Extinction Plague: Matt Kearns 4

by Greig Beck

  Schneider pressed the button on the wall, and watched as the floor dropped and the steps cascaded down to his private room. He carefully carried the ring down and lifted the lid on a prominent glass case and placed it on a small pedestal. A down-light was already shining its beam onto the ring, highlighting the signature lettering.

  He stepped back, smiled and nodded, satisfied. He then turned. “Magnificent. You always had such wonderful taste, my master.”

  He bowed his head and listened for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, mein Führer, our time comes around again. And this time, we will not be stopped.”

  CHAPTER 05

  Boston, Massachusetts – later that day

  Within just a few hours a courier knocked on Matt’s downstairs door with an envelope.

  Matt took it and held it up. “Thank you, Uncle Jack.”

  He chuckled as he raced back upstairs, immediately kneeling to stick the small USB into the television port, and then he backed up just a foot or so but stayed kneeling.

  He had promised to keep Colonel Hammerson in the loop if and when he found out anything. But for now it was all just exploration and academic thought bubbles so he was on his own.

  Matt fast-forwarded to the scene inside the Maori marae, and as he suspected the footage hadn’t been broadcast. He froze the image.

  “Oh yeah.” He leaned forward, letting his eyes run down the length of the ancient stone. He pointed his remote again, this time saving the image to a separate file folder. His television was connected to his internal network of devices.

  He logged onto his computer and the picture was already waiting for him. He then dragged it into his image library and let the software clean up the grainy details. After a few seconds of clarification, he could see nearly the entire stone save for the edges and extreme bottom that were beyond the camera angle.

  “Magnificent,” he whispered as he rubbed his chin. “You came from that submarine, didn’t you?”

  He began the process of translating. Much he could decipher immediately, and other sections he’d need to do some research on. As he suspected, the stone tablet looked to be part of a set, like a page. There was a portion that could have been a geographical map, some that might have been mathematical symbols, and also another set of images that were rings and dots that made no sense to him – he wasn’t sure if it was even part of the language string. They continued on, but the rest were lost at the break line of the stone.

  He tidied up the notes he had made and then read again from the top.

  They have come and they will come again. Each ending greater than the last.

  Then came some new text: Only those from the center – or maybe core – can stop them when …

  Who’s they? he wondered. Also, what ending? And the final piece inferring something needed or could be stopped. And by when – was that meant to be a time or an event?

  Matt sighed. There were so many questions raised from just those three lines it made his head spin.

  There were two columns of the sprays of dots, and lines that were interconnected – looking like each was having an effect on the other. They reminded him a little of pond ripples. It wasn’t part of the Aztlantean language that he knew and he had no idea what it could mean. He grabbed screen images of some of the dot and ring images, and plugged them into his computer. He ran a search.

  Beep, beep.

  “Huh, already?” The search engine had a hit, and Matt leaned in closer.

  The match came from a prehistoric astrological chart, and corresponded to the extrapolated star charts of the sky from what astrologers theorized would have been around 444 million years ago. He looked back at the images from the stone, then to the charts again.

  “So-ooo, that’s what you could be: star charts.”

  Matt sat back and folded his arms. It sort of made sense as the Aztlanteans were advanced in mathematics and also astronomy. After a moment he shrugged and plugged in the next set of rings and dots, and then the next and next. Every one of them corresponded to a star chart from a time period of extreme ancient history.

  Matt scribbled notes as the information dropped: the earliest chart indicated an occurrence that was 444 million years ago that corresponded to the end of the Ordovician period. The next star chart lined up with the late Devonian age of 375 million years ago, and then another at the end of the Permian era, 251 million years ago. Those eras were when the Earth was an extremely primordial place, but for some reason they all resonated in Matt’s memory.

  The next hit indicated a time around the end of the Triassic period, 200 million years ago. Also another at the end of the Cretaceous, 66 million years ago, and finally, the last one he entered corresponded to the last centuries of the Pleistocene age of just 100,000 years ago.

  He exhaled loudly. The damn stone ended or had broken off before it got any closer to the current time period.

  “Are you some sort of long-range countdown?” He asked the screen and then turned to look for his beer, grabbed it and sipped. He grimaced at the warm brew, and lowered the bottle. “But countdown to what?”

  He could see there was another row of numbers that suggested an interaction inference – something happened in one column that caused something else to happen in the other column.

  Matt made a list of the dates and periods and then also ran a computer search on them to see if they meant anything. Again, his computer found an almost instant match.

  His brows drew together as he read down the list with a chilled feeling in his gut. It wasn’t just that they all had significant references, but what it was they were all referenced for – global mass extinctions and the percentage of creatures lost. He read on:

  End Ordovician, 444 million years ago – 86% of species lost.

  Late Devonian, 375 million years ago – 75% of species lost.

  End Permian, 251 million years ago – 96% of species lost.

  End Triassic, 200 million years ago – 80% of species lost.

  End Cretaceous, 66 million years ago – 76% of all species lost.

