Lost Contact (The Bridge Sequence Book One), Nathan Hystad [primary phonics books .TXT] 📗

anything else we’ve managed to dig up. It’s thought they dismantled their cities before leaving, but before they went, they left the spark of life they knew would one day create us. Homo sapiens. The Believers, in all their rhetoric, think we’ve reached our precipice as a species. Some think we’ve passed it, and our decline is imminent.”

I swallowed a few bites of my eggs and peered around the room, seeing everyone was as enthralled with my father’s storytelling as I was. Saul nodded along, which was proof in itself, considering he’d secretly been among them for decades.

“By learning their language, the cult thinks they can attune and merge with the aliens’ minds upon arrival. Hardy dismissed this, along with many of their ideologies, but he did agree about our creators, and the fact that they’ll return.

“There is evidence of them coming to check on our progress throughout the ages, most recently in a community in what we now know as the remote Canadian tundra. The entire village was wiped from the face of the planet, leaving the military to construct an elaborate environmental hoax.” Dirk Walker paused and took a sip from his wine flute. “Hardy imagines this was to test their concepts. If they deemed them worthy, they would send a contingent.”

“What do they want?” Tripp asked.

“We can’t be certain, but Hardy thought they wanted workers. There’s no empirical evidence of this,” my father replied. “But it’s what the Believers built their religion on.”

“A god that created us… aliens. This is messed up,” Marcus mumbled.

“And where does the Bridge come into this?” I managed to ask.

“That was all Hardy. He studied every single culture he could, dating back as far as the Stone Age. Eventually, he made the connections: mentions of the hexagonal shapes, though they were never described so similarly. Unfamiliar black substance. Six sides. Flat stones. Then the markings.

“There were six in total, or so he thought. Six Tokens, as he called them. He determined there had to be a correlation, a link between the items, since they were from so many different ages and spread apart across our globe. And he found it.”

Veronica cleared her throat and said the words. “The Case.”

“Yes. The Case would hold the Tokens, and he imagined that linking them simultaneously would create a portal to another world. A design left for mankind to prevent their creators from destroying them.”

“But who would bother to do something like that? Why didn’t they just stop in and say, ‘look at us, we’re going to stop an invasion’?” Beverly said.

“How do you assume that would go? Plus, this was before we became a global community,” I said, and my dad nodded in agreement.

“Rex is right. When they visited, we were fledging societies, with no contact with one another. They knew the Unknowns, as you called them, wouldn’t return until humanity was far more advanced. Which meant they’d have the ability to find the Bridge pieces and use it.”

“And you did. You both did.” Veronica smiled at her father, and I noted how quiet he’d remained this whole time.

“So where’s our help? Tell us about the Bridge,” I urged him.

Suddenly, Dirk looked less of my childhood hero and more of an aging stranger. “We departed under great duress, Rex and Beverly. I didn’t want to leave you two or your mother, but we’d heard rumors of the Believers’ redeemers returning. Now I suspect they were just that: lies perpetuated to provoke us to find the Bridge and lead the Believers to it. Only they never did track us.”

“Is that why you cut Hunter Madison out?” Veronica asked.

“He had too many ties to the cult. He promised he’d severed them, but I couldn’t…”

“What about Hardy? He told me you were brothers. That you were supposed to bring him too,” I said, remembering the doddering old man.

“Brian Hardy wouldn’t come. We tried. He said he might be needed here,” Dirk said.

“Well, they’re both dead. At the hands of the ones you put Saul’s life into.” I was angry for a multitude of reasons but was quickly realizing that my father had been trying to save the world. It did little to ease the decades of unanswered questions.

Dirk and Clayton watched one another as I told them, and Clayton finally spoke. “We must return to the Bridge.”

My father squinted, his lips pressing together hastily. “Clay, remember yourself.”

I saw something pass between them, an invisible understanding.

“Why?” I pressed. “What’s there?”

“Time is different. We found a city, empty. We could breathe, and there were food sources, water wells, but we were alone. Hardy was certain we’d find our salvation. The Promised Land. Promissa Terra. But he was wrong. They were gone. We think the Unknowns are to blame,” he told us.

“We’re doomed. The Unknowns are coming, and we have no defense,” Tripp grunted.

“That’s not quite true. They left something else behind: a seventh Token. And we know where the Case is.”

“Where?” I asked, my blood thumping through my veins.

“In Rimia.”

“What’s Rimia? Is that where the Bridge leads?”

Clayton nodded. “That’s the planet, or the city. We aren’t sure. We didn’t venture far. Dirk made us return to the other end of the Bridge each night. Plus, leaving was… not safe.”

“You thought these beings who created the Tokens would be there to help you, right? That’s why you had Luis disperse the Tokens around the world?” I asked.

“Yes. You know about Luis?” Clayton asked.

“We uncovered his trail on your gravestone. The coordinates to the mine in Venezuela,” I said.

Dirk went rigid. “Clay, you did that?”

Clay coughed and slid his broken glasses up his nose. “I had to, Dirk, and for good reason. You two were so sure help would be across, but I was more pragmatic. On the chance we traveled the Bridge and couldn’t return, I wanted someone to find the trail. I didn’t think it would take so many years.”

“And, Dad, you sent Beverly the Token,” I said.

It was Clayton’s turn to get upset. “And after all the chiding you