3012: The Artifact

by John M Grier

The Secret Room

  Janet was struggling, trying really hard to not let this stupid mission get to her. You see, none of this was her idea! She was the Government-Assigned Protocol Officer of this crazy expedition.

  In addition to Paul and Jack, the government insisted on a third person to act as a Protocol Officer. The office of Government Protocol, as it is known, is one of the largest branches of government. Everything that gets done anywhere has a Protocol Officer attached to it to oversee the project and to make sure no laws are violated and all the proper taxes are billed.

  The Protocol Officers that were usually attached to expeditions such as the one Paul and Jack were currently on considered the duty to be punishment for something. Most people accepted the Protocol Officers as part of their normal routine and would be uncomfortable without one present. Janet, in her own mind, had obviously done something to anger her superiors to be assigned to this insane mission.

  “Why on earth would anyone want to go digging under a bunch of old ice? No one really cares what happened in the past. The past is past! Move on and forget about this old junk!” she spouted angrily, knowing that nobody was around for miles to hear her. “I don't understand how this mission ever got sanctioned in the first place!

  She stalked around the Control Center in an angry huff. Needless to say, she was miserable. Paul and Jack certainly did not get along with her and she had no idea why. "I'm a fun person to be around!" she thought. "I don't understand why they don't like me." All she could do was hope they found whatever they were looking for soon so she could go home.

  Janet enjoyed a very active lifestyle, as did most government employees and was missing the social life she normally had while at home. She was very attractive, a bit on the short side with dark brown hair and a perky attitude when among her own people, namely, other government employees. She was pondering her nice warm apartment when Paul and Jack came up through the big hole, as she referred to it in her reports. They were very excited and kept babbling about something they had found.

  Janet, however, was not amused, nor was she pleased. Once again, Paul and Jack had gone off without their communication headsets. This was a major violation! What would happen if they got hurt down there? How would she know? How would she complete her reports then? These archaeologists never seemed to grasp what everyone else knew and took for granted, that the Protocol Officer was the most important person on any team! How would the government know what was happening if not for the Protocol Officer?

  She blamed Paul, since he was the team leader. "Paul is obviously just a typically mean, self-centered person who has no idea of where his priorities should be" she thought as she glared at the pair of grimy workers that emerged from the big hole. As soon as Paul popped his head up through the hole into the control room, Janet started in on him. “What’s the big idea? You two know better than to go down there without being in contact with me!”

  “I’m sorry, Janet, it won’t happen again. It must have slipped my mind this time.” Paul was still ecstatic about the pristine find in the old barn and was determined that Janet wouldn't ruin his great mood.

  “How on earth can it slip your mind? We've been doing this for years and the law states that you must be in constant communication with the Protocol Officer, namely, me. I’m sure this will look bad in my report.” Janet was furious at being denied her social life, not to mention the comforts of her apartment and was bent on taking it out on someone. Jack, as usual, remained silent around Janet and her conversation with Paul distracted her enough for him to quietly leave the control room with the briefcase he found before she could see it.

  Eventually, Janet allowed Paul to leave. He made his way down the corridor to the common area shared by the three of them during their 'off' hours. Jack was there still trying to work the lock on the case. Paul had never seen an ancient artifact that kept Jack puzzled for very long. Sometimes it seemed like he had a special connection to the past in a way that even Paul, with his rather old fashioned ways could not fathom. But, on the other hand, Jack did appear to be much older. “Maybe it has something to do with his age,” thought Paul. Mentally switching gears, he said “I was just thinking of that vehicle down there. I’ve seen a few of them at digs before, but I don’t remember ever seeing one that complete. Even the wheels looked like they would still work.”

  “The tires, you mean?” asked Jack with a bemused look on his rugged face.

  Once again, seemingly without any thought at all, Jack had come through with an obscure term for an item that had long sense passed into the depths of history. “Yes, I suppose. That would be the rubber coatings on the metal wheels, right?”

  Jack couldn’t help but smile at Paul’s unique way of looking at things. “Yes. They held air under pressure to make the ride smoother. And I agree, that van looked like it could be brought back to working order, if we had the time and access to a machine shop and some materials to work with. Why? Are you thinking of trying to restore it?”

  “Janet would kill me if she thought I would even consider trying to start an internal combustion engine! The pollution off of one of those things is highly toxic, Jack!”

  Jack laughed heartily. Finally, he said “It simply amazes me how the truth can be distorted over time. Do you really think people would have driven them all their lives if they were that dangerous? And, obviously, if they drove them, they actually had to start the engine. The pollution had to be rather minor, Paul. Think about it.”

  Paul was stunned. No one had ever suggested such an idea to him before and it made him stop and think for a moment. Since the idea did have some merit to it, he said “I suppose you have a point. But, I have to say, it scares me how your mind works. I mean, sometimes you seem to have a special connection with the past, with the way you always have an answer for what things are, how they work and what people thought and did.”

  Jack didn’t have an answer this time, at least none he was ready to share, but Paul didn’t expect him to. They had this conversation every time they found something interesting. “Did you find anything worth looking at in those papers that were in the compartment you were rummaging through?”

  “Well, I found the registration papers for the van. It was registered in Minnesota. How it ended up in a barn in Eastern Canada is a mystery that may be solved when we get that case opened. But, I can tell you this much, a vehicle like that was designed to carry people. That must mean that nearby there must have been a population center and some sort of attraction here, maybe a church or something. Or, somebody may have just gotten a good deal on an old van that ultimately ended up in this old barn.”

