by JC Ryan
Daniel said to Selleck to ask Luke to give him a document which Luke handed to him.
Selleck began to read. His eyes widened and he turned white, alarming Luke. As Aaron finished the reading, color flooded back into his face and he clutched at his chest and dropped the phone on the desk. Luke sprang from his chair, "Mr. Selleck, are you all right?"
"Yes, just let me get my breath.”
Luke grabbed the phone and told Daniel that Selleck looked bad for a minute, but that he apparently was going to be okay. “Just give us a minute so he can recover,” he advised.
Daniel wondered how many more reactions like this their announcement was going to cause over the next few days after it was published.
Selleck had the phone back. "Jumpin' freakin' Jehosaphat, Rossler is that for real?”
“It's for real, Aaron, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's only the greeting - the amazing thing is that they included an entire encyclopedia, complete with index. We're waiting until some of the advanced science our linguist has discovered in the records can be confirmed, both to validate the story for the Times and to quell the inevitable outcry. You know that people will be screaming 'hoax' as soon as you publish this. We have to have our ducks in a row to prove them wrong."
"Agreed," said Selleck, beginning to recover a little from his shock. He opened his drawer, retrieved a prescription bottle and put a small pill under his tongue. "It almost gave me a heart attack, and I was kind of prepared. I can just about imagine what the churches and the evolutionists are going to say. This may be the only time they ever agree. What do you want specifically, Daniel?"
Impressed by Selleck's immediate grasp of the situation, Daniel said, "We're prepared to give you the exclusive plus ongoing publishing rights. But I think you will agree that this is far and away beyond my contract with the Times. We've used our own resources and time on discovering it."
"Agreed,"
"Okay, I'd like you personally to write it up. I’d like you to come and interview us here in Tel Aviv, and I believe that the story will be one-hundred percent guaranteed to earn you, personally, a Pulitzer."
"Why aren't you going to write it yourself, Daniel?" Aaron said, fearing he knew the answer. He was right.
"Aaron, I have to resign from the Times, I'm sorry. This is so big that we have already set up a non-profit organization to continue study and control as well as we can how the information is used. We plan to distribute it as widely as possible, so that everyone has a fair chance at benefiting. Plus, we feel that doing so will allow the cooperation the greeting mentions to happen, and sooner rather than later. I'm afraid I'll be too busy to discharge my duties to the Times.
"Nevertheless, we'll need startup funding. I'm asking you to see to it that the Times gives us generous compensation for the exclusive and ongoing rights."
Now completely calm outwardly, though adrenaline was coursing through his veins at the thought of a Pulitzer for him personally, Aaron responded. "All right. When I see you I we can talk money but rest assured if this is what you say it is, money is not going to be an issue.”
“Let me know your flight details,” said Daniel. I’ll make arrangements for someone to meet you at the airport and bring you to us. Have a safe trip.”
The following day, a much disoriented Selleck flew to Tel Aviv on El Al. He was met by a fellow who looked like no one would mess with him, and delivered to the door of a large walled villa. He could get used to this! Inside, Daniel greeted him, with Sarah and a couple he didn’t know right behind him. Of course, Raj he knew. To Raj he said with a smile, “Nice holiday spot you picked, Raj.”
"Am I finally going to get more of this wild tale you warned me about?" he teased Daniel.
"Probably more than your heart can take. Did you bring your little pills?" Daniel retorted.
"Yes, but it won't be that much of a shock this time," he said.
"Don't count on that. You are planning to stay a day or two, aren't you? Let's have something to eat and if you would like to have a quick swim to cool you down. We can go to the conference room afterward and get started. Leave your bags here, someone will collect them and take them to your room.”
Selleck was too curious to accept the offer of a swim first. “No, thanks, but I’m on pins and needles about what you have to tell me. I’d rather get started right away.”
Daniel had prepared a Q&A document that was well-organized to tell the story in chronological fashion, leaving out the murders and Sarah's kidnapping, because they didn't want those crimes to overshadow the importance of the discovery. As Aaron went through the questions, with Daniel and Sinclair answering for the most part, he jotted down phrases next to the answers that were on the pages. Before they were an hour into it, he knew that this was going to be the most sensational story he'd ever worked on. Ever seen, even. If this didn't give the Times a shot in the arm, nothing would.
No one could refute the science that was coming from the coded records; not only the clean energy from fusion reactions, but in just a few short days, one medical researcher had instantly cured the colds of several volunteers, using a formula for a pleasant-tasting potion found in the medical codes. He considered that substantiation enough considering that even with our advances in medicine doctors still couldn’t cure a cold, only treat symptoms.
After several hours of questions and answers spanning two days and a pleasant evening's swim the night he stayed at the villa, Aaron flew home. The group had admonished him that, while he could publish everything else they'd given him, he couldn't reveal their location. He promised them a story worthy of their accomplishment, to be published in two days’ time.
