Breach

by Milk Mind

Chapter 3: Barth

In late May of 1998 another scientist was brought into Area 69. His name was Heinrich Barth, a german born scientist a few years older than Gottschalk. Unlike Gottschalk, who was an american, Barth had grown up in Berlin, and had a thick accent. Barth had become an american citizen in hopes of working on the more interesting experiments and research he’d heard of. It was all rumors and speculation, Area 51 and Roswell and whatnot, but he eventually made a name for himself in the United States and was quickly signed onto the project without his knowing. Again, his whole story is not mine to tell. I probably should tell you one thing though. By ‘made a name for himself’, I mean that he was shunned from the scientific community for his crackpot theories on alien life.

The wrinkle-faced german with the grey beard hopped out of the dark olive green transport truck. In his mind, Gottschalk likened him to ZZ Top, the beard and all. Barth stared at the retreating truck of uniformed and armed marines for a moment. He’d been blindfolded the whole time and told what was happening to him only about a minute ago. Gottschalk kindly greeted his new friend and led him to the elevator. They had a long ride for him to explain all he knew.

“Hello Barth.”

“Hello Gottschalk. So this is Area 69?” ‘Area 69’ and Gottschalks name were the only things he’d been told on the truck ride over.

An intellectual meeting of minds, it was not. Not surprising, considering all they’d been told about each other was their names.

“Yes, well, the elevator. The real Area 69 is about five hundred feet that way.” Gottschalk said, pointing to the floor of the elevator.

“I appreciate the joke Herr Gottschalk, but I do not like not being told what I’m here for.”

“Mister Barth, this is an omicron level facility. Nobody with prior knowledge of this base gets here outside of a body bag.”

“Omicron? So it’s true. Americans do have a secret classification system.”

“Apparently not that secret if a germa-I’m sorry, a formerly german, scientist knows about it. But yes, with top secret facilities, and anything else we like to keep out of the public eye, we use the greek alphabet to categorize.”

“Well, just how classified is omicron?”

“There are twenty-four letters of the greek alphabet. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, and Omicron are the first fifteen. The president can only access up to level Delta, and that’s in a time of war.”

“So your Commander in Chief has no idea of our work then?”

“If he ever even found out Area 69 existed, he’d be assassinated.”

Barth laughed a bit. “That’s funny.”

“Too bad it wasn’t a joke.” There was a slight ‘ding’ as the elevator reached The Cage. “Ah, here we are. The Cage. Prepare yourself Barth.”

The doors slid open, revealing the aptly named Cage. The entire room was the most clean, sterile white imaginable, not a speck of dust in the perfectly square room. Inside the center was a one-hundred square foot cell made of barbed wire that stretched all the way to the high ceiling. There were copper wires running through the iron barbs.

“Don’t touch the actual cell by the way, it hurts like a bitch.” Barth was speechless at the layout of the room. He saw a small purple thing sitting in the center of the room, but he couldn’t see what it was. “You like it? We got the general idea from the first place there kind was spotted and recorded. Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Barth shuddered at the mention of that place.

“Doctor Gottschalk, what is that?”

“Please don’t call her an ‘it’. She doesn’t like that.”

At the door to The Cage, Gottschalk pulled a ring of numbered keys out of his white lab coat. There were six padlocks on the outside, which he quickly and systematically unlocked, like he done it every day for months before.

“Twilight, we’re coming in. Please step back a bit.” The purple creature rose and slowly took a few steps backwards. The two entered, Gottschalk closed the door behind them. “Hello Twilight, doing well today?”

“As well as any other day Doctor.” Twilight answered in a monotonous, depressed tone.

“Well I’m sorry you’re unhappy Twilight, but we’ve brought another scientist aboard the team, so I thought you two’d like to meet.”

Twilight, still not without a hint of depression, extended her hoof to shake then new mans hand. “Hello. I’m Twilight Sparkle.”

Barth, hesitantly, shook the pony's’ hoof and introduced himself. ”H-hello there. I’m Doctor Heinrich Barth. Where are you from?”

“Equestria.”

“Is that a galaxy? A planet? A solar syste-”

“She doesn't know, Barth.”

The purple creature turned away, and made some sort of unnatural, quiet whimpering sounds. Barth was a bit concerned. “Is she...crying?” He whispered to Gottschalk.

“She hasn’t seen another one of her kind since before September. Of course she is.” He replied. He looked back to Twilight, got on his knee and put his hand on her shoulder. “Twilight, we’ll find somepony else for you to talk to, I promise. There's been a few sightings recently, so we may be in luck.” He had adopted some of her language, but only when talking to her and only when talking about members of her species. “Would you feel better if I played your favorite song?”

“Sure, I suppose.”

Gottschalk stood up, pulled out a small remote, pointed it to the ceiling and pressed a small button. “She likes The Ink Spots.” He said to Barth. “‘We Three’ is her favorite.”

