Chapter 7

ID: 1762291   (Rated: 13+) Artifact Man  A thriller, new age, sci-fi novel about a strange man found in the desert. by Hyperiongate

ID: 1762428   (Rated: 13+) Chapter 6  Jack and Sheriff Tucker meet with Colonel Lanier to be briefed at Nellis AFB. by Hyperiongate

2:00 am, Wednesday, March 17th
Nellis AFB

Jack and Sam got their second ride in a Blackhawk helicopter shortly after Colonel Lanier had ended their meeting. He’d apparently told them as much as he intended to, at least for the time being. Once he was done speaking, he’d turned to the guards and said, “Please escort our guests back to their truck.” He then excused himself and left through a side door.

Colonel Lanier, as they would learn over the coming months was not one for small talk.

Now, as they approached the site where they had been “abducted”, Sam and Jack could both see that the Colonel had indeed started some balls rolling. The entire area was lit up like a high school football stadium. Semi-permanent structures were going up, along with several tents. Communication vehicles bristled with antenna. Four huge generators were providing power to the operation. Judging from the size of the units, Jack expected the power capacity at this hours-old site could supply all of Reno.

The men were “escorted” from the helicopter to Sam’s truck. Armed men stood nearby as Jack and Sam climbed into the cab. As soon as he could see the site in his rear view mirror, Sam tried to contact his office on his radio - nothing. That figured.

The cover story, part of the debriefing they were given on the flight back, was that the radio had broken down and their cell phone batteries were dead. Engine trouble completed the scenario. As the two men were to learn, attention to detail was one of Colonel Lanier’s trademarks. The radio was in fact broken. Their cell phones were returned to them as they left the helicopter; both had dead batteries. Sam suspected that if he were to look under the hood, he would find a newly installed fuel pump meant to replace the one that “failed”.

All that was left for them to do was go home. Sam dropped off Jack just after 4:00 a.m. It had been a long day. Both men had agreed when the colonel had asked them to keep the entire event to themselves. The one surprising exception was that the colonel had suggested that Jack discuss the situation with Dr. Marshall. A background check on her showed that she could be trusted. A preliminary psych appraisal indicated that she would be initially indignant but would go along with the secrecy and surveillance in the end.

Colonel Lanier briefed the two men with regards to Lise. Reading from a computer screen on his desk, he seemed to have access to everything there was to know about her. The two men could only shake their heads in wonder. Was there no information that Colonel Lanier couldn’t reach out and get should he decide that he wanted it? He appeared to have unlimited assets at the other end of his cell phone and now his computer was equally informed.

Jack wondered how accurate the data was that Colonel Lanier had on all of them. He laid out the scenario with Dr. Marshall as if there was no question about his assessment on how she would respond to the news of her surveillance. It felt like a huge invasion of privacy that the military could get such information so quickly.

He’d actually asked Lanier, “Isn’t it an invasion of privacy for the military to be able to gather so much information about citizen of the United States?”

Lanier looked up from his computer and said, “I’m not part of the military, at least not the way you think of the military” and continued on with his briefing as if he’d just explained everything.

The last thing the colonel had said to Jack was “I have arranged for you to be on Dr. Marshall’s calendar for lunch tomorrow at 2:30 this afternoon. That might be a good time to talk to her about all of this. Make sure to get some sleep first. This may be a tricky meeting and you will need to be at your best.”

How did he do that? Jack thought, not for the first time. Unlimited resources at work.

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Lise woke up late after the best night of sleep she could remember. She had fallen asleep with her mind bouncing between JD11 and reluctant fantasies about Jack Barton. That JD11 should take up space in her head, she understood. It was Jack that was the mystery. She couldn’t figure out what it was about that man. She had barely met him and yet he somehow had commandeered a disproportionate amount of her conscious thoughts. Sure, he’d already stood her up once, but it wasn’t like they’d had a date. He said he’d stop by, but it wasn’t really a commitment to do so.

This morning, in spite of her normal push to get to work as soon as possible, she lingered in the kitchen. There had been no midnight calls from the hospital; JD11 must be doing fine. She listened to the morning news on the radio while sipping her morning coffee. News of political unrest here and there along with the usual spat of natural disasters made her elect to spend the time quietly. She turned off the radio noting that the world certainly seemed to be in more and more turmoil with each passing day.

Her day unfolded in her mind. She could see that the day would be filled with excitement. There was JD11 who presented endless opportunities to learn. Thoughts of Jack Barton popped in yet again. She found herself hoping he would come by but, at the same time, she kept her expectations low. He probably wasn’t available anyway. For all she knew, he was a married ex-convict out on bail.
Lise dressed quickly, anxious to get to the hospital and see how her patient was doing.


Noon, Wednesday, March 17th
75 miles east of Reno

Colonel Wes Lanier climbed out of the helicopter. It was time to make his first inspection of what had come to be known as Artifact Camp. It had been less than twenty-four hours since they had received the first call from Sheriff Tucker. The progress was impressive. A dozen tents were set up for his troops. Excavation around the artifact was well under way.

Colonel Lanier had barely finished his tour when he got his first visitor. Dr. Szokoly was the senior scientist on the colonel’s staff. It had been a dream job. Nowhere else on earth could one be exposed to so many physical anomalies than when working for the mysterious Colonel Wes Lanier.

Dr. Szokoly had been brought in late last night to supervise the unearthing of the artifact buried under the sand. This had started out as a rather straight forward job. The plan was to excavate it and then, depending on its size, find a way to move it to the laboratory at the Colonel’s secure facility at Nellis.

At first, they were expecting a disk about five yards across with some reasonable thickness. After a few hours of digging, they had finally got the entire thing uncovered. It turned out to not be a disk, but a cylinder. It had the expected five yard diameter but it was buried in the sand down to a depth of fifteen feet.

“Colonel Lanier, you are not going to believe this.”

Wes sat back in his chair and waited. He had known the doctor long enough to know that he got excited rather easily. He also knew that one had to let the doctor tell whatever he had to tell in his own way. Pressing him to get quickly to the point only seemed to increase the doctor’s joy in stretching things out. Wes considered that his senior doctor may be a savant; hopelessly underdeveloped in every skill not involving science.

The doctor paused waiting for Wes to ask for more information. He loved holding others in suspense. It made revealing his findings all the more exciting. When Wes just sat there, Szokoly had no other choice than to proceed.

“Well, as you know, we have a rather large cylinder out there. Up until a few minutes ago, it was being held up by a significant amount of lumber and such. We didn’t want it to fall over and become damaged. Anyway, as we were maneuvering the crane into place, one of the supports was accidentally hit by the crane. It broke, causing a cascading failure of the total support system.”

Wes interrupted, “So are you going to tell me that you broke our artifact?”

Szokoly was so excited he was almost jumping up and down and clapping his hands. He had Wes right where he wanted him. It was time for the surprise. “No. What I am telling you is that the artifact didn’t fall over. As a matter of fact, it never moved an inch as everything around it collapsed.”

“So it’s okay then; sounds like we got lucky. Is there anything else?”

“Well, yes, there is one small detail.” Szokoly paused before continuing, “It seems, Colonel that our artifact is not subject to the laws of gravity as we understand them. You see, it is down there, in the pit, not supported by anything, including the ground. It is floating in midair.”

ID: 1762796   (Rated: E) Chapter 8  Jack tells Dr. Marshall about the strange circumstances surrounding her patient. by Hyperiongate