The Cydonia Objective mi-3

by David Sakmyster

  Another glimpse: a different warehouse floor, this time with the enormous head resting on the floor, two men standing before her melancholy eyes, admiring the workmanship. They’re pointing to the crown of spikes, whispering and nodding their heads…

  Is that it? Caleb wondered, briefly returning to the world of light and wind and sound. The ferry rocked gently on the waves as it sailed toward Liberty Island. Is it inside one of the spikes? Signifying the seven continents and seven seas, maybe there was a riddle to solve, a way to determine which held the treasure by the location of its designated continent? Then he cringed, imagining having to crawl up onto the head and fight the winds and the view almost three hundred feet above the base.

  Keep looking, he urged. He had to consider everything, and this was free-viewing, a brainstorming session. Next, he saw a huge fairground, great crowds dressed in late-1800 fashions. Women with umbrellas and long dresses, men in top hats and canes, all strolling the grounds despite the heat and humidity, the flies and the refuse bins overflowing with trash faster than the workers could empty them. A long banner reads: 1876 Centennial—Philadelphia. Past the tents and display stands, invention stands and horticulture exhibits, to a line snaking around and around, where people wait to pay their fifty cents to enter the immense outstretched right arm and ascend into a huge copper torch. Along the balcony around the torch’s simulated flame, people are crammed in, waving to their friends below and marveling at the sights.

  “Just another month,” says the promoter at the tent’s entrance. He spins a cane up and down, pointing at the gaping spectators as the sweat pours down his face and soaks his black suit. “Before this engineering wonder will make its way to New York, to Madison Square Garden, before it’ll be shipped back to France, and then… You’ll see the whole thing, the new colossus—Lady Liberty—assembled in a few short years in New York’s Harbor. But here, and only right here, you get to climb inside what will be the highest point. Imagine the view, imagine the spectacle! Just fifty cents! Get inside and see for yourself this marvel of the modern world!”

  The vision swells, money changes hands, then a blur and now the interior appears. A winding staircase, a tight fit cramped with people on every side, going up and coming down. Then, up on the balcony. Others looking out at the scene, but the vision continues to study the flame. Moving around the torch from all angles, looking for any obvious seams or compartment entrances, not finding anything, but still…

  Makes sense, Caleb thought dimly, part of his mind still lucid. Just like at the Pharos… which the Statue of Liberty was modeled after, in part. The treasure, the wisdom, was secured in the light, or in actuality, its mirror reflection below…

  As above so below…

  Caleb’s eyes snapped open. They were very close now, circling around Liberty Island and veering toward the docking point. But the statue was there, rising like a giant in all her splendor. Caleb immediately focused on the pedestal and again had to marvel at how closely it resembled the Pharos’ structure as he had seen it in his visions. If not for Liberty standing upon it, this could be the Pharos itself, it was that similar. Instead of a small statue of Poseidon gracing the top of the Pharos, this monument had the massive goddess of wisdom and justice—originally intended by Bartholdi to be a representation of Isis.

  But in all other senses, both were beacons of truth and hope. And, Caleb recalled, both were lighthouses. The Statue of Liberty’s torch had been meant to provide illumination for the harbor, to guide ships in during the darkest of nights. But…

  Show me, he thought. Maybe that was the direction to search.

  New York harbor, filled with ships. Spectators and business vessels alike. Anchored and watching the dedication. The scaffolding removed, the gleaming statue stood revealed in all her towering splendor. Fireworks blasting into the sky, exploding in brilliant reds and blues with showers of white stars pinwheeling over her crown. But the lights on the torch, eight lamps around the base, barely provide enough illumination to compete with the pyrotechnics display in the sky.

  A flash, and later… Engineers are working on the torch, cutting into the flame, creating two rows of portholes and inserting lamps. Below, a steam-powered electric generator powers the lamps, but… Shift to Manhattan Island, and a gray-bearded man with an armful of designs stares out at the statue and mutters, “It’s the light of a mere glowworm.”