  And finally, the late Pleistocene that saw the demise of what was termed the mega fauna; the giant dinosaur-sized mammals.

  Matt sat forward and pushed the hair back off his face. He stared at the screen, letting his mind work over the detail as he tried to make sense of it. After many minutes he gave up – because it didn’t.

  Matt knew the Aztlanteans were an extremely advanced race, and had sophisticated political systems, architecture, philosophy, astrology and mathematics. They had identified those dates as having meaning, but it was impossible they knew about the extinctions. So what was it that those dates signified to them?

  He looked back at the stone’s other column, which looked to have even more mathematical symbols embedded within it. Words, letters and their associated concepts he could do, but ancient mathematical equations he couldn’t. So unfortunately they meant nothing to him, and he had a feeling that these were the concepts that might contain the key to it all.

  “I don’t know.” He flopped back in his chair for a moment, but then sprang forward. “Of course.”

  Matt opened a new message on his computer mail, and hummed as he first looked up the name, and then began to compose his message.

  His cousin, Megan, was a mathematical genius, and one who had exposure to ancient numbering systems. In fact, Megan was one of the specialists who worked on providing an accurate number for the 2270-year-old Archimedes’ Stomachion – one of the oldest known mathematical puzzles in existence.

  If what he was looking at really was a set of dates, math code, or formula, then she should be able to tell him. He scratched his chin, thinking. She was probably still in the air but it wouldn’t hurt to get her mind working on it already.

  Matt paused his message to recheck the stone and zoomed in on the edge of the broken tablet. There was just the trace of another chart or perhaps column of numbers there. He wondered how many more charts there were, and did the predictive dat
es reach all the way up to today, and maybe even beyond?

  Was this stone predicting, or just recording the mass extinctions? And how could they? Not even our current technology could provide predictions. Though there were many scientists talking today about current and future species tipping points due to deforestation, environmental pollution, accidental mutations, and also new viruses appearing from jungles, raw food street markets, or even accidentally escaping from research laboratories, none had ever talked about all of the extinctions somehow having some sort of relationship.

  He sent the message to Megan and then steepled his fingers under his chin as he looked again at many of the strange symbols he couldn’t identify. The more he sat staring at them the more he thought several of them might not have been linguistic marks at all, but perhaps just a representation of a particular thing.

  He enlarged one that was just a fragment. “Is that supposed to be some sort of bug?” He tilted his head. Damn nasty one if it is, he thought. But then again, to him, all bugs were nasty ones.

  Matt knew from his research that ancient graffiti wasn’t out of the question – from Roman temples to Egyptian pyramid stones, strange and sometimes humorous depictions of people, places, and animals were inscribed into some texts as their version of the old: “Kilroy was here” type signature.

  He sighed and got to his feet. He would love to see the stone himself and maybe even question the Maori chief. But New Zealand was at the end of the goddamn world, and he’d never get the university to spring for the extra budget.

  Besides, it would probably turn out to be nothing. “Kilroy was here.” He chuckled as he went into the kitchen to grab another beer.

  CHAPTER 06

  Khan limestone mine, Pothohar Plateau, Rawalpindi district, north-eastern Pakistan –– 17 July

  The noise was near deafening, the heat unbearable, and the choking limestone dust meant many of the men had cotton scarves pulled tight over noses and mouths. The scarves displayed tide-rings of perspiration, saliva, and dust.

  Babar Ansari and Ejaz Fareedi were manning the cutter – an instrument that was like a giant chainsaw – as they carved out the half-ton limestone blocks for transport in the mine cart to the surface.

  Babar squinted behind his goggles as they finished the last gradient slice. The blocks were always cut at a slight angle and, as the limestone wasn’t a hard material to work with, the block could then be broken out like a tooth.

  Pakistan was right in the middle of a building boom, and as limestone was a key ingredient in the production of cement, construction companies wanted it faster than mining companies could dig it out.

  The Khan mine was a seam of limestone, dozens of vertical feet thick and maybe half a mile wide horizontally. It was a rich seam, just a thousand feet down, and was probably laid down countless millions of years ago when the area was a shallow tropical sea. The limestone was the result of pressure on crushed shells, coral, and tiny sea creatures that were buried on the sea bottom.

  Babar was in charge of the directional blade and held up a hand for Ejaz to shut off the cutter as the block was finished. Immediately the noise fell away leaving just the occasional cough and muttering of the other miners, and also the occasional rare drip of water they used to cool the machines.

  Natural water down here was a bad thing as the limestone dissolved quickly, the water sometimes staining and contaminating it. Best quality limestone was solid, unmarked, and medium density.

  A little water was tolerated, but a lot of water could be deadly, because the water also created pockets in the stone as it percolated through, and the last thing the men wanted was for the machinery, or them, to fall into a massive sinkhole.

  But there was another risk, and this time it was to the machinery. When limestone is put under extreme pressure and also subjected to heat, it can undergo a geological process called metamorphism and is then transformed into marble. As a commodity the best quality marble was also prized, but it was dense, hard, and avoided as standard limestone-cutters were no match for the attractive but solid stone.

