Chapter 6 — Message in a Bottle
Alex followed Jodie into the shower room where they threw their wet towels in the hamper and grabbed a dry one.
Alex picked up the sandwich bag and tore the box free.
“What is that?” Jodie asked, mesmerized.
“Something I found at the bridge on the way over here,” she replied as she grabbed the wash cloth, soap, and shampoo.
“It’s really weird,” Jodie commented.
Alex held it up to show her friend, “I thought I’d take it in the shower and get all this crud off of it.”
“Whoa! What in the— let me see it!”
Alex handed the object over and watched her eyes expand in amazement. She weighed it in her hands, “It’s light, like aluminum!”
“More like balsa wood,” Alex said. “I have no idea what it is or where it came from.”
Jodie wasted no time, taking off toward the shower with it, “Well, let’s find out!”
Alex grabbed her stuff and followed.
They entered the shower room and Jodie quickly turned on the closest spigot and held the cube up to the spray, splattering them both with grimy mud. As soon as she got most of the loose stuff off, she held it out for Alex to scrub. Three sides were already clean and they could see symbols in the silvery metal. The other three sides required a little more effort to remove the hardened clay. It soon emerged spotless and Alex held it out to examine.
The surface was completely smooth, like glass, but felt like metal. There were absolutely no dents or scratches anywhere.
“Odd,” Alex observed. “How could it be so perfectly smooth?”
“So shiny too, but when you look at it like this—” Jodie took her arms and raised them to the light, “you can almost see through it.”
Alex took it and turned it over in her hands, seeing the symbols alter before her eyes. The only one that didn’t change was a big spiral on one side. The cube was completely seamless and appeared to be one solid chunk of metal, but the rattle? “What is that?” she wondered aloud.
“It looks like one of those hologram cards, but those have angled surfaces, this is so smooth,” Jodie puzzled.
“I thought that’s what it was when I first saw it.”
Ten minutes of inspection later, Jodie announced, “I know what this is!”
“What?” Alex asked.
“It’s a piece of a space ship that fell off or something — proof that we’re not alone in the universe!”
Alex grabbed the cube from her with a suspicious look and cradled it under her arm, as if protecting it from an evil enemy. “Beam me up, Scotty, there’s definitely no intelligent life down here!” she teased.
Jodie pawed at the artifact playfully and the two girls mock-wrestled over it until it accidently slipped from their hands and clunked on the floor.
“Dork!” Alex exclaimed. “You’re gonna break it,”
Jodie apologized and bent down to pick it up. “Look, Alex! It took a chip out of the concrete but there’s not a scratch on the box. I don’t think I could hurt it with a sledgehammer!” She picked it up and placed it in Alex’s hands, “But you better keep it, just in case.”
They giggled and Alex set it down. “We need to get our showers and get out of here; it’s probably after 6:00 already.”
The two friends quickly washed up and headed back to their lockers.
“What are you going to do with it?” Jodie asked as she finished toweling her hair dry.
“I’m going to take it home and let my dad check it out. He’s into history and stuff, and he knows like a ton of people who dig up treasures and artifacts,” she replied as she pulled on her shirt and walked over to get her jeans, which were nearly dry.
Jodie finished drying her hair and sat on the bench to pull out her brush. Alex threw her clothes at her, “Hurry up, brush your hair on the way home. I want to take this to Dad ASAP!” She slung her backpack over her shoulder and waited impatiently, tapping her foot to emphasize that she was ready and Jodie was holding her up. Jodie got the hint and quickly pulled her clothes on as Alex gathered Jodie’s gear and packed all except her brush, which she tapped in her hand.
“Jeeze, chill, I’m almost done!” Jodie said as she finally yanked her shirt over her head and snatched the bookbag and brush from Alex’s outstretched arms. They secured their lockers and walked briskly to their bikes.
“You should come to my house and see what Dad says about the cube, Jodie!” Alex yelled over her shoulder as they pedaled off. Jodie lived just two blocks away from Alex.
“I’m probably late for dinner already. Call me later or something, will you? I’m like completely on the want-to-know list!”
“I will, unless it’s like a message from outer space or secret alien weapon that blows up the entire solar system. Or maybe the President will ask me to come have dinner with him and the entire intelligence community.”
“Hah! Wouldn’t that be sweet?”
