Dahlia Black Read online

  If the Feds can say we’re being transformed by some weird new disease, then they can lock us up, take our guns, claim our property, all in the name of protecting us. Right? Not like they haven’t done that numerous other times: the AIDS crisis in the 1990s,IV the supposed crack cocaine epidemic . . .

  When I ask Sai about the government’s eventual explanation for the Elevation—that it was the result of the Pulse Code Dahlia Mitchell had discovered—he laughs uproariously.

  My God, that explanation, well . . .

  It actually didn’t change anything I’d believed before. In fact, it just hammered home the truth of the matter. How can you spin a story like this and get people to buy it? Here’s the way it works and I’m telling you this for free, understand? This is brilliant, absolutely unbeatable stuff, and I want to make sure that when you write it all up, I’m the one credited. Okay. Okay.

  Here it goes: Our beloved government is engaged in the biggest false flag operation in the history of the world. They’re convincing the entire population of the United States, and eventually the freaking globe, that there is something called the Elevation making some people crazy, some people insanely brilliant, and others . . . well, others are just dying from it. That’s the sales pitch and it helps explain why folks like Carter Loisel and all the others are acting the way they are.

  So people are going to freak out and the government is going to step in and say, “We have this under control. You all are safe.” The end result of that move is to strip us of our freedoms, of course. Make us a slave nation, as they say. Kinda like what the Kims did in North Korea.

  But then there are people—people like me—standing up and saying, “This doesn’t pass the sniff test!” Other folks follow my lead. They start asking questions. They start rocking the proverbial boat. That’s when the government spin doctors, the ad masters behind this whole thing, come up with the best lie ever told: “It wasn’t us; it was the aliens!”

  Yeah, right!

  The aliens we never see, the aliens we never talk to, the aliens that we know nothing at all about. It was them. Best part is that everyone bought it hook, line, and sinker. Clever, I’ll give them that. Very clever. It gets even better when we hit the Finality. If you honestly thought that all those billions of people just stepped over into another world, well, I’ve got a bridge in Arizona I want to sell you . . .

  * * *

  I. An oldie but a goodie in terms of conspiracy theorizing, the alien/human hybrid concept has its roots in the alien abduction movement that began in the 1960s. While UFOs had been witnessed buzzing about the skies in the 1940s and ’50s, in the ’60s and ’70s they made contact—allegedly abducting humans from their cars, beds, even backyards, for all manner of bizarre experiments. Many skeptical researchers have linked these reported abduction scenarios—almost always recounted while the subject is under hypnosis in a psychotherapist’s office—with ancient stories of night hags and succubi. And, as in those tales, the aliens frequently steal men’s sperm and women’s eggs; the resulting offspring are alien/human hybrids, insanely brilliant, physically powerful, and almost always malicious.

  II. A key conspiracy theory concept, a “false flag” operation is one in which a government or corporate actor (whoever happens to be in power) carries out what at first appears to be a terrorist or antigovernment/anticorporate action, from a bombing to a school shooting. This event is then used to generate support for the government/corporation against the various forces allied against it. To those in the know (the conspiracy theorists), the false flag event was actually carried out by government/corporation to engender goodwill and sympathy. An example: a man suffering from mental illness who was not legally supposed to own an assault rifle uses the rifle to massacre people in a mall. In the wake of the massacre, politicians call on the government to pass stricter gun control laws. Digging into minute details of the massacre, conspiracy theorists would “discover” evidence that the massacre was a fake—and the victims crisis actors—designed by the government to curtail Second Amendment rights.

  III. I assume that Sai is referencing the very same videos that Dr. Frank Kjelgaard claimed to have seen. They come up several times in the story of the Elevation.

  IV. As the AIDS crisis exploded in the late 1980s, a number of conspiracy theory pamphlets, papers, and newsletters began to circulate that claimed that HIV was created in a US government lab. This bioengineered disease—a Frankensteinian patchwork of monkey virus and polio—was designed as a weapon of war and unleashed on the gay community by conservative government doctors.

