The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) Read online

  The Alien Artifact 9

  (Novelette)

  V Bertolaccini

  This edition published 2016 by CB

  This is a Smashwords edition 2016

  Copyright Victor Bertolaccini

  ISBN: 978-1-3112-1735-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner. Nor can it be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Prologue

  The Ancient Discovery

  Even now, after what transpired, I do not comprehend what it was, but what I do distinguish is it never came from this universe.

  Visualization I glimpsed off it showed it resembled a dazzling star in deep space as its front materialized into the solar system.

  A powerful star of unidentified magnitude and origins emitting strange shades of dazzling light through Earth’s atmosphere that would have been seen by early human inhabitants.

  Its formation altering to a radiating reddish triangular of light magically rotating out of space itself, and a hole through the fabric of space and time, from somewhere strange and unknown, spinning increasingly faster, while bright colored lines of energy spun rapidly around its radius, and parts of it altered to different forms of energy, and while its power and spin increased it turned to a circle of lines and light.

  Its powers were so strong its detection of the Earth and transit to it were swift, with the world’s bright blue formation sitting alone in space, and it had been its best relocation and exploration.

  On its arrival, it swiftly emerged out of the blackness of space, with its radiant circular shape shifting downwards, while it altered formation, becoming more solid as it tried to transform to matter.

  Its silhouette went over the world’s icy rock like the figure of an ancient dark demon, with cold whirling currents of mist shifting around its partially formed shape, while wild beasts of ancient Earth gave far-away blood-chilling screeches from distant places, hidden away out in depths of the landscape.

  Years later I have barely been able to make out anything, never mind what its originally objective had been, but it made a terrible mistake manifesting in this universe, specifically going by what had occurred.

  What the hell had it been before it had arrived in this universe, and had transformed from? I have never heard or seen anything anywhere like it, and I still feel there was something I should have grasped, but I just could not grasp!

  Its peculiar ghostly formations of what might have been life forms to it, surely from where it came from, flashed through my mind, as strange energy formations, when it made forms of communications with me, which I originally doubted the sanity of.

  Was it insane? Did insane exist to it? Going by what it had been through it could have been! It surely was damaged! Sometimes it haunted my dreams during the night, and during the day I went through facts trying to grasp something! The smallest clue of something unnoticed!

  Other than its entrance to the universe its main error could have been separating into two divisions, which separated too far apart, with perhaps its unfamiliarity of the universe, and it became trapped on this strange celestial object and reality, with its unidentified formations, and it had gone further than it had ever gone before to survive.

  Part I

  The Ancient Discovery

  Chapter 1

  Reality Investigations

  The headquarters of Reality Investigations detective agency, beside the river Clyde, was where I disembarked, from directions John Marple, the founder, owner, and chief investigator, had given me on the phone, as he needed me as his assistant investigator.

  At the time I never even suspected even in my wildest fantasies that we would find what we did, and also lost historical treasure, after major clues to its location were uncovered by Dr Barrymore.

  Marple had investigators in all major worldwide cities and he was one of the most advanced and knowledgeable investigators I have met, who was known to me for many years before I joined him there, as assistant chief investigator, and his experience was vast, and entered new dimensions, in all sorts of ways, in science and technology, in extraordinary occurrences, and he handled cases and activities beyond any other agencies I have encountered, and even in current times, and especially at that time, as the Second World War began.

  On my entrance of the building he arrived to welcome me, and rushed me up to his office, and meeting room, where all the action occurred, and I was introduced, as Mike Malone, the news reporter, to other investigators, and given a seat.

  I felt painful bruises all about body where earlier that week I had slipped and fallen down a staircase, after trying to get an interview with a leading politician on the war, who had swiftly escaped, and I knew that there was trouble ahead, and I also realized I wanted a new career.

  Marple held a meeting with his investigators discussing the onslaught of the war, to my surprise, and of its deadliness dawning, becoming apparent across the nation, and it was then that he introduced what must be one of the most distinctive and strangest investigations in scientific history, and what must surely be the greatest scientific discovery mankind has ever encountered, since the dawn of time.

  He bestowed the case at the end of the meeting with little knowledge of what it was about, and asked me to handle it, as my first case, and to see what I would come up with, and left me in unadulterated confusion, as he gave me little, and I was sure we should not have taken the case at all, and I was surprised by Marple’s last silent mention of it, to another investigator, and that a desperate frightened woman on the phone had practically forced him into accepting the case.

