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Chapter 8: An End and a Beginning

A thirteen-year-old girl, Aubrey, is getting ready for school. She is wearing her everyday boring school uniform, a navy blue collared shirt, a white blazer, and a khaki skirt. Her hair is blonde and tied in a high ponytail.

She steps out of her house, her mom shouting from inside, “Don’t forget to bring an umbrella!”

Aubrey gave the typical teenage response to everything, “Yeah, yeah Mom, I got it,” which she didn’t.

She doesn’t mind starting her days early. She likes the peaceful walks to school, but this morning was a bit chilly with the sun hiding behind the clouds. It rained the night before, so the roads are wet. This was definitely not a day to blow off her mother’s suggestion to take an umbrella.

Aubrey closes the front door of her house. She walks down the front steps and heads toward the street. Her feet are making soft splashing sounds from the water forming puddles on the road. Aubrey is having a great time as she jumps in some of the puddles. She does not mind getting her uniform wet in the process. She breathes heavily as if to inhale the smell of the early morning. Aubrey hears a loud horn and straightens up. That must be the school bus, she thinks. Sure enough, there it is, whipping around the corner, a large yellow school bus. It comes to a stop just two feet from the girl. The doors slide open, and the bus driver smiles at her.

It is his usual “’Sup” smile.

“Sis, hop in, it’s about to start pouring.” Aubrey hates that her brother is the school bus driver, not because he is a bad person. Far from it. He is just a horrible driver. The other kids love his erratic driving style. However, Aubrey just likes to be in control of her situation, and driving with Kevin requires her to give up that control.

She pauses for a minute,.“Hey Kev, Mom said I should have brought an umbrella.”

“Our mom is a smart lady, Aubs. Now pop on before we make everyone late for school, which I’m sure would devastate them.”

She laughs and gets on the bus. A few kids are sleeping, their eyes closed and their mouths slightly open. Some of them have earphones on, listening to music or watching their favorite YouTube video.

She sees her friends sitting near the back of the bus and heads toward them. She shoots them a wide smile as she settles in. “What’s up, jerks?”

Her friends laugh and say hi to her. The bus speeds forward and continues on its route. Along the way, it picks up a bunch of other students. Some of them are in agony. It’s clear that they do not want to be going to school. Before long, the bus reaches its destination. It is now 7:45 a.m.

The children enter the school gate. A tall building stands before them. It’s three stories high, with various state and national flags on top. We recognize the United States of America flag. The building is painted a dull shade of tan, and just below the flags is the schools’ name, The Martin Brown Institute. Anyone walking past would know that it is in desperate need of a good paint job.

This school is old. The students shuffle up the front steps of the building and head in to start their day. Lockers are lining the hallways. They, too, are in desperate need of a paint job. As the kids walk through the corridors, all you can hear is the loud babble of early morning gossip and the sound of lockers slamming. It seems a few students are taking all their early morning frustration and anger out on them.

“Come on!” screams Markie. She is banging her fist against the locker in an attempt to open it. Her attempts are futile, as the locker does not budge.

“Here,” offers her friend Daniel. He plays with the combination, and it opens right up.

“Aubrey,” shouts a voice.

The young girl turns around, her blonde ponytail swaying.

“Hey Artie! I didn’t see you on the bus. I figured another ditch day.”

“I wish. I woke up late, so my dad had to drop me off. I was up all night working on our homework. Explain to me again why we need to learn math?”

“You mean the building blocks for blah, blah, snore snore?” Aubrey says as they share a laugh.

Aubrey and Artie walk down the hallway toward their class. Suddenly, the bell rings and the crowd of students standing in the corridor start to scatter, like cockroaches when a light is turned on in a dark room. The students disperse toward their classes. Within two minutes, the corridors are deserted.

The two girls take their usual seats at the back of the classroom. Their teacher, Ms. Reynolds, closes the door as the last of the students walk into the room. She turns her attention toward the students who are sitting in front of her.

“Good morning everyone. Let’s talk science, shall we? Specifically, this beautiful blue ball floating through space: your home, Earth. Does anyone know the history of this planet? How it all began?”

“The Big Bang,” calls out Artie.

“Exactly! Scientists believe Earth, along with all the planets in our solar system, formed after every tiny piece of energy jammed into a very tiny point exploded! This led to the creation of all that we know. Even our black hole, Palomino, was born millennia ago from the Big Bang. We know from all the scientific data collected that…”

As Ms. Reynolds continues to speak, Aubrey perks up. She has always been fascinated with all things space. She wants to know what’s out there, and if there is an end. Plus, what’s through the black hole? Ms. Reynolds goes on to talk about how the Big Bang caused the universe to expand. It then gave rise to conditions that allowed for a more inhabitable planet, Earth, and a very-close-to-inhabitable one, Venus. Earth and Venus, nearly identical in every way, except life on Earth flourished while life on Venus couldn’t grow because the atmosphere is comprised primarily of carbon dioxide, with small doses of nitrogen and clouds of sulfuric acid.

