by J. C. Allen
“Me too!” added Kaylie.
“OK, so we’re stupid and wasted your time. I’m so sorry, Abby.”
“It’s not a total waste, sweetie — in Mayan times this spiral symbol was interpreted as a traveling vortex, supposedly representing how they traveled through space, and how they all disappeared.”
“That’s interesting, love,” he kept up the joke as the girls continued to giggle at the two adults’ game.
“Isn’t it, darling?”
“OK!” Alex interrupted. “You two are creeping me out now!”
“They’re just flirting,” Anna told her.
“More like teasing us,” Jessica more thoughtfully and correctly pointed out. “Dad knows we need a mother…”
Rick studied Abby’s features as they bantered back and forth. She had a disarming smile that instilled instant trust among the otherwise hard, sculpted features. Her hair was a deep black, her large eyes a muddy brown, which along with her dark complexion gave away the fact that she descended directly from American Indians. She was muscular, most likely due to the fact that she had spent nearly all 38 of her years digging in the hot sun, yet unmistakably feminine. Not an ounce of fat had collected on her over the years. Yes, Rick thought, she was an incredibly alluring woman, and that was not the only reason they had maintained a casual romance over the last half-dozen years. Abby always scoffed at the idea of being a mother though, and certainly resisted the thought of being a wife, afraid of the sedentary life she was sure would follow.
“I don’t know why you would even want a mother,” she lectured, with that irresistible smile, “with the father you have. I can’t say I’ve ever known three happier, healthier girls in all my life. What on earth could I offer that your dad can’t?”
The girls pondered that question a few seconds before Anna finally spoke up, “You could tell us about guys!”
Abby nearly choked laughing, “What?! You’d want advice from a 38-year-old woman who’s never even had a steady boyfriend? Besides, who could possibly know more about guys than… a guy!? And… he does tell you about guys, doesn’t he?” she shot back, glancing at Rick’s face.
Anna nodded, scrunching her face up to show displeasure, “Yeah, he does. He tells us to stay away from them!”
Abby laughed harder, taking a minute to compose herself. “I couldn’t possibly offer any better advice than that! Look at me — I’m 38 and still happy!” she told her, then altered to a more serious tone, “Honey, is there anything you would honestly rather ask me than your dad?”
Even though she’d directed the question at Anna, all the girls shook their heads no.
Abby smiled, “I didn’t think so. Heck, who do you think I go to when I need personal advice?”
Jessica looked up at him, reverently, “Dad? Really?” she asked.
“Really!” Abby answered
“But you’re lots and lots of fun and we could go shopping with you and stuff and it would be awesome if you were always here instead of a week here, two days there—”
“Jess! I’m always off digging up bones, remember? Besides, look at my wardrobe — I’m not a fashion guru, it’s all tan and denim utilitarianism for me. We have a lot of fun when there, I admit, and that’s never going to change. Do you think we would have as much fun without your dad there?”
Silence answered her.
“That’s what I thought! Now give him a hug and kiss for me and let’s get back to this cube!”
Rick mouthed the words, “Thank you,” and blew her a kiss… shielding it from the girls to avoid more ridicule.
During the entire discussion, the kids had been passing the cube around, banging, poking, squeezing and even talking to it.
“So, what do you think about it?” asked Rick.
“Well, some of the languages and symbols are oddly familiar to me. I’ve uncovered things with those same markings before but I don’t understand them. I usually consult Walt Stromberg — he’s an interpreter for the UN and has a passion for linguistics and cryptology. Do you care if I send him a copy of this video?”
“No, as long as he can keep it a secret.”
“OK, hold on... There, it’s on the way, I’ll send a message to him as well so he knows it’s private. Let me check to see if he’s online.”
She typed a message to him and nearly instantly got a reply. “He’s on; I’m going to invite him to our chat; he has no video.”
Rick shrunk her image and moved it up to the top right corner and dragged the message box open larger. ‘Figgeritout’ joined them in the chat window.
