The Visitors

The Visitors

By Larry Porter

Copyright 2018 Larry Porter

Smashwords Edition

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Prologue

Thur. Oct. 4, 4001 2:15 GMT

Bullhead City, AZ (SSN) According to Dr. Jasper Bass, an archaeology professor at Bullhead City University, an unusual artifact was uncovered in the outskirts of Oatman, Arizona, an abandoned town for over one thousand years, once a mining town during the twentieth century. The university was doing an organized dig, looking for remnants of the gold mining activity in the area when they uncovered what Dr. Bass refers to as an automobile, a four-wheeled vehicle, operated by a combustion engine which was fueled by a refined petroleum product. According to an unnamed person, due to lack of permission to give information, SSN was told that the vehicle is in excellent condition, having been buried for more than two thousand years and protected from the elements. This is only the third find of any part of an automobile, the others only being small parts, not an entire vehicle. It has been transported back to the university for further study.

Susan Grasslinger, Sky Screen Network

Mon. Feb. 28, 4007 10:34 GMT

Bullhead City, AZ (SSN) Dr. Jasper Bass, head of the Bullhead City University Archaeology Department, reports that the artifact recovered in an archaeological dig in 4001 has been restored and is working perfectly, as it did in 1997, when the data gathered indicates it was made. It is an automobile, a four-wheeled vehicle used to transport people across the ground. It was manufactured by the General Motors Corporation, a large manufacturer of automobiles at that time. The model is a Buick LaSabre. The coloring on it is still well preserved. It is a dark blue. Scientists now believe this gives solid proof that the thin ribbons of a material made from finely ground limestone and a bitumen product, found throughout the world, named roads, that spread across the earth, were used to carry these vehicles.

The baffling and not yet understood problem with this automobile is the material it is made of. It has been carefully studied and determined to be produced by molecular reconfiguration. This process was not perfected until 2589, by a scientist from Jupiter. The search, which has uncovered other artifacts believed to have come from the Oatman, Arizona dig, is now being expanded throughout the northwestern sector of the Arizona territory. These items give some scientists cause to dig deeper, to explain how such a process was used that far back in history. Other scientists remain skeptical that the testing methods were valid, while still others unabashedly are calling Dr. Bass a fraud. If it is proven that he fraudulently produced this automobile, he will, of course, not just lose his standing, but will be executed. Dr. Bass added that he has asked Arizona University Baghdad to join his department in searching comprehensively, the area around Bullhead City within a fifty-mile radius for other artifacts.

Adrian Hosser, Sky Screen Network

Part One

The facility had evidently been built about one hundred years ago. I searched the Mohave County records but could only find who owned the property and the county commissioners meeting minutes approving a self-storage facility on the property in nineteen seventy-eight. Then there were no more records about the property until the approval last year for a high-rise apartment complex. I can only surmise from what I'd gathered, that the storage facility was soon built after that approval. What I'd been finding in many of my searches is pieces of documents, and sometimes entire papers, missing when transfers were made in the coming of the computer age. So many hundreds of thousands of documents had to be scanned to transfer them to computer disks, used before the old system of the Cloud, that many lazy or indifferent workers missed important pieces of history.

I drove down Mohave Valley Highway every time I came to Bullhead City. I live in Vegas and am an amateur archaeologist. Maybe more a wannabe. But I like to scout through old buildings that are being demolished, looking for, not treasure, but interesting things that tell about the time period the building was vital. About who and how people lived then. I don't know what directed me to turn up Riverview Drive. I may have caught the top of a crane. Not sure. Anyway, there it was, a rapidly deteriorating storage facility.

Let me explain. There are still some of these sites around so most people, especially the older ones, remember them. Some are still using them. But for the uniformed, those youngsters who wonder what I'm talking about, let me explain. These things were very popular in the late nineteen hundreds and early two thousands. They were everywhere, and most were filled to the brim with stuff. People back then had big houses, double or triple garages, a storage building in their back yards, and still needed more space for accumulated junk. So they rented a storage unit or two to store their overflow of flotsam. I loved to scout through these places. Many had interesting items left behind. The new owners had generally gotten all the valuable stuff and didn't mind if I ransacked the units for the rest. I usually found at least some interesting papers, receipts, old wills, stuff that gave insight into what people did when the units were filled.

