Phobos: Mayan Fear (22 page)

18

NAZCA, PERU

L
aura Salesa watches her nephew tend to the stranger, adjusting his IV drip, covering the unconscious man lying on the torn leather La-Z-Boy chair with a light shawl.

She joins Julius at the picnic table, the archaeologist’s attention absorbed in an ancient text. “Does Sam always pass out after one of these memory bouts? Hello? Earth to Julius?”

“Sorry. What was the question?”

“Your houseguest … when he gets a sudden memory rush—”

“—the blackouts, yes. The doctor called it sensory overload. It shuts everything down. He’ll sleep for the rest of the day.”

“What’s in the IV?”

“Nutrients, mixed with a mild sedative. When these sensory overloads happen … well, he can get a bit excited.”

“Mick’s incredible with him.”

“Michael? Yes.” Julius returns to the text.

“What is it you are reading?”

“One of the nine books of Chilam Balam. A rare edition. It includes original photographs taken of the Mayan glyphs. At least the ones that survived.” He removes his glasses, clearing the smudges with a handkerchief. “Chilam Balam was the greatest prophet in Maya history, a seer who lived during the first decades of the 1500s. He foretold the coming of Cortés and his armada and warned his people that the strangers from the east would bring violence and a powerful new god. His nine books are considered the sacred texts of the Yucatan Maya. They include passages from his dreams, the images of which he recorded in his writings. Many of them describe the 2012 Doomsday Event.”

“Then you know what’s going to happen?”

“Unfortunately, no. There are tremendous gaps in the codices, most of which were burned by the Spanish priests.”

“And your sudden interest in this dead prophet?”

“Our friend over there didn’t just sprout wings and land on Nazca, he came here seeking something. He’s either an archaeologist following ancient Doomsday clues or he’s Majestic-12. Either way, I intend to flush out the extent of his knowledge about the Doomsday Event.”

“How are you—” Her eyes widen in recognition. “You bastard. You’re going to play along with his delusion in order to pick his brain.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Yes, Julius, it is! By encouraging him to adapt to a false identity, your actions will not only retard his recovery, it could be detrimental to his long-term well-being.”

“What about my well-being? What about four decades of research and toil? What about my son and all the people who may perish on the 2012 winter solstice because of our ignorance?”

“So your plan is to convince the poor guy he really is the incarnation of a five-hundred-year-old Mayan prophet in order to milk him of his research? You’re pathetic.”

“Hey, if I believed the guy could lay eggs, I’d convince him he was a chicken.”

MAJESTIC-12 (S-66) SUBTERRANEAN FACILITY

15 MILES SOUTH OF GROOM LAKE AIR FORCE BASE (AREA 51)

NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

The bunker door leads into a small storage area illuminated by a single bare bulb. The walls are windowless, the floor concrete. There is nothing inside but dusty file cabinets and a pile of surplus office furniture.

Joseph Randolph moves to a pair of eight-foot-high maple bookshelves holding stacks of old Army manuals yellowed with age. He waits for the reinforced steel door to click shut behind them before he tugs on one of the Army manuals stacked on the bookshelf—triggering a toggle switch.

The bookshelves part on unseen hinges, revealing the interior of a freight elevator.

Pierre Borgia follows his uncle inside. Randolph slides his identity card into the security slot, causing the button marked LEVEL 15 to light on the interior panel. Knowing the deeper they descend, the higher the security, Borgia wonders what secrets might be tucked away on LEVEL 29, the lowest floor of the most covert underground installation on the planet.

The elevator drops a quarter of a mile to LEVEL 15. They exit to an antiseptic white corridor and a security checkpoint. A guard instructs them to empty their pockets, placing their possessions in an envelope.

Passing through an X-ray machine, they proceed down the hall to a set of double doors. An electromagnetic bolt clicks open, and they enter a large conference room.

Ten men and a woman are seated around an oval table—a mix of white lab coats and business suits, along with two members in military dress. Two end chairs are vacant. Randolph motions to his nephew to sit.