  Another shift… A cool fall day, and again several engineers are at work along the torch’s balcony… A thick belt of glass replaces the portholes, and an octagonal pyramid-shaped skylight is fitted as a skylight on top. An oil-powered generator replaces the old one. From the crown, the same bearded man looks up through the windows and frowns at the fractured, mutilated light that still fails to perform as expected.

  Again a shift ahead… And a man in a brown suit stands on the deck of a yacht, with American flags waving around him, and a crowd of reporters and aides. It’s night, and the harbor is dark, with stars blinking overhead, and a fleet of ships all around. Ahead, the black shape of the enormous goddess stands mutely in the dark. “President Wilson,” says an aide. “You may now light it.”

  Grinning, he gives the signal.

  And from high above, the torch springs to life. Different again, now fitted with six hundred small windows of yellow-tinted glass and fifteen gas-filled electric lamps.

  The reaction is anything but spectacular. Wilson bites his lips and listens to the muted applause before turning around and heading down below.

  It never quite worked as a lighthouse, Caleb knew. Even though it was retrofitted along with technology advances every couple decades. But certainly the torch was now hollow and could serve as a hiding spot. But technicians who changed the bulbs would surely have discovered anything like a slender ancient blade hidden inside. Wouldn’t they?

  Caleb shook his head. They were approaching the dock. People were getting up, heading down the stairs to get in line to get off the ferry.

  He still had time.

  Time to keep looking. To go back to something else he had seen. The dedication day. The ceremony…

  A small group of men in full Masonic garb stand before the base while behind them, a great procession approaches, led by the Grand Master, all in attendance for the rite. A pastor gives a benediction, speaking of this statue as a symbol of freedom… And then the dedication. A copper box set into a space in the cornerstone and overlaid with a plaque. The box… containing among other items a copy of the Constitution, bronze medals earned by the Presidents, city newspapers, a portrait of Bartholdi and a list of Grand Lodge officers.

  The box…

  Caleb shivered with excitement. Was it possible? It could have been opened up, the spear placed inside, then reset into the cornerstone, guarded and most importantly, hidden in plain sight.

  He stood up, feeling the rocking of the boat as it was finally secured. He was alone on the top deck, and felt the first sprinkles of rain. The heavy clouds now swirled over the statue, as if they’d followed him. It seemed the torch was in danger of being devoured by the ominous weather.

  The cornerstone… If the Spear was there, how would he get at it? He started heading for the stairs, but then caught a glimpse of the base of the statue. The walls of the star-shaped foundation. And he recalled that this site, once called Bedloe’s Island after a British Admiral who owned the land as a summer home, had later been occupied by the military where they built a star-shaped fort, with massive twenty-foot high walls and cannons at every point, ready to defend the harbor. Fort Wood was later chosen as the base for the Statue, perfect in its complimentary design and symbolism, and yet…

  Something bothered Caleb, and on the way down the stairs and passing the gift shop, with all the dangling trinkets and miniatures of the Statue and base, he realized what it was. The orientation didn’t make sense.

  It could have been that General Patton was driven more by practicality and less by symbolism, and therefore didn’t care about where the object
of America’s power rested, only that it was secure, but Caleb would have imagined that, like Sostratus, he would have hidden it either at the ‘Above’ or ‘Below’ points signifying light and wisdom. It should have been in the torch, or at its diametrical opposite, as in the Pharos’ vault.

  Somewhere equally below the level of the torch.

  Caleb looked out the window, and first grimly imagined a descent under the earth, three hundred and five feet to the mirror reflection of the torch. But geologically that would be challenging. The earth here in the harbor was soft and lacking in a suitable foundation for carving out tunnels or chambers. But with modern technology it wasn’t out of the question. Maybe somewhere in the old Fort Wood there had been a vault, a storage area beneath the earth, something that could have been expanded. A shaft drilled and reinforced.

