THIS GUIDE WAS in regular clothes. Pale chinos, a pale blue work shirt. He drove to a lookout. “Down below,” he said.
It looked like a little army village. A small barracks by a huge white lake. On the right a set of jutting mountains with a deep road zagging up them, white on dark grey. That led to a small set of lower mountains on the other side of the lake.
In front of the white lake the land was flat, rolling here and there around large white circles. White roads had been cut through the grey-green earth, long flat metal roofing sat with upside-down Vs over buildings where rows of tiny vehicles were parked. “We’ll take you down to see one of the control rooms,” the guide said.
THEY STOOD IN a control room that looked like it was a set for a low-budget B movie, a space invasion scare
