by Rob Roth
WEDNESDAY EVENING - HOTEL
Once they had changed into more casual clothes, Jace and Dooley met back together in the large main suite room with the fireplace. Jace turned on the fire while Dooley sat in his favorite chair next to it and put his feet up on a little footstool.
“Dooley, I think you should keep an eye on our Miss Trask tomorrow. See where she goes and what she does. What do you think? It just seemed like she received orders from someone on the phone call, which changed her plans. That makes me think something else is now afoot.”
“Yep, that call changed her plans for tomorrow, and I’d like to know what’s so important she’d give up spending time with yours truly,” Dooley joked.
“Also,” Jace continued ignoring Dooley, “She was very curious about my trip to NAU and the analysis I performed. But it’s almost as if we were talking about two very different things. She wanted to know about the color of the meteorite and dropped some strange remark about dust. Although she denied it, I wonder if that is what she found in Australia. My meteorite is black and harder than anything I’ve ever encountered. Just the opposite of dust. She’s obviously digging for information, but I don’t think she heard what she was expecting.”
“I’m right with you, Jace. We need to figure out what’s going on. Besides,” Dooley added with a smile, “I certainly don’t mind keeping my eyes on Allie tomorrow. She doesn’t know you rented the Jeep since we’ve been walking to the conference, so I can tail her from a distance if she leaves the hotel. I’ll get up early and park the car on the street, then just wait for a couple hours to see if she heads out. If she doesn’t, I’ll go knock on her door and confirm that she’s merely working from her room. That is, if you don’t need the car tomorrow.”
“No, that’s fine. I can always prepare for my lecture on Friday. That will keep me busy tomorrow. Just don’t you get caught up in your cat and mouse chase with Miss Trask. I think she is very clever, Dooley, and if you don’t watch yourself, you might find yourself outmatched.”
“Don’t you worry Jace. I like Allie, and I can’t deny she’s very cute. It’s nice to have someone who’s clever and even a bit of a challenge. But I’m sure I can handle her.”
Jace rolled his eyes and walked over and sat down at a fancy table in a comfortable cushioned chair. He brought up his email and found that Professor Petrov had indeed sent him back a note, along with an enhanced image file. Jace read the letter aloud for Dooley’s benefit.
“Dear Professor Larkin, I am somewhat intrigued as to how you produced that image. I can’t help but wonder if you were testing me in some way. If so, sadly I must admit defeat. How did you do it? As you well know, fire does not have a reflective surface. Indeed, it can’t reflect light because it is light. Furthermore, I analyzed the individual pixels in the RAW files and could not detect any tampering or overlaying of images. Everything appears genuine. It certainly ‘looks’ like the woman in the fiery mirror is actually in the fiery mirror. However, as we both know, that is not possible, so I am hoping you will let me in on your little secret. Also, where did you find that model? I’m sincerely impressed. Nicolai.”
“Well Jace, unless that woman is Snow White’s stepmother, I would say we have a really big mystery on our hands with that magic mirror of yours…” Dooley said jokingly.
“She’s definitely not the stepmother…” Jace said staring. “Look at this picture, Dooley… I’d say she’s more in the running for the fairest in the land…”
As Jace turned his display around to show Dooley, he tried to remain calm, but his heart was pounding. She bore a resemblance to Kaylin, he thought to himself. Especially the blue eyes. Or am I just imagining a similarity?
“Wow, she is beautiful,” said Dooley. “I’ve seen a lot of gorgeous women before, and her features look pretty nearly ideal… big doe-like eyes, hair that sweeps across her forehead and down her shoulders with not a strand out of place, a graceful nose ideally placed below the eyes and above lips that are perfectly shaped for some guy to k... well, you know. Hey, she can’t be real can she? She looks almost like an Anime girl come to life. I wonder if you somehow got ahold of a high-tech comic book or something…”
Jace could not get her image out of his mind. He was convinced she was real and not just some made up picture. He needed find out who this woman was, and where he could find her.
“I don’t know what this is, Dooley. It just adds another piece to the mystery. Who is she and why is her image in this… whatever it is?”
“Speaking of a mystery,” he continued, “I tested the meteorite, and it is not at all what it seems. It looks like a normal igneous rock, with all the normal variations in surface and color, but it was impervious to every saw, drill, or chemical I had access to. Since I couldn’t analyze it any other way, I used a microscope, and discovered it had to be man-made.
“Man-made? How can that be? Jace, it looks like a meteorite, and it came out of the sky. What else could it be? And why would someone put it up there in the first place?”
“Well, let me rephrase that, Dooley. It was constructed or manufactured, but I don’t think it was made by man. But it’s not a product of nature, either. It’s made up of microscopic dodecahedrons of uniform size. In other words, like little twelve-sided dice. It is unlike anything I’ve ever heard of or encountered on Earth.”
Dooley felt a little shiver.
“Professor, if you’ve never seen anything like this before, then it sounds like a very big deal… at least bigger than anything we’ve had to deal with before, and maybe beyond what we are equipped to handle on our own. What do you think? Should we contact the authorities?”
