The Alien Artifact 5 2014 (Novelette)

by Victor Bertolaccini

  Nobody knew him or had seen him before, and Bryson wondered if it had copied the human looks from someone? But he could not recognize anything and the man looked altered somehow. He looked like a more advanced version of a human! Like a genetically altered human! He wondered if he was now a new form of species of human?

  The man spoke strangely and with some trouble, and showed that he had some bad disability.

  “Who are you?” Merton asked him, first.

  “What year is this?” he replied, holding himself upright in pain.

  When Merton told him he was stunned and collapsed across the floor, and sounded as though he was dieing, and the scientists started helping him and phoning for medical support.

  Many studied his body and found what they believe was improvements to it, and he had been altered into a more advanced human, but even with his improvements they knew he was about to die, and they saw the artifact and that it had been destroyed.

  After seeing everything, and knowing the outcome, Mortimer swiftly began questioning him, trying to get as much as he could from him. All their work could be meaningless if they never got answers to what had occurred and where he had come from!

  Chapter 9

  The Time Traveler

  The time traveler launched and vanished into the past leaving all the people at the launch site gasping from the pure magnitude of the forces and explosive exit, and it became clear to everyone that the colossal expense, time and trouble, and vast dangers to the time traveler would end time travel.

  The world’s first time machines were time probes and were original used to probe the near future, where they were recovered within days, and had their accuracy and recordings checked. Most vanished completely, and the ones that were recovered showed why they were only random lucky arrivals, and many that appeared were detected at sites all over the world, with the majority damaged in collisions.

  The time traveler and time machine mission had taken many years of work, and a great deal of information also had to be accumulated as they had been trying to discover a time disturbance that had been detected in the past, where the use of a time machine had been proven to have been used.

  The other time machine and its accuracy and power had clearly not been created by any human! The technology behind it surpassed anything that they had encountered!

  They believed it even surpassed anything in this universe and had been created by something they could barely imagine, and the time traveler had his mission carefully planned and been given technology that they believed could capture the other time traveler, and what it used to travel through time.

  The time traveler traveled further into the past than any other human before had traveled, and his time machine swiftly blasted out of his century into what resembled a constant explosion, which would have destroyed his time machine if it had not been designed to withstand virtually anything thrown at it.

  The time traveler considered following it to where it had come from, where he believed it had vanished to after its mission, and after his mission he intended to reappear approximately one minute after he had vanished into the past, at the launch site.

  The time machine resembled some form of highly advanced missile, and he constantly examined it and his mental controls searching for damage and for signs of powerful forces acting upon it, and it was undamaged and working properly, but when it entered a time zone, and stopped traveling through time, the forces at its entrance damaged the time machine, damaging many of its functions, and he discovered the incredible speed he was traveling at through the atmosphere, and at a far faster speed than he should have been, and before he crashed into the ground something hit the time machine.

  Chapter 10

  The Time Traveler’s Last Words

  The whole affair slowly died away, and the remains of the artifact ended up as the museum’s best exhibition, and Bryson still thanked Mortimer for his swift thinking and accurate questioning of the time traveler before his death, as they would never have realized what had happened!

  The entire conversation had been recorded by one source, and Bryson had taken a recording of it before they had deleted it, not fully knowing what they had been doing!

  Many people there had even claimed it was false and that it had been something else, which they gave explanations for afterwards, and even Merton and Mortimer had ignored most of it believing it as his attempt to do something and had doubted what it had told!

  Bryson knew it was true and that he had been an authentic human time traveler from the far future, and he had studied the recording over and over, examining the information it contained in great detail, and knew that he had thought of what he had said for a great deal of time, while he had been trapped in the energy bubble of his damaged time machine.

  When he had learned the full truth and date that he had awoken at he had known everything was over, and had accepted his fate, and being such an advanced human he had deliberately accepted his fate and allowed himself to die. He had clearly not wanted to be examined too far and give too much information, as it could alter the future and do immense damage.

  He had told why he had become a time traveler and had wished to explore the past and see what really had existed there, and he had chosen it as his mission in life, but at a cost, as time travel was dangerous and most died doing it.

  When he had arrived in his time machine during the Second World War he had arrived at the wrong destination! The time machine had been unable to find the correct destination as it had found the exact destination no longer existed, and the time machine had been damaged on its entrance to the time zone it had entered, which had been the nearest event it had recorded information on, which was Hess’s landing during the Second World War.

  It had crashed and had been found by a soldier there, who had had been searching there after the discovery of Hess and his crashed plane.

