Morning Star Full Novel

Chapter 6

The group gathered in the laboratory, with the stainless steel artifact, ready to attempt to extract the recorded information locked inside. The room was lined on the inside with multiple computer terminals hooked to a mini mainframe processor and a satellite hookup to a larger faster system. All the electronics imagined for field exploration were incorporated into this lab and was manned with some of the military’s top on site research personnel.
Jesse Brinkman asked one of the technicians to hook up the phone plug to the recording device and attempt to download what information was on it. The group watched intently as the line clicked in and the tech started working on the computer trying to draw forth what was hidden for so many thousands of years. The sound of a modem connection was emanating from somewhere above and a box appeared on the screen of the computer terminal with the prompt "Password" above a row of four spaces, blank spot and then another five spaces.
"Show time," Jesse said to Tony. "We ran our computers on this for years, running the entire dictionary, random numbers and the kitchen sink trying to crack this passkey. We figured we had a five- percent chance of breaking it without your assistance. We could have saved a whole lot of time if it weren’t for this damn code."
"Come on Tony," Alex piped up. "What’s the password?"
Tony looked at the screen and recounted the number of spaces he had to fill and looked at the blank spot between the two segments. He hummed, rubbing his nose and closed his eyes.
"It’s ok to guess," Brinkman said. "I don’t think your going to break it, or we would have a long time ago."
Tony leaned over and typed "Jack, space Emily" then hit the return key.
The computer answered with a beep and a prompt reading "Access granted."
"This was to easy," the technician said. Tony just smiled knowing it would be a very simple process. The window simply stated "Saved to disc drive." Below it said "Best viewed with any media playing software created after 1997 and before 2008, click here to view file." The tech turned to Brinkman looking for directions.
"Who is Jack and Emily?" Brinkman asked.
"My parents," Tony replied.
"Let’s see it." Brinkman said and the technician clicked on the box. The screen went blank for a moment and a prompt box came up stating the file was being read. From a set of speakers mounted on the wall came the sounds of people chatting in real time and on the screen was a still frame of the back of an airliner seat and the back of someone’s head.
A digital clock was counting backwards from thirty minutes on the upper right hand corner of the screen as the sound of glasses clinking and music came from the speakers. Every thirty seconds a new still appeared on the screen showing different views of the back of this persons head and sometimes a shot of a magazine in the viewers lap. It was evident that the recording device was constantly recording and was probably looping every thirty minutes recording over the previous recording keeping the images current.
Tony got shivers down his spine seeing images he made realizing he was viewing the last thirty minutes of his life. It made sense to him that the recorder was set up to stop recording after the electric current in his body was determined to be no longer detectable. This way they could get an accurate determination of what it was that sent the plane to its watery death.
"I want copies of this," Brinkman said to the tech as the he watched the screen intently. There was almost no degradation in the quality of the picture and sound making the playback crystal clear. The video was only hampered by the low resolution of the camera sensor placed in Tony’s eye and a slight motion blur that occurred when a still was made in the turning of his head.
Minutes passed and the images were very uneventful other than the sound of distant thunder crashes and an occasional glimpse of a flash of lightning. It seemed the weather was poor and some of the passengers could be overheard talking about it remarking about the rain and lightning outside their windows.
The group listened intently for any thing unusual, hoping to find out what it was that sent the airliner crashing into the sea. Tony was on the edge of his seat straining to listen to the sounds from the speaker and looking for anything out-of-the ordinary on the computer screen. Jesse, Sonja and Dorothy all had strained looks upon their collective faces as this bizarre movie unfolded before them. Only Alex stood in the back almost seeming uninterested by what was happening and made no effort to join in the group acting like he had better things to do with his time elsewhere.
More sounds of thunder shot over the speakers as a view of the storm appeared on the screen. Louder crashes became more frequent, seeming to interfere with the electronics of the recording device. The clouds in the distance seemed to light up in the still frame and the reflection of Tony’s face could be seen in the glass of the window. His breathing became more noticeable and rapid and he could be heard murmuring getting more and more agitated as the file played on.
"This weather might be something important," Tony’s voice said emanating from the speakers in a low-key tone. Tony’s jaw started to ache as he clenched his teeth listening to himself speak. He could feel the terror in his trembling voice becoming scared with each passing moment. He could feel the panic in his own voice and now could feel what it was like to face immanent death.
Sonja noticed Tony’s behavior and came over placing her arm around him to try to make him more comfortable. Tony didn’t seem to notice with his eyes fixated on the screen, his ears glued to the speakers. Brinkman leaned back against the counter and watched Tony’s reaction feeling like he should just lay low and let this thing ride out. He was not an overly emotional man and felt it was best to not try to comfort Tony.
On the screen the images began to download at a faster pace. The device must have been programmed to read Tony’s heart rate and adjust recording speed accordingly creating more documentation of the moment of crisis. The images jumped from one area to another as Tony spun his head in all directions in a panic. The audio led them to believe that the other passengers were worried about the weather, but had no clue as to what was about to happen to them.
Then it happened in an instant, as one thunderous crash of sound distorted the speakers causing everyone in the room jump. For a second everyone was startled and Tony lost his breath as they waited for the next image to dump. What they saw shocked and amazed them.
The cabin was flooded with clear bright daylight and all signs of the storm disappeared as the sound of cabin changed and the thunder was gone. The next few images were from Tony peering outside his window at a bright blue sky and an ocean of blue water that stretched for as far as the eye could see. The clouds were high and wispy and not of the type that created the storm they had just been in a fraction of a second ago.
"The water," Sonja said. "Oh my God." She couldn’t get a grasp on what she was seeing.
The clock on the screen read three minutes twenty five seconds and counting backwards to the end of the file and of Tony’s life.
"This is it," came from the speakers as Tony started to speak. "I hope everyone at home is getting this," he continued. "It was a bolt of lightning that sent us back. I can see that now. Outside my window I can see the ocean but I can’t see anything that would cause the plane to go down. It is very clear outside." His tone changed to a very scientific almost detached manner. It was like he was the announcer of a football game and he was describing someone else other than himself running down the field. The clock now read two minutes and fifteen seconds and the passengers now seemed in bewilderment but no longer in a panic over the thunderstorm.
"I’m going to look around," he said through the speakers and the images showed his view as he stood up and walked down the isle noticing rows and rows of people sitting in their seats watching him.
"Sir…Sir!" could be heard from a female voice and the view turned as his head spun to face the sound. "You can’t go in there!" she exclaimed. The clock now read one minute thirty seconds on the screen as a picture of a short man in the isle carrying a bag appeared with a woman walking towards him. The images remained on the view as the images began to dump at a rate of one per second. Tony was in a panic, his breathing was loud and audible and he seemed to freeze in the isle.
The man was partially blocked out by the woman on the screen but something familiar rang out about his manner and overall demeanor. A moment later the man seemed to pull something out of his bag, and the flight attendant began to struggle with him. The view turned again away from the skirmish and it sounded like Tony was running in the opposite direction from the skirmish, panting noises reverberated from the speakers.
Just then a loud pop was heard followed by a crash as Tony struck the floor of the plane. The countdown read five seconds and counting. Then the screen turned black and a new window prompt came up asking if we wanted to exit the program. Tony was dead.

