Chapter Four

When Owen was still not back by lunchtime, I let myself out and bought a sandwich to eat from a nearby shop. It was dry and not particularly appetising. I also popped by a hardware store and bought a small folding knife as a precaution. I did not usually carry a weapon around but Owen's cryptic warning spooked me. I had spent most of the morning tensely watching the door, worried a murderous maniac would come bursting in and hack me to pieces. It had taken me a very short while to realise that if an intruder really did come in, the office was a dead end and there was no escape route other than the front door.

I wandered around the area aimlessly as I ate my sandwich. I was giving it very serious thought as to whether I should go back to work or not. Owen might swear he was not involved in anything shady but there was still his partner Colin, whom I had not met yet. He was another matter altogether. If the two of them were mixed up in something that would compromise my safety, I wanted nothing to do with it. To hell with the £1,000 a week and the attractive guy thing. I think I would prefer to be poor and alone than dead.

However, a sense of responsibility prevailed. Even if I did not like it, until there was some concrete evidence to prove my fears, I could not, in good conscience, abandon my post. I knew a lot of temps who walked out of a job at lunchtime just because they felt like it but I was not one of those people. If I were to throw in the towel, I would not cut and run. I would at least do Owen the courtesy of telling him personally.

All this bravado going on inside my mind did not translate into much real courage. At the very least, the security guard in the lobby was still at his post – now watching a soap on a very small TV set on his desk, the tinny sound filling the lobby. I smiled at him as I passed and he nodded to acknowledge me.

The office was still empty when I got back. I did a check to make sure – with the exception of the private room on the right that I was not allowed to go into. I took a chair and propped it against the door handle, just to make it a little more difficult to open in case an intruder was lurking inside.

I realised that I could not spend the day worrying about whether or not I was going to be killed. Owen had said he wanted me to research and familiarise myself with the project, and had obviously dumped that huge file on my desk for a reason. I ensured my new knife was within reach, got a cup of tea, settled in to the office chair, opened the file and began to read.

The top sheet was a typewritten cover page bearing the title "Five minutes to midnight: An examination of the theories and prophecies surrounding December 21, 2012". The author's name was not given, neither was there any indication of when it was written. What started out as a short paper on the subject had ballooned into the monstrosity I currently held owing to the many sheaves of paper that had been stuffed and added to its pages.

I ploughed on. The original paper gave an overview of the many viewpoints on the Dec 21 doomsday ranging from the famous Mayan prophecy to Nostradamus, the I-Ching and other Internet conspiracy theories. The Internet conspiracists talked about how trends can be gleaned and predicted from an examination of websites. So far, the economic collapse, the rise and worsening of natural disasters, and the reign Pope Benedict XVI were identified as signs of the end times.

Whoever wrote the original paper was convinced the world was on the brink of collapse and was taking everything and the kitchen sink as a sign. In normal circumstances, I would have dismissed all of it as the ravings of a nutter.

The papers that were presumably Owen's additions focused on the Mayan prophecy and the cosmological implications linked to the prophecy and an analysis on the effects these cosmological events would have on the earth's climate and geological plate movements.

According to his notes, the Mayan concept of doomsday was the result of a controversial Western interpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. The Long Count calendar was linear rather than cyclical and kept time in units of 20 – 20 days made a uinal, 18 unials (360 days) made a tun, 20 tuns made a ka'tun, and 20 ka'tuns (144,000 days, or roughly 394 years) made a b'ak'tun.

One b'ak'tun was considered one world age – a strong tradition in Mayan literature. Several translations of the Mayan texts suggested that we were living in the fourth era, where each era ended after the 13th b'ak'tun. In terms of our time, the end of the fourth era would correspond to Dec 21, 2012. In the margin beside, someone had scribbled in a blue ball-point pen: "Can't there be a fifth era?"

A quote from an American archaeologist, Michael Coe, was highlighted in yellow: "There is a suggestion that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th b'ak'tun. Thus, our present universe would be annihilated when the Great Cycle reaches completion."

This seemed to have answered the previous scribbled question for in the margin was the word "Oh".

The following pages contained some printed pictures of the Tortugero Monument and La Corona Hieroglyphic Stairway which purportedly bear rare references to the 13th b'ak'tun and were linked to the god Bolon Yokte, the god of war and the underworld.

