01-01-00

by R. J. Pineiro

  “And they were probably right,” she mumbled, pulling up the C+ + script commanding the search routine she had written a few nights ago.

  “Talking to yourself?”

  Susan turned around. Ishiguro Nakamura stood behind her, arms crossed, hair sticking up, his slanted gaze on her laptop’s color screen.

  She smiled. “Morning.”

  “Hello,” he said, kneeling beside her.

  “Jackie still sleeping?”

  He nodded, blinking rapidly to clear his sight. “She’s had quite an exciting past few days. It’s best to let her rest. But then again, so have you. How’s that shoulder?”

  “Better,” she said. Both Ishiguro and Cameron had used some of the SEALs’ first-aid equipment to disinfect the superficial wound and dress it last night. “Thanks.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  She turned back to her screen, fingers tapping the dark keyboard. “Hopefully this change will help clean up the binary dump,” she said, adjusting the frequency range of her sensors to just two 100-KHz bands below the 1.420 GHz center frequency, and two above it.

  “Who do you think is out there?” he asked, eyes shifting skyward.

  “Whoever they are, there’s certainly a relation to the ancient Mayan beliefs. The origin of the signal you intercepted matches the Hunab Ku, the so-called Galactic Core, which also matches the celestial origin of this global virus,” Susan replied, modifying the decibel scale to avoid missing any high-amplitude peaks. Her current scale went up to twenty decibels. She cranked it up to thirty dB while also increasing the resolution, which she could now do because of the much narrower frequency search, similar to increasing the volume of the radio after tuning it to a single radio station.

  “This Hunab Ku, however, appears to be a planet—at least based on the way it moves around HR4390A. That would tend to suggest an advanced civilization.”

  Just then Cameron joined them. “Hey, gang.” He sat to the right of Susan. “Sleep well?”

  Ishiguro nodded.

  “Like a baby,” Susan replied, tilting her head toward the archaeologist. “A very happy baby,” she whispered.

  “Anytime,” he replied, kissing the side of her face.

  Susan and Cameron had joined their sleeping bags and held each other all night. Although no sex had resulted, Susan had enjoyed his nearness as he’d hugged her from behind, comforting her in a way that she had missed since her husband passed away.

  “Learn anything new from Joao?” Ishiguro asked.

  Cameron frowned. “Bad news is that Joao doesn’t know how to enter the temple. He says that knowledge resided solely with the elders, the shamans, until the time came to pass it on to the new priests. Unfortunately our terrorist friends killed two of them, and the third is unconscious from a head wound.” He touched his purple patch for effect. “So nobody can tell us for now. This is especially bad because according to Joao, the shamans were getting ready for what they called the moment of total synchronization, thirteen kin, or days, away. I think they would have helped us tremendously in solving this puzzle because that date coincides with—”

  “Zero one zero one zero zero,” said Susan.

  “Right.”

  “Does he even have a clue where they went prior to entering? Was it by the terrace? A secret tunnel?” asked Susan.

  “That’s the good news. Remember the numbers in the mosaics?”

  “How can I forget?”

  “Well, according to Joao, at certain ceremonies, the three priests would go up the steps by themselves. Joao and his warriors always remained outside, unable to see what it is that the priests did to go in.”

  “That’s the good news?”

  Cameron squeezed her hand. “You’re as impatient as you are beautiful.”

  Susan wasn’t sure if she should thank him or punch him. Instead, she said, “Well?”

  “One time Joao said that the sun was at such an angle that he was able to see the shadows of the priests as they gathered by the slab next to the matrix of numbers in the terrace. They were pressing their hands against them.”

  “Pressing them?” asked Ishiguro.

  Cameron nodded.

  “Like … a combination for a vault,” Susan said, her eyes shifting to the limestone structure.

  “Exactly,” replied the archaeologist. “There is a sequence of numbers that will somehow either unlock or move the slab out of the way.”

