The Lost Archive

Chapter 3

UCLA Berkley

Berkley, California

Present Day

      “It’s a clock gear. Congratulations,” Sam said after a moment.

       The thing was shiny, stainless steel or brushed aluminum, measuring about 18 inches in diameter and 6 inches deep. On the face gears were exposed, looking like a typical clock; near the outside was a band with Roman Numerals engraved on in, ten in all: 0-9. A small arrow rose up from the gears and pointed to the 0. Down in the center of the device face was a similar but smaller face with letters engraved instead of the numbers, twenty-three in all: the J, U, and W were missing; another, smaller gear pointed down at the B.

      “It’s not a fucking clock. Look at it. Don’t you recognize it?” Will replied, he sounded a little offended.

      “Yeah, I do. And I’m still gonna’ say ‘clock’.” Sam leaned against the table that William was working over and crossed his arms. “I really hope you didn’t call me down here because of that.”

      Will turned away to his computer, leaving the device next to Sam. “If you, a history major, can’t figure out what it is then I’m wasting my time.”

      “Whoa, whoa. Easy now. Just tell me what it is.” Sam picked up the ‘clock’ and examined it.

      “It’s a recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism.” Will blurted out.

      “Oh! Of course it is…”

      Will took the Mechanism from Sam. “You don’t know what that is do you?”

      “Not a clue. If they didn’t use it in the Dark Ages, then I didn’t study it.”

      Will sighed softly and sat down in the plush desk chair he used. “In the early 1900’s a diver found a strange object off the coast of Kythera, Greece. I’m not going to bore you with every detail bu-“

      “Thank you. You do know how I wander when I get bored.” Sam interrupted.

      “Right… Anyway, it was eventually found out to be an analog computer to accurately predict the stars alignment. Something unheard of in 100 B.C.E, when it was made and unfathomable until the invention of the computer in the ‘40’s.”

      “Awesome.” Sam took the mechanism from Will and examined it again. “Except one problem: this doesn’t look anything like an analog star chart. Where did you get this thing anyway?”

      “I made it with the laser etcher the department was working on. And that’s why I called you down here: it doesn’t look anything like a star chart to me either. And something else, those are Roman letters and numbers. Not Greek.”

      Sam tried turning the arrows but they wouldn’t budge. “Where did you get the blueprints?”