Guardians of the Four Shields: A Lost Origins Novel

by A D Davies

  Harpal said, “Hey, Bridget. Toby. Charlie. Guess what?”

  Jules was searching the landscape, clinging to the open door. He halted on Harpal and the others and swung his arm in an outsized gesture.

  “What?” Bridget managed. “What is it?”

  “He’s alive.” Harpal could barely contain himself. He hooted with laughter, relief, joy. “Both of them made it and… Dan, take a look at this.”

  Dan retrieved the binoculars. “What am I looking for?”

  “Is he… laughing?”

  Dan chuckled. “Yeah. That’s a sight. Bridget, I think you did the impossible. Jules Sibeko is alive and laughing his ass off.”

  Project Ahua, New Zealand

  Hundreds of miles to the south, across an ocean, in a volcano repurposed to house a branch of humanity that died out hundreds of years earlier, Bridget Carson slumped in her seat. A draining of tension and anxiety, relief at all the things she’d feared would happen having been sated.

  Beside her, Toby leaned on the dead console, his head bowed. Charlie remained upright, beaming as wide as Bridget had ever seen her, and Prihya approached the glass, touched it, and spoke to the unseen families below.

  “We’re bringing him home, guys. He’ll be here soon.”

  It was also sad for Bridget, though. Her deal with her parents was for this one expedition. An expedition that escalated, admittedly, and she’d never have guessed how far it would expand. But there was no denying it was over.

  Out loud, not caring if anyone heard, she said, “Thanks, Daddy. Thank you for the helicopters. For helping me save my friends. I’ll be home soon. I promise. I’ll make you proud.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  After the dam burst, they all flew directly to New Zealand, while the UN, along with NATO, China, the United States, and whoever else held a stake in what had occurred over the past week dealt with the fallout from the threat, now neutralized. They also offered support for the Dragon’s Teeth Dam disaster, but the North Korean authorities declined, stating the flood was an “internal matter.” Satellite data backed up their intelligence that the region was largely unpopulated, and although the landscape was changed forever, human settlements suffered only minor flooding. While it was impossible to be 100% certain, the intelligence services for the UK, New Zealand, and—as far as anyone could discern—the USA were satisfied it did not constitute a humanitarian crisis. The nations involved quietly granted the former prisoners asylum in their chosen countries—mostly in South Korea and China—and the North didn’t mention their existence once.

  Don’t ask, don’t tell.

  In the days that followed, recuperation was key. Project Ahua assigned the team a couple of houses to share in Kainga Pukepuke, rubbing shoulders with the staff from the tourist attraction and the scientists who populated the labs. After returning Gilim to his volcano home, he was patched up as best they could, and he was healing fast. Jules wasn’t sure—and nor were the biologists and doctors who examined him—if it was something natural within homo colossus DNA or if his time in the capsule, linked to the network, had helped regenerate his energy and damaged tissue.

  With little more than a wash and a change of clothes, Jules, Dan, Harpal, and Tane had been permitted to see Gilim off, back to his forest home. Protocol had demanded they sedate him before the flight, with several hours of checks before readmitting him to his home environment. But once all the poking and prodding was over with, they revived Gilim on the repaired loading dock overlooking the lush mountain valley. Jules helped ease him back to consciousness, the rest of the team holding back at a safe distance.

  The pair needed no words. Jules recognized the gestures, the facial turns and tics, and he returned the affectionate notes with his own exaggerated expressions and hand movement. There was no knowledge as such, no definitive translation from gestures to words, but it worked, like long-term lovers who understood each other in near-psychic synchronicity.

  “Get a room,” Dan said.

  A ripple of laughter followed. Including Jules. Gilim might not have got the joke, but he smiled at Jules’s happiness.

  Finally, the door lowered, and Gilim recognized the forest within. The technicians and scientists, including Prihya, had left the families where they were, in case they bounded over to greet Gilim, and they all ended up rolling around out in the open. Jules ushered him inside.

