The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03)

by David Sakmyster

  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 Amer
icas 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," Orlando 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?"

  "Nope. Listen, the word used for God is Elohim, which is plural—gods, or more precisely, 'beings from the sky'. And get this, the Hebrew word for 'in the beginning' can have two meanings. Either the literal 'in the beginning', or it could mean with the beginning. Or put another way: 'with what remained of the past.'"

  He let that digest. "So what Genesis could be saying is the same as what a lot of other creation myths the world over speak of: Advanced beings—or planets representing gods, or both—battled in the heavens, and their warfare resulted in massive cosmic destruction, reordered the heavens and created new worlds, our own included."

  Diana cleared her throat. "With what remained, the gods created the sky and the earth." She took a sip of water. "So many creation myths the world over. And so many similar beliefs about a savior as well—one who dies violently and is reborn. And whose blood and body are then consumed by the survivors to either sustain life or to grant eternal life. The Mali tribe has Nommo, who is continually crucified to a tree, his body and blood taken into the earth, creating seeds that feed the people the next spring. There are so many more—Tammuz, Odin, Mithras, Quetzalcoatl, and of course, the original savior-god, Osiris, who was murdered, cut into pieces and sent to the underworld before he rose up and is now situated in heaven—not coincidentally at the destination point for the worthy in the afterlife."

  Temple nodded, but saw that his guests' eyes were glazing over. "Okay, flash forward a couple billion years—or a half million, depending on how radical you want to take all this. In the more distant history, a huge planet—we'll call it Tiamat—collided with another body out beyond Mars, and the collision created the Earth and also the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The moon—one of Tiamat's satellites, remained with the Earth, basically forming a dual planetary system. Tell them Diana, about the moon."

  She stood up, took a deep breath.

  But Orlando cut her off. "You're not going to tell us that we never went there, are you? All that Hanger 18 crap? Because, I'll tell you—I RV'd a lunar mission once. And it was real, not filmed on any stage."

  "Oh, we went there all right," Diana said. "But I'm guessing you didn't see much more than that—a visit and a landing, or you wouldn't be talking so calmly about this."

  "Maybe…" Orlando said, glancing at Phoebe. "I didn't ask the right questions, those kinds of questions."

  "It's okay," Temple said. "If you had, you would have either gotten the shield or some unwanted visions, things that have made other psychics give up ever working for us again."

  "Okay… I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but sorry, continue. What's wrong with our moon?"

  Diana took a breath, then started. "Our moon, by all theories, shouldn't be there. It's a celestial freak of nature. It's too large—the ratio between satellite and master the largest in the system, and dynamically impossible to explain. It's one-quarter the diameter of Earth. The next largest satellite circling a planet is Titan, but it's only one-eightieth of Jupiter's diameter." Diana took a breath. "No theory explains how it could have been 'captured'. Also its orbit should be elliptical like most captured satellites, not perfectly circular. And for that matter, it shouldn't be in a perfectly synchronous rotation."

  "A what?" Phoebe asked.

  "Our moon is at the perfect distance and rotational speed so that it always shows us the same face. That's a near impossibility to achieve through chance."

  "So…" Orlando left the question out there. But Diana ignored it.

  "For centuries astronomers and stargazers have been reporting unusual things up there—just on the side that we can see. Strange lights, pulses. Objects that seem… geometrical and show up where nothing existed before, like a twelve-mile 'bridge' over the Sea of Crisis viewed in 1958. Other strange anomalies include seven obelisk-shaped spires six-hundred feet tall near a gigantic rectangular depression in the Sea of Tranquility." She took a sip of water. "The seas themselves, the enormous dark areas you can see with the naked eye, are plains of fused soil requiring temperatures greater than forty-five hundred degrees to produce. NASA speculated that ancient cosmic bombardment must have occurred, the equivalent of billions of H bombs." She rubbed her hands together, continuing without focusing on anything but the table top.

  "There have been unusual radio signals coming from the moon, reported early on by Marconi. Nicolas Tesla—more on him later—speculated that someone was up there, and we should be prepared. And the craters themselves—they often defy theoretical models."

  "Like how?" Orlando asked. "I've seen pics, they seem normal to me."

  "From down here, maybe. But their depth is wrong. For example, a one-hundred-fifty mile wide crater was found to be only three miles deep. Something that huge, causing such an impact, would have gone much deeper, unless the mantle was some kind of tougher material than anything we could expect. And… the bottom of the crater was found to be convex, instead of the other way around." Diana shook her head. "So many anomalies, and I've barely started."

  Temple refilled her water. "Go on, quickly. Get to the good stuff."

  Sh
e stared at her glass, the swirling liquid. "Since the beginning of the lunar program, there have been miscalculations, problems and… unusual missteps. The first few missions overshot the moon as mission control discovered to their surprise that they had miscalculated the moon's gravitational pull, expecting a much greater mass, given the moon's size. After adjusting again, early landings struck harder and faster than planned—and created a metallic ringing upon impact. And speaking of landing, the original craft and crew were prepared to be caught in a deep sea of dust, as should have been the case, given the moon's extreme age, its lack of atmosphere and its direct exposure to dust-producing solar rays. But there was relatively little dust, less than an inch."

  Diana pushed a button and all the main screens went black, then started up with a presentation. "What I'm about to show you," she said, "are photographs captured by the early Apollo missions. There are a lot of these pictures, and they tend to be overwhelming after a while. None of these have been seen before by anyone outside of NASA—and only there to a select few." She tapped a key on her laptop and the screens went black as she talked. "From the beginning," she said, "there have always existed two space programs."

  10.

  Liberty Island

  After breezing through the shortened security checkpoint, where the crowd impatiently waited out the rain, Caleb bypassed the museum entrance and opted for the stairs up to the top of the fort section and base. He ran through puddles, his face turned against the driving rain. Before the entrance, he glanced up at the dizzying height of the pedestal, and again had a flashback to Alexandria, a vision two thousand years old, with Roman galleys assailing the structure's base under churning storm clouds, a brazier of fire lit high above, and the huge mirror blasting a light through the gloom.

  Inside, he emerged directly into the center of the structure, with metal mesh floors and a steep staircase bending around the central shaft supporting Liberty's frame. He had a moment of vertigo and had to grab a railing.