Before he left they talked money. Selleck offered them $3 million for the exclusive and ongoing rights, confirming that he was authorized to commit to that amount. He arranged then and there that the money be transferred into the name of the Rossler Foundation.
After Selleck left, and while everyone else returned to trying to occupy the long hours of anticipation before the announcement, Daniel sent a message to the family back home. 'Be sure to watch the major news networks two days from now. All hell's about to break loose.' A chorus of 'way to go', 'congratulations' and 'go Rosslerites' responses came through from Jacksonville to Asheville and Boulder. The family was on board, and it was about to get very exciting.
Luke, however, had something else to say. 'Expect an angry call from the President, or at least from someone high in the government, Daniel. You guys might want to put your heads together and think what you'll say when he demands you return to the States or hand over that data.”
“Good idea,' Daniel responded. 'We'll do that tonight.'
~~~
WORLD HISTORY ALL WRONG - THE WORLD ABOUT TO CHANGE
"In the year 25,992, the Supreme Council of Knowledge, commissioned the least of their number, I, Zebulon, to build this monument and record our history for Those Who Come After. In all the cycles, this has never been attempted before.
We of the tenth cycle believe that we have achieved more than any cycle before us, and, knowing our fate, wish to leave evidence of our knowledge. With this knowledge, perhaps you, our children, may continue our progress and stop the cycles of destruction that have held our kind to less than our full potential for two hundred and sixty thousand years."
Thus read the message to us from our forefathers, left in an obscure code in the blocks of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Previously thought to have been built approximately 3,500 years ago, we now know that it was in fact built much earlier, although the date has not yet been established.
In the most earth-shattering, far-reaching and life-changing archaeological discovery of our current civilization, Daniel Rossler, an ex-NYT journalist and Dr. Sarah Clarke, a recently-tenured young professor of the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, in Providence, Rhode Island, has turned the world as we know it on its head.
The couple, assisted by brilliant IT specialist Raj Sankaran a
nd world famous linguist Sinclair O' Reilly as well as several of their family members, have discovered a hidden message in the blocks of Great Pyramid of Egypt at Giza.
Not only will their momentous discovery destroy the theory of evolution; it is expected to send current historical and academic thinking into turmoil. Among the discoveries: the ancient Egyptians did not build the Great Pyramid; the real pyramid builders were from a civilization predating ours by perhaps more than 30,000 years. This discovery has proved that human civilizations go through cycles of birth, growth and destruction lasting about 26,000 years each. We will not know for certain until more translation has taken place, but it is believed that our current civilization represents the eleventh cycle. Human beings indistinguishable from ourselves and civilizations much more intelligent and advanced than ours, have inhabited the earth for more than 260,000 years.
More important than the historical facts about the builders is the fact that a civilization preceding ours has left us their combined scientific knowledge, gathered over their 26,000 years of development.
Although to date the Rossler Foundation's research has just scratched the surface, they have already unveiled the existence of an extensive library of information consisting of hundreds of thousands of what we today call "books" and "records". The records, which are expected to eventually run into many millions, cover subjects ranging from fusion technology to medicine, astrology, politics, religion and other technologies which we currently still relegate to the science fiction realm.
For example, schematics for a breathtaking Star Trek-type medical device resembling a handheld scanner that can scan a patient's body in a matter of seconds, spitting out DNA data, vital signs information such as heart rate blood pressure and oxygen levels in the blood, as well as giving immediate warning of more than 500 diseases, even cancerous cells and the onset of conditions known to cause dementia, has the medical scientists involved jumping with excitement.
Initial evidence from the records suggest that people of the tenth cycle were living normal active healthy and productive lives up to 180 years on average.
A team of world-renowned physicists have already verified and confirmed some of the fusion technology discoveries that promise a clean and cheap energy source for everyone on the planet.
This gigantic unearthing is bound to not only jolt science and politics but also religion, academia, economists, evolutionists, intelligent-design proponents, historians and many others who will have to account for this information or rethink their current positions.
It is already abundantly clear that positive as well as potentially serious negative implications for the human race are in the cards.
The authors of the message made it very clear that the information is being entrusted to its discoverers to be used for everyone's benefit, to improve our lives and enhance our society. The Rossler Foundation has already pledged to honor that trust by seeing to it that the information is distributed in a fair and responsible way to all nations.
The NYT has negotiated the exclusive and ongoing rights to publish the research findings of the Rossler Foundation. We have assigned a special section in this paper to keep our readers up to date as and when new information becomes available. Please see Page B1 for more on the remarkable discoveries already available for further research, courtesy of the Rossler Foundation.
The editors of the New York Times encourage human beings of all walks of life in all nations, to stay abreast of and assimilate this knowledge, which is certain to bring about, as Huxley termed it, a Brave New World; hopefully this one a utopia instead of the dystopia envisioned by Huxley.
