The Event Series (Book 3): The Archive and Beyond Read online

  The Event,

  The Archive and Beyond

  By

  Thomas W. Larson

  Copyrighted © August 2015 by Thomas Larson

  All rights reserved

  Cover Illustration

  By

  Ariana Patterson

  Acknowledgement

  I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have helped in the creation of this work. It has been a rewarding and challenging effort. First of all, a thank you to Marianne Stefanov and Ariana Patterson for being involved in the project. Also, Beth Burke, a big thank you for the help in proof reading and keeping me from going too far astray in the story. You all were so much help.

  This is the disclaimer:

  Aka the fine print

  Although a number of locations in this story are real, the people involved in the story are all fictitious and do not really exist except in my mind, and now maybe yours. Any similarity to a person living or dead is strictly coincidence.

  Father had left us a kind of key so that we could find Camp Romanica, for when the time was finally right that we were

  able to land and look for it. By the time we got there those who had once lived there were gone, long gone and the camp was little more than a few crumbled cabins, a pole sticking in the air and a small cemetery over grown with weeds. Some of the cabins actually had trees growing out of them.

  There is a certain irony that some of the names on the grave markers matched members of our community. They also had a Francis, Joseph, Ethan, Chelsea, Nicholas, and Grace in their camp. But there were other names that did not match our party. There was Arcelia, Cyril, Anne, Alyssa, and others. It is a mystery for now.

  But let me back up a little. Father was not really our father in the traditional sense. He was more; I guess you would call him, our caretaker. He was reptilian, a short creature about 4 feet tall. His name was Krezz; he was the last one of the crew of the ship that had rescued us. He came from a race called the QUalz. But over time we just called him Father. He went to sleep/rest on the last orbit around what he called the Grand Loop. But before he did he set the ship to come close to what he called our home planet and gave us instructions on how we were to leave in the pod ships and seek out Romanica.

  We, us, his children, there are 26 of us, with one set of twins. We are all 23 years old and ironically we all have almost the same birthday. We tried to have Father explain that to us but he dismissively said that is was just a coincidence.

  I was told by Father that I was the First Son; he looked to me and the First Daughter to be the kind of de facto leaders of the group. I never knew why he did that.

  It was Lance who found the one cabin with the machines in it. It was some form of primitive electronics that could store memories and records. It took him a month to be able to figure out how to repair them and determine what they were capable of doing. It was difficult at first because time, weather and solar radiation had done some things to the machines that made them a little broken. But he was able to get them running.

  “First, I have determined that the memory clusters in the machines were a sort of writings. It is, or was, a kind of log, or the term ‘journal’ was used by several people that lived at that time,” Lance told me.

  “Really? And you have determined that these are not just fabrications or what is the term, ‘stories’ written for entertainment,” I asked.

  “No, based upon historical data that Father left us, and the evidence from the camp, it seems these were some form of accounting of the events of a group of people that survived some type of apocalypse,” continued Lance.

  “Fascinating!” I said thoughtfully.

  “Oh, it is more than that, I have not finished all of the clusters yet, but there are some things that make them very compelling and also open up some very big questions. But I will let you see for yourself, I have transferred the files to readpads for you and First Daughter.”

  “That is it, no, hints, tidbits, or hey, look out for this?” I asked.

  “I could have, but I think that there are some parts of this that need to be considered without fore-knowledge and should be thought through before we just blurt it out to the rest of the brothers and sisters,” said Lance, he was his usual serious self.

  It took me about a week to go through the clusters; there was a lot to absorb in reading them. I had difficulty accepting that this place, this rock in space had once been the home to billions of living people, like us. It was tragic that it ended for them as it did. I struggled to comprehend what it must have been like for those who survived the first few cycles after the meteor to have managed to carry on despite the events. And further, I am still wondering what did finally happen to those here at Romanica. It seemed obvious that they had survived the initial illness. The readpad that Lance had given me explained much, but it left some open questions.

  The part that Lance had not wanted to tell me was there, in about the middle of the files. Father, Krezz was here, on the planet and he knew of Asuna. He had visited her and others before. He also knew of Tom, and really many of the people of the camp. He had interacted with them. And in the end, I began to understand some of the why. But I still wondered why he had named me and Asuna the same as those two humans.

  First Daughter and I sat down and talked about what we had just read. There were many questions and many things that we just could not follow. The biggest thing was the simplest question; just who or what were we.

  We had set up our living pods on the site of the old camp. Some of us cleaned up the old camp and basically did an archeological study of the items that were there. We found devices that were used to what we believed were food preparation or consumption. Some of them were similar to what we had in our pods.

  I found it intriguing that they had two separate eating utensils as opposed to our one. They had a rounded device and also a device with 4 spikes or points to it. We simply had combined the two, shorter spikes, but built on the same rounded configuration. It was a much simpler and less wasteful use of materials.

