Uncontacted, page 15
And then his father was standing here in front of him, holding his strange phone thing in his hand.
“What’s the answer, Antonio?”
The puzzle was bizarre; he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. All of these objects, or scenes he had witnessed, they must have something in common, but what was it? Some of them were directly connected to his personal life, like his classroom and the calendar, while others, such as the casino, were not. But even so, they must have something that unites them at some core part of their identity, Antonio thought. But what?
“You have only thirty seconds remaining, Antonio.”
Thirty seconds!
He flashed on the scenes he had been a part of here, and what they had in common. The calendar—twelve months, the roses—a dozen roses—the magnesium—atomic number 12. There were others where he wasn’t sure of the significance, like the flag….wait a minute, the stars—he hadn’t counted them but he guessed now that there would be twelve stars. What about the zoo animals, though, what was the connection there? The seemingly ordinary animals: rat, rooster, ox, but there was a dragon, too…And then it hit him. The signs of the Chinese zodiac--twelve of them! The craps game: he’d rolled double sixes (twelve). The deck of cards on the table showing the twelve suit cards. What about the Eden scene though, where was the twelve there? Then he pictured Adam’s naked skeleton, hanging in his high school—his twelfth grade—classroom, the rib cage missing a single rib, but there should be…twelve ribs per side. The dodecahedron maze. The gold on the scale—weighing exactly one pound—but not really one pound, because precious metals are weighted in troy, so one troy pound, which is made of exactly twelve troy ounces. And the last piece, the video of his Dad starting his ultralight? His mind’s eye alighted on his father cursing at the battery as it struggled to start the machine, the 12 volt battery.
There it was. It was the only thing he could think of that was there in every piece of the puzzle, and there had been, in fact, twelve different scenes, or pieces of the puzzle itself, Antonio realized. All of those seemed to have that number at some core part of their…of what made them them, Antonio thought.
“I know what it is, Dad.”
“Your answer, son?”
“Twelve.”
His father beamed and tapped on his device some more. “Congratulations, Antonio. All those things, they all had the number twelve in common, right?”
“Right, Dad. I got that.”
“But do you know what else has the number twelve in common, Antonio? You do. Because your real age, in leap years, is twelve. You’re twelve years old, Antonio. You’ve had twelve real birthdays in your lifetime, even though people think of you as being 48. You’ve got to keep those two things separate you know, it’s very important.”
“What two things?””
“Your real age and the common, uninformed age everyone thinks you are. Those are two things you’ve got to keep separate. I repeat, Antonio…”
His Dad leaned in close. “You’ve GOT TO KEEP THEM SEPARATE. KEEP THEM APART FROM ONE ANOTHER, ALWAYS KEEP THEM FAR APART!” His father was angry now, yelling at him.
“Okay, Dad, all right! I’ll keep them apart, I promise, I’ll keep them apart...”
Chapter 27
The game dissolved in a cloud of pixelated vapor and Antonio was back in the Andaman Islands, in the cave, at the bottom of the pit next to Stel, and the dead tribal man who’d fallen, along with the rest of the tribal party who had made it down safely in one piece. Stel had the half-rock that Antonio had left behind when he disappeared, and was about to put it on top of its other half. Both glowed red fiercely.
“No, wait!” Antonio shouted. “Keep them apart!”
“What?” Stel looked at him like he was crazy.
“Don’t let them touch! Keep the two halves apart! Keep them apart!”
“How did you get back here? Where did you go?”
“No time to explain, Stel. Just give me the meteorite, please! Don’t let them touch!”
“Why not, they’re obviously two halves of the same whole.”
“No, they were made to stay apart, far apart! If they come together, we die, Stel. Not just us, either, but all of us--the simulation program will be deleted and the entire human population on this planet will reset to zero.”
“What are you talking about? How can you possibly know this?”
