-Prologue-
“In the beginning... There is always a beginning, preceded by an ending.
It's just how the world works. The distinction is, we aren't always
around to see it.”
Prof. J Higginbottom III.
In one of the remotest regions of India, a place nestled between the mountain ranges of the Himalayas, and the town of Kalimpong, a particularly intense Monsoon season of 2013 brought devastation all across the northern half of India. Entire villages are swept aside in roaring torrents of mud and water. Fertile hillsides, nestled at the feet of the Himalayas are rearranged and what was once hidden is exposed.
Like the poor shepherds of the Dead Sea region who threw pebbles into caves trying to flush his goats out of their noon day resting spots, a father and son desperately are trying to rescue the last of their herd of goats which had climbed a convenient hillside to get out of the daily deluge. The men stumble across something that should not have been there. Aarav and his father Arjun Patel found part of the hillside had been swept aside in the monsoon floods, leaving behind a gaping maw which upon first blush looked nothing more than a natural cave which had been exposed. It was however the cast concrete steps leading downwards into the darkened interior which gave the man pause. It was the right angles of the sides of the cave and the rust stains of something which looked like won bolts had been hammered into the back circular opening which ran downward to a dark tunnel. But the thing that really set their hair on edge was the set of steps molded into the downward passage which made them question whether or not they should be there. After rounding up the last of their goats, the father and son went in search of their local police chief.
Shortly thereafter the police chief was convinced the pair had stumbled upon a possible secret project which had gone long unknown, possibly from the dark days of the Sino-Indian war from the early nineteen sixties. After rolling the problem around in his head for eighteen hours, he came to the conclusion, the discovery and therefore the responsibility was above his pay grade he did what any good policeman would do in his position. He called his cousin in Delhi who worked in the Department of Forestry.
Twenty minutes of hurried and frantic conversation later, a normally tame, never leaving his cubicle, sort of typical faceless Indian bureaucrat summoned his minute amounts of courage, to walk the three hundred meters to offices of the Internal Bureau of Security. Known in certain circles as the dark men who did dark deeds for the safety and security of all.
As luck would have it, the Minister for Security was on his way out of his office to have a late luncheon with the Chinese Trade Delegation to India.~An elegant non-specific name which as anyone who was in the business, knew was their generic name which the Chinese used as a cover to conduct covert activities inside of India and her territories.
When “Top Secret” and “Possible Missile Facility” were uttered in Minister Malhotra's presence by a sweating and visibly shaking bald man with film covered spectacles, the minister's sense of self-preservation went into overdrive. Snapping his fingers, his two deadly competent Sikh bodyguards grabbed the terrified man before he had time to so much as soil himself and whisked him into a back office, where Minister Malhotra began interrogating the man as gently as possible.
“I have wrung him dry like a wet dishcloth. If he held anything back, I am certain to be born as a cancerous carbuncle on the ass of a leprous goat in my next incarnation. Shit! I have phone calls to make.” Malhotra fumed in his inner voice.
After making his apologies to his regular Wednesday luncheon partner; a certain highly ranked Army General officer in the Ministry of Defense, who also happened to be Minister Malhotra college roommate at Eton, received a text message for a “Polo Match'' which was a shared code old friends had invented which mean they needed to have a meeting. The two of them met for a gin and tonic at the Delhi Derby. It was an off track time, which meant that instead of four million people present, there were only a couple hundred thousand.
The two men sat high in the stands under the shade, where a breeze gave the illusion of being cooler than the hard pack dirt surrounding the viewing stands which seemed to radiate heat in waves.
The General didn't want to waste much time. “What is this about? I am having supply issues for our Allies in Sri Lanka, as I am trying to arrange a shipment of toys for them.”
“I had an unexpected report come literally walking into my office this morning. A bunker complex or something similar has been found exposed due to the monsoon in a location just north of Kalimpong.”
“So why bother me?”
“I am activating Dr. Saronjini Asthan, from our Antiquities, Research & Analysis branch.”
