I was making dinner when the call came. Beer in one hand, flap steak sizzling in a cast-iron pan, the kitchen thick with cooking fumes. Another Friday dinner for one. My girlfriend was out of town on business, leaving me alone for the weekend.
Already filling the bachelor quota of beer and meat, I tore off a hunk of German rye and doubled down, dipping the hard bread straight into the mustard jar.
The Cure's "One Hundred Years" spun in the next room. Its wailing guitars bleeding into the night, filling the apartment with unease. I took another swig and looked out the window.
A grey and sombre skyline looked back through the rain-soaked glass. Neon lights reflected in damp tin roofs, islands of colors adrift in the wet black. If I squinted hard enough, I could almost identify something familiar in the blurred landscape. A place I seemed to have left behind, the recognition just hadn’t caught up with me.
I shoveled an unhealthy amount of butter over the seared meat and watched it melt in golden pools. The warmth of the beer settled inside me, soothing my soul but doing little to cut through the creeping exhaustion.
I sliced up another piece of rye when a sharp buzz shook the counter and made the knife slip, biting into my finger. I cursed bitterly and stuck the wounded digit in my mouth as I glanced at the vibrating phone. Unknown number.
Staring at the screen, I . Let it go to voicemail? Maybe. But my judgment was fogged by the alcohol, and before I thought better of it, I answered, finger in mouth.
"Julian Ward speaking." My voice came out muffled and unsteady.
Silence. A faint crackle. I pulled my finger free and examined the wound, nothing serious. Then a voice, calm, deliberate. "Professor Ward. My name is Dominic Mercer. I’m with Eidolon Research. We need to speak with you immediately."
Eidolon. The name meant nothing, but the way he said it, like it should, set me on edge.
"I don’t do late-night consulting, Mr. Mercer," I muttered, wrapping my bleeding finger in a towel. "Whatever it is, send an email."
"This is not a consultation. We require your presence immediately."
”Immediately?” I exhaled slowly. ”What’s the nature of the work?"
"I can’t give you all the details over the phone, Professor Ward. But I can tell you this, we’ve encountered a series of objects exhibiting anomalous properties. The patterns found on them do not match any known written system but suggest intentional design.
It all raises certain questions. We need answers, quickly. We believe you can help."
"Anomalous properties..." I echoed, the words sluggish on my tongue. Something in his words stirred a slow recognition. My eyes drifted to my office corner. A sturdy oak desk by the window, littered with papers, books, and empty bottles.
I had been working on my next book, Recursive Structures and Hidden Syntax: Tracing Nonlinear Linguistic Encoding in Pre-Canonical Apocryphal Scriptures.
Frequent pauses to scan social media had notified me of the web erupting, some strange find close to the Canadian border.
"Is this about those ships?" I blurted, my voice suddenly an octave higher. I stumbled over and sat down at my desk, taking another swig of beer, tapping my laptop screen awake.
I could hear the faint edge of a smile on the other end. "Yes. I assume you’ve seen the chatter online."
"I’ve been watching the internet lose its mind over them. The hashtag #unmoored has been trending all day."
I scrolled through the feed, locating the initial post that opened the flood gates:
”WTF is happening at Silverpine Lake? Ghostships? If I don’t update in 24 hours, someone let my cat out.”
—V0idCart0graph3r
The panicked post had generated thousands of memes while the rest of the internet was trying to outdo one another with outlandish conspiracy theories.
"So your people have these ships? Who did you say you were again?"
"Eidolon Research. A division of Palisade Institute.”
”Right, Eidolon. Are you with the government?”
”We are private, but we have all the resources needed. From the highest authority."
”So mr Mercer, what's your angle? Are any of these people right?”
"Our concern isn’t the public speculation. We are interested in the exact nature of the objects themselves. And their implications."
"Which are?"
"That’s where you come in."
I exhaled, rubbing my eyes. I felt old, ancient. The alcohol had wrapped my thoughts in gauze, dulling their edges.
"Look, I’m in no condition for classified work right now. There are other paleographers out there. I assume you’ve reached out to them as well?"
”We have our reasons professor. You have a stake in this that the others don’t."
Something in the way he said it sent a thread of unease winding through me. I glanced at the bottle in my hand. My thoughts felt bloated, too big for my head, leaving no room for anything but the convincing voice on the phone.
It was already spinning out of my control. I recognized where this was going, and I knew it couldn’t be good. I tried to protest, but got interrupted.
"We need you at our facility tonight. A car is waiting outside your building."
I turned to the window. Sure enough, a black SUV sat idling at the curb, its headlights carving long, pale reflections across the wet pavement.
"You people don’t waste time."
"We do what’s necessary."
I swirled the last of my beer, watching the liquid slosh unevenly. The world had already started to feel off-kilter, like I was stepping into something that had been waiting for me longer than I realized.
The beer was empty. The meat lay dead in the pan, forgotten.
I sighed and grabbed my coat.