“Joining the two halves will initiate a self-destruct routine that shuts down the simulation, Stel! That’s why the two tribes live so far apart, why they were entrusted with the two halves, because they would never come into contact with each other, they were to remain uncontacted from not only each other but the rest of the planet as well, for as long as possible, so that no one would ever put the two halves together and destroy our simulation.”
Around them the tribal men began to get hot and feel itchy, uncomfortable, not right. Antonio showed them how when the pieces are pulled further away, the symptoms abated. When brought back closer together again, they returned. “If we put them all the way together,” he both said and pantomimed, “we will all die.”
The tribal elder jabbed his spear at Stel and nodded to Antonio. Slowly, Stel handed Antonio the other half of the sacred stone.
“Fine, I trust you will walk me through this later, though.” Stel eyed Antonio, who nodded in return. “Now, what do we do with it?” Stel asked.
Antonio pointed up, out of the pit. “We take it away from here. Right now, let’s go.” He found his backpack on the floor of the pit and picked it up. It was none the worse for wear, so he dusted it off and put the half-meteorite that came from the Amazon back inside. As soon as he did, both rock-halves changed their color from red to orange. He shouldered the pack and adjusted the straps in preparation for the ascent out of the pit.
“What about the one that was already here?” Stel asked, pointing to the sacred stone glowing at their feet.
“We leave it,” Antonio said. “It belongs here. Just not next to the other one. Let’s go.”
Stel looked to the tribal members, who in turn pointed up. He and Antonio nodded, and the tribe began to scale the rocky wall toward the top of the pit. Stel watched as Antonio tested his first footholds on the wall.
“You going to be okay with that heavy pack?” Stel asked.
Antonio looked back at his backpack, now glowing a duller orange. He nodded.
“I think if this thing was going to kill me, it would have done so already.”
Chapter 28
Stel reached the top of the pit first and scrambled out. Antonio, both burdened with the heavy pack and mentally drained from his inexplicable puzzle-solving session with his father, was slower to reach the rim of the subterranean depression, but he managed to pull himself up and over the lip onto the wider cavern floor. The natives were all up already, collecting their arrows and drinking water from a narrow creek that flowed through here. But there was a noise growing in intensity, something not part of the jungle.
Antonio couldn’t see the sky, but he knew what it was all the same. A helicopter, coming this way. He brought his gaze back down to look at Stel, to see if he had anything to say about it, when he froze in place.
Stel had a small pistol pointed right at Antonio’s chest.
“I don’t know what went on down there, Antonio, but I don’t trust you anymore after your little disappearing act. I’m taking this artifact.”
Antonio shook his head slowly. “Obviously the meteorites have powers we don’t yet comprehend. They should be studied by the greater scientific community, Stel. As a scientist, you know this! Let the world benefit from knowing what they are and how they work. What are you going to do with it, anyway?”
“Do with them, you mean?” Slowly, Stel’s gaze travelled from Antonio to the pit.
Antonio exhaled sharply, his eyes narrowing. “You plan to take both halves? Are you crazy?”
“Maybe just a little.” Stel’s eyes flashed defiance.
The helicopter was louder now, no doubt preparing to land just outside the cavern. “That’s my ride,” Stel said, jerking his head toward the cavern exit. “You play nice, Antonio, and you’ll be fine. Just hike on out of here and go on about your life, don’t try to be a hero.”
“And if I don’t?”
Stel chuckled softly as he nodded to the pit.
“An air unit strike team is coming for the other stone. You have just enough time to get out of here safely if you go now. Leave this place and don’t come back. I can’t guarantee your safety if you do.”
Stel looked at his watch and turned around toward the exit as he heard the helo’s motor change pitch, indicating it had landed on the forest floor. Antonio watched as Stel began moving toward the exit. Antonio followed him, but at a slower pace, until they reached the aperture in the rock that led out into the stream.
By the time Antonio, and the tribal men behind him, emerged from the cavern, Stel was jumping into the helicopter, which had landed in the stream bed itself. The only other person Antonio could see inside was the pilot, who lifted off immediately while Stel moved up front and took the co-pilot seat.