***

Later that evening, each member went to his or her own respective rooms to retire for the day with a copy of the file to play on their personal computer. Dorothy had run the file several times as she got ready for bed listening to the audio and occasionally glancing at the screen to coordinate the action as it unfolded over and over. She sat down at the computer desk and started to brush her hair when something caught her eye. On one of the screen dumps she could see a group of passengers heads, as Tony had turned to see behind him.
She peered closely at the monitor thinking she recognized the face of Alex Parsons sitting several rows behind Tony, looking away from him towards the right. She stopped the program and froze the screen as it appeared at that moment and attempted to enlarge the image. As she did it got more and more distorted as the pixels became bigger squares.
She reduced it back to normal size and just sat looking at the image becoming more and more convinced it was Alex. She prompted the computer to the next image and the hair on her legs stood up as she saw the face of Alex looking right at her. Tony must have known he was on board she thought. This was odd that they weren’t sitting next to each other she concluded making a note of her findings in her journal. She took note of the color of his shirt and the approximate location of his seat. It was possible that Alex’s remains also contained a recording device somewhere in the morgue. Maybe they split up in order to obtain different points of view for the records and they knew each other were on the plane. It made sense now.
Dorothy picked up her cell phone and dialed Tony’s number. She was going to ask him over to show him her findings when she heard a knock on the door of her room. On the other end of the phone Tony answered hello as she made her way to the door with t he phone curled up under her neck.
"One second" she said, as she opening the door.
From across the campus the loud screams of a woman could be heard startling Tony, causing him to drop the phone. He scrambled out the door towards the sound seeing a bright glow emanating from the direction of Dorothy’s building and ran in that direction yelling for help. A large group of military personnel came running with fire extinguishers and any tool available to put out a massive blaze.
Dorothy had made it outside the burning building and managed to escape the hottest part of the fire but was her caught in a blaze of yellow flames. Several men forced her to the ground and the flames were put out, she was horribly burned, but still alive. She had been doused with gasoline and set afire.