Incarnate: Mars Origin I Series Book III

by Abby L. Vandiver

  Nikhil stared out past Jack. “I’m not sure.”

  Jack smirked. “What about the people you know?”

  Nikhil chuckled. “I’m on my way now to find out what they know.” He looked at Jack. “I don’t think it would be good for Simon, if he’s tried to hurt Justin before, to have any contact with her. I need to find out where he is and make sure he doesn’t get near her.”

  “Are you able to take care of that?”

  “I can take care of it. Have a little talk with him. Explain things to him. I’m sure we’ll be able to come to some kind of an agreement.”

  “Let me know if you need anything from me. Justin’s a good friend.”

  “I will. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  They both nodded and silence filled the air between them momentarily. Nikhil turned and left without a word. Jack just shook his head as he watched Nikhil walk away from the car he’d thought belonged to him and across the parking lot and down the street.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  He slammed the side of his fist against the table.

  “Where is she, Simon? You have me come across the whole goddam globe for something big and now you’re twiddling your thumbs.”

  “It is big.” Simon was starting to sweat. Aaron had arrived with big guns in tow. A mercenary of sorts, and a girlfriend who looked at him with disgust. “I thought you were bringing a team,” he got out despite the nervousness that was starting to take hold of him. “Didn’t you have a team over there? How are you going to take this over?”

  “Where is the team you had?” Aaron said.

  “They’re in Belize. This is something else. I’ve seen them carry out things. A lamp. A codex. They’ve found something.”

  “Who?”

  “Logan Dickerson. She had been in charge of the dig in Belize. Until . . .”

  “I don’t know her.” Aaron said, cutting Simon off. “Although the name does sound familiar.”

  “She’s Dr. Justin Dickerson’s daughter.”

  “Justin Dickerson? Didn’t the two of you work together before?” He eyed Simon. “What is this all about?”

  Simon tried to suck up his uneasiness. “Yeah, I did a lot of work with her. But she’s gone off the beaten path as of late. She claims to have found some manuscripts that she refused to publish back in the late 90’s. Supposedly, they gave an alternative history of man’s origin on Earth.”

  “What kind of alternative history?”

  “The alien kind.”

  Aaron laughed heartedly. “Fringe archaeology. I want no part of it. But I will take whatever they have now. I need this. Something good. Something now.” He eyed Simon. “This is real, right?”

  “Where’s this place?” The girl spoke for the first time. Simon looked over at her, and then at the mean mugged man that had yet to speak.

  “Aaron. I’ve got in with the U.S. government and I need to make this legit. Make this good. You know?”

  “You’ve got permits to excavate here?”

  “No. But with what they’ve . . . What I saw them pull out, it wouldn’t be a problem getting them. I could reach out to my contacts on Capitol Hill.”

  “You have contacts on Capitol Hill.”

  Simon hesitated. “Yes.” He lowered his eyes. “I’ve got a few fences to mend with them. But . . .”

  “You go mend your fences. I’ll get what we need to present to them.”

  “How do I get to where they are?”

  “I . . . I don’t have directions? They are kind of all over the place. Finding things . . .” Simon lied. He couldn’t help it. Aaron seemed to want to take over. He couldn’t let Aaron intrude on what he needed to do. He just wanted him to be in place to show the Senator. To make sure he’d get back in the Senator’s good graces.

  “Well, how have you been locating them?”

  “Tracking. GPS. From the satellite phone.”

  “Give it to me. I’ll find them. And Castor,” he nodded toward him, “will get what we need from them.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “Look at the colors in these murals, Ma.” We were in a small area that was clean, had squared off walls, and paved floors. Our tree searchlights lighting up the area. This area felt like an entryway to a palace. And ancient palace. The area seemed to act as a passage way, but the walls had caught our fascination and we had yet to venture into what lied beyond them.

  The corner of the walls were at ninety degree angles and were covered with vibrantly colored murals – the ceiling to floor kind. It was like we were standing in a museum.

  “These depictions looked as if they were painted yesterday,” Logan said as she ran her fingers over them.

  “They do.” I said. “The colors haven’t seemed to fade at all.” I put my face up close to one of the paintings. “Maybe this is new.” It was in such contrast to the area under the tomb where we had entered. The tomb room, as I named it, that had led us here was small and looked as it had been looted. “Maybe someone recently found this and did this.”

  “Look at this,” Jairo said. He had his light aimed on one of the murals.

  “Oh my goodness,” Logan said walking over to stand next to Jairo. “It’s the mural from San Bartolo.”

  “And the observatory at Caracol,” Jairo said.

  I put my light on the next mural over. “Look at this one.” It showed what looked like our solar system. But only the first four planets. I rubbed my finger on the fourth planet. “They have Mars depicted.”

  “Don’t start, Ma.”

  I chuckled. “I’m not starting.”

  I followed the pictures around the wall. “The four Bacabs,” I whispered as my light found the next mural. It was the depiction of what we had translated. You could see two of the Bacabs rising from underground, two from a river. And Maize Mountain.