I'm not rich but did well enough to spend most of my time these days simply looking through trash. Or as my kids say, Dad digs his garbage. I parked on the street and made my way to a guy who wasn't dirty, and his work clothes looked newer and more expensive. Wearing a hard hat, directing a couple men and gals who did look like they had been working amongst the debris, he seemed to be the foreman. They were readying machinery to get back to the job of taking the place apart to prepare the lot for apartments. The sign on the street had an architectural rendition of the Riverview Arms Apartments. The storage buildings were made of concrete block, a composite material seldom used today. The blocks were usually twelve inches long, eight high and six to eight inches wide. They were formed at a factory then used in construction as building blocks, laid end to end in layers to as high as the builder wanted to go. They were held together with a mortar cement product. Using the heavy equipment these folks had, they broke apart easily, were crushed, then picked up and loaded into a truck to be hauled away, along with the roofing timbers and the rest of the debris. They were working on the last of six buildings, which had thirty or so units in it.

As the history hound I am, I asked the man in charge if any of the units still standing had anything inside. He told me anything of value had been removed. All that was left was trash, papers, files, stuff of no use to anyone. I asked if he minded me rummaging through what was left. He looked at me with a funny stare. I explained I liked to look through old stuff. I wasn't looking for valuables, so if I did find anything they might have missed, I'd turn it over to him.

The foreman laughed and said Go for it. Just stay out of the way of the men. They're about a half hour from putting that crane to work. It should take them about an hour to reach the end of the building. I wouldn't want you to be inside one of the units when they lift the roof off the ground and drop it into that pile. He pointed to a pile of rubble on the adjacent lot. They'll be starting where they left off yesterday, down at that end. He pointed to the far end where it was obvious they had just started tearing into it. You're welcome to start at this end. Just be careful and keep an eye out for them moving your way.

Thanks, I said, as I headed toward the first unit. The doors had all been left open after they removed everything they wanted. I proceeded to scramble through the units that were still accessible. I got to five before I found anything interesting. The fifth unit seemed like it had belonged to the manager of the facility before it closed down. There were a couple boxes of files from tenants in the late nineteen-nineties. I came up with a journal I found lying on the floor with some other trash. There was also a six-inch stainless-steel bar and a broken desk.

I got engrossed in letters written to the manager. Some complaining about their units being sold at auction, threatening to sue the company. Others were thanking the couple for being so kind to them during trying times, death in the family, a son going away to college, things that had happened to them in life, causes for the need for storage.

One letter was very interesting. It was a copy of a letter to the District Manager, telling him of the couples’ illness. They told him they would soon lose the ability to do their job and would have to leave. Attached was a return letter from the manager, regretting their trials, hoping them good health in the future, and praising their work. He said they were welcome to stay as long as they felt good enough to do the work, that he fully trusted their judgement in making that decision. They must have done a great job.

I was involved in the material. This was exactly what I always hoped to find when I dug into the past. I never noticed the machinery getting closer. It had simply become background noise. Then I was startled by dust flying at me from the ceiling as it started to go skyward. I jumped up and ran to the door. The crane operator was watching his bucket, not even seeing me. I was now standing under the arm of his machine, looking right at him, waving my arms. I must have caught his attention. He glanced down, then got a shocked look.

I went up to his cab. You didn’t know I was inside? You could have killed me.

Screw you. I didn’t, did I? You’re not supposed to be rifling through these things anyway. Now get out of my work area before I do kill you, idiot!

Let me gather some of those things in there. By the way, your boss gave me permission to be in there, just in case you don’t know how to follow directions.

I headed back to the unit as he yelled back over the din of the machine. Well, he ain’t here and I’m continuing my job asshole.

