Aurona, page 4
He leaned forward conspiratorially, lowering his voice. “Gold’s become very scarce, boy, extremely scarce. Most sources dried up years ago, so there’s been a lot of hoarding. Two main reasons: because there are no new mines and because there’s lots of demand, the price has shot clean out of sight. That’s why banks and governments have been fighting and figuring and refiguring the value in ounces, then quarter ounces, and now eighth-ounces. It’s absolutely crazy out there. For that one little blip you have in your hand, we can get, say, ten thousand dollars on this morning’s market.”
“What?” Startled, Adam fumbled and the chip dropped to the floor. He dove to retrieve it under the sofa and straightened up, carefully blowing off the dust. His eyes suddenly grew wide. “T-that would m-make us….”
“Filthy rich,” Grandpa nodded, raising his brows. “But no! Not ordinary filthy rich, boy! Way, way above that. After taxes, and just before they stashed the rest into our vault, I asked the bank to weigh our share again.”
Adam was beside himself with excitement and anticipation, bouncing in his seat. “How much? How much did our gold weigh?”
“We own a bit over 1,400 pounds. That’s a lot more than I ever thought would fit into our little knapsacks. Good thing I had a few extra antigrav pods to throw in…. Hey! You do the math. You’re good at that.”
Adam closed his eyes and eagerly crunched the numbers. “Let’s see,” he mumbled, “Da-da-daah, and daa-daa … that would equal a total of 128 eighth ounces, times 1,400 pounds, that equals, um, 179,200 eighth ounces. Yikes! At ten thousand dollars apiece….” His eyes popped open wide. “That-that would be close to two billion dollars! Wow, we’re instant billionaires!”
“And why are they hoarding this stuff, again?” Grandpa prompted. “Remember the other reason?”
“Um, it’s getting harder to find?”
“Bingo! There’s no more where that came from! Our stash doesn’t exist anymore! It closed up shop for good! Every speck of the Galaxy Room melted into blobs and slid down the tubes! I mean way, way down! It’s probably finished mixing with magma in the core of the Earth by now.”
Adam started twisting in his seat. “Yeah, I saw a news report while you were in the shower! It was incredible! Scientists are flying in from everywhere to check it out! They can’t figure out why some totally extinct volcano would suddenly cave in and melt its own plug again!”
The old man winked. “And just like a really good novel, there’s more to the story, boy, more than anyone’s aware of.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Here’s the skinny, the real, behind-the-scenes reason: before we could even begin to explore in New Guinea, I made a deal with their government for exclusive rights to a whole string of my patents relating to CloneBank….”
“No, no! Not that one!” Adam interrupted. “Your reforestation invention?”
“Yup! The culmination of many years and many ‘eureka’ moments! Well, they loved it. In return, we got unlimited exploration rights. The best part was that whatever we took out, they promised to ask no questions.”
“Wow! What a deal! We get two billion, they get trees!”
“Yes. Definitely a win-win.”
“Oh, now I get it!” Adam’s face lit up as he put a few more pieces together. “We did a lot of secret things when we got home last week, didn’t we, Grandpa? Like sneaking into your lab and melting all our rolled-up gold? You put on your gloves and poured it into little gray trays,” he laughed. “It was just like making superhot cupcakes!”
“Yes, we ended up with bags and bags of those little shapes,” he chuckled. “And why do you think we went to all that effort?” he prompted.
Adam shrugged. “Um, so no one could ever guess our gold used to be all carved and fancy, or had those weird runes on them, right?”
“Bingo! We covered our tracks and ultimately protected everybody. Like I said, no questions asked, no questions answered.” As the boy nodded, the old man sighed and turned to gaze out the window. “But….”
“But what?”
“I really wish we could have done it all over again.”
“What, like a rerun?”
“No, not the same: a lot different. Before we accidentally triggered those last five steps when we went into the Galaxy Room, I really wish I’d looked around a bit more. I might have seen the warning in the runes and we could have just….”
“I know. Jumped over the bottom steps. The Galaxy Room was so beautiful,” Adam sighed. “I hated to see it….”
