Miller fumbled for the phone beside his bed; he had been in a deep sleep. Gary was on the other end of the line. In a surly voice, Miller said, “Damn it, man! Do you know what time it is?”
Gary said in a calm, almost fatherly voice, “It’s four in the morning. Sorry to wake you, Frank, but I have some important news. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to watch TV. There was a major news bulletin about a large volcanic eruption and a cluster of magnitude-8.0-plus earthquakes in Yellowstone National Park. A huge volcano formed in the area of Mount Washburn. Fortunately, no one is around to speak of at this time of year; the Park Service normally just has a skeleton crew present. I don’t know whether we can blame this new Yellowstone event on our friend, the Apocalypse Calendar. The huge lava dome under much of the park has been in a state of unrest for years. However, it’s worth noting that from December 2008 into January 2009, five hundred earthquakes were detected under the northwest end of Yellowstone Lake in a seven-day period. The most recent swarm started in January 2010 after the Haitian earthquake and before the Chile earthquake. This was the second-largest swarm of earthquakes in the history of the Yellowstone Caldera.”
“Gary, I’m afraid that what you just said does incriminate the Calendar! The earthquake swarm after the Haitian earthquake and before the Chilean earthquake ties in with the time that Alfred twisted the knob on the Calendar. We’re in big trouble! Some experts predict that an eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano will inject two billion tons of sulfuric acid aerosols into the atmosphere. In two to three weeks, this aerosol would cover the earth. The devastating effects of this aerosol cover coupled with the tremendous amount of volcanic dust in the atmosphere would result in a ten-degree drop in global temperature. Some scientists predict that the monsoon cycle would fail in the southern hemisphere and draughts would cause mass starvation in Southeast Asia. This Yellowstone eruption is going to cause major problems! We have to hope that it stops. We’ve already had major volcanic eruptions in February at Mount Etna in Sicily and the Sakurajima volcano in Japan. In addition, in May there were major volcanic eruptions of the Santa Maria Volcano, in Guatemala; Popocatépetl, near Mexico City; Fuego in Guatemala; the Batu Tara Dukonoi volcanoes in Indonesia; and Shiveluch, Central Kamchatka in Russia. At any rate, I guess we need to get ahold of Stanley at NORAD.”
“I’ll leave that call to you. We are scheduled to meet with Stanley and President Renzle on Thursday.”
Miller said, “When you have your meeting, be sure that you and Stanley mention the warning system that we decided to set up for the North Atlantic basin. It is important that President Renzle understands that if there is a cluster of earthquakes anywhere in or around the North Atlantic, he should evacuate all major cities along the East Coast. I am inclined to think that this is the right time to notify the press.”
Gary asked, “Are you going to let the press take photos of the Apocalypse Calendar?”
“I think not. The press shouldn’t view the Calendar. Photos might prove dangerous. The flashes might set off the alien device even more. We have enough to deal with as it is. I also need to ask Stanley whether the tempo of light flashes has increased since the Yellowstone Supervolcano event started. I bet it has. Gary, I’ll get back to you later in the morning.”
Like Miller, General Stanley Maxwell wasn’t too happy to be awakened in the early morning hours. Actually, he had just gotten off of night duty and had only been asleep for about an hour and a half. General Maxwell said, “Frank, you are a sadist. I just went to bed not too long ago! Well, with the phone making such a racket, I’m halfway awake, and I’m sure you are about to awaken me for good! What’s up?”
Miller said, laughing, “Gary just woke me a bit earlier. Apparently, there has been a magnitude-8.0 earthquake and a major volcanic eruption in the old Yellowstone Caldera. As I’m sure you are aware, most volcanologists believe that an eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano would be disastrous to mankind. Everybody today is so fixated on global warming that they forget that global cooling could also easily occur almost instantly due to volcanic eruptions. The injection of enormous amounts of sulphuric acid, aerosols, and volcanic dust into the atmosphere will quickly lower global temperature by as much as ten degrees. Some experts suggest that this sort of cooling could trigger another period of continental glaciation.
“At any rate, now that you are awake—or perhaps falling asleep from listening to me—I need you to take a look at the Apocalypse Calendar. I would like to know whether the pulses of light from the device have increased in frequency.”
Stanley, now becoming excited, said, “I’ll run over to take a look at our friend and call you right back. Give me about fifteen minutes.”
Miller made himself a cup of coffee. By now, Jane was up. She said, “Honey, this sounds serious. We’ve just got to find a way to block this road to the Apocalypse. I can’t believe that all of this started when our grandson turned the knob on the Apocalypse Calendar.”
Miller said, “I’m afraid that Gary, Arturo, Felipe, and I are as much at fault as our grandson. We’re the ones who collected the damn thing in the first place. As Dolores indicated as well, all of the signs pointed to this thing being Moctezuma’s Treasure. So far, the device has been more of a curse than a treasure!”
Jane said with a look of apprehension, “Frank, I think I hear the phone ringing. It’s probably Stanley.”
Miller rushed around to find his cell phone. He’d misplaced the damn thing again. After thirty interminable seconds or so, he finally found the phone underneath some of his notes. On the other end of the line, Stanley said in a worried tone, “Frank, I just took a look at the Calendar. There is little question that the frequency of light pulses has increased again.”
“Stanley, I think it would be a good idea to pipe these pulses into the mainframe supercomputer at NORAD. We need every bit of information that we can get. It is possible that, now that the pulses are more rapid in nature, the computer might uncover some sort of coded message. The irregular nature of the pulses certainly suggests some sort of code. From Jane’s encounter with the alien device, we know for sure that it is trying to communicate with us.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can come up with. We may not get any definitive results for quite a while.”
“It would be good to have some results before you and Gary meet with President Renzle.”
When Miller finished his conversation with the general, he called Gary and briefed him on the Calendar’s increase in light pulse frequency.
Gary said, “The flashes in the Calendar may represent some sort of code, but I think that their speedup in intensity is directly tied into a corresponding increase in mantle convection. The flashes themselves are like some sort of warning signal. If this hypothesis is correct, we should see a parallel increase in tectonic activity all over the world. God only knows where and when the next event will occur, but I bet it’s going to make the most recent Yellowstone event look like a midget.”