  Babar took off one of his tough canvas gloves while he waited for the extraction team to remove the block and stack it on the cart where it would wait for another of its kind before it would then head topside. He wiped his nose and then reached inside his heavily crusted jacket pocket and felt for the oversized handkerchief he kept there.

  Babar pulled it out, and tipped his helmet back, pushed up his goggles and wiped his face. He looked at it; the cloth had his name embroidered there, still showing through the grime and limestone dust. His wife, Aiisha, had sewn his name on it, and he smiled as he saw the tiny heart she had finished the embroidery with.

  He laughed softly, wiped his eyes with it, balled the material, and shoved it back inside his jacket. They had hours yet to go on the shift and by then the handkerchief would be stiff as canvas and look like a sheet of plaster.

  “Ya.”

  Ejaz let him know the team was out of the way and Babar prepared to start the process all over again. He maneuvered the long blade into place, deeper in this time, and he gave one last look around to ensure everyone was behind the danger point.

  “Cutting,” he yelled, and then powered up the spinning blade. He pulled the scarf over his nose and mouth again, and when the rotations reached their maximum speed Babar pushed the blade into the cavity.

  The blade sunk quickly into the soft stone, and he first cut a four-foot horizontal line just on three feet deep. He then pulled the blade and changed the angle and pushed in again. The blade sunk in smoothly, cutting like a hot knife into butter … until there came the god-awful sound of metal teeth striking something hard.

  The rock and steel fought against each other for a moment or two as the noise grew to near deafening and the entire machine bucked like a bronco.

  Men yelled from behind them, and Ejaz shut the blade down as Babar pulled it from the cut.

  “Ach.” He spat. “I think we have marble.”

  He walked forward to inspect the blade, and sure enough saw that the teeth were worn down. Several would definitely need replacing.

  “Well, that is us done for the day.” He knew that even though it wasn’t his fault, he and Ejaz would catch sorry hell for the broken equipment. It was just dumb luck, but that was the way it was here.

  Babar was about to turn away, when he froze. His forehead furrowed into a deep frown.

  “What’s up?” Ejaz said in the silence of the tunnel.

  Babar held up a hand, tilted his head, and concentrated. There it was again, a small click and pop like the sound ice cubes made when dropped into a glass of sweet cola.

  “I think …”

  Dust softly rained down on them.

  “Something there?” Ejaz came forward to join him and also leaned his head close to the wall of stone.

  Marble was an unwelcome guest in limestone mines. It was composed primarily of the mineral calcite and usually contained micas, quartz, pyrite, iron oxides, and graphite. Not only was it much harder than limestone, but it was less porous, and that meant it was the perfect barrier against hidden water – sometimes lake-sized bodies of water.

  The cracking started to become louder. Ejaz looked up at his friend, eyes widening. Babar returned the look. At that moment, both men knew what the sound meant. They turned to run.

  The entire wall exploded in at them, and countless millions of gallons of water from an ancient underground lake came at the men like a living thing, sweeping away men, rock, and the carts.

  In that freezing, black water the last thought that went through Babar’s mind was that the water tasted funny.

  *

  On the surface all the men momentarily froze, then dropped tools, turned, and sprinted away from the mineshaft as it began to spew dust and grit at gale force. Beneath their feet the ground jumped and jerked as deep below them the earth moved, cracked, and opened even deeper vents.

  Ibrahim Gardezi, the site manager, was the onl
y one to run toward the mine’s mouth but he skidded to a halt as the dust stopped spewing out, and was replaced by water surging to the surface.

  “No, no, no!” he yelled, putting his hands to his head.

  The geologists had assured them the ground here was stable. But then again, the government paid for the geologists, and who knew what their qualifications were. If they even had any at all.

  The muddy water began to create an ever-widening pond in the slight depression at the mine entrance, and he prayed that the men down below would either be washed out, or had made it to some sort of air pocket.

  He groaned, knowing that, even if they did, they would die, but just a little slower as no one would be able to reach them. The mine wasn’t all that profitable or important. And now, this disaster would end it. In the growing murky pool he saw death, and also unemployment for the surviving crew.

  And then something else – in the swirling water were tiny pale balls being buffeted by the surging tide. They were roughly the size of his fingernails, and there were hundreds if not thousands of them.

  Ibrahim knew that in geology there were many occurrences of spheroids, some caused by concretation where sedimentary rocks are pressed into spheres or ovals, water-smoothing of pebbles, and many other reasons for the odd but natural shape. But none he knew of ever floated.

  He sniffed, detecting an odd sulfurous odor. As he watched, some of the spheres washed up at the pool’s edge, and he went for a closer look. They looked like Styrofoam balls or even tiny eggs and he bent forward to scoop some up in the palm of his hand.

  He rolled some between his palm and finger and they felt soft, like leather, not like an eggshell at all. He held his hand up to eye level and watched as the hot sun dried their surface and they began to darken.