  The soldier had taken him and his artifact to a nearby farm as he looked as though he would die, but had not fully known his identity or what he was. He had learned a great deal about them and their strange ways, but he had known he would die as he had been getting sicker and he had only days left to live in the end. His artifact had told him his only way to survive and return to the future had been the use of its cryogenic chamber ability, put in it as a last survival method.

  It had located a region nearby where it could be buried without being dug up, where they would dig it up in his own time zone, and he would be revived and have the damage done to him fixed.

  The farmer and his friends had dug the hole at the site of the old well, and as they had placed him in the artifact chamber he had been surprised at how much he had liked there than his own future world, and that he had even considered trying to find a way to fix the damaged done to him, but he knew he could never survive.

  When he had been awakened he felt like he had been thrown into the realms of hell, with him being awakened in the wrong way by the scientists, with his very sole being reshaped and altered within hideous energy surges, threatening to obliterate him, but it consistently had not and had not fallen out of space and time altogether, and it had consistently altered.

  At one point he had stopped making attempts at escaping and had tried to establish what had gone wrong, and he had studied the scientists and their equipment and had suspected that they had awakened him too soon and he had been trapped there! He had underestimated them greatly! It would have been normally virtually impossible to do what they had done with the time machine, and he realized he would be lucky to survive the ordeal! He had slowly realized that they actually had equipment and methods of detection that he had not heard of, but he also had slowly proved that they never had time travel or anything like the technology.

  He had adapted to handle what he had been trapped in, and he had probed the scientists and circumstances and had realized he had been lucky and that they could have killed him, and that they definitely wanted him for something, and he had realized that he had technolo
gy that he could use to bargain with, if they ever allowed him to communicate.

  The technology had been strange at first and later primitive, and he had worked out how some of it worked.

  For a long time he had watched them at work and their experiments, while many hideous energy surges intermittently attacked had played with him, leaving him on the brink of annihilation, and he had realized more than ever that he would die.

  Chapter 11

  The Lost Treasure

  For centuries stories of an ultimate time traveler and lost treasures had been passed on through generations of future civilizations, even though a few details only existed of its nature and time zone.

  How it had been detected in time had never been told and most people had thought time travel had never properly worked, and that nothing had existed that would possibly allow people to locate anything of that nature, and later on when time travel had become possible, though rarely worked properly, stories of treasure seekers risking their lives in deadly pursuits had emerged.

  So throughout months Bryson unraveled and translated what the human time traveler had given them, and what they had missed when he had told it. His future language was different, being of a far distant and different future world, and he realized again that he had realized that they had been recording everything that he had said and had deliberately disguised facts throughout his message, which Bryson went over until he started knowing the time traveler and his ways, and what he had thought of everything.

  He was sure that he had given them far more information than he should have, as it would do damage to his future world! Yet if he located anything the people of the future would hear of it, and that surely had been his intension.

  He originally had intended to get the technology and treasures, and had proven that they had existed before his dangerous mission and voyage, and during it he had found evidence of its existence and that it had been partly located at this time zone and had become undetectable on his entrance to it, and its location had been detectable through the many time zones.

  Bryson knew that he had been given a major clue to its location, and he eventually discovered it and that it was located on the same latitude as where the artifact had been located!

  From a majority of accumulated sources, the origins of the accounts had emerged from people using time probes to check throughout the depths of time for unusual occurrences and treasures. Even though the time probes had rarely worked and required colossal amounts of time and capital!

  Lost treasures and ultimate technology of colossal value had been thought to exist and explorers had gone to incredible lengths searching for it, and had carried out investigations for it with the most highly advanced time probes, as treasure seekers in the twentieth century had used undersea probes to search for lost treasures beneath the ocean.

  What existed had been mythical and priceless to the time traveler and other explorers and he knew that they had not entirely grasped what the ultimate time traveler and lost treasures had been, and the accounts of its powers and deadliness indicated that it might have altered from something else to exist in this universe!

  Chapter 12

  The Search

  Merton and Mortimer were enthralled in David Parker’s technology, setup and operating methods, and thought that it was a major breakthrough, grasping its full potential and all the future possibilities that it could deliver and offer their various forms of scientific exploration and discoveries.

  At the same time Bryson grew interested and investigated how the technology functioned in far greater detail and what its capabilities were. It had looked exaggerated and too unavailable, and his thoughts had altered once they had met him more and got to know him better. He had been surprised at his virtually identical interests, and he was actually offering to help their investigations, and future investigations of interest.