  He leaned against the railing as the ferry rocked with a wave. A rumble of thunder groaned over the chatter of tourists, some of them now retreating into the safety of the ferry, not wanting to brave an imminent downpour.

  But Caleb pushed through. He was distracted, his mind swimming with alternatives.

  He had to get inside the pedestal, find someplace quiet. Some place of inspiration where he could finish the viewing, peer deeper and focus his vision. Too many competing possibilities. He had to narrow them down.

  Pushing through the jarring, smelly tourists, past the Asian family gamely trying to get out, he made it down the ramp and through the crowd sheltered under the docks’ rooftop waiting area, and just as the storm let loose, perfectly timed with a huge bolt of lightning to the right of the statue, Caleb ran out into the rain, heading for the main entrance.

  Halfway there, something made him pause and look back. Another ferry was coming, tossed from side to side but chugging along, rounding the bend toward the docks.

  And on the second level railing, he could just make out a flash of a red windbreaker alone in a sea of dark colors. A brunette leaning over, scouring the crowd, looking for someone.

  It’s her, Caleb thought, turning and running faster. He was out of time.

  Nina had found him. And he was sure she hadn’t come alone.

  9.

  Mount Shasta

  “Montross,” Phoebe whispered. “He…”

  Diana nodded, blushing. “He opened my eyes. To so many things, in such a short time. And, well he promised to see me again soon. I haven’t seen him in years. But I know he had a larger mission.”

  “Which,” Orlando said bitterly, “involved ripping us off and killing a lot of people—and kidnapping a kid, don’t forget that. And bringing back that Nina psycho.”

  “He would never–”

  “Guys.” Temple held up his hands, officiating. “Now’s not the time to debate Mr. Montross’s villainy.”

  “But it is,” Phoebe insisted. “If Diana believes him, if she’s holding a torch for him or something.”

  “I’m not!”

  “Sounds like you are,” Phoebe snapped. “When did all this happen?”

  “Six years ago.”

  “Soon after he walked out on the Morpheus Initiative.” Phoebe was fuming. “He saw the danger before the team ventured under the Pharos, and he saved himself without warning the others. Then he up and went halfway across the world to help you?”

  Diana looked down at her boots. “There was something he said he needed. An artifact. Something he saw in the archives. He needed me to help him get inside to find it.”

  “So he used you.”

  “No. Well…”

  “What was this artifact?”

  Diana sighed, and her eyes clouded over.

  And suddenly Phoebe gasped. Her body twitched and she saw…

  A lonely farmland, a rusty weathervane. A few cows grazing. A red barn in the distance. And a backhoe with its shovel in the air, releasing a torrent of dirt beside a deep hole. The earthen sides are striated with deeply hued layers.

  The engine stalls, sputters and stops as a man in dirty overalls jumps out. He has an election button on his grimy t-shirt: FDR ’32. His shadow falls on the pile of dirt—and a gleaming fossilized skull. Enormous. Horned, with a wide-plated crania.

  The man looks back into the hole. Bends down and peers closer at the rounded bones peeking through the earth. A ribcage.

  And inside…

  Something that looks like a soccer ball. Spherical

  Shiny.

  He jumps down, slides his fingers through the gaps between the bones. Touches the thing, brushing away the dirt and dust…

  Revealing a gold surface. Thick plating. And–

  –symbols.

  Lettering. A script.

  The farmer backs up, holding his head and wincing as if he’s suffering the sudden onslaught of a migraine…

  A flash, and the same site, except black cars are parked around the backhoe and men wearing dark suits, fedoras and sunglasses are standing around the hole. Diggers wearing what look like deep sea diving gear pull up the dinosaur ribcage, intact, with that spherical object still inside. They place the orb inside an open, lead-lined chest, slam and lock the cover. Money changes hands and the farmer signs some multi-paged document, then stands there, mute as the cars all drive away and he’s left with a deep hole and a fistful of money.

  “Oh my god.” Phoebe had her hands on the table’s edge, trying to steady herself. “I saw it… was that real?”

