Intersection With Nibiru

New York - Manhattan Island

In Manhattan, New York, in a luxurious office on the 39th floor of the imposing skyscraper located between 5th Avenue and 59th Street, a rather short man, with a stylish and well-groomed appearance, stood in front of one of the five large windows separating him from the outside environment. He was wearing a dark grey suit, undoubtedly Italian, a flashy red tie and had smooth, sleeked back, greying hair. His deep, dark eyes looked beyond the glass of the window, in the direction of Central Park, scrutinising the magnificent park which, from virtually right under his feet, stretched four kilometres in length and eight hundred metres in width, representing an invaluable green space, a source of oxygen and recreation, for the almost two million inhabitants of the island.

“Mr Senator, may I?" said a small bald man, with an expressionless face, knocking timidly at the elegant entrance door in dark lacquered wood. To the side, a small gilded nameplate in black italics announced, "Senator Jonathan Preston".

“What is it?" answered the man without even turning around.

“There’s an encrypted video communication on hold for you."

“Okay, I’ll take it from here. Close the door when you leave."

The man walked slowly towards the elegant dark desk and sat down on the soft black leather desk chair. With an automatic gesture, he touched the knot of his tie, placed the earpiece in his right ear and pushed a small grey button located underneath the top of the desk. A large semi-transparent monitor, began to descend from the ceiling with a slight hissing sound, until it gently came to rest on the top of the desk. The man touched the screen and General Campbell’s large face appeared before him.

“General, I note with pleasure that you are no longer a guest of the nation's prison service."

“Senator, how are you? I wanted to thank you, first of all, for the rapid and efficient recovery operation.”

“I think the credit all goes to the two individuals I can see behind you."

The General instinctively turned around and saw the fat guy and his accomplice, who were trying to get themselves into the webcam's range, just as the public usually does when everyone crowds behind a journalist doing a live television broadcast. He shrugged his shoulders slightly and went on saying, "They’re not exactly the brightest sparks but they’re very efficient for certain types of work."

“So! Now tell me everything. Your report should have been on my desk more than twelve hours ago."

“Shall we say I’ve been rather ‘busy’ lately”, answered the General ironically. “Anyway, I can confirm that your intuition on Doctor Hunter’s work was spot on and, thanks to your discovery, I was able to personally be present at an event that was nothing short of amazing."

The General paused a moment, hoping to increase the other’s curiosity even more, then added, "Senator, I’m not sure how, but our doctor’s discovery of the infamous ‘vase with the precious contents’, must have somehow activated a system that attracted none other to our planet than..." He stopped, aware that the phrase he was about to say would be a little difficult to actually take in, then took a deep breath and, without further hesitation, solemnly announced, "An alien spacecraft."

The officer tried to keep his eyes fixed straight ahead on the monitor searching for signs of amazement on the Senator’s face. But he didn’t even blink. He simply rested his elbow on the dark wood of the desk and, holding his chin between his thumb and forefinger, began gently stroking it. He continued doing this for a few seconds then very simply stated, "So, they’re back."

The General couldn’t help but open his eyes wide in surprise.

So Preston already knew everything about the aliens... How could that be possible?

The Senator rose slowly from his comfortable chair and, clasping his hands behind his back, began to pace around the desk in circles. The General and his two assistants standing behind him didn’t dare add even a word. They confined themselves to exchanging doubtful glances and waiting patiently.

Suddenly, Preston went back to his desk, leant both hands on it and, looking the General straight in the eyes, said, "You had a drone with you. Please tell me that you managed to film this spacecraft."

The General turned, desperately searching for a positive response from the pair behind him. The thin guy smiled smugly and puffing out his chest with pride, announced with a satisfied air, "Certainly Senator, more than one. I’ll send them to you immediately."

He unceremoniously moved the General aside and, after tinkering a little on the keyboard in front of him, made the shots taken in Doctor Hunter’s site appear in a window on the Senator’s screen.

Preston placed both his elbows on the desk, leant his chin on the closed fists of his hands and moved as close as possible to the monitor so as not to miss a single frame running across the screen in front of him. First the night images of the stone container discovered buried in the ground, then those of the mysterious black ball inside it and it being transported into the laboratory tent. Then the scene changed. To one of broad daylight. A circular silvery structure, apparently resting on four beams of reddish light coming from the corners of an imaginary square drawn on the ground, was in full view. The whole appeared to be a kind of truncated pyramid which bore a staggering resemblance to the Ziggurat of Ur, which could be seen rising majestically in the background.

The Senator was unable to tear his eyes away from the screen. When he saw the two figures, human in appearance but decidedly taller and bulkier than average, appear in the opening of the silver coloured structure and position themselves, legs wide apart, on what had to be a descending platform, he couldn’t help but jump as he felt his heart beating wildly in his chest.