“Hi, Walt,” Abby wrote.
“Hi, Abby, and this must be Rick? ‘Fraggenstein’ could only be a gamer.”
“Yes, this is Rick, glad to meet you, Walt.” Rick typed.
“So, what’s this intriguing mystery?” Walt wasted no time asking.
“I sent you a video; didn’t you get it?”
“No. Wait, it’s coming now. I’m not on the information superhighway, like you, I’m on an old dirt road :)”
“Well, Rick’s daughter found this cube, it’s weird and it has writing all over it. All I could make out was a few Mayan numbers.”
“What Mayan numbers?” Rick asked.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you because I don’t know what it means, but did you see a bunch of dots and dashes grouped together?”
“Yeah… like Braille?”
“Exactly, it looks kind of like Braille. Those are Mayan numbers. They have a system based on the number twenty. It starts at the bottom, up to four dots across, and when it reaches five, they replace it with a bar and start on the next line. Four bars equals twenty. Like I found three numbers together, they are thirteen, twelve and seven, which translates to...” A long pause ensued as she calculated the answer, “exactly 5567”
“What’s that mean?” Rick asked.
“I don’t know, that’s why I didn’t mention it, but I noticed there are others by each entry. Let’s see, we have a negative 2150, a negative 8521, 131, and 1755 that I recognize immediately.”
“I don’t get it,” Rick said.
“I do!” chimed Walt. “Those are dates, this is amazing! Well, they’re most likely years, at least. They’re not Mayan dates either, the Mayan calendar was based on a 260-day year, which is thirteen months of twenty days each, which makes their years much shorter than ours, and that wouldn’t make sense here anyway!”
“Enough of the history lesson, let’s hear what you think and why,” Abby insisted.
“Yes. OK, well, these passages, at least the ones I understand, come from that time period!”
“As in?” Rick asked.
“Well, you know these Mayan symbols are from around 8000 BC, these glyphs are from around 2000 BC, Greek, Latin... all of them, especially the extinct languages, correspond to that general time period when the language was in use, but some I’ve never seen, like one at -3350, +4570, -566, etc.”
“Wait,” Rick tried to interrupt, “4570? That’s not possibly a date, neither is 5567.”
“Well…” Walt paused for dramatic effect, “wait until you hear the translation of the ones I do understand!”
“Waiting…” Rick answered as Abby typed the same at precisely the same time.
“This is loosely translated, as all of them basically say the same thing, but not exactly!”
“Get on with it Walter!” Abby wrote, just as he finished.
“It says, ‘Time is critical; follow the path; the vortex is the key’.”
Rick and Abby read the words simultaneously, their silence showed their confusion. Rick broke the trance first. “So, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, some of this writing is from tens of thousands of years ago and some is from… the future? That’s not possible.”
“I just translate, you historians and archeologists interpret! Hey, can I keep this video? I see some symbols that may provide a key to deciphering a few texts I never could translate!” Walt asked excitedly.
> “Certainly, Walt, as long as you don’t show anyone unless we say it’s OK.”
“Of course!” he agreed.
“Thanks, Walt,” Abby said.
“No problem. I’ll be around. I’m going to spread all this out and see what goes where. Let me know if you figure anything else out or need more help, this is very intriguing.”
They said their goodbyes to Walt, and Abby and Rick instantly went back to the video link. “I don’t believe it!” a sober Abby proclaimed.
“I don’t understand it, much less believe it!” Rick said, still dazed.
“Did I find something like… important?” Alex asked, stunned.
“I wish I could answer that for sure, honey, but my guess is yes.”
Alex stuck her tongue out at Kaylie, for teasing her about her future theory.
“Kaylie may have been right, too,” Rick allowed.
Kaylie stuck her tongue out at Alex this time.
“And you’re both still jealously fighting for his attention!” Anna teased.
“Too bad he’s got the hots for Abby!” Christy observed rather loudly.
“Enough!” Rick startled the girls into silence. “I love all of you and still have room for Abby too,” he winked at her.