  Gilim ambled in, hesitating when Jules remained in place. He tilted his head, an almost worried expression.

  Jules stepped toward him and, without thinking about it, told the big guy via gestures, Don’t worry. I’ll be back. Time for you to go home.

  Gilim gave a good-natured huff and turned back to his destination. He reached inside, then his feet followed. They were tentative steps, but once he ventured under the enclosure, surrounded by foliage and his familiar surroundings, he showed no nerves. No concern that, maybe, these humans were tricking him. He sped up, bellowing into the forest, a greeting call announcing his return.

  Honey, I’m home!

  A thunderous keening replied, and that would be the last Jules heard of them for a while. The dock’s shutter descended and the outer skin that looked like the landscapes rolled across. Gilim was home, and the team had business to attend to.

  Intervals between medical checks allowed Julia Grainger and several serious men and women from unnamed countries—out of uniform but obviously high-ranking military officers—to ask questions, listen, and for some of the puffier-chested cynics to accuse LORI of lies. Mostly, though, Jules and the rest of the team settled in for the long haul. They’d been questioned about matters of international diplomacy before and knew how this went. As expected, Jules had his “secondment” to the DoD extended, which he supposed his captain would be unhappy about but had little choice to agree with.

  Not that it mattered. He’d already drafted his resignation letter.

  Once the questioning was over, Julia Grainger remained their NZ government liaison. There was no formal medal ceremony, no dignitaries to shake hands or offer a debt of gratitude. And that was fine. Jules didn’t want any of that. Nor did Tane. It was his job, after all. Dan and Harpal grumbled a bit, Dan in particular being used to medals in the event of “near-inhuman military feats of derring-do,” as Toby put it. Jules could tell Toby would have appreciated a little recognition, but Colin nixed that by hinting that Toby was the one who’d led the Koreans to the giants’ trail in the first place.

  And Colin Waterston was the final installment in this debriefing extravaganza.

  At Tane’s request, they held their farewell dinner in Kainga Pukepuke, he and some close friends from the project using the oven pit laid out for tourists paying to experience an “authentic” hangi. Tane promised them his version would be closer to the truth and not sanitized for the sake of mass-consumption.

  The meat was cooked perfectly, the vegetables likewise, and Jules could tell Toby was enjoying Colin’s impatience with the wait. They played music, retold aspects of the adventure they’d shared, and lit bonfires as the sun went down. There was even a little half-hearted dancing, but that was one skill Jules had never gained, so when Bridget attempted to pull him up for a boogie, he held fast.

  She lingered with him a moment longer. A barely detectable sparkle in her eyes was something Jules had previously written off as a trick of the light, but it was brighter here, in the fire’s glow. He now believed it must be some tiny imperfection in the iris, a mutation that enhanced her countenance that needed attention to spot.

  But he continued to hold fast, and with a couple of drinks in her, Bridget danced with Charlie, Harpal, and Tane, shaking off the stresses and fears that had burdened them, at least for a little while.

  Beers came and went, and Jules again attempted to enjoy the frothy concoction, but it just wasn’t for him. He’d succumb later to a whisky, but for now stuck with water.

  Soon, they sat around two picnic tables pushed together and indulged in toasted bread, much like a p
ita, with a variety of dips that served as a starter. While they waited on the main course and their stomachs thanked them for the carbs and dips, Colin started his predicted opening, steering clear of any accusations that Toby was partly responsible for the Koreans’ actions. They were already on the case. If not for Toby speeding up their plans and forcing them into the open, the Executive might have taken his time and snuck in under the radar, decimating cities in the process.

  Colin raised a wine glass containing a beverage that he’d apparently found distasteful but made more palatable by adding a slug of sparkling water. “This successful operation could not have been possible without the cooperation of so many governments and… other groups… banding together for the good of the world. That the world may never know what we did here, that does not matter to me, and nor should it you.”

