by Hep Aldridge
The lead tech said all systems were in the green; it was working.
“Start drilling,” he said. The techs both in hazmat type suits, breathing purified exterior air, moved another machine in place and began drilling in from the top in a corner of the box. It was a slow process… any material that was brought to the surface by the drill was sucked into a special sealed container, just in case. When they had drilled through, they inserted another device that sampled the interior air. The techs looked at computer readouts for a couple of minutes and then pronounced it all clear, no anomalies. A vacuum device had been used to evacuate the interior air into another sealed container and replaced it with air from the lab. A fiber optic camera was being inserted as we entered.
When we approached the table, there was an image on the large screen in the lab. We could make out what had looked like the packet and as the camera slid further in, we could see the pouches. But what puzzled us was what they were sitting on. It was wrapped in a material that had a sheen or gloss to it. The scans were still up on another screen, where there appeared to be a void in the place we now saw the wrapped object that the packet and pouches were sitting on.
Now, Doc said, “What the hell?” The camera moved further, and we could tell that this looked like a normal wooden box on the inside and there was nothing that would cause us to hesitate opening it.
The techs removed the fiber optic camera, and began the process of looking for a seam, where the lid on the box met the box itself. It took a few minutes, but they found it and made a cut through the pitch, following the seam around the box’s perimeter. Once completed, they used thin stainless prying devices to work the lid loose. This took time since we didn’t want to destroy any part of the container.
Now, there were four of us working on the lid, Fitz on one side, me on another, and the techs on the other two. The lid had a great seal. This was a precision-made container, but slowly the lid rose and in a few more minutes was lifted off and set on the table. We cautiously moved forward to look inside. There were the two what now looked to be leather pouches; there was a packet in there also wrapped in what looked like leather, all sitting on top of something covered in what appeared to be shiny Mylar fabric.
I reached in with my white-gloved hands and lifted out one of the pouches, fearing the leather would disintegrate as I moved it. Amazingly, instead of being brittle and hardened by time, the leather was supple and pliable. I set the pouch on the table and then removed the second in the same condition. They were each about the size of a large grapefruit, and I could feel their contents moving around like marbles in a bag. I next removed the packet, also wrapped in leather, but just as supple as the pouches. I would examine them all more closely, but for now my gaze was locked onto the Mylar-looking wrapped cube they had been sitting on.
I reached in and got my hands around it and lifted. There was weight to the cube, and I asked Fitz to take one side and help me lift it out. We could just get our fingers down the sides between the wooden box and the sides of the cube and lifted it out and set it on an adjacent table. I heard Doc, Joe, and Dimitri all gasp at once and turned to look back into the box. On the bottom were ingots of not gold but of silver, I thought, glistening in the lab’s lights, untarnished? What elicited the gasp was that each ingot was engraved with a strange set of hieroglyphics or writing of some sort.
As we looked at each other, our respective eyes the size of saucers, Doc said, “Holy shit, Colt, what the hell have we found?"
I felt like a kid in front of those big department store display windows at Christmas time with all the animated scenes and decorations vying for your attention. Where to go first, the box, the pouches, the packet, the strange cube…? I chose the cube. Fitz was standing there, staring at the wrapping as if afraid to touch it.
I walked back to the table and said, “Well, let’s see what we’ve got,” and removed the shiny wrapping. It was lightweight, very light but with substance to it. Not like tissue paper used for gift wrapping but unlike any other material I could describe. As I removed it and lay it aside, I uncovered a silver cube that took my breath away. I felt light-headed and took a half step back at the same time Fitz did. We both were awestruck by the sight before us, a gleaming silver cube about six inches high, and 10 to 12 inches square.
The cube was covered in what looked like embossed or engraved designs, pictures, and writings. I didn’t recognize any of the designs. Now, I put both hands on the table to support myself as my mind swirled. “Doc, get over here,” I said He was still looking at the silver ingots in the box. He turned and hurried to where I was standing and looked down at the silver cube.