  Furthermore, before I undertook it, another bizarre occurrence took place, which later incredibly became part of the case, and a new eccentric client phoned Marple and arranged a meeting with him, with another strange case, and I stayed to see what the man was so desperate to do, and why Marple had suddenly become excitedly interested, and I knew money was involved.

  I sat with Marple drinking whisky at the fireplace, and we discussed our past adventures together, and he promised me more, just as we heard the man enter the bottom floor, and Marple’s secretary announced his arrival through an intercom, and Marple ignited his pipe and smoked it briskly considering the case from diverse perspectives, and I saw he was confused over aspects of it.

  The room slowly grew silent, and the outside traffic seemed to vanish into the distance, and I sat deep into my seat, and felt the suspense Marple was reacting to, but I could not quite grasp all of it, but realized he had to have something and tried to identify what his reactions were to, from the past.

  It was intriguing and baffling! What could make such a guy react in such excitement, with such intrigue?

  His secretary was clearly affected, which was also noticeable in her knock, and was silent and impeded, and Marple withheld from rushing up and over, and I was staggered when she brought in an aged man, she announced was Dr Barrymore, and he shifted forward, with some pain, and I realized he could hardly walk properly and had serious medical conditions.

  I examined him wondering why he was even there, and realized he could be a politician or with the government, and it made me gasp as I considered the war again and I realized they could be looking for our help.

  Dr Barrymore stopped in front of
us and removed an envelope, which had the top ripped off.

  He observed us sitting at a small table, between us and the fireplace, where our drinks and Marple’s pipe and ashtray were resting, and he anxiously shuffled over to a seat next to Marple.

  He showed us a typed label on the envelope with his fingertips, with a glint of humor, followed by happiness, and he cheerfully rolled the envelope into a ball and threw it into the fireplace and removed chewing tobacco and chewed off a lump, placed the remainder in his interior pocket, and chewed off a chunk from the chunk in his mouth and spat the piece into the fire in the fireplace and started hungrily chewing the remainder.

  Marple rushed over and got a drink, and returned, and placed it in front of him.

  He removed something ancient looking from the envelope and started playing with it in front of our faces, considering what to say, as I watched the sun go down into the horizon at a side window, and golden shades beam over city buildings.

  “What’s that?” I conclusively asked him, slightly annoyed at him not doing anything for so long, unable to maintain waiting.

  “It’s an eighteenth century document!” Marple announced, and made Dr Barrymore look up, startled.

  He stared annoyed at it, and Marple continued, “I’ve some experience of dating documents!”

  “The origins of the artifact I am looking for come from the majority of accumulated sources, which have been proven to be from around 1568 …”

  “1568?” Marple replied, looking slightly surprised, and sat back considering it.

  “Yes!” Dr Barrymore continued. “According to accounts and legends! Valuable treasure was left near where it was concealed!”

  “Near where what was concealed?” Marple swiftly gasped, looking confused.

  “The artifact!”

  Marple looked at him calmly, and looked deep into the fire, and listened to what he had to say.

  “For centuries it has been thought to exist by a few scholars and explorers, who have carried out meticulous investigations and searches, of which none have been lucky enough ...”

  “What you’re saying is there is treasure somewhere?” I replied, unable to hold back my surprise and enthusiasm.

  “Of course!” he shouted. “That’s what I said on the phone!”

  “What do you want us to do?” I replied, cautiously.

  “Help me find it!” he moaned. “I’ve recently come into some new information that could allow me to locate it!”

  I could not grasp if it actually existed, and sat considering it, and everything he said.

  “According to myths,” he continued, “some people have been found dead searching for it! There could be something of great danger nearby, where it’s been concealed!”

  I sat thinking it over wondering what could be of great danger, and from that century, and was left baffled, and spotted Marple was still confused by the case.

  “What’ll we do then?” I asked, curiously.

  “You’ll have to wait until I’m ready! I have a major clue to its location, and I’m sure I can discover something of significant importance! I will need your help to recover it!”

  “We’ll do that!” Marple replied firmly.

  I knew that he had major clues to its location and that he was confident in discovering it and that it was located somewhere in the region, but I had no idea what it actually was!

  After he had left the building, and returned home, I started to doubt what he was after was of value as all the archaeology and museum discoveries found then were usually worthless, except to historians like him, for historical value, and I was sure he was just trying to get us to go out our way to get it for him, and I was sure Marple must also think so.