Kaylie had arrived at Rick’s at 4:45. “Hello! Honey, I’m home!” she yelled. All the kids seemed to act like Rick’s home was theirs, and he treated them as if they were part of the family. They even came in when Alex wasn’t home.
“Nobody’s home yet, Kaylie!” came Rick’s voice from the basement.
She headed for the stairs, “That’s OK; I wanted to see you anyway,”
Rick was deep into testing a battle campaign for the game ‘Glory by Conquest.’ Ironically he was commanding his army against the Roman Empire.
“What’s that, Rick?” she asked as she dropped her stuff and wound her arms around his neck from behind, in some sort of hug.
“Well, I’m battling Caesar’s army for some of my land right now—”
“Cool! That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Caesar raided your lands, too?”
“Har har. No! We got an assignment in history today—”
“OK, but can I finish this battle first?”
“Of course! As long as you explain what’s going on. I can’t wait to play this one when you finish it, it looks soooo cool!”
Rick spent the next fifteen minutes fending off four legions of Romans as he explained how he had to build his empire by developing lands, paying workers, or using slaves who might revolt. He had to research technological advances from the Stone Age all the way into the future, and battle or ally with any and all of the other historical powers that ever existed. It was quite an in-depth strategy game stuffed with actual history and just what he and Kaylie both loved.
The idea had actually been hers. Over a year ago when they were playing a game of Warcraft against each other, they decided they would like one with more detail on advancing civilization. He had bought a similar game in hopes of meeting their wishes, but it fell way short in many ways. So he took the idea and kept building on it until it surpassed both of their expectations and anything ever made in the genre. He kept the details of the game completely hidden from her for the entire time he was working on it, but now in the testing phase, he knew it was inevitable that she would catch him playing it.
He was nearly finished when she got too close and he got a good whiff of her aroma and jerked back. “You absolutely stink, Kaylie,” he blurted, nearly destroying a building under construction.
“Gee, thanks. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings,” she joked. She knew he was just being honest — and she knew she reeked of sweat.
“I wouldn’t ever think of doing that,” he smiled. “You smell like a room full of sweaty socks,” he teased further.
“I just ran home from practice — am I supposed to smell like flowers?”
He mused at her choice of words: ‘Home.’ She felt like this was her home. Rick had to smile at that. But if this was her home, he had fatherly duties to do. “You’re supposed to take a shower, unless you roll in a bed of flowers…”
“I was going to shower when I got here. I wanted to run.”
“Well, I have to
correct a few bugs in this code I was testing before I forget them all, so go get cleaned up. It shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes, and then you can help me get dinner ready and talk about your assignment, OK?”
“OK!” she quickly agreed and trotted off upstairs.
Rick finished his changes, saved them, and wandered up to the kitchen. He laid out some half-frozen chicken, got down some rice, broccoli, cheese, baked beans, and a few other things. Kaylie came down the stairs, flipped on the TV and sat down to brush the tangles out of her hair. She had borrowed a blouse and jeans shorts from Alex’s closet (one of the reasons Alex had so many clothes in her room was that she and her friends often traded outfits, and probably half belonged to her friends).
“Quit playing with your hair and come help me, Kay, and tell me about this assignment,” Rick said as he pulled a casserole dish out and set it on the counter, then started digging in the fridge for more stuff.
Kaylie happily rose to her feet and pitched in, “Well, Anderson was going to make us do a boring thing on the Roman laws, but Christy was saying she wanted to know about the ‘normal’ life of Rome and stuff, not just the royalty and—”
She explained the entire task while Rick stared at her in amazement, thinking she hadn’t taken a breath yet and still hadn’t answered his question. “So, chatterbox, what is it you want from me?” he finally got a chance to ask.
“Oh! Well, we each have to answer one of those questions and mine is ‘what did normal Roman children my age wear?’ So I need to see if you know anything about it or where I can find the answer.”
“That sounds easy enough. I have a few books downstairs — one about Roman dress, one about clothing of different historical eras, one—”
“But do they describe the clothing of ordinary, middle-class kids? Those sound like they’re about the upper-class, like every other book. We need to find out about the working families outside of Rome itself — the ones in the villages, towns, etc.”
“Hmmmm… come to think of it, I’ve not seen much about that, but I did have some that showed different styles and fabrics of different classes because I had to outfit all the characters in my game. I do recall peasants and field workers, at least. Perhaps we can find what you need there and track down other sources for the rest. I’ve got a lot of reference materials for all the research I did for this game!”
