by Rick Jones
“Then I will dig into my reserves and fly you out here. That’s no problem.”
“And John?”
Savage’s attention quickly peaked.
“As your aid, then I will accept the terms regarding him as well. You and Mr. Savage are to join my team. I’ll have my assistant contact you with the specifics of travel. Please keep your line open.”
She could hardly contain herself as she fought for calm. “I will. And Hillary?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
The connection was severed with an audible click.
Savage cocked his head. She could tell that his interest was overwhelming.
“What?” he asked.
She smiled. “Pack your bags,” she told him.” And then her smile broadened. “We’re going back to Eden.”
CHAPTER THREE
Esenboğa Airport
Ankara, Turkey
When their plane touched down in Ankara, John and Alyssa took a cab to the exclusive JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Ankara. The room was elegant and spacious with marble flooring and scalloped drapes. The tub was made of marble with jets to soothe the body. And the connecting balcony offered a breath-taking view of the city, especially at night when Ankara was a gallery of lights.
Although they were tired, they could not pass up a good meal on Hillary’s dime.
Sitting at a table in an area with subdued lighting, with the flames of ornamental candles dancing and swaying on their wicks, John and Alyssa enjoyed a fine wine as they waited for their meals.
John raised his glass in toast and tapped it against Alyssa’s. “To the AIAA,” he said.
“To the AIAA.”
They took a sip and set their glasses aside.
“We have new life,” said Savage.
“And it came from a most unlikely source, too—an adversary of my father, no less. But he’s still John Hillary. A man who would sell his mother upriver for a bottle of beer if he knew the act would benefit him.”
“It’s been all over the news,” he said. He raised his glass in salutation. “Suffice to say, your credibility is back.”
“And that’s all I wanted,” she told him. “But more importantly, I didn’t want my father’s legacy to become the brunt of in-circle jokes amongst professionals in the field.” She reached across the table and grabbed his hands with hers. “I’m scared and excited at the same time,” she told him.
He knew exactly what she was alluding to. “Those things inside Eden are gone,” he told her.
“How do you know that? How do you know that there isn’t something else waiting at the end of that tunnel?”
“I don’t.”
“Exactly. And that’s why we can’t afford to become complacent.”
“Alyssa, that temple was a burial chamber built to protect the Primaries. I’m sure this arterial tunnel leads to a safer haven—maybe to an ancient library or amphitheater, to something less guarded.”
“You’re becoming complacent.”
She was right. The warrens inside Eden were filled with reptiles that where venomously dangerous. The Megalania Priscas may not have been exclusive just to Eden. They may be elsewhere as well.
“John, those Megalania Priscas may not have been restricted to the temple of Eden. Like any other creature they live by self-preservation. And who’s to say that this tunnel is not the only one? There could be many. And maybe this one tunnel leads to an underground topography we could only imagine Eden to be, a truly magnificent city buried beneath the sands of Turkey.”
“An entire city? Is that what you think?”
“Something’s down there. That’s a fact. But to what degree I can only surmise.” She leaned forward, her face stern. “That temple we discovered is fourteen thousand years old. And there’s no doubt that a temple such as this one—one that dwarfs the likes of the Great Pyramids of Egypt—would not sit alone. I believe the arterial that Hillary discovered may lead to a network of tunnels that lead to a city buried beneath the sands.”
“You get all that from the discovery of one tunnel?”
“No. I get that from the clues of the temple.” Her appearance remained hard and determined, the creases of her brow deepening. “The temple of Eden was made up entirely of black silica, a product found half way across the planet. After what we discovered inside that ship lying in the Yucatan Peninsula, then matching the archaic script from that ship to the writings discovered on the walls of Eden, there’s no doubt that Eden was created by the same type of lost technology. The question is: does the temple of Eden sit alone? And I’m banking that it doesn’t. In fact, I think Eden is the centerpiece of a magnificent city. Remember how the walls shifted by weights and balances?”
He nodded.
“Doorways were always opening and closing, always revealing new passageways.”
“If what you say is true, if you believe Eden to be the centerpiece of man’s first great civilization, then it could be incredibly massive.”
“The temple of Eden easily dwarfed Cheops and was made entirely of black silica that housed the most treasured idols of our time, the bodies of the Primaries, the parents of mankind. Historically speaking, the largest temples have always served as the central point of every civilization from Giza to Mesoamerica. I don’t think Eden is any different. It is the centerpiece of something much larger.”
“And you think Hillary knows this?”
“Hillary is a brilliant man. So the answer is ‘yes.’ He’s thinking the same way I am. I’m sure. I’ll bet he’s salivating at the thought that somewhere underneath lies a city far greater than Troy.”
“If this is the case, then it would take decades to unearth.”
She nodded. “But it’s well worth the task, don’t you think? But another question arises.”
“And what’s that?”
“There may be things down there that have gone undisturbed for centuries, perhaps millenniums. What if we upset the balance that had gone untouched on for ages?”
“Then we accept the challenge.”