The woman, rail-thin in her sixties and wearing a blue lab coat, is the first to speak, her English flavored with an Italian accent. “Welcome to Majestic-12, Dr. Borgia. My name is Dr. Krissinda Rotolo, and I am in charge of personnel at S-66. Do you understand why you are here?”

“You had a vacancy, and I came highly recommended.”

“The vacancy was a suicide. We average one every sixteen weeks among a staff of 170, not including security. Stephen Peterson was the fourth member of our interrogation team to kill himself in the last three years. Since you were selected to replace him, I felt it important that you should know.”

“I’m very wealthy and I get laid a lot, so suicide’s not on my ‘to do’ list, Doctor. At the same time, you should know that hunting little green men is not a long-term gig for me either. I’m doing this because my uncle says you can assure me of winning the senate seat when I run in 2000.”

“As a first step to the White House … provided you respect our agenda.”

“I take it Stephen Peterson had a problem in those regards.”

A heavyset Caucasian man in a lab coat shoots Borgia a disparaging look. “Dr. Peterson’s issues were morality-based, something it appears you’ll have little difficulty with.”

“Listen, big fella, I didn’t put up with two months of background checks and around-the-clock surveillance to be insulted. We both know I’m not the best anthropologist available; I am, however, one you can trust to maintain your secrets. The fact that I’m here in this underground tomb means you feel confident I can do the job, whatever it may be. So let’s dispense with the psychological bullshit and show me what you want to show me, or else fly me back to Vegas.”

“Fair enough.” Dr. Rotolo touches a control box situated on the table before her.

The lights dim, revealing a holographic image of the moon, the three-dimensional sphere hovering above the center of the conference table.

“In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged our space program to land a man on the moon and return him safely.
Apollo 11
’s crew accomplished that feat on July 20, 1969. The last lunar mission,
Apollo 17
, landed on the moon on December 11, 1972. That was eighteen years ago, and we’ve never been back since.

“When President Nixon abruptly ended the Apollo program, he told the nation he did so in favor of funding the space shuttle and eventually the International Space Station. Nearly two decades, Dr. Borgia, and our manned space program remains confined to Earth’s orbit. Care to venture a guess why?”

“Three Republican administrations, an oil crisis, and another war looming in the Middle East. To conservatives, exploring the moon is a waste of time and money.”

“Spoken like a typically misinformed politician. In fact, the entire cost of the Apollo mission amounted to less than one percent of the annual federal budget. Unfortunately, while ignorance may be bliss in your chosen profession, in ours it cannot be tolerated. What the Apollo astronauts discovered is that they were not alone on the lunar surface, that every NASA launch and subsequent action was being observed.”

Before Pierre Borgia can utter a response, the holographic moon magnifies by three hundred percent and rotates to its dark side—revealing craters concealed beneath artificial domes and small vessels moving rapidly above the surface.

“The real reason Nixon ended the Apollo program is the same reason space agencies across the world have agreed to a secret moratorium on all future lunar missions. Simply put, the far side of the moon is being used as a lunar base for extraterrestrials. The threat of a court martial or far worse has kept most of NASA’s astronauts and personnel from talking. The others are dealt with on an individual basis.”

“You wanted the truth, there it is.” Joseph Randolph massages his nephew’s shoulder. “Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.”

Borgia feels the blood drain from his face. “What are they doing up there? Are they aggressive? Are they planning an invasion?”

“They’re not aggressive,” blurts out a scientist in a lab coat.

“That’s yet to be determined,” a suit responds. “We’ve had numerous reports of abductions—”

“Prove one! Everyone at this table knows the CIA are using mind-control techniques to foster fear about these E.T.s.”

“Agreed,” says another scientist. “The reality is, if they wanted to destroy us, they could have done so at any time.”

“Enough.” Krissinda Rotolo looks up at Borgia, concern in her weathered eyes. “As you can see, the issues are complex on our side as well as theirs. Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with so many different species—”

“Wait … are you saying you’ve actually captured some of these aliens?”

“Why do you think you’re here, Dr. Borgia?” She turns to Randolph, her look chastising. “You were supposed to brief him.”

