Distant Reality Chapter Sixteen
GRID Traveler Trinity: Distant Reality
Author: J Carrell Jones
Table of Content
Chapter 16
Decisions are born out of necessity. When comfortably situated one may take all the time to make a decision. There is never a reason to hurry; we have all the time in the world.
Chapter 16
Sean had stayed with Loggar that night. It felt strange to be making love to her on planet side. Sean had been exhausted and all he wanted was sleep. Kathy kissed and touched and teased him into arousal. She had a different feel about her on Necron. Sean couldn’t pinpoint it, but their lovemaking was a little different. Loggar had screamed twice and loud before Sean collapsed on top of her. It was a bit bizarre but Sean welcomed the orgasm. They slept soundly.
In the office now, Sean listened to the reports of the various departments. He found himself strangely drawn to Herb, the mathematician. Herb looked somewhat silly in his one-size too small jumpsuit, but he spoke with a voice that sounded brilliant.
“Milkens and I concur that this place was meant to be found.” Herb continued, “All the equipment ports, the redundant equations, all that indicates someone wanting all this to be studied.”
Loggar listened carefully. She read all the reports. “Phillip, what about the statues and do you have a possible reason for Sean . . . Commander Blakemore apparently starting a reaction in the north chamber?”
Phillip Grebfine stood up and cleared his throat. He was a wired looking man who had a habit of stressing most of his words. “The statues are robotic in nature. We think that by applying heat of unknown calories may be enough to activate most if not all the effigies.”
“Heat?” Loggar asked.
Phillip nodded rapidly.
Sean thought Phillip had too much caffeine in his diet.
“Yes,” Phillip continued, “the material of the center android – best, in the first chamber, words to describe it, is mixed with plastic-like polymers. The material is hard now, but with an interior temperature of 150 degrees we believe that it will become soft, almost like skin”
“And the Commander’s presence?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. We think that most of the chambers are controlled by gene response. Kurp could tell you more on that.”
Loggar turned to an old man who looked as if he were asleep.
“Kurp?”
He slowly raised his head. Big bushy eyebrows hung over small black eyes. He grunted once. “Commander Blakemore’s DNA matches 79 of the test DNA we found in the med. area of this facility. Blakemore should be able to enter most of the chambers we had to force open.
Whomever designed this place may not have thought that someone as close to Blakemore’s DNA would walk these corridors. This man may be the closest thing we have to a Necronian.”
“Excuse me?” Sean blurted out. “I’m not a whatcha called me.
I’m human, Earth human . . .”
“I know that young man, don’t get upset over a label. Your DNA pattern is close enough for government classification. Besides, haven’t you ever wondered if some other species had seeded Earth?”
“No.”
“What was that young man? Did you say no?”
“Yes, I said no.” Sean snapped.
Kurp chuckled softly. “Sorry, Commander, but sometimes an old man likes to have fun. But don’t feel bad. The good Captain here is 77.5 percent close.”
Robin looked over to Kurp. She had momentarily daydreamed of distant aliens seeding Earth some distant reality ago. “Mr. Kurp. 77.5?”
He nodded.
“You mean, the Commander and myself are related? Like brother and sister?” Robin had a morbid thought and paled.
“No, you and I have a common gene structure 99.0159693 compatibility. As much as I would like to hope, you are not my daughter.”
Robin blushed.
Kurp continued, “It just means that you and the Commander have more of a desirable gene structure this place wants. Now whether you two have alien blood . . .”
Sean coughed.
“. . . is purely speculation. It could be just total accident.”
Loggar sat back in her chair. “How is it this place knows?”
Tim Shepard spoke up. “It takes a sample of air containing molecules exhaled by everyone. It doesn’t exactly read your genes; it analyzes the chemical combination that you breathe out and makes a statistical calculation. If you match within its perimeters, which you’ve shown you do, it’ll do something.”
Sean asked, “Do something? Like magic?”
The room went silent and all heads turned to Loggar.
She leaned forward. “Something like that Sean. But we figure it’s all technology.”
“What?”
“Think of it this way. A group of people land on Earth way in the past. The locals see the new people doing and saying things. Things happen. They think it’s magic. It’s not magic, just technology.”
“And the seventy-seven something percent?”
Kurp said, “If they have the technology they have the medical know-how to gene slice and re-engineer them. We know it for a fact. I got a zettabyte worth of data to prove it. Give me an hour and I’ll explain at what point in our history where it occurred.”
Loggar turned to Herb. “In your report Herb, you said that we were being watched. By whom?”
Herb scratched the top of his stomach. It protruded out a bit. “The guys in the electronic department noted that when certain rooms were occupied energy sparks would develop and travel to the first chamber. Possibly into the statue.” Herb caught the eye of one of the technicians. Both smiled at each other.