“At the potential cost of human life?”
“This time we’ll be better prepared,” he told her. “We at least know what could be down there.”
She fell back in her seat just as dinner arrived. After the waiter set the plates down and left, the conversation continued.
“It’ll be a completely different ecosystem down there,” she continued. “The environment will be one that has morphed to fit its surroundings after the implosion.”
John was pleased to hear her talk like this, with passion and love for what she did, talking like an archeologist filled with enthusiasm. “Then we’ll adapt,” he finally told her. Like anything else in life, you either adapt or die.
She picked up her fork, stabbed a piece of meat, and held the morsel inches away from her mouth. “I hope we can,” she said. “But we both know the same thing about Eden.”
“You want to jog my memory?”
“We both know that Eden does not allow for some things to adapt . . . That it picks and chooses who it wants to live or die.”
Don’t ever forget that.
CHAPTER FOUR
Digsite - Southeast Turkey
John Hillary sat in his tent situated about one hundred feet from the edge of the crater. It was night, the air unconventionally cool as a mild breeze blew in from the north, causing the tent flaps to waver softly like banners.
He sat there in the basking glow of a lamp making notes, his glasses perched at the tip of his nose. On the table sat the relic, the large chip of black silica bearing the markings of archaic script.
With careful examination he matched the symbols gleaned from Alyssa’s articles to the symbols on the black silica. So far, nothing—the archeologist became frustrated as he removed his glasses and rubbed the itch out of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
Setting his glasses on the table, he fell back in his chair. He had studied the artifact for the majority of
the day. And for the better part of that time he tried to wrap his mind around the mystery of the writing. But as a cryptanalyst he was lacking the skills needed to interpret enough of its meaning.
Gingerly, as if in homage for something so aged and so magnificently produced, he traced a fingertip over lettering that had been carved out by a skilled engraver.
Grabbing his lamp, Hillary exited his tent and went to the edge of the crater, the light penetrating less than twenty feet down into the dig site.
The night was quiet.
And the laborers were sleeping fitfully after an exhausting day under a white-hot sun.
Soon a wind picked up, the noise sounding off like whispers through the sand.
In the depths of the pit and beyond the fringe of light, Hillary thought he caught a glimpse of something moving, a shadow.
He raised the lamp as if the advantage of height would increase the circle of illumination.
It didn’t.
“Hello.”
There was no answer other than the soft soughing of the wind.
“Who’s down there?”
Was that movement?
Something blacker than black moved at the periphery of his vision, something that was quick and lightning fast, something that was much faster than a human.
“Who’s down there?”
The whispers grew louder.
Then the shadow was gone.
When the wind died down and the whispers mellowed, Hillary drew back from the crater and headed for his tent, somehow sensing a great danger in the same way that a dog is alerted by raising its hackles.
But there was nothing there, nothing behind him
Nevertheless, he found little comfort as he tied the flaps of his tent behind him.
CHAPTER FIVE
On the following day, John Savage and Alyssa Moore took a flight to a domestic airport located in southeast Turkey, a charter fully funded by John Hillary, and landed three hours later. The moment they disembarked they boarded a helicopter, their connecting transport, and flew the last leg to the dig site which cost them another two hours of flying time.
From three kilometers out and flying at a ceiling of sixty meters, or approximately 185 feet above the surface floor, John and Alyssa could see the large pavilion of tents situated around the crater.
As the chopper banked and circled, John and Alyssa could feel the adrenaline coursing through their veins like an intoxicant. She reached over, grasped his hand, and squeezed. But Savage couldn’t tell if the action was prompted by excitement or fear, or perhaps a measure of the two.
The chopper hovered briefly over a lot that had been cleared of rock and debris for landing. Sand and dust devils gave rise under the wash of the rotors, the air becoming thick and overpowering with desert sand. After John and Alyssa disembarked, the chopper lifted and headed west.
As the dust began to settle and the air less dense, John Hillary stood at the opening of his tent and beckoned them to approach.
They closed the distance quickly with little in their possession, just a backpack each.
“I saw your helicopter approaching,” he called to them. “You made good time.” He stood back and lifted the flap of his tent in invitation. “Please,” he said. “We’ve much to talk about.”
As sizeable as the tent was it was quite bare given its excessive space. There were a few folding chairs, a feeble-looking table with a laptop centered amongst a scattering of paperwork, containers bearing scrolls, and a small bookcase with texts sitting next to a cot.
“Please,” said Hillary. “Take a seat. Anywhere you wish.”
John and Alyssa each grabbed a folding chair and positioned them beside the table.
“Good to see you again, Alyssa. And this would be Mr. Savage?” He offered John his hand. “I’m so pleased to meet you, sir.”
Savage took the man’s hand and gave it a solid shake, finding a non-calloused feel to the professor’s hand. He found it soft and moist, even fragile. It was more like the feel of a man who appointed others to do his labors for him. “My pleasure,” he said.