Barth was utterly astounded by the aliens ability to speak english and show human-like qualities of emotion and thought. In fact, she spoke better english than he did. Twilight smiled at swayed her head a bit with the music that was now playing through the intercom system.

‘Oh my goodness, it’s acting just like a human.’ He thought. Barth then noticed he was being spoken to. “Oh, I’m sorry, what was that Gottschalk?”

“It’s alright, I was just saying how glad I am that you’re here today of all days.”

“Is today important?” Twilight asked.

Gottschalk smiled. “Very. Today, friend, is the day you get out of The Cage.”

Barth was struck by the statement. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Barth, I’ve never been more sure of anything. Twilight has shown no signs of hostility towards humans since she’s been here. I can assure you that she’s no threat. She’s nicer than some of the marines around here.”

“You’re letting me out!”

“Yes and no. We can’t let you out of the facility, but you don't need to be kept in containment anymore. We have a room for you, fully furnished.”

“A real bed?!”

“Bed, bathroom, everything. And we’ll get you much better food from now on. I’m sure you’re tired of hay.”

Barth grabbed Gottschalk by the shoulder and talked to him while Twilight happily jumped around. “Doctor, are you absolutely sure you know what you’re doing?! Your letting an alien out of containment! An alien!”

“She may be an alien, but she’s kind, she’s patient, and she doesn’t deserve to be kept here.”

“She needs to be kept isolated!”

“Alright. Fine, if you really think she needs to stay in the cage, you tell her. You go over there and tell that purple prancing pony that she’s a dangerous alien that needs to be kept in a miniature concentration camp.” There was a long silence. Barth sighed and let go of his shoulder. “That’s what I thought.” Gottschalk tossed him a key from his pocket. “Your room’s three floors up, get some sleep.”

Twilight was overly happy to have a new room. Maybe overly happy isn’t the correct phrase there, considering I’ve never been locked in a barbed-wire cage for months without seeing any members of my own species. So, I suppose she was fairly excited about her new room.

The room had circular lights embedded into the ceiling, and a queen sized bed, and an attached bathroom. The walls were covered in custom white wallpaper that bore the sign of her cutie mark. Doctor Gottschalk had obviously wanted to get her out of The Cage earlier, but couldn't until the room was complete.

The bed wasn’t stuffed with anything, or even colored in any way. It looked like a big white brick. She crawled up onto the bed and lied on her stomach, the only way she’d been able to lay for the past few months. The bed was softer and more comforting than anything she’d felt in her entire life.

Twilight closed her eyes. “This almost makes up for abducting me.”

“Would a milkshake help?” Gottschalk said as he stood in the doorway. Twilight jumped as the Doctor laughed a bit. “Sorry Twilight, just thought I’d see how you liked the place. And I...I also realized that I...I never formally apologized to you for all that’s happened.” Gottschalk sat down next to Twilight for a moment. “I’m sorry Twilight, I really am. I can’t imagine how much you must miss your friends and family, but I know it must be hard. I swear, we’ll find others and bring them here, we’ll protect them. No experiments without consent, no dangerous experiments, nothing of the sort.”

“Doctor, it’s okay, but could you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Could you get me some books?”

“That’s all?”

“Yes. History books, if you could. I really like history.”

“Sure, name a century and I’ll get you all the books you can read.”

“What year is it here?”

“1998 Twilight.”

“Wow...it’s only 1004 in Equestria. But...how about this century? 1900’s.”

Gottschalk stooped for a moment and remembered all the things that had happened in the past eighty years alone. The first industrialized war, the Holocaust only a few decades later, so many wars, so much inhumanity. His own crimes still haunted him, and the presence of an intelligent non-human only made him think harder about ‘humanity’. His name had been marked off the records of projects that caused numerous innocent lives, and worse.

“No. Pick another, please.”

“Why?”

He couldn’t lie to her, but nor could he tell her the truth. Either would result in mistrust of humans, and the loss of his only living friend. He did consider her a friend, or at least as close as a scientist in one of the most secret bases in existence could get to having a friend.

“The twentieth century...hasn’t....been the best example of humanity.” His tone quickly changed. “How about the 1700’s? The age of revolution! That’s a good one! I particularly like the golden age of piracy.”

“Alright, ‘The Age of Revolution’ sounds interesting. How quickly can you have them for me?”

“If I go now I can have them shipped to the base by tomorrow morni-” He looked at the clock on the wall. It was five minutes ‘til four in the morning. “Ummm...I can have them here by afternoon today.” He said awkwardly.

Twilight chuckled a bit. “Alright Doctor, I can wait ‘til then. Good night Doctor Gottschalk.”

“If you could Twilight, please call me Steven.”

“Um, okay. Goodnight Doctor Steven.”

Close enough. He thought. That was the first time He’d heard someone say his first name in twenty years. He hadn’t had a friend in twenty years.

AUTHORS NOTE: In case you'd like to know the song I was referring to, this is it.

Comments

[Compu]

Imaging this as a full, theatrical release, we three would be a great end credits song, as well as a Blu-Ray menus song