“OK, what about the servants and peasants?”
“Well, I believe they generally wore plain tunics, except the ones who tended to royalty — they were often dressed as well as a prince or princess.”
“That doesn’t help much.”
“No, I guess not. You start cooking the rice and beans and I’ll go look for those books while I’m thinking about it!”
She agreed easily and he hurried downstairs while Kaylie dug out a couple pots and started the water boiling. She was cutting up the broccoli when Rick returned with two books. He laid them on the counter and went to help her.
The rice was boiling, and Rick tossed the broccoli in the other pan. “Put those in that dish when you’re done,” he ordered.
“Um, OK, what’s it going to be?” she asked curiously.
“A broccoli-rice casserole, silly; you’ve had it before.”
“Oh! I didn’t know what was in it — all this stuff?” she pointed to the cheese, cream of mushroom soup, ham chunks, and spices. “I didn’t know you put ham in it.”
He smiled, “We make it different every time; ham is just as good as chicken!” Kaylie finished putting the broccoli in the pot. “Do I put this other stuff in here?”
He checked her progress. “No, after the broccoli cooks, drain it and pour it in this dish, then mix all the other things in. Don’t mix it too much, though, it’s nice to let it all blend itself together so some bites will have more cheese and others more ham or broccoli.”
“All of this cheese?”
“Yes.”
“OK.”
“I’m going to chop up some onions to put in the beans. I don’t know why she wanted beans with all this stuff,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
They got all the food cooking, and began preparing the veggies for a salad, then met at the counter to look at the books while they waited for the first timer to go off.
“Here,” Rick pointed to the first drawing he came across, “is a depiction of several peasant children. Some have no clothes, but here,” he pointed to the next page, “the older children are mostly in rough shirts, they appear to be about your age. This girl is wearing what looks like a grain sack cut open down the sides and tied at the waist. This boy just has on a loin cloth and this one has a loin cloth and a shorter grain sack shirt thing. In this other book, there are illustrations of several types of clothing found during that era, but there’s no way of telling who would have worn them.”
“Cool! This should help.”
“I hope. This first book also has dozens of artists’ drawings from that time of the markets and malls, which may show actual middle-class families shopping or browsing. There’s no way to deduce who is who with complete certainty, but you can make quite a clear judgment of some, like this,” he stopped at a page of a mother and daughter buying bread. They both wore dresses of cloth and had jewelry on, “is most likely upper class, see the jewelry? While this—” a picture of a mother with a girl and boy, about eight and five. All were barefoot with nothing but tattered rags for the mother, a loin cloth for the children, “is most likely lower class.”
“I’d say! They look pitiful! Where was ‘Feed the Children’ during this time?” she said sadly.
Ding! The rolls were done. Rick pulled them out, buttered the top, and turned on the heat lamp to keep them warm while Kaylie continued to study all the sketches and drawings of ancient Romans, completely rapt.
“Some of these drawings are really good, and really detailed. This one picture shows the actual coins a man used to purchase something, and in this one you can see three little kids playing with what looks like a soccer ball! Omigod, they played soccer two thousand years ago?”
Rick laughed, “Maybe. I’m sure little boys have been kicking things around for many thousands of years,” he joked.
“How would they make a soccer ball?”
He studied the picture closely, “That one looks like a ball of string. I’ve seen balls recovered from ancient sites that were over twenty thousand years old made like that. I’ve also seen some made of dried stomach sacks filled with straw or cloth. Kids have always found ways to make balls. Even leather balls were found over a thousand years ago.”
“Wait till I tell Christy, her assignment was to find out if they played sports.”
Just then the door flew open and Christy clomped in, dumping her bag by the door.
“Speak of the devil!” Rick exclaimed, “And where does that bookbag belong?”
Christy ignored the latter, but took offense to the former, “What are you guys saying about me?” she demanded.
“Come here,” Kaylie urged. “We found an ancient Roman drawing with kids in the background playing soccer!”
“Oh, cool, I need that!” she claimed as she studied the picture. “Did you find your answer yet, Kay?”
“Well, sorta, but it’s not definite…” Kaylie showed her many of the pictures and the girls marveled over the attire of the age while Rick went back to preparing food.
