The Twelve Stones (40 page)

The
T
ruck
hit a pothole
, bouncing
Alex hard off the pavement once again, snapping his collarbone as he gasped in pain. He looked up, the road upside down to his perspective. He was out of time
;
the line of cars waiting for the construction crew was less than
500
feet away. He swallowed and jammed his right hand into the undercarriage
,
hitting the computer Scott had showed him earlier that night and yanking at all the cables he could feel. Two of them came off in his hand
.
H
e fell onto the highway. Losing his handhold, Alex shot out from underneath the truck, rolling across the highway and onto the side of the road.

Scott’s screen lit up as the autopilot was disengaged.

“
That’s my boy!” Scott screamed happily as the truck sped towards the line of traffic.
A
s the Hypertruck sped towards the wall of cars
, Scott slammed on the brakes
. Only at the last second did the Hypertruck’s tires come to a halt behind a luxury BMW, its owner chatting away on his cell phone
,
blissfully ignorant to how close he had come to being a smoking heap of German
-
engineered rubble.

Breathing quickly, the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Scott used a shaky hand to put the
T
ruck back into gear and moved it to the side of the road. Alex walked up next to him and leaned against the
T
ruck
,
folding his arms as he did so. The stone glowed slightly underneath his shirt as his wounds finished healing.

“
You said you were gonna drive all night
,
” Alex said accusingly. “What happened to that?”

“
I got tired
,
” Scott said
,
shrugging. “How’s the…”

Alex looked at his torn
-
up clothes, missing shoe
,
and a scar that was just finished healing. “I’m fine.”

Scott’s eyes fell to the ground as he hung his head in shame. “I’m sorry
,
Alex
.
I
t’s never done that to me before. I dunno what happened.”

Alex’s face softened as he watched his chastened friend apologize. He wasn’t the type to stay mad. Besides
,
the stone was there for a reason.

“
Hey, as long as you don’t get mad at me for ripping your Pearl Jam
T
-shirt, I think we can call it even.” Alex clasped his hand on Scott’s back reassuringly.

Scott’s face lit up and he nodded. “Fair trade.”

A hawk, its wings beating the air quickly, caught up with Alex and Scott landing next to the pair. A purple flash, and suddenly Siobhan was there
,
screaming her Irish head off.

“
What the hell kind of crap
’d
you boys get me into? I’m not here to play nursemaid to a bunch of geeky computer nerds and their stupid toys! You’d best get your heads together, because you have no idea
o’
the evil that ye’ be facing ahead of ye…”

In her anger, Siobhan’s Irish accent was beginning to show itself. Until now, Alex could have sworn she had been born and raised in Southern California. But with her heated temper, and the curses flying, Alex felt like he was back in the old country.

“…
and don’t ye forget it!”
s
he screeched, her cheeks colored like two red apples, her faced flushed with the exertion of yelling at Scott.

Scott, who had taken the bulk of her screaming, swallowed and looked apologetically at her. “I’m sorry about that. The road sensors on the front of the Hypertruck got all gunked up with bug guts and dirt and stuff.” He
indicated the front bumper
,
which was covered in a generous smear of
yellow and brown bug guts
.
More bug guts covered the entire sensor bar
. Scott looked at Siobhan guiltily.

“
I’m sorry
;
I’m a lab guy, not a test engineer. I never thought about
road muck on the sensors
.”

Her face faded, and she began to sweetly smile at him once again.

“
Apology accepted.”

Alex spoke as he rolled his shoulder, testing to see if his stone had healed all the damage.

“
How far are we from SETI?” Alex asked, testing his shoulder.

“
About an hour. But we need to stop so I can fix the computer on the truck…”

Alex cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Do what it takes to get this thing fixed and back on the road again.”

“
Besides,” Alex added looking off into the distance, a worried expression coming over his face. “I have a feeling we don’t have much time left.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When dealing with titans of industry,
Geoffrey knew,
your best tactic is to treat them as if they were an
800-
pound gorilla. For the most part, whatever they want is what goes. Kline was no exception to Geoffrey’ rule. During the ride back, Kline refused to speak to him or answer any of his many questions.

Once in the chopper, Geoffrey had attempted to talk about what he had seen at JPL, but Kline had ignored him, waving him off. He took the rebuke in silence, unsure of how to proceed. Geoffrey decided it was best to stick to the rule and let the man have the silence he asked for.

The main reason Kline had hired him was Geoffrey’ uncanny ability to access information that most could never find. Kline's business thrived on information, and Geoffrey always did whatever necessary to ensure the man had what he needed.

But this time, Geoffrey’ research on the man from the desert had come up empty.
Having exhausted
all the
I
nternet and computer files he had at his disposal,
he could only determine that
Alex McCray was a ghost. No record of the man past 2006 existed. It was strange.

