In Situ by David Samuel Frazier Page B

specimens , Tom?” Alex continued to pan her light over the obviously manmade staircase, which defied logic if the cave dating was accurate at pre-K-T. “Oh my god! They must have made a mistake,” she said. She felt as if her head was going to explode. “Who was this guy you spoke to?”
    “I don’t remember Alex,” he thought for a moment. “Wilson, yes, I think it was a guy by the name of Pete Wilson. Anyway, they didn’t exactly invite me along. All I know is that they commandeered a refrigeration truck from town and spent a good part of yesterday and almost all of today loading it up. Heck, they just left a few minutes before you got here. Batter was involved, so he probably knows the whole story. I had other issues so I didn’t get down here until this afternoon with my…,” Tom hesitated.
    “With your what, Tom?” Alex asked suspiciously.
    Tom’s face reddened, “Come on Alex, I am under orders to finish this project a.s.a.p.”
    “With your what ?”
    “With my demo guys Alex . We’re going to blast this area in the morning and seal it. Those explosions this afternoon, that was my crew preparing the fill material up top.”
    “Jesus , Tom, what’s the hurry?” she demanded.
    “I don’t really know , but there is definitely a big hurry. Batter was emphatic that in no way were we to fall any further behind schedule. We’ve already been delayed almost a week because of this find. He’s given me only twenty days to finish.”
    Alex was shaking. “You mean to tell me that you guys are going to purposely ruin what is possibly the most important discovery in the history of modern man over a friggin’ schedule?” She tripped again and Tom reached out to catch her.
    “Alex,” Tom continued calmly, “Batter assured me that the scientists have already recovered or documented anything of importance down here, and that I need to get the project completed. As he said, ‘because that , Tom, is exactly what we are paying you to do.’”
    “Well , Tom, aren’t you just a little bit curious about what the rush is? I mean, didn’t you tell me that what you are building is some sort of doomsday shelter?” Alex asked him as if he were some kind of idiot.
    “ Yes, of course I am, but I haven’t been able to discover anything yet that will tell me the real purpose behind it-and I ain’t asking. You know how the government is, Alex, cloaked in secrecy. All I know is that they are paying me big money to finish. Maybe the funds appropriated expire if certain deadlines aren’t met. I don’t know. But, Alex, think about it, hasn’t the world always been ‘coming to an end’ ever since we were kids? Someone in Washington has probably just taken that notion far too seriously.”
    Alex had to admit that Tom was making some sense. That did not, however, justify the fact that his team was just about to destroy what might be the most significant archaeological-paleontological find in history.
    “I haven’t even shown you the good stuff yet Alex. You want to see it or stand here and argue all night?”
    “Let’s go,” she replied.
    They continued down the stone staircase. Alex noticed that the steps themselves had the usual slight indentations from years and years of foot traffic on them , but they were cut wider and deeper than modern stairs, which made them somewhat awkward to traverse. The cave leveled out in places, and the stairs disappeared, then reappeared when the descent got steep again. Where level, the walls were cut near the bottom at ninety degree angles so the path could be kept perfectly flat. No question that they had been intelligently engineered. Alex also noticed that the temperature was dropping dramatically as they went down. She was glad that Tom had insisted on the heavy gear.
    “Here it is,” he said. “There is this one last long stairway , and then we’ll be there.”
    Another fifty or so steps down and they emerged into a nother large chamber. They were now about three or