The aircraft hovered above the canopy for a couple of seconds, Stel looking down on Antonio, watching him.
And then the pilot put the craft into gear, and off it raced over the rain forest.
Chapter 29
Antonio hung his head in shame when the helicopter had disappeared from sight, the rumble of its engine now fading into the distance. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have trusted Stel like he had? He mentally replayed the highlights of his recent interactions with his former rival, now of course realizing that the rivalry was anything but former. He’d probably intended to use me from the moment I contacted him, Antonio thought. But he had been the one who first reached out to Stel, so for that he had only himself to blame. He had been greedy, wanting to be first to publish in the journals but knowing he needed an anthropologist on board to ensure acceptance…and for that he had paid the price.
Antonio looked up and saw the tribal members gathered around him, the confused, concerned expressions on their painted faces. He was trying to think of what to say to them, out of the very limited amount of words he now knew in their language, when again the most unnatural sound of a helicopter echoed across the jungle. Antonio recalled Stel’s words about a strike team with a shiver.
Or maybe it’s Stel coming back, having changed his mind about what he’s doing? Antonio knew that the wishful thought was just that when a sleek military chopper, much larger than the one that had picked up Stel, flew into view across the rain forest. Strike team.
Antonio pointed into the pit. “They’re coming for the sacred stone!” He said it in English just to get their attention, and then took precious seconds to translate it for them to the best of his ability. The tribe’s reaction was to hold up their spears and arrows. Tracking the helicopter with them as it moved across the sky. This was how they dealt with the other helicopters they’d seen, Antonio thought, but in this case they had no idea how little it would matter.
He shook his head at them. Pantomimed gunfire after pointing at the approaching helo. Pointed down to the pit again, and then mimicked carrying the meteorite, and pointed off into the jungle, where not even a game trail penetrated. He tried the tribal words he thought meant “run” and “hide,” then again pointed to the incoming aircraft and acted out shooting a gun. He was sure they knew what guns were since Stel had told him about their run-ins with the Indian coast guard and other parties.
Antonio was pleased to see one of the men, and only one, scramble to the pit. He was the best climber, too, he thought. Good. This would need to be fast. He nodded to him and waved him on. “Go! Get it! Yes! Hurry!”
The native dropped down into the pit and Antonio immediately turned to the half-dozen other men, people he would somehow need to coordinate if they were going to escape with the sacred stone. He pointed to an ordinary boulder on the ground, ran to it and picked it up. Then he scuttled to the very edge of the pit and dropped it there. Antonio thought that maybe if the mercenaries entered the pit looking for the sacred stone, that they would be able to push the heavy rocks down on them. The natives eyed him with uncertainty, until he pointed to another nearby rock, and another, then another. He himself ran to a different rock and carried it to the edge of the pit. Then one of the tribesman got with the program and ran to a rock, made eye contact with Antonio, who nodded vigorously, then carried it to the edge of the pit as Antonio had done. After that, the floodgates opened and all of the tribe members deposited stones in a ring around the sacred pit.
By the time they were done, the one who had descended into the pit emerged with the sacred stone. He was helped over the new rim of rocks by his tribe, and then Antonio waved to get their attention. He tried the word for “fast,” hoping he had picked it up somewhere along the way. He said the word with the inflection of a question, while pointing in turn at the tribesmen. Immediately, they all pointed to one man in the middle. Good, Antonio thought, he’d gotten the right word. The individual was tall and rangy, with a runner’s body. He looked fast.
Antonio indicated that they should give him the stone, and that he needed to run with it as fast as he could to hide it somewhere safe.
The helo hovered nearby, as if looking for them, and then moved slowly toward them, low over the trees. Then they heard a male voice, speaking English, though a loud-hailer: “Dr. Antonio Medina and team: remain where you are and no one will get hurt. We just need to talk.”