“You’re right, the room was an amazing work of art. But there’s more to it.”
“More? What do you mean?”
“The biggest reason of all! Think of it, boy! We might’ve been able to find out what was powering everything down there! There was some kind of great, potential force waiting, for who knows, maybe millions of years for someone to show up. The builders of the outpost discovered how to control that great … force….” His eyes turned to the boy expectantly.
Adam was focusing into the distance, deep in thought. Suddenly, his eyes popped. “Wow!” He whispered. “You-you mean it might have been fusion?”
The old man gave him a big thumb’s up, beaming in satisfaction.
“But-but we needed fusion, too, as much as our Star Maps!”
“You’re right, Adam. And I’m just sick about it.” Grandpa sighed. “You know, you might not believe this, but….”
“What’s that?”
“I-I didn’t have a clue about the gold, or fusion. I just wanted the Star Maps.”
“What? Your old runes didn’t mention anything about gold?”
“Nope. Not a word. When we stepped into the Galaxy room, there it was. Maybe the aliens thought it was just a pretty metal and something useful to build with. The only reason I brought along those extra pods was in case there might be a few interesting and heavy items. Good hunch, huh?
Adam’s eyes had a faraway look. “You know,” he whispered, “I was thinking about something else while we were down there.”
“What’s that?”
“I was thinking that it’s incredible that a whole civilization from an unknown galaxy could have set up an Outpost here on Earth long before we were even cavemen.”
The old man coughed. “You were thinking about that? You’re only eight!”
Adam tilted his head, his eyes questioning. “So…?”
He raised a brow. “So, most eight-year-olds, well, you’re not in that category.”
“I’m eight-and-a-half now, Grandpa,” he corrected. “Almost out of high school.”
“Hey! So you skipped a few grades. Hmm. You know, I did too, but never three or four at a time! Well, there are quite a few gifted programs waiting for you out there and then it’s on to college in a few years—if they’ll have you,” he chuckled.
“Grandpa, why is school so boring?”
“Because you have, um, superior genes on your side. You’re brilliant!”
Adam reddened. “Come on….”
“No, I really mean it. Just think about it. It might have something to do with the fact that for most your life you’ve been privilege to the most advanced think tanks and research labs in the world. Maybe, just maybe, huh? We’ve got some of the brightest minds in the world working with us. On the other hand, it could be partly osmosis. Your brain just sucked in all the lab lingo and obscure theories of physics and math by being immersed in it. The more you figured out, the more you wanted to know! I remember how you used to pepper me with all those questions about our mysterious projects. Blah, blah, blah … what a nudge!”
“Yup.” The boy’s head bobbed. “We worked side by side. Mostly at night.”
“Well, that’s a whole ‘nother thing. It was quieter then.” Grandpa closed his eyes, reminiscing. “Good grief, it seemed like you could run before you could walk. You-you amazed everyone in the lab. I remember watching you toddling down all those long corridors, opening every single unmarked door. Not one door was off-limits. Oh, and sometimes that curiosity of yours got us both into hot water, right?”
Adam grimaced. “Yeah, like the debate, for instance. I-I sure do remember.”
Grandpa grinned. “Old Doc Fenway, that bag of wind. I can still hear your little squeaky little voice cutting into one of his pompous tirades. “S’kuse me, s’kuse me!”
Adam winced, clamping his hands over his ears. “Stop, stop, Grandpa!”
“You stood up on a stool to tug at his sleeve! ‘S’kuse me, s’kuse me….’”
“He was a jerk! What can I say?”
“But you trashed him! I can still see you standing there on that stool delivering this incredible monologue, beginning with a startling string of revelations on the latest developments in quantum physics and proton entanglement and backing it all up with the struggles Einstein had in building his unified field theory. Fenway and everyone else in the room looked like they’d been spooked! Where’d you get that stuff, anyway?”
“There was an issue of Science News in your office,” he shrugged.
Grandpa let out a hoot, slapping him on the back. “But you weren’t even five! A baby! Whatever happened to Winnie the Poo?”