~~~
The all-caps headline, a departure from the Times’ regular look, screamed at early-morning commuters two days later, true to Aaron's word. Expecting some clever trick to be revealed, many read the story. More than a few realized that their lives, in fact, everyone's lives, would never be the same. The majority didn't understand the impact at all, until the radio and television news media began to pick it up and tell them what to think.
The Times story recapped the sixteen months of research that had led to the discovery of an ancient encyclopedia. The revelations therein ripped the lid off every scientific and historic discipline there was, throwing academics of all stripes into panic and dismay, except those who pronounced it a hoax before they understood it had already been validated and proved. They would be the first to fall as the world adjusted to the new reality.
The Rosslerites, as all members of the foundation would eventually be called, watched with their hearts in their mouths as news media all over the world began to pick up the story the Times had published that morning. It hardly seemed possible that they could have managed everything within that time, but there it was, a secret no longer.
Sinclair had several monitors slaved to the server and showing different TV feeds from around the world. On one, the Pope was downplaying the discovery, saying it was too early to draw conclusions and that the Church would be involved in studying the facts as they were revealed; meanwhile, people should remain calm. Behind the scenes, one Cardinal was heard to joke to another, 'Too bad we no longer have the Inquisition.' The Pope, however, a saintly man who nevertheless was an adept politician, was already thinking that the Church should have a representative on the board of this Foundation that the story mentioned.
Another feed showed a number of oddly-dressed people cavorting on top of a skyscraper as had been shown in the film Independence Day. Closer inspection showed them to be wearing makeshift antennae or other trappings of people who believed in, almost worshipped, extraterrestrial life. Daniel half-expected Raj to be among them until he realized that of course Raj was right by his side, shaking his head at the foolishness. Everyone knew aliens didn't alight from a UFO and say 'take me to your leader.' Still, he expected contact to be soon in coming, despite Daniel's little joke. He was still smarting under that one, when Daniel had laughed and pointed at the screen showing the alien-welcomers, saying 'What do you call a tick on the moon? A luna-tick!" Everyone had laughed then. Now Raj knew what they truly thought of his obsession, but he would show them. They would all apologize soon.
Still other feeds streamed the news from governing bodies, including the US Senate, all showing a great deal of consternation and bombast as the members debated what this announcement would mean for their respective countries. They couldn't see, but could imagine the same sort of frenzy occurring anywhere that people had a stake in the status quo: governments, industry, universities, churches. No one would escape the consequent confusion.
Daniel was rather enjoying the chaos, while Sarah, with her hand pressed over her mouth, worried that riots may break out. Sinclair was busy keeping the feeds alive, some of them pirated, and Martha with tears in her eyes silently spoke to her deceased beloved. "Mark, I wish you were here to see this. You started a revolution, my darling."
Chapter 55 – Absolutely Not Mr. President
Earlier that morning in Washington, at about the same time as the media began to pick up the Times story, President Nigel Harper strode into the Oval Office for his morning briefing. A contingent of aides and advisors were on hand just outside the door and waiting for their few minutes of precious time with the Chief Executive, but first Harper would scan the security briefing and anything else that his staff had deemed important. A quick perusal of the summary, prepared two hours before from overnight news items, convinced him that not much had changed overnight. Until he read the NY Times clipping that was at the bottom of the stack.
The headline was intriguing, clever of them to grab the attention that way, he thought. As he read, though, and realized that the article was serious, color drained from his face. Barking the names of his Chief of Staff and one or two aides, the visibly-disturbed leader of the Western world demanded answers.
"What the hell is this? Did we know anything about it? And if not, why not?" Aides scrambled while Phil Bertrand, Chief of Staff, tried to calm his principal.
"Mr. President, I don't recall anything in any briefing about this. But I'll get the Directors of the FBI and CIA on the line at once, and see if they have answers. Is there anything else?"
"You're damned right there's something else. I want to talk to these people...yesterday! Get them on the line."
"Um, Mr. President, I, uh, I'm not sure we know how to contact them." Bertrand had never had to make such a statement in his life, and hated that he was making it now. During a crisis was not the time to have the President lose confidence in him. He looked up to find Harper's eyes boring into him.
A deceptively quiet sentence escaped Harper's clenched teeth, "I suggest you figure that out." It would have been better, Bertrand thought, if he had yelled. When Harper got quiet like that, heads tended to roll.
"Yes, Sir," he said in a crisp voice. "You'll have it as soon as possible."
"That had better be sooner rather than later. After you get that, call the Speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, the Secretary of State, and the Directors of the FBI and CIA. They're to be here in three hours for an emergency meeting, no excuses. And send in the Press Secretary."
Bertrand left the Oval Office as if shot from a slingshot, and jerked his thumb back toward it as he made eye contact with the Press Secretary. He didn't envy the woman who was about to enter the lion's den.
"You wanted to see me, Mr. President?" she said, steeling herself for a tirade. But, Harper had managed to calm himself for this conversation.
"Margaret, we need a response to this, am I right?"