Quiet for a moment and then, “What the freaking hell is this?” he exclaimed loud enough to draw everyone to the table. By now, we were all standing around in shock or a reasonable facsimile of shock.
Fitz hadn’t said a word yet, but he finally spoke. “Colt, I think we better sit somewhere and talk,” he said in an even tone that did not reflect the level of emotion he was experiencing.
Joe had moved to the pouches and had untied the leather thong that held one of them closed. He said, “Guys, before we do that, I think you may want to see this,” as he poured its contents on the table. Dazzling dark green and light green irregular shaped stones fell out in a pile, most the size of marbles, some smaller and some larger. There was no doubt we were looking at raw emeralds. He had untied the second bag and, as he opened it to pour its contents out, he uttered a very elongated, “Ssshiiiitttt,” and poured out an assortment of red, blue, white, and green faceted stones that lit the room with their reflected colors. Once again, the size of marbles but with some much larger, they were cut in triangles, diamond shapes, smooth half circles and others were just smoothed in their natural shape.
The silence was deafening; it felt like it was getting hard to breathe when I said to no one and everyone, “Yeah, let’s sit somewhere and talk." We followed Fitz to the door, pulling ourselves away from the tables that held our amazing discoveries.
As Fitz got to the door, he pressed a button on the intercom, and a voice came back, “Go ahead, clean room B.”
“This is Fitzsimmons. Place this lab on security level Alpha. The only personnel allowed entry are Johnson and Stevens, who are on site now, and Dr. Burnett’s team. You have their badge and biometric info.”
“Yes, Sir, Colonel,” the voice replied, “security protocol Alpha at clean room B now initiated."
As we opened the door to move, the large viewing window in the clean room and exit door window darkened. By the time we were out of the clean room, the window was black, and two armed guards came through the entrance/exit door. They took up positions next to the entrance to the clean room. As we walked into the hallway, two more armed guards were standing outside a doorway down the hall. Fitz led us four doors down the hallway between the two guards and into a medium-sized conference room. The door closed with a soft click and a voice came over hidden speakers saying, “Room secure.
Fitz pulled up a chair and fell into it. I couldn’t sit down and began pacing as the others took seats. Everyone had a glazed look in their eyes, and no one spoke. They were trying to process what they had just seen in their own way. Finally, Fitz said, “So?"... “I think I know what I saw, but I’m not sure.”
Still pacing, all I could say was, “Holy shit… Holy shit… shit!" I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around what we had just seen. There was a lot to grasp, and my mind was bogging down trying to process it.
Doc said, “Sit, Colt, for Christ’s sake, you’re driving me crazy with the pacing,” as he replaced his head in his hands looking at the table. Junkyard was staring into space; Joe was looking at his hands clasped on the table, and Dimitri had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face I have ever seen. I pulled out a chair and sat down, scanning the group. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I couldn’t stop looking at everyone.
Fitz said, “Okay, will someone please tell me what we just saw
!”
After a short pause, “Yeah,” Doc said. “I’ll tell you what we saw, something that was freaking impossible; that’s what we saw!" A few seconds later, a chime sounded and Fitz hit a key on the computer that was built into the conference table. One of the tech’s voices from the clean room said, “Colonel, pardon the interruption, but I think you will want to see this.”
Fitz hit a couple more keys on the tabletop, and a large screen appeared in the wall, and the face of Johnson was looking at us. Fitz said, “Go ahead, Johnson.”
The tech looked flustered as he began. “I figured it was better to show you this than try to explain it… because… well… I can’t."
“Get on with it, man,” an exasperated Fitz responded. Now, the emotion was showing itself.
“Yes, Sir, we wanted to try and determine if the silver cube was hollow, so we ran another scan on it.” There was a pause.
“And?” Fitz said.
“And this, Sir,” an image from the scanner appeared on the screen, showing nothing!
“What the hell is this?” Fitz exploded, “Some kind of joke!"