  “What if we can’t figure out the combination?” she asked, remembering her frustrating attempts to find a pattern that made sense.

  “Maybe the SEALs can blast their way in when they get here later today,” offered Ishiguro.

  Cameron shook his head emphatically. “Can’t do that, not only because it would further despoil this place, which has already been desecrated enough, but it would also put us at odds with the local Maya. As you have seen, you don’t want these guys as your enemies.”

  Susan nodded. “I’ve also got Reid’s word that after we finish our work here we would leave them alone. Everyone who knows about this place is either here or has been killed.”

  “My government knows about it,” offered Ishiguro.

  “That’s also covered,” said Susan. “The White House should have already contacted your superiors to keep a lid on the whole thing.”

  Ishiguro grinned. “That shouldn’t be too difficult. My government is quite good at keeping lids on things.”

  “What about the terrorists? There’s a chance that they contacted their headquarters to inform them where they were going,” asked Susan.

  “We’ll have to figure a way to deal with that,” said Cameron. “Don’t forget that Joao and his men are quite capable of taking care of themselves. If someone arrives uninvited and starts grabbing for the gold, they will be toast in seconds. Anyway, there’s a couple more reasons why we don’t want to just blast our way in. First because it would alter the investigative sequence of this mysterious event. So far we have been given clues, which we must use wisely to figure out the meaning of this celestial contact. We have to solve the puzzle, not brute force our way through it.”

  Susan and Ishiguro nodded.

  “Besides,” the archaeologist added, looking solemn, “there is also a catch with trying to dial in the combination.”

  “What’s that?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. Joao mentioned to me that a couple of young men, who were slotted to be trained by the high priests, decided to go up the steps once and try to get inside the temple. Joao was nearby at the time and heard the scraping sound of rock against rock, mixed with the screams of the young men. By the time he reached the temple, there was no signs of the pair. That observation adds clarity to the large mural on the east side of the terrace, where some men are being swallowed by the earth, near the shamans. That pictograph was a warning: you get only one chance to dial.”

  Susan swallowed.

  “Which means,” Cameron continued, “I only get one chance to dial since I’m the only qualified person to attempt this.”

  “You can’t do this,” Susan said immediately, grabbing his forearm. “We hardly know anything about this puzzle, much less a combination of numbers that’s either going to grant you access … or kill you.”

  “I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  She made a face. “With something? What? I’ve spent a long time messing with those numbers on my system and have nothing to offer to you.”

  “Do you remember anything else from the other night?”

  Susan shifted her gaze to the large stone edifice, beyond the swirling haze, under the shade of opulent ceibas, remembering her dreamlike encounter with the high priests who resembled the descriptions given by Ishiguro and Jackie. Closing her eyes, she visualized their elongated heads, their peculiar tattoos, their body piercing, again, all matching the elders seen by the Japanese-American couple at the Mayan village, further reinforcing the reality of her experience. She struggled to remember the surr
eal interior of the temple, the wall carvings, the murals of so many Mayan scenes, of plumed serpents and werejaguars. She repeated everything she remembered to Cameron and Ishiguro, who listened intently as she kept her eyes closed, focusing on remembering every last shred of detail, including the numbers carved on the mosaics, the numbers that Cameron now believed held the key to unlocking the ancient door to the interior of the temple. When she finished, Cameron was staring at the temple, Ishiguro at his hands.

  “That’s all I can remember, but obviously not enough to get us in there.”

  “Get us in where?” said a female voice from behind. All three turned around. Jackie Nakamura regarded them with slanted, sleepy eyes.

  “Good morning, dear,” said Ishiguro, standing, giving her a hug.

  The petite Japanese-American woman rested her head on her husband’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “So tired,” she mumbled.

  Cameron and Susan also stood.

  “Can we get you anything?” Susan offered.

  “Maybe some water?” Jackie asked.

  Cameron reached in one of the SEALs’ backpacks, which the terrorists had gathered next to their own supplies, and produced a canteen, handing it to the female astrophysicist.

