Callsign by Jeremy Robinson

Author:Jeremy Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, action, creatures, king, jeremy robinson, black hole, brainstorm, chess team, mogollon, elephant graveyard, manifold
Publisher: Breakneck Media

22

Pierce gazed down at the still form and marveled at just how human it looked. There were differences of course, most notably, the heavy brow ridge, similar in many respects to depictions of Neanderthal man, to say nothing of the enormous size and the hard looking bumps covering almost every square inch of the creature’s body. All but the area between the forehead and the end of the strong aquiline nose, were covered in the bumps.

If not for the bumpy skin, Pierce thought, you might not give him a second look walking through the mall.

Oops…make that her.

The archaeologist carefully, almost reverently, extracted the coin from the creature’s mouth and held it up for inspection. It was a silver Mexican peso coin, dated 1977. He was almost disappointed that the beasts, intelligent though they were, had chosen such a common and geographically proximal coin to use as an obol. He put the peso back, exactly as it had been and moved to the next body in line.

He winced as everything in the objective lens grew painfully bright, and lowered the monocular, blinking away the bright spots. De Bord had entered the chamber, using his flashlight to show the way.

“Damn it,” the soldier complained, keeping his voice low in spite of his irritation. “You call this takin’ a look? Those things won’t take kindly to you violatin’ their dead.”

“I don’t know if they’d care.” Pierce slipped the coin from the second corpse’s mouth and checked it.

It was most definitely not a peso.

“Well, I’d just as soon focus on gettin’ outta here. If they ain’t comin’ back, then we should keep movin’ forward. There’s bound to be another opening back to the surface.”

Pierce barely heard him. He showed De Bord the coin. Even without being able to translate the strange pictographic writing, the square hole punched in the center of the bronze circle was enough of a clue to identify the coin’s country of origin.

“Holy…is that Chinese?”

Pierce nodded. “It’s a banliang coin, from the Qin Dynasty. This coin is more than two thousand years old.”

“How in God’s name did it get here?”

Pierce grimaced. “You were right about there being another way out.” Pierce said, unable to keep the awe from his voice. “I just hope we don’t have to walk that far.”

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