The Starseed Experiment

Chapter Four

Robert found himself once again in the bar near base. He was a patron who usually decided to get wasted before crawling back to air force headquarters. He'd already had a few drinks when his commander found him, telling him sternly that he had to go to the testing room. It wasn't normal for air bases to have such a room, it was a center of operations for a top secret government experiment, and Robert was getting tired of it. He trudged back unwillingly with the commander beside him, making sure he didn't run.

"This is your last chance", he was told, "We'll let you go and you'll never find work again, we'll make sure of it."

Robert wanted to roll his eyes, at this point he hardly cared; what they put him through was too unconventional for his liking, and borderline immoral, since they didn't give the selected airmen a choice in participating. When he reached the testing room he was seated, a brain scanning mechanism placed upon his head. They had to read his brain's processing as he carried out the test, to see if he was ready for the next step. Before him images flashed on the wall and a deep robotic voice called out a word.

"Butterfly."

He answered with, "Cocoon."

"Tiger."

"Jungle"

"Rose."

"Blooming."

"Grill."

"Change."

They looked at the brain scans to see that he was thinking of the correct meanings behind the code words, something most weren't able to remember or comprehend. It was then that they decided he was ready to see behind the curtain, so to speak. They released him and his commander entered the room, along with two officers; "Come with me," he ordered.

Robert got out of the chair and followed his commander through the halls of the base until they got to an elevator. They were going down to a level he'd never been to, only accessible to a choice few. He was curious but he was also bothered that he'd been immersed even further into such a controversial program. When the doors opened he stepped out behind his commander, with the two officers trailing behind him. He saw it immediately, as it was huge. A giant pyramid stood in the middle of what he now realized was an underground hanger. It stood about three hundred feet with the capstone missing. He instantly wondered why it was that he was worthy of seeing such a thing. He also wondered what the hell it was. He couldn't take his eyes off it, the symbols covering it mesmerizing him, as his commander spoke.

"This, Robert Victor, is a vessel that landed right here in this room you're standing in. We chalked it up to being Martian, as the government has had a contract with them for years, but we haven't been able to get in touch with the CIA. We're showing you because we have a feeling you'd be able to figure out the launch codes engraved into the sides."

Robert's eyes widened as he looked at the commander, "Me? Why would you think that?"

"You've passed the test. We saw on your scans that it's likely you have a very intuitive and analytical mind."

The air man walked up closer to the spaceship to get a better look. At first it looked like Greek, but he felt that would be too easy. Then he remembered the theology class he took in high school, "It's Egyptian." The symbols held a mixture of Coptic Egyptian writing and hieroglyphs. He realized they didn't spell out whole words, forming a type of coding system. Now that was something he could do, having taken a collage coding course. It looked like he just happened to be a good fit for the job after all.

The commander took a pad and a pen from his jacket pocket, handing the items to Robert, "I'll let you get to it."   

He waited for his commander and the officers to leave before taking a closer look at the symbols on the pyramid. The first thing he noticed was that the symbol for God was used the most, represented by a pyramid, placed at the beginning of every 'word'. The pyramids were followed by various hieroglyphs and a string of letters in Coptic Egyptian. There were five words that he could find, the words repeating all over the giant vessel. He knew it was code, but he didn't yet know what for. He took his pen and notepad and wrote down the word for the first symbol, an ankh. Then he wrote down the letters following it, Asthirko. The second, the symbol for hill, followed by Querra. The third, throne, followed by Telba. The forth, a snake, followed by Reymera. And the fifth, a quail, followed by Jutan.

Somehow he could tell the words were names. Very possible that they were the names of the extraterrestrials that were on the ship. But he had no idea what the hieroglyphs meant, or what to do with any of what he wrote down. He moved around the whole pyramid to see if he was missing something, but all he found was the closed opening, an elongated handprint beside it. Only the passengers of the ship could open it. Just out of curiosity he placed his fingertips within it, and to his astonishment the door slid open. He was shocked, unable to comprehend how that worked. He was no alien. Had anyone else tried it? He wouldn't have been asked to work on the code if anyone could open it, surely.

