2040 Revelations (18 page)

Jason experimented and pressed a combination of buttons and the screen went blank and returned to the plain map once again.

‘Why did you do that?’ Sarah said, annoyed.

‘He was only testing it,’ Trish said, defending him for once.

Jason looked as surprised at this as Sarah did.

‘Well, he was,’ Trish told her, ‘we wouldn’t have been able to see as much as we have if he hadn’t messed about with it.’

Trish had a point, Sarah realised. The problem with this method of holding the pendant was that she couldn’t access the functions herself, as her finger was always touching the circle.

‘Hang on guys, I’ve got an idea.’ Sarah removed her hand from theirs and hung the pendant back on her neck chain, resting it against her skin with the smaller one in front of it. Then she put her finger back on the map.

‘Put your hands on my arm,’ she told them.

As they did so, the map image changed once again and Sarah was now able to access the map with her spare hand.

‘Nice one,’ Jason said.

‘You’d have thought if they were so advanced that you could power the DPD using just your touch anywhere on the page,’ Trish said, ‘rather than having to stick your finger on that circle all the time.’

Jason gave her a quizzical look. ‘DPD?’

‘Digital paper display.’

‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ Jason said, impressed.

Trish nodded an acceptance of the compliment, looking smug about her wordsmithing effort.

‘Perhaps the … DPD,’ Sarah said, ‘does work that way, but we just don’t know how to activate it.’

‘Also a valid point,’ Jason said, leaving Trish looking peeved at his instant betrayal.

‘Whatever this place is,’ Sarah continued, zooming back in on the building again, ‘it looks like a very solid structure, even if it is made out of mud and logs. If it was built by the same race who made these parchments, then it would be made to last. There might be something left of it in this area – and look, what’s that?’ She pointed at an object which had appeared inside the building as she’d moved the viewer in even closer.

‘It looks like a large metal egg,’ Jason said.

‘It’s a casket like the one I found at the site!’

‘Are you sure?’ Trish asked her.

‘Definitely, it’s exactly the same shape as the one I found. If it’s still there and we can hide our tracks from those thieving bastards then maybe we can get some more artefacts. This could be huge!’

‘That’s two big ifs and an even larger maybe,’ Trish said.

‘But it would be worth it. We have to try, don’t we?’

Jason looked uncertain.

‘You do realise where that is, don’t you?’ Trish asked her. ‘In the evacuation zone. No one’s allowed in and those that are left behind are criminals and pirates trying to harvest what’s left of the infrastructure, and even they will be getting out as it’s … what? Two weeks until Impact Day? There’s no way we’re getting down there and if we did I’d rather not be in the path of some mountainous rock travelling faster than a speeding bullet; how about you?’

‘I don’t care,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m going down there on my own, if need be. And as you say, there’ll be some activity across the evac border even if it’s not legal. It’ll be a case of jumping in and jumping back out again. There won’t be second chances after it hits, so you say goodbye to that canister for good. It’s worth the risk and I’m going to take it.’

Jason raised a hand. ‘I’m in.’

‘We don’t even know if anything’s there!’ Trish said, sounding desperate. ‘Please, Sarah, we don’t have to do this.’

Sarah hadn’t mentioned to Trish her epiphany about the fire and her mother’s death, so she couldn’t explain her motivations to her without going into a deep conversation about it. Even now her mind shied away from the mere thought of talking about it with anyone else; to admit her guilt, to confront those emotions again – no, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t.

Sarah didn’t answer and Trish glared at them both in turn as she realised neither was going to budge. ‘Fine, I’ll go, but I’ll sort out the travel. I want to make sure we’ll get in and out before we’re vaporised.’

‘Excellent!’ Jason said exuberantly while Trish sat stiff and stony-faced as she stared at Sarah.

‘We’re going to need to know exactly where this place is, otherwise we’ll be looking around aimlessly,’ Trish continued. ‘We need to get to it, dig it out if it’s still there, and then get out. No messing about, we won’t have time.’