  Both Dan and Charlie mouthed the word “we,” plainly perturbed at Colin insinuating himself into proceedings as anything other than a bystander.

  “This multi-nation ambassadorial mission should be hailed as the first of its kind. The first of many, if we can come together in a common cause, should the need arise again.”

  “I can think of one or two common causes,” Jules said.

  “Quite. But never have so many people of different nations stood up to be counted as one.” Colin adopted a more pompous demeanor, a feat Jules hadn’t thought possible, perhaps hearing an orchestra swelling on the soundtrack playing in his mind. “New Zealand. Britain. China. The United States—”

  Toby held up a piece of bread and said, “Colin, my old friend. No offence to our cousins, but I’m pretty sure the ambassadorial side wasn’t their prime concern.”

  “Not the government, no. But there were others at work.” Colin held out a hand, a cue for a man and woman to step out of the shadows.

  Bridget said, “Mom? Dad?”

  “Hello, Bridget,” Roger Carson said.

  “Hello, dear,” Audrey Carson said.

  Both wore casual clothing. It was the first time Jules had seen Roger without a suit.

  “As you know, Bridget,” Colin said, “your father was instrumental in securing Chinese cooperation.”

  Bridget untangled herself from the table and stood still for a moment. She cast her gaze over her friends, coming back to Jules, before smoothing herself down and crossing the space to embrace her parents. Her dad kissed the top of her head, her mother her cheek. Bridget beamed up at them as she withdrew and held hands with them over to the table where a place awaited them.

  “Thank you, everyone,” Roger said as his wife took a seat.

  Another speech, Jules thought.

  Bridget apparently sensed the same and fixed him with a mirthless frown mixed with a faintly incorrigible smile. She dipped her gaze to the bench seat.

  Roger got the message but halted halfway to a seated position and straightened upright. “Can I ask something of you all? Is the briefing I received true? As someone with a major stake in the operation, and now charitable funding for Ahua, I gained access to what sounds… I don’t know what it sounds like.” He concentrated on Bridget. “This is what you do?”

  “Not exclusively,” Bridget said.

  “Sometimes,” Jules said, “it’s really dangerous stuff.”

  “Not helping.” Bridget placed a hand on his arm, which both Roger and Audrey followed until she spoke again. “The Lost Origins Recovery Institute takes what we see and acts upon it. We know there is more to the Earth’s history than modern science teaches, like we know there’s more to the universe and the oceans. Dark matter is an unknown, something they can’t detect or see, but it’s definitely there. We’ve explored less than half of the deep oceans, and who knows what’s lurking under lakes sealed in ice for millennia?”

  Bridget let her eyes wander to everyone in turn around the tables.

  “Toby pulls together the best experts, so we don’t have a big staff. People passionate about the work. We find clues to track down interesting artefacts and places that might offer insight into the gaps in human history. Sometimes it pays well. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Dan said, “Alfonse isn’t gonna be happy.”

  Toby gave an amused shrug. “We’ve spoken. The church will receive one of the shields we recovered. The rest of them will be distributed around the nations involved in liberating the camp.”

  “And the prisoners granted asylum in their chosen country,” Colin said. “Courtesy of some intense negotiations by yours truly.”

  “Round of applause?” Harpal said sarcastically.

  Colin bristled and opened his mouth to respond, but Roger asked another question.

  “And this evidence of a race before ours, intelligent, organized…”

  “All true,” Bridget said. “We were digging deeper when…” She cut herself off.

  “When we recalled you,” Audrey Carson said.

  “Yes.”

  The only sound for several seconds was that of glasses being picked up and sipped from.

  Roger said, “These… Witnesses. The Elder Race. It sounds like madness. Why build something like that machine? When it could destroy as much as it could protect?”

