by Cherry Adair
"Apocalypse?" Logan's tone dripped sarcasm. "Come on."
Peri knew when the apocalypse was happening. In about an hour. And oh, hell, Finn was casually strolling behind the others to reach her side. She couldn't handle his touch, or the smell of his skin, or the sound of his voice so near her when she was already on edge.
Vadini shrugged off Logan's incredulity. "'One reaches landfall, three lie beneath the waves. The last remains in death's grip.'"
"Wait. What?" Nick said sharply. "You're saying there are five tablets in all?"
The Curator nodded without removing his gaze from the tablets. "The numbers I know. See right here?" He pointed. "Five tablets."
This was so cool. Peri hung on every word. Live in the moment. Remember every little detail. Stop projecting what's going to happen later.
"One did reach us in Merrezo, and the other three were found under the sea! This is all true," Bria's voice rose with enthusiasm.
"Two stars converge," the curator read. "One red, one black."
"Which stars are black and red?" Nick looked around her to Finn.
"Red dwarfs are by far the most common type of star in the Milky Way." As he talked, Finn rested his hand on her upper back.
Same nerves, same damn reaction. Maybe if she didn't move she wouldn't feel. . .
"They're small, relatively cool stars on the main sequence, of either K or M spectral type. Low luminosity, so not easily observed. A black star is a gravitational object composed of matter. It's a theoretical alternative to a black hole. Neither of which sounds as if it has anything to do with an apocalypse. Unless we're talking that the ever-decreasing rate of collapse of a black star, leading to an infinite collapse of time, or asymptotically approaching a radius less than zero." He raised his eyebrow. "Is this where you think I'm the Blackstar reference? Because, just a reminder, your prophet's name was purportedly Blackstar, and he's probably referring to himself here."
"No, signore," Vadini stiffened further. "I believe the last line on tablet one is the reference to you: Salvation delivered in Blackstar's powerful hand."
Theo, who was practically leaning over the table, squinted at the words as he tried to read ahead.
Clearly not taking this seriously enough to argue, Finn's smile was a little shark-like. "I wonder if I'll be the one causing the apocalypse or the one destined to save the world?"
"It says, 'Salvation delivered in Blackstar's powerful hand.'" Peri repeated, loving the entire drama-filled concept of stars, an apocalypse, dark holes and Finn. "You're just going to have to save the world, like it or not."
He shot her a warning glance. "Don't encourage this b.s."
"It's not clear what: One reaches landfall, three lie beneath the waves, one is gripped by death,' means," Jonah said. "But are we going to have to find the fifth tablet in some graveyard somewhere?"
"I'm not digging in any graveyard, I'll tell you that right now!" Teal shuddered. "I'm sure Argentina has hundreds- thousands of graveyards. We wouldn't even know where to start."
"What's the powerful hand, then?" Logan asked. "Poseidon?"
Jonah rubbed the back of his neck. "The storm that knocked the ships off course and sank them? That seems like a mighty hand of fate to me."
"Makes more sense than Poseidon," Zane agreed. "But I suspect the waiting hand hasn't happened yet."
"I don't know." Teal pointed to the flapping flags and wild surf beyond the windows.
"Remember, these were the supposed words of a child." Finn took the bottle of water from Peri and drank. "Five hundred years ago. This sounds like a story the kid's mother made up to keep him out of the surf, for God's sake."
"No signore," Vadini assured him, his lined face set. "This was Blackstar's prophecy. I have no doubt."
Theo gave Finn the stink-eye, then shared it around the room as if daring anyone else to doubt Blackstar's prophecy. "I, too believe this to be Blackstar's prophecy."
Peri was surprised. Theo was such a down to earth, not a woo woo, kind of guy. "You do, Theo?" she asked, plucking her almost drained water bottle from Finn. When she drank she imagined she tasted him and held the bottle to her lips for a moment longer.
"Believe Blackstar's prophecy?" Theo's eyes went dark and serious. "Of course. Ask any sheepherder in Patagonia the story of the seer, and they will tell you of his remarkable prophecies. He was legend long after he died. Every one of his predictions came to pass. This is not a fabrication. Blackstar's prophecy is very very real."