“I don’t know yet, Dooley. Who would we contact? Who would we trust to do the right thing with this? Our own government? The United Nations? Until we know what this is, or its purpose, I think we better keep it to ourselves, although I really am at a loss as to what more I can do with it. I suppose there are some additional tests I can run involving magnetism and radiation. Maybe x-rays or ultrasound or something similar could reveal more of its nature. I have some contacts at other universities that perhaps can help. But I don’t know if we will be able to penetrate that outer shell. It is amazingly hard.”
“Where is the meteorite now, Jace?”
“I’m keeping it in the room safe. Here, would you like to see it again?” Jace asked as he punched the code into the combination lock.
Jace opened the door to the safe, but was confused for a second, because he had in his mind what he would see, but it didn’t match what he saw when he looked in the safe. This caused him momentary paralysis. Then, regathering his thoughts, he reached in with both hands and brought out the rock, half in one hand, and half in the other. It had split into two equal halves and sitting in the middle of one half was what looked to be a perfect bluish sphere, perhaps about the size and appearance of a large shooter marble.
“Well,” said Jace, “I didn’t expect that.”
FOUR YEARS AGO - RED ROCKS MEDICAL CENTER
“Dr. Larkin, I’m glad you were able to get here as quickly as you did. I wasn’t sure you would be able to catch a flight from Germany in time.”
“Dr. Mallory, thank you for meeting us here. We got to the hospital just as fast as we could. This is my friend Dooley Marz. What did you mean by ‘catch a flight in time’?”
“You haven’t been briefed about your wife’s condition?”
“No, only that she was involved in a serious car accident and was brought here for treatment.”
“At the moment your wife is being kept under sedation and is unconscious. We didn’t want to try to bring her out of this state until you were able to be with her. I’m afraid the prognosis isn’t good. She suffered severe internal injuries and she is experiencing multiple organ failures. I’m sorry, but right now all we can do is keep her comfortable while she is with us. It won’t be long now.”
Jace’s mind was spinning and he wasn’t sure he heard correctly. “What... w
hat do you mean, it won’t be long now? Are you saying… she’s not going to make it? But she’s young and strong… she’s a fighter… more than I am! She has to make it…” Jace said through the tears.
“I’m very sorry, Dr. Larkin. We’ve done all we could. I think it is important for you to have this chance to say goodbye. You may go into her room now, and I will instruct the nurse turn off the sedation drip once you are there, so she can regain consciousness.”
A few seconds after the nurse turned off the sedation, Jace heard a slight moan from Kaylin, and she slowly opened her eyes. Jace thought they were the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, a vivid blue that was a sharp contrast to the paleness of her gaunt face.
“Jace, is that really you…? I’m sorry you had to cut your trip short…”
“Hey, Kaylee... How are you feeling? I hope you are not in a lot of pain…”
“It’s not bad, Jacey. They are giving me morphine. Mostly I just feel really… tired…”
“Do you know how much I love you Kay? You need to hang in there for me… You need to take a few days of rest and give your body time to heal…”
“Jay, Jay… we both know what my situation is… The doctors briefed me before they induced the coma. And I can see by your tears you do too. I’m sorry to put you thought this, hun, but I needed to see you one last time before… I go…”
“Kaylee, please don’t say that… I can’t make it alone without you! You’ve always been my rock. I should never have gone to Germany for that speaking engagement! If I had been home, you never would have gone out in the rain that night to meet with your girlfriends. It’s my fault…”
“Don’t blame yourself, Jay. It’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. There was nothing you could have done. Sometimes, things just happen… even though we may not understand the reason…”
“Reason? There was no reason for this, Kaylin! This should never have happened to you… you are the nicest, kindest person I know! I would give anything to change this… God, I wish it had been me instead of you!”
“I know you would have given your life to save me, Jace. That’s why I love you so much. And I swear I would gladly give my life to save you... somehow this is what was meant to be. You need to look out for others now, for me…”
“What do you mean Kaylee? I don’t understand…I don’t want to! Please don’t give up! I know we can get through this…”
“I’m… sorry… Jace…” Kaylin said as her voice got weaker. “Don’t… worry about… me… I’ll always… be with you… here…” she said as she touched her hand to her heart just when it stopped beating.
Jace sobbed over the loss of Kaylin for two weeks and wouldn’t come out of his house. When he wouldn’t answer any of Dooley’s calls, Dooley eventually went over and used Jace’s hidden key to get into the house. He found Jace half-laying on the couch with a blanket over him, where he had been most of those two weeks. He was haggard looking and thin from lack of sleep and food. Dooley went over and hugged his friend in his strong arms, and they both cried hard for ten minutes. After that, Dooley fixed some soup for Jace, and convinced him he had to get showered and dressed, and resume living.
FOUR
THURSDAY MORNING - HOTEL
The next morning Dooley was sitting in the parked Jeep reading a newspaper, dressed in comfortable jeans and unbleached linen shirt — much less conspicuous than his usual red one, he thought.
After about 30 minutes he noticed Allison Trask leaving the hotel and walking over to where her car was parked — a Land Rover, he noted. She got in and drove away from the hotel, so Dooley gave her a bit of a lead before he followed her several cars behind.
