Of Salt and Sand

by Barnes, Michael

  Avalon was just another example to be attributed to the EMR technology. It seemed there were no limitations to what could be achieved in this salt wonderland. The group held nothing back in their piece of heaven, knowing that their paradise was a provisional one. Like a treasured dream, it too would end. For very soon now, upon completion of HOPE, all that had been created in their sub-terrain hideaway would necessarily vanish, atomically transformed back into the very sand and salt from which it was spawned. This inevitable last phase had always been a most difficult finale to bear. For in HOPE’s first breath, all that had given her life, would be gone. The Reitman family would also disappear into history, and join with their four companions in secret exile, Avalon Prime, where together they would all live overseeing HOPE’s operations. All had dutifully sworn long ago to this last painful task. It had to be done, after all. The world could never know what unimaginable machinery once proliferated under their insignificant sea of sand and salt.

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  The west desert repulsed all that the renewing seasons offered, caring little for the passage of time. Sandcastle, however, was quite the opposite, refusing to be still nor stagnant. The magnificent oasis blossomed year after year in her salty wasteland, cheerfully refusing to assimilate into her passive surroundings. Her occupants, the Reitman’s, also had emerged from their desert bastion, and made a powerful name for themselves. As well as famous philanthropists, they had become successful entrepreneurs.

  The family had invested in a floundering satellite communication company, TRISAT. Emerging thereafter from the ashes, was an innovative, fresh new creature with ideas radically different from the standard SAT technology. Reitman Enterprises was the new expertise, although a neophyte in an aggressive market, the company soon found her avant-garde technology in great demand. The name, Reitman Enterprise became synonymous in the artificial satellite industry, and in just a few short years, had landed contracts for a variety of data carriers worldwide—COMSAT (communication), GNSS (global navigation) and even reconnaissance military satellite systems for the United States Government. Reitman Enterprises had exploded with success, and at her helm, a man as surprisingly young as the company he ran: Jimmy Reitman.

  Jimmy was the only child of Zen and Gracie Reitman. He had been his parent’s emissary to the world outside of Sandcastle, and as the youngest student ever to matriculate at Harvard, had found himself comfortable in the publicity which his parents had so adamantly avoided. Jim was prodigiously brilliant, yet surprisingly conventional for such a gifted individual. While at university, he had enjoyed a social network of friends and was well liked. He was a handsome, well-kept young man, who found no shortage of female companions—or wealth. Jimmy loved the affluent life, and was sharp enough to wear it well. When his money and time were flaunted, it was because that’s how he wanted it. He had managed to steer clear of personal scrutiny, and was surprisingly open and sociable . . . that is until conversation veered into the realm of family, or more specifically, his cryptic Utah roots. At this, he would become strangely elusive, equivocating with such finesse that his redirection of conversation emerged with the unmarked precision of a surgeon. Jim respected his parents, and their privacy, and never delved into these personal, forbidden topics.

  Upon graduation—the youngest ever from Harvard—and with multiple PhDs under his belt, the fresh prodigy had been offered scores of vocational opportunities, including a position as an associate professor at MIT. But the academia was not for Jim Reitman. He had made it very clear that he was to take the family business—Reitman Enterprises—to new heights. And with near limitless funds, unmatched business savvy, and the charisma and charm of a Hollywood superstar, all bets were that Jimmy Reitman was the man to do just that. But it would soon be discovered that there was more on the young Reitman’s agenda than the success of his family’s business . . . so very much more.

  Chapter 17:

  Don Staupher wiped the sweat from his brow and peered out through his dusty sunglasses at the group of scouts bouncing around on the white sand like spit on a hot griddle. The thin-haired, forty-five year old accountant had agreed, reluctantly, to just one more year as a Cub Scout advisor—solely for the sake of his youngest and last child, Ben.

  At age eleven, Ben was the icon of the American kid. He had kept his parents on the run since he was old enough to crawl. Baseball had been his first word, and The New York Yankees his first sentence. There had been a gamut of sports ever since—soccer, hockey and even some karate classes. It had come as no surprise then, that when Ben was old enough, he had enthusiastically joined a local scout troop. And like his sport activities, the kid gave all he had into being the best scout possible.

