The Twelve Stones (51 page)

Certain she was hearing things, she rose from her hiding place and began moving again slowly down the trail.

Suddenly, she was grabbed from behind, a thick gloved hand covering her mouth. This time, Christina was prepared.

Stamping the ball of her feet onto her attacker’s toes, she rammed home hard, hearing the satisfying SNAP of at least two of her assailant’s bones in his toes. Crying out in surprise, Christina’s attacker released her.

Christina turned, and using the palm of her hand, punched the man’s ribs. Again, she was rewarded with the snap her instructor had told them about. It was a quick getaway strategy that made any attacker think twice about following you. Christina turned, waiting to see if her assailant wanted to continue the fight.

She was confused that the man seemed to be fine as a blue glow receded away from his body as he lowered his weapon.

“Easy, it’s OK, I’m a friend
,
”
t
he man gasped as he drew in a breath. Stranger than anything else, his body began to glow. “Is Emily in there?”
t
he man asked her. “You must be the other girl we saw get put in the helicopter.” He stuck his hand out
.
“My name is Alex
.
I’m here to help.”

Christina regarded the man carefully, unsure if she what she was hearing was true. But after
clos
ely
examining his face, she recognized it from the pictures at her friend’s house.

“She’s in the tunnel. We almost got away, but that English guy caught up to us. She stayed to fight him…” Christina blubbered, releasing
all her pent-up emotions.

“She fought Kline?” Alex’s voice was panicked. “He’ll kill her!”

“She was hurt
.
T
he
fight didn’t last long.” Christina sobbed. “I barely got away myself.”

Alex grabbed the small Asian woman and held her tight. “You did just fine in there. I’ll find Emily. You follow this path, and when you get to the dirt trail
,
turn right and walk for another quarter mile. You’ll see two people there, standing around some abomination of a truck
;
trust me, you'll know it when you see it. Tell them I’m going after Emily
,
and if I don’t get back to get to safety and away from Kline. All right?”

Christina nodded quickly and began running down the trail. Alex watched her for a few moments, when suddenly she stopped, turning back towards him.

“I don’t think she ever stopped loving you, you know
,
” Christina said, her brown eyes, shining in the moonlight. “You were the only one she ever talked about.”

With that, she turned back towards the trail and ran as fast as she could. Alex watched her leave, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

Chapter
Thirty-Nine

Kline whistled tunelessly as he walked down the tunnel de
pths
towards the crystal wall
.
He marveled at the
sheer energy and force of will that
he
and his mining crew had
imposed onto
th
e
Mesa
. Over the last
48
hours
,
they had removed over
42
gigatons of dirt and rock, digging nearly a half a mile. If it all hadn’t been so dangerous and secretive, the whole thing might
have
be
en
worth a documentary
on
the Discovery Channel.

It was a shame that the whole thing would come crashing down in a few hours, Kline thought to himself glumly.

“Did you know
,
my dear that these mountains were here before any man even touched this continent?” Kline said out loud. “Doesn’t that make you feel good?”

“Not now dear, I’ve got a headache
,
” Emily moaned, trying to ignore the loudmouthed billionaire.

“Think about it
,
” Kline barked, a little more authoritatively. “Before the universe deemed it necessary to see you exist, this mountain was here, providing so much for life on Earth.” He stared in contempt at Emily. “What have you done for life so far? Listen on an expensive toy for things that will never appear. How empty your life must be…” He trailed off.

“I regret nothing. If there’s even the smallest chance there’s life on other planets, and they’re trying to talk to us, I want to be there
,
” Emily replied hotly. The headache was easing somewhat, making Kline’s rants easier to deal with.

“So, let me get this straight
,
” Kline replied
,
amused
.
“You spent
five
years in elementary school,
three
years in a middle
school
,
four
years in high school,
four
in college,
three
more for Graduate work, and well over a
$100,000
in student loans
—
don’t bother
;
I checked you out the second I found out who you were…” Emily had opened her mouth to protest, but Kline had cut her off.

“What’s your point?” Emily’s eyes flashed with anger. She was used to defending her career choice to her parents, but this son of a bitch
had
never bought her a Christmas present in her life.

“All that time, all those resources, for the equivalent of buying
one lotto ticket
in your lifetime?” Kline asked, looking at her. “Now you tell me, who’s the one
who's
mad?”

Emily stared back at Kline,
her hardened visage cracking for the first time
.

Kline smiled at Emily. “Well, let me assure you
…
”
h
e
cackled as he brought her closer to the crystal wall, “
y
ou
didn’t necessarily do it
all
for nothing…”

Emily gasped
as she drank in the scene
. The crystal wall in front of her was flawless. This was no natural formation. The geometry of the cube was perfect, the outline of a geodesic
pattern
too perfect to be coincidental. The final touch of surrealism was the clear outline of a door, perfectly proportioned to a human body. Emily approached it almost reverently, reaching out her hand to touch.