“Show is always better than tell. What time is today’s session scheduled for?”

“We had to push it back an hour, we’re short an EMT. This time make sure Dr. Borgia is properly briefed; his first session begins at fifteen hundred hours.”

NAZCA PLATEAU, PERU

The hot air balloon soars a thousand feet over the desert pampa, its orange and blue nylon panels visible for miles in every direction.

Michael Gabriel operates the burners, the flames of which are fueled by several propane tanks stacked by his feet. Laura stands next to her nephew in the wicker basket, counterbalancing Julius and their mysterious friend, whom the archaeologist insists on calling Balam.

“There’s the spider, Balam, definitely another one of the earlier, more sophisticated drawings. Anything look familiar to you?”

“This is not the valley of the Hunahpu. Our valley was covered by a dense rainforest, fed by many mountain streams. Our valley led to the ocean.”

“The ocean’s west. I want to continue east to the icon where we found you. See, there’s the Panamericana Highway, we should be coming to the glyph … right there. See that spiral? That’s where we found you. Does it jiggle any memories?”

“Jiggle?” Mick bursts out laughing. “His brain’s not a toilet handle, Julius.”

Laura covers her mouth.

“Ignore them, Balam. Focus on the glyph. It’s a clue about the Doomsday prophecy, isn’t it?”

Immanuel Gabriel stares at the Spiral, his injured brain fighting to spear an image blinking in and out of the ether now consuming his memories.

“You’ve seen this image before, haven’t you, Chilam Balam?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t force it. Close your eyes and let it come to you.”

He clenches his eyes shut against the sweat beads rolling down his face. In the blunted orange light behind his eyelids, the spiral glyph appears and disappears, replaced by a round object surrounded by darkness.

Laura is about to speak. Julius raises his index finger, warning her to remain silent.

Day becomes night. Night becomes space. His mind’s eye latches onto a round object. Gelid. Spiraling into colors.

Laura watches as Sam’s muscles begin trembling, the movement vibrating the wicker basket beneath their feet.

Night returns to day. The desert glyph reappears, only this time he finds himself focusing not on its spirals, but on the singular straight line that slices across the circular engraving to intersect with its center.

Day becomes night, the stars blotted out by a singular straight line—brown dust inhaled across space into the vacuous gelid eye … a hole in the physical reality, surrounded by a pattern of swirls as large as the moon, hovering a thousand miles beneath the Earth’s southern pole.

His heart pounds, the blood draining from his face. He is paralyzed with fear, desperate to open his eyes, only the monster is moving, its gelid halo circling over Antarctica.

“No … oh God, no!”

“Balam, what do you see?”

“Julius, enough! Michael, land the balloon.”

“Quiet! Balam, tell us what you see.”

“I see the Earth … disappearing into silence—into oblivion.”

“How is it disappearing? What’s causing it?”

“The Spiral.”

“Describe it to me.”

“Cold emptiness. A hunger that cannot be quenched. It’s gone.”

“What’s gone? The Spiral?”

“The Earth.” His eyes snap open, his expression crazed. His mind consumed in fear, he grips the edge of the basket, ready to hurl himself over the side—

“—no.” Laura’s face is in his face, her turquoise eyes radiating a sense of calm into his being. “You are no longer Balam. You are Sam. You are Sam and you are safe. Tell me your name.”

“Sam.”

“Sam what?”

“Samuel Agler.”

“That’s correct. You are Samuel Agler. How did you get here, Sam?”

“Through the wormhole.”

Julius and his son look at one another like two kids on Christmas morning.

Laura grips the back of Sam’s head, keeping his face close to hers, occupying his entire field of vision with the radiance of her eyes.

A puzzled look crosses Sam’s face. “Lilith?”

“Stay focused. You mentioned a wormhole. Is that what destroyed the Earth?”

“No. It was the singularity. A black hole. You saw it, too, Lilith. You were there. Only—”

“Only what? Focus on my eyes and tell me.”

“He cut off your head.”

“Who cut off my head? Sam, look into my eyes and tell me who cut off my head.”