“I just broke the state record in the high jump!” Anna squealed as she burst through the door, shocking Rick, who nearly dropped the casserole dish.
“High jump?” Rick puzzled out loud. “I thought you did the long jump. Am I that out of touch now?”
Jessie chimed in, “She did — she even jumped higher than Coach Simmons!”
“Wow, I didn’t even know you could high jump. I’ve failed as a father to you,” as he grabbed his chest in mock horror.
“No, silly, I didn’t know I could either. The coach just asked me to try it for tomorrow because the other girls can get fir
st and second in the long jump against that team, but nobody could beat their girl in the high jump. I tried and jumped way over her best on my first try. So the coach raised the bar and showed me how to do it right and I kept going higher and higher until he made me stop!”
“Awesome, honey!”
“When are we eating? Can’t we talk about all this over dinner? It smells sooooo good in here,” groaned Jessica, rubbing her stomach.
“Where’s Alex? Anyone know? She’s usually home by now,” Rick asked, getting nothing but shrugs in reply. “Well, OK, I guess we’ll just have to start without her. Kay, set the table. Christy, Anna, Jess, take your stuff to your rooms. If she’s not here soon, I’m calling her coach.”
The girls pitched in and they soon had the table set. Just as everyone started to sit down, the garage door slammed and seconds later Alex charged through the kitchen door, rushing toward the dinner table while trying to unzip her backpack.
“You have got to see this!” she blurted, still fumbling with the zipper.
Rick closed the distance and stopped her cold in her tracks, taking the bag from her. “Sit down, calm down, and eat, Alex. Then tell us about it,” he scolded.
“But you have to see it!” she protested, groping at the bag unsuccessfully.
“SIT!”
Alex puffed out her lip, but reluctantly sat down.
“Now,” Rick said as he calmly opened the backpack, “what is it that we have to see?”
“You’ll know when you see it, Dad,” Alex was still angry but more in control, with her arms firmly crossed over her chest and her lip still sticking way out.
He found it immediately.
“What’s this — uh — holy—! It’s so… light… but so… hard, so… weird!” He began examining it more closely, turning it over in his hands. “These symbols, I’ve seen many of them, but some—” He kept turning it over in utter fascination. The others gathered and stared too.
Except Jessica, who sat at the table, ready to eat. “Put down your little toy, Daddy. Isn’t it time to eat?” she said, uninterested in the cube, but intently eyeing the grub.
“Yes, yes, of course. Girls, let’s eat.”
“What about the box?” Alex demanded.
“We’ll set it in the center of the table, so we can look at it, but nobody touches it, OK?”
They all agreed, sat down, and started passing food. Alex explained how she stumbled onto the object, garnering complete attention from everyone except Jessica, and told about cleaning it, about chipping the floor, the rattle inside, the strange properties of it. All the girls took turns speculating, fantasizing and theorizing as to the origins and contents of it.
“It’s some kind of Japanese puzzle box,” Kaylie proclaimed. “I’ve read about how the Japanese used boxes like this to conceal secrets, hide keys or codes or…”
“This is no puzzle box, this is a solid piece of metal,” Alex interrupted.
“No! They were so finely crafted by samurai sword makers or something that they appeared to have no seams. But if you applied just the right pressure on the right places it would slide apart or something. And look, those are definitely Japanese symbols!”
“No, not all of them,” Rick corrected. “Some of those may be Japanese, but some are Chinese, Greek, Cyrillic, alphabetic, numeric, even Roman numerals and hieroglyphics.” He picked up the cube and rotated it to show her. “And I see some that I have no clue what they are! I see what looks like some mathematical formulas... I wonder what’s with the spiral on one side?”
“Jodie said it’s from some alien space ship!” Alex said, giggling.
“The truth is out there!” Christy intoned, following up with spooky noises.
Jessica rolled her eyes, “Oh, please! Someone toss me a roll. ET phoned home already! I saw the movie; now let’s just eat.”
Christy picked up a roll and started to throw it at her. Rick raised a hand and she decided it would be best to pass it in a more civilized manner.
“I think…” Alex started, and then paused in deep thought as they stared at her. “You know how CDs or computer chips would look to someone a hundred years ago? Like something alien?”
“Or hasn’t been invented yet,” Jessica added.