A cavernous hangar stretched before me, vast and lightless. The darkness swallowed every source of illumination before it could reach the walls. Darkness that seemed to stretch out forever.
In the center of the hangar, commanding all attention, were the majestic wooden ships. Floating ominously in the air, positioned in a perfect circle. Each ship enclosed in an exoskeleton of polished black metal, suspended above ground by spindly metallic limbs covered in thousands of spotlights, draping the fleet in a ghostly glow.
Walking down the uneven, concrete floor, taking in the towering ships above me, it felt like I was drifting weightlessly through a hall of shadows. It all felt like another life.
I recalled the last 24 hours, I had been moved through the system quickly. A car from my apartment to SFO. A last cigarette outside the terminal before a lonely red-eye to Seattle-Tacoma. Landing turbulence jolted me awake just as I drifted off. A government vehicle waiting at the curb. No words spoken. Just an open door, a nod, swift movement. The world slipping by in rain-streaked windows.
Scanned, tagged, documented. Blood drawn. Forms signed, not even forms, exactly. Just consent, given over and over.
I was beyond exhausted as I finally approached the circle of ships, weaving between the powerful metal beams that from afar had looked like delicate needles pinning the ships like a set of butterflies, now revealing their true scale.
Up close, the ships felt enormous, ancient. The uneven surfaces held the texture of something impossibly old, yet untouched by decay. No visible wear, no splintered wood, no signs of rot. Only the signs of endless time etched into the grain.
The light played over the wooden hulls, shifting their tones in waves from deep amber to light birch, beige oak to burnt chestnut, as if the wood itself were breathing under the glow.
I let my hand glide over the smooth surface. Beneath my fingers, I could feel the sheer weight of the ship, an awareness of the careful craft that had assembled these impossible structures. The wood was smooth yet firm, and surprisingly, still damp despite the temperature-control.
A sudden sting forced my hand back. The friction of the wood against my injured finger reopened the wound and forced another bout of bleeding. Instinctively, I shoved it into my mouth. As the familiar metallic tang of blood filled my mouth, something else cut through it.
Salt.
I paused. That explained the sharp stinging. But it didn’t make sense. Silverpine Lake was a freshwater lake.
I needed answers? My gaze probed the shadows, was someone coming to give it to me. Where were Mercer?
Hadn’t Mercer told me this over dinner?
His fork tracing patterns in the air as he sketched out the details. Candlelight glinting off the rim of our glasses. Hum of conversation in the background, clink of silverware. The waiter standing by.
No. That wasn’t it.
”We haven’t met yet”, His voice crackled through static. The scent of searing meat, grease spitting onto the stove. My hands full, a cast-iron pan, the cold press of polymer plastic from the receiver against my ear, coiled cord stretching across the apartment.
A cord? I hadn’t owned a landline in decades.
I flipped the page, following the procedural steps, reading the documents in my hand. A thin glassy tablet, light as breath. Synthetic text swimming between my fingers.
Top right header: ”Operational Cycle: Year 2145:32:0”
No! This is too much
I took a deep swig from the glass of wine, but I couldn’t seem to swallow. I spat. The liquid hissing against the red hot logs, flames rising higher against the starlit night sky, heating my cold body and sending a secure feeling of home as the campfire sputtered and crackled. A soothing sound bleeding in with the hum of the electric generators of the hangar, supporting the hypnotic voice of the elderly woman.
” The ships came and went.” She said ”They brought gifts, they brought curses. They took all. They took nothing. They have always been. They will always be.”
I gasped as it hit me. ”What do you know about the ships?” I tried to scream, but a sensation of being observed stopped me.
I turned to greet the piercing gaze of Dominic Mercer. A glimmer of excitement in his eyes.
"Professor Ward. Great to finally meet you."
He took my hand in a firm shake and tapped the folder in my hands. When had I picked this up?
"No need to worry about the introductory material. It says little of value."
The folder parted easily in my hands, a plastic pass card inside, already sliding into Mercer's waiting fingers. On the card, ”Eidolon: Echo-6 EYES” was printed boldly in black above my awkward photo.
”Echo-6. That will do." He returned the card to me.
The word ”EYES” left a cold knot in my gut. I pointed to the word.
”What does it mean?”
”Forget that, you have access to what you’ll need. Sorry, no formal onboarding this time. Let’s get straight to the meat of it. You’ll want to see this”
I quickly scanned the room. The flames had disappeared, the hum of conversation gone. No wine. I stared at the giant ships, their secrets vibrating in the air.
”Yes, yes.” Mercer noticed my gaze ”they have a way of doing things to your thoughts. Never mind, you’ll have time for those later. Come.”
He gave my shoulder a firm squeeze, steering me past the floating ships into the darkness towards the faint glow of a shut door.
”Sorry to leave you wandering, I had instructed them to have you wait for me at the access gate terminal. I suppose you weren’t in the mood for waiting.”
”No, Mr Mercer, I really wasn’t. I’ve been more than patient with you people. I think it is time I got some answers”
”You will Professor. But first, let’s take a look at your teeth”