Ms. Reynolds asks how there can be such similarities in size and surface, but such difference in temperature and atmosphere.

Aubrey raises her hand. “Maybe Venus was just like Earth, but war and pollution ruined that planet?”

Ms. Reynolds likes that answer. “That’s possible, but highly unlikely. In the beginning, both were created equal to a point, but then nature did its thing.”

Ms. Reynolds explains that the early conditions of Earth started out with microbes and single-celled organisms. Then there was a long period where only plants would survive.It wasn’t til much later, when the atmosphere was oxygenated that the Dinosaurs came.. Earth wasn’t quite ready for humans to live on. So the human race did not come into existence even after a million years since the dinosaurs’ passing. Meanwhile, the Ice Age came about. Mammoths and saber-toothed tigers were roaming the planet. There was ice and snow for as far as the eye could see.

The teacher drones on about how the Ice Age continued for a very long period before finally giving way to a warmer climate. Bynow, Aubrey has heard enough. She is well-acquainted with the his-tory of Earth. So she turns her attention outside, toward the sky.

* * *

Aubrey is now finishing high school. Her love for history and science has grown exponentially. In fact, she is now planning to pursue a major in anthropology at Yale University, where she was accepted with a full scholarship. She can hardly wait. There is something about the past that pulls her in. All through middle school and high school, she read every history book she could get her hands on and consumed as much digital media as her mind could handle on the subject. It was an obsession.

Her grandfather, Marvin, has further instilled the love of history into her from a very young age. Aubrey has grown up hearing her grandmother Sylvia’s stories of how she thought life was seeded on Earth. Sylvia is a big fan of the History Channel show Ancient Aliens.

Her grandmother was an engineer–an aeronautical engineer, to be precise. She worked her entire life until she retired at the ripe old age of seventy-four. Sylvia helped design machines and technologies that aided in ships making long voyages into space. Sylvia’s breakthrough was a drone that managed to reach Mars. Though the surface temperature and the journey itself do not allow human beings to travel to the red planet, the drone got there and relayed a general idea of the conditions on Mars. It is also through this ma- chine that the scientists at NASA were able to figure out if there was ever life on Mars. They probably should have sent probes to our sister planet, or better yet, just explore right here, under our feet. Her grandmother always says that the Earth’s secrets are either buried in the ground, or they will be found in space.

Then there is Artie. She is still an integral part of Aubrey’s life. The two became inseparable when they sat next to each other in second grade. Artie shared her fascination with history from a young age, but it was more pronounced in Aubrey than her. Artie has what some may call a photographic memory. She can be relied upon to produce the most accurate and ridiculous facts about history at any given time. There were things that Artie read about in the third grade that she can recite verbatim even today.

There have been many discussions between the two about Earth and how it came into existence. As the years go by, their discussions have more depth, thanks to the information and wisdom the two have accumulated. Wherever Aubrey goes, Artie is sure to follow. Aubrey often jokes that the two will be buried together.

True to their inseparability, Aubrey and Artie end up going to Yale together. Artie wants to be a biologist, and luckily Yale is one of the top three schools in the United States for the subject.

Starting their first semester, Aubrey is fairly confident that they should already have everything pretty dialed in. On her first day, Aubrey finds out real quick that there is a difference between reading and actual application. Thus, she finds herself stumped for the first time in a long time. Alas, she welcomes the challenge.

* * *

Time passes on and soon the four years of college end for Aubrey and Artie. They are now ready to tackle their master’s. Aubrey takes hers in anthropology, while Artie casually leans on astrobiology. Aubrey still talks to her grandmother, who once again reminds her that the secrets of the universe are buried right under her nose…

“Or in space,” she would say, almost under her breath.

The years pass by, and before Aubrey and Artie know it, they both graduate top of their classes. With their collective backgrounds, it isn’t tough for them to both get a pretty sizable grant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aubrey is convinced if they can dig deep enough into the Earth, she will find clues to the origins of Earth, and M.I.T. will be the perfect place to make this happen.

Aubrey enjoys her work immensely and goes on numerous digs. With every new artifact that comes up, there is always excitement that something more profound will come from its discovery.

But sadly, that is usually never the case. She has dug more indepth than most, and as time goes on, she begins to feel what she is looking for won’t be found on Earth. Artie reminds her that she just has to be patient and go deeper. She needs to see what no one else has; that has to be her drive.

This is a sad time for the best friends, as Artie is offered a job at the California Institute of Technology, and the amount of money being offered was really just too silly to pass up.

For the first time in their lives, they will be far apart. Aubrey doesn’t take the news very well, but she understands Artie’s position. Artie tells her she will be only a short five-hour flight away, and when Aubrey found something, she will be the first to celebrate with her as only best friends can do. This warms Aubrey’s heart, and she feels Artie’s sincerity. They give each other a big hug and share a cry.

