing the religious cult here on the moon. They, too, are to be removed by any means necessary by you two from their current roles in support of Yotaro Tai. Their bodies as well are to disposed of by being pushed out into the vacuum of space. You just learned about the two of them when you watched the confidential log made by Yotaro Tai. Their names are Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka. They are veterans of MMDI service and are as close to iconic for this agency as any agent ever has been. I do not know if they are going to be there in the ‘immediate tomorrow.’ Nobody seems to know where Avila and Wauneka are. Kind of odd, I think. But if you find the two of them in the ‘immediate tomorrow,’ your orders are your orders. I want all three of these men dead. I want all three of their bodies out on the floor or Crater Clavius so nothing will remain. That is very important. Do not leave their corpses inside this base in the ‘immediate tomorrow.’”
Brandt quickly asks, “What did you mean, Colonel Burke, when you said that you went on missions exactly like we will soon be going on? You said you know what’s what.”
Burke nods and gives a half-smile to Brandt. “Yeah, that. I was gonna tell you. I’m just a man like you. I was sent into the ‘immediate tomorrow’ on missions. Five or six missions. Maybe more than that. Sent by General Yang, himself. That’s classified. You now have a need to know, so I told you. I will be honest with you about my experiences on my missions to the immediate tomorrow. Five or six times, the religious cult agents found out what I was doing. They found out I was on missions to end their religious cult that they have come to love so much. They knew I would never become a believer. So, they took care of me like they have done with all nonbelievers. They fucked me repeatedly. Several guys. No mercy. Then, they cut off my head. I was violently raped and butchered five or six times. Maybe more. I remember some of it. Not supposed to remember. My memories have been overwritten. But I still can recall some things. I saw my own severed head. It was awful. I remember that they fucked me and beheaded me again and again. Those memories were not erased when I was restored to life and brought back here to the ‘immediate yesterday.’ I know full-well what you two will face because I’m sending you to the ‘immediate tomorrow’ where I was killed multiple times. I did not succeed on my missions there. After multiple attempts. I’m hoping you two will do better. I really need you two to do better than I did. Maybe you will succeed because the religious cult agents don’t know you two are on a mission to destroy them. Blend in with them. Do what you need to do. We have very little opportunity remaining to do anything. I need you to succeed. I need you to eliminate Yotaro Tai, Ted Avila, and Vincent Wauneka. Disposing of theme will deal serious damage to the religious movement. Our agency’s future depends on whether you two can eliminate those three agents. Avila and Wauneka may not be there. But, if so, kill them both.”
“What do you mean by ‘very little opportunity remaining to do anything’?” Andreas asks.
Burke replies solemnly, “The Ezuoia know the near future. They exist outside of what we, as humans, accept as normal space and time in this life. The see our past, our present, and our future all simultaneously. The Ezuoia left a text message for General Yang. Primative way to communicate. But that’s what the Ezuoia did. I have the text memorized. Burke clears his throat and recites the text message: “After a series of explosive decompressions, Clavius Base will go dark a few hours following the first Sunday morning earthrise during the tenth lunar month of the year 2198.”
Andreas and Brandt have horrified expressions on their faces.
“That time and date is not far ahead of us from this very moment, gentlemen. The Ezuoia message is clear. You have this one mission to prevent the destruction of this lunar base from occurring. Go and change things in the future. All of our lives literally depend on what you two do next.”