2040 Revelations (17 page)

‘Don’t encourage him,’ Trish said, ‘he’s bad enough as it is.’

But Sarah wasn’t listening; she’d gone back to studying the map.

Trish looked over her shoulder. ‘What’s that?’ she said, and touched the larger pendant that hung in front of the smaller one around Sarah’s neck.

Sarah had forgotten all about it after everything that had happened. She unclipped her new find and opened the end, then teased out the paper hidden inside. As she unfurled it she noticed it felt similar in texture to the map Jason had pick-pocketed from Carl. Incredibly, it spread out to a substantial size. It felt thick to the touch, but flexing it she could tell it was much thinner than normal paper. It was unlike anything she had felt before, including Jason’s map.

‘Where did you get that from?’ Jason said in amazement. He picked up the pendant and examined it.

‘I found it in a weird metal canister I discovered before we were hit by those goons. This was the only thing I had a good look at and luckily they didn’t spot it.’

‘They nearly did, though, didn’t they?’ Trish said, remembering.

‘Yeah, it was a pretty close call. As soon as I saw all those cars I knew something was up, so I quickly clipped this new pendant on my chain and it settled nicely on top of my other one. Carl just assumed it was the one he’d seen me wearing before. I completely forgot about it until you just noticed it, I was so tired and exhausted during the walk it just left my mind.’

‘I just thought it was odd,’ Trish said. ‘I looked over your shoulder and saw two pendants rather than just one.’ Trish accepted the pendant from Jason for a closer inspection. ‘Now I know what I’m looking at, I can see this new one is a bit bigger and it’s got designs on it, too, plus this little compartment; intriguing.’

‘Let’s have a look then,’ Jason said to Sarah, who was now staring at the new parchment intently. It appeared to be a page of text. She laid it out next to the map so they could all see.

‘Has anyone noticed that these parchments are not faded or degraded in any way?’ Trish said, feeling each one in turn. ‘They look like they were made yesterday.’

She’s right
, Sarah thought to herself. The parchments, for want of a better word, had neither faded nor cracked. They looked brand new, although made of some light brown material that wasn’t skin, paper or anything else she recognised. The quality of the printing, as that’s almost what it looked like, was extremely high; however, the faint marks and flicks of the instrument that had created them could be seen, indicating they’d been drawn by hand.
Curious
, Sarah thought, utterly fascinated.

Three principal colours, grey, white and a light green, dominated the designs. The symbols were fine and intricate, similar to a modern alphabet, although there didn’t seem to be a strict order to them.

‘These can only be the work of Homo gigantis,’ Sarah said, tracing the obscure script with a finger.

‘You think?’ Trish said.

‘Why not? It stands to reason; they were found near the skeleton and at about the same depth. The map carries the same markings as the ones I found previously in roughly the same area. This text doesn’t look like anything I have ever seen before, though. It’s clearly an alphabetical system rather than pictogrammatical, which rules out ancient human civilisations; plus if this is handwritten, which it looks like it is, then look at the spacing and size of the letters – a large hand wrote this, don’t you agree?’

‘I suppose,’ Trish said. ‘Given what I’ve seen in the last few days I would be inclined to lean towards your theory.’

‘Theory? How else can you explain it? The skeleton, maps, casket, pendant, the military intervention and cover up?’

‘I can’t, Sarah, but that doesn’t mean you’re right, it just means I can’t think of an alternative reason; they’re too different things entirely.’

Sarah didn’t say anything as she knew Trish would play devil’s advocate until the cows came home, but she was convinced. Add all this to the other historical evidence and accounts made by her friends, and it was just too conclusive.

‘My pendants and past discoveries, and our first-hand experience of the skeleton, can only mean that Homo gigantis evolved hundreds of thousands years ago,’ Sarah said, unable to contain herself any longer, ‘and all evidence of their existence has been swept under the carpet by the Catholic Church, and God knows who else, over the last millennium or more. Add to that these parchments and clearly they were extremely well advanced. They had an alphabet, they could cast metal objects with an accuracy that matches anything we can do today, and whatever these parchments are made of seems to be age resistant.’

‘Skeletons,’ Jason said.