  “If that’s supposed to be Maize Mountain,” I said touching it with my hand. “Maybe it’s not what we thought it was.” I turned to Logan. “It looks more like a volcano with lava shooting out of it.”

  “I think that’s corn coming out of it, Ma.”

  “Doesn’t look like it to me.” She set her light on another mural. “This one looks like the rapture. Look at this, all this people being pulled up into the air. How strange.”

  “Maybe they’re being pulled up into spaceships, Logan. It could be depicting their disappearance.”

  “I’m just going to ignore you, Ma. Okay? No disrespect, but I am not getting sucked into your alien theories.”

  “I think maybe my Maya legend is true,” Jairo said. He had moved to a wall opposite to where we were standing and was staring at the wall.

  “Which one?” Logan asked, walking over to him. “You’ve told us about a hundred Maya myths.”

  “This one,” Jairo said. He’d pulled his searchlight back making a wider beam and bringing a larger portion of the mural into view.

  The mural was showing women - some of them pregnant - and children being led to a cliff. And once there being pushed off. Sacrificed. Their faces covered in blue paint, there were numbers inscribed over their heads as if they were being counted. A group of people standing off in the background had a large number, perhaps their total, posted over their heads.

  I stood in front of it, tilted my head and stared at it. “I don’t know, Jairo. It could mean something else.” I tilted my head the other way and narrowed my eyes.

  He looked at me. “What else could it mean?”

  “I don’t know.” I laughed and hunched my shoulders. “I guess it couldn’t mean much else, huh? But didn’t we already know that the Maya practiced human sacrifice?”

  “We didn’t know they were keeping count.” He turned from the mural and his eyes met mine. “Not until now.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  San Diego, California

  The triangle of power. That’s where she was headed. At least to one leg of it.

  Victoria Russell was excited about her meeting today. The culmination of he
r hard work, meticulous research and her passion had now become the fuel for a powerful political machine. Although for the present, where she was headed was to be kept secret, finally action for her cause was going to be taken. She hated having to be furtive. But whatever it took – that was her philosophy. And she was willing to see it through, by any means necessary.

  She smiled at her reference. She kind of felt like Victoria X today. An underground movement to save the world.

  Finally, her population control series seemed to hit the right airwaves. She had gotten the attention of someone important. Someone that could really do something about what she considered a problem that should be everyone’s number one priority. To have his ear was going to be a feather in her cap. And apparently, he had more allies than she could have hoped for. He had in earshot some of the most powerful people in the world.

  As she walked she tugged at the navy Kasper suit jacket she wore underneath her unbuttoned trench coat. She was nervous, so much so that even her usual routine had been off-centered.

  Something as simple as what to wear had caused her angst that morning. She had pulled practically every suit she had out of the closet. One by one she tried each on. Twisting and turning in front of her cheval floor mirror, and then yanking it off and throwing it into a pile on her bed. In the end, she plopped down on top all the outfits and, with eyes closed, blindly reached out and grabbed a garment. Opening up her eyes, it was the skirt to the suit she now donned. She dug through the pile located the jacket and a white blouse. Even putting on mascara had been a disaster – it had smudged under her eye. She took a tissue and wiped it off, unpinned her hair and tossed free her red curls. As they fell around her shoulder she took a close look at her face, rubbed her lips together and grabbed her purse. No more fussing over looks. Too many other things to worry about.

  Even with the morning mishaps, she was feeling like the day was going to be a good one. Like her father had always taught her, she was proud of herself. A Rhode Scholar, a member of Mensa, but mostly she was proud of what she had accomplished in spite of being a woman. She was well liked, admired even in her field. Forty-three years old and she had taken her passion and made it a mission. And now she was a going to be member of an elite, secret society – a think tank - that was comprised of the people that shaped the world. Those people now included her.

  The group’s meeting, at least the committee she was speaking to today, was gathering on the 34th floor of the One America Plaza in San Diego, California. She took in a breath and pulled open the large glass door to the building. She stepped inside. She inconspicuously shook herself, a smile crawled up her face. She almost couldn’t believe where she had landed.

  On the 24th Floor she found the room and with confidence went inside. Some people she recognized. That took her excitement notch up a few levels. She had been told that there would be a sampling of politicians, bankers, and journalist. She was pleasantly surprised at who was in attendance.

  I might could use this as a springboard into so many other endeavors, she thought.

  But today she was focused on just one thing.

  She took her seat, and cleared her throat.

  The meeting was informal, she was in a small media room. She decided to forego the usual speech, since people there already knew what her agenda was. She had opened with a Q & A. The very first question was easy: What is overpopulation?

  “There is overpopulation when the number of people exceeds the number that their environment can sustain indefinitely once food, habitat, water and other necessities are factored in.

  “If a population can't be sustained without the rapid depletion of resources and are not renewed at a sufficient rater after extraction, or without the degrading the capacity of the environment to support the population, then there are too many people,” she continued, then she looked around the room. She took in a breath. “The United States is steadily moving toward that point. Some places in the world have already reached it.”