  25

  PRESIDENT VANESSA BALLARD

  DETROIT, MI

  SEPTEMBER 18, 2025

  Moving outside as dusk falls, I follow President Ballard to a nearby park.

  It’s a rectangle of grass, very flat, with no trees, and surrounded by several abandoned big-box stores that stand empty, sentinels to this quiet city. Trees sprout from the rooftops of the stores; their shattered windows reveal thick underbrush growing inside. We walk to the center of the park and President Ballard points out a flock of passing egrets, large white birds that drift overhead. She tells me that they have a rookery in a canal nearby. And the park we’re standing in? It doesn’t appear on any maps, because five years ago it wasn’t a park but a parking lot.

  We stay at the park until night falls and bats stream out of the buildings.

  On our way back to President Ballard’s home, she comments on the fact that when she was in office the world seemed very small. Nearly every point on Earth had been visited, the skies conquered and subdued. True adventure lay in the stars or, most importantly, inside the minds of men. But now . . . now the world had suddenly reverted; it was as though our advancements had been erased and the wheels of progress reset. For her, the idea promised great things. The world was open again.

  In a way, human history itself had been Elevated . . .

  The Elevation.

  What a thing . . .

  When the first cases began rolling in, I started hearing about it. Like just about everyone else in the country, I saw the video of the boy.

  Then the next one came in . . .

  And then the next.

  I spent my time on the plane back to DC watching videos, reading posts, about what, even then, in the earliest hours of the Elevation, was looking like a wave. It was inexplicable and strange. There was a video of a schoolteacher in the South somewhere who had a breakdown in the middle of her lecture on root numbers. This poor woman’s nose was bleeding heavily, but she was staring up at the ceiling and cooing to a baby that only she could see. Unnerving.

  Of course, it got me thinking about David.

  When we got back to the White House, I called Dr. Stimson and asked if he’d seen the videos. He said he had and wasn’t in a position to make a judgment call about what they meant. Being rational above all else, he suggested it was a case of mass panic; perhaps there was a triggering video or image that had set all these people off.I Times when there’ve been mass panic events, it’s usually because of a society-wide stress, an unconscious anxiety that explodes in strange behaviors.

  In college I read a history of the “dancing plagues” that broke out across medieval Europe, mostly in France and Germany. People suddenly got up and danced, some of them until they lost consciousness or even died of dehydration. In the medieval mind-set it looked like the work of demons and devils.II

  Whatever the Elevation was, I knew it wasn’t that.

  David hadn’t had an attack since the incident in the bowling alley. The folks at Walter Reed did a full workup and found nothing. He came back the next morning, smiling and happy and seemingly unaware of what he’d experienced the night before. No, he didn’t have another attack. Not like the first. But the changes, the transformation, began nearly as soon as he got back.

  We were in a cabinet meeting with the secretaries of transportation and energy. Things had gotten a bit heated as we were arguing about emissions. I wanted
more regulation; my Republican secretary of transportation wanted less. The usual back and forth, but it was civil.

  David had been quiet the whole meeting, when he raised his hand, interrupting the conversation, and pointed to one of the windows overlooking the Rose Garden. He pointed and said, “Watch. Three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  Wham! A crow slammed into the glass, startling everyone sitting around the table. The bird fell and twitched outside as Secret Service agents ran over to inspect it. The secretaries of transportation and energy seemed nervous; one of them remarked that it was a shrewd distraction. I just watched David’s face, his eyes, and I could see . . . I don’t know how to describe it, but there was something different in his expression. It wasn’t malevolent—far from it; it was . . . it was as though I was looking at David but David was gone . . . I expected that the Parkinson’s would rob him of his dignity but not his personality. This was clearly a transformation.

  After the meeting, I asked David to talk to Dr. Stimson again.

  He took my hand and told me not to worry.

  Then he said, “What is going to happen is inevitable. Trying to stop it is like that mythological king who steps into the ocean and tries to stop the tide from coming in. He drowns. The Elevation is going to overwhelm us all. We can’t fight it. We need to accept it and hang on for the ride. I need you to be strong, Vanessa. I love you with every cell of this body. I will see you again.”