“No, Sir; No, Sir, let me show you." Now the screen split, and two images appeared, one with the cube sitting under the scanning device, and next to it, the same view with the box removed. “Sir, the cube does not show up on our scanner. This is a live shot with the video camera on the scanner, the other with the scanner image, Sir."
“What?” Fitz exclaimed.
“Colonel, we have run every diagnostic on the equipment twice and everything is functioning properly. Plus, we have used every scan mode we have with the same results, NO IMAGE of the cube shows up!"
“That’s impossible!” Fitz exclaimed.
“I know, Sir, that’s what we thought, but I have something else." The tech turned to Stevens and told him to remove the cube and place the pouch under the scanner. He did so, made an entry into the computer, and the pouch showed up on both screens, a video image and a three-dimensional MRI scan type image. The tech faced us again and said, “Now, watch this,” he turned his head and said, “Go ahead,” and Stevens draped the silvery cover material we had taken off the silver block over the leather pouch, the pouch disappeared from the scanning image, but we could still see the silver material covering it on the video.
Our collective jaws hit the floor; this was insane, not possible, and freaking unbelievable! “Sir, there’s one more thing,” Johnson said. “We ran the cube through Big Mo, and we get a flat line; nothing on our periodic chart shows up."
Fitz stared at the tech for a minute and then said, “Keep checking. I want to know everything about all that stuff, and I want it yesterday!"
“Yes, Sir Colonel,” and the screen went blank.
Joe looked at Fitz and asked, “Big Mo?"
Fitz said, "Yeah, that’s our name for a piece of equipment we developed; it’s like a mass spectrometer on steroids."
“And it picked up nothing?" Joe asked, "Nothing?"
“That’s what the man said,” Fitz replied.
“How is that possible?" Joe asked.
"Hell, I don’t know how any of this can be possible,” Fitz replied, looking around the table at all of us, waiting for someone to speak up. “Why can’t we figure out what the cube is made of, why does that material make shit disappear in the scanner, why was the leather in perfect shape on those pouches after 300 years, what were those markings on those bars, and what was that writing on top of the block?" he finished. “We need answers.”
I looked around at everyone and said, “And that’s the one thing we don’t have.”
Chapter Sixteen
Fitz got up from the table and walked to the wall, pushed a button, and a panel slid back, revealing a full bar.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I need a drink,” he said as he took a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 off a shelf and poured a glass half full. I got up and walked to the bar and retrieved a bottle of 12-year-old single malt scotch, got a couple of ice cubes from the dispenser there, and poured myself a healthy drink. As we sat back down, the rest of the guys had gotten up and were doing the same.
Jack Daniels, Vodka, and Gin filled glasses; the sound of ice clinking was the only sound in the room.
Once we were all seated at the table, I said, “Doc, did you check out the leather packet?”
“I did, and it’s a leather bound-journal. I only looked at it briefly; it’s handwritten in Spanish.”
“Then you need to check it out; that’s the one thing we haven’t examined."
Doc replied, “Right, Colt, I’m hoping it will give us some answers, plus I want to inspect the crate itself.”
“Good idea,” I said.
Joe looked around the table at all of us and said, “I don’t want to sound like a crackpot or anything, but there is no way that what we saw could have originated in 1715!"
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Dimitri said.
Our resident rocket scientist, Nils, chimed in, “In all my experience at NASA, I’ve never seen any materials exhibit characteristics like that, and I’ve dealt with a lot of exotic metals." Everyone around the table nodded, including Fitz.
I said, “I’ve got a feeling we just opened Pandora’s Box, and I don’t think she was from around here!"
Doc tossed down the rest of his drink and got up, saying, “I'll get the book,” And left the room. I asked Fitz to pull up the images of the cube that the techs had saved to the hard drive during their investigations. A 3D image of the cube appeared on the screen and, as it rotated, I told him to zoom in on the top, so we had a full-screen shot of the amazing graphics on it.
