Page 242 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

But the rolled up item was of more interest. That was what she had carefully unrolled and had asked
one of the techs to carefully scan the individual pages. She knew what it was as they had examples
from Fort Knox; it was called a Newspaper. Lance and Mark walked in on her as she put the page
images up on the main viewer.
“Aha: I recognise that. We still have them as a means of disseminating news to a wide populace.
Some people in the Sonoran Trust still like to read things on paper” Mark announced making Sandra
jump. Lance introduced him and explained that the Unity Legislate had hired Mark to look out for
the “Abductees’” legal rights. Sandra shook the young man’s hand
“So you still use Newsprint? A primitive means of communicating, but… Anyway: this one was found
with our friend in the recovery wing. It was rolled up and in the Sarcophagus beside him. We think it
has some relation to the time period he was abducted” she said. Mark nodded in agreement. The
paper was a local Gazette. It was published for the Wiltshire area and this seemed to be a local
version or a Parish Paper. It concerned a place called Ludgershall. The main story was about the
discovery of a huge crack in a local lane. In which the smouldering remains of a young girl had been
found. This was a follow up piece on that incident saying the identity of the corpse and how the
council had found traces of radioactive compounds in the walls of the crack.
“Sounds pretty grim” Sandra noted
“There’s a day and date in the top right corner of the front page; it looks like an old calendar… Yes it
is; it’s from the early twenty first century old calendar” Lance said. Mark read the pages carefully.
There was a picture further in about a disappearance from hospital in a nearby town. Local law
enforcement were seeking public assistance in finding the man; one Arthur Styles-Cunningham.
There was a fuzzy photograph of the man. Sandra asked the local Hive to adjust resolution to see if
the image could be cleared up. A few seconds later the picture was sharpened and clear
“That’s our man! Now we have a name we can search the Terran data base” Lance said gleefully.
Mark said nothing but pulled out a comslink unit. He deftly typed Arthur’s name, Ludgershall and
Wiltshire into the unit and pressed a series of buttons.
“I have a copy of the Company records Hive on board my cruiser. If I’m correct the original Law
practice took over the ownership of some Legal firms in that region; long before the Economy wars.
If our man had any dealings with them; then there will be a record. One thing we legal types are
good at is keeping records. We have a wait though as the archive is compressed and sections have to
be decompressed to scan them. Is anyone else hungry?” He said…

Ron Land had received the request from The
Endeavour to look for an object in a vault somewhere in the
lower levels of the west wing of Fort Knox. The description
was slightly vague as to what to look for other than an odd
transparent disc with a protrusion in the centre. He’d already
seen a number of metal objects that could match the
description. But Myra Halaran had been insistent that it was
crystal. He’d rounded up a group of junior Archivists and was
leading them down to the level that had been indicated. The elevators had suddenly decided to all
drop to the lower levels and stay there; when a Military rookie had inadvertently smashed the glass
of a wall mounted box device. A series of alarm bells and sounds had burst into life and all but
deafened everyone. The commotion was resolved in due Military fashion by shooting a console that
seemed to regulate the buildings power. However that resulted in the entire building being plunged
into darkness. Governor Hedwig had taken great pleasure in reprimanding the Commanding officer
for the stupidity of his decision. Emergency lighting was set in place and work continued. The
Elevators were another matter, even when power was restored they would not budge. A six word
security key was needed and each word was eight letters long. An ex “Safe Cracker” from Hedebar
City in the Sonoran Trust was called in to help. Ron didn’t hold out much hope. They exited the
stairwell on the correct level and proceeded to the vaults that the object could possibly be located