FIFTEEN
Vadini might be sincere as hell, but as a scientist, a number cruncher and a no bullshit visionary, Finn didn't believe one word of this so called 'prophecy.' There was a hard sell coming. He just hadn't figured what it was, or who was behind it. and what the fuck their end game was. Yet.
"I will paraphrase the inscription on la tavoletta d'oro Merrezo, tablet number two, as follows," Bria's linguist rubbed his papery hands together before leaning closer to the second tablet. He spoke haltingly, clearly reading in the language the texts were written in, thinking in Italian, and then translating again in English.
Or he'd memorized a script.
"Warring factions distort the truth," Vadini intoned. "The chosen are not protectors. Blackstar's words must be heard or humanity will be lost. Goddess and stargazer unite. If message goes unheeded, fiery death."
Nicely done in suitably reverent and hushed tones. Finn wondered if the Cutters had found the guy at Central Casting. He was good, really good.
Not once in the decade he'd known the brothers, had they ever given him any indication that they'd been playing the long game. But some cons were worth a longer, long game.
"Again with the apocalypse," Logan shook his head, sending Finn a sardonic glance. "Better get out your cape and tights, buddy, sounds like you'll be busy."
"No. No. No." Núñez's mouth pinched in disapproval. He jabbed the tablet with his finger, causing Bria and Dr. Vadini to gasp. "This section says, 'The chosen are the protectors.'"
Nick put a hand on Núñez's shoulder, drawing him away from the tablet. "No touching."
"I do not think so, Dr. Núñez," Vadini's censure was mild. "My studies of the Abipón language tell me there is a negative in this line. Are not."
"I, too have studied and I most strongly beg to differ."
Vadini shrugged his narrow shoulders. "It is of no consequence that we disagree. Let us continue on."
"Okay, so we're listening to Blackstar's words," Zane said as he absently, and tenderly ran his palm over his wife's bedhead hair. All it did was make the dark strands spring up untidily in another direction. "But he doesn't seem to be telling us much of anything. Other than that people are going to war. Something us humanoids have done since time immemorial."
Teal laughed at her husband's quip. A little bit plain, a lot rumpled, she was a marked contrast to her sister-in-law Bria, whose dark hair was in a sophisticated coil behind her head, her clothes stylish and immaculate. And to Ariel, who'd bared her gorgeous legs in white shorts, and her arms in a lime green tank top, her crowning glory in a fat fiery braid that was already starting to unravel. Just the way he liked it. The three women couldn't be more different.
"I love this stuff," Ariel held the empty water bottle to her cheek. Finn wanted to be the bottle. He wanted to be the thin fabric of her shirt cupping her breasts, he wanted to be her damned shorts clinging to her heart-shaped ass.
Dear God, he had it bad. He was so distracted by her, he was only half paying attention to the revelation of the century about an apocalypse that was going to destroy their world – if he had the script right.
"The tablets are like a Shakespearean play," Ariel said with relish. "History and dark, ominous predictions. I wonder if he was foretelling the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"No, signorina, I will show you in a minute that he has pinpointed the precise date."
"Really? Okay." she smiled. "In the cast of characters who are today’s world leaders and influenc
ers, who did boy seer cast as the goddess and the stargazer?"
As far as Finn was concerned, he had a red-headed goddess right beside him.
"You’re certainly standing next to a major influencer now," Jonah told her, shooting a grin to Finn.
Unamused Finn said, “And this influencer has a pretty astute nose for hoaxes. Let’s finish up with the 'reading' and get real. Then we can carry on with the business we’re here to do, which is dive and find treasure, right? Not engage in a myth designed to waste our time.”
"The next is the tablet retrieved by you, signorina." Vadini pointed bottom left. "Centuries of benevolent light becomes a swiftly moving force of evil," he read. "Appearing as bleeding wound in the Eastern Sky. Proceed with all haste. The lance must be propelled with all speed. Hesitate and all will be lost."
