As I Fly Dying

By Harley Brattain

Visionary author Harley Brattain revisits the legendary occurrence on a ranch near Corona, New Mexico, in 1947 known widely as "The Roswell Incident." This is the story never heard, the truth behind the cover-up; these are the words of the three who came down, the three who sought to capture them, and the one who kept them safe. This is the explosive account of why this happened and how closely entwined we are with what we term as visitors. It turns out they are not guests at all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798886543247

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As I Fly Dying

Harley Brattain

Copyright © 2022 Harley Brattain

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 979-8-88654-323-0 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88654-324-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Alone

The Above

The Work

The Alone

Hannah

The Work

The Conductor

Alone

Above

Conductor

Brian

Color

Faith in This World

Work, Work, Work

The Day Before

Entropy

Rumors

Strachey's Roswell

Hannah

Brian

Living as…

Tanner

Trifecta

What Happened

Run

Darling

Smith

Johnson

Hannah

Williams

Stone

Sky

Taken

Green

Alien Autopsy

Indigo

Ice and Fire

Shit…Shoot

Aura

Tanner

Williams

Johnson

Hannah

Oh God

Tip of the Blade

I Will Follow

All Good Things

Shit…Don't Shoot

Semelparity

Home

Visitor

Full Circle

Progenesis

Clarion Voice

Johnson

Tanner

Hannah

About the Author

The Alone

I want their kind of lonely. He gazes into black spots of white here and there. Not all white, blue with white, some brown. They don't twinkle out here. It used to make his imagination turn like an engine; it created his imagination when he first arrived. Before then, it was just a dream, a thing he had waited so long for. Now? It's funny too. Humor? They think they're lonely. Surrounded by one another, talking, laughing, and that's what they think. It's what they…feel. I don't think they even know what the word means. If we made words for things like this, it wouldn't be that. Lonely. It would be something more like…that. He stares at the black past the white spots. He can do that. He is called the Alone.

I can feel it getting closer. Every time the Above has me go with the Work, the connection becomes stronger. It draws something from inside that existed when this began, before I was what I am now. If we measured days, the grand total between then and now would be unfailing. I long for their kind of days.

We left so long ago, most of us no longer have memory of what a day or a year is. I remember. I think. It was September when things were intensely green, the sky blue and white. That's how it was there, not blue, white, and brown pinpricks. Green. I remember green. They use a word called love. It means many things, one of them for me is green. Alone draws these memories from a long unused and darkened space in his uncrowded mind, a mind that circles inessential tasks and angles of declination. He remembers trees and fields, once soft to the touch, where his feet now sting under the pressure of gravity, his slender muscles straining to keep him aloft. I can't recall why we left, why we did this to ourselves.

Now I work where I live. It is always dark here. They told me once the lights used to be on to simulate what could be daylight hours. They say the lights were the shade of their sun below even as it shines on them now. That was when there was more power, more food, more heat…more optimism. Slinky and long, Alone runs gray fingers across a dull gray and barren console. The buttons used to light up and do things; what things, he cannot remember. They have not lit for him or done anything for him for a very long time. He looks at the light panels where the bulbs burned out long ago, at least he thinks they burned out, one of those switches might control them, he does not know. The Above told him once not to turn, switch, or even touch any of the buttons or switches. The knobs are to remain untouched as well.

I wonder about eating, the way it was described to me. To put something in my mouth and chew it, swallow it. Chewing? I feel teeth below the membrane what that would be like. I don't know what it is like not to be hungry, that is our natural state. That's what the Above says. That's what the Above tells me as I'm fed my energy through a fitting placed in my mouth. I don't know what it is, the energy. I don't know what anything in here is anymore.

They're coming. That buzz, buzz, buzz they always make before we have to go. I don't know what the sound is. It always stops before I go to the conclave, and the Above makes clear where they will take me. Who we will take?

I must go.

The Above

This venture requires eyes, genitals, and tongue. They need nourishment. I must make sure the Work have the panels ready for processing. They work in such diligent fashion for these things, the secrecy, fear. And when finally it is processed and makes it into our system, there is nothing left for us to savor. What it must taste like to them?

The Above manages controls that cause doors to open in a specific sequence that leads The Work from their near black dwelling (the Above ponders, On earth, they wonder why our eyes grow large and black, our skin without color…color?) through the environments where they will be clothed, fitted with implements, imprinted with process and outcome requirements of the mission and sent to assembly. There will be one of the Alone with them when they drop from the Collected in a retrieval and venture below to resupply with enough energy to hold them for 27.3 days until the moon they reside behind is back to this orbital position and it is time for another foray in search of food. They secure food at 90 degrees off the Prime, other things they do in other places.

This, Alone, is different this time, a disruption in synaptic cohesion affects the required tenor. I can feel it, I should address it…should I? We do not operate for query or confrontation…they might hear. The Conductors. No, I will let this, Alone, proceed to the mission. No. I should address…him?

This Above is female; that Alone is male. They sense the difference and are unsure what or why it could mean anything in this place, up here where very little matters. Survival matters.

You are different this time. Have you fed? I sense disquiet, almost…fear. Fear is what the Work operate under. That is why you go with them. The Above has never asked a question like this before.