  “They didn’t build it.” Bridget had completed most of her translation of the glyphs she’d jotted down following her trip into the machine. Most, she’d explained to Jules a day earlier, because she wasn’t sure of the intonation, her scribbling going too fast to discern a slanted character from a hastily drawn one. “They evolved along a different path than us. In isolation. We think there were several pockets of humans like this, and they birthed many of our modern myths and legends. From Olympus to Atlantis. But they didn’t build the machine that the Executive wanted to exploit. They just figured out how to use it.”

  Roger frowned, finally taking his seat. “So… there was another generation? The ones who put these powerful objects in place?”

  Dan said, “My money’s on—”

  “Aliens,” said everyone who was clued-in to Dan’s theory.

  Dan grinned. “You’ll be sorry you mocked me.”

  Roger let the moment pass, then pressed on. “This other race… the one you know nothing about… how do you know they existed?”

  Charlie said, “The same way astrophysicists know dark matter exists. Because they see its effects.”

  Toby nodded and put his finger in the air, his ah-ha pose that Jules had grown familiar with. “After the discovery of Uranus, a French mathematician called Urban Le Verrier predicted Neptune’s existence based purely on fluctuations in Uranus’s orbit. This was in November 1845. In 1846, John Couch Adams made similar predictions and sent his calculations to George Airy at the Royal Observatory—”

  Roger had a hand up, nodding. “I get it. But what I don’t get is how they died. Why they left all this.”

  Jules said, “If the earth is worthy… others’ll step in to prevent disaster.” He sipped his water. “Bridget figured that out.”

  “You just translated that?” Charlie asked.

  “No, but… it’s kind of here.” Bridget pointed to the back of her head. “I don’t know why, but I know it. That, and what I wrote… They made this like… the way we stockpile nuclear missiles.”

  Toby frowned, even more deeply than Roger had, his face more lined than ever. “Mutually assured destruction.”

  “But with no war. It prompted action, not direct conflict. It forced people to work together. In peace. With only a select few able to regulate the power.”

  “Billions could die,” Charlie said.

  “Only those who misuse it,” Bridget said. “At least that was the plan way back when. The others were supposed to stop it.”

  Jules tried to clear his mind. Accessing knowledge imparted during his own trip into the network during their encounter in Africa. “Sounds like the mutually assured destruction wiped ‘em out, along with much of life on earth. One of the big extinction events, prior to homo sapiens’ ancestors evolving.”

  �
�You have a letter from these guys we don’t know about?” Dan asked.

  “I took a similar trip to Bridget over a year ago.”

  “Yeah, under the mountain in Kenya. Thought you didn’t remember anything.”

  “The experience doesn’t give the traveler memories the way a vacation does. Bridget felt the same. It’s more like a lesson, some kinda knowledge sharing thing. But there’s an obvious reason. Or a possible reason.”

  All were staring at him.

  He said, “Their brains worked different from ours.”

  “Of course.” Toby snapped his fingers. “We’re a separate branch of the evolutionary tree. More in common than what separates us, but still. We use tools, but so do chimps and octopuses. We use language, but so do the Witnesses and their forebears.”

  “Meaning,” Bridget said, “that we don’t need a Rosetta Stone for their written language, but to work out what they thought. Their philosophies, their culture…” Her speech sped up. “Once we understand the idiosyncrasies of their ways, how they lived, we can do more than interpret their language.”

  “We can really know them.” It was the first time Prihya had spoken, and everyone turned her way.

  They’d been cautious about inviting her, given their past, but she’d never killed an innocent to their knowledge, and she appeared genuine in her disavowing of Valerio. Jules had always hoped that would be the case, that she’d come around, eventually. He couldn’t criticize her for taking her time, either. It had taken him longer to accept these people as his true friends, that he had a home with them were he to choose that option.

  She said, “I’d like to help. I mean, I’m going to continue our work here, but… if you want an extra pair of eyes, or someone to help with a dig… give me a call, okay?”

  “We will,” Toby said.