Antonio nearly laughed out loud. Just need to talk? Who flies in with two helicopters-- one to extract your supposed business partner, and one to come back to “talk?”
He looked at the man with the sacred stone and said “go” with an accompanying hand gesture. Then he turned to the rest of the tribe and pointed to the foliage closest to the pit. He looked to the helicopter and saw men in camo-green jumpsuits with automatic rifles slung over their backs fast-roping out of it. What in God’s name? Someone with powerful connections meant business when it came to stealing the artifacts, that was easy enough to see.
Realizing there was no time for his painfully slow communications, he led by example and dove into the nearest stand of plants. Then he stuck his head out and beckoned them toward him, hoping they’d get the idea. Antonio listened but couldn’t hear the soldiers, or mercenaries, or whoever they were hit the ground over the noise of the helicopter. He knew they were on the way, though, and fast, so he was extremely thankful to see the tribal people take his cue and leap into the surrounding bushes.
He only hoped they would stay hidden long enough for his crazy plan to work. The hairs on his arms stood on end as he crouched lower in his green shroud. He told himself this was the dumbest idea he’d ever come up with in his life, that he should have taken Stel’s parting advice and simply ran away. But it was too late for that now, as the first of the armed mercenaries came running into the pit area.
The warrior who entered the tiny clearing was decked from head to toe in military camo, including a balaclava that covered his face. Antonio looked but couldn’t see any kind of identifier on the uniform, if that’s what it is—no flag, no insignia, name, nothing. What was clear was that the guy was geared up with multiple guns, knives, extra magazines…and a radio, which he brought to his lips as he approached the pit. He cautiously leaned over the lip of it, while saying, “Think I got something here. Right over by—“
Antonio saw his chance and took it. He sprang from the bushes and barreled toward the interloper, knowing he would hear him but counting on the fact that he would reach him in time. He lowered his shoulder as he’d been taught to do in high school football practice, and slammed into the mercenary just as he’d almost brought his submachine gun all the way around.
Antonio had one panicky moment of absolute, unbridled fear, where his foe gripped him on the arm and he thought he was going to be dragged over the edge of the pit with him. But at the last second he was able to brush him off as the shocked, horrified look in the man’s falling eyes burned itself into Antonio’s memory forever. The fall was not survivable, and the mercenary added his corpse to that of the tribal man who’d succumbed to the pit’s gravitational forces earlier.
Antonio had no time to celebrate his small victory, however, because the rumble of foliage nearby, from the same direction the last mercenary had come, told him that more soldiers would be here momentarily. He’d won the first battle but by no means the war.
One of the tribal members’ heads poked out of a bush, and Antonio frantically motioned for him to conceal himself again. He did, and Antonio slipped into the greenery beside him, just as three more mercenaries came into view.
Two carried pistols at the ready while one had an automatic rifle slung over one shoulder as he talked into a handheld radio, saying, “…have a visual on you yet, we’re--hold on, got something.”
Antonio knew that he would need the tribe’s help with these three, no way could he handle them all on his own. He tapped the one next to him on the shoulder and pointed. That man nodded, then tapped the one next to him. Then Antonio leapt from the bushes, committing himself to the surprise attack. He was relieved to hear the leaves ruffle as the rest of the tribe followed suit.
Seven men all told—Antonio and the half-dozen indigenous warriors—charged the three mercenaries as a group. The gang tackle was messy, with Antonio not being able to see exactly what happened. All he knew was that he and one other tribal man were first to reach the gunmen, who swiveled around while bringing their firearms to bear. He head-butted the middle man while wrapping an arm around each of the other two. He didn’t think this was going to be as effective as with the first single warrior, and he was right. Immediately he felt the butt of a rifle skid across his forehead. Warm liquid trickled down his face, even though it was only a glancing blow--a miss, basically--compared to the intention, which was to smash him in the temple and knock him out.
