Critical Dawn

by Darren Wearmouth

  “It’s in here somewhere,” he said, using his best Columbo accent, realizing he was both terrible at it and completely out of time. All the cool kids were doing Horatio Caine one-liners these days apparently.

  Pippa groaned. Shook her head. “Don’t you watch anything newer than the early ‘80s?”

  “Don’t watch TV. Don’t have time. Except for our productions, of course.”

  “Liar. Who did we get to present the Rogue Pharaohs of Egypt production?”

  “Umm … it was that woman, you know, the one with the hair. She was in that thing with that other woman …”

  “You mean Zahi Hawass, the superstar Egyptologist … A guy.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.” Charlie flashed her a smile.

  “Zahi is a megastar in the field. You really ought to brush up on this kind of stuff. You never know who might drop into the office.” She took a sip from her beer and avoided eye contact.

  That was her way of putting him in his place.

  He’d come to recognize it over the years.

  The “not looking at you while I’m being the boss” effect started out with her getting tired of him leaving ropes and carabiners laying around on her sofa or his various outdoors pursuits magazines piled up in the bathroom.

  It crept in at the office too. There was no problem when she was giving someone else a piece of her mind.

  Her forthrightness was one of the many things he liked about her. Her ability to communicate her thoughts and ideas helped get her to her current position in life.

  With Charlie though, she was different. Tempered, almost coy.

  Charlie took the advice onboard and finished his beer. He felt a bit stupid now. Although he was technically excellent at his job, he had to admit that it wasn’t his true love or focus in life.

  That would be the outdoors. He’d much rather be climbing down into caves to look at the rocks, feel them with his own bare hands, than survey them from above with GPR. Even during his time in the National Guard, he would prefer the weekends away on training out in the wilds than back at the barracks doing endless drills.

  Again, technically, he was excellent. He wondered if that wasn’t actually part of his problem; things came too easy to him at times, and he lost focus.

  Nature wasn’t easy. Nature wasn’t something you could conquer like stripping and cleaning a rifle or running acres of radar surveys. It required respect and a humility to know you’re not top dog.

  Being in the wild outdoors taught him that.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I sometimes don’t focus on the everyday details as much as I should.”

  “No, it’s fine. Forget about it,” Pippa said. “Besides, this stuff with the bead is more important than any of that. Though I’d totally recommend watching Rogue Pharaohs. That was a great production. It’s what nailed this job with the Geographic. One of the production workers over there knew a guy who knew a guy … Sorry, I’m rambling.”

  “Must be exciting,” Charlie said, pointing to the files over the table, “to have stumbled across something like this. It could be huge if it checks out.”

  Pippa leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, a single piece of paper in hand. “I’m still trying to work out if we’re being scammed. I know the guys and gals on the dig. The site manager and I were present. The beads were definitely within the skeletal remains. If someone had put them there after the fact, they’d have had to have somehow dug beneath the old soil on top without disturbing it.”

  “And that there,” Charlie said, lowering the paper, “is the crux of the issue. It’s not possible. We’re talking basic physics here. Unless David Blaine does have magic abilities and is for hire for archeological pranks, I think we have to realize that this bead, whatever it is, was with the bodies at the time.”

  Leaning back against the booth, Pippa sighed and let the piece of paper fall to the table. It was a printed photo of the dig site as the skeletons were first exposed. She had ringed a blue bead with a red pen.

  “I don’t know about you, but I need another beer.” Pippa got up, waited for his answer. “Hey, dufus, the boss is offering to get you a beer. Yea or nay?”

  “Nay, boss, I’m good. Just a Coke will be fine if you’re buying though.”

  Charlie inwardly sighed with relief as Pippa approached the bar. Patty hadn’t stopped giving him awkward looks since he arrived, and he didn’t really want to address that issue.

  While he waited, he rifled through Pippa’s reports and printouts. One of them was the close-up shot of the bead, showing the intricate, almost circuit-like patterns. One thing that struck him was the uniformity.

  If they were manmade and from the sixteenth century, then whoever had made them had developed technology way beyond anything previously discovered. The straight lines and complicated pattern weren’t possible by hand.

  There was a painter, Giotto di Bondone, who was famed for painting a perfect freehand circle, but even with that level of excellence, Charlie had a hard time imagining someone carving these circuits so accurately.

  He sat back and looked up at the old TV hanging down from behind the bar on a wall mount that always looked entirely inadequate for holding up such an old, ancient device. The TV had those wood panels on the front and a thick, bulbous glass screen. Despite that, the speaker still worked, and as the bar hadn’t yet filled up, Charlie could make out the sound.

  CNN was covering an extreme weather report. From the pictures, he guessed it was somewhere in the Far East—China or the Philippines perhaps. The graphic showed a satellite image of a massive hurricane building its power over the … Wait, that’s not the Indian Ocean, he thought.

  Charlie got up and approached the bar to get a closer look. Pippa joined him, passing him a Coke. “What are you watching? I thought you didn’t watch TV?”

  “I don’t, but it caught my eye. Listen.”