“Who?”
“Never mind. You-you floored everybody in the room, including me! There-there was this numbed silence, this-this….” He shook his head in wonder. “You know, somewhere inside that cherub’s body of yours there’s something else going on, something-something spooky! There’s this fearless, rooting spirit, this almost frightening boldness, focus, and intensity….”
“I don’t know, Grandpa, I-I just think in pictures. Scenarios.”
“Yeah, like Einstein.”
The boy winced, reddening even more. “No! No-o-o! Like-like you!”
Taken aback, the old man bit his lip and tousled the boy’s hair. “Thanks.”
His face beet red, Adam made an awkward stab at changing the subject. “Ah, let’s get back to your old runes, Grandpa. Where’d they really come from? You never finished telling me the whole story.”
A lump in his throat, the old man turned to gaze into the distance as he tried to collect his thoughts. That boy was something else, always trying to divert attention away from himself. He had no concept about his intellect, probably because there were no other kids his own age he could hang with. His mom, Sophie, was shy like that….
Unbidden, the memories flooded back: many, many years before Adam, his wife Annie had died in childbirth, leaving him with an infant son, Ruben. He sighed. Another little one: it seemed like he’d always had a little boy around. Ruben had turned out to be somewhat of a traveler, and by the time he’d reached his early twenties, he always wanted to be away somewhere, doing something crazy in a foreign land. He’d eventually found the girl of his dreams, Sophie: a real Dutch beauty, full of life, her gray-blue eyes brimming with as much excitement and wonder as the North Sea. She’d stubbornly refused to marry him for months until he’d promised to quit piloting those creaky old hypersonic ramjets out of Schipol Spaceport. Good for her … ramjets. How archaic.
After Adam was born, his dad was promoted. Ruben had risen quickly through the ranks to become the bright, promising leader of the very first exploration party to the moon Titan.
He clenched his fists, the scene burning anew in his memory…. Why, why? For some reason, he’d wanted Adam’s mom to come with him on the expedition that day. As their landing pod descended, something had gone horribly wrong: it became enveloped in a strange, swirling yellow-green aura, then without explanation, burst into flames and streaked out of view!
“Grandpa? Are you okay?”
“Oh, sorry, boy.” He wrenched himself out of reverie, turning his head away to hide the tears in his eyes.
Adam laid his small hand on his arm. “Is this about Mom and Dad again?”
He exhaled a long breath and turned back to his grandson. “Yeah. It’ll never go away, boy. You’re all I have left of my family.” He sighed and gave his hand a squeeze. “Let’s get back to your question.”
“It’s okay, Grandpa. I understand.”
“Okay, thanks,” he smiled. “Now, the runes: It-it was such a long time ago. They were in a cave on Callisto Moon base. I was in my mid twenties when I found them, just before your dad was born. They say most of those impact craters were over four billion years old and it’s one of the most heavily cratered planets in our solar system. Just why my group of Planet Hoppers chose to stop there I’ll never know. Fate, maybe. What a barren place. Well, there they were, those tiny, thin sheets of gold, stamped with odd figures, all bundled together with this long, twisted gold wire. You know, like tie wrap?”
“Expensive tie wrap,” Adam grinned.
“Hey! I pawned that skinny wire to pay for your father’s college tuition. Well, it took years and years to translate the runes and then I mapped everything out. They pinpointed the location of the Outpost here on Earth! When I knew where it was, I put the bug about my reforestation invention into the ear of the government in New Guinea.”
“That long ago? Before my dad was born? But, but we just….”
“Hey, the wheels of government turn ver-r-ry sl-l-lowly! Well, I waited a long time for an answer, you came into my life, and then I finally got exploration rights to the peninsula. You know the rest: CloneBank’s reforestation has been really working down there and the land’s turning back to a pristine wilderness, thank God.”
“You can say that again. We’ve even improved the property! There’s a new lake out in the middle of the jungle,” he offered, brightly. “And I’m glad they’re gonna put my baby monkey back into his home after they raise him. A news report said that New Guinea just declared the volcano and its whole peninsula a new national park!”
