Guardians of the Four Shields: A Lost Origins Novel

by A D Davies

  He checked for dogs then climbed out at the same time as Dan. They were dressed for New York—jeans and loose tops, although Jules had removed his hoodie as soon as they landed and ventured outdoors.

  Had it been so long since he experienced a tropical climate?

  Rusty, perhaps.

  That attracted another worry: if he had been so slack as to dress inappropriately, what else was he going to screw up today? Sure, he’d packed all his usual kit before departing, but he did not expect to need his throwing knives, mini flashbangs, or his bungee cord baton. They were more of a security blanket.

  Bridget bounded down the stairs and threw her arms around Jules in the kind of ostentatious hug he expected from a giggly cheerleader. It wasn’t like her. Nor was her greeting.

  “Oh my gosh, it’s so great to see you both!”

  She transferred her affections to Dan with identical over the top enthusiasm.

  Once she disengaged, she stood back, her floaty dress billowing with the motion, and raised her hands as if beholding the two men for the first time. “Walk with me. I’ll show you around.”

  “Kinda hoping I could change,” Jules said.

  “Oh, you’ll be fine.” Bridget gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes, clearly demanding he shut up and do as he was told. “I’ll have some lemonade ready when we get back.”

  Jules trusted her to explain herself once out of earshot of whoever was waiting inside the large house. He and Dan flanked her as she trotted off towards a path that appeared to lead to the woodland. The sun warmed the back of Jules’s neck and the top of his head.

  Bridget chatted in a way that Jules was not used to. “Sorry we’re not fully prepared. I forgot to tell my parents you might be coming by. I know it was all loose arrangements, but they understandably get upset when plans change. We were going to do some virtual tours of more colleges this afternoon, but this is much better.”

  Jules and Dan played along, but Jules didn’t want to open his mouth and say something wrong. Dan appeared to feel the same way. They gave “uh huh” answers and nodded occasionally. Although it was only twenty seconds, the prattling felt like it had gone on too long. But once Bridget dropped the act, she could speak freely.

  “Okay, what the hell is Toby playing at?”

  Dan held up his surrender hands. “What on earth do you mean, Bridge?”

  “Don’t call me Bridge. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Sorry, Miss Carson, I won’t do it again.”

  Bridget jabbed a finger towards his face. “You know that’s not what I mean. Why are you here? My parents don’t bluff.”

  “They never said we couldn’t visit,” Dan said.

  Bridget gave a frustrated sigh.

  Jules said, “Toby shouldn’t have known she was here. Right, Bridget?”

  “Miss Carson,” Dan corrected.

  Bridget punched him in the arm, and he feigned pain.

  She said, “He’s right, as usual. I’m supposed to be at Harvard. The last time Toby and I emailed, that’s where I was. I didn’t drop out until last month. Which means he’s been keeping tabs on me without my permission.”

  “Right.” Dan rubbed the back of his neck, perspiration beading on his forehead. “We kind of didn’t have time to ask. Charlie just double-checked your location, made sure there were no eavesdroppers on your comms, then we came out here to say hi.”

  They were approaching the woodland, a small atoll in a sea of scorched grass. Jules couldn’t understand why anyone would need so much land if they weren’t using it for anything more useful than bragging about how much acreage they owned.

  “What’s the set up here?” Jules asked. “It’s like a governor’s mansion.”

  Bridget sighed and tensed. “I dropped out of the economics degree after flunking the first year. I was hoping that would get me a bit of leeway in choosing a better course. My dad reminded me that my friends needed the Château and the hangar at the airport, even if they weren’t using the plane. He let me take a couple of months off so I could, in his words, ‘procrastinate on my future a while’.”

  “Failing intentionally,” Dan said. “That’s not like you.”

  “Not intentionally. I just didn’t do much to arrest the decline.”

  Jules stared off toward the house. “So, your dad’s blackmailing you into obeying him? That don’t sound right.”