He lifted the roof of the unit over my head. Pieces of it fell on my head. But I was determined. I ran back in and grabbed the journal, that steel bar, and the letter I was reading. I thought I best not push my luck since this guy probably wouldn’t hesitate to lift me, along with the debris and dump me in the pile behind him.

I rushed out of the unit and away from the operator far enough to be out of immediate danger. I turned and when he was turning his machine back around to grab the next piece of Unit Five, he looked at me. I gave him the finger and went to my car. Idiot! I wished I could have taken those two file boxes. They had a treasure trove of information from that period. Oh well, I thought, better some little thing than nothing at all.

When I got home, I began reading the journal. It was written by one of the managers in the late nineteen nineties.

Many of these storage places at that time had apartments attached to the facility where the managers lived. From what I've read, they were supposed to offer more security, making sure no one broke in and stole all the valuable stuff people kept there. I guess it just wasn't enough that they had gates with a special code given each tenant to open them, and an almost fort-like structure around the perimeter which formed the outer walls of the buildings. A burglar would need an extension ladder to get inside the place. And he would have to do it at three in the morning so that he wouldn’t be climbing his ladder when people may be around. One could never have enough security.

The guy who wrote this journal was either a wannabe author of fiction or completely delusional. If he did try to get this thing published, I don't think he'd ever found a publisher. He wasn't a great writer. But it has been fun to read. For anyone who chooses to read it, the author states that this is a journal of his life both on another planet and on Earth. Through undue circumstances he and his wife, along with another family, came to our planet and set up a new life. I found it to be fun reading in a fantasy world. I’ve included this note as well as others I wrote throughout, in case someone finds this journal after I’m long gone. But I'm not sure I'll even include it in my museum of artifacts that I'm building in Vegas. I already have several much better written books in it for future history bugs.

L. Wonderling

February 28, 2032

1

The Journey

The scientists taught us to pass the stories of our lives on to our children and their children, so they could learn from us. When a group of us decided we needed to leave, because circumstances came about, and we knew we would be killed if we didn't leave, I began to write our story of where we were going, why we were going, and where and how we all ended where we did. I did this so the new people we met, if we did, or any other advanced life form we may come across, would have a history of our living.

I had started journals in the past. But as I wrote, I could see that we lived a pretty ordinary life. Not much happened from one day to the next. When our ancestors where brought to our planet, Experiment, five generations before, they set up a government, a police brigade, and a military unit, all directed by the scientists. All the government people were only there, as the scientists explained to each generation, because that was always a wise choice for any society to remain orderly. The scientists also provided us a means to make anything we had a need for. So this eliminated what they explained happened with most other societies: jealousy. Nobody had any wants. The government had laws, but for the most part were never visible. The police simply did jobs that were needed across the planet, to keep it humming along in good order. That is what we all thought police did. It was only as events began unfolding, that we saw why other societies needed police.

The military didn't even have anything to fight with. The government kept all things they would use, called weapons, in a place that was locked up. It was explained in every child's education, that they were only brought together and trained in the event another planet's people decided to invade Experiment. Otherwise, they too, did odd jobs for the entire population. Nobody had to have a job. Nobody was made to do anything. Most people had a job in order to have something to do. We did have needs and they were all satisfied by those who wanted to be doing things everyday.

That was why my wife and I (we had no children) operated a transport ship. Our planet was pretty barren. That is, we saw little water come from the sky. Our planet had water, but it was mostly under the ground in pools. But we did have the molecules to make water, so it was never a problem. However, the planet was mostly fine, level ground. There were a few hills and, when the water did come from our sky, it ran down these hills and into the ground. What we didn't have a variety of were what the scientists called minerals. Especially items that contained carbon. We who ran the transports, went to other planets not far from us and gathered those minerals and items that contained carbon. We had miners and collectors living on those planets, choosing to do those jobs for our people so we could produce whatever we needed. Our planet was small with only about two-hundred thousand people living on it. We only needed five transports to make the trips to gather the materials needed to satisfy our needs.