He cautiously stepped inside, moving into the nearby cockpit. It was dark and he felt his way to the control panel, finding a lever and pushing it up. The room was instantly filled with a dim light. On the dashboard he saw five colored buttons, green, yellow, blue, purple, and then red. Then he saw a keyboard with only numbers, no letters. He was immediately discouraged, he'd seen no numbers outside the ship. But then he remembered, he was a coder, and sometimes letters and numbers were interchangeable. He looked at his notes again and placed the pad atop the dashboard. He began to write the number coinciding with the letters. The numbers only went up to nine, so the alphabet would have to go up to nine multiple times, having multiple ones and nines and so on. Ten being zero. So, Asthirko was 19089815. He typed it in and nothing happened. Then he remembered the hieroglyphs, they had to be something. He looked at the colored buttons and thought of something. They had to be color coordinated. But what color first? He looked at his notes and saw that the ankh was first. What color would that be? He thought about what the ankh represented; foremost it was associated with the sun god Ra, the sun was yellow. So he pressed the yellow button and it lit up. Then he pressed in the numbers. He looked at the pad again and saw that the next symbol was hill, he thought of a green, grassy hill and pressed green. It didn't light up. He looked at the colors and pondered, it could have been a rocky hill, so he pressed red. It lit up. He pushed in the second string of numbers. Third was throne, he was quick to realize throne meant royalty, and the royal color was purple. Next was snake, green. And last was blue, quail. Yellow, red, purple, blue, green.

The whole cockpit lit up and he felt a light rumble, as if an ignition were turned on. He looked to his right and saw another button with Coptic letters. He jotted them down. Launch. Well, he didn't want to launch the ship. He didn't know how to drive this thing, if it could even be driven, as he didn't see any other controls.

Suddenly he heard a siren coming from outside the ship and he quickly, in alarm, pulled the lever back down, turning it off. He rushed from the pyramid, the door closing behind him, only to find his commander back.

"Victor!" he called out. "You opened it." He didn't seem as surprised as he should have been. "I want your notes, tell me how you got it to work." He held out his hand and Robert reluctantly gave them to him. His commander glanced at them, "You're dismissed."

Robert felt used but he nodded, going off the elevator. Unknown to him, the commander knew exactly why he was able to open the ship. He had come from the ship, he'd been the one to find him, a baby, given to adoptive parents. The door had opened briefly after the landing, just long enough for the child to be retrieved, the official stepping out with the baby and the door closing behind him. The commander now needed his prints. The elongated handprint had been misleading, as Robert's hand was of a normal human, despite him being of alien decent. He went up the elevator, going to a trusted officer and telling him he needed a cast of Robert's hand, to take it from him without Robert's knowing. He'd have to be sedated against his will.

The officer found Robert in his quarters, getting close to him with an excuse and knocking him out with chloroform. He, along with a couple other officers, carried him from the room and took him to a workroom. They quickly made a cast and placed him back in his quarters. Now they had a way to open the ship without him.

When Robert awoke he was fed up with the facility, wanting to escape for a while. So he made his way back to the bar, getting drunk. Somehow the commander found out and sent his officers in to retrieve him. They ended up handcuffing him this time, saying he had went on one too many benders and that he was now discharged from the air force. Robert couldn't believe it, but he had known in the back of his head this would happen, and he didn't exactly care. He'd seen too much and it was too much for him to handle. Not to mention he didn't enjoy feeling used.

They took him once again to the testing room where they sat him into the chair and placed the headpiece onto his head. This time there was no test, they simply wanted to erase his memory. So they did. Erasing all memory of the facility and what he had seen. They moved him to a private jet whilst he was unconscious and flew him to Portland, Oregon, leaving him on the downtown streets.

When Robert awoke he was laying on the cement, disoriented and confused. He didn't know how he had gotten there, or where he was. The last thing he remembered was being at home with his parents. He had to ask around, and finally someone told him where he was. He was scared, he didn't have a wallet and he no longer had a home.

With nothing else in life, he had become obsessed with the Bible, a passing preacher giving it to him so he'd have faith in his current situation. He took it as a sign. He studied the book endlessly, claiming to have found code within it, the means of which he had acquired the name Asthan. With the money he had panhandled, he bought his robes, becoming a self-proclaimed warrior of God. He had no journey but with the almighty. No purpose. He wore a wedding band with the colors, yellow, red, purple, blue, and green, in that order, saying they were God's rainbow. Even he didn't know how he'd come up with that. Perhaps in a prophetic dream.

And that's when he met Julia.