“Don’t be stupid,” Christy snorted. “Think about it. You dug it up; it had soil encrusted on it; it could have been dated by that. We should go to the rec center and see if we can find a piece of rock that was stuck to it. But, this thing is obviously from the past, so it could be proof of Atlantis or some other ancient race rumored to have existed.”
Kaylie perked up, “I read several books about the Mayans who existed over a thousand years ago and were advanced in mathematics and astronomy and rumored to know how to do space travel. There were writings about ‘strange metals’ that they used. They supposedly lived in Central America, but some evidence suggested they lived as far north as Canada!”
“You may be on to something there, Kay,” Rick acknowledged. “I know some people who deal with Mayan studies — Abby has done several digs of old Mayan ruins, maybe we can get her to check it out.”
Kaylie smiled proudly.
“Oh yeah, you would agree with her, Dad,” Alex protested. “Just because you both sit and read and talk about those history books and stuff together all the time. Why don’t you just kick me out and adopt her!”
“Jealous?” Anna asked sarcastically.
“Drama Queen,” Jessica added.
Alex threw half a roll at Jessica, hitting her plate and scattering casserole all over the table and into the floor.
“Alexandra Williamson!” Rick shouted, “Get up and clean that mess up right now!”
Alex sheepishly crawled from her seat and picked up the roll, carried it into the kitchen and slammed it into the trash, protesting and mumbling the whole way. She snagged a paper towel and came back to clean up the rest.
“That’s better, Alex. Kaylie may be right, or may be wrong. You may be right, any of us could be right, or we could all be way wrong. I actually know experts on this sort of thing and it sounds like a viable possibility. We know experts on other cultures and languages too. If you know any experts from the future, please, let me know and we’ll contact them.’’
“Or aliens!” Jessica giggled.
“You’re an alien!” Alex yelled back.
“Enough!” Rick commanded, standing up as Jessica cocked an arm back, loaded with a very messy piece of chicken. He picked up the cube, tossing it back and forth a few times while he gave her his best parental disapproving glare. She slowly put the chicken back down.
“Girls, I’m going to call my friend. Now you can be good or I’ll bonk you on the head with this… sounds like as good a use as any for it. Anna, get the video camera for me; she’s going to want to see it — pictures probably won’t do it justice!”
“OK,” Anna jumped up from the table.
“The rest of you get clean-up duty. Alex and Kaylie can put up the leftovers; Chris and Jess — dishes. I’ll be downstairs. Don’t let me hear another harsh word or any food flying,” he said sternly.
The girls grumbled and nodded. Satisfied they would be compliant, he headed down the stairs.
As Rick came down the stairs, the basement came into view. To the right was Rick’s make-shift study, complete with four bookshelves from floor to ceiling, a big long desk with drawers in the middle and on both ends. Two computers, two chairs, a huge mass of papers, pop cans, and other unclassified clutter completed the scene. The far wall contained the bathroom and laundry, with a hot-tub between the two smaller rooms. A two-foot round pillar in the middle was the only obstruction in the fifty by thirty room. The entire left side of the room was taken up by a huge crescent-shaped 25-foot couch facing a nine by twelve-foot TV mounted in the wall, with flanking stereo equipment and speakers. A huge oval coffee table fit perfectly in the arc formed by the couch. To one side stood a fully stocked fridge and bar with four stools. The girls called it ‘the t
heater.’ Rick called it ‘heaven.’
When Anna came downstairs he instructed her to film the entire cube, one side at a time, from every possible angle. She set up the equipment as he fired up his message software and attempted to contact ‘AncientBabe.’
He typed, “Ya there? Got something that may blow your mind. :)”
He turned to watch his niece videotape the cube for a few minutes, until a reply popped up, “Tickets for two to the Caymans?”
“I wish! It would have to be for five, though. Whatcha doing?”
“Not much. Reading. You?”
“Would you happen to be reading about Mayan artifacts?”
“Nope. Romance novel.”
“Ugh! You got a video link available?”
“Yes. What’s going on; you must really miss me!”
The other girls came bounding down the stairs and gathered around. Anna finished taping and handed the video camera to Rick, who quickly plugged it into the computer and transferred the video. He started to send it to Abby as she popped up on his screen.
“Wow, she looks pretty today!” Kaylie said.
