Chris came into his apartment and tossed his mail on the table. He'd spent the night down at the pub, and just felt like lying down and sleeping. He moved to his bed, coated in research materials and his laptop. The laptop was placed on his bedside table, but the papers were quick to learn that Chris wasn't in the mood for organizing as he fell down right on top of them. A book on Incan cultures found its new home under his bed, unlikely to see the light of day for weeks. Chris, callously uncaring for his research, drifted to sleep.



Light streamed in through the window on to Chris's face. It is to this he opened his eyes, fully able to experience the pounding headache from his night out drinking. He immediately put his hand up to shield from the outside, groaned and slowly rolled out of bed. He moved to his window and closed it. No need to make his head any worse. He slowly stumbled his way to the kitchen, only to find his laptop sitting open on the table. He turned it on and found that a full act had been added to his most recent project.

I don't remember doing that... he thought, noting that he needed to go back and check the work he'd done in his booze-haze. He closed the laptop and moved toward his fridge for some semblance of breakfast.

Eventually he sat down with a coffee and some toast and started to read through his alcohol-induced frenzy. He was affronted by the complete lack of grammar and spelling, but otherwise the story seemed to be in good shape. He saved the new version and moved on to his mail. Bills, bills... an advertisement for the 'Adult Superstore'.... That went straight to the trash. And a letter--Who sends letters anymore? he thought--with no return address. Intrigued, he opened it.

A blue keycard fell out on to the table. Chris picked it up and examined it. There was a fingerprint on the side with the magnetic scanner, and on the other some kind of blue logo designed around an image of the globe. There were no discernible features, other than a message telling him to call customer service. He put it down next to his computer and started reading the letter.



Chris put the letter down, suppressing laughter. Clearly someone with his address had thought it would be hilarious to wind him up a little. Either that, or some nutbag was sending these letters out to everyone who'd ever posted anything in a conspiracy chat room. Chris swore he hadn't ever used his real information in one of those places, but you never know. Some people-especially people who were obsessed with 'uncovering' secret agents, were good about that stuff. He tossed the letter in the trash and went back to his writing.

After ten minutes of staring at the blinking line, continuing to taunt him, he found his hand twirling the blue card which had been left on the table. He looked more closely at it, about to send it to join its letter friend in the trash, but still curious as to what it meant. He looked at his page, waiting for any last-minute ideas to strike him before he went off on one of his crazy people-research binges.

None came. He sighed, knowing what he was about to start doing to himself, and opened up Google. Several variations of "blue earth" "world logo" and "earth fingerprint logo" he finally got a match to what he saw on his card. The fourth result for "blue earth logo fingerprint" in images led him to the information page of a private intelligence agency, DI ACT1.

Time to test the legitimacy of his letter. After trawling through the website for a few more minutes, he found a customer service number. With the letter in hand (having recently grabbed it from his trash bin), Chris checked the time. 7:30. 16 hours... the mail arrived at his house around 5... Assuming that's when the stranger was counting from, he had another hour and a half to make his decision.

Chris dialed the number, and received an automated service. After twenty minutes of go-around, he put down the phone and gave up. He picked up the letter again. It was hard to focus on--his hangover was not making it easy to think straight. The words kept blurring as his eyes tried adjusting to the light of the room. For this reason, he didn't notice for another ten minutes that the date was written incorrectly.

Well, he needed a phone number. Chris dialed. "The number you have reached is not currently available. Please try again." "Apparently not..." He went back to staring at the letter. He could have sworn he was on to something. An idea suddenly occurred to him. He picked up the phone again. 00-1*-303-180-8201. US area code for Denver... He listened for the ring.

He once again received none. He scanned through the letter one last time, before realizing something. He added in the extra numbers from the letter-1316-and redialed. 00-1-808-201-1316. He waited for the ring, Googling this new area code. Hawaii?

Chris redialled the number two more times, transcribing the automated message. Once he was sure he had it, he read through the information given and returned to the internet. Wikipedia time, he thought, looking through the article. There was a video on it as well--clearly this person believed that there was some kind of base beneath the airport. Still, it was an interesting opportunity, and there was certainly a market for conspiracy stories at the moment.

Chris began to book a flight out to the DIA. He could get a start on the flight.



Chris arrived at the airport three days later, and once his passport was settled he began searching for the security guard mentioned on the phone. After searching for half an hour, he sat down in the baggage area and pulled out his laptop, ready to start his video diary.