The General, who had a large handlebar mustache waxed into the long oiled beard of his religion raised his eyebrows. “Really? The ARA? Do you think this 'cave' warrants you activating your group?”
“I do. The report I had this morning, and an email later with pictures of the site, convinced me this is something ARA will need to investigate. Because I have run a discreet inquiry through all of our records, and therefore your records as well. It shouldn't be there. We didn't build it and I know for a certainty Britain didn't build it. Under the guise of an archaeological research team I am going to activate her. I am also going to need operational security. And I want those mad men in the Special Frontier Force providing security.” Holding up his hand to stop a denial, “My friend you forget who I am. I know they didn't get disbanded. If this is what I think it is, then we need to clear and contain the entire site and probably a large chunk of the region as well. I can't have my people just show up, we need the disguise of a noted academic. If we sent one of our regular teams in it would alert our friends and even more importantly our enemies that something special was discovered. So spare me the denials. I plan on having my folks on site by sundown tomorrow. That gives you plenty of time to move your SFF into the region.”
The Sikh General bristled, and his eyes flashed angrily until he saw one of his oldest friends was deadly serious. He also didn't like to acknowledge the SFF was still a viable operational unit, as they had been doing dirty deeds in China for three decades and the last operation they got caught sneaking back into the country causing no end of political bullshit he had been forced to swallow.
“You say this warrants my people. Then I will take your word for it. But since they are my men, I want regular briefings of what they find. If it is an Artifact or Artifact repository, then it will be of interest to me, and to the defense of our country.-Deal?”
“Deal! But they are under the nominal command of Dr. Sarojini Asthan.”
Grumbling, the Sikh General stuck out his hand. The two men finished their drinks, talked about the coming racing season which was to start in a few weeks time, exchanged pleasantries and went their separate ways.
*****
Dr. Sarojini Asthan had gotten in late the night before after two months in the field, following up one tantalizing clue which just seemed to lead to another. The Monsoon was almost over, which meant in Rajasthan didn't get much rain but it got humidity and oppressive heat by the camel load. She had come in just staggering from fatigue, turned on her air conditioner (a true luxury.) Crawled into bed with a tumbler of Arrack taking up residence in her belly, and passed out.
She was in the middle of a really good Ungdayee... the kind of stretch you take when you are tired in a good sort of way, have rested soundly and are being lazy about getting your body vertical. In short the best kind of stretch, and then the damn Sat-Phone rang.
“Shit! Assholes! Why can't you leave me alone? I was in the field! Two damn months.” She yelled to the ceiling of her apartment in the old fort the government had secured for one of their leading antiquities researchers.
The phone continued to ring. Running out of her bedroom to the small living room with the private veranda overlooking the foothills of the Thar desert, she managed to answer the phone before it rang on the seventh time. (She wasn't supposed to let it ring more than six times. As this was one of many potential signals she was in distress.)
A mechanical robotic voice announced that security and scrambling protocols were now in place and her caller would be connected shortly.
A few moments later the oily smooth voice of the director of Internal Bureau Security said her name. “Sarojini, how are you today?”
“Two months cleaning myself with a rag from a bucket! I am tired and in a shitty mood. Thank you very much.” She all but yelled into the phone, as she tried to comb out the tangles in her wavy hair.
Walking to her bureau by the door leading to her bedroom, she pulled out a brush and peered into the mirror looking at her eyes, “Not bad looking for an old spinster pushing forty five.” Her eyes were still striking as ever with their gold highlights, but this day they were shot red with fatigue and the remnants of her sleep aid from the night before. Trying to clean up her image she missed what the Minister had said.
“Wait a second. Back up. I am still not tracking yet. I haven't had my morning cup of Tea. Repeat the last bit.”
“Sarojini, we think we found A place from before...”
'Before' was shorthand for something special. A time before time. A time when giants of myth once walked the earth.
“Where? Where was it discovered?”