  The reporter squared in the corner of the screen brought a mic to her mouth. Her hair was blowing wildly, and she had to shout over the noise.

  “As I was saying,” the reporter said, “I’m on Ocean Beach, California, and already the wind is reaching in excess of eighty miles per hour. The satellite imagery is showing hurricane Mel gaining power. The reports from the National Weather Service are suggesting it’s a Category 3 storm with potential to hit Category 4 by the time it reaches land.” The reporter leaned into the wind. Behind her, trees were bending and snapping.

  A branch flew past her, hitting against the camera.

  “Back to the studio. I have to go. I can see it from here … I’ve never …”

  The report cut off. The anchors took over. “Thank you, Hilary, that’s looking terrible out there for Californians. Just to confirm, a state of emergency has been called as citizens find safe places to wait out the storm. In other news …”

  “Holy shit,” Pippa said. “A C4? What the hell’s going on these days?”

  “What do you mean? It’s one storm.”

  “You must have missed the broadcast. India’s been hit with a tsunami, and there’s two more storms gathering in the Atlantic.”

  “Man, the Earth must be pissed at us for something.”

  “Yeah, hardly surprising though. It’s cyclical. Mini ice ages, mega storms, all that jazz. Glad I don’t live on the West Coast. You got any friends or family out there?”

  “Nah, you?”

  “All East-coasters.”

  Charlie and Pippa sat back in their booth.

  “So what are we gonna do?” Charlie said. “About the bead. Publish our findings?”

  Pippa took a long drag on her beer, placed the bottle to one side, and sighed. “You know. I’ve been doing this job for a while now, and never have I been so stumped. It’s just beyond explanation. But we’re scientists, we don’t do non-explanations. We do rational logic. I have to admit, it’s freaking me out a little. I mean, just look at this damn thing; it doesn’t even look like it’s made from a terrestrial material.”


  Pippa took the small baggy containing the bead from the inside pocket of her favorite biker’s jacket, its elbows and collars worn with use. She opened the bag and let the bead drop onto the stack of papers before picking it up between thumb and forefinger.

  They both leaned in to look closer at it.

  “The light doesn’t fall on it right either,” Charlie said. “Unless I’m being stupid.”

  “No, you’re right.” Pippa held it up at an angle beneath a low hanging lamp. As she turned it, the light didn’t seem to shine on all surfaces.

  “That’s fucking weird. It didn’t do that earlier when I checked in the office.”

  “Maybe it’s just an effect of the type of light in here,” Pippa added, still twisting the curious blue bead in the light. “But look, on the sections where it’s not glossy, you can kind of see a texture. Almost like a finger print, but much finer.”

  “I think we should wait until Mike’s done his digging. You just never know what he might find. It could be the rational explanation we’re—”

  “Jesus fuck!” Pippa jerked back in her chair, shook her hands. A small spark burned her fingers. The bead fell from her hand and bounced off the tabletop.

  Charlie launched forward to try and catch it, but he was too slow, and it hit the floor … and stayed there, in place, as though it were a magnet attracted to another magnet. It didn’t shake or roll away. Nothing.

  “Are you okay?” Charlie said as he bent down to reach for it.

  Pippa grabbed his arm. “No,” she said, showing her fingers. A burn blister had come up on her skin. “The damn thing electrocuted me. Here.” She handed him the plastic bag.

  Turning it inside out, Charlie covered the bead and lifted it off the ground. There wasn’t any magnetic resistance as he was expecting. Patty and the bikers stared at him. He just smiled and leaned back into the booth.

  “There’s only one thing we can possibly do,” Charlie said, sealing the bag and placing it on top of the files.

  “What’s that?”

  “We go to the dig site and do some more research first hand. Just you and I.” Charlie checked his watch. “If we set off now, we can get there in the morning. I’ll drive.”

  “It’s eight hours away,” Pippa said.

  “So? I was going to drive about that with the guys anyway. Don’t worry, I won’t play any cheesy ‘80s rock. Let’s grab some supplies and head off. Think of it as an adventure.”

  “I’m thinking of my bed and the need to sleep,” Pippa said.

  Charlie gathered up the files and placed the bead in his wallet. “Come on, you can sleep in the truck. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “Fine, fine, but let’s stop off at the apartment first. Let me feed the cat and get a change of clothes.”

  “Excellent!”

  Charlie escorted Pippa out of the bar, his heart racing with the excitement of everything. With the electrocution and odd behavior, he knew humans couldn’t have made the bead, and he was going to go to its source and find out what the hell was going on himself … with Pippa by his side. Things didn’t get much better than that in Charlie’s world.

  Chapter Four

  Ben leapt from his seat and raced out of the Operations Room. He was thrown against the corridor wall after the ship jolted. Space turbulence or a meteor shower, he thought. This happened occasionally. Deep space wasn’t quite the smooth cruise depicted on 21st Century movies. It was an incessant rumble with the occasional bumps and rattles.

  He skidded around the entrance of the common room. Erika sat hugging herself, shaking.

  “Are you okay?”

  “What was that, Ben?”

  “There’s all kinds of debris out there. Relax, it’s nothing we haven’t been through before.”

