2040

The beeping of the low battery alert breaks the flow of the story that the Keeper was telling.

Gaberial rushes over to the recording device and checks the power level. The large battery pack attached to the recorder is warning that it is almost out of power. She curses and shuts down the camera.

"Well, it appears our time today is over." The Keeper spoke.

Gaberial looked around. The sun was starting to set in the West. The stomach was uneasy, and I felt stiff from standing for a long time. She had lost track of time again, listening to his voice and the story he was telling. She was once again sickened and horrified by what he had told her. The atrocities and horrors were said with such a demeanour and tone that made it sound like they were everyday occurrences—just popping out to get some milk and maybe a spot of murder on the side.

She wondered again in her mind about a private thought she had: how much of what this being was telling her was the truth.

"Yes, you are right, I need to pack up for one moment, please." She needed time to process what she had been told, and packing up a gear gave her a few minutes' respite to think. She had hardly asked any questions again, and none of the ones that Grey had wanted her to. She briefly wondered what his reaction would be.

The Keeper watched it all without making a single comment. Once she was done, she looked back at him.

"I suspect I'll be back tomorrow." She expected to be back tomorrow, as it was still far too much of the story to be told, and she knew that Grey and his backers wanted to have every piece of information. What they could do with this information was not something she could envision right now.

"I think you might be right. But I wonder what those who sent you here will do with this new part of the story. Considering we still have a hundred and forty-five years left."

She looked down at the soldiers guarding the access point, encircled by razor wire. They have been replaced with a new pair, and they seem alert, realising she had packed up her gear and would be returning shortly. One person was talking into their radio, and they should see more activity from the camp beyond.

"I am most distressed with the damage to the forest." She turned to look at him and found him looking out across the perimeter around New Midian as well.

"I find it a bit ironic that you're worried about the trees rather than the people who have died here." She blurted out before she realised what she had said.

The Keeper looked at her passively. "From your perspective, Ms Sanchez, I can understand why. However, you must look at it from my perspective. That forest has been with me for the last 170 years, and I have watched many of the trees that were once out there grow from saplings to the trees that make up the forest."

She had expected him to be angry or insulted by her words, but he spoke with the same calm tone he always did. Then she remembered what he had said about being somehow distant from his emotions and wondered if that had played into his reply.

She looked again. From what he described, the pathway that once led to the road was now completely deforested. As the only known entrance or exit to New Midian was here, so was the bulk of the military presence.

"I will be leaving now, then I will see you tomorrow." The sun was dipping in the West behind the mountains. It was an hour, maybe two at the most, before it completely set behind them. The sky was a fiery red, clashing with the darkening purples in the East.

She was about to walk away when she stopped as the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly jumped up. It was a primal sensation of being watched by something dangerous, and it stopped her in her tracks.

"Is something wrong?" The Keeper asked, noticing her sudden change in posture.

She turned and looked at him, smiling apologetically. "Yes… No… I'd had a sudden feeling I was being watched."

He said nothing but turned and looked back into New Midian. There was a distant look on his face for a few seconds, and then he turned back to her.

"My apologies. One of the Hunters got interested in what I was doing and came to have a look."

A shiver of fear went down her spine at those words, and she too looked back into the graveyard. She couldn't see far beyond the courtyard due to the dense structures and graves. But it was still there, that feeling of being watched by something hungry.

"Who?" She asked.

"It doesn't matter." He said, dismissing her concerns.

"It does to me."

"Fear not, Ms Sanchez, nothing within my domain will harm you." He tried to reassure her, but his words brought no comfort.

"I will see you tomorrow, then." She quickly turned and walked away, heading towards the soldiers. She briefly looked back and found the courtyard empty once again.

Abuela was a devout woman who'd always told her granddaughter that the devil always came with a smile. Well, she reflected, my devil comes not with a smile, but with a nice suit and a cultured voice.

They did put her head into a black bag, at least this time.

She was happy to call that progress.

She had been escorted back to her tent by the same soldiers who had taken her to the gates in the morning. She had been allowed to stop and use a portable toilet first, as her body was reminding her of its needs. Several of them positioned themselves once more outside the tent flap, preventing anyone from entering. She was once again sitting at a foldout plastic table on an uncomfortable plastic chair. They were the type that all temporary military bases had.

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As she walked through the camp, she noticed the glances some of the soldiers directed at her. Not her guards, they were too professional for that, but the others working around the camp. It seemed words of her conversations had gone out, and they were looking to see what sort of person could engage with whatever was in those walls.

Once you might have revelled in the attention, but not now.

Looking at the table, she wondered how long the space would be here. How long would it take for the temporary structures to become permanent? She suspected that, regardless of the outcome of what was about to happen, the government and the military would not allow anyone access to this area again.

There was food and water supplied sitting on the table.

It was a standard military ration fair, and the bottled water was warm. She ate and drank from it anyway, her stomach and throat reminding her of the long day she had without any sustenance or fluid. She was finishing up when Grey arrived.

"Ms Sanchez." He said in greeting as he came through under the flap. He carried a folder that contained some sheets of paper with him.

"Grey." She returned the greeting, purposely ignoring the Mister part. He sat down across from her, placing the folder before him.

"Well, that was an interesting day. You didn't ask any other questions we requested, but still, you got quite a bit of information for us."

There was no way that they could have reviewed all the footage by now unless they had been streaming the whole thing or had other means of listening in. She was unsurprised that the listening devices were either planted or secretly streaming. She didn't comment on it, and he didn't bother to lie and deny it.