“Well, thank you!’ Abby replied. Kaylie apparently didn’t realize she could see and hear both ways and it startled her. “And you look very pretty too. I haven’t seen you girls in almost a year; you’ve grown quite a bit!” She glanced down at the screen momentarily and back up, “What are you sending me?”
“This…” He stuck out his hand and Anna handed him the cube. He held it up for her to see. “Alex found it, I’m sending a more complete and hi-res video of it.”
“Interesting. What is it?”
“We were hoping you might help us figure that out. Oddest thing I ever saw. Alex dug it out of a creek bank. It had clay rock formed on it, so it may have been there a while. It’s super light and seems indestructible, not even scratchable,” he explained.
“Hmmm… Light? Like aluminum?”
“No, more like… popcorn!”
“Sounds like you need a geologist, metallurgist, or… something. What can I help you with?”
“Well, Kaylie recalled reading about the Mayan possessing some sort of strange—”
“Strange metals, yes, but all of that and most of the other lore has never been proven. Not a single artifact has been discovered to confirm any of that or any evidence of space travel. But it is written about by countless ‘observers.’ There’s really nothing solid to compare it to except descriptions, and by the descriptions, they could have been talking about silver, platinum, titanium… the list goes on and on. The biggest problem is they basically vanished, or at least abandoned their temples and cities. Their people still exist, but have nothing to show of their great former empire. They apparently took all these strange materials with them when they disappeared, only leaving writings about such things, along with incredible scientific and mathematical discoveries, some of which we still don’t fully understand. For example: they somehow mapped the entire galaxy with more detail than we had up until about 1999.”
“There’s some very strange math on it, too, Abby, as well as tons of writing and symbols.”
The video finished loading and beeped. “Hold on a sec, while I watch this, dear,” she said and the screen went blank.
“She called you dear!” teased Christy.
“Is she your girlfriend?” asked Kaylie.
“That is none of your busin—” Rick started to complain, but the screen lit back up with Abby’s image.
“Rick?”
“Thanks, Abby,” Rick said sarcastically instead of answering her.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“Nothing, just try not to call me dear in front of five curious, nosy girls again, OK?” Rick told her as he attempted to wipe the blush off of his face unsuccessfully. “So what did you find so quickly?”
“It’s definitely not Mayan, dear.”
The girls all snickered and poked at him playfully.
“What makes you say that, honeypie?” Rick played back.
She laughed. “Well, sweetheart, did you notice the writing on it?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s sort of like what we wanted you to decipher…”
She rolled her eyes, “There are symbols, letters, characters and numbers that were all developed way after the Mayan civilization disappeared!” she informed him tersely.
“Oh. I should have realized that,” he admitted sheepishly.
“Me too!” added Kaylie.
“OK, so we’re stupid and wasted your time. I’m so sorry, Abby.”
“It’s not a total waste, sweetie — in Mayan times this spiral symbol was interpreted as a traveling vortex, supposedly representing how they traveled through space, and how they all disappeared.”
“That’s interesting, love,” he kept up the joke as the girls continued to giggle at the two adults’ game.
“Isn’t it, darling?”
“OK!” Alex interrupted. “You two are creeping me out now!”
“They’re just flirting,” Anna told her.
“More like teasing us,” Jessica more thoughtfully and correctly pointed out. “Dad knows we need a mother…”
Rick studied Abby’s features as they bantered back and forth. She had a disarming smile that instilled instant trust among the otherwise hard, sculpted features. Her hair was a deep black, her large eyes a muddy brown, which along with her dark complexion gave away the fact that she descended directly from American Indians. She was muscular, most likely due to the fact that she had spent nearly all 38 of her years digging in the hot sun, yet unmistakably feminine. Not an ounce of fat had collected on her over the years. Yes, Rick thought, she was an incredibly alluring woman, and that was not the only reason they had maintained a casual romance over the last half-dozen years. Abby always scoffed at the idea of being a mother though, and certainly resisted the thought of being a wife, afraid of the sedentary life she was sure would follow.
“I don’t know why you would even want a mother,” she lectured, with that irresistible smile, “with the father you have. I can’t say I’ve ever known three happier, healthier girls in all my life. What on earth could I offer that your dad can’t?”
The girls pondered that question a few seconds before Anna finally spoke up, “You could tell us about guys!”
Abby nearly choked laughing, “What?! You’d want advice from a 38-year-old woman who’s never even had a steady boyfriend? Besides, who could possibly know more about guys than… a guy!? And… he does tell you about guys, doesn’t he?” she shot back, glancing at Rick’s face.