  “Now,” Cameron said. “Why don’t you join me on the terrace for a bit of ancient lock picking? Susan, bring your laptop. I think we’re going to need it.”

  2

  On the terrace, Cameron stood in front of the mosaics. Susan sat cross-legged just to his right, the PC on her lap. Ishiguro and Jackie walked about, admiring the reliefs.

  Susan magnified the decimal version of the matrix to fill the entire screen. Cameron didn’t need the conversion, being proficient with the Mayan numbering system.

  “All right,” said Cameron, flipping through his notes, excitement straining his voice. “The center of the array shows the number twenty, which also expands to divide the matrix into four quadrants, each almost identical mirror images of the others, but not quite.”

  “That’s right,” replied Susan, looking at the center of the array, dominated by the number twenty. Just to the left of this cluster of identical numbers, Susan spotted the number twenty-one. On its mirror image location on the upper right quadrant, it became twenty-two. “Going clockwise from the upper left quadrant, the number goes from twenty-one, to twenty-two, twenty-three, and finally twenty-four on the lower left quadrant. All other numbers in each quadrant are an identical mirror image of each other along the vertical and horizontal axis. What does that tell you?”

  “A sequence. Remember, the Maya lived and died by sequences, but mostly geometrical ones. This tells me that the first number of our combination comes from the upper left quadrant.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  The archaeologist shrugged. “I’m never sure, Susan. Archaeology is not a sure science. But I do have another clue. The number twenty in Mayan mythology represents the Hunab Ku.”

  “The galactic core.”

  “That’s right. The Maya also believed that the universe moved in a clockwise motion. That matrix represents part of that universe, with the Hunab Ku at its center radiating its energy across the galaxy, defining the four form-giving principles of energy, according to the Maya.”

  “Attraction, radiation, transmission, and receptivity,” Susan said.

  Cameron grinned. “I’ll make an archaeologist out of you before this is over.” He knelt by her side and gave her a kiss on the lips, short, but certainly meaningful. Although they had cuddled in bed the previous night, they had not really kissed beyond a good-night brush of the lips. Susan tasted him, feeling like a woman again. But she quickly forced her hormones to remain put so that she could give Cameron her undivided attention. Half blushing, half smiling, running a hand through his long hair, she said, “I’ll take it that was the right answer, Professor?”

  “You’re even getting the extra credit,” he said, kissing her forehead before standing, opening his weathered notebook, thumbing through yellowish pages. “Anyway,” said Cameron, turning businesslike, “those subtle hints, combined with the known fact that Mayan codices read from left to right and top to bottom, suggests the order of the combination.”

  Susan’s engineering mind returned with amazing clarity. “I want you to think things through before you start dialing the combination, which, by the way, we have not really discussed exactly how that might be done.”

  “We’ll get to that in a moment, though I’ve got a pretty good idea. Now, this temple, which we have come to learn and love, was constructed in memory of Pacal Votan.”

  “Right.”

  “All of the glyphs that I have been able to decode tell me this.”

  Susan nodded.

  “Two dates are crucial in Pacal’s life, aside from his birth in A.D. 603 and his death in A.D. 683. They are the start of his earthly rule in A.D. 615, and the start of his galactic rule, in A.D. 631. Those dates constitute our first clue in figuring out the combination. I should have noticed that earlier when I first inspected the numbers, but at the time I’d been too preoccupied with the murals. However, the murals did point me straight back to this matrix of carved mosaics, for here lies the clue to entering this temple, where we hope to find further insight into this puzzle.”

  Ishiguro and Jackie now flanked Susan, still sitting with her PC on her lap. Cameron addressed his small audience, which grew to four when Joao approached the temple, remaining standing beneath one of the corbel vaults.

  “A.D. 615, the beginning of Pacal’s earthly rule,” he repeated, flipping through his notebook, “represents 1,366,560 kins, or days, since the beginning of the last Great Cycle, which will come to an end on December thirty-first.”

