Jo-el

Chapter 3 THE CONTAINER

“It was sent to Earth many years ago.”

Got to keep with the Sci-fi theme. Give ‘em credit for consistency. Do they think that I believe any of this stuff?

“You must travel some distant to find it.”

This was truly bizarre. Did he think I’d do this? But I was enjoying the presentation. Sort of secret agent stuff. Maybe this scam worked.

“We moved the container closer to you a little while ago, we know it has arrived but we don’t know if it’s intact. It takes a long time for us to receive confirmation. The distance between our planets makes it very cumbersome to communicate. I apologize for this, as I’m sure you have an endless list of questions. Many of them will be answered when you have mastered the equipment we are sending to you.”

I’m listening completely bewildered. If this is a scam, it is well done, because I can feel the sucking and I’m beginning to fall. I need that other drink. I paused the recording and returned with my liquid refreshment.

“The package is at the following coordinates.” He read off GPS numbers, which appeared at the bottom of the screen. “This recording will not continue until the package is found and placed close to your computer.” The image of Ka-el froze on the screen and nothing I did with the computer would remove it. I jotted the coordinates down on a pad I kept on the coffee table. Then I pushed the arrow on the screen and nothing happened. Totally weird. This Ka-el guy was testing me. He was using simple psychology to coerce me to do his bidding. I would want to succeed in retrieving this container of equipment just to find out what was going to happen next. Incredible. And you know what? It was damn well working and I was totally aware of it. I was beginning to like this guy.

I had a Garmin GPS on my BMW motorcycle and went to fetch it from the garage. My heart beat a little faster as I punched in the coordinates and waited for the GPS to tell me where this treasure hunt would take me. The unit complained that it could not find a satellite, so I went out the back door and stood in the back yard, waiting for the mystery to be solved.

The little arrow pointed to a location well south of San Francisco, close to Highway 25, south of Pinnacles National Park. The GPS indicated one hundred and forty miles. He’d said they had moved the package closer, was that the best they could do? The pointer was less than a mile from the main highway, a dirt road was shown relatively close-by, so it looked okay to reach. GPS coordinates can be a little off so I’d have to search the area. The good news was I knew the road very well, as I had ridden it many times. It was one of the truly fun motorcycle roads between San Francisco and Los Angeles. This lifted my spirits, as a reason to ride was always a good thing. I checked the weather for Wednesday, which showed a ten percent chance of rain in the San Jose area, so I tentatively planned to ride down Hwy 25 and check it out. The second Scotch was spurring me on and I felt quite excited by the whole challenge to find the hidden treasure. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do tomorrow.

I needed a break from the family room, so I went out to fuss with the motorcycle for the ride in the morning. I checked the tire pressures and removed my top-box. I had no idea how big this package was, but guessed I’d be able to strap it to the rear rack and passenger seat. Not that I believed that I’d find anything. Maybe a small box with instructions where to send the money? That triggered my thoughts for a while. Was this some crazy set-up to threaten me, harm my children, somehow elicit money from me? Maybe I shouldn’t go? Maybe I should just ignore what Ka-el was asking me to do and have my hard drive wiped and then reinstall the operating system? Maybe I should go to the police? That made me smile. I imagined trying to explain to the police that I’d been contacted by an alien race to rescue the world, from, I don’t know what? I wonder how I’d look in white? It all didn’t make a lot of sense. If someone had targeted to rob me, why drag me down a winding road in the middle of nowhere? They could confront me at home or somewhere more accessible. I would be suspicious of a car or truck parked near the spot they were sending me. Also, Ka-el, or whatever his real name was, hadn’t given me a time to be there. That would be crazy. Criminals were intrinsically lazy; they wouldn’t wait around for days for me to appear. No, the whole robbery, kidnapping thing didn’t make sense at all as far as the package was concerned.

My phone rang as I reentered the family room, it was Maggie, home alone from work and in need of an ear to bend. Maggie was a great kid, but did she love to talk? I listened for a good half an hour to a detailed story about a work colleague who’d challenged her to a ‘fitbit week’ whatever that was and Maggie was sure this girl was cheating. She was convinced the colleague had tied the fitbit to her dog’s leg and let it run around all evening. How else could she be over ten thousand steps already? What could I say? I could feel my attention wavering and eventually squeezed a word in, asking when she was coming over again. Maybe Saturday for dinner and could she bring Adam? Sure, see you then, I replied, finally able to conclude our one-way conversation.

