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Professor Cotter was a large man. He filled every inch of the soft cushioned chair he sat in. He had a thick white beard and curly silver-white hair. Gray bags hung from his eyelids due to lack of sleep. His net visor was down and he looked busy typing away on the holographic keyboard.
He didn’t like the new system of projecting thoughts onto the screen and sending that as mail, and there was always the fear of someone tapping into his brain, like those poor girls who’d been mind raped recently. He felt mildly sorry for their foolishness. Why on earth would someone want to be connected to the net all day? He couldn’t understand it and had no intention of researching the subject.
Instead, he had bigger and better things to think about and research. Like today’s dig in Zone Three. What a wonderful discovery it was. It had taken years for him to find the right area. Three times he had been wrong. Well, not exactly wrong. The first find was Peter’s old house. He concluded it had an earth basement. The kids had found nothing but a hole—a hard molten hole leading deep into darkness.
The second and third finds were errors also. Disappointing, but all part of the fun.
This time he was positive he was right. He had found an old web server and managed to get it to run. From there he had found and downloaded an old telephone directory. The information on it was astounding. The information and technology of the twenty-first century was so advanced. He often wondered why the advancements that were possible had stalled and then been lost in the third war.
Stop it, he told himself, concentrate on what you’re doing, you old fool.
In the net visor he saw the old map of Opera Sands. A red “X” marked the spot of Peter’s address. There was a blue line next to the “X” reading: For articles, click here.
Professor Cotter had no idea what “click here” meant. This was information downloaded from the old server, which had provided many articles on Mr. Clement. The main and longest article was about Peter’s disappearance, containing many speculations and rumors. Unfortunately, the last few articles were unreadable. They were loaded as something called a .pdf, and in the six months since getting this information he had yet to find out what a .pdf was. It was another mystery he wanted to discover. He desperately wanted to read those remaining articles. Who knew what they contained?
A knock at the door broke his already fleeting concentration. He looked up at the monitor panel to see Rachael and her team smiling up at the camera lens. They thought it was hilarious for him to use a camera when all other doors read the knocker's DNA and produced a picture and file on the net visor. He saw no need to change. The old system worked fine and there was no way he was going to be online during his entire working day, especially with so many hackers around. He had stored information which no one except him and two others needed to know.
“Enter,” he grumbled.
The door slid open and the team members approached his desk.
“Ah, Rachael, good to see you. How was your weekend?”
“Pleasurable, Professor.”
“Good, good. Well then, are we all looking forward to this excursion?” He looked at each person in turn. Only Ami’s face was alight with hope. He gave her a warm smile. “This is the real one,” he said.
“Will you be coming with us, Professor?” Ami asked.
“No, dear, I’m afraid I must give a lecture in half an hour.” He shook his head, smile vanishing. “But,” he added, “I wish I could be there with the six of you.”
Michael said, “Shall we capture net link?”
The professor laughed. “No, Michael, but thank you for the offer. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate with my lecture and other duties.” His eyebrows rose. “I doubt whether a net link would work where you’ll be.”
Words appeared on the professor’s net visor, appearing on top of the image of the map. Everyone else heard what Eric said.
Shall we capture our progress stage by stage and mail them? Or would you prefer to direct download later?
“A direct download later would be best, Eric. Thank you.”
Eric nodded agreement.
“There are three reasons why I asked you here this morning before you left for the dig.”
I believe we all have our exit passes, Eric said.
“Oh, hell,” Ami said. She opened her bag and rummaged through. The others tried to suppress their laughter, all failed. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Ami dropped her bag and started searching her pockets.
Penny Lacort said, “What’s in the bag’s side pocket?”
Ami lifted the bag by its long side strap and checked the pocket. She pulled out the bar-coded pass. Her cheeks brightened. “Oh, whoops.” She shrugged and said, “I’ve got mine. How about you others?”
They already had their pass out by the time the question left her lips and she looked up.
“Well, aren’t we the prepared bunch?” Ami said with a smile.
The professor coughed. “May I continue?” he asked.
“Sure,” Ami said.
He smiled at her. “Thank you, dear.”
“You’re welcome.”
The professor sighed loudly. “First off, Zone Three may be considered safe by most government agencies, but I’d feel better if you all carried your masks, okay?”
The group nodded in unison.
“Second, be careful. The ground out there is unstable at best. The deeper you laser in, the more caution you must take.” He looked at each to be sure they absorbed his message.
“And the third?” Rachael asked.
“Yes, the third. Don’t touch anything. Document it all. Capture holographic images and save them. I know you’ve heard me say all this before, but I find that nice little reminders like this are needed. We get excited when we find relics of the past—” He looked at Rachael when he said this. “—and we know how damaged and contaminated they become if we handle them incorrectly.”
Rachael blushed. She knew he was talking about the music disk she had found.
“All right.” The professor clapped his hands twice, fast. “Go explore.” He watched them file out one by one.