“Is this where you think another cave is hidden?”
“Yes and another one over there.”
Otto followed the direction he was pointing and said,
“Well, let’s see if we can get them open shall we.”
Kirk had something else to do and so walked over to Jessika and said,
“I will be back in a few minutes.”
She smiled sweetly and said,
“Okay Mister Waller, take your time.”
The power of her eyes melted the harshness of her acted out indifference to him. Jessika saw him climb into the D-wing and lower into the watery tube. Apparently, whatever he was up to was outside the cave.
A few minutes later, camouflaged and hovering thirty feet above the Professor’s head, Kirk spoke to him through the external speakers.
“Professor, I am cloaked and hovering just above you. Though you cannot see me, can you hear me?”
Again, the Professor leapt to his feet, looked skyward and joyfully announced,
“Yes, I hear you.”
From a distance, Inspector Buruk saw the Professor stand, raise his arms, and stare up into the heavens as of talking to God. In an attempt to see what the Professor was looking at, he frantically focused his binoculars to the clouds but could see no God. Somehow that disappointed him. As a man of faith, Buruk was sure that he was looking at another man talking to divinity
The words the Professor heard from above disheartened him. Kirk said,
“You are being watched.”
He sadly understood that he was not going to be lifted up and shown what he had discovered. Dejected, he nodded his understanding and lowered his gaze to the lake. He then heard,
“Do something for us Professor. Your discovery of the shaft led us to discover a great cavern under your feet. Aside from that shaft there has to be another one somewhere. Because you have the freedom to move around without suspicion, while pretending to look for evidence of a lost civilization try to locate another entrance to the cave for us.”
When all was quiet and he sensed that the voice from the clouds had gone, the Professor looked to the lake. Seconds later, there it was again, a mysterious splash in the middle of the water. Invigorated with a new project he turned and started a slow walk back to the village. Once out of sight, Buruk walked across the field to where the Professor had been sitting and too looked high into the heavens. He understood that God could not be seen but still there was hope that he might hear divine words as well.
Chapter 25
Returning to the cave and with a clipboard in hand, Kirk went to each member of his team asking for a preliminary report. Still trying to smooth things over with Pia, he went to her first. Not seeing her in the cave, he asked Jessika where she had gone. Jessika was scanning a computer board and did not want to be disturbed. Simply pointing, she said,
“She found some bones at the end of that tunnel and is inspecting them.”
Turning away and heading for the tunnel, he heard her say,
“Be nice to her. You are acting like a little child.”
Slightly insulted at being chastised, he pouted and said,
“She started it.”
The source of light in the cave had not yet been examined or understood. The lights were just there. It was the same for the long tunnel leading to the vertical shaft. In the distance, he saw Pia bent over the pile of bones and seemingly inspecting them. Strangely, she was wearing a surgical mask. Bending down beside her, he asked,
“Why the mask?”
Still attentive to the bones she replied,
“Open air cadaver decomposition breeds parasites and fleas. Although they are old and dried out, there still might be airborne viruses about.”
Still examining the bones, she added,
“There is a mystery here. All the bones have been scattered about.”
Not wanting her to pay too much attention to that, he explained why he had moved them aside.
She then looked up at him, pointed to his neck and asked, “What’s that?”
Tilting his head, exposing the side of his neck he frantically asked,
“What? What do you see?”
Quickly Pia stabbed a hypodermic needle into his neck. After a quick exclamation of pain, he brought his hand up to the injury and stared at her. There was a suspicious smirk about her when saying,
“Sorry, Jessika said that you are such a baby about needles.”
With his hand still covering the stab wound, defensively he managed to utter, “I am not.”
She stood, removed her mask and said,
“While you were gone, I immunized Otto and Jessika against air borne pathogens as well. When you and Maria were in here and seeing all this, you should have been aware of the danger.”
He then asked a natural question,
“Is there a danger to us now?”
While walking out of the tunnel, Pia replied,
“Not after being immunized. I tried to contact Professor Maria Espinoza to get her inoculated as well but apparently she is off somewhere checking up on your chief security officer, Captain Santo Martinez.”
As she entered the main cave, she added,
“For the better part, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You were both wearing dark suits and the helmet. You were lucky.”
She then added,
“You both should have known better.”
In all sincerity and with a degree of difficulty he said,
“I apologize. Good work, I’m glad you came along.”
Outwardly ignoring the appeasement, inwardly she accepted it. While scanning the volume of the cave, Pia said,
“It’s a suspiciously cavernous cave, big enough to swing an elephant in.”
Kirk chuckled and said,
“Cat. The expression is big enough to swing a cat in.”
Pia nonchalantly shrugged and defended her reasoning,
“An elephant is bigger.”