  His nose bled again, blood running out so fast that it spattered all over his shoes and my suit.III He fainted and I, thankfully, was able to catch him before he cracked his skull open on the edge of a desk.

  I stayed up all night with him at Walter Reed.

  When he got to the hospital, his organs were already shutting down. They called it a cascade. He went from walking around, talking, to being on life support in a matter of minutes. I made sure that word of his condition didn’t get out. The press was told that he was hospitalized for breathing problems and that an update would be forthcoming soon.

  That night was one of the longest, most difficult nights.

  And this was before the Elevation had really taken off.

  Before the Finality.

  While I was at the hospital, I got an alert that there was a data breach at the White House. Someone had hacked into David’s medical records a few hours before he was taken to the hospital. The breach only got worse the deeper we looked.

  It wasn’t just David’s medical records . . .

  * * *

  I. I encountered this idea several times during my conversations with researchers. The idea of a “triggering” image is one that’s been popular culturally since the advent of photography and motion pictures. The concept is certainly believable: a particular image or series of images can hypnotize or somehow similarly alter a person’s behavior. While it is true that certain flashing images can cause seizures in people, the so-called weaponized image or film has been a long-standing MacGuffin in a manner of media—the movie that kills, the recording that activates a “Manchurian candidate,” the photograph that hypnotizes. However, according to people I spoke with at the FBI, no such image or film has ever surfaced. Neurologists tell me that it is simply a myth—a concept that just seems so good, it must be true.

  II. Incredibly, the dancing plagues were very real. Essentially moral panics—like satanic ritual abuse outbreaks in the US, laughing waves in Nigeria, and the “vanishing penis” panics in Korea—the dancing plagues were, as President Ballard described, eruptions of uncontrolled dancing. They were often triggered by passing preachers or astronomical events (a comet in the sky, for example) and were less about disease or illness than rigid moral codes that crippled the population. Folks who lived in constant fear found instant relief in suddenly dancing. They lost control for the first time in their lives and it felt . . . amazing. So they kept doing it.

  III. Doctors determined that the nosebleeds many of the Elevated suffered from were a direct result of increased breathing rates. As you might expect, seeing gravitational waves or long-dead relatives would cause most people to be anxious. That anxiety led to increased respiratory rates, the drying out of nasal passages, and an increasing incidence of nosebleed. Regardless of the mechanism, the effect was startling.

  26

  EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION RECORDED BY WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL TERRY QUINN

  RECORDED AT THE WHITE HOUSE ON 11.7.2023

  TERRY QUINN: Have a seat.

  GLENN OWEN: What’s worrying you, Terry? You have that expression on your face, the one you get when someone’s made you upset.

  TERRY QUINN: Per . . .

  PER AKERSON: The President’s concerned we have a mole in the White House.

  GLENN OWEN: A mole? That’s so old-fashioned. I think today they say “sleeper” or “plant.” Of course there are moles. This is the White House; the place has more leaks than a Chinese market. I don’t understand the concern.

  TERRY QUINN: Bigger than leaks. The President is concerned that there is someone on her staff that is aligned with a group whose interests aren’t aligned with our own. I’m being cryptic, but—

  GLENN OWEN: Hang on, is this some sort of interview? Like you don’t trust me? Did President Ballard tell you to corner me, poke me, and see if I squeak? Jesus, Terry, you’ve known me twenty years. And, Per, shit, man, we’ve been drinking together just as long. I’m an open book. Everything I’ve ever done is readily available for you to read through. Just ask.

  TERRY QUINN: We don’t suspect you of anything, Glenn. But we need you to be vigilant. You noticed anything funny going?

  GLENN OWEN: You gotta be kidding. Noticed anything funny? Everything in this madhouse is funny. Seriously, though, what are you talking about and why haven’t I been brought into the loop yet?

  PER AKERSON: We only just found out, too, Glenn. President Ballard updated us just a few minutes before you came in.