"What are you planning to do now?" She asked him, leaning back in the chair, which creaked alarmingly.

"You will continue as you have been. Tomorrow we will send you back up to the gates, and you will continue the interview."

"It's not an interview." She pointed out.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's not an interview. The Keeper is dictating a story to me. The question I'm asking myself is how much of the story is actually true?" As she spoke, she crossed her arms and looked at the man across from her.

As a journalist, she would have taken the story, then cross-referenced and researched every point in it to confirm its veracity. Only when she was satisfied with the story would she publish it. Unfortunately, she was restricted entirely from all sources of information at this time, and the recordings were being withheld from her as well. The journalist in her was screaming that she wanted to check on everything told to her over the last two sessions. The woman in her secretly wondered if it was better to let this story remain a mystery.

"We are seeking to confirm that as well, Ms Sanchez." Grey sat across from her with a posture straight and proper. He placed his hands on the table with his fingers intertwined over the folder. "A dedicated team of military intelligence researchers is looking into every name, every date and every event."

"And what have they discovered?" She asked, knowing he would never answer but trying anyway.

"As you know, research takes time, especially with a story as old as this one." He gave her an answer that wasn't an answer.

"Would you tell me anything that you discovered anyway?" She was physically and mentally drained by the day. She was no longer interested in playing these games.

"Yes, we would." His answer surprised her. "If we found any discrepancies in what he had told us, we would have you question him on it."

She fell silent for a few moments as she digested that, still looking at the man across from her.

"What are your end goals here?" She asked him. "I know that I will never be able to publish the story. But we both know it will never end there."

"We simply want to contain this place first and then understand it."

She snorted at that before speaking. "Understand, don't you mean control?"

"A certain measure of control will be required, as you are already aware, this place is incredibly dangerous." He confirmed what she had already suspected, but he wondered how it would really end.

"New Midian is a place I don't think we can control." As she thought, she looked up to the top of the tent, thinking about that place close to them.

"If we cannot exercise a measure of control, we will then just simply isolate… New Midian." He said that the place's name after a short hesitation. She suspected that they had their own name for it and didn't use its given prefecture. She wondered what the military and intelligence groups were calling it.

She looks back at him, taking her eyes from the top of the tent.

"I'm going back tomorrow." She said to herself more than him, her eyes distant.

"Yes. As the entity that controls that place pointed out, there is 145 years of story left. We would like to know it all before deciding on what to do and how to go forward."

"Especially after your first military strike failed." She reminded him.

"Especially after that." Again, he surprised her by admitting to what the military had tried to do.

They went silent again, and he stood to leave.

"One last thing." He tapped the folder that was still on the table. "A number of messages have been left for you. I will arrange for a phone to be supplied to you later, allowing you to contact the outside world. As per our agreement, you are restricted from saying what is happening here, and you will be monitored at all times during these conversations."

She nodded but said nothing as he left. She looked at the folder for several moments before reaching across and pulling it towards her. She spun around and opened it. She quickly leafed through the sheets of paper, noting who had been trying to contact her.

The top few were her family. Then her producer and her lawyer. She would need to speak to them again soon. The last few pages were literally every major news network and publisher on the planet, all requesting her to talk to them.

She knew she would not be allowed to speak to any of them without being monitored and controlled through her NDA. It was frustrating as hell, but she knew the deal she had made with the government. When she signed those papers, she knew the price that she would have to pay. In the privacy of her own mind, she wondered if she had made a deal inadvertently with whatever controlled New Midian.

What would the price of that deal be?

By the time she had gone through the lists of people trying to contact, the soldiers had entered and handed her a satellite phone. She looked at it and opened it. She noticed the icon for its call list was flashing. Opening it, she found all of her family contacts and those of her producer, along with her lawyer, already programmed into it.

She spent the next hour communicating with her family. They were all concerned for her and didn't want her to hang up, but she told them there were others she needed to speak to.

It was her Abuela whose words struck at her most. "Gaberial, you're in a dark place. Remember to stay true to God's words, and he will see you through."

She wanted to say that she was no longer so sure, as that was her usual response, but now she was unsure. After her conversation with her grandmother, she had fingered her gold crucifix that she kept under her T-shirt. They were taking away the start, but they had returned it before she went back up to the gateway.

The more time she was spending with the Keeper. She had been wondering about her own faith and what it represented. Was there a divine being out there, or was it just all a great cosmic joke?

Unable to finance, she went to her producer.

Here things got a lot trickier. He was demanding whatever she could tell him, which was virtually nothing. She had done her best using doublespeak and their private shorthand in conversations to get across what she could, but she had to be incredibly careful. Their lawyer was fighting a fierce battle with the US government over the First Amendment and the right to have access to her without government oversight. He told her that a massive online and public argument was happening, but the government was stonewalling them on grounds of national security and every other point. The courts were all tied up with the argument, and many expected it to go before the Supreme Court shortly due to the importance of the decision.

She was relieved that some parts of the American population had rolled over and accepted the growing authoritarianism of the present administration. It wasn't just this one, but the last 40 years, I've been seeing a creeping erosion of the constitutional rights of the American citizens, according to her and many others.

After hanging up, she sighed. She put the phone down onto the plastic table, ignoring the rest of the calls that had been requested to be made for contact. She wasn't going to go around to the other organisations and bypass her own. She will let the US government handle them.

Shortly after, they came and collected her for her evening meal and returned her to the cell that she was so used to sleeping.

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