Depth Charge - red earth

Chapter 2

"Well, they must be very good at it."

"Talking about experiments," interrupted Becky, "Are we still going ahead with the black sand hills experiment?"

"Sure," replied Ryan. "As long as ..."

Ryan had not taken much notice of the man in the funny old style hat until he had his shoulder gripped in his hand. "Are you Ryan Foster? Evening folks, sorry to interrupt your dinner," announced Carl as he pulled in a seat next to Ryan. Amy stood behind them dutifully with a calm smile.

"Excuse me? We are having a private dinner here, who the hell are you?"

"Sorry," Carl tipped his hat. "I forgot to properly introduce myself. I'm detective Carl Anderson, and this is my assistant Amy Jensen." Carl moved his hand under Ryan's armpit and began to pull him upwards as he stood up. "It looks like you've had enough to fill you up."

"What the!? Let go of me."

"Bit of an urgent matter really, we need you to come with us straight away."

Greg, Becky and Alice also began to get up from their chairs and voice their concerns. Carl gave them a stern glare and used his other hand to gesture for them to sit again. "It's probably best if you all stay where you are to avoid an incident. Don't worry; I'll have him back before bed time."

Ryan pulled his arm back a bit before fixing his stare with Carl's. Carl gave him that better if you come along quietly look. Ryan thought it might be something from his past that had caught up with him.

From behind the fluorescent green lenses of her pressurized data goggles, Stacey Weaver peered into the hole that had been made from the drilling machine. The goggles were quite elaborate and odd looking, with a mechanical appearance with titanium screws, alloy and brass surrounds, and stainless cross rod. The rubber attachment s kept the dust from getting to her eyes.

Stacey had been an archaeologist for as long as she could remember. As a young child she would spend endless hours digging around in the ground to see what she could uncover, gradually travelling further and further to uncover the lost remnants of their past. The explorer in her had left no room for any other pursuits in her life. Her skinny athletic figure made it easier to slip through tight spaces. In this case, the excavation drill had left a more than adequate hole to enter the historical chamber.

Just a simple ladder was all that was required to descend. Stacey stood still in the centre of the room for a moment and turned around. Her favourite goggles took in all the data she would need before disturbing the contents. After which she removed them off her head and inhaled deeply.

The room was simple and was constructed of basic rough materials; definitely at the early stage of mineral extraction and processing. And yet; a surprising amount of early technological electronic gadgetry was here. It was in line with similar places she had uncovered over the years. She knew that her time was limited to grab what she could. Whenever there were computers on the sites, the military soon took over and sealed off the area.

Stacey moved over to a bookshelf and pulled out one of many black folders and blew the dust off. She opened it on the bench and started to skim through information about progress of one of the early settlements. Her eyes widened with excitement when she saw the detail of the book. There were names and dates, pictures and more.

Her heart rate rose as she quickly grabbed another folder, and scanned more of the gold mine she had stumbled into. It was all here; possibly the earliest find yet. Dates, occasions; answers! As she read more, and looked around the room, it soon became apparent that this was one of the first settler's homes. Whoever 'Bill' was, he certainly kept elaborate journals. Some of the documents looked like they were early military. That did not give Stacey a good feeling. She would have to move fast to get as much of this information documented and into a museum, or out to the public.