Oh, for crapsake. "A comet? A meteorite? An alien spacecraft coming in for a landing?" How fucking coincidental was it that space travel was coming up? Not. Finn tried to read the faces of his friends and colleagues to look for collusion in this con game. Ariel? Shit, he hoped like hell she wasn't involved in whatever this was.
He had no idea where it was going. Pretty soon he'd shut the bullshit down and demand answers, but for now he was willing to bide his time and see where it went.
Logan grinned. "Don't get a run in those superhero tights, Rocketman."
In response, Finn shot him the finger. "I'll get right on that." He took out his phone.
"What are you doing? Calling the Batmobile?" Ariel asked, with a cheeky smile.
"This 'apocalypse' is supposed to happen in three days according to this thing, right?" he addressed the group, now wanting this to draw to its conclusion. "Eastern sky? Let's see what's coming to kill us off." He tapped the screen on his smarter-than-most phone.
Finn logged into one of his encrypted databases which was connected- thanks to his many hefty donations- to NASA's Near Earth Object Program. The coordinated efforts detected, tracked and characterized potentially hazardous asteroids and comets on a collision course with Earth. At his Blackstar space facility, this proprietary data was being coordinated with months of intricate calculations. Accumulated, tabulated, and studied on a minute-by-minute vigil. Every aspect of space was being assessed in readiness for the Mars launch in five months. Nothing could possibly be a surprise.
The debate continued around him in a hum of voices. As everyone added their two cents, whether their theory made logical, scientific sense or not, Finn scanned through calculations. He put up his hand when he'd run through several options. None of them panned out. No surprise.
"Unless the alien's ship is traveling faster than the speed of sound, we're safe," he told the gathering, tone dry. No point going into Near Earth Orbit Asteroids, or any other pesky details. There was fucking nothing out there for the foreseeable future, and everyone in the know knew it.
Science. Fact. Black and white. No bullshit. A kid getting attention by drawing shit on rocks wasn't that interesting.
Since they claimed their prophecy had something to do with space travel and the threat of NEO, he presumed the scam, when it came, would have something to do with Blackstar Galactic.
"Aw, that's disappointing," Ariel said. "I was kinda hoping to meet a little gray man."
Teal shook her head. "You are one weird, chick, you know that?"
"Don't want to rush you," Finn said, hearing the testy in his voice. "As enlightening as this is, I have a business to run and an international meeting in forty-eight minutes. Can we finish this up?"
"The tablet discovered yesterday on the El Crucifijo, sí." Vadini seemed eager to get back to what they were all doing there. "In the twelfth month when Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter align- Oceans will rise, mountains will topple, the mighty and innocent alike will perish. Seek the High Altar to discover the answers written in the stars. Raise the map to divine the truth."
Well, at least they'd put some thought into this con. "A metapuzzle."
Bria asked, "What's a metapuzzle?"
"A puzzle that unites several puzzles feeding into it to obtain one answer." The answer: either money, power or control.
"The technique is called backsolving. The metapuzzle is structured to make it possible to guess, with a greater or lesser degree of certainty, the solutions to the puzzles that feed into it without actually solving them."
"May I-?" Vadini said quietly. "There is more. In all my years studying la tavoletta d'oro Merrezo, I did not put as much attention to detail into this intricate border surrounding the whole, as I should have. I was more focused on learning the ancient language as best I could than to concern myself with what I considered basically a decorative border."
"Jesus." Logan shoved his hands through his hair. "What does it have to say?"
He didn't sound any more interested in this 'new' revelation than Finn did. But then one "dissenter" with the same views as the mark was classic misdirection.
"Instructions to build an ark?" Finn suggested dryly. Ariel jabbed him sharply in the rib with her elbow.
Vadini removed a jeweler's loop from his saggy back pocket. "Going up this left edge of tablet one, and continuing across the top edge- It appears to be a date, November 12th, followed by a string of numbers- eleven thousand, I believe. Will die."
"That's exact. And not the date the four ships sank," Nick pointed out. “That happened in June. You think we'll have this disaster in a few days?"