Having dealt with the Mayans, the research moved on to examine the New Age angle. The New Age belief was that the sun completes a full rotation through the 12 zodiac constellations every 25,800 years. The sun's equinox position in March (the point at which the sun is exactly halfway between the highest and lowest points in the sky) was currently in the Pisces constellation but was slowing moving into Aquarius.

This new Age of Aquarius was said to herald the fall of one civilisation (the era of religion and aristocracy) and the rise of a new one associated with free will, technology and humanity. But it warned that the fall and rise would not be a peaceful transition. Such massive change was not expected to happen without great resistance and upheaval. The speculation was that the world might even collapse into a third world war and then emerge into the new, enlightened age.

As the March equinox moved into Aquarius, the sun's December solstice position would also shift, causing the sun, the earth and the centre of the galaxy to come into perfect alignment on Dec 21, 2012. The problem was that at the centre of most spiral universes lies a supermassive black hole that slowly sucks in the star systems around it. One named Sagittarius A* is thought to be at the centre of the Milky Way. The alignment of this black hole with the sun and earth could trigger massive solar flares, bathing the earth in energy equal to that of 100 billion atom bombs.

So much energy hitting the earth would be devastating. The impact was thought to be enough to knock the earth off its rotational axis and cause a geomagnetic reversal or pole shift. The north and south magnetic poles would reverse and wreak havoc as all electronic equipment that depended on the constant polarity to function would fail. Such a phenomenon could throw humanity back to the Stone Age, breeding absolute, unthinkable chaos in the current wired era. Not to mention the catastrophes that such a change would cause the physical world – generating earthquakes, super-volcanoes, tsunamis, tornadoes and other disasters all over the earth. Millions would die and the rest would be living in a real life post-apocalyptic age.

I felt shaken after reading all of this. I was aware of the so-called "end of the world" on Dec 21 but I had not known what it entailed exactly, beyond the general chaos and havoc. Reading about it made me wonder how Owen could even think that it was possible to save the world. Between super-volcanoes and tsunamis on earth and supermassive black holes and solar flares in space, it seemed like an impossibly Herculean task. Just thinking about it made me want to crawl away and hide. Surely no man could stop all that from happening.

Afternoon had turned to evening by the time I finished reading and my tea had gone stone cold. Owen was still not back and I wondered what I should do if he did not return by the end of the official office hours. I went to the pantry and poured away my cold tea. I decided to make myself another cup to calm myself down and wait for an hour more before calling it a day.

Forty-five minutes and half a cup of tea later, I heard voices in the hallway and the office door was practically kicked open. Owen entered, his leather jacket looking scuffed and his face dirty as though he had crawled through greasy machinery. He was supporting another man, presumably his friend Colin, who was not in a much better state and was bleeding profusely from a head wound. He had a dazed look in his eyes and they seemed unable to focus on anything.

I sprang to my feet, automatically reaching for my mobile phone to call an ambulance. Owen saw and barked at me: "Danae, stay there. Don't move. Don't do anything."

I was stunned at his curtness. "I was going to call for an ambulance. He needs medical help," I pointed out.

"No. What he needs is peace and quiet, not paramedics trying to stick their noses in where they're not wanted," Owen said sternly. "Do not call anyone, do you hear me?"

I obeyed, putting my phone down on the desk. "Is there anything I can do to help? I worked in a doctor's office before. I know some first aid," I offered, seeing Owen scuttling between the office and their private room. I did not know what he was trying to do but as far as I could see, the only thing that could be done was call an actual medical professional – Colin's head wound seemed far too serious for amateurs to fix.

Owen paused then said in a gentler tone; "There's a first aid kit in one of the cabinets in the pantry. Bring it here."

I did as I was told, bringing the first aid kit and laying it open. I unpacked cotton swabs, iodine, antiseptic cream and bandages. Then I hurried back to the pantry to get the rest of the hot water from the kettle and a towel from the bathroom to clean the wound.

Owen allowed me to dampen the towel to help clean up the blood from Colin's head. But, the second I touched Colin, his eyes flew open and he glared at me with an unfathomable expression, all sign of his previous faint gone. Owen pushed me aside and behind him. From my new vantage point, Colin looked like a cornered and injured wild animal ready to strike.

"Danae, I think you better go, love," Owen told me apologetically. "I'll deal with this."

I did not need to be told twice. I packed up my things in record time and fled for my life.