“Seven Macaw.”

19

If suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another planet, outside in the universe [ … ] we’d forget all the little local differences that we have between our countries …

—PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN,
“REMARKS TO THE STUDENTS AND
FACULTY AT FALLSTON HIGH SCHOOL
IN FALLSTON, MARYLAND,”
DECEMBER 4, 1985

The phenomenon of UFOs does exist, and it must be treated seriously.

—MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, “SOVIET YOUTH,” MAY 4, 1990

MAJESTIC-12 (S-66) SUBTERRANEAN FACILITY

15 MILES SOUTH OF GROOM LAKE AIR FORCE BASE (AREA 51)

NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

W
e call them EBEs—Extraterrestrial Biological Entities. You and your former pal, Julius Gabriel, would probably know better than us how long they’ve been coming to Earth. Maybe they consider our planet a vacation resort.”

“I highly doubt that.” Pierre Borgia rests his heels on his uncle’s desk. “Julius, Maria, and I discovered overwhelming evidence of contact with extraterrestrials in oral traditions, as well as stone carvings, petroglyphs, and other reliefs found throughout most ancient cultures. The dominant theme of these encounters clearly focused on seeding our species with knowledge. Of course, that seeding takes on a more literal meaning if you read a passage in Genesis 6: ‘There were giants in the earth in those days; the Nephilim and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.’ Nephilim translates as ‘fallen ones,’ as in ‘fell from the sky.’”

“Sons of God … breeding with the daughters of men? Christ, no wonder some of them look like us. Clever bastards, using our DNA to infiltrate our world.”

“The Bible isn’t even the oldest message regarding extraterrestrial contact. Images of spacemen found in caves in Tanzania date back 29,000 years. A seven-thousand-year-old petroglyph discovered in Querétaro, Mexico, features four alien figures bathed in beams of light reaching up to a large flying saucer. Artifacts found in Iraq, dating back to 5000 BC, include Sumerian gods that look like reptilian space travelers, similar to the gods worshiped in ancient Egypt. An art exhibit in the British Museum includes pottery and other clay figures with lizard heads attributed to the Ubaid culture during the same period. The Nepal artist responsible for the Lolladoff plate clearly shows a disc-shaped vessel and a small gray alien next to it.

“More fascinating and harder to dismiss are the more recent artistic renderings originating from Europe. A 1350 painting called
The Crucifixion
hangs above the altar at the Visoki Decani Monastery in Kosovo; it depicts Jesus on the cross with a UFO passing across the background sky. A fourteenth-century
Madonna and Child
fresco features a similar spaceship, as does a fifteenth-century painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio entitled
The Madonna with Saint Giovannino.
The Bayerisches National museum houses a tapestry called
Summer’s Triumph
that was created in 1538 and clearly shows several disc-shaped objects along the top of the scene. A naval illustration in a volume entitled
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum
depicts a sighting by two Dutch ships in the North Sea of two disc-shaped objects moving across the sky. The French actually minted a coin in 1680 that features a hovering UFO.”

“Pierre, do I look like I give a damn about some frog coin?”

“Sorry, I just thought … I mean, I spent fifteen years studying this stuff, and you did recruit me as an anthropologist.”

“If that’s why you think you’re here, then you’re as dumb as my brother. Wake up, son. You’re here because the faction of companies that control this little venture of ours need a future liaison in the White House, not another geek with a slide rule and a degree. We’re sitting on technological advances that will affect the future of this planet, including a nonpolluting power source that could replace the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries tomorrow if it fell into the wrong hands. You think we’re gonna just sink the US economy by lettin’ the oil companies take it on the chin? Not on my watch, and not on yours. No sir, when the time’s right, the military industrial complex and Big Oil will disperse these advances as we see fit and at a substantial profit, leveraging these technologies so we can control the global economy and keep the damn Russians and Chinese under our thumbs.”

“Exactly what do you want me to do while I’m here?”