One day the scientists met secretly with the five families who operated the transports. Our planet was experiencing a violent change. Some people were calling themselves leaders and taking control of territories they called their own. The scientists told us to make preparations to leave Experiment and find another planet to live on. They explained that these leaders were making many bad decisions. For example, they were eliminating the transports and planned to reduce the population to less than one-hundred thousand people, since supplies would be reduced. The scientists explained that they would be leaving very soon. As always happened in the past and they were sure would happen here, they, as the intelligent ones of the planet, would be eliminated. They gave us instructions on how to prepare to leave. Then they were gone.

I began this journal at the beginning of our planning. I kept notes of everything we did, then how we found Earth. I continued the story on what became of us on Earth, but in my native language. I was not such a good writer and the information was just notes written as we progressed. After we learned the English language and I became a better writer, I re-wrote this journal into English. I have to say that my wife, R, looked over my shoulder and corrected things I got wrong. I still am not great at it, but I think it tells the story. It was begun in the Earth year, 1997. I numbered each story, so the journal is easier to read.

2

Five families met every fourth period. I will explain our time so the reader understands what time I am talking about. Our planet does not rotate but it does go around our star. The time it takes to make one revolution around our star is a daga. The daga contains twelve periods. like the Earth's moons. Our system, taught to us by the scientists, is made on the number sixty. Sixty can be divided into smaller and smaller numbers clear down to the number three. So that we can keep time during one rashid, a rashid is divided into twenty-four minys. I never understood all of that. But I know it from always using the names. Now my wife, R, is the one who can explain all of that troubling stuff.

It was illegal for us to meet and we all risked death if found out. However, we felt we must risk it, for the alternative was much worse. Our planet, named Experiment, had been a tranquil place to live with one benevolent government, for many dagas. But something happened that no one had been able to understand, or explain. When the scientists told us about it, they tried to help us understand but nobody did because no one had ever experienced such turmoil. Now the planet was divided into more than one hundred territories. That number continued changing as leaders gained each other’s territories. And with those changes came new rules. It became a chore, and many times a deadly one, if misinterpreted, to keep up with each new leader's rules.

My wife, R, and I, T, lived a quiet but happy life for a long time. We were growing old, each one hundred nine dagas. We had no children. Most of the two hundred thousand inhabitants on our planet lived underground. We lived above. Everyone had a choice. We chose, because of our job, to stay on the surface. Our planet is exposed to our star continually. It revolves around the star, but as I explained, does not rotate, like most planets we know about do. It is impossible to live very far from the dividing line between constant light and constant dark. One side is too hot and the other is too cold. Thus, our population’s choice to live underground. There they make their own environments.

Our surface is dry. We have small streams of water running down the hills only when water falls from the sky, and then only for short periods. We have some vegetation, a few trees and small patches of smaller bushes. But mostly the surface is without much except rocks and finer minerals, made mostly of silicon. None of our hills go very high.

Since there are few people above ground, we tend to live in patches, not like the towns underground, but small communities of five to ten houses. However, neighbors may be far from each other. In our case, where we live, we have one neighbor close. Other neighbors can be reached in a short time, even when walking.

Our house is built on need. It is constructed of Molecular Reconfigured Mineral blocks, made from silicon, very common, clay from a river bed, and limestone, found in the hills. It is nearly square, having a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a general living space. After the problems began arising we saw that the leaders would be watching all our activities. I created a large room under the house. I did not tell anyone about it until later, when our group of five transporter families began the planning. That was the room we always met in. The rule of three came into being from one of the leaders and was soon adopted from there on, by all of them. It stated that no one over the age of fourteen dagas could be caught with more than two other such persons. If caught, they were usually all put to death immediately.

Populating our planet was done by the scientists. They explained it in stories and wrote about it. They created a library for all the inhabitants they brought to the planet. In it, we could read books about who we were and why we were on the Experiment planet. I listened to the stories passed down, but I wasn’t much for reading. We all went to a formal school, when young, so I could read, but I just preferred to work with my hands, making things that made our lives more interesting. My wife, R, was the reader. She always had a book in her hands. I would make things that helped her read better and other things like that.