“North of Kalimpong. Nestled in the mountain slopes of the Himalayas. Deep in Sikkim, high up on a hillside. It seems to be a large tunnel or even a bunker complex. We are going to go with a chemical weapon repository from the old Sino-Indian war of '62 that was off the books. If it isn't anything of importance, the ARA will send up some 1st century Buddhist artifacts and we can claim it is an old hermitage. But I have some images you need to see. So go put your phone in its dock.”
Sarojini, obediently placed her phone in a special docking station slaved to her computer. A series of green lights flashed into life as the Minister downloaded data and images. Soon her computer screen flashed to life with a text account of what was found, and several close up images of right angles and what looked like poured in place concrete.
Picking up the phone she noticed something in the last close up, “Minister is that concrete? For a cave I would expect more of a fluid natural look, but this looks man made.
“It appears the same to me. Right down to the steps leading down to Shiva only know what. Which is why you are being activated. That's not some sort of iron deposit, that looks like the remains of bolts or other metal that has rusted away till it is just stains on the sides of the walls.
“Are those stalagmites running down the wall?”
“Yes, as close as I can tell. You have an undergrad degree in geology. How long does it take to form Stalagmites”
“Oh shit!” She thought. “Umm, depending on their size between ten to twenty thousand years. They take a long time, and you have to find out what the percolation rate is for the geology you are studying and then that gives you a baseline to model from.”
“So you then concur with me, we are looking at Stalagmites affixed to a concrete wall... which means the Stalagmites didn't come first. They are attached to...”
The implications rolled over Sarojini's thoughts,“How long have I got before I have to leave?”
“I started assets rolling to your house when I called you. You have enough time to shower and pack your bags again. I have a Mil-17 waiting on you. Your team and anyone else I can think of will meet you halfway at your first refueling. Better get your body in motion!”
“Yes sir.” Sarojini didn't even bother to wait for the operator to break down the connection.
“Oh God's Goddesses!” She screamed in her head, as thoughts raced through her brain considering the implications of finding possible artifacts from what she and her colleagues called “The Before Time.”
Twenty minutes later two incredibly polished muscular young men with eyes as hard as obsidian showed up at her front door, and quickly escorted her to an agency Land Rover with the customary opaque windows. Another thirty minutes found her being hustled aboard a Russian made Mil-17 helicopter, one of the newer variations outfitted with bigger engines for use at high altitudes. They flew through the setting sun into the night.
Somewhere around midnight they landed and the hypnotic and mind numbing beat of the helicopter blades changed pitch as they slowed and then began making their descent to some military base in the middle of nowhere. Refueling teams ran out from the shadows, as the rear cargo ramp split open to allow the thirty or so individuals who made up her full complement of trained and more importantly security cleared researchers and archaeological experts.
They flew on through rough weather hitting waves of turbulence which had everyone in the cabin ready to sick up. But they were steady folks used to long deployments under harsh environments and even rougher travel methods. Dawn found them descending down through a murky congestion of rain, fog and at the higher elevation freezing rain. SFF troops had during the night, used a field expedite method of wrapping detonation cord around the base of a dozen trees in a circle and blowing a temporary landing zone in the jungle where they could land unobserved.
Looking out the gray fog of the morning, Dr. Sarojini Asthan's view quickly became clouded by a green tornado of vegetable matter as they landed amongst the shattered tree stumps. As their helicopter's engines spooled down from its long night of flying across the width of India, tiger stripe camouflage men stepped from the shadows.
A man wearing the three stars of an Army Captain walked up to the striking medium sized woman with the wavy auburn hair, who's amber and brown eyes took in all the detail around her. She carried a military style backpack over one arm and was in the process of ending a satellite phone conversation with the other.
“Welcome Dr. Asthan to the Himalayas and what the locals call the “Cloud Kingdom.” He shouted over the whine of the turbines spooling down.
“Thank you Captain?”
“Patel Dr. Just Patel.”
“Well Just Patel, for the rest of my time here you can call me Colonel Asthan.” Sarojini reached into her bush jacket pulled out a red leather tooled flip wallet and opened it up, showing her commission in the Army with a seconded posting to Intelligence.