Anna nodded, scrunching her face up to show displeasure, “Yeah, he does. He tells us to stay away from them!”
Abby laughed harder, taking a minute to compose herself. “I couldn’t possibly offer any better advice than that! Look at me — I’m 38 and still happy!” she told her, then altered to a more serious tone, “Honey, is there anything you would honestly rather ask me than your dad?”
Even though she’d directed the question at Anna, all the girls shook their heads no.
Abby smiled, “I didn’t think so. Heck, who do you think I go to when I need personal advice?”
Jessica looked up at him, reverently, “Dad? Really?” she asked.
“Really!” Abby answered
“But you’re lots and lots of fun and we could go shopping with you and stuff and it would be awesome if you were always here instead of a week here, two days there—”
“Jess! I’m always off digging up bones, remember? Besides, look at my wardrobe — I’m not a fashion guru, it’s all tan and denim utilitarianism for me. We have a lot of fun when there, I admit, and that’s never going to change. Do you think we would have as much fun without your dad there?”
Silence answered her.
“That’s what I thought! Now give him a hug and kiss for me and let’s get back to this cube!”
Rick mouthed the words, “Thank you,” and blew her a kiss… shielding it from the girls to avoid mo
re ridicule.
During the entire discussion, the kids had been passing the cube around, banging, poking, squeezing and even talking to it.
“So, what do you think about it?” asked Rick.
“Well, some of the languages and symbols are oddly familiar to me. I’ve uncovered things with those same markings before but I don’t understand them. I usually consult Walt Stromberg — he’s an interpreter for the UN and has a passion for linguistics and cryptology. Do you care if I send him a copy of this video?”
“No, as long as he can keep it a secret.”
“OK, hold on... There, it’s on the way, I’ll send a message to him as well so he knows it’s private. Let me check to see if he’s online.”
She typed a message to him and nearly instantly got a reply. “He’s on; I’m going to invite him to our chat; he has no video.”
Rick shrunk her image and moved it up to the top right corner and dragged the message box open larger. ‘Figgeritout’ joined them in the chat window.
“Hi, Walt,” Abby wrote.
“Hi, Abby, and this must be Rick? ‘Fraggenstein’ could only be a gamer.”
“Yes, this is Rick, glad to meet you, Walt.” Rick typed.
“So, what’s this intriguing mystery?” Walt wasted no time asking.
“I sent you a video; didn’t you get it?”
“No. Wait, it’s coming now. I’m not on the information superhighway, like you, I’m on an old dirt road :)”
“Well, Rick’s daughter found this cube, it’s weird and it has writing all over it. All I could make out was a few Mayan numbers.”
“What Mayan numbers?” Rick asked.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you because I don’t know what it means, but did you see a bunch of dots and dashes grouped together?”
“Yeah… like Braille?”
“Exactly, it looks kind of like Braille. Those are Mayan numbers. They have a system based on the number twenty. It starts at the bottom, up to four dots across, and when it reaches five, they replace it with a bar and start on the next line. Four bars equals twenty. Like I found three numbers together, they are thirteen, twelve and seven, which translates to...” A long pause ensued as she calculated the answer, “exactly 5567”
“What’s that mean?” Rick asked.
“I don’t know, that’s why I didn’t mention it, but I noticed there are others by each entry. Let’s see, we have a negative 2150, a negative 8521, 131, and 1755 that I recognize immediately.”
“I don’t get it,” Rick said.
“I do!” chimed Walt. “Those are dates, this is amazing! Well, they’re most likely years, at least. They’re not Mayan dates either, the Mayan calendar was based on a 260-day year, which is thirteen months of twenty days each, which makes their years much shorter than ours, and that wouldn’t make sense here anyway!”
“Enough of the history lesson, let’s hear what you think and why,” Abby insisted.
“Yes. OK, well, these passages, at least the ones I understand, come from that time period!”
“As in?” Rick asked.
“Well, you know these Mayan symbols are from around 8000 BC, these glyphs are from around 2000 BC, Greek, Latin... all of them, especially the extinct languages, correspond to that general time period when the language was in use, but some I’ve never seen, like one at -3350, +4570, -566, etc.”
“Wait,” Rick tried to interrupt, “4570? That’s not possibly a date, neither is 5567.”
