Tracker – The Past Comes Back to Haunt Us – Part 3
"Aurora? It's Sam." The telephone receiver emitted only a static silence. "Aurora?"
"I'm here Sam." Aurora shook herself mentally. The momentary shock of hearing his voice had taken her abruptly back nearly 40 years. They had all agreed to only use coded mail & later encrypted email for contact. Whatever the reason that had Sam calling, she was filled with foreboding.
"Someone's been snooping in old business." Sam's voice held a tremor of trepidation.
"Do we know who?" Aurora demanded.
"Not exactly but I'm working on it" Sam replied.
Aurora Minot straightened her 60-year-old frame, surprised to find herself hunched over; quite like the frightened 20 year old she had been when she had first met Sam Hulston.
Silence sat between them for a moment as they both contemplated the past. Arthur had been the one to make the find. 26 years old and full of himself as the assistant to Marion Damerest, renowned archeologist.
"Rory, you will not believe what we found!" Arthur had burst into their small apartment in Lombard, Illinois, just outside Chicago. It was not yet part of the city. More a collection of sprawling farms & businesses, separated by odd hills and open spaces from the city of Chicago proper.
"We found a cave, well a kind of underground room of sorts. It's filled with strange glyphs & some weird devices or parts of some kind." Arthur sped through his explanation, pacing rapidly back & forth. He had fairly vibrated with the excitement he felt.
"Slow down chere." Aurora had gone to him and placed soft, white hands on his shoulders.
He had stooped slightly to place a quick buss across her lips but was too hyped up to be contained, he moved quickly back to pacing. "Love, we thought to find something from the past, some bits of history that would help us understand human development. Instead we've found something…non- human that may change man's history.
Author's shoulders had drooped slightly as the enormity of what they'd found overwhelmed him for a moment, if it were authentic.
Authenticity wasn't the problem. What came looking for them once they removed the artifacts from their earthen tomb was.
It had started innocuously enough, a request from NASA to examine the strangely worked metals pieces. No problem there, the team needed expert help.
Marion Damerest studied pot shards, mummies and bones, Arthur Minot the same, Aurora expertise was cataloguing and fund raising to keep the dig going, Mickey Lowenstein was the best lab man, Carbon dating, Flourine dating and Seriation he was the best. But these article defied all of Mickey's tests and NASA's top engineer Sam Hulston had gone to work.
There was no answer, nothing on Earth; no material was even close to a match. If it had been a chunk of rock, a piece of metal in it's natural unshaped form it could have been passed off as a piece of meteorite or something spewed from some other naturally occurring space traveling body. But, these pieces had been worked, shaped by something or someone for a purpose. What that purpose was? The next question after where the stuff came from.
It was during the testing phase, that one enterprising technician managed to accidentally activate some of the pieces he had put together like a jigsaw puzzle. Then the pieces had flowed together and begun emitting a laser type of projection, Earth's first holographic display. It lasted around 5 minutes, then it shut itself off & the pieces resumed their separated status. In awed silence the main technicians worked to duplicate what the technician had done. Finally success! What we didn't know was that when active the thing emitted a pulse, a frequency that we couldn't measure or track but that someone, something else could.
So they came. Hunting for the weapons. Lured by the promise of power beyond imagination, pressed by the need to conquer, voracious appetites for destruction needed to be assuaged & this technology could give them what they wanted. Conquer our solar system and then use it as a base to bring the Migar Alliance to its knees, to not only return home, but to return to their home world the victors.
That was the beginning of the end. 5 years later they were all fighting for their lives, for the lives of all humanity. And Arthur, he was dead. And what was left of herself…dead too.
When the smoke cleared they had all fled, some to London, some stayed in the Midwest and some had simply disappeared. Most likely to lick their wounds and recover from the inconceivable war they had won.
The sound of a throat clearing on the other end of the phone brought her back from the past.
"Have you contacted the others?" A hint of fear rode her voice. ' If he had called Marion then the threat was all too real.'
"Yes. I called them all" Sam's voice shook slightly. "The inquiries are coming from two separate sources as far as I can tell. One appears harmless, the other… well let's just say that one worried me enough to send the summons."
"When will everyone get here?" Aurora asked. Her fingers were stroking her cheek unconsciously, a worry gesture that was so ingrained that she never noticed it anymore.
"Tomorrow night" Sam replied. "And we'll get a better fix on the harmless case the next day. A girl named Jess will be flying in from Chicago"
The sharp gasp from Aurora made him pause slightly.
"She claims she may have something that belongs to us, she actually named us, Aurora & said she has a list of some sort. But the very fact that she is being so open about everything, well I'd bet anything she hasn't got a clue and has stumbled into this by chance."
"Sam, when was the last time anything happened to us by chance?" Aurora's question was met with silence as Sam digested that thought.
"Alright, I'll prepare a welcome for our guest. Sam? You didn't say. Did you get a reply to the query?" Aurora asked in a hushed voice.
"No. Not yet, but after 40 years it may not get answered" Sam responded in the same hushed tone.
"It'll get answered." Aurora stated. "But at what cost? What cost?" She slowly lowered the receiver to the cradle without saying goodbye.