“OK, so let me hear it, Rick, what makes you think Kaylie may be right, too?” inquired Abby.
“Well,” he diplomatically pulled Alex over to one knee and Kaylie down onto the other, wrapping them up in a three-way hug, “I know most, well, all of this, but let me try to put it together. All the writings about the Mayans talk about the ‘prophecies’ and ‘renewal,’ their purpose was supposedly the ‘balancing of the universe’ or something like that. What if those texts were just slightly misunderstood?”
“What do you mean?” Abby said, unable to follow.
“What I mean is even the Bible is subject to thousands of different translations and interpretations for thousands of different sects. Let’s hypothesize that ‘time travel’ was actually ‘travel,’ ‘prophecies’ were actually facts from the future and ‘renewal’ means fixing, or altering, the future. ‘Balancing the universe’ could also mean bringing time into sync, or, according to some physicists, bringing alternate universes into sync.”
“The Mayans had ‘strange metals,’ technology... this cube definitely qualifies. They had advanced mathematics. I suppose time travel would require that! Everything points to the Mayans being from the future if you look at it all that way. How else could anyone explain some of the descriptions? It all starts to make perfect sense now, as impossible as that seems. These Mayans could have gone back in time. But why?”
“To stop World War III?” Kaylie offered.
“I don’t think so. World War III would be more likely to happen in this century, not three thousand years from now. We would have obviously lived through that to develop time travel.”
“Maybe time travel was developed by aliens!’ Anna submitted, jokingly.
“Maybe it came from Uranus!” Jessica joyfully jabbed.
“Come on,” Rick struggled to fight back an enormous belly laugh, “that’s all possible too—”
“What? That it came from Anna’s big butt?”
“I’m gonna shove it up your—”
“Stop!” Rick shouted, twisting the enigmatic object from the two as they fought for control of it.
“Wait, you’re saying it could have been from the past, future, and aliens? So we’ve learned absolutely nothing about it then?” Christy deduced.
“Future aliens visiting the past,” Jessica concluded comically.
“I think I saw that movie on Sci-Fi last week, right after the one about the mutant creature from the sewers that ate half of New York. You’re all dorks!” Jessica pronounced, giggling.
“Why don’t you go watch a movie and leave us dorks alone so we can think and figure it out?” Anna growled.
Jessica turned to leave, “Sounds good to me. Let me know if you have any in… tell... i... gent thoughts!” she spat and skipped to the oversized couch, where she plunged over the back and settled face-down just within reach of the remote.
Chapter 7 — Following the Path
“OK.” the perturbed father attempted to regain control to organize their efforts, “I’m not saying aliens did it; I’m saying at this point we have to consider all possibilities that have any connection to what we know. What do we know of Atlantis?”
Blank faces stared back at him.
Abby stumbled for a reply, figuring none of the children had any, “Um, nothing really. I mean there are some individuals in my field who are convinced it existed, but even they have to admit there is no proof of ‘the lost city’ at all, just myth and rumor. I can try to find someone who studies the myth.”
“Abby, what do you know of the myths?”
“They suggest that Atlanteans were extremely technologically advanced, some theories are that they lived under water for thousands of years to avoid some cataclysm on Earth. Some suggest they just happened to have expanded to underwater before the human race was annihilated by a meteor and they lived there for thousands of years until Earth was habitable again and repopulated the planet. Some say they actually lived on what is now Antarctica before the Earth’s axis shifted and put them under ice, and some believe they lived on a continent that sank during an exceptional period of tectonic activity. So you see, there’s not a lot to go on—”
“That’s what they said about the Mayans a hundred years ago, just a myth, right?”
“Well, that’s true—”
“So when do they think this civilization existed?” Rick asked.
“Anywhere from 500 BC to 2,000,000,000 BC.”
“Hmm… are there any ‘dates’ on the cube that happen to go back an extremely long time?”
“I may have seen a five-digit, possibly a six-digit number or two. Those could be up to 64 million years.”