The stories explained, as did the books, if you wanted to read about it, that we were what the scientists called Neanderthals. There were others similar to us in the universe. They told us we were the only ones that existed at this time. R told me she wasn't so sure about that, that maybe they just wanted to keep a secret of where others might be. We learned that a very long time ago, our people and another group of people were fighting each other to gain control of the place they lived. The scientists took the Neanderthals away and started a new planet they chose, to save them. Five generations before, a group was brought to this planet so the scientists could study us. They wanted to see how we would develop, what kind of society we would create. R wondered if we were taken from the original group, where there were still others like us, somewhere else. I'm not very smart so I never asked anyone else what they thought about that. I didn't want others to know how dumb I was. They tried to create a human society that would not fight each other into destruction of one or the other or both. That was why we had so much freedom. After five generations, about four dagas ago, what we began calling thugs, started forming groups. They stayed away from the general population, creating their own communities. Then, as we learned, they began fighting among themselves. They started taking control of each others territories. Before this, we had no divisions on the planet. Within these territories, they made harsh rules. For the first time, we began losing all our freedoms. They did not hesitate to kill anyone who broke their rules, sending out a group of thugs to imprison, or mostly kill, rule breakers.

The rule of only three was put into place as each thug grabbed a territory. They saw how effective it was in keeping populations from planning to go against them. It also caused many difficulties in normal life. For example, a couple with two adult children would never be allowed to meet as a family. And all of the leaders were making a law that only allowed one child per couple. Any additional pregnancies brought death to the newborn. Before that, the scientists had made suggestions about the ideal number of children. They explained that if a couple had two children, they would be re-populating the planet with a stable number. Two children replaced the two parents. However, they had no law to that number. As they explained, if a couple had no children, another couple having four, would still accomplish the goal. They felt the numbers would balance themselves out naturally if everyone adhered to what was best for the entire population. They didn't say this but R pointed it out to me, as she did with many things the scientists did, that she felt this was part of the experiment they were performing. They wanted to see how strongly people kept to the concept of behaving in the best interest of the entire society. She told me that the books in the library said the scientists brought thirty thousand people to the planet. Now there were two-hundred thousand. So they didn't stabilize the population until one or two generations ago. She mentioned that her grandparents had five children. I didn't know how many mine had. Most of us never knew our grandparents since they died before the new children got to know them. But I did know my own parents had three. Like she said, after the thugs took over, that experiment of the scientists was a total failure.

The rule of three meant a family of four could not visit both children at the same time. Nor could families ever have get together, like reunions. Places where people had to go where there were sure to be others, became a daring encounter. Every leader had thugs who decided if people were meeting or just doing their business. If they decided four people were having a meeting in, say, a store, they were immediately taken away and killed, without even a judge overseeing it.

We five couples had all worked in the transport division, traveling to mining planets with supplies and bringing mined materials back. Because we traveled so much, that was why we all lived above ground. The system used married couples and even as children were born, they went with them. The idea, back then, was to keep the family unit together.

People worked by choice, having an inert desire to make their society run smoothly. We five families who gathered minerals loved our work. Our families stayed together, considering each other as family, and felt good about helping our fellow beings, contributing to the whole good. It worked nicely until those leaders started claiming territories. Then everything changed. The scientists met with us when they saw how dangerous it was becoming and understood it would never change back.

The transporters hadn't worked for a couple dagas, since the central planetary government had dissolved. Our transport ships had been garaged since then. Now, we were putting them into good working order to use, to find a decent place to live. To this point, although the people of the planet found other planets in the galaxy for the minerals we needed, no one had ever found other life of any kind except for one that had carbon vegetation we harvested to bring back and turn into food for the people. But that planet was not inhabitable. When we brought back the vegetation, it had to be cleansed of poisons that were present in the air of the planet. Our team there only worked for a short bit of time and had to wear protective suits. Then they went