The Skywalkers: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 5)

by JC Ryan

  In the same spirit, Raj made plans to get him back. A good, old-fashioned snipe hunt, for example. Something he’d been sent on while attending a private prep school in upstate New York as a teenager away from his native India and on his own for the first time. Although the two knew each other from their mutual work at the Foundation, it was a small surprise to both of them how well they got along, and how enjoyable the planning for the trip was.

  Taking the latest of Roy’s toys and all other necessary equipment that they could get into backpacks, they set out. They planned on leaving the car several miles from their final destination and walking the rest of the way to avoid anyone’s notice of their whereabouts. Since they were in the car together for several hours and then more during their hike, inevitably they ran out of things to say about prepping for disaster. After a period of silence while both of them tried to think of another mutually interesting topic of conversation, Raj tentatively brought up the subject of aliens.

  Raj was well-used to ridicule from anyone he tried to talk to about his convictions that aliens had visited and were still visiting earth, and the resulting government cover-ups. It didn’t matter to him. He knew what he knew. To his astonishment and pleasure, Robert allowed that it was possible. After all, the Universe is a big place, and they’d already discovered wonders no one had ever dreamed of. Why not aliens?

  At last, after trekking nearly ten miles from where they left the car parked in an almost-empty camping spot parking lot, they arrived at their final destination. Robert, fit and used to such expeditions, set to work, measuring, taking pictures and a few samples. Raj rested, and then set up their rough camp inside the cave. For the next few days, they worked together to collect soil samples and rock samples and explore the entire cave system, which proved to have several exits. Serendipitously, they also found two large fresh-water pools that tested safe for drinking, in addition to some hot spots that Robert felt certain would turn out to be geothermal wells waiting to be tapped.

  By the time four days had passed, they had discovered that the cave system was actually several miles in both length and width, though some passages were too narrow to be of any use except getting from room to room. Most interesting, though, was the discovery of other levels both above where the main entrance was found and below. So far, they hadn’t found exterior exits from other levels. It might have been better if they had, or if they could make one, so if the Rabbit Hole were ever discovered, there’d be a back way out for the residents to escape. But for now, the cave system was more than adequate to house up to one hundred and fifty people.

  “This reminds me of Carlsbad Caverns,” Raj remarked to Robert.

  “Really? I’ve wanted to see it, but haven’t gotten ‘round to it,” Robert replied.

  “Yeah. I went the first time I checked out Area 51,” Raj answered. “It’s close to there.”

  Robert ducked, looking up wildly at the cave’s ceiling. “You don’t suppose there are any aliens around here, do you?” He chuckled, to show Raj he was just kidding.

  “You never know,” Raj said, an evil twinkle in his eye. He’d just had another idea to get Robert back for the bear herd embarrassment.

  When they were done, both were satisfied that Salome and Roy had found the perfect place. So remote as to be unknown, yet with sufficient space for the group to live there for many years, assuming the population stayed stable. They’d be out of sight, and after a few years, out of mind.

  Of course, there would be challenges. How to feed a group that size without attracting notice from passers-by in the forest, or nosy small-town grocers, not to mention satellite photos that would easily show crops. How to heat a cavern that size in the winter. Although the temperature inside caves was the average of the year-round temperature of the surrounding outdoors, that wasn’t very warm around here.

  Geothermal energy would solve that problem, but not all of them. It was time to turn the logistics over to people with special knowledge, including other preppers. Armed with a mountain of data and photos to support it, the two made their way back to Boulder. Raj never did find the time to send Robert on a snipe hunt or arrange for a visit from ‘aliens’

  Chapter 30 - It wasn't Utopia at all!

  JR was satisfied that no expedition he'd led before had gone quite as smoothly as this one. He liked the skeleton team, no extras to slow them down. He'd picked one of the translators as much for his size and physical fitness as for his translation abilities. Discovering the young man was an ex-Marine was a happy bonus. The engineers and architect were as fit as could be expected. One advantage of having their headquarters in Boulder was the culture of fitness in general. These men hiked, skied, and kayaked for fun, so they could be counted on to carry their own weight in any physical activity.

  JR made the initial climb, since he'd done it before. This time, he had harnesses and slings, so once one of the engineers had followed him up the rope, the two of them were able to haul the rest up, along with their supplies, with the translator, Tahoma Chee, belaying them and then scrambling up under his own power. On the flight from Boulder, Tahoma had explained that no, he wasn't named for the vehicle. Rather, his name meant 'Waters' Edge' in his language. The others had quickly nicknamed him Homey.

  JR had waited until everyone and everything was staged in the small alcove before opening the first set of doors. As Homey made his ascent, the others were milling about in the small space and gawping at the metal doors, remarking on their similarity to the doors in the Rossler Foundation building and joking that someone was playing a monumental joke on them. When the translator was safely up and had made his own jokes about the door, JR told them again how he wanted them to proceed.

  As soon as these doors opened, they'd pick up their assigned packs of supplies and enter the antechamber, waiting for him to open the second set of doors. He warned them that the sensation of dropping would startle them, and assured them they'd slow down before coming to a halt. Once they were assembled outside the room where he and Robert had first seen the Eighth Cycle office, for lack of a better word, they would go in single file to each of the spaces where they'd drop their supplies before going immediately to the next level up to document what they found.