  She pointed to the internal wall. “Didn’t you feel it? Before the bump, I heard a bang below. The wall vibrated.”

  “Probably the same thing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No. I was sitting with my back against—”

  Ben was lifted off his feet and slammed against the wall. Erika screamed, grasping her chair. Plates and cups fell from the dish drainer and smashed on the floor. The whole place seemed to shudder.

  An electronic alarm started to loudly pulse, drowning out Erika’s cries. Ceiling lights flickered. The common room door started to steadily slide shut. It was probably an isolation procedure in case of a fire. Ben hadn’t seen it before.

  He didn’t want to get trapped inside. Maria might need his help in the Operations Room.

  Ben dove to the door and held it open with the sole of his boot, using the opposite side of the frame for support. He strained against the power, but was slowly losing the battle.

  “Quick, jump under my legs,” Ben said.

  “What’s happening? Where we going?”

  The force increased as the door mechanism’s pitch grew louder.

  “Just do it, Erika. I can’t hold on for much longer.”

  “Shouldn’t we stay–”

  “Do you want to get trapped in here?”

  Ben’s words seemed to propel her into action. She dropped to the floor and slid underneath his quivering right leg. He immediately jumped to the side and rolled away. The door sprang across and hammered closed with a thump.

  He pulled Erika to her feet. “All hands on deck. Come on.”

  The Operations Room door was closed. Ben peered through the thick plastic window, which had frosted through age. He could just make out the blurred figures of Maria sitting at the console and Ethan standing over her. He thumped his fist against the plastic. The two inside both turned. Maria ran to the window and shouted something. He couldn’t hear a word above the alarm blasts, shook his head, and gestured to his ear. She pointed to the console. He couldn’t see clearly past a few feet.

  “Is there a way to open it? An emergency switch or something?” Erika said.

  “No, they’re controlled externally. We might have a fire on the ship. Wait here.”

  He opened a cupboard next to the supply hatch and rummaged through the tools. Ben grabbed a wrecking bar and returned to the door. Erika was trying to communicate something through the window.

  “Stand back. Give me some room,” Ben said.

  He’d got used to the squashed confines, but now it felt like the walls were closing in. Ben faced his first real situation. The bellowing alarm and blinking lights had made the place come alive in a way he hadn’t witnessed before. The prospect of having more excitement in his life suddenly became a lot less appealing.

  After managing to jam the toe of the bar into a groove, he placed his foot against the wall for leverage and heaved. The door opened a couple inches then snapped elastically shut.

  “Give me a hand. Grab the end of the bar,” he said.

  The door squeezed open a few more inches. Ben felt sweat running down his back. He was about to let go when a chair leg shot through the opened space. The door banged against it and settled, leaving a small gap.

  Maria stood on the other side.

  “We need you in here. There’s a serious problem,” she said.

  “Get Ethan over here. It’ll take the four of us to get this open,” Ben said. He turned to Erika. “Find something solid to wedge in the gap.”

  “Like what?”

  “Grab the toolbox. That should do it.”

  He gazed into the Operations Room. Three of the critical measurements were red. The fourth was green, stable. An electric crackle came from the console followed by a wisp of smoke.

  Four hands appeared, gripping around the door.

  Ben positioned the bar. Erika returned, leaned under him with the toolbox by her feet.

  “After three,” Ben shouted. He tried to count down between the rhythmic pulses of the alarm. “One … Two … Three.”

  They managed to create a two-foot gap. All seemed to be shouting through exertion in unison. Erika grunted next to his ear.

  “Now. Do it,” Ben sai
d.

  She ducked down. The door closed a few inches against their pull. Erika slid the box in place.

  Ben couldn’t hold any longer. He let go and bent over double, resting his hands on his knees, gulping for air. The door crunched against the toolbox, but it held firm and did its job.

  He straightened and edged through the gap. A burning smell hit him as he approached the console. Not like the type when he over-cooked food, this odor had a bitter edge. The crew converged around him.

  “We’ve escalated the problem. No response,” Maria said.

  Ben looked at the switches on the console. “You tried the manual override?”

  “Same thing. What can we do?”

  He was struggling to hear a thing. “Take the bar and stop that fucking noise.”

  Erika grabbed the tool from the floor. Ethan dragged a chair to the corner of the Operations Room. In each area of the compartment was a circular plastic speaker on the ceiling.

  Ben flicked the override switches. Nothing. He pressed the console screen to escalate. No response.

  He pressed again several times. “Come on.”

  The fourth critical measurement shot from green to red.

  Sparks fizzed from behind the console, spitting across the room. Maria jumped back.

  Thumping came from behind him as Ethan and Erika attacked the speaker.

  Ben depressed the call button. “Master Control. This is the Operations Room. Do you copy?” He waited for a response. “Master Control. Are you there?”

  Maria shook his shoulder. “All eight are red. All eight are red.”

  He glanced at the status bars.

  The alarm took on a high-pitched whistle. Ben turned to see that they’d broken off the protective plastic cover. Maria cupped her ears from the piercing sound. Ethan winced as he thrust the bar against a concave, black internal structure.