It was killing Geoffrey to not ask about the strange and obvious connection between McCray's stone and Kline's. One gave Kline his incredible strength
;
the other gave Alex a healing ability unlike anything he had seen his entire life. He had watched as his men had pumped round after round into the man’s face, chest and legs
.
N
o one could survive that sort of onslaught without some sort of divine intervention.

Finally, after short ride over the San Bernardino Mountains, they landed once again at the Joshua Tree Mesa, where this time, the sun was beginning to rise, tingeing the horizon with pink.

Kline exited the helicopter and nodded towards Geoffrey
,
indicating he should follow him. Geoffrey swallowed.
Alone time with the boss,
he thought to himself
.
H
ooray.

Geoffrey trailed his boss into his luxurious office with some trepidation. Kline had a legendary temper and was known to strike down anyone who had angered him, which is why all of the men on Kline’s payroll were paid incredibly well. It was insurance to have his orders followed, no matter how strange they might be. As Kline’s right
-
hand man, Geoffrey was making a seven
-
figure income, which in his book paid for quite a bit of loyalty. However, Geoffrey was well aware that his loyalty was in no way a two
-
way street.

The only thing that made Geoffrey feel good about walking into Kline’s trailer alone was that the billionaire had already had several chances to kill him, and yet, he hadn’t.

Kline walked straight towards his desk at the other end of the office and buried himself in paperwork, rifling through files on his desk. Finding several pages, he nodded to himself, muttering nonsense. Geoffrey just stood silently to the side.

Nodding again, Kline wordlessly held out a sheaf full of paper. Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed, and
he
approached his boss, taking the papers from his hand.

The handwriting on the documents was not the clean and precise script of Kline that Geoffrey knew so well. Instead, it was full of drawings, maps from all over the world, with strange notations in their margins. Picking one up and examining it more closely, he noticed that it referred to their current location.

“
What is all this?” Geoffrey asked slowly.

“
This is humanity
,
” Kline replied softly. “For as long as we have recorded history, I own various related documents or exact reproductions thereof.” He waved at the piles of ancient documents. “I've spent more money than you will ever see in your pathetically short lifetime to accumulate the
sort of
history
displayed
before you. I’ve read thousands of documents, visited hundreds of sites, interviewed dozens of witnesses, all relating to the phenomena you’ve witnessed tonight.”

“
And?” Geoffrey was frustrated. None of this made any sense.

“
What did you see at JPL
,
Mr. Tate?” Kline asked lazily, leaning back in his chair. “The truth
,
now.”

Geoffrey swallowed.
What the hell
?

“
I watched several of our best
men
pump round after round into Alex McCray's chest. I
saw his
wounds heal themselves instantly. I
watched
a grizzly bear
come out of nowhere and
kill one of our top men. I held
McCray’s
stone and felt my wounds heal themselves of their own volition.” He paused, looking his employer straight in the eye. “I have no idea what I've seen tonight. That's the God's honest truth.
What I do know is
I've witnessed power unlike anything humanity has seen before.”

Geoffrey approached Kline's desk and leaned over, not feeling as confident as he looked, “And I know that the stone
carried by McCray that
grant
ed
me th
o
se healing properties is nearly an exact copy of the ring you wear every day.”

Kline smiled and nodded slightly.

“
Fascinating
to see them in action
,
isn't it?”

Geoffrey was taken aback.

“
You mean, you knew?”

“
I expected something similar.” Kline replied, “I imagine you know
the source of
my strength
,
then
.
”

“
Is it
your ring?”

“
It is. And
, through my research,
I have come to the conclusion that there are ten more stones just like the ones I and young Mr. McCray possess.”

“
Stones?” Geoffrey replied weakly.

Kline paused, his eyes glancing back in his head, as he thought about what he would tell Mr. Tate. He was a loyal employee, and there was no one Kline trusted more in his organization. It was time for Kline to reveal his greatest secret.

“
My boy, how old do you think I am?” Kline asked.

“
I would think you’re in your sixties
,
for as long as you’ve been involved in finance,” Geoffrey replied slowly, “But looking at you, I can't say you're any older than forty five.”

“
Quite right
,
” Kline replied. “As it happens, this November, I will be celebrating my
112
th birthday.”

Geoffrey’s jaw dropped in shock.

“
That’s not possible
,
”
Geoffrey said slowly
.
“No one can live that long, and look the way you do.” He shook his head again. “It’s not possible.”

“
My boy,” Kline said
,
smiling, “
y
ou’re telling me you haven’t seen enough in the last twelve hours to be convinced of something as simple as immortality?” Kline raised his eyebrows. “They really do pound the cynicism into you Americans.”

Kline admired his ring for a moment, tracing the curved edge of the stone embedded in the ring, looking at it with a knowing smile. He looked up at his assistant and continued.

“
This stone
I carry
was created by an advanced
a
lien civilization
, and I believe they
left several other stones
just like it
scattered across our world. This stone is what has kept me young for the last sixty years.”