  Single file, because he wanted to protect Rebecca in particular from anything they didn't expect, whether it was an animal that had somehow found its way inside or a gaping hole in the floor. The order of the procession would be himself, the engineers, Rebecca, the architect, the surveyor and then Homey, bringing up the rear. With a seasoned fighting man on both ends, and Rebecca right in the middle, it was as safe as he could make it for everyone but himself and Homey, but they could take care of themselves.

  They'd carry snacks and water with them, but hoped to find working restroom facilities along the way. In the evening, they'd return to the kitchen area to determine if it was operative and could be adapted for such a small group. JR was optimistic about both the restrooms and the kitchen. It would be a real pain to have to return to the canyon floor to camp each night, though they were prepared to do so if necessary.

  His main concern was that, in the unvarying light, they'd get disoriented as to day and night on the outside and miss the chopper's supply run. It was almost like Paradise Valley in that regard, with the light on at all times. With plans to sleep in the dormitory, or what he'd taken to be sleeping rooms, he hoped there was a way to turn the light off in there. Sleeping under full light was possible, but not ideal.

  Their plans outlined one last time for review, JR opened the elevator doors and the party descended. His knees were shaking as he remembered all too well the last time he went down with this thing. He was hoping no one could see how scared he was - he was holding Rebecca tight and she felt him shaking – she said nothing but decided to ask him later what was happening.

  ***

  Several days later, the team lead for the Eighth Cycle research team followed Nicholas into his office during what had become a rare visit. Nicholas was di
stracted. Bess was hounding him to see a doctor, and he suspected it was because his meddling grandson had told her he was forgetting things. Nonsense. Of course he forgot things. After all, he was eighty-nine years old. Everyone forgot things, but he never forgot anything important.

  As soon as he noticed his employee standing inside the door like a fool, he took out his pique on the man.

  "What is it? I'm busy."

  "Oh, er, I thought..."

  "Spit it out, man, I don't have all day!"

  "Yes, sir. Uh, one of my team is pestering me to bring something to your attention," he said. He looked as if he might bolt at any minute. Nicholas forgot he was annoyed, and tilted his head.

  "Well, what is it?"

  "I'd better let her tell you. I don't, I mean, it doesn't seem to be that big a deal, but she insists."

  Nicholas trusted the opinion, but his curiosity had been aroused. Obviously the girl had made enough of an impression on the team lead to persuade him to mention it. "Well, send her in."

  A few moments later, a pretty little thing that looked like she might still be in high school arrived. When had they started recruiting high school students?

  "Good morning, Dr. Rossler," she said. What a sweet little thing! She'd be perfect for one of his grandsons. He'd forgotten where they were, but they were about this age, weren't they?

  "Good morning, dear. What can I do for you?"

  "I wanted to bring a passage from the Eighth Cycle material to your attention. Do you remember Brave New World, sir?"

  "Of course I do. Excellent movie, excellent. Starred Gregory Peck, didn't it? Where's it playing? Maybe I'll take my wife for date night. It's a love story, right? She likes a good love story." Nicholas winked at the bewildered girl.

  "Er. I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand you. It's a dystopia, sir. Are you all right?"

  Nicholas had tried to smile at her and lost his balance, sitting hard into his chair. His next words were slurred. "I dun fee sssssoooo guh."

  "Dr. Rossler? Oh, my God!" She ran out of the office, calling "Help! I think Dr. Rossler's having a stroke!"

  If the translation room had seemed like a beehive, the research department more closely resembled a hornet's nest that had been knocked out of its tree. Half a dozen researchers ran into the office, while several more all tried to dial nine-one-one at the same time. The frightened girl sat numbly on the floor, watching as a man she'd admired for as long as she could remember became the center of a storm of activity.

  Someone had thought to call Daniel, who came at a run and cleared everyone out but one of the researchers who insisted he was a volunteer EMT.

  "Grandpa, you're going to be all right. We'll get you to the hospital as soon as the ambulance gets here."

  The young intern's information wouldn't be heard for another couple of days, until Daniel finally was able to leave his grandfather's hospital room and ask what had happened.

  On the Monday when the expedition was due to return, Daniel was back in his office and asked who'd been with his grandfather when he had his stroke. Someone had told him a girl in the department had run out of the old man's office yelling for help. He wanted to thank her for her quick action, since the doctors had told him there was every chance Grandpa would almost fully recover, though he'd have to retire for sure now.

  A shaking girl was led into his office by Sarah, who'd tracked her down in Daniel's absence and was just waiting for his return to add her thanks to his. When they'd assured the girl she was in no trouble and she'd calmed down, Daniel asked, "Did he seem to be ill when you went in?"

  "No, sir. My team lead went in and told him I wanted to talk to him, and then I went in. He said good morning and what could he do for me. I wanted to tell him about a passage I read in the Eighth Cycle material that reminded me of this book." Here, she hesitated. The last time she'd named the book, it apparently gave Dr. Rossler a stroke. She didn't want that to happen again.