The dream he had been pursuing all his life had finally come true! All his studies, his research, above all, the substantial capital he had invested in this project were finally giving the hoped-for results. Those figures he was watching on the screen really were two aliens who, on board their highly-advanced spacecraft, had crossed interplanetary space to return to Earth again. Now he would be able to show all those people who had always criticised him that his calculations were absolutely accurate. The mysterious twelfth planet of the solar system really did exist! After 3,600 years, its orbit was about to cross the earth’s again and there before him were two of its inhabitants who, taking advantage of the ‘ride’ provided by the planet, had returned to visit and once again influence our culture and our lives. It had already happened who knows how many other times over the millenniums and now history was repeating itself yet again. This time however, he too was there and he certainly wasn’t going to let this once-in-a-lifetime chance escape him.

“Good work” said the Senator simply, addressing the three faces looking apprehensively at him from the screen. Then, after spinning his chair around full circle, he added "The fact General, that you allowed yourself to be discovered will complicate things a little. We shall no longer have the possibility of having an authoritative ‘ear’ within ELSAD but, at this point, we are no longer interested."

"What do you mean, Senator?"

"Our goal now is no longer to discover if Doctor Hunter's assumptions were correct, nor to come into possession of the precious ‘contents’."

"Yes, because they were anything but precious anyway," whispered the fat guy.

“We can go directly to phase two" continued the Senator, pretending not to have heard. "We are faced with an incredibly advanced technology and they are handing it to us on a silver platter. All we have to do is simply take it before someone else gets in before us."

“Allow me, Senator,” ventured the General timidly. “My two helpers have discovered at their own expense that our two lovable aliens do not seem to be all that willing to cooperate."

“Let’s just say they beat us up," added the big guy, rubbing his knee.

“I can imagine the kind of approach you used," retorted the Senator, with just the hint of a smile. “Have you ever wondered how come they entertained such friendly relations with the doctor and Colonel Hudson?"

“To tell the truth it did seem rather strange," replied the General. “With them, they behaved as if they had known them a lifetime."

“Instead, I believe they simply showed themselves to be much more friendly and nicer than you."

“Well, to be fair, it’s not like we handled them with kid gloves exactly."

“What has been, has been," sentenced the Senator. “Now just try and concentrate on the next mission. You two, trace the Colonel and his friend. I don’t want you to let them out of your sight for even one moment. You’ve got means and funds available. I’ll not accept mistakes this time."

“Now who’s going to tell him that those two are having a ride around the Earth?" whispered the fat guy in the thin one’s ear, an instant before letting out a low moan caused by the kick on his left shin that his accomplice had just landed on him.

“You instead General, will come and fetch me at the airport."

“Are you coming here personally?" exclaimed the soldier amazed.

“I wouldn’t miss this event for anything in the world. If that’s their landing base, they’ll have to return there, but this time we’ll have a nice welcome committee waiting for them. I’ll give you instructions when I’m on my way. Good luck everyone," and he ended the conversation.

The Senator remained still a few more moments looking at the monitor in front of him which, after the end of the transmission, was now showing a series of spectacular pictures of the Arizona desert that ran slowly across it, one after the other. Then, as if something had suddenly awoken him, he jumped to his feet, pushed the button on the communicator on his desk and said curtly into the built-in microphone "Have them prepare my plane and call my driver. I want to be in the air within an hour at the most."

Theos spacecraft - The gift

“We must go back down," said Colonel Hudson to the two aliens. “I need to make some phone calls and I really don’t think it’s possible from here."

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that," answered Azakis smiling. “You know, if good old Petri seriously puts his mind to it, he can do things you can’t even begin to imagine," and he gave his companion a pat on the back.

“Calm down, calm down," answered Petri waving his hands in the air. “First of all, define the concept of ‘phone call’."

Jack, a little surprised at the apparently trivial question, turned towards Elisa who, first shrugged her shoulders then, indicating the Colonel’s pocket, said candidly, "Show them your phone, no?"

With a quick movement, Jack took out his smartphone. It was a rather dated touchscreen. He had never liked following the absurd tendency of always having the latest mobile phone. He preferred to have something to hand that he knew, without always having to waste a lot of time learning all the new features.

“I’m not an engineer," said Jack as he showed it to the alien, "but with this thing, we are able to talk to another person who has a similar one, simply by dialling their number on this keypad."

Petri took the phone and observed it carefully. “It must be a one-to-one transmission system, similar to our hand-held communicators."

“With the only difference," added Elisa, "that every time we use it, it sucks a whole lot of money off us."

Thinking that his limited knowledge of their language would not allow him to grasp all its concepts, Petri decided to ignore this last statement and continued to analyse the object he was holding in his hand. “I shall need a little time to understand how it works."