“Beautiful
,
isn’t it?” Kline whispered. She glanced behind her, surprised to see tears in his eyes. No matter how psychotic, this was a genuine moment for him.

“What is it?” Emily asked, still in awe and not sure she wanted the answer.

“Come on now, surely you’ve been preparing yourself for this kind of moment all your life?” Kline asked, somewhat confused. “Proof positive of an alien species.”

She looked back at Kline
,
disbelieving.

“It’s true,” he added. “You don’t think
I
put this here
,
d
o
you?”

“I suppose,” she ventured, confused. “I always imagined hearing a signal through a pair of headphones as proof, not…”
S
he waved her arms at the monolithic wall in front of her
.
“
T
his.”

“In your line of work, that is the logical conclusion.” Kline acknowledged
.
“This is still your moment. Would you like to see inside?”

Emily looked at Kline suspiciously. Suddenly the captivity, the kidnapping, it all made some sense. This was the kind of thing that shaped generations to come. The fewer that knew at this moment, the better
.
But
she was still shaken, remembering the dead workers out front. There was still no guarantee that she was going to survive this encounter. He had brought her here, but for what?

“Why all this?” She turned, whipping her hair around. “Why me?”

“I didn't choose you
,
my dear
,” Kline whispered.
“
You were chosen by the universe
.
Your former lover intrude
s
on my plans and my life.
And I learn he has a stone of his own.
And then I find you've dedicated your life to studying exobiology and the possible existence of alien life...” Kline trailed off
.
“It's beautiful how the universe brings people and elements together. All of this led to this moment. Because you’d be worthy.”

“
‘
Worthy
’
?” Emily snapped. “What are you talking about?”

“You enter the chamber and retrieve something for me.” Kline approached the door at the front of the wall. “You go in, retrieve the stone, give it to me
,
and…” Kline crooked his head as if waiting for Emily to say something.

“You let me go
,
” Emily said, finishing his thought.

Kline smiled
,
not answering.

The Cheshire cat
-
like attitude Kline had adopted disturbed Emily. However
,
the thought of being the first human to engage in first contact with an
a
lien species, that was a tempting offer, and one worth whatever
conditions
Kline set for her. She nodded her head quickly, conceding to Kline’s demands.

Kline applauded. “Splendid. Just go into the chamber, and retrieve a stone that should be set in the middle of the room. If you give it to me, you’ll be the most famous scientist since Stephen Hawking!”

She glanced at Kline, thinking quickly to herself.

“All right
,
”
s
he
said, “I'll get what you want
,
and you agree to leave me, Christina, and Alex alone.”

Kline’s darkened when she mentioned Alex’s name. “I’m afraid Mr. McCray and I have other business
,
”
h
e
said, his voice returning to a cold monotone. “That’s non-negotiable.”

Emily’s mind raced. She didn’t have any other options at the moment
,
so she would help Alex later if she could. “Deal.”

Shaking hands, he led her to the front door
of
the crystal wall. “Just push the door open.”

She approached the flat outline of the door in front of her.

Kline sniffed the air around her. She glanced back at him, quizzically.

“You’re not afraid?” Kline asked, fascinated.

“Not in the slightest
,
” Emily answered back confidently. Smoothing her hair, she walked
forward
, pushing the crystal in front of her.

Amazingly, Emily felt herself melting through the wall, traveling through it as if walking on a path full of vines and brush. Suddenly, she exited into a small dark room.

Putting her hands out cautiously, she waved them around,
but
attempting to see anything was futile. It was pitch black
;
the light that had emanated from the crystal wall was nowhere to be seen.

“Great…”
s
he muttered to herself. “I’m gonna spend eternity in Purgatory.”

Somewhere, something clicked, and lights began to flash on slowly. Mumbling sounds
started
emanating from all around her. Noisier and noisier
they
grew as the light grew brighter. Emily closed her eyes against the light
.
Soon,
the whole room was sparkling
.

The room was gorgeous. It
shone
as if she were trapped inside a perfectly cut diamond. Tears flooded her eyes as she drank in the spectacular sights around her. It was as if she had been transported into a gigantic geode, the whole world hers alone, standing as she was in a vast expanse of the universe. Images began appearing. Familiar stars appeared on the roof of the crystal vault in perfect alignment with their current position in the sky.

In the center of the room, a podium rose from the floor to waist height. Emily approached the table and stared at the stone that sat in the middle of the cube, gleaming. It was a vivid teal, with a deep shade of blue that Emily had never seen before. Almost hypnotically, she reached her arm out for the stone.