‘Okay.’ Sarah stood up and looked out of the window in concentration. ‘Jason, you get a detailed map of Africa off the net, there’s a café down the road that’ll have access. Here’s some cash.’ She passed him a few notes. ‘I’ll go to the embassy and get some more money using my passport, and Trish; you can arrange the flights to get there. Sound good?’

‘Fine, I’ll go with, Jas,’ Trish said, ‘and hook us up the flights there. Be careful, though, Sarah, we don’t know if those people are following us or what.’

‘I doubt it. They only knew we were there last time because Carl was some kind of mole. It’ll just be us this time, no worries.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘Trust me,’ Sarah said, her confident tone belying her real feelings.

♦

Sarah came back to the hotel loaded with bags full of new clothes, rucksacks, canteens, sat nav and a couple of computer phones, amongst other things. Trish had booked a flight from Van to Istanbul and then onto Gabon, the closest African country open to civilian aircraft so close to Impact Day, and one located right next to the evacuation zone’s border.

According to the present day maps Jason had downloaded, the site they wanted to visit was just outside Johannesburg, right next to the Sterkfontein Caves; also known as the Cradle of Humanity, due to the plethora of fossils found there, some of which dated back many millions of years to Homo sapiens’ earliest beginnings. This was an interesting development, although Sarah still couldn’t believe that they had recognised the location on the gigantis map.
How lucky was that?
she marvelled. However, it was also incredibly unlucky that it was smack in the middle of the predicted meteorite impact zone. In less than a couple of weeks the land depicted on the parchment would be obliterated by shockwaves, fires and potential flooding; not to mention the threat of massive earthquakes triggered during the collision.

Using an application which triangulated major landmarks, they narrowed the area that hopefully still contained the ancient structure to a zone about four hundred feet square. Jason reckoned he could narrow that further once they were actually there on the ground.
Not bad
, Sarah reflected,
considering the Homo gigantis map is far beyond ancient in human terms
. For all they knew it might be over half a million years old; or to give it perspective, one hundred times older than the Egyptian pyramids or older than humanity itself!

Once they had packed up all the gear they needed and changed into new clothes, they left the hotel and caught a taxi to the city of Van. They all kept a careful watch for any suspicious vehicles following them on the way, but much to everyone’s relief they seemed to be in the clear. They then caught the plane to Istanbul and the connecting flight to Gabon without much problem, which was mainly down to Trish’s organisational skills.

The flight down to Gabon would be slow as it was only a jet plane rather than a Sabre craft, but it would still get them there in roughly nine hours. Sarah settled down in her window seat as the plane gained altitude and Turkey drifted away beneath the clouds. She hoped the risk they were taking paid off, and if it did fame and fortune followed; but far more importantly so would vindication and some kind of vengeance, irrefutable proof of an advanced pre-human race and civilisation. The pendant and parchments should be proof enough for most people, but for those who would accuse her of trickery and faking the finds – of whom there would undoubtedly be many – a canister full of artefacts would quell their objections and prove beyond doubt that Homo gigantis was no myth. Happy with that thought, she drifted off to sleep as the drone of the engines took them ever higher.

Chapter Eleven

The plane touched down in Gabon in the early hours of the morning, and shortly after Sarah descended the aircraft steps into a beautiful sunrise that shimmered off the runway surface. A soothing breeze played in the nearby trees that surrounded the airport’s terminal building. It was a truly magical place and supposedly – according to Trish – elephants, buffalo and hippos wandered along its beaches and even went into the sea itself. Unfortunately they weren’t there to take in the atmosphere, soak up the sun and experience the sights, no, far from it. They were on a tight schedule and one they couldn’t afford to dally on. Time was of the essence, now more than ever.

They quickly departed the Leon M’Ba International Airport and headed towards a remote airport in Tchibanga from where, Jason had heard from their taxi driver, illegal forays into the restricted evacuation zone were conducted. It took them the best part of the day to get to the tiny airport and when they arrived they were greeted by a desolate looking place containing a few buildings and a handful of small planes.

‘There’s no way we’re getting to South Africa in one of those things,’ Trish said in dismay.

The taxi driver, a large jolly Nigerian, laughed. ‘Don’t you worry, missy, the plane that will be taking you to South Africa is not here. You’ll have a wait a day or two for it to come in.’