  “A church? Any idea what a church might have been?” said Paul. He had come across references to the term before, but could never quite figure out what it meant. Since Jack seemed to have this uncanny link to the past, he figured it wouldn't hurt to ask him.

  “A church was a sort of meeting house where people with similar interests gathered. Mostly, they talked about the past; you would have liked it, probably. You’ve never heard of it before?”

  “No, and I consider myself a historian. How do you know so much about it?”

  “Well, I guess I’ve been around longer than you. I suppose I must have encountered it somewhere before.” Jack suddenly got a strange look on his face and quietly went to his room without saying anything else. Paul once again wondered how Jack could know so much about the ancient world.

  In his room, Jack was kicking himself for almost letting his secret out. No one in this bizarre world could possibly know what a church was. The government had managed, over the course of several centuries, to not only eradicate certain aspects of society, but alter history to suit their needs and wishes. He knew because he was born many years before the government completely took control.

  Actually, no one would ever believe Jack was from a thousand years in the past. He had been stranded here for about te
n years now and still managed to be surprised at how weird it was. He hated the ice because of the memories it brought, but if he was ever to get out of here again, the ice was his only chance. As he drifted off to sleep, Jack couldn’t help himself from remembering that day ten years ago:

  After a lifetime of adventures exploring any time or place that took his fancy, he finally managed to mess up big time. Up until then, he had always kept his time jumps within a few hundred years of his own time. It seemed the further either direction he jumped, the stranger people were and the weirder people thought he was.

  However he had been feeling truly adventurous that particular day and jumped a thousand years into the future, just to see what it was like. He had always been a fan of Star Trek, and was hoping people would be flying around the universe in giant starships by then. He had been greatly disappointed to learn how wrong he was.

  The machine he used to travel through time was housed in a boat he came across when he was young. It had been a part of his life for many years now and he still had no real idea as to how it worked. He was cruising off of the eastern coast of Canada, well below the arctic ice line on that fateful day, a thousand and ten years ago. Scientists had been saying that global warming was causing the ice caps to melt anyway, so, instead of playing it safe and going south to warmer waters, he jumped right there. Sure enough, he found himself buried in the ice.

  Thankfully, the boat must have created a 'bubble' of sorts around itself as it transited through time and the fortunate side effect, when he popped into existence under hundreds of tons of ice was the creation of a 'cavern' in which the boat sat. He supposed the time machine’s affect on the space around the boat is what caused it, but, whatever the reason, it saved his life and for that he was well pleased it was there. He put on the warmest clothes he could find and began digging his way up through the ice.

  From the roof of the top deck of the boat, he could just reach the ice while standing on a step ladder. Using the tools he had on-board, he managed to dig his way up through what seemed like miles of ice, but in reality was much less. As fortune would have it, he had a torch with him that he happened to acquire somewhere among his travels, on a trip into his future. He never did figure out what the thing was supposed to be used for, but whatever it was, it worked and he had fuel enough to last for quite some time.

  Still, it took him more than a week to reach the surface. Thinking back, he knew he should have just re-engaged the time circuits and returned to the past, but he wasn’t thinking straight for some reason. Besides, he really wanted to see the future.

  After finally reaching the surface, he almost immediately encountered a polar bear. The bear saw him as soon as his head poked up through the hole to the surface and started lumbering his way, picking up speed as he ran. Jack, however, was a few steps out of the hole before he finally caught sight of the half-ton mass of white fur and muscle lumbering his way. He turned and ran back toward the hole he had made in the ice, but wasn’t quick enough. The bear got there first. Fortunately, before the bear got him, Paul happened by.

  Paul had been scouting an expedition that day and just happened to cruise by in a hovercraft in the nick of time. Jack’s life had been saved that day by a total stranger dropping out of the sky between him and the huge bear. Noticing the open door on the hovercraft and not really caring who was inside at the moment, he dove in headfirst. Paul brought the craft to a hover twenty feet or so above the bear, allowing Jack to compose himself and get the door closed. Once the door was closed, he flew away at a high rate of speed.

  Again, he wasn't really thinking straight at the time, probably from the excitement with the bear still addling his brain a bit, but Jack didn’t think to check his GPS right away. And, when he did think to check it later, he was shocked to discover that his GPS didn’t work here. And now he was so far away from his boat that he couldn’t find it again. He simply lost track of direction on the seemingly endless expanse of ice.

  As he reminisced, he thought back to that first conversation he had with Paul. “Hi, I’m Jack Murphy thanks for the lift” he said with his hand outstretched to shake.”

  Paul looked at him with a strange expression and continued driving the hovercraft he was piloting over the ice. “I’m Paul, nice to meet you.” He paused in thought a moment, then said “I hate to ask, but at the risk of sounding foolish, did you say your name was Jack, or Murphy? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with more than one name before.”

  Realizing that the world of a thousand years in the future was a bit different from what he was used to, he quickly said “My name’s Jack. Sorry about the confusion.” He quickly changed the subject and the two of them became fast friends. In the years that passed since, he learned that no one had a last name these days. Apparently, it stemmed from a desire for secrecy on the part of the parents. The government felt the privacy of the parents was more important and since the government raised the children anyway, no harm was done, in their eyes.

  So, for the past ten years, he kept going to these ice expeditions with his friend Paul, hoping to find his boat and his only way back to his idea of civilization. He knew that this time, however, he was close. He thought that in the morning, when he could get back to the barn under the ice, he would find a map or something that would give him an idea of just where the coast was and perhaps he could figure out his way back to his boat.