  Though did he have a new way of discovering lost treasures, and had he partially located it as he suggested? He had not given any major clue to its location and identity, but he had given the date of what must surely have been the time of its origins.

  He had been unraveling something for some considerable time and I went over it considering if he had deliberately disguised facts throughout his message, and if he was after something else.

  Chapter 2

  My First Investigation

  All I had been given was that an elderly woman had witnessed something unusual in the night, while going to bed, and there seemed to me no case to investigate and no crime had been committed, and nothing seemed to suggest anything, and I went to the client confused and repeatedly going over the document I was given, which consisted of nothing but a few paragraphs about a few lines she had given the agency, and I came to the conclusion that she might have stopped an attempted burglary and wanted me to secretively handle the problem.

  What could she have confronted at night in the hall of her ground floor tenement flat that could have caused her to seek such dramatic action?

  The location was in the south of the city at Craigmillar Road in Langside, and when I entered I expected little. It was my first mission! And when I saw and talked to the elderly woman I realized she had recently become a widow, and was on her own there, and realized that she had encountered something that she believed was of a paranormal nature, but which was of the strangest nature that I had witnessed in all my encounters, and from everything I had ever heard of.

  Surely if she had fantasized something it would be of a normal ghost, but it was far stranger, and I had to try to deduce what she meant by what she told me, and I then had her give me accurate descriptions of the visitation, or whatever she thought it was, and it gave me nothing and it left me confused.

  She was not ill, or had taken anything, and had not had previous hallucinations, and still she insisted something had started to appear there, in her ground floor flat, at the same time it grew dark, and she claimed it floated over her hall floor, and its movement suggested it was doing something.

  In the end I was so engrossed in discovering what would happen, and in the unusual case, I accepted her offers of staying to see it, and was given a bedroom to stay in, and was surprised that she insisted I should consider the occurrence after it happened, to give her advice, for when I met her in the morning at breakfast.

  Chapter 3

  The Haunting

  For a moment I thought something of enormous danger could occur on the investigation, but I could not believe such a thing could happen on my first case for starters, and it had not occurred to any of the other investigators, and how could anything happen with such a case! It was absurd!

  Yet I wanted to know what it was she was talking about, and placed a seat at the door of the bedroom and left the door partly opened, just enough to see the hallway, and entire area where she told me she had seen it, and I sat reading a book, and started to realize why she could have imagined something in the dark there, on her own, and then I started to see sense and that she might have some form of medical condition that could have caused her to observe something.

  What really astonished me was the fact that she arrived near the time the occurrences had taken place and apologized to me for something, and handed me a book, to which I believed she had given me as she felt sorry for me, leaving me there doing nothing, in the dark, with her elaborate plan, whatever it was, and I considered if she intended to use the story of the occurrences for somewhere for some reason.

  Then when I started to read the book I sat back staggered, as the book was full of ghost stories! They were supposedly real accounts, which had been written like they had authentically occurred, and I started to believe she had it in for me, and realized it could be part of her plan to persuade me there was something there, and I even considered helping her fabricate it at one point, as she might need it.

  Though after flicking through the pages, trying to see what was there, I was left even more staggered as there were accounts of occurrences actually taking place in the same region.

  There were accounts claiming ancient inhabitants of the region had seen alarming evil mysterious magical forces and transcendent things
dwelling there, which I could not grasp the identity of.

  It grabbed my attention that the place had not always been a city region, centuries ago, and it sent a chill through me as I thought what could be buried away there.

  There was an old newspaper account that reported and warned the readers of unexplained ancient occurrences, and one of the worst of the detailed accounts told of travelers that had come upon the mutilated remains of gypsies left in pieces in the region by some hideous occurrence, with their remains scattered throughout a wood nearby, and others of people being attacked and chased by things with fearful sounds.

  Upon reading it with fascination my eyes fell upon something in corridor, which I had seen but had ignored, as I was engrossed in it, and I stared at it for almost a minute trying to recognize it but was unable to form an image of what was there, and what I was looking at, as it had no real form, and the darkness and my tiredness never allowed my mind to come to a conclusion.

  It was the woman’s appearance there that brought me to, and she stood behind the door, out in the hallway, and I could say little, and she quickly entered my room and closed the door, and turned on the light.

  After questioning her again about it, with me this time realizing that there was something there, I asked what she had been doing before its appearance, and if she had done something that could have caused its appearance, and she considered everything and was at a loss.

  I then asked her if she had done anything anywhere that she had not done before!

  For a long time she thought it over and came up with something!