  “I wouldn’t call it blackmail.” They reached the shade of the trees and Bridget leaned against one, a hazy light around her bright copper hair making her green eyes stand out as if she had been photoshopped. The warmer climate had also brought out the freckles over her nose and under her eyes. “Economics wasn’t for me. Too much left to chance. Mom and Dad said they understood, but, in Dad’s words again, he ‘won’t allow me to sabotage my future.’ I’ve agreed to try a new path, and he’s pushing me towards a business degree, something solid and foundational. If I go with a science, I can’t choose a ‘wishy-washy’ one.”

  “With definitive answers?” Jules said. “Something you know you’re getting right or wrong?”

  “Exactly. Whatever I like, as long as it isn’t ‘language stuff.’ No humanities, no liberal arts. The impression they have is that I’m trying to put it off until they cave and let me go back to the Institute. They won’t cave. I know that. But I don’t want to commit to wasting four more years without studying something that… Something I know I can be passionate about. I’ve slipped Toby a few things on the sly, but I just can’t get into a flow state. And that’s what I need when I’m working out the most complex language and codes.”

  Jules had witnessed Bridget’s “flow state” before, and it was a sight to behold. When she was younger, the Guardian newspaper in the UK wrote a brief article in which they dubbed her “the Human Rosetta Stone.” It was a gift Jules hadn’t seen demonstrated by anyone else, not even himself. He had an affinity for learning, retaining information, and applying it to the world around him. Once he had adapted to something, a new skill or academic practice, he never forgot it, but it took learning and practice to instill it inside him. Bridget learned on the hoof, and it was a shame she was being stifled by parents who didn’t see the value in something that hadn’t been paid for.

  “He’s forcing you to do something you don’t want to,” Jules said. “Using threats to control your behavior. I’m pretty sure that’s a felony in most states. If you were past retirement age in New York, it’d definitely be elder abuse.”

  Bridget shook her head and pushed away from the tree. “This isn’t New York. And even if it was, he’s right.”

  Once more, Dan and Jules followed as she led them back towards the house.

  Dan said, “Perhaps someone needs to have a quiet word with your father.”

  “Oh, put your chest away,” Bridget replied. “I said he was right. Doing what we did in Austria and Monaco, I breached our agreement. If I use you strapping fellows to strong-arm him into letting me out of the contract, what am I gonna do next time he needs to trust me to follow-through on a deal?”

  “It’s still controlling behavior,” Jules said. “If you’re obeying out of fear that he’ll ruin your life, you shouldn’t have to be held to the letter of that contract.”

  They were halfway back to the house and Bridget had folded in on herself somewhat, her shoulders stiff as she walked, focusing on the white house ahead of them. “It isn’t illegal to withdraw a favor. And that’s what they’re doing letting you guys occupy the Château and use the hangar. So, I’m sorry. As much as I want to help, you’ll have to treat this as a social visit.”

  “Then we should be clear right now.” Jules pulled up level with her and waited for Dan to join them. “It ain’t you we need. We’re hopin’ you can give us access to your parents. Persuade ‘em to help us.”

  “My parents?” Bridget almost shrieked the words in surprise.

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “Let’s explain before we get inside. Then maybe we can all enjoy that lemonade to
gether.”

  Chapter Seven

  Arnold, Southern California

  Arnold was a quintessential college town. It started as a mining municipality which died decades ago and was reborn when the University of Southern California opened a satellite campus nearby. Driving the hire car from the airport, Charlie hadn’t decided whether she adored the kitsch nature of Arnold’s facsimile of an olden days historic borough or if it annoyed her. Annoyed her, because her hometown back in Wales swelled with genuine mining history of which she and her fellow citizens were rightfully proud.

  Like the town, the college’s design exuded a legacy that famous institutions like Harvard and Princeton oozed from their every brick, even though it was only a couple of decades old. Not that the students seemed bothered. They swarmed the grounds, lugging books and backpacks, holding hands and kissing, and throwing footballs. It reminded her of the backdrop in many a movie as people tramped through a campus to reach their destination.