  We also found a few containers that were brightly colored with images of “edibles” on the outside. Carefully, one was opened, it was called SPAM, it contained a pink mush, it smelled odd, actually, and it smelled tasty. We think that it was some form of synthetic food, but none of us were willing to taste it. We are used to our insect larva and the bland yeast based food we have eaten for so many years.

  As we emerged from our pods this morning, Lance raced over.

  “I have found something; I think we know where the camp people moved to. I have had hits on the beacon chips. I think that Fath…,” He looked around and then whispered, “I think it is or may be from Test Subject One and Two, but until we recover them, I cannot be sure.”

  “What, how…where?” I asked.

  “Okay, remember how Father always told us that Test Subject One and Two were returned to the planet years ago, and that they had originally come from the camp?” explained Lance. “Well what I did was send a bounce bing out just to see what would happen, and I got bongs back.”

  “Yes, but how do you know it is them?”

  “The ID chips were very specific, and it identifies them as those two subjects.”

  “Possibly a random bong return?” I asked.

  “Highly unlikely, the statistical chances of random return on both bongs at once are several billion to one.”

  “So how close are they, are they in the cemetery?” I asked, not really expecting so obvious a location.

  With a sour look Lance said, “No, but they are not that far away, maybe 50 of what were called miles.”
>
  “Great, now in terms of ship lengths what does that mean?” I asked,

  “Okay, sorry, I am getting over immersed in the local culture. A mile as they call it is about 2 ship lengths.”

  “So we could be at the site in less than one sweep,” I said thoughtfully

  “Yes, actually they called their sweeps, hours and they were further divided into what they called minutes. 60 minutes to an hour, and 24 hours to a day or disc rotation,” Lance added. “But yes, we could be there in 48 minutes if I figured correctly.”

  “Guess we should go see what this is about, have Steven and Frank prepare a sub-transport unit. You and I will go, and one of the protectors, Delta or Margot, should come along.”

  “If I may suggest, although we have lighting ability there is no real rush to go. The day cycle is nearly at an end and perhaps it would be wiser to wait to the beginning of the next day cycle. For some reason it seemed that the humans here always left for such missions in the early ah, morning,” Lance suggested.

  “That is a valid point, although we have not seen any reason for it, there must have been some benefit to that action. Okay, we will go in the morning, as you call it.”

  “And First Daughter, will she be going?” suggested Lance.

  “No, she will remain here, to command while I am gone.”

  We had our video conference at the usual time and I informed everyone of what had been found and what we were going to do in the ‘morning’.

  I guess I should explain the idea of the video conference, each night we, the 26 of us log onto our readpads and communicate the day or any events that have occurred. It is a planning session for upcoming actions and activities. If you think about it, it is loosely similar to the thing that the campers called ‘fire pit’ or ‘Vespers’, although they did it in person, around a pile of burning material at the flagpole, Face to face contact like that, intriguing.

  Cycle 37 (since arrival)

  In reading the ‘logs’ of the humans I noted that they kept a note or time marker on them. We have that automatically built into the readpads, but I find it kind of interesting to do. I shall add this to my entries. They apparently had a much more detailed method with what appeared to be a 30 or 31 cycle (days?) to a month, and 12 months to a loop, a loop seems to be a rotation around the star mass, or as they called it, the Sun. I think Father called it that also.

  We took the Sub-Transport to the location that Lance had traced the chip bong. It was in the top of a mountain near what used to be a town called Hadley, this is according to the maps we have discovered. There was a thread of concrete pavement that ran north to south nearby and I think that may have been what they called Eisenhower I-91.

  After searching the initial area we found that there was a large metal and glass entrance area that ran into the side of the mountain which lay at the end of an old paved road. There was a sign in front that read “Five College Library Underground Storage Archive. We were able to set our transport pods down near the front of the doors. The doors, although closed were not secured to prevent opening.

  Lance determined that there was no life reading, human life reading, in the area. We moved toward the beacon signal and found it was behind the doors. The doors swung open pretty easily. When we opened it there was a dank, sickly sweet smell that came from inside. Our checks showed that the air was breathable.

  Delta was the first through the door, followed by Frank, and then Steven. Lance and I waited outside as per protocol. We were least expendable and until the Protector told us it was safe, we waited.

  An all clear was given and Lance and I entered. We moved along the path that had been lay down by the advance group. They had marked the route with small glowing markers.

  Initially, we found bundles of paper called books, written books, on shelves; it appeared that there was some order to them. As we looked further at the books we received a beep.

  “You need to come and catch up. We have found something,” Said Delta over the comm-link.

  “It is in the direction of the beacon” interjected Lance.

  “On our way!” I transmitted to Delta.

  As we walked deeper into the archive we could see an underground wall with a large circular door, the wall was concrete I believe, it was about 30 feet high. The door had the ominous sign on it that said “US Air Force, Strategic Air Command, Authorized Entry Only.”