From a distance, Jessika saw their friendly conversation and was pleased. Kirk was not pleased to see Otto approach her with that flirty stupid grin.
Chapter 26
When Santo’s head finally cleared and he recovered from bouncing around in a plummeting D-wing, he quickly recognized his dire situation. Because the canopy was clear, he saw that he had not crashed onto land but rather into the ocean. Frantic hands tried to reactivate the power grid but it was useless. Dr. Marls attempt to power up the D-wing had obviously failed. He had to face the fact that he was under the ocean in a sealed coffin.
Not knowing how deep under water he was, only a few feet or hundreds, he knew his only two options were to stay there and suffocate or take a chance, pry open the canopy and frantically swim for the surface. He selected the ‘take a chance’ option. Reaching into the storage area behind him, he gathered into his backpack all the essentials he thought he might need when hopefully reaching the surface.
Painfully, he recognized that his AK BASIC handgun was only going to act as an anchor on his frantic swim to the surface. He therefore snapped it out of the holster and crammed into the backpack. He also brought with him a hundred feet of thin nylon rope. He tied one end to the backpack and the other to his waist. He hoped that it was long enough to reach the surface and then he would pull it up. If he was deeper than a hundred feet, it did not matter anyway. As he pried open the canopy and the water rushed in, he took what he hoped would not be his last deep breath.
After a powerful kick off, muscular arms cut through the water and propelled him upward. By either extraordinary good luck or just good clean living, he broke through the surface after only a few yards of struggling. He then pulled up the rope tied to the backpack. Blessed twice was the discovery that he was only a few yards from shore. After a short swim, dragging the rope behind him, it became shallow enough to walk to shore, although greatly hindered by big waves and tripping over coral.
Stubborn persistence prevailed and soon he was sitting on a short stretch of beach
recouping his strength. When arm strength returned, the first thing he did was pull out his trusted AK BASIC handgun and snap it into his shoulder holster. For a reason understood only by warriors, Santo knew that as long as he had his gun, everything was going to be okay. Or so he thought.
He stood and looked around his new surroundings. He understood that it was a volcanic island now overgrown with foliage of whatever seeds the winds or tides managed to carry here. He looked across a vast stretch of beach and saw what appeared to be a large boat anchored a short distance off shore.
The closer he got to it, the more he saw that it was anything but a yacht. If anything, it was a crumbling image of a fishing boat. Walking closer, he saw five men huddled around what appeared to be fishing nets and perhaps repairing them. When they looked up and saw him approach in the distance, for an unknown reason, at least to Santo, they panicked, gathered up their nets and scrambled to the small dory dragged up on the sand.
However, Santo was faster and managed to grab one of the slower men by the scruff of the neck. He looked native but from what country was not physically clear. Santo snapped at the skinny old man, demanding,
“Why are you running away from me?”
He did not understand Portuguese and in a frightful manner said in French,
“Don’t kill me. I am only a lowly fisherman.”
French was not one of Santo’s strong languages but it was good enough to communicate.
After Santo had convinced him that he was stranded on the island, accepting the story, the others came back. Although still filled with apprehension for a stranger, oddly they all poked a finger into his stomach. Not seeing the importance of it, Santo accepted it as a strange ritual from strange men. While they continued to repair the nets, they explained that they only land here for coconuts from the shore trees but never in the middle of the island or even out of sight of the ocean. Apparently, they are afraid of something in the middle of the island.
While looking out to the anchored fishing boat he saw it was a sailboat. Even by his limited knowledge of computers, he understood how the boat was able to penetrate the mysterious shield that froze approaching computers. Obviously, there was no computer aboard that scow. Clearly, whatever had created the computer hack surrounding this island was intended to keep out a more advanced technology.
After politely sipping from an offered bottle of some sort of alcohol that tasted like fermented fish guts and eyeballs, he tried his best not to show revulsion when saying, “Thank you.” He then asked if anybody lived on the island, specifically a Caucasian man just like him. The resounding answer was, “No.” When asked if they had ever seen anything unusual, as if a coordinated choir all five men nodded and replied,
“Ah yes, many times.”
When asking what they had seen so many times, all five pointed to the center of the island and related a story of strange tall men erecting towering posts looking like sail masts. Many posts stood like a small forest sticking straight up. When asking who the men were, all five showed fear and hesitation. Finally the bravest fearfully uttered,
“They were not like us. They are tall and very strong. One could carry a post clearly hundreds of pounds, maybe a ton, like it were a feather.”
It was what another fisherman said that made Santo wonder if they had not been out to sea way too long.
“And we could see right through them.”
Another got brave and added,
“That is true. They are like jellyfish. There was nothing solid about them at all.”