“Wow,” Alex muttered, “this is big…”
“Check to make sure, could you?” he asked curiously. “Then perhaps we can consult with some of these myth-chasers to see if anything clears up or gets cloudier.”
“The only fantasy nuts I know are asleep right now, but I’ll do that tonight,” Abby promised.
“That still leaves us with the enigma itself: the cube. What could it be? A message? An actual time machine? A clue? Directions?” Rick speculated.
“I want to know what’s in it,” Alex stated.
“I think I can answer those questions…” Kaylie submitted confidently.
All ears suddenly turned to her expectantly.
“I didn’t say I could solve everything! Chill everybody. I just said I think I can answer those questions!” she straightened back up and calmed herself as the others waited expectantly for her answer.
When she was sure she had their attention, she started, “Well, is it a message? Definitely: ‘time is critical.’ Is it some kind of directions? Yes: ‘follow the path.’ A clue? ‘The vortex is the key’ and it’s even possible that a time machine is inside. But, we don’t know why time is critical, where this path is or what it leads to, or what this vortex is the key to.”
Jessica strolled over to Rick, cupped her hands around his ear and whispered something for about ten seconds, then stood back, proud of herself.
“Brilliant!” Rick congratulated. “Best idea I’ve heard all night!”
A chorus of “What?” came from each mouth in perfect harmony.
“Jess decided we should all go out for ice cream, and then rent some movies, and Abby could leave right now and be here in time to watch them with us and stay for the weekend!”
As if someone pulled a plug and let all the air out of the room, everyone released their breath in one big sigh.
“Well, I don’t have any plans this weekend, why not? It’ll take about two hours to drive there, ninety minutes if I fly…” Abby decided quickly.
“In a space ship?” Alex asked.
“You could be he
re an hour ago in a time machine,” Christy contributed.
“Go to the future first and tell us what this thing is!” added Kaylie.
“And don’t forget to write down the lottery numbers for tomorrow,” Anna suggested.
“OK girls, let’s let Abby get moving; it’ll already be 9:30 or 10:00 by the time she gets here!”
“Yes. I’m going to hurry. I’ll see you all shortly. Bye.” Abby waved, blew a kiss and signed off.
“I haven’t seen Abby in like a year, I thought maybe you broke up,” Kaylie said.
“She didn’t even recognize us,” Christy observed.
“We’ve gone to see her the last four or five times because she was busy, and you girls have grown a lot in the last year. Don’t be hurt by it. We went to two digs with her last summer and back again to the second one just two months ago for spring break. She’s been there nearly nine months and just finished.”
“Oh,” Christy seemed to understand.
“Hurry up, go get ready, girls!”
Rick climbed the stairs, shoved his feet into his shoes, and exited through the kitchen door into the three-car garage.
The ‘65 Mustang was out of the question, as was the Dodge Viper. “Looks like door number three!” he announced. He punched the third button on the wall to open the farthest door, housing the beastly old Dodge Caravan. At least it was pimped out with a DVD player and an X-box, he mused. He climbed in and wheeled around front to await his five passengers.
The gang leisurely consumed their ice cream in the minivan then spent thirty minutes in Wal-Mart before hitting the video store, returning home just before 9:30. They filed downstairs to wait for Abby. Again, the strange relic was the center of attention, each trying to magically awaken the secret power they knew it possessed.
The doorbell rang at 9:45 and Anna hopped up with Jessie to race recklessly up the stairs. Jerking it wide open, they startled Abby. She stood there in worn blue jeans, knees and cuffs frayed, and a light brown tank top. A duffle bag that appeared to have been dragged through the entire Amazon jungle was slung over one shoulder like a sack of toys on Santa’s back. She had a leather purse flapping loosely over her other shoulder and a giant bag of cheese puffs in her arms, hugged to her body like a pillow. The girls quickly ushered her in and guided her down the stairs. She abandoned her purse and duffle bag near Rick’s door.