  Another person asked a question without being prompted.

  “How do we fix the problem?”

  She thought for a moment. And during that moment she thought better than to just throw her genocide theory out without a soft introduction.

  “Just like I relay in my presentations, the black death, HIV – all of these major pandemics originated in an animal. Usually, animal diseases don’t transmit from the animal to humans. But in these cases that’s just what happened. Why? You might ask.” She looked around the room. Faces seemed to anxiously await the answer. “And I would say to you – I don’t have an exact answer for that.” A grin slid across her face. “But, perhaps, if I were to take an educated guess, which I am very good at doing, I would estimate that this is nature’s way of controlling the population. It’s part of the evolutionary process. Only the fittest survive. So on and so forth. Perhaps it was purposely interjected. Divine intervention. If you believe in that sort of thing. And then again maybe not.”

  “Are you suggesting that we introduce a disease into society?”

  “Perhaps it’s already been done.” Victoria smiled. “But no. I’m not suggesting that.” She stood up and walking around the table, passed out the folders she pulled from her oversized Prada bag. “What I am suggesting is that we, like the pandemics we’ve had throughout history, lower the population. And there are several ‘mitigation measures’ as they are called. That’s what we need. There are just too many people in the world today. So how do we mitigate the overpopulation problem?” She laid down the last folder in front of the person.

  “We must not only decrease population growth in the long run, she said, and then looked up at her audience. “We have to do something about the number of people living today.

  “Taking an active role in decreasing the population. We’re talking about killing off people?” He pointed to the person that had made the last comment. “If not by introduction of a pandemic, then by other measures?” The speaker didn’t seem disagreeable to the idea. He only seemed to want to be clear in what he was hearing.

  “Today, there are five states that allow assisted suicide. Instead of people hanging on, suffering out an existence filled with pain and suffering they do it themselves. That’s one method. Take the stigma off of suicide. Or, today, we have countries like China that have a government that recognizes the problem. China has policies in place that regulate the number of children a couple is allowed. So does India. Other countries have started propaganda programs, if you will. Social marketing strategies to educate the public on overpopulation effects. So, implementing a social agency to disseminate information is another way. And today.” She paused and let her eyes float to the face of everyone in the room. “Today, we have the ability to mimic nature’s way of cleansing.”

  Victoria was enjoying her audience. None of the gasping, or walking out that she had to endure at her public talks. It’s the rare occasion that she has such a captive audience.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Panama Rainforest

  “So none of the murals looked like anything that would save the world from the people who brought destruction,” I said to Logan, referring to the inscription on her jungle stone slab.

  “We still might find something.” She didn’t seem to care what I was saying.

  “Like what? A weapon of supernatural power?”

  She cast her eyes over at me disapprovingly. “Nothing supernatural, I’m sure.”

  I gave that comment a smirk.

  Jairo had been walking ahead of us. We were in the hallway that led from the mural area. Logan and I moved through it slowly, examining the walls. Not only did we find corn but depictions of everyday life, afterlife and Maya men represented as gods. And the Bacabs were everywhere.

  “Justin! Logan! Come here. You won’t believe this.” Jairo called out to us. “We’ve found it!”

  Logan and I looked at each other. “Found what?”

  “Come here,” he said. “Hurry!”

&nb
sp; We trotted in the direction from where he called. Around the next turn the hall widen into a room. A magnificent hall. Jairo had lit the torches that ran along the wall and it had made the room as bright as a 100 watt bulb.

  We walked slowly into the hall. Mesmerized by it. The walls were beautiful. After thousands of years, they shone like they had been polished just this morning, and they cast reflections as we held light up to them. Brick-style gold, smooth and soft held together without mortar.

  “Are these walls made out of gold?” Logan ran her hand over the walls.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this before,” I said, “Even the burial chambers of the Pharaohs weren’t this beautiful.”

  And across the room from the entrance were double golden doors. Jairo was standing next to them with that big grin of his on his face.

  “What is it, Jairo?” I found his grin contagious. We walked over to him.

  He took hold of the hand, and with all his might pulled until it creaked opened.

  Logan and I stood at the door and shined our lights inside.

  Books. The room was filled with books, and scrolls, and papyri. On tables on shelves.

  “It’s a library,” she said.

  “Jairo, is there a torch system in here?” I asked. “Can you get us some light?”

  “I’ll see.”

  “Can you believe this?” Logan went to reach for a book.

  “Logan!”

  She snatched her hand back. “I wasn’t going to just pick up a manuscript. This one is bound. It looks like leather.” She ran her hand over it and then picked it up. “It’s okay.”

  “Wait until we get some light,” I said. “So we can see what we’re doing. We don’t want it disintegrating in our hands.”

  “I don’t know that we’ll have any more light than this,” Jairo sad. He walked back toward us. “You’ll find this hard to believe but it looked like they may have used a battery-power light source in here and the batteries have long since died.”