  Ben had been the first in his troop to eagerly memorize the scout oath, scout promise, and scout law. In truth, he had darn near committed the entire scout manual to memory in just a few short weeks. His first love, baseball, had given him a modest dose of competition, and prompted a spirited wager between him and his older brother, Casey—Ben was bent on beating Casey’s record for the most merit badges, and he was just the type of kid to do it. Don knew he was in it for the long haul, at least as long as his son loved being a scout so whole-heartedly. He figured he could support his son and bear the sacrifice of forcing himself into his faded, tattered scout uniform just one more year.

  Don exhaled, feeling a slight, momentary relief as the buttons on his shirt loosened. He adjusted his authorized troop cap—complete with logo and insignia—and wished he had already dropped that thirty-pounds he’d been wanting to lose since the beginning of the summer—he’d attempt the diet again after the holidays. The heat was relentless and bore down with all the voracity of a blow torch. A friendly breeze had picked up about an hour earlier bringing some reprieve, but it was only a transient visit. Surprisingly, none of the leaders had thought to bring any kind of shade. It was, after all, just a day activity. The packing had been light and rather hastily done. Besides, now that the races were finished and the winning teams awarded—all except those terrible cheers (how he hated those ridiculous scout cheers!)—he could call the excursion a success and head for home . . . air-conditioned home.

  When the advisors of Scout Troop 191 had planned this homebuilt cart racing expedition, their purpose had been two-fold. First, the boys would get to visit the old Bonneville Salt Flats—let the pack run around a bit see where multiple land speed records had been set by some of the most incredible land vehicles ever built. Second, and arguably the best part, the troop would be able to setup their own racing lanes and rival against each other using their own homebuilt go-carts. It had been the anticipated activity of the year. Oh yippee, yahoo, Don snorted to himself. He hated to be the naysayer, but the truth was, he had never really been much into scouting, it was all for the boys. In fact, he had felt nothing but apprehension from the moment he marked the date on his smartphone calendar. And every day since, when he checked his daily schedules, there it was glaring back him like Macbeth’s black spot: scouting activity at Bonneville Speedway. Yes, Don Staupher stood in that blazing heat, clothes dripping in sweat, and grit in every orifice of his body for one reason and one reason only: his son, Ben. Yet, as he looked out through his tinted sun glasses at all the happy, sunburnt faces, he had to admit that perhaps it had all been worth it . . . now that it was nearly over.

  Don fumbled through one of the large coolers for another bottle of water—he couldn’t remember when he’d drank so much in such a short time. The heat was withering, and made him feel like a wet sheet flapping in the wind. “Ah, one left,” he said peering into the tub of water. The ice had melted away hours earlier, but the water was still cool to the touch. Might as well get a jump on packing up some of this stuff, he thought, grabbing hold of the cooler. He bent and heaved the chest off the ground with an audible grunt. A slight stab of pain shot up his back. “Great,” he grumbled. “That’ll be stiff tomorrow.”

  “Hey, Don” shouted a familiar voice.

  Don tu
rned. Now what, he thought, annoyed, anxious to get packed and heading for home. This had been his third attempt at disassembling the camp. Can’t anyone take a hint?

  Justin was a much younger and more energetic advisor. He had been the proponent for the entire race in the sand idea and had completely submerged himself in the preparation. The guy loved scouting—passionately! Gads! thought Don, staring at the man. Can he look more ridiculous in those knee-shorts, scarf and neatly pressed shirt? He even parts his hair like a kid! Don forced a grin and looked up over his sun glasses. “Yeah. What’s up?”

  Justin was standing with another leader about thirty-feet away. “What do you make of that?” he asked, pointing at something out in the distance.

