Fiction War

“My name is Augustine Hand. I understand you want to hire me as a writer for your magazine?”

The old man looked at him. They were sitting in a small wooden building in the Nevada Desert. “I’ll be frank, boy. Your writing is terrible. But your ideas, well…they’re first class. That’s what we’re looking for at this organization.”

Hand wasn’t happy to hear this. “Look, I don’t want to be an idea pimp, I want to write. I know I’m not the best writer, but it’s just sci-fi, we’re not talking literature here.”

“Oh, but we are talking literature, boy. Myth, in fact. And a very important myth. You know all about this business with us trying to keep ahead of the Ruskies, what with them having the bomb? Well, you’re about to help us with a much more vital part of the campaign.”

The old man stood up, and walked to a closet. Opening the door, Hand saw an elevator. “Come with me boy, and let me tell you about the Fiction War. About the UFO tech the Ruskies have. And the UFO tech we have to make them think we have.”

After going down the elevator, the old man (who told Hand to just call him ‘Chief’) opened the door, and they stepped out into a big cavern, which had a flying saucer in the middle, complete with aliens coming in and out.

“Sweet Lord! Are those…?”

The Chief chuckled. “No, no. This is just here for the Ruskies. Let em’ think this is what we’re working with. Let’s go to the real secret.”

As they were walking along, the went through a room that was obviously a break room. Only one man was there, with a brown uniform, a small mustache, and a bad haircut. Hand said, “Please tell me that Adolf Hitler is not making coffee.”

The Chief shook his head. “No, no. That’s Ernie. He’s here to make anyone who sees this seem crazy. He dresses like Hitler, and anyone who comes out telling the world that there’s a flying saucer and Hitler making coffee—well, who’s going to believe that?”

“But don’t you want the Russians to think we have..”

“Sure, the Russians. Our people, no. They’d freak. Bad for the economy, right?”

Adolf-No, Ernie, Hand reminded himself-handed a cup of coffee to the Chief, and said with an accent that was pure Nebraska, “Here you go, Chief—black, no sugar.”

“Thanks, Ernie. Get one for Hand here. Sugar and cream?”

“No, no thanks, I like it black, too.”

“Good, good. You’ll fit in well here, Hand.” He made himself comfortable on a sofa, while Hand sat on a chair while Ernie handed him a cup.

“Alright Hand. This is how it goes. We realized after the war that the Krauts had been feeding us bunk about ‘foo-fighters’ and the like to try to scare us. We thought it was a good idea, so we tried to scare the Ruskies into thinking that we got our hands on some foo-fighters, just like we did von Braun. Truth was, we did. Got us some good fiction-warriors from the Krauts. But of course nothing real. Jesus, the Krauts couldn’t barely get the V2 to hit London, and they were supposed to have advanced technology? Heh.”

The Chief took a sip. “Then we realized that a real flying saucer had crashed in Russia.”