Saelieni Chapter 4 by Gregory Harvey

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But they weren't fighting people. They were fighting something that didn't require light to kill. Garson noted that the perimeter defenses were already in place. Quick work...

The dust, although still present, wasn't as thick over the army base. Most of the dust in the air in fact was coming off of the boots and tires that were moving back and forth across the ground.

Will had met Melanie and Arthur outside of D Block. A medic had obviously attended to both of their head wounds, the fresh bandages still clean and white. He was surprised to see Harrison standing next to them as well. All three were not talking much. Their faces, Melanie's in particular, displayed a deep and blatant lack of understanding. They were grieving.

Will approached them, speaking to Melanie and Arthur first, "Medics clean you guys up?"

They nodded.

Melanie and Arthur, upon arrival, had been taken away from Will and Samuel, cleaned up a bit in the field hospital, and then taken for questioning. It didn't take long for the army to realize neither of them knew anything though.

"You been assigned guard duty as well?" Will asked Samuel.

He nodded.

"Is anyone going to talk to me, or should I have a conversation with myself?"

There was a silence, Harrison broke it.

"Come on man. We've all seen a lot of... a lot of violence today. A bit of time to get over, hey?"

"Let's stop standing around then," Will said, and then, "Let's go find some place to sit."

***

The laboratory door slid open and shut quickly, so as not to allow any contaminants through. The room was lined with a dull gray plastic, which suited the personalities of the men that worked within it well.

"I trust dinner was delightful, Doctor Collins?" Dr Truscott chuckled briefly from behind his computer screen, "The results of the carbon dating on the CD and the lighter are in."

"Already?"

"I used an accelerated method. Not as accurate... but quicker... obviously."

"So what's the news?" Collins asked sitting down at his own station, where he was busy analyzing Moonsana tissue fragments one of the sweep teams had brought in.

"Very strange," Truscott said.

"How so?"

"Well, the lighter has the year it was made written underneath it. 1998. Yet the carbon dating reveals it to be nearly two and a half thousand years old."

"Well you made an error then didn't you?"

"That's what I thought. But I don't see how... there were no contaminants... the test was conducted properly."

"The accelerated test. And how did you manage a carbon test on a chunk of metal?"

"There's a wood relief on the side of it, and the accelerated test would only count for a discrepancy of two hundred years at the maximum."

"And the CD?"

"Stranger still. There appeared to be a smear of blood on its underside, O negative by the way..."

"Just like my mum...," Collins said, absently sipping his coffee.

"...so I decided to test that."

"And?"

"The blood appears to be over four thousand years old... smeared across a CD that identifies itself as being printed, again, in 1998."

"Well then you screwed up twice."

"You and I both know I don't make mistakes."

"Famous last words..."

"Well anyway, I decided to put the CD in the computer.