As they all nodded their agreement, another added,
“Because we cannot see through you and you are solid, we knew you were not one of them.”
Santo thanked them for their help and asked what direction on the island these strange posts were. They pointed to a hill and one of them said,
“You will see them just over that hill.
It only took a few minutes to scamper up the hill of dense bushes and overgrowth. Once on the crest, he looked out over the island and saw what the fishermen were talking about. In the distance, he saw very tall slender white posts clustered together as if a strange forest. Many had what he deduced as strange writing or at the very least, strange symbols etched into them. He was reminded of the obelisk in the center of the Vatican in St. Peter’s Square and the tall ones in Egypt. In fact, for an unknown reason, most ancient cultures erected tall obelisks just like these. Zak had his theories, but for now, that was all they were.
From his backpack, he took out an instrument that detected energy fields and pointed it at the bizarre forest. Although it was computer operated, strangely it worked. He wondered if the cantankerous Dr. Marls might be wrong when claiming that there was no such thing as a force field. Clearly, once past the shield, computers worked. Santo was surprised to see that his instrument detected massive energy spikes. The readings were so high the gauge shot to the top of the scale and froze.
As he ventured down into the valley and entered the forest of posts, he estimated them to be at least seventy-five feet high and as many as a hundred. His camera was busy taking pictures of the etching on the sides for Zak to interpret. Inspired by interest, he reached out to touch one of them. He was not shocked by what happened, just surprised. His hand went through the smooth surface as if it were not there at all. The ensuing sparks and snapping static prompted a quick withdrawal. It felt like a mild electrical shock but after an inspection of his hand, he saw that there was no damage.
Oddly, he was starting to get a headache. He was reminded of Maria’s propensity to get headaches whenever getting close to dimensional gates. Then, what the fishermen said about seeing right through the odd figures, brought fear of a dimensional warp to mind. He decided to exit the forest of obelisks as quickly as possible.
Safely away from potential harm and the peculiarity of the pillars, he recalled a mission he and Waldorf were on a few years ago. In order to retrieve secret documents concealed under a massive granite boulder weighing in excess of a thousand tons, Waldorf attached to it what he explained was a phase distorter. Apparently it sent the massive boulder part way into another dimension, but only part way. That boulder and the post he had just touched vibrated in the same manner. Because of gravity distortions between the dimensions, something Santo still did not understand, Waldorf was able to push the boulder aside as if it were a feather floating on air.
After a few deep breathes, he felt the pressure in his head subside somewhat. Whatever the posts were and whatever their function, he understood that they were not of this world. Just when he thought his head was clearing, a voice echoed somewhere between his ears.
“Good afternoon Captain Martinez. Why are you snooping around my island?”
It was odd enough to hear a voice in his head and to exaggerate that oddity, he wondered how it knew his name. Facing the forest of posts, he gathered composure and as nonchalant as if it were a pleasant conversation he replied,
“Good afternoon to you as well. May I ask who I am talking to?”
Again, from inside his head he heard,
“I am truly hurt that you do not recognize my voice.”
Because the question of whom he was talking to went unanswered, Santo changed tactics and asked,
What are these columns for?”
The disembodied voice replied,
“They amplify universal vibrations and synchronize them to this planet’s signature. They function as interdimensional aerials. These aerials and all others on this planet pick up worldwide computer transmissions and transfer them to another dimension. The aliens on the other side do not need to leave their planet to control our computers, ergo, control everything on earth.”
It was a perfectly normal question.
“Who are they?”
“They, Captain, are who will soon be the inhabitants of this planet. They are the future of who will soon own this world. They are the Anunnaki from centuries ago.”
Santo was dumbfounded. Because there
was a moment of silence, the voice in his head again echoed,
“Are you confused Captain? Of course you are. I failed to realize that you are a man of action, a killer. You killed the Duchess. How could you possibly understand what has happened here? You might have saved the Vatican from the wrath of the Duchess but it was only a short victory.”
Suddenly Santo understood who was talking to him. It could not be anybody else. He said
“Good afternoon Niko.”
Niko Waltz was the computer genius working for the Duchess.
“That is correct Captain. Have you ever heard the adage, ‘revenge is best served cold’? Well it is not true. However, part of that adage is true, the part about ‘revenge is best served.’ Welcome to my island Captain. Welcome to my revenge for what you have done to me. I have waited a long time for your return. I knew that once you discovered a piece of the computer belonging to the vile Great Grays was missing that you would reason I was the only one who could have taken it. I knew you would figure it out and eventually enter my trap. Welcome to my web said the spider to the fly.”
Although not threatened by the voice, Santo did however defend himself, saying,
Earth Before Man Page 12
