ENCOUNTER

by Hep Aldridge

  We were now all standing looking down into the black maw of the abyss as the realization hit us… we had just lost Reggie.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The silence was deafening as we stood there staring at the end of the rope at our feet. Everyone had rushed to the edge as we had pulled up the rope and were looking over the edge. O’Reilly called out, “Reggie, Reggie, are you okay?” No answer. Dimitri and Joe shouted her name; all we heard was the forlorn echo in the canyon. My God, I thought, she can’t be gone, she just can’t be as I peered over the edge with the others.

  I heard what can only be described as a choked sound of expletives emanating from O’Reilly and saw Eduardo throw his arms around her, his body shaking.

  Dimitri called out again, this time in an angry voice that cracked as he finished, “Reggie, dammit, this isn’t funny; where are you…?”

  Joe put his hand to his forehead. “This can’t be happening. She can’t be gone; she just can’t be,” followed by a sharp intake of breath, his voice cracking into a muffled sob.

  Doc walked up to me and said in a low voice, “What the hell just happened?”

  I stood there, choked up, feeling like I had just been gut-punched by a semi-truck. “I don’t know, Doc; I can’t explain it. She was on rope, in trouble, and we were pulling her back, and then she was… gone.”

  I asked him, “Did you see anything? Did you see what happened?”

  His voice quivered as he said, “No, one minute I caught a glimpse of her, and then nothing.”

  I staggered back to the nearest large rock and sat down. We have to do something; there’s got to be something we can do. Think, think, my brain was screaming while feeling paralyzed by shock.

  I heard Joe say, “We’ve got to go look for her.”

  “Yeah, I’ll go down,” Dimitri said as he picked up the rope.

  “No,” I exclaimed, much louder and harsher than I expected.

  Dimitri stopped and looked at me, “What do you mean ‘No?’ We can’t just stand here and do nothing.”

  I looked him in the eye and said, “That’s exactly what we’re going to do until we have a better idea of what happened. I’m not risking anyone else’s life.”

  O’Reilly turned to me, red-eyed, and said, “We just lost our friend, our comrade, a member of our family, and you want to sit there doing nothing?” Her voice rose in pitch and anger as she finished her outburst. Everyone was staring at me now like I was some seven-headed beast from Hell.

  “Stop and think, people. I’m as sick inside as every one of you, but I will not risk more lives until we figure out what we’re dealing with. That was a four-thousand pound, working load rope. It could lift a small vehicle and not break, so what happened? Right now, we need brains, not emotions, as our driving force if we’re to have any chance of getting to Reggie safely.”

  Dimitri and Joe were staring at the rope end, and Joe said, “Well, this didn’t break; it’s obviously been cut.”

  There was silence as we stared at one another, trying to make sense of what happened. My head and heart were pounding.

  Suddenly, there was a static crackle over our Comms, and all our heads snapped up. Another crackle and then a familiar voice said, “Hey, you guys still up there?”

  I bolted upright off my rock seat. “Reggie!” I literally shouted into my Comm as I headed for the edge of the rock face.

  Dimitri and Joe echoed my call into the Comm link, “Reggie,” as they turned and scrambled to the edge.

  O’Reilly, Doc, and Eduardo were all making their way to the edge as O’Reilly said, “Reggie, what’s your status—are you hurt?”

  We got to the edge and looked down as Reggie said, “Yeah, I’m good, got some bumps and bruises, but good.”

  We stood there in astonishment, elation, and relief as we saw her standing below us… in the middle of the black abyss!

  “What the hell happened?” I sputtered. “How are you standing there?”

  She looked around, spread her arms, and said, “Yeah, pretty amazing, huh? This is really neat down here. There must be some kind of cloaking device or optical veil, kinda like the Romulans used on Star Trek. I can’t explain it, but what a trip.”

  “What?” I think we all exclaimed in unison.

  “A cloaking device?” Doc said. “So, what are you standing on, and why can’t we see your feet?”

  I now realized that Doc was right. She was not visible from the knees down. It looked like she was standing in a shallow pool of black water.

  “Oh,” she said, “I’m standing on a stone platform, a stepped platform. It has about ten steps down to the ground. I should know; I tumbled down them headfirst.”

  So that was the tugging and pulling we felt on the rope, I thought.

  “I was doing okay until you guys started pulling me back up. I had already smacked my head really hard twice on the way down and was dazed when you guys started pulling me back up, and I hit my head again. The only thing I thought to do was cut the rope. Luckily, I could grab my knife.

  “Oh, and Colt, that lost city you’re looking for, it isn’t lost anymore. It’s right here,” she said as she swung her arm in a huge arc behind her, encompassing the canyon and the fissure, “You’re not going to believe it.”

  No one had moved. It was like we were still trying to figure out what it was we were witnessing. Dimitri sprang into action first, grabbed our knotted climbing rope, secured it around the large boulder I had been sitting on, came to the edge, and tossed it down. There were knots tied in it every two feet, so one could relatively easily climb down or up, using the knots for hand and footholds.