  He had found out more about him and his work, especially over at Greenland and the fascinating Pacific island discovery, and wondered what his view on the paranormal and work of the two paranormal scientists was?

  Bryson and had told him of the death of the time travel and what he believed they had missed, and the months he had spent unraveling and translating what the time traveler had given them, and what they had missed when he had given it to them, and Parker fully believed him and had listened with fascination.

  He knew of Bryson and the American castle discovery, and the discovery of the treasure there, and at the first castle, and had promised to give him all the help that he needed to carry out his mission, and to explore what he was looking for.

  He had heard some things from the media and from members of the Exploration Association about the ultimate time traveler and the lost treasures and of treasure seekers risking their lives in deadly pursuits, and was interested in Bryson’s search for it, and in the media coverage and getting some publicity from the treasure quest, and knew other things would surely appear.

  The entire sea was there to be explored by him and all he needed was a few authentic clues and coordinates! So when he had heard Bryson had found a major clue to its location and that he had discovered it was located on the same latitude as where the artifact had been located, he became confident in finding it without too much trouble as he had carried out searches over many years of most of the same latitude, and near where the artifact had been located.

  The evidence of its existence being partly located at this time zone and had become undetectable on its entrance to it, and that its location had been detectable through many time zones, had interested him greatly, as well as Mortimer, and they both seemed to leave it until they had considered things.

  Most of the searches were done with Bryson, Merton and Mortimer, and they grew more aware of how the equipment worked and was used, but gradually the search started to show that it never existed, and the disappointment grew and Bryson realized that his reputation for searching for lost treasures and finding hidden information was becoming more damaged each day!

  The problem was most of their major discoveries had been lucky or by constant searches until they had uncovered something!

  Chapter 13

  The Expedition

  The sun beamed across the sea and Bryson watched it edging into the horizon through the plane window, and he felt the coldness from outside at the window and realized that in a few days they would be flying over the Artic.

  He gasped and realized the error of doing what he had done, and that he had persuaded them, and mainly Parker, to continue the investigate for the treasures on the longitude of the artifact!

  He had been certain that he had only translated a few words of the future language of the time traveler wrongly, and he had picked up the meaning of the word latitude wrongly and that it could only have meant longitude. But he had been sure that it had been longitude after repeated checks and Mortimer had confirmed that he had thought so.

  Yet he saw the error and that there could be many more such descriptions in the future and that he could have put his foot in it this time! The last time, when they had explored the latitude, there had only been a small amount of ground left for Parker to explore. This time they could be searching for years! But this time he realized that he might be able to get out of it, and call it off, as it would take too long to complete. He might slowly break the news to them!

  What surprised him was their belief that there was something there! He barely believed anything at the moment! Yet why were they so confident with so little? He had hardly come up with anything and they all were going crazy to go on the first flight, and to search the main regions!

  He had once heard Parker say that he was checking the line within the longitude, as they had thought the artifact had landed at the exact line the artifact was located on, which he had not been able to realize why, but was sure the scientists that he had given the descriptions and time traveler’s recordings to had been the best and most experienced to decipher it.

  Their equipment system wa
s functioning and monitoring perfectly and he sensed that they could detect anything in a large radius, and he considered if they had deliberately given reduced and incorrect information on the distance of the scan to hide the true incredible powers of it, as it was massively confidential equipment! The satellites that they said had the technology used distances far further away!

  He was sure from things some scientists on the plane said indicated that they were carrying out a distant though less accurate scan, which he was sure they could detect it within, and he wondered if they could use the satellite technology to find stuff like it in the future when there were more satellites covering the whole globe, and they were more powerful?

  What he was unsure of was how accurate it was at different distances, and if there was anything there how large and detectable would it be? There was luck involved and he did not like it!

  From his window he watched shades of light play with his vision in animated motions, over the sea, as the plane rushed through the air, and he watched Parker and scientists at work, constantly examining their technology to discover improvements for them to introduce, and things to make breakthroughs with.

  Mortimer and Merton sat along from him sitting opposite each other at a table with a map stretched out across it, searching the area ahead and discussing it. It was strange as there never looked as though there was anything there, especially so far north, and there was little in front of the plane with anything, and further out there would be mainly ice. Yet nobody knew what place it could be, and it could be virtually anywhere! Nobody knew what it was or was doing, and what made it end up where it was?

  All they had was that they believed something of a highly advanced nature had been detected and was of great interest!