Confused, Sarah just stared at him. ‘What?’

‘You said skeleton,’ he told her, ‘when there were two – so skeletons, plural.’

‘What are you going on about?’ Trish said, exasperated.

‘I’m saying there were two fucking skeletons and not one, what do you think I’m saying?’

‘Two, how did that happen? No one mentioned two before!’ Sarah said, looking at Trish accusingly.

‘Don’t look at me, I didn’t know, this is the first I’ve heard of it.’

‘Just as the men were pulling up,’ Jason said, ‘me and prick face Carl had just unearthed the edge of another skull close to the feet of the first. I was going to take some pictures when everything went pear-shaped.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ Trish asked him.

‘I only just thought of it. We’re not all perfect like you, are we?’

Trish gave him the finger.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Sarah said. ‘Where did the map come from, then, the one you got from Carl?’

‘Dunno. From your casket, maybe? I saw him look at it and then stuff it in his pocket, so I thought I’m gonna have that, you two-faced git.’

‘One of the men that grabbed me must have passed it to him – the bastards,’ Sarah said, before going back to studying the second parchment.

The ancient material measured about twice the size of an A4 piece of paper. A faint, indented circle sat in the top right corner. She looked at the map; that had one, too, the same size and in the same place. She felt it with her thumb and the page shimmered and the text changed.

She yanked her hand away in astonishment. ‘What the—?’

Trish and Jason, who had been looking at the map, glanced up at her. ‘What is it, Saz?’ Trish said.

‘Did you see that? It just changed. The text just altered!’ She stared in shock at the page before her.

‘What? What do mean, changed? Jason said, confused.

‘I put my finger on that circle and it changed the text on the page.’

Jason reached out and touched it. Nothing happened. Seeing the same sunken circle on the map, he touched that too; still nothing. Trish did the same, to no avail.

Sarah touched the page once more in the same place and … nothing.

‘It moved, I’m not imagining it,’ she said, seeing Trish and Jason exchange looks.

‘Perhaps it was the sunlight making it look like the text changed,’ Jason said.

‘Or you blinked, or your eyes went blurry; mine do that sometimes when I’m tired,’ Trish added.

‘I’m not tired, I didn’t blink and it wasn’t the damn sun. I’m telling you the text changed when I touched it.’

‘So why didn’t it do it again?’ Trish said, her tone soothing as she tried to calm Sarah’s growing frustration.

Jason gestured at the parchment. ‘Perhaps you pressed it harder the first time?’

Sarah pressed her thumb harder on the circle and again nothing happened. She rubbed it. Licked her finger and then pressed it, tapped it, scratched it, all to no avail. She threw her hands up in exasperation.

‘What exactly were you doing when it happened?’ Jason said. He made a face at Trish, whose expression indicated he shouldn’t pursue it any further.

Sarah thought for a minute. ‘I was just sitting here holding the parchment in one hand – no, wait, I was holding this pendant in one hand,’ – she picked up the newly found pentagonal disc – ‘and I touched the page with my thumb like this and—’ The text on the page shimmered once more and a new set displayed in its place. ‘It changed again! Did you see it?!’

‘Bloody Ada, it did change, I saw it!’ Jason said, flabbergasted.

Trish gaped at the page in sheer disbelief. ‘Are you friggin’ kidding me?’

Sarah pressed it again, and again, and each time what appeared to be a fresh page of text revealed itself.

‘It’s bloody magic,’ Jason said in awe.

‘More like a super sophisticated digital display,’ Sarah said.

‘But it’s so thin,’ Trish murmured.

‘Perhaps it uses nano machines or something,’ Jason said. ‘They say the military have been using things like that for years.’

‘Perhaps, but whatever it is, it’s mind blowing.’ Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off it. ‘Surely this proves they were advanced, and way beyond us, by the look of it. What do you think now, Trish?’

Trish nodded her head in agreement, dumbfounded by this new turn of events.

‘Try it on the map,’ Jason said, eager to see more.

Sarah pulled over the map and, holding the pendant in her left hand, she put her thumb on the circle. The map didn’t move or alter in any way.

Disappointed, she put the pendant down.