  “Come on down slowly,” Reggie advised, “but from down here, I can see the small carved stairsteps that go to the top. The way it’s cut into the rock, it’s not visible from up there looking down, but plainly visible looking up from down here.”

  We all, one by one, made our way down the rope until we were standing knee-deep in the abyss—what a weird sensation. I mean, there was a physical feeling of disorientation. My mind found it hard to accept that I was standing on a solid surface when I could look for miles down the canyon at the black gash in the Earth that wasn’t really there. Thank God I had read a lot of science fiction in my youth and was good at the suspension of disbelief.

  “Look,” Reggie said, pointing back up the way we had just come down. “See the stairs cut into the rock?”

  Sure enough, there they were, completely camouflaged from above but easily visible from down here. A set of steps that one person at a time could navigate. Fantastic engineering.

  “But, come on, this is amazing,” she shouted as she started toward the canyon wall. “Take it slow. You’re not going to be able to see the platform or steps until your body goes through the cloak, and the steps are about four feet past the threshold. The platform is plenty wide, so you can go through anywhere along here. But you should probably take small steps and be ready for a tingle. I did notice that as I came back through. It’s kinda strangely fun, but just be ready,” she said as she disappeared before our eyes.

  I followed her and was immediately thrust into an unbelievable panoramic vista. The others popped through the cloak to my left and right. As my mind was once again trying to comprehend what I was seeing, I heard gasps, and after a few seconds heard Doc say, “Colt, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

  Before us lay a plaza. As I looked around, I was amazed at how large a space we had entered, much larger than the image projected outside. I also noticed the temperature was warmer. We had gotten used to the chill of the higher altitude we had been traveling in, but this was comfortable—very temperate. So, not only was this thing cloaking the city, it was controlling the environment. Amazing. As I looked up, the sunlight was diffused, and there seemed to be an even glow coming from overhead, everywhere overhead. The cloak has its own lighting, I thought.

  We appeared to be at the end of a box canyon; there were sheer rock walls to our left. In the m
iddle of the plaza, around eighty-five yards wide, was a circular pool with water bubbling up out of the center. On the far side stood a pyramid-shaped structure, maybe fifty feet tall. It had smooth sides with a central staircase leading to what looked to be a door less than halfway up. What was striking was that the capstone looked like glass or crystal, and it gave off a faint bluish glow.

  I pointed to it and said, “Check out the top.”

  O’Reilly replied, “The blue glow, like on the roadway markers.”

  We were frozen in place, trying to absorb our new surroundings. Looking to the right, the plaza turned into what I guess you could call a main street or thoroughfare. There were structures and buildings on both sides, some of them a hundred feet tall or more. It was a stunning vista; the buildings, their designs, the stonework, it was beautiful. In the middle of the street, we could see four obelisks that looked to be evenly spaced, with the furthest one far in the distance. They appeared to be approximately thirty to forty feet high and looked like the ones I had seen in Egypt.

  I turned to Joe and said, “You and Reggie go back and get the rest of our gear and bring it in. We’ll set camp down there at the bottom of the steps. Take Eduardo too. The rest of us will take a look around while you’re gone.”

  “Roger that, Colt.”

  With that, we took our first steps into the Lost City of the Gods.

  An hour later, as we were continuing our exploration of the city, our Comms crackled, and Joe’s excited voice said, “Colt, do you copy?”

  “Yes,” I replied, “I hear you.”

  “Colt, we’ve got a problem. The mercs have reached the village.”

  “What?” I sputtered back.

  “They’ve reached the village, and there are more of them. We got the gear, and we’re coming to you; stand by.”

  “Roger that,” I said as we moved to the center of the roadway going through town. We saw the three of them heading our way and advanced to meet them.

  They were all out of breath as they reached us at a run.

  “What do you mean, there are more of them? How do you know?” I asked.

  Joe caught his breath and said, “When we got out from under the cloak, I decided to do a quick check of the trail cameras. When I pulled up the camera we placed at the old village, I saw the men. They were setting up camp. You know it’s getting dark outside now.”

  I looked up, and there was still a nice even light emanating overhead. You couldn’t tell what was going on outside the cloak.

  “So, tell me about the men,” I said.

  Joe had settled down and found a stone bench to sit on while the others stood around him.

  “It looks like they will be spending the night at the village. The camera placement gives me a wide shot of the area, and they’re starting to set up camp and build a fire. My guess would be they’re still trying to track us and don’t want to chance missing our trail at night. I think I counted eleven men; two were dressed like locals, and the others were wearing military-type gear, and all were armed.”

  “Where the hell did they get more men?” I said to no one in particular.

  “Looks like they are turning out to be pretty resourceful,” Dimitri said.

  “No kidding,” I said. “So, we know they are at least two days behind us if they find the trail that leads to the roadway. Maybe longer if they have trouble finding it.”

  “Right,” Joe said, “and I placed two more cameras out there. Eduardo ran back down the road a few hundred yards and set one up, and I put one at the top of the rockpile, so we should be able to spot them if they find and follow the road.”

  “Good thinking,” I said.

  “The only problem is that the camera’s signal can’t pierce the cloak. I’m going to have to go back through it to check them.”

