The second door opened and as soon as he stepped into the room his mouth opened in shock for the second time. There was a large glass cubical inside the room and he could clearly see a strange chair with tubes and wires going into it. Sitting in the chair was an unrecognizable form.
“Is that…?” the President tried to ask.
“Yes sir. It is exactly what you think it is,” the general said.
“If you would put this over your clothes” the general said, handing him a white full length gown.
He then gave him a mask with filtering canisters to put on.
“Now Mr. President, when we go inside this room, it will cause you to feel a little light headed. The atmosphere has been altered slightly but you will be able to breath with the mask and it will not cause any health risk. Devin opened the door. The room was bright and everything was brilliant white.
“Oh my God,” he said, looking at the creature sitting in a chair that was reclined.
“That’s…that’s…real?” he finally asked.
“Yes sir. This is J. We originally called him J — Rod but now we just call him J.”
“Is it alive?”
“Very much. Not nearly as healthy as he was sixty years ago but he is still doing well. The atmosphere is a big help. His cells have started to degenerate and we have been trying to figure out how to keep him alive. We have a team working on that full time,” Devin told him.
“How old is he?
“Right at 250 years old now, by our time.”
The President couldn’t even think of something to say. He was dumbstruck. 250 years old. This was just too unreal. The creature called J, never moved while they were in the room and the President asked why.
“When he sleeps, it is different from you and me. He goes into a deeper state than we can accomplish. This is also when he gets his nourishment.”
“Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head. “So he is asleep now. Can he hear us?”
“We don’t know for sure but it appears that when he is in this state, he does not know that we are present in the room,” the general replied.
“Goodness,” was all the President could say after they left the room.
A few minutes later Devin took the President to Level 3. Once again he was amazed at what he saw.
“Yes sir,” Devin said, “Those are more of the frozen bodies from the various crash sites. We have performed autopsies on several of them and are doing various other research.”
“Beings from another world. This is almost more than a person can fathom,” the President muttered.
“I understand sir. It is a little mind boggling when you encounter it for the first time. If it makes you feel any better, I understand that Eisenhower was feeling just the same as you. It is beyond the comprehension of almost anyone that does not work with this on a daily basis. It took me a little while to accept this as well,” Devin said.
He continued to show the President some of the experiments they were working on.
“What is below this Level?” the President asked.
“Staff quarters, a recreation facility, cafeterias, maintenance rooms, labs and that sort of support stuff. Would you like to visit each one?”
“I would, but I just don’t have the time. I need to get back before anyone knows I’m gone,” President Sampson said, looking at this watch.
“I understand sir. It really is something isn’t it?”
“More than that. Much more,” the President replied.
The general took him back to the Main level.
“General Devin, I’m sorry I seemed miffed when I told you to get to the White House. This is the most important secret since…hell I don’t even know what this would compare to. Maybe nothing in our world. The point I am making is that you will not have to be bothered with anyone else snooping around. You will report directly to me as you have to past Presidents. If anyone gives you problems, direct them to me.”
“Thank you sir. I’ll take that as a vote of confidence,” Devin said.
“You can indeed. Now, I have to get back. Thank you for the tour and I will want to talk to you again about this when you have the time,” the President said.
“Sir, my time is your time. Just let me know where and when,” Devin said, saluting the Commander-in-Chief as he stepped into the Blackhawk.
Devin waited until the chopper was well out of the area before he allowed himself a pat on the back. Presidents. They never know what is really going on. They want to feel and act like they are in charge but it was all just an illusion. The real power lay far below ground on Level 10. It wasn’t a country that was or would be the mightiest, it was his own BlackStar.
On the ride back to Colorado Springs, the President replayed over and over what he had just seen. It was almost too much to comprehend. He had just seen spacecraft, aliens and technology out of the realm of our own science. Would this change the way he dealt with problems that would crop up? Knowing that at some point we would have the potential to go to distant planets.