  Sarah said, "Go on, dear. What book?"

  "Uh, it was a book I studied in high school, called Brave New World. Do you know it?"

  Daniel nodded, still intent on hearing how Nicholas came to have his stroke. Sarah frowned.

  "Well, this passage about the height of the Eighth Cycle, it sounded like that. I mean, everyone was all happy and well fed and stuff. But they had forced birth control. Like Nazis or something. Anyway, I asked Dr. Rossler about it and he started talking crazy, like, he thought it was a movie, with Greg Pickler or someone, and he thought it was a love story. Then he made this horrible face and fell down in his chair, and his face went weird and I couldn't understand what he was saying." By now, the girl was in tears and shaking again. Daniel had turned white.

  Sarah put her arm around the girl to calm her, but she was frowning even harder. "Daniel, do you think it was the shock?"

  "The shock of what?" he asked, still focused on the awful story.

  "Daniel!" Sarah spoke sharply, to bring him back to the present.

  He gave a brief shudder and looked at her more closely. "What?"

  "Do you understand what she just said? The Eighth Cycle wasn't what we thought. It wasn't Utopia at all! It was a police state. How did they bring the whole world under that? Something's dreadfully wrong with this."

  Chapter 31 - Something wrong with Eighth Cycle

  During the second expedition, the engineers and architect had explored six of the nine spokes of corridors fanning out from what they thought of as the back of the administrative building, since entrance was always gained from the elevators at the 'front'. Although they found many rooms and surmised the purpose from the size and fittings, the rooms had been cleared of anything they could carry. The last three corridors proved difficult to get into, as the entry doors at the admin building end were resistant to being opened. However, in the meanwhile, the translation team had found records concerning these corridors, and the method of entry was included.

  The second expedition found five more metal boxes in a room in the third level, which they carefully secured and packed and took back with them. Now they knew that there were medical and communications facilities on the second and third levels, from records found in the earlier scientific reports. The most exciting thing to come out of the whole site so far was casual references everywhere to a healthy life-span of up to one-hundred and fifty years. Their most important target for this expedition was the medical data.

  Roy, in particular, was ecstatic. The Eighth Cycle had been highly knowledgeable about nano-technology, his primary field. The five metal boxes JR brought back, each filled with foils, turned up some very exciting information for him. On a number of the foils he found the symbols he'd come to recognize as the word for nanotech. The Navajo translated it as 'tiny magic', álííl yázhí a phrase they'd had to make up because their own language had no such concept. Only when Sinclair had looked at the context had they even come close to understanding what it meant, and that was when they'd made up the phrase.

  All Roy could think of was digging in and building everything he could, for testing purposes. He'd need a whole team of assistants, but that didn't faze him. Daniel had assured him there'd be money for all of it, as licensees vied for access to the technology. All this he constantly babbled to Salome, who sometimes wished for the days when he was more taciturn.

  Salome's part in the celebration was short-lived, though. Sarah came to her about a week after Nicholas Rossler's stroke, with a concern brought up by one of the young research interns. Salome didn't blame her for being spooked by it. After all, she had her own concerns.

  She stopped by a bookstore on her way home the night after Sarah told her about the girl, and picked up a copy of Brave New World. It had been published originally in 1932, eighty-eight years ago. Considering Nicholas had only been a baby of one year old when it came out, Salome had her private doubts about the theory being the reason for his stroke. She would find the girl and reassure her tomorrow. Rumor had it that the poor kid was afraid to say anything to
anyone now, having been in the room and talking to Nicholas when he collapsed.

  Sinclair took a personal interest in the foils from the metal box JR had brought back in May. Now that several of the foils had been translated and indexed, he had an idea that what the box contained was a fraction of the history of the cycle. Wondering about the selection, he began haunting the cubicles of the Navajo translators, asking them to give him an idea of what they were translating at the moment. The records seemed to cover mostly the height of the civilization, very little about the rise from the ashes of the Seventh Cycle.

  The plan had been to translate each foil in order, though the dozen or so translators were working on them in batches. Now Sinclair began pestering Raj to do all the computer work for each one, so he could have one translator dip into them from the back to the front. He had a hunch they weren't working fast enough, going the other direction. Something was bothering him, though he didn't know what.

  Sinclair visited Nicholas in the rehabilitation facility religiously. What he really wanted to do was bring in a wee nip of Jameson’s and see if that didn’t help Nicholas as much as all the fol-de-rol medicines they gave him. Daniel had threatened to have him banned from the hospital if he did, so, grumbling that the doctors didn’t know good medicine when they saw it, he agreed.

  One day, when Nicholas brought up the work himself, Sinclair decided it was safe to talk about it. There'd been some speculation that something one of the researchers said had contributed to his stroke, so no one talked to Nicholas about work. Until now. He seemed ready. Sinclair had learned to understand the slurred speech, so he had no trouble with Nicholas's words when he asked the question. The trouble was with the meaning.

  "Does that girl still think something's wrong with the Eighth Cycle?" he asked.

  "What girl?"

  "One of my researchers," Nicholas said. His eyes flashed with frustration. It had to be difficult to make himself clear, Sinclair thought. Patiently, he tried again.