The Captain Saluted, “At your service ma'am. I have transportation laid on for you and your team.” He replied as he turned away from her and made a gesture that she should follow him.
“Wait Captain. I have delicate instruments aboard that helicopter, and they need to be loaded on your trucks with a great deal of care. They should be handled like high explosives, and know if they are damaged, I will have your soldier's balls with my Nan and curry for tomorrow's tea.”
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Nodding his head, Captain Patel again made the gesture for her to follow him. “I'll see to it personally. We have a short drive and I will brief you on the way.”
He led her to a military four by six cargo truck with an extended cab. Once he got her and her two assistants loaded into the back seat of the large truck, he went off to give instructions to his men for the loading of the Colonel's precious cargo.
Less than ten minutes later Sarojini and her two assistants were drinking from mugs of sweet black Darjeeling tea and munching on still warm from the fryer Sel Roti rolls. It began to rain as they climbed the hills driving parallel to the old British built narrow gauge railroad which once was the only connecting artery from India, to Sikkim and then on to Nepal. The road, rough in the best of times, was soon like driving through a river of mud and shifting sand bars as flooding left large reefs of washed soil in their paths.
“This place we are going to Colonel is not easy to get to. The terrain with this abysmally long Monsoon, has made it a sorry, soggy hike. We will initially have to carry your equipment up by hand or arrange with the locals for the use of their water-buffalo to help carry the load, if that is you don't want to have the attention a helicopter will bring. We did however manage to secure an olive drab tarp over the cover of the tunnel and then used a camouflaged net to further disguise it from any casual observers and overhead satellites which might be passing by. I will have flight times tomorrow for the eyes in the sky satellite passses.”
The rest of that morning was in fact a brutal slog up the wet mountainside. Everything was wet, or getting rained upon. The trail such as it was, had turned to a small creek as water following the path of least resistance ran down the hillside. When they did eventually arrive it was to a semi-dry cave entrance, where electric field generators had been brought in and were providing electricity for lights and electric field heaters. The SFF force quickly stored the equipment on one side and erected a set of cots on the other. It was decided since most of the team was jet-lagged, tired and wet, further exploration of the “cave” would have to wait until morning.
*****
Two weeks later. Having spent most of her time underground, Dr. Sarojini Asthan emerged, at the end of a glorious early fall evening. She stood outside and inhaled the scents of Deodar trees, with their resinous offering, mixed with the smell of Magnolia blossoms which had fallen and were now subtly perfuming the air. Down slope of her, even with the destruction of the flash floods she could see the Lizard Tail Chameleon plants steadfastly working their way through new soil. The sky was turning a particular deep shade of purple endemic to the Himalayas themselves as the Sun's photons were losing their energy and the mountainside behind her began glowing pink with cotton candy clouds cloaking their peaks.
She flipped her phone open and dialed a very long and complex number from memory. The mechanical voice answered and began contact protocols used with every conversation that happened with this particular number.
“Hello Sarojini. What did you find?” The oily smooth voice of her boss, Minister Malhotra chief minister for the Internal Bureau of Security asked.
“To quote someone famous, I saw wondrous things.” A smile crept into her voice.
“How wondrous?”
“Well every single one of those pseudo-scientists, UFO freaks and those racists who believe little brown skinned people of the world were never smart enough or advanced enough to have created what we have, would have to eat a massive amount of Crow, if what we have here is ever made public; And I am not advocating that by any stretch of the imagination. The short of it is, you need to come here and see what we have found for yourself. It is the Lost Library of Alexandria, Durga's Treasures, King Solomon's mines, the Ark of Covenant and anything else you can think of combined into four centimeter by four centimeter cubes.”
“What in the world are you babbling about?”
“We found something so valuable the rest of the world would kill us all to get their hands on it. That's the best I can tell you over the phone, even one as encrypted as this is. From this point on, I will no longer be making any reports that aren't passed by hand. If I could, I would have you bulldoze the entrance closed with me and about hundred researchers into the tunnel complex with enough food for five years and call it good.”