  The LORI trio had called ahead, so it only took a couple of queries of the security guards to find the correct building. Charlie, Harpal, and Toby signed in, then followed the brass plaques to reach the lecture hall where Professor Sally Garcia was finishing her second lesson of the day.

  The three took empty seats at the back and waited in silence, looking down to the teaching platform over the heads of maybe twenty students, where Professor Sally Garcia held their attention. She was in her fifties and wore natural linen trousers and a rainbow blouse, her wild, gray, bird’s nest hair mostly tied back with multicolored beads. Projected on the expansive white wall, the photo of a grassy mound popped up. A swollen mass of earth had grassed over but formed the unambiguously man-made shape of a serpent.

  “Adams County, Ohio. That’s in the United States, for the geographically challenged.” Garcia paused for a polite ripple of laughs. “A curious mound of earth rises from the land. A snake winding for over thirteen-hundred feet, up to five feet high, and starts and ends with an open mouth and coiled tail. Understandably, it’s called, ‘the Serpent Mound.’ Although it is not an isolated case, it is the largest effigy mound in the world. What makes it mysterious? Well, I’m glad you asked.”

  She was an engaging presence, Charlie thought. More so than her dear friend Toby’s occasionally dry delivery—not that she’d ever put him down that way, of course.

  “The Serpent Mound lies near the impact zone of an ancient meteor. In fact, the curve follows the crater for a while. We know little more about it now than we did back in the 1800s. One of its legends, which I’m sure you expected since you’re in my class, is the giant skeletons allegedly found there.”

  The professor cut off the brief guffaw that seeped into the auditorium with a self-deprecating laugh.

  “Please remember, we are learning about the mysteries, the questions of legends in the modern day. Do not take this as firm evidence. But pay attention, this might be on a test.”

  When quiet returned, she went on.

  “We generally think the Serpent Mound was built by the Early Woodland Adena people, who inhabited the area between 500 BCE and 200 CE, with the structure most likely dating to about 300 BCE.”

  Charlie noted she was using BCE instead of BC and CE instead of AD, presumably because “Before Common Era” and “Common Era” had no religious intonations that might be lost on students who used non-Christian calendars or those from atheistic societies.

  “It is thought that they constructed the serpent as a protector of graves, as serpents and snakes were often attributed magical powers by the Native peoples. Another idea points to how the head and the tail align with sunset during the summer solstice and sunrise for the winter solstice, much like Stonehenge in the UK. But…”

  She paced, flipping to wider shots of the landscape, which showed more obvious contours that denoted the impact crater.

  “Added to this is that the meteor crater has produced gravitational and magnetic anomalies, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that it may have been constructed here for this reason.”

  Charlie caught Toby and Harpal shifting in their chairs, plainly snagging on the déjà vu of a meteor site giving way to more benefits than additional static in the air. But the site in Canada that this brought to mind was now inaccessible to them and guarded fiercely by the Canadian government.

  “But why are we talking about this place? Well, simply put… The remains of three skeletons were reportedly recovered from this site. Their size would show they measured in life at least eight feet in height. The most remarkable feature was the double teeth growing in the front and back of the mouth.”

  The students all sat forward, no scribbling or clacking of laptop keys. Like Charlie, they were probably waiting for a new photograph.

  Professor Garcia left the aerial shot of the Serpent Mound in place. “Unfortunately, upon exposure to the atmosphere the skeletons disintegrated, leaving nothing but dust and fragments.”

  The room groaned with disappointment.

  “But this is not the only report from the Serpent Mound. Another stems from 1891 by none other than Professor Frederic Ward Putnam, who you may remember from our lecture two weeks ago. Whilst excavating of one of the outer burial mounds that surround the site, he came across a skeleton of a relatively smaller size. Putnam would write here…”

  Now the photograph did change, this time to the scan of an article.