The Alone is worried that what is noticed is his curiosity; he hopes it is his curiosity. He has studied the Below for so long now that the differences they have has made him curious. He has never felt anything to make him recognize he is male but understands he is, and he knows the Above is not. So he is curious. This is not why he is different this time.

I have fed, yes. The difference is not fear I will have. The Work perform habitually as always. I will perform habitually as always. That is why I go with them. What is it you feel? I am not familiar with feelings as the Above is. The Above has greater exposure to radio signals from the Below than the Alone. We see primarily fear. They always fear us.

The Above is unsure. Do you know of deception? I have seen the Below engage in this, and I believe I sense this now. Are you capable?

I do not know deception. It may be confusion that you sense.

How could you be confused? The missions are the recurrent. The Work are recurrent. The Retrieval are recurrent. How many times have you performed this mission? Do you realize this? You cannot be confused.

The Alone does a thing he has never done; none have done in memory of any. He touches the Above on the arm, easily moving her away from where thoughts might be listened to by the Work. Her black eyes click and flutter in panic and other feelings she is unfamiliar with. She goes willingly.

What the Above says, what you say…it should be always recurrent, always the same. That is why I am confused. When we go to the Below, they are not always completely influenced by the Work. There have been occasions when the Below gave us words other than fear. The Alone looks at her with emotion. It shakes the Above in a way that has been impossible to her way of thinking…always. Emotion. Concern? Curiosity or…

The Work

Lights come up first. The following hum and static knocks mean it is time to move. Proceed through the pattern until the Alone gives commands not through speech like the Below do but through a universal process of unfolding. They just know the way things are supposed to occur when they are together working as a sect, the Regenerative.

Cold again. When we leave the Small Dark of the throng, it is always cold. We must move fast to where covers will be distributed. Cover ourselves and be warm. Then what? Is this food extraction, bio-extraction? Maybe this time we will bring some of them back to the Retrieval, maybe even to the Collected. We never know. We don't know anything. We wonder when we are alone together in our Small Dark if we are made to have no knowledge or if we are kept that way by the Alone. It might want us this way for a reason. We wonder what the Alone does with the things we bring it pieces of animals. We do believe it is a thought we share that the animals from the Below are used to make the nourishment. We do believe it is not enough. There are fewer of us now.

Entering the chamber where their coverings are stored, they notice the Alone. He stands in the same place every time, watching over them as they enter as their coverings come from the sterilization port in the same order as the time before and are pulled from the opening by the small pale hands of the Work. There are no sizes, so even though they follow in the exact same order nearly all the time, it does not matter. The Work are all the same size as their clothing; they are made this way. That's what they think. They believe the Alone made them and that the Alone can unmake them if they do not do what they are designed to do.

The Work have never seen another of their kind other than the Alone; to them, he is a giant. In the measure of the Below, they stand just 1.2 meters in height, 4 feet. The Above is closer to 2 meters; it has a larger head and larger eyes too. It must have great knowledge with so much more vision they think. With eyes that size, it must know color like we never will. Color.

When uniformed in the gray suits, the Work then shuffle in slippery silent steps to the room where they receive the tool for the mission. This is when it becomes clear what this mission will entail.

When extraction is the mission some of them are given tools that cut with light. They do not know what they are called or how they work mechanically; they never think of such things. They do know how to use them, and they use them very effectively. Others are given a tool that works on a subsonic level that hurts the subject's auditory nerves badly, but not so much that they cannot use it to first freeze the subject and eventually kill it after the extraction is complete. Others carry retrieval gear to bring the product back to the Alone.

They have always been instructed to take genitalia, eyes, lips, spinal fluid, and different organs from different kinds of animals. They are instructed what to take by the Alone during the process after he examines the animal.

They never take samples from the Below themselves, only the Alone does this, and he only takes small external samples or inserts small devices while they are on the mission. If there are more complicated things to do with or to them, the Work are made to incapacitate them and bring them back to the Retrieval where the Alone can do these things. Sometimes, they don't know why the Alone brings the Below back to the Collected and disappears with them for long periods. They are different when he brings them back; the Work can see the difference. They look like the Work feel sometimes when their rest provides them with frightening images, things from what they believe is an ancient past, a time when they weren't what they are now. They take the Below and return them to where they found them and allow them to wake up with no memory of the mission. They do sometimes imprint on them; if the Alone thinks it is needed, he will have the Work use a different one of their machines to leave a memory in them and make them think something different occurred.

The Work think as one. Mostly.

The Alone

She was concerned about me, the Above. This makes me…feel? Color? Is that what this is? A warm color like when we have the rare missions during their light time.

The Alone is recognizing the fated outcome of the many missions and many infusions of retrieved substance. Change had to occur at some point. Change or death. Most have already died. This Alone has a feeling; he has begun to change. He has been sensing things for some time that he had never felt before, not that he can remember. One of the first things that changed when they started their mission was their life span. They had at that time developed mechanisms to alter their DNA which increased their life span dramatically. Combined with the effects of interstellar travel—the speeds, the effects of gravity, and alteration in diet that continually modified over the expanse—their existence became begrudgingly long, so long in fact that those who die, all of them, do not expire due to age. Accidents kill some, sickness a few more, starvation more than anything. The Alone has seen periods in the dark that would be a thousand hells to the Below.

