The Gossamer Crown: Book One of The Gossamer Sphere (4 page)

Sacramento, California

Warm water cascaded down her body, bringing thousands of goosebumps to exquisite life.  Lizbeth enjoyed a series of luxurious shivers as she rotated under the spray to warm her chilled flesh.  Her muddy clothes lay in a bundle on the floor of the bathroom.  She’d have to hurry if she was going to get them washed and dried in the hotel laundry room before Caitlin arrived.

Caitlin
.

Lizbeth wasn’t sure if she hated her or just disliked her intensely.  She wouldn’t admit to being intimidated by her, that’s for sure.  Bad enough the strange woman showed up and immediately won the trust of her grandmother, but then Lizbeth’s own mother told Granma to hand her over like she was some kind of slave to be bartered.

“Oh, sure, take my underaged daughter.  Go save the world,” Lizbeth said as she lathered her hair with the almond-scented hotel shampoo.  “It’s not like she has anything better to do.”

Since her mother had been working, Lizbeth hadn’t even had a chance to talk to her or say goodbye.

Once she was clean for the second time that day, she dressed in one of her rapidly dwindling outfits and rushed out into the hall to put yesterday’s traveling clothes and this morning’s mud-crusted jeans, t-shirt, jacket, socks and tennis shoes into the washer.  After she chose “heavy load,” she lined the coins up in the slot and pushed it in. 

She decided she’d best get some breakfast, or rather, brunch, since it was getting closer to noon than she’d like.  She reached for the door, but it opened and a young man entered.  He was not tall, maybe her height or slightly shorter, but solidly built.  His brown hair was wet and slicked back with a spicy-smelling gel.

“Oh, sorry,” he said.  He leaned against the door to hold it for her.  In his arms was a bundle of muddy clothes.

There was no way he wouldn’t recognize her, so she waited for him to say something.  When he didn’t, she looked at his face.  He stared at the ceiling with a carelessly aloof expression stamped on his features, the kind of look she herself might have cultivated had she been blown off.

She sighed.  He did rescue her, and although saying he saved her life seemed a bit dramatic, for all she knew, the mud might have buried her alive.  The least she could do was thank him properly.

She backed away from the door and waved him in, saying, “The washer on the end is free.”

“Thanks.”

She waited silently for him to get his laundry started while he ignored her.  Just when she thought he was going to leave without further acknowledgement, he shut the lid and said over the sound of the shushing water, “My name’s Kevin.  You want to get something to eat?”

“Lizbeth.  Sure.”

When they walked into the hotel lobby, they encountered a crowd of excited people clamoring for attention at the curving marble counter.  One family rushed past them, wheeled luggage clattering along the floor tile, the flapping arm of a shirt sticking out of the zipper.  A large flat-screen television mounted on the wall next to the front desk had a blaring news report about the earthquake.  When she’d gotten back from the river, Lizbeth had come in a side door.  A few things in her room had tipped over, but the walls and ceiling were intact.  She hadn’t thought the earthquake had caused much damage.

“Oh, my God,” Kevin said.  He was staring at the television screen.  “Look at San Francisco!”

Lizbeth watched as horrific footage shot from a helicopter news crew filming down on the city flashed on the screen.  Through plumes of black smoke, the camera caught glimpses of crumbled buildings, a collapsed overpass, deep chasms in streets and highways with chunks of asphalt thrusting upward.  Fires everywhere spewed flames into the sky.

Her stomach clenched in fear when the announcer came on and said that preliminary sensor readings put the quake at 7.8 on the Richter scale.  Strong aftershocks were rocking the region, causing further damage.  It was too soon for an accurate death toll, but hospital emergency rooms throughout the county were overflowing with casualties.

“Caitlin,” she whispered.

“What did you say?” Kevin asked.

Lizbeth shook her head.  “I’m worried about a – a friend who’s in San Francisco.  Well, maybe not.  Maybe she made it out.  She was supposed to be on her way here.”

“Caitlin?” he asked.

She tore her eyes from the devastation and looked at him.  The way he said Caitlin’s name made her ask, “Do you know her?”

“Petite redhead, blue eyes, possibly not human?”

Lizbeth felt her mouth drop open and stay that way.

“Are you here to save the earth, too?” It burst out, and she felt monumentally stupid as soon as she asked it.

Kevin laughed and spread his arms wide.  “Yep.  Am I not what you expected?”

To her embarrassment, tears of relief flooded her eyes.  He was one of the four.  He would understand her, maybe answer a few questions about this whole crazy scenario.

“You’re perfect,” she said, and then felt herself blush. “I mean, you already saved me, what’s the big deal about saving the rest of the world?”

His smile faded as his eyes drifted back to the television.  “We sure as hell didn’t save San Francisco.”