  She narrated: “Several peculiarities of this skeleton are worthy of notice. It was that of a well-developed man, about twenty-five or thirty years of age. He never had any wisdom teeth, and a search in the maxillary bone of one side showed there was no wisdom tooth forming in the jaw. With this exception, he had a fine set of teeth…”

  Garcia seemed to sense this section was a little dry, so summarized instead.

  “Basically, it’s suggestive of their being persistent first teeth. Putnam suggests it is the seven-foot-tall body of an adolescent which would have grown far taller had it not died. He went on, according to his papers, to discover several more skeletons who would’ve stood seven or eight feet tall, blessed with skulls twice their usual thickness.

  “But he wasn’t the only one. Farmers have discovered other burials in the area and there are at least seventeen reports listed in Smithsonian ethnology of remains over seven feet tall found in the areas surrounding the Serpent Mound. It has led people to speculate that some race of giant people could have shared this land with the people we currently think of as Native Americans.”

  She paused for effect. When no one gasped or fainted in shock, she continued to a modern picture of a man next to a measuring stick, showing him to be over seven feet tall. He leaned on a cane.

  “Of course, this is nothing new. We have people in the modern era with gigantism who stand, literally, head and shoulders above even the most imposing of movie stars. But they come with health problems. Their bodies cannot cope with the rate of growth, and they end up weak, and, sadly, do not tend to live as long as the average person.”

  The visuals switched to a snowy tundra where a gaggle of orange-coated men surrounded a block of ice at least twelve feet long.

  “Here we see what purports to be the bones of a human, recovered in the Arctic in 1982.”

  Charlie was recording the session on a camera that looked like a pen. It fed through the satellite phone in her small backpack, transmitted back to her husband in Greenwich, London, where he manned their hub of operations. Although Charlie was the tech expert when it came to computing and engineering, Phil was no slouch. She could hear him in her subvocal earpiece when he spoke, but he remained on mute for now, observing only.

  “These bones, however,” Professor Garcia went on, “disappeared into thin air before they could be examined in a suitable environment. Initial inspection suggested they were the correct shape for a human, but were, in fact, deformed and much larger than they should have been.”

  A hand went up. When Garcia nodded to the student, he asked, “Couldn’t this ha
ve been some sort of primate?”

  “Or Gravettian Man?” another asked.

  “Good observation,” the professor said, pointing her marker at him. “It’s a wonderful question.” She gave an exaggerated shrug, her bottom lip popping out. “Gravettian Man’s existence is not in doubt. He was, indeed, a tall hunter in prehistoric times, averaging just over six feet, not the seven or eight feet of legend. Indications are that this offshoot—which, by the way, predates Neanderthals by tens of thousands of years—might even be responsible for the fact that certain ethnic groups tend to be taller than average. Those genealogical lines who kept this part of human DNA active may well be descended from real life frost giants.”

  The ripple of laughter this time felt genuine.

  “And there would be a definitive answer,” Garcia said, cutting off the fun, “were it not for the clumsiness of those who were supposed to transport this particular frost giant to Norway. In fact, by the time qualified professionals could access this site, the ship carrying them had experienced a fire, and all records were destroyed. And although the crew were thankfully unharmed, the boat sank and there was not enough money for a salvage operation. All that remains of this expedition…”

  She slapped her hand against the wall where the projection shimmered.

  “Is this photograph and the accounts of a young student who was later expelled from his university for drug possession. Which he denies to this day.”

  “Professor,” a girl said without waiting to be asked, “this sounds like some mad conspiracy theory. Why would anybody cover up something like this? It’s not like it threatens a powerful government or anything. If you’re suggesting giants were real, and that knowledge somehow threatens the modern world, where is the actual evidence?”

  “Now we’re getting to it!” The professor trotted about the floor like an excited teen about to meet a popstar. “While the question of why is still a mystery, the question of if cannot be denied. But as so often happens in these cases, the evidence…”