Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse Read Online Free Page B

something out there. If it’s real, we can land on it.”
    Perez blinked. Her eyes and throat felt dry. It might have been only two minutes of silence, but it seemed longer before Perez continued.
    “There can’t be another planet in our solar system. We’d have seen it. It’s just not possible.”
    “I’ve been doing this job for too long, Ms. Perez. There’s been a lot of smart people, a huge amount of money and technology thrown at this, and yet the mathematics and physics don’t lie: there is something as big as a planet on the other side of our Sun that’s ducking us. And when I mean it’s ducking us, I mean it’s actively hiding. Either it exists at a spectrum of light we just don’t see naturally or it’s artificially created to keep us from seeing it.”
    “No, no, no … Now you’re talking science fiction, or an advanced civilization or technologically gifted species that’s hanging out in our solar system. Come on!”
    “Absolutely, Ms. Perez, and it’s here, too, on Earth.” “What? It can’t be…”
    “It’s all true. When we’ve been able to get data to our servers and computers, there’s always some kind of data incompatibility issue or information degradation that makes the information, images, everything useless. And government sponsored projects to advance surveillance have had their imaging and spectrograph equipment destroyed, hindered, or blocked. Ultimately, their plans disappear or are so badly altered that they too are useless.”
    Perez held up her hands as if trying to slow the conversation and its inevitable train wreck.
    “Colonel, what you’re saying is … well, it’s just too incredible. I mean, it means there’s some kind of world just beyond our line of sight that’s able to bend light waves so it’s invisible. And now you’re saying there’s some kind of conspiracy as well. That someone’s messing with our technology to make sure we don’t see what’s there.” Saying it all out loud did not make it sound less crazy as Perez had hoped.
    “Do you hear yourself?”
    “Sure do. Have for years. It takes a while to believe, but when you and others say the same thing all the time, it becomes as real as it gets.”
    “A conspiracy on Earth too?”
    He answered without hesitation.
    “Absolutely. All your notes, designs, and all electronically-stored documentation of your project disappeared this morning.”
    Perez was on her feet in milliseconds.
Years of research, thousands of hours work, all gone!
    “What? Are you bullshitting me! That’s not remotely funny!”
    To Farrell’s credit, he remained calm and still, and allowed the burst of emotion to pass as if he had been in that very situation before. After a moment, he nodded and motioned for her to sit down. Once she’d settled and her heart rate had slowed, he spoke in the therapeutic tone her father had used to calm his clients.
    “Yes, Ms. Perez. All your work saved on the university’s server system, external backup system and cloud started to degrade into an unintelligible mess or disappear altogether. Since we’ve been monitoring your work, we saw it happening, re- routed and manually inputted some of your backup files to old thumb drives. We also dispatched the local bureau to pick you up before anything happened to you.”
    Shit.
    Farrell looked at his hands again.
    “What do you mean?” Perez asked. “What happens to the people that do what I do or make advances on this problem?” She sat in her chair with her arms folded over her chest, very aware of her clothes absorbing her sweat.
    Again, he replied immediately.
    “They disappear, fall off the planet. Even their electronic footprint disappears as if they were never here. Even when they’re in protective custody, or witness protections, they still disappear. INTERPOL and Scotland Yard have been all over this for the last three years. The lead guy at Scotland Yard is convinced there’s something systemic, so tied into our computer