Vallejo, California

During the earthquake, Zach gripped the sides of his seat and stared out the windshield at the long, straight stretch of highway ahead.  He could see the movement of the earth in great waves along the road.  Rigid cement and asphalt might as well have been fluid as water.  It fascinated and horrified him, but also served to distract him from the fear.

As soon as the shaking subsided, Caitlin shifted the car into four-wheel drive and muttered, “We didn’t get far enough.”

“What are you doing?” Zach asked.

“Getting out of San Francisco.”

“The road’s not safe.”

“Call your mother,” she replied.

“What?”

“The cell towers that haven’t gone out of commission will get overloaded fast.  Call her now.”

Caitlin didn’t sound worried in the slightest.  Not about the earthquake, not about the huge cracks in the road they were slowly traversing, and especially not about his mother.  He suspected she wanted him to call home so he would be reassured and thus easier to manage. 

He flipped open his cell, pressed speed dial and held it to his ear.

“It’s not ringing,” he said.

She didn’t respond.  Instead, she put the car in park and opened the door, standing on the frame to look out along the highway.  There were plenty of cars parked haphazardly, and many of the drivers had gotten stuck or given up and begun walking.  All of the people Zach saw were heading towards the city of Vallejo that he and Caitlin had passed before the quake hit.

“Come on, get out,” she said.

He sighed and grabbed his backpack, not bothering to question her this time.  They abandoned the car and walked north along the I-80.  Zach felt like a salmon swimming upstream with all the people going south.  All around them plumes of smoke began rising into the sky.  Sirens blared.  After about ten minutes of jumping over foot-long cracks in the highway, Caitlin stopped at a black Hummer.  She didn’t even look to see if anyone noticed, just opened the door and got in.  Zach went around to the other side and followed suit.

“Good, there’s a full tank,” she said.

“Yeah, but no key.”

She put her hand on the steering column near the ignition and the big vehicle started with a roar.  Zach wasn’t surprised, he was simply happy that she’d allowed him to see a demonstration of her – he didn’t know what else to call it but “power.”  The doubts that had begun to surface again quieted down.  He still didn’t have all the answers, but he’d follow her, for now at least.

The Hummer got them almost to their destination before they had to stop for gas.  Twice they’d had to circumnavigate collapsed overpasses, and once they stopped to help an injured woman until an ambulance, already carrying three wounded people, reluctantly added her to their human cargo.  The further from San Francisco they got, the less destruction they encountered.  They listened to the radio for the first hour and then Caitlin shut it off, with no complaints from Zach.

As Caitlin pumped gas, he went inside the convenience store and impulsively stocked up on energy bars, chips and a six-pack of cola.

“How bad was the quake here?” he asked the clerk over the blaring television behind the counter. 

“Man, it was rough.  We just now got done cleaning up from stuff coming off the shelves.  I wanna get home and check on my fish tank, but the boss is paying me double to stay.”

On the television, a news anchor announced the latest death toll at fifty-six people, with untold numbers still unaccounted for.

Zach paid for his purchase and said, “I hope your fish are okay.”

“Yeah, thanks, man.”

He tried for the tenth time to call home and it rang, but no one picked up.  He tried everyone on his speed dial, all his friends and family members and finally got an answer out of his uncle Tommy – sort of.  It was his voice mail, but he’d updated it.

“Hello everyone, this is Tom, post-earthquake.  My house is still standing and I am well.  Bai lost the oak tree in front of her house, but it fell into the street.  Zach is missing, but there were no casualties at his college, so we are assuming he is trying to get home.  His house is fine, Vernon and June are fine.  The Ling’s have major damage to their foundation, but they are unhurt.  We have not heard from Jesse or Huang, but the phones are spotty at best.  If this is Zach, Jesse, Huang or anyone else not mentioned here, please leave a message so we may stop worrying.”

Caitlin was waiting behind the wheel, but Zach stayed outside to leave his response, “Hey Uncle Tommy, it’s me, Zach.  I’m good, but not in the city at the moment.  Let Mom know I’ll be back in a few days and she can call on my cell.  Glad to hear everyone’s okay.  Talk to you later.”

He climbed into the borrowed Hummer.  His mom was going to have a fit when Tommy gave her that message.  Zach might be officially an adult, but his mother wasn’t planning to cut the apron strings any time soon.

For the rest of the drive the highway was undamaged, and when they entered Sacramento, he experienced a flash of disorientation at the normalcy all around him.  Caitlin pulled into the parking lot of a hotel and placed her hand on the steering column.  The big engine stopped growling.

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

She sat back in the seat and with her profile to him, said, “We’ll be leaving in the morning.”

“We’re staying in the hotel?” He felt his face go hot as he struggled briefly with the idea of sharing a room with Caitlin.