"I've just arrived at DIA, the Denver International Airport, to go on some crazy conspiracy hunt set up by this 'Historian.'. I did some research on the plane, and whatever this thing is, he believes it goes all the way back to Egyptian mythology. How it all ties together is unclear, and it's hard to get a glimpse of how this guy thinks without meeting him in person. I'm assuming it does all tie together, of course, and that he's not just seeing things that aren't there. I have yet to see a security guard fitting the description I was given, and if I don't see one soonI'm going to catch a train up to my cousin in Washington. Linx out."

He closed the diary and looked up to see the crowd from his flight had thinned out and left it easier to see the guard across the room. He reached into his pocket and walked over, showing the guard the keycard. "Excuse me, but where can I catch the train?"

Chris watched the guard leave before looking around the room. It was small, and looked exactly like the interrogation rooms in television.

"Come on, what's all this about?" he called to no one in particular. "You can't just lock me up for no reason! I've... Uh... Written lawyers before! I know my rights! Which, by the way, you didn't read me. Yeah! Just because I'm foreign doesn't mean I don't know about your laws!"

Chris gave up--clearly he wasn't going to get a response. He sat down, making sure his back was to the window. No reason to make this easy for them. While waited, he pulled out his laptop again. Strange they didn't take it from me he thought, opening up to his video diary.

"New development. I followed the instructions from the call exactly, and was promptly detained by the guard I was told to meet. I don't know what kind of game someone's playing, but it's certainly not off to a good start. I'll keep you updated on anything new.". Chris closed his laptop and put it back in his bag. He turned to give a cheery wave to the guy on the other side of the window before settling in to wait for someone to come and apologize for his treatment.

Chris eventually was joined by the woman, Luz Vega. As the security guards began to take his stuff, he started to protest, "Is that really...?" but gave up. He sat back down and turned to the woman across from him.

What I don’t understand is why? Can you please explain to me how it is that you find your self here, with me?”

"I got a letter, from some kook calling himself the Historian--whatever kind of name THAT is--with some cryptic clues about Hinduism and portals and the Age of Truth. At first I thought it was one of my friends playing some kind of joke on me, or a crazy dude who thought he knew the "secrets of our governments' wrongdoings" or something. I was going to ignore it, but I was stuck in my writing and decidedit would be interesting for a movie script or something to see what theletter was about. Normally I wouldn't come out this far, but I have a friend who works in Denver on some of your American shows, and if it turned out to be a bust I'd go see him about getting a freelance job over here."

Chris figured that should satisfy the woman. "See? No threats to security, or terrorist threats. Oh, and if anything happens to me, a copy of the letter and a transcript of the phone call that led me here are sitting at my house. IfI go missing, it'll take all of two minutes in my house to figure out where I went. And I'm sure you don't want people asking questions about your secret interview rooms for detaining innocent fliers."

Chris leaned back in his chair, deciding to appear confident even if this woman proably had dozens of ways to deal with his barely-threatening leverage.

"It's Linx, Ms. Vega. My name is Christopher Linx. And if this IS where I'm supposed to be, then I was hoping you would tell me rather than interrogate me." He felt like the woman was playing games with him, but for all he knew this was how interrogations in secret underground complexes worked. "Besides, you just said it. It was a cruel joke. If you know I didn't do anything, maybe you could just let me go to see my friend and go find the person who sent me here. I mean, if you're this intense about me finding your super-secret underground complex--the one the internet is full of information on--then I'm sure you're very interested in knowing who knew enough about this place to get me here with a single, annoyingly vague letter."

He smiled. "You know, I'd be perfectly happy to help. My laptop has digital versions of the letter and phone call. I could give them to you."

Chris opened his laptop and opened the file he had on this trip, but leaving the video diary for his eyes only. He turned the laptop to the woman across, and began to talk about what he knew.

"From the letter itself, not that much. Obviously whatever he believes, it involves ties to the Hindu religion. He mentions the all-seeing eye as well, which is usually believed to be a purely Egyptian symbol, but Shiva's third eye was also referred to with that name, and the Mayans had similar symbols as well. As far as the engineered Manu goes, the Manu is theleader in Hindu religion that saved the world from a great flood, similar to the Christian story of Noah, if a bit more believable in the methodology. He was the symbol that proceeded a golden age, sometimes referred to as the 'Age of Truth' I mentioned earlier. Now, if I were writing the story based on this information alone, it would almost certainly have supernatural elements. There would probably be a portal to the underworld, related to a recent archeological dig. And, based on the referece to the thirteen men who became gods, I would probably have thirteen men on the dig possessed by the gods of the Hindu religion. Unfortunately, I can't tell what kind of upernatural beliefs this man has, so I could be way off. Another possibility would be that he believes the government is trying to engineer a Manu, a perfect leader, to bring about another Age of Truth, as in the Golden Age of Rome, or the European Renessiance."

Chris let the woman finish perusing his more detailed research on the subject, waiting for her response.