“Good for them,” Grandpa chuckled. “We need more parks.” He let out a guffaw and slapped Adam on the back. “And this one has waterfront lots!”
“A theme park!” Adam countered.
“Crocodile rides! Hotels! Casinos!” Grandpa tossed a few more back at him.
“Casinos? Hey, now maybe we can….”
“Whoa, hold on there,” he said, chuckling. “Don’t get carried away!”
“What do you mean?”
“Even our awesome stash will dwindle away!”
Adam drew back, alarmed. “What? There’s so much! How could that happen?”
“Believe me, it’ll sprout little wings. We’ve gotta take measures right now to make sure it never runs out!” The familiar twinkle suddenly gleamed anew in his eyes. “Hey. I-I’m stumped, boy! Whaddaya think we should do with these, ah, seeds?”
Adam caught on in a flash. “Plant, plant, plant, Grandpa!” He poked the kernel back into the man’s big palm and closed the broad fingers over it. “Plant these little suckers quick, before they fly away!” The old man’s blue-green eyes crinkled and his smile broadened to match the youngster’s inch for inch. They stared at each other a long moment, nodding in silent, conspiratorial enthusiasm.
The process of plowing began. With the trusted advice of a close friend and financial planner, Adam’s grandfather converted a modest amount of the bullion into cash to live on, and then set aside a few sizeable chunks, investing them into a broad, stable financial portfolio with several interest-bearing savings accounts and trusts for Adam. Satisfied, they homed in on the rest: a measured, miniscule amount at a time, they’d sow it into the stock market.
It took some early crop failures to show them this unfamiliar field wasn’t to be merely a game of planting roulette. They took their losses gamely. Their advisor hired a few more brilliant analysts, and the new financial team knuckled down to take serious notes. There’d be no more waste. This was war: a focused, exhausting, all-consuming effort. They began to watch live, streaming global market coverage on the Internet while several ancient twenty-teraflop computers hummed in the background, spewing out condensed timetables and spreadsheets that blanketed the kitchen table. Grandpa’s apartment quickly resembled a top-secret, undercover situation room.
Shortly, the numbing number fog thinned a bit, just enough to see unexpected things in unlikely places. It was as if everyone’s financial eyes were opening for the first time. Camouflaged inside all that cipher chaos were a few subtly stable numerical repetitions and promising trends revealing themselves in neat, orderly rows.
Harvest fields! Excited, the team redoubled their efforts. With computer enhancement, they quickly extracted the good soil from the mediocre, then sifted out the excellent from the good. As a subprogram dusted off the results, Grandpa leaned back and pointed to the screen. “Finally! I think we’ve plowed a bit of fertile land here, boys! Whaddaya think?”
There was a matching glint in Adam’s eye. “Let’s plant! Big time!”
“Yeah,” they chorused. “Let’s do it!” A group high five sealed the deal.
Grandpa punched in their broker’s e-mail address. With their fingers side by side on the “enter” button, he and Adam transmitted an unheard-of sum.
The financial world was abuzz the next morning, watching in shock as a young, seemingly vulnerable investment partnership called G&A dumped an embarrassing amount of capital into a handful of dark horses on the market. Speculation on the mysterious duo, both of their motives and targets, loosened the tongues of even the most liberal. A short week later, to everyone’s total surprise and embarrassment, G&A had made a stupendous killing. After the inscrutable duo reaped a fortune in earnings, their daunting logo began to appear daily, veering wildly around the charts. It seemed this G&A had a Midas touch; whatever the pair breathed on suddenly came to life and spewed out profits!… Had they really discovered the secret to a self-perpetuating money machine?
Chapter 3: THE ROBE
A neglected historical landmark stood in the heart of the city, a soaring, Gothic-inspired skyscraper the locals had aptly dubbed “the Aerie.” Indeed, a few nests of Peregrine Falcons did inhabit the upper crags. Adam spotted a photo of the slim, needlelike structure as he was flipping through the financial pages and quickly shoved the paper toward his grandpa.