Aubrey decides to leave the flash of M.I.T. behind and has joined a crew of young researchers conducting a dig in the Amazon. Her white whale has always been the Amazon. , but she was never allowed to dig there. The Brazillian government was well aware of who she was, and out of fear of damaging the already-injured rainforest. She was never granted access.

Aubrey’s only option was to give up her archaeological “celebrity” status and let someone else take the lead. It was the only way the Brazilian government would allow her to join the team already working in the rainforest. She joined the young team as an advisor, and they welcome her and her expertise with open arms. To be honest, they are a bit starstruck. Like a kid in a candy store, like the moment before a big game, Aubrey is just as excited as she is nervous for this dig to begin. She knows it will be her last, so she wants to give it all she has.

* * *

The morning of her first day arrives. Aubrey and the crew are fresh and ready to continue what the team has already started.

The jungle is dark and humid. The thick canopy of leaves blocks the sunlight. The trees stand seventy feet tall and tower above the crew. Insects scatter about, climbing on everything. There is another reason not many have dug here: because of lots of interference from the creepy crawlers.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to continue in the northern section,” Aubrey tells David, the site lead.

“Absolutely not. We have strict orders from the government that you are here as an advisor only. Besides, the team re-excavated thhat site a few months ago with painstaking stratigraphic controls.”

“Well then, what harm could I do, I’d like to just take a look. Please.” she asks David.

David is not a tough guy, he’s just a by-the-book kind of guy. Although, Aubrey is one of his heroes, what harm could it do? He thinks to himself. David agrees to let her go, but to be careful and “No digging!” He says with a smile.

Aubrey doesn’t mind going over anything multiple times, especially not a dig. When she has a feeling, she goes with it!The team disperses into groups as each selects a prime location to work from. Based on their findings, there have been several spots that were previously excavated, and there were some pretty significant finds from ancient tribes thousands of years old.

Aubrey likes to work alone; that way, she is in control of her dig, not having to worry about others. Besides, she finds digging tobe strangely cathartic. She also does not want to be rushed. It’s so peaceful, the sounds of jungle life teeming around her. It’s beautiful.

Three weeks in, Aubrey has been in the same spot. There’s something about it. At night, she’ll visit her dig, and almost as if a path to the stars has been cut through the dense forest, she can clearly see the night sky. The full moon illuminates her dig, like a beacon. As she works night and day, she hears her grandmother Sylvia telling here to dig deeper, what she is looking for is right under her nose… Or in space.

Aubrey digs and digs, almost without a break. David and the crew witness her obsession with the section and know why she is one of the most talked-about and decorated archeologists in the business.

As she turns and gently plunges her shovel tool into the dark, damp soil, she hears a clink. Her shovel hits something. Something metal. Hot, exhausted, and covered in sweat, she kneels down and gently begins removing the dirt from around where her shovel struck. She calls out to David and the team.

“I found something!”David comes running up to her. He hasn’t been over there in a few days. Aubrey’s really gone to town on this section, and he is incredibly impressed with her work’s meticulousness.

“What do you got?”

“Something metal. I need your help getting it out.”

Between the pair of them, and now with the help of the rest of the team, they dig some more and unearth a massive piece of metal.

With a curious look on her face, she notices some writing. “It has an engraving,” breathes Aubrey.

Aubrey removes the dirt from the metal, takes out a flashlight, and shines it on the writing. There is a single word on it.

“GAIA.”Both of them read it out loud, together. Aubrey’s eyes are shining. She is incredibly pleased with her discovery.

“What do you think it means?” she asks, turning to David.

He shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The two dig further. Both are very excited now. They want to see what GAIA is, what it stands for, and how it came to be buried so deep beneath the surface. They dig some more and uncover more metal. It is evident that there is something massive buried in the dirt.

“We need to get on the radio. We need Caltech here immediately. We should also alert local authorities. This shouldn’t be here,” Aubrey says. It’s at this moment that David is no longer in charge of his dig. David doesn’t seem to mind. He is now way out of his depths.

“Where do you think it came from? Maybe leftover equipment from a previous dig?” David thinks aloud, but quickly realizes what he said is absurd.

“Impossible. We are the first ever to be granted a dig in the Amazon. Not to mention, look at the growth. Nothing has come in or out of here in forever. If it has been forever, then metal shouldn’t even exist in these parts. David, this is something else,” Aubrey tells him.

Aubrey takes a few steps to really get an idea of how big what they found is. She is so excited that she can barely stand in one place. This is her moment. This is what she has worked towardher entire life. What if this is the answer to all her questions? She smiles in awe, thinking about her grandmother Sylvia and what shealways said one last time. Aubrey looks at the piece of GAIA metal and hears her grandmother’s voice. “Right under your nose.” Thenshe looks toward the heavens, through the trees, and into the sky. “Or in space.”

…The Beginning

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