ENCOUNTER by Hep Aldridge (bill gates books recommendations .txt) 📕

really hard twice on the way down and was dazed when you guys started pulling me back up, and I hit my head again. The only thing I thought to do was cut the rope. Luckily, I could grab my knife.

“Oh, and Colt, that lost city you’re looking for, it isn’t lost anymore. It’s right here,” she said as she swung her arm in a huge arc behind her, encompassing the canyon and the fissure, “You’re not going to believe it.”

No one had moved. It was like we were still trying to figure out what it was we were witnessing. Dimitri sprang into action first, grabbed our knotted climbing rope, secured it around the large boulder I had been sitting on, came to the edge, and tossed it down. There were knots tied in it every two feet, so one could relatively easily climb down or up, using the knots for hand and footholds.

“Come on down slowly,” Reggie advised, “but from down here, I can see the small carved stairsteps that go to the top. The way it’s cut into the rock, it’s not visible from up there looking down, but plainly visible looking up from down here.”

We all, one by one, made our way down the rope until we were standing knee-deep in the abyss—what a weird sensation. I mean, there was a physical feeling of disorientation. My mind found it hard to accept that I was standing on a solid surface when I could look for miles down the canyon at the black gash in the Earth that wasn’t really there. Thank God I had read a lot of science fiction in my youth and was good at the suspension of disbelief.

“Look,” Reggie said, pointing back up the way we had just come down. “See the stairs cut into the rock?”

Sure enough, there they were, completely camouflaged from above but easily visible from down here. A set of steps that one person at a time could navigate. Fantastic engineering.

“But, come on, this is amazing,” she shouted as she started toward the canyon wall. “Take it slow. You’re not going to be able to see the platform or steps until your body goes through the cloak, and the steps are about four feet past the threshold. The platform is plenty wide, so you can go through anywhere along here. But you should probably take small steps and be ready for a tingle. I did notice that as I came back through. It’s kinda strangely fun, but just be ready,” she said as she disappeared before our eyes.

I followed her and was immediately thrust into an unbelievable panoramic vista. The others popped through the cloak to my left and right. As my mind was once again trying to comprehend what I was seeing, I heard gasps, and after a few seconds heard Doc say, “Colt, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

Before us lay a plaza. As I looked around, I was amazed at how large a space we had entered, much larger than the image projected outside. I also noticed the temperature was warmer. We had gotten used to the chill of the higher altitude we had been traveling in, but this was comfortable—very temperate. So, not only was this thing cloaking the city, it was controlling the environment. Amazing. As I looked up, the sunlight was diffused, and there seemed to be an even glow coming from overhead, everywhere overhead. The cloak has its own lighting, I thought.

We appeared to be at the end of a box canyon; there were sheer rock walls to our left. In the middle of the plaza, around eighty-five yards wide, was a circular pool with water bubbling up out of the center. On the far side stood a pyramid-shaped structure, maybe fifty feet tall. It had smooth sides with a central staircase leading to what looked to be a door less than halfway up. What was striking was that the capstone looked like glass or crystal, and it gave off a faint bluish glow.

I pointed to it and said, “Check out the top.”

O’Reilly replied, “The blue glow, like on the roadway markers.”

We were frozen in place, trying to absorb our new surroundings. Looking to the right, the plaza turned into what I guess you could call a main street or thoroughfare. There were structures and buildings on both sides, some of them a hundred feet tall or more. It was a stunning vista; the buildings, their designs, the stonework, it was beautiful. In the middle of the street, we could see four obelisks that looked to be evenly spaced, with the furthest one far in the distance. They appeared to be approximately thirty to forty feet high and looked like the ones I had seen in Egypt.

I turned to Joe and said, “You and Reggie go back and get the rest of our gear and bring it in. We’ll set camp down there at the bottom of the steps. Take Eduardo too. The rest of us will take a look around while you’re gone.”

“Roger that, Colt.”

With that, we took our first steps into the Lost City of the Gods.

An hour later, as we were continuing our exploration of the city, our Comms crackled, and Joe’s excited voice said, “Colt, do you copy?”

“Yes,” I replied, “I hear you.”

“Colt, we’ve got a problem. The mercs have reached the village.”

“What?” I sputtered back.

“They’ve reached the village, and there are more of them. We got the gear, and we’re coming to you; stand by.”

“Roger that,” I said as we moved to the center of the roadway going through town. We saw the three of them heading our way and advanced to meet them.

They were all out of breath as they reached us at a run.

“What do you mean, there are more of them? How do you know?” I asked.

Joe caught his breath and said, “When we got out from under the cloak, I decided to do a quick check of the trail cameras. When I pulled