"Now," I said. "Tell me about the NTE Project."
"First of all, contrary to what most people believe, the spacecraft did not crash to Earth. We found it, buried under a quarter of a mile of dirt and sediment. From all appearances, it looked like the craft had landed here. Why it stayed, we had no idea," Louis explained. "The NTE Project oversaw the removal of the craft and all associated artifacts. They were then taken back to a secret location."
"In New Mexico?" I asked.
"That's right. They thought about taking it to Groom Lake, but with all the conspiracy nuts out there, chatting about Area 51 and the alien bodies, they decided to use a new undisclosed location instead."
"So, are there really alien bodies at Area 51?"
"How should I know? I've never been there. Anyway, it took us two years to examine the craft. And in all that time, we barely scratched the surface of how the technology worked. But two years is a long time and certain government officials wanted progress. And that meant turning it on."
"They actually wanted you to power up the spacecraft, even though you weren't sure how it worked? That seems reckless."
"It is reckless. And I made my protests. But in the end, we did exactly what the government told us to do. We turned it on. Well, not the whole thing. Just one of the devices we found on board. We sort of made a compromise. Now I wish we hadn't," he said, looking down at his 12-year old body. "You know what happened after the device was activated."
"The Great Shift," I said.
"Yeah, the Great Shift."