Maggie was my youngest, recently turned twenty-six and always on the go. She loved to travel and had already visited Australia and New Zealand, as well as spending a year abroad in England while at college. Not a straight A student she had struggled with academics, but she possessed a delightful personality and lit up any room with her presence. Following a long trip down-under she’d decided, to my amazement, to join the police force. She didn’t want to sit at a desk and her education, what it was, didn’t bode well for success in an academic environment. After a difficult period with the yes-sir, no-sir, manly world of the police with its strict adherence to hierarchy, she’d settled down and began enjoying the ‘battle against the losers’ as she called it. Her enthusiasm was infectious and she was now thinking that she’d like to one day be a homicide detective.

Adam was the current live-in boyfriend and I liked him, which is a good thing. He worked at a bank in downtown and shared Maggie’s love of travel and constant need to delve into new experiences. They were a good match. Was he the one? That was a question I kept to myself. Trying hard to be the great parent and not meddle. Maggie had been devastated by the loss of her mother, but like her brother Sean, could internalize it mostly. Visiting her childhood home didn’t help, but she realized how much I had lost and was always very supportive.

That night I lay sleepless in the dark of my bedroom, listening to the sounds of cars in the distance on Lincoln Way, the occasional deep diesel burble of trucks and the screech of police sirens. The wind had increased and I could hear the few trees on my street sway back and forth. I knew I would head down Airline Highway in the morning, I knew nothing could stop me following this irrational lead to who knows what. The excitement of the afternoon, since Ka-el had commandeered my computer had become a drug and I needed more. I was enjoying myself with the crazy scheme someone had produced to lead me to a mystery package on highway twenty-five.

Dawn broke with the sound of rain pitter-pattering on the roof. I grabbed for my cell phone to check the radar map and was encouraged to see that the rain was passing through the Bay Area in an hour or so and the forecast was for partly sunny skies and breezy until late in the afternoon. It appeared that the run-down Highway Twenty-five would be cool but rain free. I made coffee and prepared a small bowl of grape-nuts with blueberries and bananas. For an hour or so I followed the gyrations of the stock market and the talking heads on CNBC. It was a routine for me, spending one or two hours in the morning pretending to be the great market trader I was not. But my focus was not where it needed to be to execute any trades or make any adjustments to my portfolio of securities. I gave that task up for useless and increased my coffee consumption.

My plan was to leave after 9 am to ensure that I wouldn’t hit any commuter traffic heading into San Jose. But my enthusiasm won over my planning and I was on the road by 8:30 and as expected I was lane splitting as I neared San Jose an hour later. The traffic dissipated once I was through the metropolis and I began to enjoy the ride. I passed through Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world and was soon around the outskirts of Hollister and onto Airline Highway. I passed the small café in Tres Pinos that was my target for lunch on the return trip and now the traffic had disappeared and I wicked it up as I headed towards Pinnacles National Monument. The ride became the prime event and I was happy as a clam, banking left and right along the endless twisty road. Even if there was nothing at the GPS coordinates this was a great way to spend the day and I became delightfully relaxed, my thoughts on nothing but the road ahead. Much of highway twenty-five ran parallel to the San Andreus fault, which stifled any chance of development. Only farms and run-down shacks dotted the vistas of low range of hills on either side. I was quickly passed the turnoff to the Pinnacles when the Garmin unit indicated that I had just five miles to go. For one moment I deliberated continuing to the junction of highway one nine eight, but throttled back as the reading dropped to just one mile ahead.

Now I could feel my pulse quicken, and my palms inside my warm gloves tingle with sweat. I truly wanted there to be something at the GPS location, even if I didn’t believe there would be. After just a few hundred yards the GPS was directing me to turn right onto the dirt road. I stopped on the highway and looked at the thin dirt line that led up towards the hilltop south of Pinnacles. This was my first fear; I was not exactly the most experienced off-road rider and my GS 1200 BMW was a pretty heavy machine. Would I be okay riding this road, would there be somewhere I could safely stop the bike and turn around without dropping it. At my age lifting the damn thing up was not something that appealed to me in any way. I had only dropped it one time and that was in a parking lot where kind hands had reached out to me, righting the bike quickly and easily. There was no one here to help me if I got into difficulty.

I parked the bike on the highway and dismounted. Why here? flashed across my brain, why on earth would you send a package, millions of light-years to this ridiculous location? I had no idea. And as it made no sense to me, I began to think that the whole thing was a big joke and I would maybe find a piece of paper, if anything, in a tin, exclaiming what a total moron I was. I was doubting my sanity as I tried to think of which of my biker buddies would play this harmless prank on me. It dawned on me that I had ridden the one hundred and forty miles, that I had thoroughly enjoyed myself so what the hell, I may as well give them the satisfaction of the last laugh.