“Sure, take your time," replied Elisa disconsolately. “After all, it’s not like there’s a planet about to crash into us."

Petri looked at her perplexed then, seeing as he hadn’t caught on to that quip either, decided to say no more. He simply shrugged his shoulders and slid into the nearest internal transfer module where he disappeared within a few seconds.

“Well, presuming it is possible to get your mobile to work from here, how were you thinking of proceeding?" asked Elisa, while desperately trying to recover from the weakness caused by the lack of oxygen and the thousand emotions she had been through over the last few hours.

“Initially I’d thought of contacting Senator Preston, General Campbell’s direct superior. But as he has never been very convincing in my view, I’ve decided to go down a different route to get to the President."

“Do you think he might also be involved?"

“Those two devils have never been truthful with me. Rumours have been going around that Preston is even implicated with some decidedly disreputable arms manufacturers. I don’t trust him at all."

“So?"

“So, I shall speak directly to Admiral Benjamin Wilson. He was the President’s right-hand man for several years and he was also a very good friend of my father’s."

“Was?"

“Unfortunately, my father left us almost two years ago."

“I’m sorry..." whispered Elisa gently caressing his left arm.

“Wilson held me on his knees when I was a child. He’s one of the few people I trust blindly."

“I don’t know what to say. No matter how well you get along with him, I think it’ll be difficult to get him to swallow a story like this over the phone."

“I could always send him a few photos of the view of his city from up here."

"With our short-range sensors," remarked Azakis, who until then had remained on the sidelines, "we could even tell him the beats per minute of his heart, in real time."

“Please don’t joke about it," exclaimed Elisa, emphasising what she was saying with a gesture of her hand.

“Don’t you believe me? Watch this then."

Through his O^COM, Azakis made the view from above of the doctor’s base camp appear on the giant screen. In a few seconds, he enlarged the image to bring her laboratory tent into full view.

“What you are seeing..."

“Is my tent," exclaimed Elisa before Azakis could end the sentence.

“Exactly. Now watch this."

All of a sudden, it was as if the tent’s cover had disappeared and she could see all the objects inside it perfectly.

“My desk, my books ... incredible!"

"If there were someone inside, I could show you the heat generated by their blood flow and therefore I could also calculate their heartbeat."

Decidedly satisfied with the demonstration he had given them, the alien began to wander proudly around the room.

The Colonel however, who still had not recovered from his astonishment, suddenly seemed to have been hit by a thunderbolt and exclaimed crossly, "What do you mean ‘if there were someone’? There must be someone. Where the devil are the two prisoners?"

Elisa moved closer to the screen to get a better look. “Perhaps they’ve moved them. Can we have a complete view of the rest of the site?"

“Yes, no problem."

In a few seconds, Azakis started running an overview of the camp. The sensors scrutinised everywhere but there was no trace of the two prisoners.

“They must have escaped," said the Colonel laconically. “This means we’ll be finding them under our feet again before long. Luckily the General was taken to a safe place by my men. Those three together are capable of doing more harm than the devil himself."

“It doesn’t matter," said Elisa. “We’ve got much bigger problems to worry about right now."

She had barely finished the sentence when the door of internal communication module number three opened. An attractive girl stepped out of it, with soft, sinuous steps. She was holding some sort of completely transparent tray in her hands, on which there were different coloured containers.

“Ladies and Gentlemen" announced Azakis pompously, flashing one of his best smiles. “Allow me to introduce the most enchanting navigator in the entire galaxy to you."

Jack, whose jaw had fallen in amazement, managed only to stutter "Hello” before he received an elbow in his right side, right between his tenth and eleventh rib.

“Welcome aboard" she said in rather faltering English. “I expect you’re hungry. I’ve brought you something to eat."

“Thank you, that’s very kind," said Elisa angrily, glaring at her man.

The girl said no more. She placed the tray on a support to their left and her face lit up with a beautiful smile, then a few seconds later, she disappeared once again in the same module she had arrived with.

"Pretty no?" commented Azakis watching the Colonel.

“Pretty? Who? What do you mean?" Jack hastened to respond, mindful of the blow he had just received.

Azakis burst into a roar of laughter then, with a wave of his hand, he invited them to help themselves.

“What on earth is this stuff?" murmured Elisa, while in decidedly inelegant fashion sniffing the various dishes.

“Liver of Nebir," the alien hastened to list, "rib of Hanuk and boiled roots of Hermes, all accompanied by, shall we say, an ‘energy’ drink."

“It was completely different at the Masgouf restaurant," commented Elisa laconically. “But I'm starving so I think I’ll try something."

She grabbed a piece of rib with her hands and, without too much trouble, began to gnaw it down to the bone. “This stuff won’t give us an enormous bellyache, will it Zak? You try it as well, my love. The taste is a little strange but it’s not that bad really."