"Or last November 12th," Finn's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Or November 12th five hundred years ago."
"Or three days from now." Ariel slipped her arm around his waist, hooking her fingers into his waistband.
"Maybe we have to be on the lookout for Santa's sleigh?" Finn inhaled her unique scent of warm Casablanca lilies, and thought of a cool room, rumpled sheets, and the two of them alone, with all the time in the world to explore each other.
"Perpetual life will flow. And here, down the right-hand edge, it looks like a long string of numbers. . .Then; Will be lost. Presumably, the number of souls lost if the warnings are not heeded."
"Eleven thousand saved," Núñez informed him, his tone unequivocal, his features set like a bulldog with a bone.
"Saved?" The Italian linguist gave him a skeptical glance. "Where do you see that? The text is barely legible, and in some areas- like there and there – non-existent. We can't be sure-"
"Eleven thousand saved. The other numbers are those who will perish."
Vadini acquiesced without a fight. "If message is unheeded, apocalypse."
"That's cheerful," Logan said, "And annoyingly repetitious."
Undaunted, Vadini walked around the table, bent double, and read through the magnifier, the tiny text that looked, to Finn, exactly like a not very well drawn decorative border. "Warring factions distort the truth. Blackstar, the transformer, must be heard, or humanity will be lost."
"My head is starting to hurt with all these doom and gloom allegories." Jonah went to the buffet to grab a drink.
To Finn he looked as guilty as sin. And as jumpy as he'd ever seen such a laid-back guy.
"Seems simple to me." Nick and Bria headed to two easy chairs, then ended up squeezing into one together. "Someone better listen to this message or all hell will break loose and humanity will be wiped off the face of the Earth. That about sum it up?" he glanced at Vadini. “Pretty standard for your end of the world apocalypse.”
"All but eleven thousand people," Núñez repeated with authority. "The transformer will lead the people into a New World order."
"I didn't hear anything close to that interpretation, maybe Dr. Núñez is Blackstar reincarnated," Finn couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Ariel nudged him again.
"Here-" Vadini hunched, and read- "Do not believe the sages who discount mysticism." Then: "Trust goddess– I believe this word is fire."
Zane took Teal's hand and pulled her to one of the sofas to sit down. "What does that even mean? Did they have a goddess of fire in their the
ology, Dr. Núñez? Dr. Vadini?"
Finn slid his hand up Ariel’s back, to urge a return to the loveseat they'd vacated earlier.
"Not as far as I know."
"Bria was known as Fiammetta, fiery one, as a child. . ." Nick's lips twitched. "Is it possible that she's the goddess of fire?"
"Maybe it's Ariel," Finn offered, tongue in cheek.
"Anything is, of course, possible," Vadini told them absently.
"This does not refer to the sinking of the ships," Núñez stated unequivocally, clearly not interested in either woman present being part of the prediction. He was the only person still standing other than the Italian. "But rather that, on a specified date, the world will end, and only a designated number of people will survive,"
"Wow, that's pretty sad." Ariel sat as close to Finn as she could, without being on his lap. Fine with him. "Why did Blackstar bother with four tablets if November is the end of the world? He could've said that in the first tablet. One and done. And on that cheerful note," she said with a slight tremor in her voice, "I have a slightly less apocalyptic announcement to make."
"Oh, dear God," Teal blurted, staring at Ariel wide-eyed. "Are you pregnant, too?"
"What?" Peri, too stressed to be amused, said, "No!" a little too loudly. Damn it to hell. She should've retrieved her tablet before doing this. The four tablets lay, side-by-side, gleaming on the table in the middle of the room. Just an arm's length from her grasp. Once the Cutters knew who she was and what she’d done, they’d think it was their damn right to keep her property. Too late to make a run for it now.
Finn's fingers tightened around hers, even though he had no idea that she was about to blow their friendly gathering apart. His show of solidarity and support gave her that extra spurt of courage to face this head on. Grateful to have his strong hand linked with hers, she realized how much she needed him there, but it scared her, too. Would he be supportive when he figured out exactly how many times she’d freely chosen deceit as a course of action?