“Well…” Walt paused for dramatic effect, “wait until you hear the translation of the ones I do understand!”
“Waiting…” Rick answered as Abby typed the same at precisely the same time.
“This is loosely translated, as all of them basically say the same thing, but not exactly!”
“Get on with it Walter!” Abby wrote, just as he finished.
“It says, ‘Time is critical; follow the path; the vortex is the key’.”
Rick and Abby read the words simultaneously, their silence showed their confusion. Rick broke the trance first. “So, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, some of this writing is from tens of thousands of years ago and some is from… the future? That’s not possible.”
“I just translate, you historians and archeologists interpret! Hey, can I keep this video? I see some symbols that may provide a key to deciphering a few texts I never could translate!” Walt asked excitedly.
“Certainly, Walt, as long as you don’t show anyone unless we say it’s OK.”
“Of course!” he agreed.
“Thanks, Walt,” Abby said.
“No problem. I’ll be around. I’m going to spread all this out and see what goes where. Let me know if you figure anything else out or need more help, this is very intriguing.”
They said their goodbyes to Walt, and Abby and Rick instantly went back to the video link. “I don’t believe it!” a sober Abby proclaimed.
“I don’t understand it, much less believe it!” Rick said, still dazed.
“Did I find something like… important?” Alex asked, stunned.
“I wish I could answer that for sure, honey, but my guess is yes.”
Alex stuck her tongue out at Kaylie, for teasing her about her future theory.
“Kaylie may have been right, too,” Rick allowed.
Kaylie stuck her tongue out at Alex this time.
“And you’re both still jealously fighting for his attention!” Anna teased.
“Too bad he’s got the hots for Abby!” Christy observed rather loudly.
“Enough!” Rick startled the girls into silence. “I love all of you and still have room for Abby too,” he winked at her.
“OK, so let me hear it, Rick, what makes you think Kaylie may be right, too?” inquired Abby.
“Well,” he diplomatically pulled Alex over to one knee and Kaylie down onto the other, wrapping them up in a three-way hug, “I know most, well, all of this, but let me try to put it together. All the writings about the Mayans talk about the ‘prophecies’ and ‘renewal,’ their purpose was supposedly the ‘balancing of the universe’ or something like that. What if those texts were just slightly misunderstood?”
“What do you mean?” Abby said, unable to follow.
“What I mean is even the Bible is subject to thousands of different translations and interpretations for thousands of different sects. Let’s hypothesize that ‘time travel’ was actually ‘travel,’ ‘prophecies’ were actually facts from the future and ‘renewal’ means fixing, or altering, the future. ‘Balancing the universe’ could also mean bringing time into sync, or, according to some physicists, bringing alternate universes into sync.”
“The Mayans had ‘strange metals,’ technology... this cube definitely qualifies. They had advanced mathematics. I suppose time travel would require that! Everything points to the Mayans being from the future if you look at it all that way. How else could anyone explain some of the descriptions? It all starts to make perfect sense now, as impossible as that seems. These Mayans could have gone back in time. But why?”
“To stop World War III?” Kaylie offered.
“I don’t think so. World War III would be more likely to happen in this century, not three thousand years from now. We would have obviously lived through that to develop time travel.”
“Maybe time travel was developed by aliens!’ Anna submitted, jokingly.
“Maybe it came from Uranus!” Jessica joyfully jabbed.
“Come on,” Rick struggled to fight back an enormous belly laugh, “that’s all possible too—”
“What? That it came from Anna’s big butt?”
“I’m gonna shove it up your—”
“Stop!” Rick shouted, twisting the enigmatic object from the two as they fought for control of it.
“Wait, you’re saying it could have been from the past, future, and aliens? So we’ve learned absolutely nothing about it then?” Christy deduced.
“Future aliens visiting the past,” Jessica c
oncluded comically.
“I think I saw that movie on Sci-Fi last week, right after the one about the mutant creature from the sewers that ate half of New York. You’re all dorks!” Jessica pronounced, giggling.
“Why don’t you go watch a movie and leave us dorks alone so we can think and figure it out?” Anna growled.
Jessica turned to leave, “Sounds good to me. Let me know if you have any in… tell... i... gent thoughts!” she spat and skipped to the oversized couch, where she plunged over the back and settled face-down just within reach of the remote.