“First and foremost, I need you to be a check and balance during the interview sessions with our extraterrestrial pals. There are too many bighearted liberal tree-huggers wearing lab coats around here who believe in unicorns and think energy should be provided free to everyone. These eggheads have no idea how the real world works. Most of ’em think we’re dealing with Hollywood’s version of E.T. To date we’ve catalogued more than sixty different types of beings, most of them dead, of course. We don’t know if we’re dealing with friend or foe, competing species or subspecies, or beings from another dimension. Like I said, some E.T.s look so human they could easily assimilate into our society.”

“If they look just like us, how do you know they’re extraterrestrials?”

“Physically they’re superior to us, with a heightened sense of sight, hearing, and especially smell. Their eyes are aquamarine blue, almost turquoise, and they glow like a cat’s iris in the dark. They also communicate telepathically. All of these life forms do. Fortunately, we’ve been able to recruit some reliable human telepaths of our own to question them. Your job is to keep the interrogations focused on their technology.”

“Exactly who or what am I interrogating?”

“One of the Grays. Grays come in different sizes, but they all share the same basic DNA structure—big eyes and hairless grayish bodies. We’ve had our boy a little more than seven months. His vehicle crash-landed in Moriches Bay in Long Island, New York, back on September 28, 1989. There were nine Grays on board, he’s the only one that survived—assuming he’s even a he. There’s no nuts hanging from the branches, if you know what I mean. Everything’s internalized with these beings … what fun is that? Still, they’re vastly superior to us. Lockheed’s rocket scientists don’t last long with them; they get easily overwhelmed. For the E.T.s, it’s probably like teaching algebra to their pet dog. Strike that. We’re probably more like dogs with big teeth than lovable pets.”

“If it’s so difficult, why not stick to interrogating the more human E.T.s?”

“Try bringing one in alive. On the rare occasions a Nordic may crash and survive, they off themselves rather than face MJ-12. We’ve done autopsies, of course, that’s how we learned about their sensory organs. And their blood type: Rh negative.”

“Rh negative? You’re sure about that?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. What’s so important about that?”

“Uncle Joe, I know your interest is strictly on the military side and you recruit personnel based more on clearance levels than talent, but you really need to get some informed medical people inside your little coven. The Rh factor is a protein found in human blood that links our genetic heritage to primates, specifically the Rhesus monkey. About eighty-five percent of the world’s population is Rh positive, meaning the evolutionary link exists. The mystery that has puzzled scientists for decades is understanding what limb of the tree the other fifteen percent of
Homo sapiens
originated from. It was actually the Rh negative factor that launched my postgraduate work out of Cambridge with Maria and Julius; it was only after Gabriel morphed our work into his nutty Doomsday prophecy that I left them.”

“That, and the fact that he ran off with your fiancée.”

“The hell with that. They married, she got sick and died, it’s over. But if these extraterrestrials are all Rh negative like you say, then my work has real meaning. Go back to that Bible passage in Genesis. If the Nephilim bred with ancient women, then it would have formed a subspecies of advanced humans … perhaps as far back as thirty thousand years ago, a time period that matches those cave paintings. The injection points were regional, specifically ancient Egypt and parts of southeast Asia, with nomadic tribes following a land bridge during the last ice age into North America. There they would have crossbred with American Indian tribes, as well as the Olmec, the mother culture of Mesoamerica. Ever see one of those ten-ton Olmec heads? The facial features are clearly Asian. These genetics were rooted in the Maya, Aztec, Inca, and Egyptian cultures that succeeded where other tribes failed. Their leaders—Kukulcan, Quetzalcoatl, Viracocha, and Osiris—were clearly described as possessing Rh negative characteristics that included an extra vertebra, a superior IQ, an acute sensory system, and azure-blue eyes. Oh yes, each of these leaders also possessed an elongated skull.”

“Yeah, we know about the long skulls, the Grays share that, too. Not sure I agree with the E.T. theory regarding Rh negative humans. Fifteen percent of six billion people is an awful lot of E.T.s.”

“E.T. heritage, there’s a difference. A purebred child or a generational hiccup would be far different.”

“A hiccup?”