“I'll be there tomorrow.”
“Bring your checkbook with you. You are going to need it.”
*****
The following morning another Mil-17 helicopter, this time painted all black, landed in the same LZ Dr. Sarojini Asthan had weeks earlier. The SFF had made improvements to the site. Seismic detectors had gone up and the rough game trail had been cleaned, widened and reinforced so that it appeared to look like a garden path. Although the path itself was now covered in Infrared camouflage tarps and netting. Saplings had been planted on the rock fall, and the place was rapidly returning to a semi-wild state which by the time winter finished the following spring, the casual observer and most spy-sats would have a hard time detecting anything had ever happened.
All evidence of a modern presence had been wiped clean of the entrance. Hand painted Buddhist murals lined the walls, and the entrance to the subterranean realm beneath their feet was made to look like an ancient 1st century Buddhist hermitage. The back tunnel had been walled off with a wooden door with a warning written in Hindi stating there was an open mine shaft on the other side of the door.
Dr. Sarojini Asthan, had somehow found a fresh pair of khaki slacks, green rough silk blouse and had someone clean her trademark khaki colored bush jacket. She was waiting on her boss, and fidgeting with excitement as she anticipated what her team had discovered. Captain ‘Just’ Patel had ordered the rest of his company back to duty. The woods and mountainside fairly crawled with special operations killers.
“Gods above I hope I have done enough.” Worried thoughts in her mind chased each other like a tiger chasing its own tail. Then her boss was present in the flesh. Despite the cool weather, he was blowing and sweating from the hike up the mountain side.
Smiling her best smile, the one only reserved for potential lovers, she held out her hand and helped Minister Malhotra over the threshold of the temporary door of the 'cave.' “Minister, I am so happy you could make it.”
He grimaced a bit as he wiped his face. “What have you got for me Doctor?”
“I think what we have found will impress. Please follow me.”
Turning on her heels she walked to the wooden door, opened it and stepped onto a platform. She flicked a switch and a series of construction style temporary lights dropped below her feet in a soft curving tunnel like a soft glowing yellow caterpillar. Down a series of scaffold stairs they descended until they reached a curve in the tunnel and another platform had been erected.
They crossed over to the second platform where Sarojini turned and pointed upwards in the direction they had come. “See Minister. The tunnel is curved. It is also poured in place concrete. Notice the one section where it is cracked. The reinforcing ribs held. We can only imagine the stresses this facility has withstood of the thousands of years it has been here.”
He grunted as the enormity of the curved tunnel made itself known. “Maybe Sarojini, the ancient stories about tunnels in the Himalayas leading to Shambala have a tiny grain of truth?”
"They might indeed have a grain of truth. Or in this case a very large tunnel."
They turned to the last set of stairs and climbed down several more stories. Till they found themselves facing a large circular entrance which opened at the top of a nine meter deep tunnel. There was one last set of steps affixed to a scaffolding. They climbed down to the lowest level.
“Minister we brought a digital surveyor with us, just like the ones they use in the coal mines in the USA and gold fields in South Africa. In mining terms what we just climbed down through is called a 'ventilation stope.' And now we are standing in what would naturally call a tunnel but is in fact the main 'drift' with side 'drifts' leading out from here in regular distances. This main drift has been excavated by some sort of Tunnel Boring Apparatus similar to what they used to create the Chunnel across the English Channel. If you look closely you can still see where a circular drill face has scarred the rock.”
Using a flashlight or torch which had been set next to the scaffolding, Sarojini pointed upwards and it looked like clawed fingers had dug deep into the rock formation above their heads like a child might dig through soft clay.
“The main drift is uniformly nine meters by nine meters. The side drifts we have been able to explore are exactly half that size and bear the same type of excavation scars.”