  Jackie raised her hand, as if she were in school. Susan and Ishiguro grinned.

  “Yes?” Cameron asked.

  “What is the Great Cycle?”

  Cameron spent five minutes explaining to the Japanese-American team how the Maya kept time using the Long Count calendar, and how that system was used to keep track of thirteen baktun-long cycles, or 5129 years on the Gregorian calendar.

  “So,” he continued, having brought his audience up to speed, “the Maya were so obsessed with numbers that they oftentimes assigned them to their chiefs, according to their birth date. Furthermore, they would break up the numbers to make them easily represented in their numbering system. Pacal then became 13 66 56 0, a number with great harmonic resonance.”

  Jackie raised her hand again. “Harmonic resonance?”

  “In simple terms, a number is considered to be harmonically resonant when it can be converted to other significant numbers with simple mathematical operations. Just to give you a taste of this, 1,366,560 divided by 360, the number of days in a year according to the Maya Long Count or Haab calendar, minus the vague 5-day period, yields 3796. The same number divided by a full 365-day period yields 3744. The difference between 3796 and 3744, is 52, the exact number of years of Pacal Votan’s galactic rule, from A.D. 631 to his death in A.D. 683. Now, the Maya had a second calendar, called the Tzolkin, which consisted of 260 days. This calendar, derived by multiplying the number of the Hunab Ku, 13, by another familiar sacred number, 20, was used for a variety of religious purposes. Now, if you align day one of the Tzolkin with day one of the Haab, you will start what the Maya called the 52-year cycle, meaning that fifty-two 365-day years will go by before day one in both calendars line up again. That’s what I meant by a number that has harmonic resonance, and Pacal Votan’s number is by far the most resonant of all Mayan numbers.”

  Everyone remained silent, grasping the significance of Cameron’s words, of his incredible explanations.

  “Now,” he continued, obviously quite used to speaking to an audience, “look at Susan’s screen, at the matrix.”

  Susan’s eyes returned to her screen, as well as the astrophysicists’.

  “Pacal’s number is the secret to this mysterious sequence of numbers. The sequence of 13 66 56 0 is ev
erywhere, once you know how to look for it.”

  Susan felt a chill. The archaeologist was correct. She immediately spotted the sequence not just starting at each corner and moving inward in a diagonal line, but also across, where the sum of certain adjacent numbers would yield the magical sequence.

  “This is amazing,” said Ishiguro. “In all my years, I never imagined such harmony.”

  Cameron nodded. “The Maya were indeed amazing. And in the middle of Pacal’s sequences, the Hunab Ku, the number twenty, also symbolizing zero one, zero one, zero zero, gloriously spreads its wings, dividing the galaxy according to the four form-giving forces.”

  Susan set her laptop down and stood. Ishiguro and Jackie did the same. “All right, Professor. What’s the next step?”

  “Simple, I hope, for my sake anyway. You start clockwise. Four numbers, four quadrants.”

  “But which of the numbers do you use?” asked Jackie.

  Cameron grinned. “Yet another puzzle within the original puzzle. To answer that you must understand the sense of extremism that the Maya had when it came to order, to harmony. Upper left meant radical upper left, meaning that the first number of the sequence must be the upper left-most thirteen in the upper left quadrant.”

  Susan nodded. “The same applies to the other quadrant. Upper right, lower right, and lower left.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How do you dial it in?” Susan asked.

  Cameron pointed at a hair-wide gap between the mosaics. “You wouldn’t know they were there unless you knew what to look for.”

  “So you just press them?”

  The archaeologist nodded. “But just in case, why don’t you all back off to where Joao is, by the steps.”

  Ishiguro and Jackie exchanged glances and complied. Susan remained by him.

  “You too, Susan. Don’t want anything to happen to that little face.”

  “You should have thought about that before hugging me last night, before kissing me just now. Now we’re in this together one hundred percent, so start pressing. I’m staying right here.”