  The door was partially opened and as Lance and I moved through we saw that on the other side there was a tunnel, rounded or arched overhead. As we moved a little deeper, maybe forty steps or so, the hole, I think tunnel is the proper term, it became rock that had been bored into the mountain.

  We covered about 100 feet when we began to see rooms off the main tunnel, to the right and left. There was electronic equipment, but it seemed different than that which we had discovered at the camp. It seemed older, bulkier and as Lance pointed out, very energy hungry. But it was not the time to look at that, we needed to get to Delta and the others.

  We found them in a room off to the right. There was a little sign over the entry that said “Infirmary”, near the back of the room was a second door that said “Morgue”. This was the point of origin of the return bong. We had found Test Subject One and Two. There were others there too. All but one had been placed in what appeared to be metal drawers. It was from what we could tell the means by which the humans stored their deceased.

  Odd, I am not sure why one would store the deceased in this manner. When Father went to the sleep time he was placed into the recycle unit and his flesh, his water, his bones all used to create for the needs of others. In some ways this storage seems wasteful.

  There was one remaining human that was just sitting in a little chair. It was still reasonably intact, mummified I guess would be the best way to describe it. It appeared that he had deceased much later than those in the drawers. Perhaps he was the one who put the others into the drawers.

  Next to him was a stack of papers that were bound together and they were sitting on top of three small machines like we had found back at Romanica. But most interesting was that in that pile there was a readpad. It was discharged, but there may be some very important information on it. This must have belonged to the Test Subjects.

  We put him in a drawer as seemed to be the custom. Then we collected the papers and devices and left the tunnel. We will return later to search more but it would seem we have a good source of research material to begin with.

  The papers will be distributed among us, the 26, for reading and study. Lance will try to recharge the readpad and their electronic devices; I think they called them ‘laps’ or ‘laptops’.

  PAPERS and LAPS

  Lance, our Lance, was able to get the laps up and running and also was able to recharge the readpad. For the sake of sequencing we have arranged our readings as they did, based upon their date reference, blending each creator’s perspective on what was occurring for a given time stamp. Each had transcribed or used specific letter shapes (I am told that these were ‘fonts’). We shall continue to use that form to show authorship.

  July 26th

  (Lance, Captain Emo?) I wasn’t there when it started; Del and I were at the horse stable so we didn’t see the initial events but were told later what had happened. We all were starting our daily routines when the trucks came, two of them, semi-trailers. They crashed the gate.

  The first of the trucks careened into the dining hall, very near the kitchen area. The driver had jumped out just before the impact. He was a black guy in army clothes. He rolled on the ground and ran to the back of the truck and opened the doors. After that he just ran into the woods to the west of the camp.

  The second truck stopped near the flag pole, the driver of this one got out, walked to the back of the rig and opened the rear doors. He also pulled out one of the loading ramp. Then he ran to the west.

  In the initial shock, everyone stopped, looked and was at a loss of what to do, then, then Hell came. Out of the trailers po
ured Zoms, lots of them. Almost as one everyone raced for their weapons and the battle was on, somehow, someone had managed to ring the bell, ding, ding, ding, then again, ding, ding, ding, three rings meant something was wrong, bad wrong.

  Del and I had been on our way to breakfast from the horse farm and were close, we raced to camp. As Del and I rode up on Samurai and Shinigami, we could see Master Nick, his sword flashing and arching as he came out of the dining hall, Grace was not with him. He was alone, with a grim look of determination on his face.

  The Major was firing his 45, and yelling to get Heather to the medical building, “Lock her away, protect her at all costs”, he shouted to Steven. Mark and Michelle joined up with Steven and they held their ground.

  As we arrived it was not going well, the onslaught of the Zoms was driving everyone toward the water, it was 20 to 1, but they fought on. Del and I charged the big group from behind, slashing and cutting, we were able to make an impact as we swept from side to side of the horde, taking down 5 or 10 Zoms on each sweep. But that only worked for a few sweeps before they locked on to us. It was too dangerous to stay on the horses so we dismounted and tried to send them away, but they stayed with us, rearing up and crushing the undead with their hooves.

  Chels, damn her, she was fighting near us, then suddenly as I looked over, tears were running down her blood spattered face and she just lowered her rifle and walked into the arms and teeth of the Zom, I did not realize it at first but it was Pam, from Stanwix, it hit me, these were the Stanwix people.

  I did not have time to think more about it, it was now just fight to survive, just swing the sword, though my arms felt like lead, I just kept swinging, Del beside me.

  Explosions, fast and rapid, Zoms began to explode, not ones near us, but those to the back and sides of the horde.

  I don’t recall much else from the battle, but the after, the sending those shattered undead to rest and seeing what had happened to our people. Seeing who was safe, and who wasn’t.