I studied the GPS and concluded the little tin box (I was convinced) was about point eight of a mile away. I couldn’t see anything, which was good I guess, because if I had seen anything it would be enormous and not something I’d be able to transport on the back of my motorcycle. I removed my helmet and earplugs, then fastened the helmet to the bike. Then I took off my riding pants and jacket and stuffed them into the side panniers. I had decided to hike up the dirt road and find my folly that way. I took a bottle of water from my tank bag and set off up the hill.

It wasn’t long before I wished that I’d brought different shoes. My riding boots that were perfect for wet weather and protection on the road, were quickly uncomfortable clambering up the dirt road. I stopped after a short while and reviewed my progress. My bike looked small. The view across the road to the hills in the east was beautiful. The sun was all wrong for a picture but I pulled out my phone anyway and snapped a shot with my bike at the bottom of the frame. I had hundreds of such pictures. I could hear Mary asking why I had to put the motorcycle in every shot I took. She just wasn’t a motorcyclist. The GPS said I was about half way to my goal. Nothing was visible as I combed the area as best I was able. It didn’t matter to me; I was enjoying myself.

I reached the point parallel with the target location on the dirt road, maybe three hundred feet above the main road. I had only heard two cars pass by during my climb. I drank some more water and soaked up the beauty around me. The air was fresh and cool, the last of the morning dew evaporating from the brush around me. I would have to cross through the shrubs now to the point on the GPS. Nothing unusual was visible in the direction I searched. My heart beat faster, mostly because of the climb and partly for the desire to succeed in my goal to find the package. I realized the GPS was not one hundred percent accurate and the distance was now so close that I couldn’t zoom in any further, I was at fifty feet, the shortest distance that the GPS would allow. I looked around carefully and noticed the lip of an indentation in the ground a little further and higher up the slope from the GPS location. My heart skipped a beat as I walked towards it.

I hiked over to the lip of the indentation and could see a gully leading into the depression in the ground. I realized quickly that it wasn’t anything unusual, just a mini-wash created by run-off on the slope down to the main road. Partially hidden by the lip of the wash was a black object that was oval on the top. I moved closer and realized I’d reached my goal. This was it. My heart thumped in my chest and my breath became choked. I took another swig of water and stared at this strange looking container resting on the ground in front of me. It definitely was not a tin box. I wondered how heavy it was. There were no visible handles and no suggestion of how it opened. I must have looked at it for two or three minutes before I investigated more closely. Was it hot? It didn’t seem to be. I bent down and touched the black, matt surface gingerly. It was cold. Now I could see that the container was oval on the top and flatter along the bottom with a pointed end that I initially thought was the back, but how would I know? Shaped somewhat like an oversized cycling helmet, similar to what I’d seen used in the Tour de France during the time-trial events. I inclined my head toward it and listened closer for a tick. Nothing. Not a bomb then! It looked heavy, maybe because of the size and color. I guessed it was a little more than two feet long and one-foot-wide, a perfect fit for the back of the bike. Lucky me!

I stood up and took stock of my surroundings. Not a soul in sight. The clean air and light, cool breeze in total contrast to the odd container at my feet. I considered how difficult it would be to carry it down the dirt hill to my motorcycle. I guessed I could drag it. I think in that moment I had forgotten how I’d come to be standing at that spot, three hundred feet above Airline Highway. The crazy words of Ka-el, the story of a distant planet, my role as rescuer to the world, none of that seemed to have any relevance to retrieving this object. However, my resolve was strong and I was going to get this thing home some damn way or another and find out what the hell it was.

With both hands, I reached underneath the right side of the container, expecting considerable resistance and lifted. It flew out of my grasp, as if I’d tossed it into the air. But it didn’t fall as you’d have expected, crashing onto one side. It seemed to right itself in the air and float back to the ground gently. I was dumbfounded. I stared at it in disbelief. What the hell was this thing? I lifted it up with both hands. It was light, very light, like it was empty. I turned it over easily and examined the back, there was nothing distinctive. I held it out away from my body and let it drop, it floated back to the ground like a feather. Unreal! Bewildered and a little frightened I carried it down the slope back to my motorcycle.

The ride home was uneventful. I stopped at the café in Tres Pinos and sat on the patio where I could keep watch over my mystery container on the rear of the bike. The toasted tuna sandwich with all the trimmings was delightful and filled me to the brim. There were no noticeable joines in the strange metal of the container. No indentations that it would come apart in any way. I couldn’t see any way to open the thing, but I decided I would worry about that later. My mission to find the damn thing was a success and that was all that mattered at that moment.