“A child whose maternal lineage was strongly linked to one of the injection points and whose DNA surfaced against the odds. Like when two brown-eyed parents have four kids, and one of them has blue eyes that can be traced back to great-grandparents. The Rh factor represents a separate genetic highway on-ramp from our past, and the evidence is overwhelming. For instance, did you know that when a mother with Rh negative blood is pregnant with an Rh positive child, the mingling of the two types can cause an allergic reaction called hemolytic disease, which can lead to the infant’s death? The child’s Rh positive blood cells attack the mother’s Rh negative blood cells as if it were an alien intruder. Clearly, there was a genetic circumvention during the evolution of
Homo sapiens
that added these characteristics to our DNA pool.”

“If that’s the case, then I guess we ought to be grateful the reptilians didn’t interbreed with us, too. Some serious anger issues with those dudes.”

“Are they hostile?”

“I think the Nordics keep them in line, but they don’t do well in captivity. None of them do. We’re only allowed to interview the Gray twice a month and never for more than three to five hours at a time, based on how he’s holding up.” Randolph glances at his watch. “So, Alice, are you ready to meet the Mad Hatter?”

“Enough with the Alice in Wonderland references, Uncle Joe. This isn’t child’s play.”

“Maybe not, Pierre, but it can be maddening.”

NAZCA, PERU

The roof of the Gabriel abode is a flattop affair that has served as Michael Gabriel’s bedroom for the last six months. A second inflatable mattress has been added to accommodate the stranger known as Sam.

Sam and Laura are alone on the roof, lying on their backs on one of the air mattresses. The midnight ceiling is a tapestry of stars, unimpeded by the pollution of light.

“Sam, what are you thinking?”

“I was thinking that the heavens look benign. And I was thinking how nice it felt not to worry.”

“Such a strange yet telling statement. Perhaps you were a navigator who used the stars to pilot his vessel?”

“No.”

“No? How can you be so certain? Before this afternoon you had no idea your name was Samuel Agler.”

“When Michael called me Samson, the name felt right. I wasn’t a navigator, I wasn’t a pilot. It doesn’t feel right.”

“And what about this Lauren? Does she feel right?”

“There was a Lauren. Not anymore.”

“Not to sound like a broken record, but again, how can you be so sure? Did you see her decapitated like Lilith?”

“I know she’s gone. I can feel an emptiness in my heart.”

“And Chilam Balam? You told me earlier that he too felt a similar emptiness.”

Sam sits up. “Are you ridiculing me? Do you doubt my pain?”

“No.”

“Then why is this so important to you?”

She stands, walking to the edge of the roof. “It’s important because I feel myself being drawn to you both physically and spiritually, yet I don’t know anything about you. My soul tells me you’re a good person, as noble as any warrior; my survival instincts tell me to run away, that hitching my wagon to yours will take me down a path fraught with danger. Part of me likes that aspect, but as any woman would, I need to know that there isn’t a Lauren Agler lying in some hospital bed out there, waiting for her Samson to return to her side; and yes, I’m also worried about a nest of Agler kiddies calling out into the night for their papa.”

“Laura died. There were no children.”

“And you know this because it doesn’t feel right.”

“If you had lost your memory, but you had given birth to children, do you think these gaps in your identity could mask your motherly instincts?”

“Probably not.”

“Then don’t doubt mine. Because I promise you, if my wife and child were out there needing my help, then I wouldn’t be lying here beneath the stars, I’d be raging into the night trying to find them.”

“Good answer.” She smiles, brushing away a tear. “Bit of a romantic then, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. Am I?”

“Well now, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.” She removes her T-shirt and shorts, returning to his side.

Julius Gabriel and his son huddle around the oil lamp, the picnic table covered with images of the Nazca Spiral.

Michael looks up, hearing his aunt moan. “Hope that roof holds up.”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Leaving the house, they head west past parcels of land covered in rows of huangaro tree saplings.

“Aunt Laura’s falling hard for him, huh?”

“A monkey could have figured that one out. Let’s train that amazing IQ of yours on something a bit more difficult. Your friend is a puzzle. Work the pieces for me.”