By this time the duo had walked to where an Army field tent had been set up, with portable generators which were quietly chuffing away in the background. Walking into the font part of the tent they passed what was obviously crew sleeping quarters quartered off with blankets for privacy. Through this section straight to the back where the back half of the tent had been converted to a field lab. Several laptops, microscopes and a mass spectroscopy-photo-meter sat next to a chromatography unit. Along the back wall was a laptop with two stools and something bulky under the cover of a cotton tablecloth.
“The team brought with us a digital surveyor as I said earlier. It has been making wire frame maps of the entire region we have been able to reach.” Sarojini touched a button on the laptop and then scrolled down through a menu to select a file, and the screen loaded a wire frame movie of the underground complex.
Pointing to the screen, “As you can see Minister this place is extensive. The main drift goes back under the mountain for almost a kilometer from where we are now. Running in the opposite direction it goes only about half a kilometer before it terminates in a massive cave in.”
The digital movie played and as its images flowed it gave the viewer the sensation they were flying just above the tunnel floor.
“We also discovered several more ventilation stopes. Each one goes just a few meters past the main drift and terminates in a rock slide. In these instances though it doesn't look like it was natural. The rocks bear evidence of severe fracturing, as if they were blown in place. Possibly to either keep someone from getting in or the occupants from getting out.”
“Why did you say it was like opening up King Tut's tomb?” Minister Malhotra said even with the wonder of what had been constructed right in front of him, he was tired and the uniqueness of the situation was wearing off, as one bunker looked pretty much like any other bunker. Although to be fair this one was bigger than any he had ever been in beforehand.
“If you don't mind for a moment, I did some rough calculations on the flowstone and stalagmites we have found in the chambers that have failed due to tectonic forces. My best estimates are roughly 20 to 30,000 years old. With a plus or minus factor of 5,000 years on the older side of the equation.”
“Thirt thousand years! That's preposterous! Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Any trained geologist with a simple eight Rupee calculator can tell you how long it takes. And they can tell you just as 'We' both suspected from the initial pictures, the stalagmites were formed after the integrity of the tunnels and side drifts were compromised.”
“I'll let that set with you for a moment. Poor Drevas, an engineer on my staff, had such a hard time with it, it took almost a liter of Raksi your SFF lads smuggled in to calm his nerves."
“Shiva! I think I could use a shot myself.”
Sarojini reached under the table without saying a word and pulled a small brown jug and two small earthenware cups and set them on the table top. She uncorked the bottle and poured a clear liquid into both cups.
“ acchī sehat ke liye!” She said as she threw her shot back, where it promptly burned its way down her throat and landed with a soft thump which made her insides warm and fuzzy.
Parroting his investigative lead, the minister did the same. Both sat in silence feeling the Nepali rocket fuel smooth away the rough edges on their nerves.
Pouring two more shots, Dr Sarojini Asthan gulped hers down and said, “So we were forced to follow the main drift in the opposite direction. It led us to an obviously reinforced bunker within a bunker position.” She pressed the play button and the wire frame showed the face of what looked like a bulging wall with odd sunken view slits. “Reminds me of the Maginot Line, I saw when I was in France back in the mid nineteen nineties.”
The wire frame video panned up and down and side to side looking for an accessible entrance.
“We were lucky enough to notice the side wall had cracked. So we brought in pneumatic hammering equipment and chiseled our way in. And that is when we found these little beauties.”
Sarojini pulled the cotton table-cover off the objects which had been neatly stacked on her work bench.
“Ta da! I give you the memory cores of whomever once lived in this place!”
There, stacked like over sized sugar cubes sat two dozen four centimeter by four centimeter smoky crystalline or glass squares.
“How do you know they contain data?”
“Remember I told you we had brought a digital surveyor with us? It made the video we have been watching. Before anything or any persons have entered a room, we set it up in the entrance and make a scan of the area. When its low level laser struck the first cube, it began for lack of a better word, emitting images and strange letters or symbols.”
Reaching over to the side of her laptop, Sarojini picked up a simple cheap laser pointer people world wide used to tease and terrorize their house cats with. She held one of the cubes up in her left hand.
“Watch this.”