  Don craned his head toward the west landscape. He squinted, and tried to focus. At first, all he saw were scouts chasing each other with pieces of broken sagebrush. What was the big deal? Was Justin actually worried they were going to hurt each other with that little bit of twig? He was about to return one of his signature, I don’t see the point, looks, but then someone else shouted, and several boy’s halted their ruckus and gawked outward in a pointing frenzy. Now Don saw it. Like a slap to the face, he saw it. The distant vista suddenly leaped into focus. Don’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped in a dumbfounded hinge. “What the—?” he heard himself say as his eyes swept the skyline. There had been no rain in the forecast. Don had checked weather-dot-com just before they left that very morning. But there looming on the west horizon, a strange cloud formation was rapidly taking shape. The spiraling clouds darkened as they grew, feeding on what seemed to be some kind of odd mist rising from the ground. The distant formation churned, rolled and boiled as it wafted—like some desert apparition—right toward them. But the thing that caused the hair on the back of Don’s neck to rise, and goose bumps to suddenly crawl over his skin, was the near unnatural manner the tempest developed. It was as if time had intentionally submitted to an illicit command, an unsanctioned abomination of nature which had forced itself into existence. And like the master chef who consciously chooses to foul his exquisite dish, this too felt wrong—the creation of something forbidden and out of place. What was the word? Alien?

  Don had seen hundreds of storms form over the west desert in his lifetime. From his home on the eastern slopes of the Wasatch Mountains, the view of approaching fronts had always been a spectacular, panoramic event. Many an evening, he had watched from his front porch, as the performance of nature in her agitation, brought the dance of light and energy across the distant stage of white sands. Fed by the rising air warmed on the shallow waters from the Great Salt Lake, the manifestations often rolled over the valley in the late summer months bringing hard rain and tumultuous lightning. These storm-fronts were normally short-lived and distributed themselves in such a way as to break apart and wither quickly after spewing their heavy showers. But this phenomenon, this tempest was nothing like anything Don had ever seen before . . . and it was coming upon them fast! As the blacking billows distended with unholy ferocity, Don felt something go off inside of him. Something deep and unwelcomed—an innate sense of dread. In the pit of his stomach, an intrinsic alarm bellowed out in a perceptual cry to the soul: get out of there!

  “We need to get the boys and clear out of here!” Don heard himself shout back, trying to sound composed and unfettered. But Justin noted a distinct change in the man’s demeanor—a sudden pale and drawn deportment overcame his colleague’s features.

  “Agreed!” Justin hollered, his eyes still welded to the skyline.

  As apprehensive as Don was about the approaching storm, the one thought that overshadowed all others was the safety of the boys. The entire troop was out in the middle of a flat and lifeless terrain. There were no trees, no hills, no shelter of any kind, nothing but a few half-dead pieces of sagebrush blown in from a more prolific area of the wasteland. Don could already see, and feel, the flashes of electric energy as strike after strike hit the ground, tearing and spitting down from the approaching swirl. This was an electric storm. Every object protruding above the level ground would be turned into a lightning rod . . . and that meant all of them! Don’s voice quickly joined the other advisors in a shouting match to the boys: “Get your stuff and get in the vehicles! We are leaving!”

  Justin and the other leaders were now in full retreat mode. They were tossing items into the back of vehicles and onto flatbeds like hoarders at a yard sale.

  The blackening formation had expanded many times in volume now, and at a rate unprecedented in the realm of natural science. It had become monolithic in its approach, a presentation of spiraling energy and unimaginable strength. But when the first audible reverberations suddenly breached the area, every soul instantly understood the shear palpability of it. The resounding boom that followed rattled car windows and compressed eardrums and lungs. This anomaly was real, and now Troop 191 could not only see the thing coming at them, but feel its rumbling approach and hear its angry wail.

  The boys scattered in a frightful retreat. Having felt the beast’s breath on their faces, all hesitation now vanished. They bumped, banged, and spluttered around, grabbing gear, equipment . . . anything they could clutch and run. Then, as though their hastening departure was somehow unsatisfactory, the blackening formation—like a monstrous jellyfish gliding just above the seabed—suddenly spat downward, clawing with a thousand scorching fingers of blinding light. The earth retorted in a scene of agony as great jets of sand and dust spewing high into the air. The ground quaked and trembled from beneath as the earth fought to absorb the energy.

