THE CARROT

Ch.7 - Discovery

Two Days Later
Brazilian-Peruvian / Envira Region

Elmon, a native of the Peruvian jungle, could feel his heart beating hard in his chest as the sound of his pounding feet reached his ears. His mind was on fleeing and his heart was on the family he left behind, but it didn't matter now. The all-encompassing light reached him in a matter of seconds.

An hour before, his friend Lumo passed him on the new trail coming from the mud slide created by the thing that fell from the sky. Lumo was carrying a strange object as he slipped past him on the narrow trail. Elmon stopped and called to his friend, but he did not answer. It made little difference. He knew he would catch up to him later to see what he had found. At the moment, he wanted to see the damage to the mountain for himself. Besides, he might find something too.

At roughly three hundred feet above the small remote village Elmon stopped to take in the countryside. He could see that Lumo had made it to the center of the hut like dwellings and had drawn a crowd.

He started to turn back to continue his hike up the mountain when a spark of brilliant white caught the corner of his eye. He paused to turn his attention toward this strange light. He gasped when he saw the light grow in intensity from the village below where it began. It quickly spread out through the thick underbrush of the rainforest.

He felt the need to flee and ran as fast as he could up the new trail. It was no good. He felt the light on his back as the thing overtook him. The light filtered through his skin and into his bones for a second before he lost his sight. His personal darkness lasted for mere seconds as he faded to dust along with anything else made of organic material.

The object in the village shed exotic particles of pure energy that encompassed the valley floor and went for a half mile in a circular pattern. It only took seconds to complete its cycle, then it went dormant, again.

Lumo had no way of knowing what the device was, let alone where it came from or why it came. When he found it he was very excited to see such a wondrous thing. It was beautiful and captured his imagination.

His excitement led to the total annihilation of everyone he had ever known, including everyone he had ever loved. He would never know his unintended action had left a bare spot on the earth of over a half mile in diameter. The spot was completely void of anything organic, not even a splinter of wood from a tree or a feather from a bird. Only rock and soil was left. There had been no sound, no smoke, no heat, only the light emanated from the object. The only thing left was the object itself.

Somewhere in Maryland
United States of America

Pentagon General Terrance Lemore, secretary for the Armed Services Committee, rolled over in his king sized bed to look at the clock. It was three thrifty-three a.m. as the telephone issued its annoying alert.

"Lemore. What is the trouble?" He growled into the phone.

"Sir, This is the recovery division for Topographical Option Mapping Country All Terrain."

"TOMCAT? What the devil are you calling me for? Don't you have a chain of command or a director to wake up at three a-m?"

"Yes. He is awake and that would be me—Director Steve Arnold."

"Okay, Director Arnold. What can I do for you?"

"A few hours ago there was an explosion, of sorts, in the foothills of the Envira region near the Brazilian-Peruvian frontier."

"Another asteroid?" asked Lemore, before Arnold could explain.

"No, sir. The luminary data collected indicated a possible nuclear level emmitance of light, of sorts."