‘Perhaps the power’s run out?’ Jason said.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Trish told him.

‘Why not? The other one only worked when Sarah held the pendant, perhaps that powers the paper?’

It’s a fair point
, Sarah thought.
The pendant might be some kind of sophisticated power source worn around a person’s neck to enable them to activate all sorts of gizmos, including this display
. She wondered what other fantastical treasures had been contained in the casket. She made the writing change again, this time with her index finger, showing that the power – if that’s what it was – still worked.
So why doesn’t it work on the map?
she asked herself.

‘Perhaps it’s not a power source at all,’ she said to them, turning the pentagonal pendant over in her hands, ‘perhaps it uses our bioelectricity to activate the parchment. It makes sense; if it’s only to channel the body’s own electricity then the battery never runs out. It would be an amazing piece of tech, no?’

The two looked at her expectantly.

‘So—’ she continued, eager to keep the ideas flowing, ‘if I was a very big person, I would have more electricity in my body and consequently I could power bigger and more complex things. How much would someone measuring eight and a half feet weigh, roughly?’ she asked Trish, who was the maths wiz.

‘If it was an average male, perhaps four to five hundred pounds? A female, anywhere from three-fifty to four hundred and fifty?’

‘That would be one big woman,’ Jason said, ‘she’d be the size of a house!’

‘She wouldn’t be overweight,’ Trish said, ‘far from it, she’d be in perfect proportion for her species. It may sound excessive,’ she continued, ‘but eight and a half feet is massive. Think about it. She’d be three foot taller than your average woman, that’s half as tall again. But unlike height, weight is effectively measuring three dimensional volume so even though the height is half as much the volume is magnitudes greater, about three times greater in this instance.’

Jason didn’t look convinced.

Trish sighed. ‘It’s simple mechanics. The bigger the animal, the bigger and stronger the muscles required to support it. Think of an elephant and how big their limbs are; same principle. Homo gigantis may appear stockier than ourselves, granted, but not massively so. In fact, if their muscles were much denser than ours, like that of an ape, for instance, they might have body shapes resembling our own, just scaled up.’

Jason nodded, although Sarah thought he still looked confused. ‘So let’s say four-fifty on average, then,’ she said. ‘I weigh about one-forty-five. What are you, Trish, about one-thirty?’

Trish nodded. ‘One three eight last time I checked.’

‘Jas?’

‘Bout one-eighty.’

‘So in total we all weigh, what? Four hundred and sixty-three pounds, give or take? Just about right for a fully grown Homo gigantis!’

‘And what does that prove?’ Trish asked her.

‘It means if we all join hands we might be able to power the map!’ Jason said, looking at Sarah for confirmation.

‘That’s right,’ Sarah said, and held out her palm with the pendant in.

Jason put his hand over hers and Trish put her two hands around them both. Sarah sent out a silent prayer and touched the circle on the map. It flickered and changed, showing an image that looked very similar to a satellite photo you’d find on the net.

‘Oh, my God,’ Trish murmured.

‘What are those?’ Jason peered at some markings that ran down the side of the image. Tentatively, he reached out and touched one. The image rotated. He touched another and the image zoomed in.

‘This is just – wow!’ Sarah said, goosebumps tingling on her arms. They grinned at one another, momentarily lost for words, caught in the moment only felt by those witnessing first hand an incredible discovery.

‘I can’t believe this, am I dreaming? – Ow!’ Sarah jumped as Trish pinched her arm, causing her finger to jump off the circle. The image disappeared, leaving the original map showing once more.

‘Sorry,’ Trish said, ‘just checking.’

After Trish and Jason bickered a bit, they tried again and this time they were able to zoom in on some kind of structure on the ground.

After half an hour they had managed to circle the front of an odd looking building which appeared to be made out of mud bricks and logs. Sarah thought this very strange;
they obviously had advanced technology
, she reasoned,
so why build a structure out of such basic materials?
Unless
, she thought,
they didn’t build it
. Which then begged the question, who did?

From what she could see, the rear of the building backed onto a low slung escarpment and various indigenous plants could also be seen growing all around it. It wasn’t a photo as such, more a graphical representation; extremely detailed, but not real footage.