“There are two others.  You’ll be bunking with the dwar- a young man named Kevin.”

Zach’s ears perked up at the word she’d almost said, “dwar.”  Even someone who hadn’t seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy a dozen times would have added the logical “f” sound at the end.  He couldn’t wait to meet his roomy.

Sacramento, California

Kevin sat at the foot of the bed since Lizbeth had taken both pillows, propped them up against the headboard and promptly fell asleep.  He found the television remote and flipped channels on mute so he wouldn’t wake her.  All of the major stations had footage of the earthquake, but he shied away from seeing any more destruction, especially after the gruesome scenes of a gas explosion at a pet hospital.

He and Lizbeth had exchanged information and he’d learned little that he hadn’t already guessed about Caitlin, but a lot about Lizbeth.  She’d been almost desperate to talk and wasn’t shy about expressing her opinions, from the mortification of having a voodoo priestess for a grandmother to the disappointment of missing out on a scholarship.  They’d spent considerable time over lunch trying to figure out a.) what was going on, and b.) how on earth they were supposed to help.

A knock on the door and Lizbeth jackknifed instantly off the bed.  She had the door open before he even finished standing.  Caitlin came in, followed by a tall Asian-looking guy.  The four of them stood there, and Kevin wondered if he was supposed to feel like this first meeting was momentous or something.  He couldn’t tell if the others felt that way or if they were all just waiting for Caitlin to say something.  He was surprised Lizbeth hadn’t hammered Caitlin with questions the second she entered.

Caitlin gestured to the table in the corner.  “Sit.”

Kevin held a chair for Lizbeth, but she took the one opposite him.  He let go of the chair for the Asian guy to occupy.

Caitlin pointed around the table and said, “Lizbeth.  Zach.  Kevin.  Now we’re introduced.  Zach, set up your laptop.”

Zach pulled it out of his backpack, opened and turned it on.  While it booted up, no one spoke.  Lizbeth looked groggy from her nap.  Kevin shifted his gaze and caught Zach looking at him.  He tried to smile at him, but Zach ducked his head and tapped on the keyboard.

“Pull up the drawing,” Caitlin said.

A few more keystrokes and Zach turned the laptop around for them all to see.

The picture on the screen was vibrant with depth and color, almost photographic in its precision.  It reminded Kevin of an old Frank Frazetta poster his nerdy dorm roommate had hung over his bed.  The woman in the drawing was Caitlin, but sensuous and bold, not the fully-clothed and untouchable woman sitting across from him.  There were also a few glaring enhancements.  He tried, but couldn’t suppress an abashed grin.

“This is the Gossamer Crown,” Caitlin said.  “Zach, can you zoom in on it?”

As Zach did as she asked, Kevin wondered if Caitlin knew the word, “please.”

Then she said it.  “Please.”

Zach turned the laptop around again and they all examined the detailed silver crown.

“The Gossamer Crown was created centuries ago,” Caitlin said.  “I was its keeper.  It was my duty to guard it; keep it from falling into the wrong hands.  I failed.  It was stolen from Dublin Castle in 1907, along with the Irish Crown Jewels.”

Kevin did a quick calculation.  Assuming Caitlin had been twenty in 1907, she’d have to be over 120 years old now.  He thought back to the old woman who’d been sitting next to Dr. Weinstein. He’d seen photos of centigenarians, and Old Lady Caitlin had looked much younger, maybe about sixty.  He wondered what she really looked like, and then it irked him that instead of being incredulous at what she’d just said, he was more curious about her true appearance.

“I request that each of you suspend disbelief, for I have a lot of information to impart,” Caitlin said.  “First let me say that none of what you’ve witnessed thus far has been the result of magic.  Although I was brought up to believe magic existed, I have long since educated myself against that superstition.  I am very old.  In my lifetime I have obtained degrees in nearly every major scientific field, especially those that pertain to the function and origin of what we are about to discuss.  I begin my studies anew periodically to stay abreast of scientific advances.”

Sitting there in the anonymous hotel room surrounded by strangers, it occurred to Kevin that under normal circumstances he’d be feeling disassociated.  Instead, Caitlin’s every word held him enthralled.  Her delicate features were highlighted by the yellow glow of the lamp hanging over the table.  He searched her face for signs that she was as unbalanced as the words coming out of her mouth, but saw nothing but calm conviction.