After staring at the image for a few more minutes, I said, “There’s no doubt about it; those engravings bear some resemblance to Egyptian and Maya hieroglyphs, and that looks to be Sumerian cuneiform next to them. There is something about the glyphs that seemed strange, just not sure why and those other markings… I have no idea what they are. Maybe Doc can give us a clue when he gets back."
As we stared at the image, Tony said, “Can we get a closer view of the sides?" Fitz ran his finger over the tabletop, and the image rotated again and zoomed in on one side covered with additional carvings. Tony was gazing at the screen now and stood up, “Can you zoom in on the top edge?" As the image grew larger, he said, “Stop, there. Now, rotate the image 360 degrees, slowly." The cube rotated 360 degrees, “Again,” he said… and then, “Again.”
When the image stopped after three rotations, Tony stood silent, staring at the screen. He slowly turned with a stunned expression on his face. “This thing is from 1715, right?"
“Yes,” I answered, “as far as we know."
“Over 300 years old.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Tony paused before he spoke again, and then said, “If that’s so, then how in the hell did the entire top edge of that thing get covered with binary code?"
Stunned silence filled the room. “What…, your shitting me," I said.
"I will have to study it more closely… but I believe it is a form of binary code,” he said.
Dimitri said, “Son of a bitch…”
Junkyard spoke, “Are you sure, Tony?”
“I’m not positive, but if I had to guess, I’d say yeah, I’m pretty sure. I’ll know more when I have access to my Computer and can study it more closely.”
I looked at the image and then everyone in the room and said, “This is impossible-just freaking impossible."
By now, a little over an hour and a half had passed since Doc had left to get the book. I looked at Fitz and said, “Is Doc still in the lab?" Fitz hit the keys on the Computer in the table-top, and the cameras in the lab came up on the screen.
Fitz spoke, “Johnson, is Dr. Greene in there with you?"
“Yes, Sir, he’s been sitting in the corner with the book we took out of the box. He’s acting kind of strange; he keeps mumbling to himself, and when we try to talk to him, it’s as if he doesn’t even hear us,
so we left him alone."
“All right,” Fitz said, “tell him we need him back in the conference room, NOW, and make sure he hears you."
“Yes, Sir,” Johnson replied as Fitz cut the connection. Five minutes later, Doc came back into the conference room with the book in hand and pale as a sheet. He walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down, laying the book in front of him.
He looked at me and said, “You remember that Hunter S. Thompson quote we liked so much?" “’No matter how weird it gets, it never gets too weird for me.’"
"Yeah, I remember,” I said.
“Well, that doesn’t apply anymore because I’m weirded out right now!"
“Jesus Christ!” Fitz exclaimed. “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here!"
“Okay, Fitz, as far as I can tell,” I said “from a shipwreck in 1715, 300 plus years old, we have found a cube or something made of a material not on our periodic table. It was covered by a flexible metallic-looking cloth-like material that renders objects invisible to our modern technology. The cube seems to have writing on it from three separate ancient cultures that modern archaeology says had no contact with each other. Only two of which were possibly contemporaneous. It also includes writing or symbols we have no idea of their origin surrounded by some freaking type of binary code!" Somewhat breathless I looked around the room and said, “Well?"
Joe said, “That about sums it up in a Reader’s Digest version."
Doc said, “Binary code?”
“Yeah, that’s what Tony thinks,” I said.
“Okay the weirdness meter just got pegged!" Doc said. “And I’m about to wrap the needle around the peg.”
“What did you find in the book?”
He took a deep breath and let it out and said, "It’s not a book; it’s a journal. It was written by a Jesuit Friar , Fr. Raul Antonio Dominguez, somewhere around 1703 or 1704. I can’t believe how well the writing and pages are preserved; they look like it was just written yesterday. In that respect, it’s easy to read, but the vernacular and structure are a little ponderous. I’ve only scanned some of it, but I can give you the gist of it so far. Believe me, there is a lot more here that will require study."