When Hillary took the chair by his desk, he turned to Alyssa and smiled. “You’ve grown since I last saw you.”
“People do that, Hillary. They grow up.”
He immediately recognized the edge, since she did little to hide it. “Alyssa, I can understand your animosity towards me since I did everything in my power to get out of your father’s shadow by making claims and admissions that I’m not proud of. I even went as far as to file false claims to discredit him so that I could rise above and beyond his level. And I was wrong. Your father was a great man and I could never hold a torch to him. It was my insecurities that marked me as a failure. I should have been above that.”
“You’re not a failure, Hillary. You’re renowned in the field.”
“I’m renowned because I chased down every lead your father offered. I followed the scraps he left behind. And I’m here, at this place, at Eden, because of your father and because of you.”
She sighed. Forgiving an adversary of her father was difficult to do. So this was not going to be easy by any means.
“I’m offering you an olive branch,” he told her. “I want you to understand that your father has been credited as the discoverer of Eden . . . And that your credibility has been restored to you.”
“This is all very nice of you, Hillary,” the tightness was still there, in her voice. “But why offer me a partnership?”
“Ah.” He lifted papers from his desktop and revealed the triangular piece of black silica, then offered it to Alyssa, passing it off as if it was the most precious item he ever laid hands on. “Does this look familiar to you?”
Her eyes widened, but slowly, the shine of the glass, the expert engraving, the archaic symbols, all brought back emotions good and bad, but more openly, an unbridled excitement. “Yes,” she whispered, turning the relic over.
“Do you know what it says?” he asked.
“No. I can decipher a few symbols. But it’s not enough to string together a cognizant thought. There’s not enough here.” She looked at him and raised the item. “This is the reason why you want a joint expedition?”
“I need a cryptanalyst. But it has to be someone with your keen ability to interpret.” He took the relic back and held it up. “Someone with your skills can expedite matters greatly. And there’s something else.”
“And what’s that?”
He placed the relic onto his desktop. “As I expressed earlier to you, we found this relic at the mouth of an opening, a tunnel, which took a better part of a day to excavate. We found more pieces of black silica, obviously remnants of manufactured pieces that were skillfully crafted, but held no script to them. By this time the sun had set. So we cordoned off the entrance to begin anew as soon as the day begun.”
“But?”
“This morning we discovered that the barrier had been breached.”
Alyssa pointed to an unseen area beyond the walls of his tent. “You have tent city out there,” she said. “So what did you expect? That there wasn’t going to be a single soul out there who wanted to go on a treasure hunt?”
“I can assure you that this is not the case.”
“How do you know that?”
He leaned back against his chair. “Because the breach did not come from our side of the dig,” he told her. “The breach came from something that forced its way out of the tunnel.”
#
Savage leaned forward. “What did you just say?”
“The breach,” he said, “was committed from the inside out.”
It was the last thing they both wanted to hear.
“Last night,” Hillary continued, “I think I may have seen a shadow of something, a mere glimpse from the corner of my eye, a flash, and then it was gone. I merely chalked it up to night shadows and dust forms cast by the wind.”
“But it obviously wasn’t.”
“I don’t know for sure. But when we examined
the opening this morning, it was quite plain that something from the inside forced its way out. The barrier was quite secure, I assure you.”
“Are you certain?” she asked.
“All I know is that the sand outside the opening was too soft to maintain any discernible set of prints. But the impressions were the size of dinner plates.”
Alyssa appeared numbed.
“Whatever it was,” he continued, “it left trace prints of sand in the corridor about twenty feet in before they disappeared all together. More to the point, however, the pattern upon the floor was that of a quadruped, the strides long and measurably even. If we press forward with this, then there is the very real possibility that we may not be alone down there. And given the articles of your prior encounters . . .” He allowed his words to trail. But after a moment his eyes seemed to fixate on something gloriously wonderful. “But if there is a city beneath our feet,” he whispered dreamily, “can you only imagine?”
“Hillary.”
He snapped back to reality.
“I need you to show me this tunnel.”
“Of course.” Hillary got to his feet and politely gestured to the doorway of the tent. “After you.”
#
The sun was hot. Not the type of ‘hot’ on an immensely warm day. It was the type of ‘hot’ that could damage skin after a few minutes of exposure, which is why John and Alyssa opted to wear long sleeves and boonie hats.
They followed Hillary to the dig site and stood at the crater’s edge, looking down into the implosion site at what used to be the temple of Eden. The walls were tiered and manicured to resemble giant steps, as workers cut at the dirt with picks and shovels.
Emotions began to bubble inside Alyssa as she leaned into John, who accepted her into his embrace. She nearly lost her life here close to a year ago when she discovered Eden. But it was also this place that gave her life.
Hillary pointed to an area west of the tiered elevations, to the fourth level where there was an amoeba-shaped opening in the wall. Three men, Turkish officials, all bearing assault weapons and taking refuge beneath a tarp, stood sentinel. “Do you see it, Alyssa? The hole in the west end of the crater.”