He has seen himself go from a thing with color, a thing with girth, to a thing grown meek, thin, and pale beyond belief. He no longer understands what it is to walk without the weight of the world crushing down or the light of the sun even from the weak-inspired reflection of the moon burning at him like an open flame. They returned long ago; the Alone doesn't know how long ago that was, he doesn't know time at all any longer. He thinks the Above might. He thinks about the Above a lot now that he thinks more. He simply thinks about, things, much of the time now. His thoughts are less cluttered.

I hear them coming. They will try to eat from it as they work. I must be strong…for them. They do not know that it will kill them if they ingest any of it before the panel does its work. Even touching it can be fatal to any of us. They are all here. That should be expected but it no longer is. Some have died in the Small Dark. Their scent is changing, less like me, even less than the Above. I prefer the scent of the Above.

Fourteen of the Work shuffle past and towards the Retrieval and Smalls. The Alone counts.

Six the Take, two the Sooth, six the Fly. Four of the Fly go to Smalls. They go as individuals, deflectors if we need them. All are prepared. Positions. Fly.

From a wall in the collected three craft enter the deep dark behind the moon as quickly as they do, two of them split further into two. Four Smalls fly out front of one Retrieval.

Here comes my favorite part. The Alone thinks to himself, hiding his thoughts from the Work as best he can before issuing a selected mental order, an imprinted command that goes without saying. Allow the color, make it bright, make it vary…keep our formational exercises standard unless otherwise ordered.

When the lights of the Small show to his view, the Alone's thread-thin lips arc ever so slightly into what he knows as a smile.

I wish the Above could see this with me.

Hannah

Requiem aeternum. She likes it because it starts soft, allowing her time to adjust to 4:45 AM.

Goo-morning, Wolfy, she says as her hand slaps blindly in the dark, searching without caring for the button that will silence her favorite composer. Any other time of day, she'd roll her eyes back and lilt with the rhythm, her fifteen-year-old voice tracking up and along viola string and violin threads, humming over trumpet blast and trombone booms. Not now, she has chores to attend to.

What's it like out there today? Can't see a damn thing. Wishing it were spring, she touches her hand to the pane, cold, long underwear under flannel under her lined Levi's coat. Two pairs of socks. Thank God, Papa made coffee. He's probably back to sleep already, but I love it that he does that.

She sits on the front porch waiting for the first sign of light while she keeps her hands warm on the thick clay cup that holds her morning drink. A cup she bought on the Mescalero Reservation not far from their ranch.

It's small, 396 head of Angus cows is all, but enough. Hannah rises early to corral and count them before feeding; her papa handles the crops. They have shared all the chores around the ranch since her mama vanished four years back during the cold snap of '39. Since then, it's been the two of them, Hannah and Brian Anderson, raising cattle for beef and what crops they can for food.

I wonder what that idiot Bobby Nufeldt is going to say about my hair today? It's not my fault Pa likes it cut short. It is easier in the morning anyway, so who gives a rat's ass? I hate Bobby any…what the…

It must be no more than a mile from where she warms her hands that a quick trail of four lights stream down in a long, smooth arc and begin to circle a spot not two hundred feet off the ground like they were going down a drain. Simultaneously, four lights go on, one from each source, pointing down with Swiss precision to the same spot even as they continue to circle.

Astonished, Hannah rises from her seat, the coffee still held in her forgotten hands. What could that be? Papa! she hollers, not loud, her voice barely works at this point.

As they rotate a fourth, many colored lights drop down and through them, disappearing over the horizon below their swirling beams.

Papa! She is louder now. Papa! She yanks the door open and meets Brian coming from his room with his over-under 12-gauge in hand.

What? What the hell are you screaming about? He pushes past her and toward the door. Is someone out there? A cat? He turns back to her, not seeing or hearing anything that should have her throwing such a fuss. What? What are you yelling for?

There's something out there. It came on down from the sky all quiet and spinning.

He looks back out the door and sees nothing, just the dim twinkle of stars showing against the early velvet of sunrise. A bird? A golden or a barn hawk or something?

She stares at him like she's seen an unearthly thing. She has. It was lights, Papa, noiseless lights. I ain't never seen nothing like it before.

He stands and ponders for some time, waiting to see if she cracks. She's not one for joking and pranks, especially since Mama passed, but it could be…nope. She's serious.

Let's go have a look.

The Work

Stop procedure, work has been violated. The Sooth do not accompany the Take on these missions. There is no need. When the Take come upon the cattle, they are invisible to them using a combination of light-refraction material and nominal brain-control measures. People require the Sooth for their ability to control the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous system completely. The Work stop their carving of the bovine to attend to the intruders, Hannah and Brian.

It looked like those things were circling right around here, Hannah says to her father. Couldn't tell how big they were, but the one, it looked bigger than your Ford.

"Quiet, honey. There should be cows up all over us…feeding time. Let's