The Colonel, who was watching Elisa with horror while she devoured all those strange foods on the tray without restraint, just mumbled, "No, no thanks. I’m not hungry.”

His attention was attracted instead by the strangeness of both the tray and the containers used as plates. He grabbed a bright red one and tested its consistency. It was strange and quite cold. Colder than it should have been and, despite this, the food in it was boiling. He lightly ran the tip of his index finger across its surface. It was incredibly smooth. It didn’t seem to be of either metal or plastic. On the other hand, how could it be plastic? They used it for completely different purposes. The other decidedly bizarre thing was that, despite the perfection of its surface finish, there were absolutely no reflections in it. The light was like swallowed up by that mysterious material. He put his ear close to the smooth surface and, with the knuckle of his middle finger, began to gently tap it. Incredibly, the container did not make any noise. It was as if he were knocking on a big wad of cotton wool.

“But what are these objects made of?" he asked, greatly intrigued. “And the serving tray? It would appear to be of the same material.”

Azakis, somewhat surprised by the strange question, also approached the tray. He picked up another vessel, this time pale green in colour, and lifted it up to the level of his eyes.

“In actual fact, it’s not really a ‘material’.”

“In what sense? What do you mean?”

“What do you use to hold objects, food, liquids or substances in general?"

“Well, we usually use wooden or cardboard boxes to transport materials. To serve food we use metal pans, china plates and glass glasses. To transport or store foods and liquids in general, we use plastic containers in a variety of different shapes."

“Plastic? Are we talking about the plastic we’re interested in?” asked Azakis shocked.

“I believe so,” replied the Colonel softly. "Actually, plastic has become one of our biggest problems with regard to the pollution of our planet. Even you told us you found disproportionate amounts of it everywhere." He paused briefly, then added "That’s why your offer to recover it all appealed to us so much. We may have found the solution to a gigantic problem."

"So, if I have understood correctly, you use plastic as a container and then throw it away without restraint, polluting every corner of your planet?"

"Precisely" replied Jack, increasingly embarrassed.

"But that's madness, it’s absurd. You’re poisoning yourselves with your own hands."

"Well, if you also consider all the smog caused by our means of locomotion, from our factories and power generation systems we’ve actually managed to do a lot worse. Not to mention the radioactive waste that we still do not know how to dispose of."

“You're completely crazy! You’re destroying the most beautiful planet in the entire solar system. And, unfortunately, it’s our fault too."

“How is it your fault?”

"Well, it was us who changed your DNA, a hundred thousand years or so ago. We gave you superior intelligence to any other beings on Earth and what have you used it for?"

"To bring the planet to ruin." Jack spoke with his head down, like a student who is being reproached by the teacher for not having done his homework. "But now you're back! I really hope you can give us a hand to fix the damage we've done."

"I don’t think it’s going to be that easy" said Azakis increasingly upset. "Thanks to Petri’s analysis on the state of your oceans, we’ve seen that the amount of fish in them has been reduced by over eighty percent since the last time we were here. How did that happen?”

At that point, Jack just wished the floor would swallow him up. "There are no excuses" was all he managed to say almost in a whisper. "We're just a bunch of condescending, arrogant, conceited and silly mindless beings."

Elisa, who had been listening to Azakis’ tirade in silence, swallowed the last piece of Nebir liver, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then said quietly "We're not all like that you know?"

The alien looked at her in surprise, but she went on with decision "It’s those ‘in power’ as they are called who have reduced us to this state. Most normal people fight every day to protect the environment and all forms of life which inhabit our beloved planet. It’s easy to come here from millions of kilometres away, after thousands of years and moralise. You may well have given us our intelligence but you didn’t leave us even a shred of an instruction manual on how to use it!"

Jack looked at her and realised he was head over heels in love with this woman.

Azakis was speechless. He certainly hadn’t expected a reaction like that. Elisa, on the other hand, continued undeterred “If you really want to help us, you should make all your technological, medical and scientific knowledge available to us, in the shortest possible time as you certainly won’t be staying on this devastated planet for very long."

“Okay, okay. Don't get too upset,” Azakis tried to answer. "I think we did put ourselves at your disposal, without hesitation, to give you a hand or not?"

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry... You could just have taken your plastic and headed off back to where you came from without even saying goodbye and instead here you are risking your lives together with us.”

Elisa really was sorry for her outburst. So, to defuse the situation a little, she exclaimed cheerfully "But the food was delicious!" Then, she approached the alien and looking up at him from below said softly "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."

"Don't worry, I do understand and to show you there’s no hard feelings, I'll give you this.”

Elisa held out her open hand and Azakis dropped a tiny dark object into it.

"Thank you, but what is it?" she asked intrigued.

"It’s the solution to your problems with plastic."