The tech took out a small device and turned it on. He watched the readout.
Loggar leaned closer toward Herb. “Have all the rooms been noted?”
Herb’s grin turned to a smirk. He nodded. “All the rooms that have been identified have a large red E on the inside and outside near the door jam.”
Loggar let her eyes glide across the room from Herb to the door jam. “Good Goddess, Herb! There’s an E at the door.”
All heads turned to the E.
Randals shouted, “Shit. Herb. Why didn’t you tell us? “
Herb held up a hand, “Quite please.”
Everyone listened.
Herb looked over to the Tech. “Got something Milk?
Milkens nodded. “Hell yeah. The thing peaked just before you told Dr. Loggar about the E and suddenly dropped off. No spikes now.”
Loggar looked at Herb. “A test?”
Herb nodded. “Yeah, the thing may be ‘alive’ or working. It has been listening and probably looking all this time. Remember I mentioned the formulas?”
Loggar nodded.
“I went back to an old backup file on some equations. The redundancy was not there. This thing I think has been guiding us along. Helping us to understand this facility and itself."
Randals shot out, “Dr. Loggar, I can’t believe Herb would do such . . .”
Loggar raised a hand up to silence Randals.
His mouth hung open for a second then it shut tight.
Sean felt his embarrassment.
Loggar said, “Herb, give.”
“Everything we had found four months ago was not due to accident. I went back and checked on all new findings, the new chamber, the questions, the library, all the stuff was conveniently placed so we would ‘stumble’ upon them. I think that the statue or something close to it wants us to learn as much as we can.”
Loggar leaned back and closed her eyes. “I want everyone, I mean everyone, to submit what they know or think they know. Herb, you set up the next meeting place that is secure.”
Randals started to say something but was silenced again by Loggar’s hand. He shut up.
“It should be big enough for all the department heads to sit comfortably.”
Herb grabbed a piece of paper and started writing. “1 can think of only one place. I won’t say it out loud. Read this.” He slid it over to her face down. “It may have been able to read this but it doesn’t matter. If you think it’s a good idea then you can set up a time now.”
Loggar read the paper. ‘JOHNSON.’ She thought a bit and then nodded “Good thinking. Great choice. Does anyone have something to say before we adjourn to the next meeting.
Randals stared Loggar in the face. “Yes, I do.”
Loggar sighed. She had an idea what it was going to be about but she did ask. “Yes?”
“Are we going to breach the existence of the order and her secrets to strangers?”
All heads turned to Loggar.
Kurp spoke up. “I know that Captain Spaarin is in the Most High, but the Commander?”
Loggar knew this was going to happen.
“Sean Blakemore is not.”
Murmur rose in the room.
Kurp continued. “How far are we going to go?”
The room fell silent.
After a second Loggar turned to Sean. “Sean. I didn’t want to put you on the spot just yet. I wanted to ask you in private first, but it seems best to ask you now.” She gave Randals a particularly piercing look.
Sean felt queasy and sick to his stomach. He hadn’t eaten for too many hours. Most of this talk was starting to bother him. He had also noticed the others giving him strange looks. He nodded a go ahead.
Loggar said, “We are all members of the Most-High Goddess.”
Sean nodded.
“We are all doing this for the Most-High Goddess.”
He nodded again.
“We are going to need your help. For the research part, our technology is good enough to record and possibly understand most of Necron. But there are a few things that technology alone will never be able to answer. There is a room, the library that contains hard copy books. These books were used, we believe by the elite. You and Robin are possibly descendants from these elite.”
Sean opened his mouth, Loggar interrupted.
“I know, Sean, you are not an Alien, but the fact remains that you are the only person who can activate most of the rooms - you did one room earlier.” Loggar waited to see if Sean would respond.
He didn’t.
“We, of the Most-High Goddess want to go beyond what technology has to offer. We want to do Wicca.”
Sean’s mind raced through all the events that happened to him in the past two weeks. He remembered how sad he had been and at his wits end before this assignment came up. He thought about how much he loved Kathy and what she had given him. She loved him he knew that. He didn’t care why, it was just so. Sean sat and thought for a long time. Loggar and the rest waited patiently. Sean looked over to Robin. She had no hatred in her. Her face was soft, her eyes inviting. She was stunning. He looked at Kathy, the woman he now loved. Her lips were pursed and her brows furrowed. She was concerned. Finally after Sean decided what he wanted to say he had to figure how to say it. After a moment or two Sean cleared his throat.
All members listened intently.
Sean said the only thing that made perfect and utter sense for him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He said, “I want to join the Most-High Goddess.”
Agegi wished he could laugh.