The laser pointer emitted its weak beam into the matrix of the cube. Like a mirrored disco ball in a club the cube began emitting images and some form of writing all over the walls and ceiling of the field lab.
“Rudy, my engineering guy informs me that what we are looking at, is some form of highly advanced data storage unit. Scanning it with the microscope he has tentatively identified layers upon layers of densely packed DNA strands. Incidentally he only figured this out, because he has a cousin who works in the film industry and one of the film companies has been investing millions in encoding 'simple' DNA strands with movies for a more compact and long lasting storage solution. He estimates there are billions of strands inside. He is not a software engineer or a programmer, but he estimates each one of these cubes represents a Petabyte of storage or 10-15th power.”
“I uhhh hmmm what would that represent? I'm not a computer engineer so what would be a comparison I could understand?”
“If you filled one of these cubes with music from say an Mp3 player it would take you two thousand years to listen to all the music if you played it non stop twenty four hours a day.”
“My god!” Stammering... How many of these cubes did you find?”
“We found over twelve hundred of them locked away in the vault. Some have been encapsulated in flow stone. Some were crushed by falling rock at the back of the chamber. Others were scratched up by water and sand and their surfaces are like a CD disc that has been scratched. Whatever storage racks they had been placed in are gone. Metal or organic doesn't matter, twenty thousand plus years put paid to their existence and yet... These little beauties remain.”
“Can you make any sense of what you are seeing?”
“No. Sadly not now. We need to break up the cubes and send them to separate investigation and research stations. We need to find a primer. The symbols we have found look like a combination of the Harappan and Proto-Dravidian inscriptions we have found in Mohenjo-daro along with additions that to my mind look like Sumerian.”
“So then the language is lost to us then?”
“No, it's not lost. To mangle an Americanism, it's like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles.”
Holding up one cube which had been sitting off to one side, “This one doesn't seem to have the same 'denseness' if that is the correct word to use? The other data bricks have massive amounts and or density of data stored. With this one however, we have been able to locate the odd video file. It shows the same woman or someone we think of as the same woman in various stages of her life. But we can't figure out how to pull the data out.”
Grabbing a notepad and a pen, Sarojini drew a cube. Then drew a cross with its arms extending through the cube. “Minister, according to Rudy, he seems to 'think' the DNA memory is layered in dense compacted layers all throughout the X and Y axis of the cubes. But without a target reference point which would give us a Z axis we don't know where to start accessing the data. It would be like opening a random book to a random page, looking at symbols or letters and reading or trying to read a few lines and then expect to know what the whole book is about.”
“What have you discovered in the other bricks?”
“Technical data. It looks to my eyes like engineering drawing in one cube, and others look like circuitry. Humongous amounts of data, but until we figure out how to pull an audio file or find something to make a primer, we could be looking at the schematics of a toaster oven. It is beyond what we can do here.”
The minister sat for a few moments with his chin in his hands lost in thought. “Right! That's it then. Pack it up. Pack it all up. Label the technical bricks from ones that seemed to be of historical records and we will distribute them throughout our various think tanks and our R&D labs. Outstanding and excellent work Sarojini. I want full reports and I think we will continue to find out as much as this facility will tell us. Are you willing to keep working here? I don't mind sending you to the odd and strange place, but I think this is definitely the strangest place I have ever asked you to investigate and the weirdest place no one will ever know about.”
*****
PRESENT TIME
At a secret Research and Development Lab run by and staffed by the ISB, a quiet reception and video presentation is undergoing. Dr. Sarojini Asthan found herself sitting in a quiet viewing room, enjoying the luxury setting, sipping on a flute of champagne, knowing that 1% of the most secure and verifiable brains of her country were about to see something no one had witnessed in 30,000 years.
The lights in the theater dim, and an image springs to life. A small woman who looks very modern and very Indian speaks in a soft sibilant voice in a language which has been silent for thirty thousand plus years. Running beneath her image is a scrolling script of a series of captions with modern words which substitute for words and phrases the linguistics people had yet to decipher.
“Hello my name is Tamari Kapoor and this is my story...”