Eventually she headed east, then she turned north. Before too long she turned onto a smaller road winding into the desert, so Dooley decided he needed to put a lot of space between him and Allison. He inconspicuously pulled off to the side of the road and waited for a while, then took out Jace’s high powered binoculars and tracked her until she was far enough that Dooley doubted she would be able to see the white Jeep. Then he resumed following Allison.
“Well I’ll be. I wonder if you are headed where I think you are?”
She went off road as expected and continued in the direction Dooley anticipated. Dooley realized she would come back to the road using the same route, so he drove down a quarter mile before he turned off the road. That way she wouldn’t encounter two sets of tracks on the return.
“How in the world do you know where to go?” Dooley said to himself as he watched the tiny dot of the Land Rover in his binoculars. “I know you saw the newspaper article, but that reporter only provided the fireball’s location in general terms. It sure seems like you have a very exact set of coordinates…”
Awhile later, Dooley saw something interesting. Allison’s vehicle was approaching an even smaller dot. When he looked closer he could see there were other dots that appeared to form a large circle around the probable impact area.
“Ah ... and those are military trucks in the center of that circle near the canyon. Someone has thrown up a secure perimeter… and beyond the trucks… I swear that looks like debris from a crash… what the heck happened here?”
Soon he came to an outcropping of rocks that he could position his Jeep behind, so he pulled in and found a secluded spot to continue watching. Allison’s vehicle came to a stop near one of the dots and he could tell she got out and approached the soldier, but he couldn’t see what was going on. She was there much longer than he anticipated however, since he had assumed the military would immediately turn her around. But she was standing there talking a good ten or fifteen minutes. Finally, she went back to the Land Rover and unbelievably, Dooley thought, drove through the perimeter and toward the canyon.
“Now how in the world did you manage that?” Dooley muttered to himself in wonder. “You must be military if you could pull that off. Miss Allison Trask, you are definitely not who you are pretending to be. Jace, you and I need to be very careful around her. She’s proving to be a very worthy opponent.”
Dooley continued watching, and it looked like Allison was given some help in order to scale down the canyon wall. A truck pulled over to the canyon and a small figure he was pretty sure was Allison, went over the side. About twenty minutes later Allison returned to the edge of the canyon and walked over to the Land Rover. She then drove to the perimeter and spent maybe three minutes talking, before she headed back using her original tracks as a guide.
“Well, well. What were you up to, Allison Trask? Obviously you were looking for something. Surprise, surprise, Mary Ann. The Professor already found it.”
Dooley’s vehicle was a quarter mile off Allison’s path, plus he was behind a set of rocks, so he knew his only risk of being spotted would be after Allison passed beyond the rocks. As she approached, Dooley got in the Jeep and slowly drove it forward counterclockwise around the rocks to continually keep the Jeep behind her view, until he was in a position where she could not see the Jeep as she was departing. Once again he waited until she was so far ahead he could barely see her with the binoculars, then began the return journey back to the hotel.
THURSDAY MID-MORNING - DESERT
Allison had to admit, Van Dyne’s coordinates he had given her on the call yesterday were spot on. She could see the military perimeter in the distance getting closer and closer. Now, let’s see if Van Dyne’s other information is correct, she thought to herself.
“Ma’am, please stop the car right now. This is a restricted site and no unauthorized personnel may approach any closer. Please turn your vehicle around and return to the road.”
The officer who spoke had his rifle pointed down at an angle but appeared ready to engage it quickly.
“G’day. My name is Lieutenant Commander Allison Trask, Australian Navy. Would you please ring Colonel Steinmacher? He will be able to confirm that I have permission to visit this location, as well as unrestricted access to the meteor impact site.”
&nb
sp; “Please step out of the car, Ma’am, while I make the call," came a brisk reply.
Allison handed the soldier her identification, then had to wait while they attempted to get ahold of Steinmacher. Once they had Colonel Steinmacher on the line, Steinmacher in turn put them on hold while he made a call to his superiors in Washington, D.C. to confirm the approval.
After more than ten minutes, the soldier nodded his head and handed the ID back to Allison.
“Thank you Ma’am. You are approved to proceed. If there is anything you require, please ask the soldiers standing by at the supply trucks.”
“Thanks,” Allison replied as she took back her ID and climbed back into the Land Rover. She then drove toward the supply trucks, thinking to herself, “Well Van Dyne, you sure know how get things done, that’s for sure.”
Allison wasn’t all that surprised. She suspected it had to do with his influence on Project Stardust, the top-secret project to which she was recently assigned involving Panterra and both Australian and U.S. government officials.
Dressed in loose brown slacks and matching blouse and brown hiking boots, Allison requested and obtained the climbing gear she needed, and before too long the soldier had her hooked up to the motor-driven winch that slowly lowered her toward the impact crater forty feet down in the canyon.
“Ok, stop there!” she called on the two-way radio she had been given, and the soldier obliged by shutting off the motor that was unspooling the cable attached to her harness. Allison was now free hanging in air, eye-level with the center of the crater. She wasn’t quite sure how Larkin had managed to get right to the vertex of the crater, but she suspected it had to do with the two spots chiseled not too far from her own dangling feet.