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

local being abused was one of the elder brothers that we interviewed in Tamara’s village.”

Chapter Twenty

“What?” I blurted out. “One of the elders?”

“I’m pretty sure. It was getting dark, and the image moved quickly, but I think it was. I don’t know which one, though.”

Doc said, “That must be how they found the old village, bastards. They must have discovered Tamara’s village looking for us and got him to give up the information on the elders.”

“You know he didn’t give up the information willingly,” I said.

“Didn’t look that way. They were smacking him around pretty good,” Joe added.

“Aw, hell, now our search has gotten them involved—innocents—and they’re suffering because of it. Those rotten sons of bitches. The native elders are being brutalized in order to find us,” I said in a combination of anger, disgust, and guilt.

Reggie asked, “Do you think he will lead them here?”

“I don’t know. They never mentioned the road or cloaking device over the city when we spoke with them. They may not have known about this place,” I said.

“Or maybe they weren’t completely forthcoming in what they told us,” Dimitri added.

“They seemed willing enough to speak with us, and I believed them,” Doc said.

“That may be true,” Dimitri replied, “and it looks like all they told us was true, but, what if it wasn’t everything, they knew… just sayin’.”

“I never thought of that; I took them at face value.”

“Maybe that was a mistake, Doc. This is a huge secret to entrust strangers with and one that must have been covertly passed down one generation to the next,” I said.

“But for them to hold back information of this magnitude would posit that they knew there was something of great import that must stay hidden, and I’m not talking about gold or silver,” Doc replied.

“Well, we can no longer count on having more than a couple of days to check out the city. Let’s grab some shut-eye, and I would say at first light, get on with our search.” As I looked up, furrowing my brow, I added, “But I’m not sure it gets dark here.” It was still twilight, and we had no way of knowing if it would change. Joe checked the camera feed one more time and then set the alarm on it for six hours later. We all agreed whoever woke up first would wake the others, hoping for at least six hours of sleep.

We unrolled our sleeping bags and prepared to turn in. As we did, the cloak overhead started to darken, and night fell—luck, coincidence, or something else. In this strange world, anything seemed possible. The darkness provided us with the six hours of sound sleep I had hoped for, but it passed all too quickly, and Reggie roused us.

A quick breakfast was consumed, and a check of the mercs camp still showed darkness and no movement. Overhead, dawn had appeared, and as we moved around, getting our gear ready, I swear it started getting brighter out. The others noted it too, and we shared glances all around.

Doc said, “You don’t think it can sense…” he didn’t finish his question.

I looked at him as I pulled on my backpack and said, “In this world, nothing would surprise me.”

We broke into two groups to cover the buildings on both sides of what I’m calling Main Street and speed up our sweep of the city. Dimitri, Joe, and Reggie took one side. Doc, O’Reilly, Eduardo, and I took the other with instructions to sound off if they found anything that might be important and to meet in the middle of the street in an hour so we could visually check our progress.

We now had the opportunity to really inspect these buildings. As we passed the first obelisk, we could see engravings on all sides of it. It was the same type of unusual markings we had found on the silver cubes from the galleon—undecipherable but obviously important. The first few buildings, while beautifully made, didn’t provide us with any information. The next one we inspected had some writing or an inscription over its entryway, and when we entered, we found what looked like a stone counter and a couple of stone benches in the first or main room. Going into the next room, we saw shelves everywhere, all carved or made from the same material as the building and the road we had followed.

Doc said, “Look at this, Colt; the stones on the wall show no mortar, just smooth joints and surfaces. They fit as tightly as the giant stones that make up the Incan ruins I’ve seen in Peru. But there is no irregularity. These are perfectly rectangular shaped.

As I looked around, I said, “Maybe this was a store front of some kind or a distribution center, where they had to store their products back here, and distribution was up front.”

“Could be,” he said, “unfortunately, we have no way of knowing.”

We left the building and moved on to the next; this one was igloo-looking with a rectangular extension attached to the back. Again, there was some sort of lettering over the doorway. This time, there was similar lettering on both sides of the curved walls inside. There was a long table, maybe twelve to fifteen feet long, in the middle of the room with benches running down both sides. The open doorway to the back area showed us more shelves with nothing on them. The building walls were the same as the last—beautifully cut stones, no mortar, and unbelievable tightly fitting seams.

We walked out and were heading to the next structure when Dimitri came over the Comms, “Colt, you guys need to come over here and see this,” he sounded excited.

“We’re in the small pyramid-shaped building. There’s an ante room; go through it and come into the main chamber.”

“Roger that, on our way,” I responded.

We hurried out and saw the building a little further back from where we were on the street. We got to its front entrance and noticed more