  “Okay, go back out and confirm they are camped there for the night. If so, we need to use our time here to explore and see what we can find. If it comes down to it, we may have to make a stand on the rock pile. At least that will give us the high ground.”

  “We can’t let them find this place,” Doc said.

  “I know,” I said. “If they find us, we’ll have to stop them, so tonight we plan for that. Until then, we explore. Joe, go check on their camp and make sure they’re bedded down. Keep the gear at the base of the platform. We’ll fall back there in an hour. Everybody spread out and keep your eyes open. Give a shout if you find something.”

  With that, we began our investigation, going from one amazing building to another in a city that looked like something out of a science fiction movie. But in reality, it could be many hundreds of years old or older and looked as if it had just been built.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The canyon where the city was located was beautiful. The sheer walls vaulted some two- to three-hundred feet upward, and the canyon had widened out to around two hundred yards. The irregular-shaped buildings were spread throughout the area. I could just make out what I thought was the far end of the main road and, with our ranging scope, found it to be a mile away. It was hard to make an accurate judgment since the scope view at the far end was fuzzy for some reason.

  The overhead light was fading as if someone was turning down a lighting dimmer switch when our hour of exploration came to an end. There had been a lot of chatter over our Comms as we went in and out of the buildings. We had been able to cover maybe four or five buildings—hastily exploring them as much as we could. This truly was a ghost town.

  As we regrouped on the main street and headed back to the platform where Joe and the rest of the team were waiting for us, we discussed the lack of personal items or furnishings in the buildings we had covered. Granted, this was a cursory investigation, and we had only covered a small portion of the city, but it was strange how clean and empty it was. Joe had our gear piled at the platform's base when we arrived and sat down on the lower steps.

  “They are down for the night. Campfire glowing and at least one guard that I could see, so we can rest easy tonight.”

  We broke out the MREs and lit the little Sterno canisters, not for warmth tonight, just for heating food. In fact, we had taken off our jackets and were enjoying the warmth that was somehow being generated inside the cloak. It also seemed easier to breathe as if additional oxygen was being introduced. The overhead light had dimmed but not gone out. It was like twilight, still enough to see by, but certainly not daylight. The city was still very visible, and eerily, there were few shadows due to the even distribution of light from above.

  Between bites of her meal, O’Reilly said, “Looks like we need to prepare for possible visitors, so how are we going to play this?”

  We batted around several ideas and scenarios, most of which wound up with us in a major confrontation with the mercs.

  “Well, we can’t let them find the city or the library,” Doc said.

  “And there’s no way to draw them away. If they find the road, you know they will follow it,” Joe added emphatically.

  “So, it looks like we either go out and confront them in the canyon or set up a defensive position here at the rockpile,” Dimitri said.

  “Which means if they get through us, they find the city,” Reggie interjected.

  “But they may not find the road,” I added. “We had a hard time finding it, so we may get lucky, and they miss it.”

  “True,” Doc said, “which brings up a point that’s been nagging me since we got here.”

  “Which is?” I asked.

  “I don’t think this is the city that the priest described in his journal.”

  We all looked at him and then slowly took in our surroundings again.

  He continued, “Where are the huge stones that the priest saw being moved and the huge pyramid structure he saw? I mean that one over there,” pointing at the one across the plaza from us, “it’s big, but not of the magnitude he described in his journal. And he never mentioned anything about finding or following a paved roadway to the city, which is something
I’m pretty sure he would have commented on. And look at this place; it’s not a Chichen Itza or Machu Picchu. It is way too futuristic looking.”

  I had been scanning our surroundings and looked at him and said, “You’re right; from what I remember, this place doesn’t fit his description at all, and he said he and the chief made it to the city and back in one day. There’s no way that would be possible if they came here.”

  “So, does that mean there’s another lost city around here?” Reggie asked.

  “It would seem so,” Doc replied. “And if that’s the case, those guys may find it before finding the road. That could tie them up for days.”

  “But we would have no way of knowing that. The cameras are only planted on our route, and if we use the drone to surveil the surrounding area, looking for them, we run the risk of them spotting it,” Joe said.

  Another ancient city close by, bad guys nipping at our heels, and this unbelievable discovery we just made—that was a little much to process all at once.

  Dimitri said, “Okay if this isn’t the city from the journal, how do we know it’s the place that can lead us to the library? What if it’s the other city, wherever it is?”

  “Well, I think we have a couple of things going for us,” Doc said. “The priest never mentioned the road, and he never said anything about a cloak. In his day, it probably would have been described as a “magic veil or holy thing” covering the city. If he saw it, I’m sure he would have mentioned it. I’m guessing this city is more important than the one he was taken to. That’s why the road was blocked, and it’s cloaked. The chief may not have even known about this city. I wouldn’t be surprised if the road, this city, and its cloak don’t pre-date the other city by quite a bit, and I do mean quite a bit—possibly thousands of years.”

  “You may be right, Doc,” I said, “so how does that help our situation?”

  “As I said earlier, it could buy us some time. We need to find out all we can about this place and determine if it indeed holds the clue pointing us to the library.”