SUNGLASSES AND ROCKETS Part 1 : New Moon

CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

"Before you go on with your questions," Moses Masterton interrupted, gesturing, "I think it's better to start from the beginning. I insist."

The doctor went up to some bookshelves full of papers, just a few steps away from the wooden desk.

"Look around you," he said, flinging the yo-yo in front of him. "Every one of these shelves that you see contains information on undercover missions, from March 1942 until a few years ago; originally, the information now stored in this place was in a the bunker. However, the Colonel decided to transfer it to this basement."

I got up so I could look at the bookshelves around us. There were easily 30 of them. They were arranged in rows of five, one row after another. It was literally a mine of secret information. The subdued yellow light of the basement gave it all an air of mystery.

"But Doctor," Darwin asked, adjusting his glasses, "if these are secret documents, wouldn't they be safe someplace else?"

"Everything that you see here is a copy of reports kept in the Pentagon," replied the doctor, walking along one of the corridors between the stacks. It was difficult to see him. "However, over 10 years ago the Pentagon didn't think they were well-protected enough in the event of a surprise nuclear attack or any other kind of assault...I still have my doubts with regard to the safety of the pentagon." He paused and then continued. "In conclusion! At that time, copies of certain documents were given to about a dozen people who could be trusted."

"Does that mean that everything here in this basement is something like the X-files?" I asked.

My comment was a little bit silly, but no other analogy had occurred to me besides that of the popular television show.

"Not exactly," the doctor clarified, leaning out from between the shelves. "In fact, the documents that you see here were declassified about three years ago by the C.I.A. If they weren't, they'd still be in the bunker, 210 feet below us."

The documents we had accidentally read were in the public domain. That meant that our lives weren't in danger!

"Although not all of them," the doctor made the exception, going up to the enormous desk. "There are a couple of documents that I left the other day on this very desk, ones that have not yet been declassified and that will not be..."

We kept quiet.

"And they are just the ones that you two took," he continued. "Did you understand anything that you read?"

"Nothing, sir," Darwin replied.

"I didn't understand anything either," I seconded.

"Excellent. Now I'll explain it to you."

The doctor sat at the desk and did the "Eiffel tower" with the yo-yo. We immediately turned our desks to face him. At this point the fear we had been feeling had changed to curiosity.

"Certain events of utmost importance," he started, "that occurred after the Second World War, have been deliberately hidden from the world..."

He suddenly shut up. He concentrated on playing with the yo-yo. Finally, he spoke:

"It's time for you to know..."

We instantly got up and lifted the desks. We quickly lifted them to a few steps away from the doctor. We faced them towards him and sat down.

The doctor got up from the desk. He calmly started walking, spinning his yo-yo as he went.

"The nuclear bomb marked the end of the Second World War. Between August 6 and 9, 1945, two nuclear explosions brutally reduced two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to ashes. Before a week after the last explosion had gone by, the Nippon Empire asked for peace and surrendered unconditionally on September 2 of the same year."

Now the doctor was pacing in front of the blackboard. We followed him with our gaze. His transparent blue yo-yo shined as it reflected the weak yellow light.

"The radiation was to kill more than 330 thousand people," he said severely. "The fission bomb, or atomic bomb, was the most devastating weapon ever invented by the human race until then."

He paused.

"As I will have mentioned to you on another occasion," he continued, "hardly seven years later, a weapon was created that was a thousand times more powerful. It was the fusion bomb, or hydrogen bomb. It was so potent that it used the fission bomb merely as a detonator. The number, variety and destructive power of nuclear arms increased to such a point during the Cold War that planet Earth quickly ceased to be a safe place."

Darwin and I listened intently. Our gaze followed the educated scientist's every move.

"Not even the remotest place on Earth was safe."

He stopped and faced us. He was about 30 feet away, a few steps from the blackboard.

"What you are about to hear is information known by only a handful of people on and off planet Earth."

Off planet Earth? I asked myself. I instinctively lifted up my desk to move it closer to where the doctor was.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Darwin dissuaded me in a low voice. "He won't be standing there for long."

I hesitated for a moment. I finally went back to sit in the same place.

"Aware of the imminent threat of a war of apocalyptic proportions," continued Moses Masterton, leaning against the blackboard, "Colonel Michael 'Hat' Cox, along with a distinguished group of scientists from various disciplines, secretly presented to the Air Force on the first of January, 1949, the most advanced and visionary report of the entire twentieth century."

The doctor wound up his yo-yo with his left hand. He took a piece of chalk in his right hand and turned to the blackboard. He started to write. From the noise of the chalk and the way he was moving you could tell that he was writing hastily.

I didn't doubt that Darwin, like me, was waiting impatiently to read the board. After barely two minutes the doctor turned to face us.

"This is basically what the report said," he said, pointing at the board.

We stood up apprehensively.

"Come closer!" he ordered.

Almost at once, we were standing in front of the blackboard. There were four lines. I read them slowly, one by one. When I finished, I started again. I could not believe what I was reading. It simply amazed me. The most astonishing thing of all, the most incredible thing, was knowing that everything we were reading was real...