‘A day or two,’ Trish said, ‘are you kidding me? We can’t afford that kind of delay!’

Trish was right, Sarah knew; they had to get going as soon as they could and hanging around for two days was not an option. She looked out of the window at the sky; no sign of the meteor yet, but it was getting nearer all the time. She pulled her phone out of her pocket; twelve days and five hours until impact. Two days off that, plus another for the journey to the destination, left just nine days. They’d then need to get a flight back out and get to Gabon’s main airport with more than three days to go to Impact Day, when all flights would be grounded by the UN’s Global Meteor Response Council, the GMRC. With the return journey taking another two days, that only left them a maximum of four days at the site – or just two if Trish had her way.

‘I’m not waiting till the last minute to get out of there,’ Trish had told them. Sarah was inclined to agree with her. Being in the immediate vicinity of a meteor strike, perhaps the largest one for sixty-five million years, was not the best idea in the world. In fact, everything screamed at her to stop and go back, everything apart from the voice that told her another find of a lifetime and definitive proof of her theories lay near the Cradle of Humankind.

They paid the taxi driver and then paid him double the amount on top to come back in six days’ time and wait for up to another two days. Sarah told him they would then pay him four times that for the ride back to the capital city, Libreville.

‘For that much, missy, I will wait for another four days!’ the cabbie declared enthusiastically.

This excursion was costing Sarah a small fortune. She was lucky the money transfer system had been built into the latest international passports. You connected it to your bank account and then, via a series of security features, you could get cash out from any country in the world. Very handy;
especially when you’ve been robbed by some shadowy organisation bent on a worldwide cover up
, she thought wryly.

As the taxi departed they picked up their bags from the dusty earth and struggled into the main building. The majority of the weight was undoubtedly down to the two large pieces of kit being manhandled and pushed along by Jason. One was an SPVU, a directional ultrasonic Sediment Pulse Vibration Unit – expensive, but worth its weight in gold when it came to loosening and breaking down compacted earth and soft rock, it would enable them to excavate deep down in a fraction of the time. The downside was that it had a very limited battery life. The second and equally important piece of kit was a ground penetrating scanner. It was nothing like Sarah’s top of the range handheld device – that had gone the way of all their other equipment – as it weighed ten times more and lacked the same accuracy, but it would do the job and beggars couldn’t be choosers. They were both stolen, of that Sarah had no doubt, as the man she’d got them from made a banker look trustworthy, no mean feat.

The advantage of stolen kit, however, was that it wouldn’t be flagged up, alerting anyone to their intentions. She’d been lucky to find them at all to be honest, but the price she’d had to pay for them both made her feel a little sick. She really was out on a limb, financially, morally and professionally. This had to pay off.

As luck had it, they only had to wait a day for their plane to arrive. It sported a twin jet engine design, very common, and thankfully – hopefully – reliable. If Sarah thought she’d paid a lot for the scanner, the fare for this was beyond the pale.

‘How much?!’ she screeched at the co-pilot who was going to take the money off her once they’d loaded up.

‘Ten thousand.’

‘But that’s ridiculous, we can’t pay that,’ Trish said, backing her up.

‘Then you’re going nowhere,’ the man told them bluntly.

‘Fine,’ Sarah said, and handed over the cash, despite Trish’s protests. ‘We’ve come this far, haven’t we? A bit more won’t make any odds.’

‘A bit?’ Trish said, choking on the words. ‘You do realise it’ll be the same coming back …’ She put her mouth to Sarah’s ear and whispered, ‘Or more!’

‘What choice do we have?’ Sarah murmured back.

Trish had no answer to that. How could she? They were all-in; there was no turning back now.

And so, with the extortionate fee paid, they settled in for the flight, which would take them two and a half thousand miles south east across the African continent. To reduce the risk of being caught by the patrols which flew irregular flights up and down the border’s length, the pilot took off at dusk; apparently going out to sea first and coming back in an arc minimised contact with the Jian-10B Chinese-made multi-role fighters employed by the UN Task Force to patrol the skies.