"Aurora? It's Sam." The telephone receiver emitted only a static silence. "Aurora?"
"I'm here Sam." Aurora shook herself mentally. The momentary shock of hearing his voice had taken her abruptly back nearly 40 years. They had all agreed to only use coded mail & later encrypted email for contact. Whatever the reason that had Sam calling, she was filled with foreboding.
"Someone's been snooping in old business." Sam's voice held a tremor of trepidation.
"Do we know who?" Aurora demanded.
"Not exactly but I'm working on it" Sam replied.
Aurora Minot straightened her 60-year-old frame, surprised to find herself hunched over; quite like the frightened 20 year old she had been when she had first met Sam Hulston.
Silence sat between them for a moment as they both contemplated the past. Arthur had been the one to make the find. 26 years old and full of himself as the assistant to Marion Damerest, renowned archeologist.
"Rory, you will not believe what we found!" Arthur had burst into their small apartment in Lombard, Illinois, just outside Chicago. It was not yet part of the city. More a collection of sprawling farms & businesses, separated by odd hills and open spaces from the city of Chicago proper.
"We found a cave, well a kind of underground room of sorts. It's filled with strange glyphs & some weird devices or parts of some kind." Arthur sped through his explanation, pacing rapidly back & forth. He had fairly vibrated with the excitement he felt.
"Slow down chere." Aurora had gone to him and placed soft, white hands on his shoulders.
He had stooped slightly to place a quick buss across her lips but was too hyped up to be contained, he moved quickly back to pacing. "Love, we thought to find something from the past, some bits of history that would help us understand human development. Instead we've found something…non- human that may change man's history.
Author's shoulders had drooped slightly as the enormity of what they'd found overwhelmed him for a moment, if it were authentic.
Authenticity wasn't the problem. What came looking for them once they removed the artifacts from their earthen tomb was.
It had started innocuously enough, a request from NASA to examine the strangely worked metals pieces. No problem there, the team needed expert help.
Marion Damerest studied pot shards, mummies and bones, Arthur Minot the same, Aurora expertise was cataloguing and fund raising to keep the dig going, Mickey Lowenstein was the best lab man, Carbon dating, Flourine dating and Seriation he was the best. But these article defied all of Mickey's tests and NASA's top engineer Sam Hulston had gone to work.
There was no answer, nothing on Earth; no material was even close to a match. If it had been a chunk of rock, a piece of metal in it's natural unshaped form it could have been passed off as a piece of meteorite or something spewed from some other naturally occurring space traveling body. But, these pieces had been worked, shaped by something or someone for a purpose. What that purpose was? The next question after where the stuff came from.
It was during the testing phase, that one enterprising technician managed to accidentally activate some of the pieces he had put together like a jigsaw puzzle. Then the pieces had flowed together and begun emitting a laser type of projection, Earth's first holographic display. It lasted around 5 minutes, then it shut itself off & the pieces resumed their separated status. In awed silence the main technicians worked to duplicate what the technician had done. Finally success! What we didn't know was that when active the thing emitted a pulse, a frequency that we couldn't measure or track but that someone, something else could.
So they came. Hunting for the weapons. Lured by the promise of power beyond imagination, pressed by the need to conquer, voracious appetites for destruction needed to be assuaged & this technology could give them what they wanted. Conquer our solar system and then use it as a base to bring the Migar Alliance to its knees, to not only return home, but to return to their home world the victors.
That was the beginning of the end. 5 years later they were all fighting for their lives, for the lives of all humanity. And Arthur, he was dead. And what was left of herself…dead too.
When the smoke cleared they had all fled, some to London, some stayed in the Midwest and some had simply disappeared. Most likely to lick their wounds and recover from the inconceivable war they had won.
The sound of a throat clearing on the other end of the phone brought her back from the past.
"Have you contacted the others?" A hint of fear rode her voice. ' If he had called Marion then the threat was all too real.'
"Yes. I called them all" Sam's voice shook slightly. "The inquiries are coming from two separate sources as far as I can tell. One appears harmless, the other… well let's just say that one worried me enough to send the summons."
"When will everyone get here?" Aurora asked. Her fingers were stroking her cheek unconsciously, a worry gesture that was so ingrained that she never noticed it anymore.
"Tomorrow night" Sam replied. "And we'll get a better fix on the harmless case the next day. A girl named Jess will be flying in from Chicago"
The sharp gasp from Aurora made him pause slightly.
"She claims she may have something that belongs to us, she actually named us, Aurora & said she has a list of some sort. But the very fact that she is being so open about everything, well I'd bet anything she hasn't got a clue and has stumbled into this by chance."
"Sam, when was the last time anything happened to us by chance?" Aurora's question was met with silence as Sam digested that thought.
"Alright, I'll prepare a welcome for our guest. Sam? You didn't say. Did you get a reply to the query?" Aurora asked in a hushed voice.
"No. Not yet, but after 40 years it may not get answered" Sam responded in the same hushed tone.
"It'll get answered." Aurora stated. "But at what cost? What cost?" She slowly lowered the receiver to the cradle without saying goodbye.