  “What?” asked Orlando.

  Diana leaned in. “What did you see? The archives at the Smithsonian where Xavier found the item?”

  Phoebe glanced up. “The Smithsonian? No, but… the men I saw at the farm, in black suits and cars with matching paint jobs…”

  “The farm,” Diana whispered. “Wyoming. In 1931 a cattle farmer dug up a fossilized Triceratops, with something in its belly that should not—could not—have been there. An artificial object inside the gut of a sixty million year old dinosaur.”

  “So,” Orlando said, “your old employer hushed it up. Like I’ve heard they did with a lot of stuff they found in America, things of obvious European, Asian and even Egyptian origin. Things that didn’t fit with conventional theories.”

  “At the time, I convinced myself it was a hoax. That the Smithsonian hushed it up because there was no other logical assumption, other than that the farmer himself—or someone close to him—found the bones, then fabricated this sphere, put it inside, then reburied it to be discovered later.”

  “But now you don’t think so,” Orlando said.

  “Not after everything else I found in those restricted archives. After researching literally thousands of other anomalies that never made the light of day because conventional scientists—whose duty should have been to objectively analyze all the data before making conclusions—instead buried or simply destroyed evidence that didn’t corroborate existing theories of man’s comparatively recent evolution. Or the Diffusion Hypothesis. Or the belief that Sumer was the first main civilization, or that the Americas were only populated by savages who had traveled across the Siberian Ice Bridge ten thousand years ago.”

  She took a breath. “While I had access to the secret archives in the Smithsonian, I catalogued thousands of man-made artifacts discovered in geological layers indicating great antiquity. Skulls and bones indicating that modern humans had coexisted alongside lesser developed species that we supposedly evolved from. Coexisted even with dinosaurs…”

  Temple sat back, sipping his coffee, but unable to hide his smile as he watched Phoebe and Orlando’s reaction. Aria however, just seemed bored with the conversation, instead glancing around the screens with the awe of a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons on a big screen.

  “I can’t believe you just saw that,” Diana said as she stared at Phoebe. “I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, especially here, but sometimes… I admit I often wondered if Xavier was just a good con man. If he cooked up everything and made his inside knowledge appear like psychic ability.”

  “Well, now you know,” Orl
ando said.

  “Although,” Phoebe added, “I’d say Xavier’s still a con man. Don’t trust him. Ever.” She turned her glare at Colonel Temple. “Whatever that sphere is, I’m thinking that it’s something that can shield his presence from remote-viewers.”

  “Why do you think that?” Temple asked.

  “Because I sat in on a lot of sessions where George Waxman and the Morpheus team searched the world over for Xavier, and never found a thing. I think he needed it to block his activities, to hide from us so he could break Nina out of her confinement and go about his mission.”

  “If he did all that,” Diana said, “he must have had a larger reason. He must have known…” She waved her hand to the screens. “About this. About what’s going to happen unless we stop it.”

  “And that,” said Temple, “ends this uncomfortable discussion. Diana, if you please… the presentation. Tell our guests about your evidence. What you’ve confirmed, what we’ve been looking for.”

  “Maybe you should start,” said Diana, who seemed winded as if she’d just run a race in the hottest part of the day. “I need a breather, and I’m guessing that our guests might not listen with an open mind if I start out.”

  “We might,” Orlando started, then shut his mouth after a look from Phoebe.

  They all took their seats, with Diana moving to the front and sitting by herself. She shot Temple a look and said under her breath. “You could have warned me about this.”

  Temple just shrugged. He poured himself a glass of water, then passed the pitcher around. “Okay, we’re going to start with a little Theology 101.”

  “Ugh,” said Orlando. “If I wanted to go to Church…”

  “Listen. You all know the first verse of the Bible.” Temple stared at them, and when no one spoke up, he said, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

  Orlando raised his hand. “Ooh, I know! What is: Genesis, chapter one, verse one?” He tapped himself on the back. “Do I win a Lexus?”