  GLENN OWEN: So it was your idea to grill me? You two knuckleheads came up with that idea all on your own, huh? Well, you both suck at it. I didn’t answer any questions, just gave you a little pushback, and you both rolled over, legs spread, tails quivering. Terry, lock the door. Tell me what the fuck’s going on.

  TERRY QUINN: We know that someone inside the White House hacked into the First Gentleman’s medical records. We suspect it’s the same person who’s been accessing the Disclosure Task Force files and the Pulse Code. Beyond that, there aren’t many more details.

  GLENN OWEN: No idea where this stuff’s been going? It hasn’t been showing up online, some data dump into the deep web? A conspiracy theory hub like that New World place? Or some hacker clearinghouse?

  PER AKERSON: There’s no evidence of any of the information showing up online, deep or surface web. We think whoever is accessing this stuff is either saving it up or sending it to someone in particular.

  GLENN OWEN: Okay, okay. We need to get a handle on this stat. Bring Kanisha in and tell her. Lieutenant General Chen as well. How’s the President handling it? I mean, the fact that David’s information’s been compromised.

  TERRY QUINN: She doesn’t like it. She’s worried it’s bigger than that.

  GLENN OWEN: Bigger how?

  PER AKERSON: We’ve heard some disturbing rumors about Dr. Cisco.

  GLENN OWEN: The Dr. Cisco formerly of the Disclosure Task Force who flew home and died in a car accident? Please tell me you two aren’t trafficking in conspiracy theories now. You’re going to make me sick.

  TERRY QUINN: They’re only rumors . . .

  GLENN OWEN: But the President thinks there could be a connection, right? She’s got it in her head that the person hacking into the First Gentleman’s records and the Disclosure files is . . . what? Responsible for causing the death of Dr. Cisco? And why? Why would they kill her? Why not Dr. Xavier Faber? He’s certainly the one asking for it. No, guys, this is silly. Let me talk to her. In the meantime, we’ve got much bigger fish to fry. You saw the video of the boy?

  P
ER AKERSON: Yes. Social media’s blowing up with this stuff. Doctors are freaking out, saying maybe the tap water’s been laced with LSD.I There’s a wave of this stuff coming, Glenn. I already told Terry, already told the President, but I think we’re going to have to buckle in for a wild ride . . .

  GLENN OWEN: All right, so let’s just focus on one thing at a time. Per, keep an eye on whatever mania’s sweeping the country. Terry, let me know if we hear anything more about this mole. I’ll see if I can get to the bottom of these Dr. Cisco murder rumors . . . God help us . . .

  * * *

  I. The LSD in tap water idea isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem. Per, or the doctors he’s referencing here, might be thinking of the small French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit. In 1951, Pont-Saint-Esprit experienced a very unique and quite terrifying mass poisoning of some kind. Two hundred and fifty people in the village awoke on August 15, 1951, suffering from horrifying hallucinations and violent illness. Four people died. An initial investigation suggested that the cause was ergot (a fungus) poisoning due to improperly stored rye grain. But others thought something like mercury poisoning was more likely. With an event as strange and unique as this one, conspiracy theories were bound to sprout up—in particular, one that claimed the entire event was a mass LSD dosing, part of the CIA’s clandestine MKNAOMI behavior modification program. An American soldier stationed in the South of France at the time of the outbreak claimed to have been involved in the LSD dosing scheme. He was branded a liar and dismissed.

  27

  CARLA FRANKLIN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

  SEATTLE, WA

  FEBRUARY 21, 2026

  A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Carla Franklin began her career in the mid-1990s, covering politics for the New York Times.

  After breaking a story on corruption in Steven Meyer’s New York senatorial run, she wrote a bestselling book on campaign finance corruption. While she wasn’t a well-known figure outside of DC circles, she quickly became one when, during the height of the Elevation, she published an investigative series now dubbed the “Pulse Gate,” the apparent cover-up of the suspicious deaths of a handful of physicists and astronomers associated with the Pulse Code data—people who’d gotten the information from Dr. Cisco.