  Sheer terror followed. Like the unexpected moment when laughter is swallowed by fear—the snapping of the bungee at the point of recoil; the failing of a bicycle tire on a steep decline; the cracking of a skateboard at the edge of the jump—realization had finally come . . . they would be lucky to get out alive!

  “Leave the stuff! Just get to the cars! Now!” shouted Justin as he motioned wildly toward the last open SUV door. “Now!” He shouted again at the last few boys hurrying toward to the awaiting vehicles. They scurried, bounced and dashed in a frenzy before finally funneling into the SUV. There was a quick visual sweep of the area, and then with the slamming of the last door, each vehicle followed the other in a desperate succession of departure. The boys pushed frightened faces to rear windows, staring, gawking, as if burning forever into their minds, the thing that had chased them from the desert.

  The convoy moved out as quickly as the rough terrain allowed. Wheels jarred and spit loose gravel from beneath the tread. Equipment rattled and bounced, dust and sand swirled in a thick aggregate soup that was hastily drawn in and swallowed by the sucking tempest.

  As Don glanced one last time in his rear-view mirror, he inhaled a large gulp of air, a last gasp of relief, feeling that he, and everyone else, had just dodged an ominous bullet. Soon they would be beyond the grasp of the freakish storm, back on an asphalt road and heading toward Salt Lake City at best speed. They had made it, everybody was safe. Everybody . . . but he was wrong.

  It comes to each parent, the immense responsibility in the care and protection of their own, and at times, those children of others to whom this paternal task may temporarily be deferred. To each of these, lingers a horrifying prospect; a thought so terrifying that it is held at bay and forced deep within the darkest recesses of the mind: the possibility of a child gone missing. While under the guard of the trusted wing, the worst could feasibly happen. A moment of lost concentration; a sudden unexpected distraction, and then how tormenting can be the cost.

  Now, as Don and the other leaders breathed a sigh of relief, their vehicles speeding away from danger and toward safety, they could not have known what was left behind. A terrible mistake had been made; a liability of immeasurable proportion. So wild and rushed had been the group’s exodus that no one had taken the time to do a head-count, a certification that none of the group had been missed. This breach of a most important cardinal rule of scouting—particularly by a
dult advisors—was inexcusable. And they would pay the price.

  Two, in fact, of the group were not in the exiting vehicles but had been out of site, and unfortunately, out of mind during the frantic departure. Left behind to fend in the vast ocean of white sands, and to face an unnatural event so horrific that their very lives would be in peril.

  Taylor Wilconson, and James Berrett were nearly a hundred yards northwest of the activity site, and oblivious to all but their newly discovered slit-canyon wonderland. Earlier, Taylor had grabbed James—his best bud—and announced that he had to go number two. This was a problem in the middle of an open desert.

  Although the idea of racing karts around in the bleached sands out by Bonneville Speedway had proven to be fun and adventurous, the area was not a State Park. There were no public restrooms. The leaders had obviously taken this into account when planning the event, and had intentionally detoured for a restroom break at a Rest Stop just prior to turning off the main interstate. And because the field trip was only to last the afternoon, the consensus was that the boys would be fine until they all reemerged from their afternoon fun, and could make a stop on the return trip for any restroom necessities. Because of the heat and the amount of water that would be consumed, the leaders had planned on dealing with the occasional pee break (number one). But number two? Now that was a bit of a conundrum.

  “Come with me to find a spot to go!” Taylor whined.

  “I don’t want to watch you poop!” James exclaimed. “Go yourself!”

  “C’mon, James. You can turn around while I go. Just come with me to find a spot,” Taylor begged. “I just need you as the lookout.”

  “Fine!” groaned James. “But it’s gonna cost ya.”

  James’ price was steep, but Taylor agreed—desperation has no bounds when it comes to the call of nature. The payoff was Taylor’s coveted scout knife; the one that James had always thought was so cool. The sleek red knife had an assortment of blades and other nifty amenities—pair of scissors, a can-opener, and even a pair of needle-nose pliers—tucked neatly within the metal casing. With the terrain as flat as a still pond, two boys hopping along over such a smooth landscape should have stuck out like a couple of bounding tumble weeds in the wind, but no one noticed them as they slyly edged away and out of sight.