“The crown is made from the material of an object that struck earth 65 million years ago.  Scientists have attributed that extinction event to an impact that formed the crater at Chicxulub in Mexico.  However, the asteroid that produced the Chicxulub crater was not alone in causing the event, nor was it the instigating factor.  The object I speak of, called the gossamer sphere, was really to blame.  My calculations suggest that the sphere entered our solar system and passed through the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.  It disrupted the gravitation of the belt and pulled dozens of common asteroids along behind it.  The sphere consisted of a metal almost identical to iridium.  It is a biometal, alive in a very rudimentary way.  Iridium is rare on earth, but common in meteorites found on earth, and its paramagnetic properties cause it to be highly attracted to magnetic fields.  I believe the sphere was intended for a lifeless planet such as Mars, but somehow, maybe because it was deflected by the asteroid belt, it collided instead with earth.  Earth’s magnetic field strength waxes and wanes, and if you can imagine it, on that long-ago date at the end of the Cretaceous period, field strength must have been particularly powerful and thus suitable for the sphere’s needs.  I like to think that earth’s magnetic currents, its gossamers, reached far into space, beckoning to the sphere.”

“Little did earth know what it was asking for,” Zach muttered.

“Indeed,” Caitlin said.  “The speed of the sphere’s oblique entry into earth’s atmosphere would have violently compressed the air on its leading edge, heating it to over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.  Any accumulated ice, dust and rock particles would have ignited in a massive trailing fireball.  Despite the heat, the core of the sphere would have remained frozen from the deep cold of space.  It slammed into a shallow sea with a tremendous shockwave, penetrating several kilometers into the thin oceanic crust and expelling debris high into the sky.  Over the course of the next few weeks, several members of the asteroid family created by the passing of the sphere would have followed suit, smashing elsewhere into the planet at sites like Chicxulub, and initiating massive worldwide destruction.”

“Bye-bye dinosaurs,” Zach said.

“Yes.  The resulting increase in volcanic activity, acid rain, poisonous gasses and global cooling from dust clouds blocking the sun would have wreaked instantaneous as well as gradual havoc on the ecosystems.  300,000 years later, the majority of marine and terrestrial life on earth was extinct.  The planet continued to spin on its axis, the iron dynamo at the center, with its white-hot cushion of liquid metal, unaffected.  The impact would have shattered the brittle frozen sphere, which I estimate to have been less than 200 meters in diameter.  Gravitational forces exerted a steady influence on the material of the planet as always, pulling dense substances like the iridium in towards the mantle.  It sank into the relatively rigid lithosphere, where it slowly transformed into a grid that circled the planet.”

She’d asked them to suspend their disbelief.  Kevin was trying, but he interrupted to insert what he hoped was a logical question.  “Does a 200-meter-diameter sphere contain enough metal to go all the way around the earth?”

Caitlin cocked her head to the side as she looked at him.  “It wouldn’t seem so, and yet my studies bear out that the grid is indeed there.  It is not symmetrical that I can tell, but seems to have formed some pattern, very likely a deliberate design.  Iridium is the rarest element in earth’s crust.  Normal planetary iridium is a siderophile element, which means it’s attracted to iron, and like iron, it is assumed that most iridium was pulled inward by gravity to earth’s core.  I surmise that the extra-terrestrial iridium recruited the existing iridium in earth’s crust to fill itself out so it would stretch across the planet, thus causing the shortage of iridium in the crust.  The biometal isn’t normal iridium, however, and although it did sink inward toward the core, it stopped at a point somewhere at the bottom of earth’s lithosphere, as I said, between the deeper, more flexible mantle layers and the rigid crust, which is broken into the eight major tectonic plates.”

“Does anyone else know about this grid?” Lizbeth asked.

“I’ve found obscure references throughout history proposing that such a structure exists, but the concept always drew ridicule from the establishment.”

“Didn’t anyone see the crater, though?”

“The sphere hit in what is now the North Sea.  Eons of ocean sediment served to disguise the impact site.  It has remained undisturbed until recently.”  She looked at Kevin.

“The drill ship,” he said.

She nodded.  “Silverpit is the impact crater.”

“I was on a scientific drilling vessel,” Kevin explained to the others.  “We’d just penetrated almost down to the impactor – the meteorite.  Immediately afterwards, something happened right beneath us to create that tsunami in the North Sea.” 

He turned to Caitlin.  “Bill Masters, the head of the project, said that the ship was delaying the next assignment to go back out to Silverpit.”

“Our number one priority is to find the crown,” Caitlin said.  “But first, we have to stop that ship.”

Kevin opened his mouth to inquire how they were supposed to do that, when Zach asked, “How could I have drawn the crown if I’ve never seen it?”

Caitlin’s gaze touched upon each of their faces.

“When the sphere struck the planet, dust and ash that was microscopically permeated with the iridium biometal settled all over the world.”

Kevin remembered what the Japanese scientist said.  “The K-T Boundary.”

“Yes.  Whatever life on earth that wasn’t destroyed by the event, evolved.  When medical technology advanced enough to enable me to get my degrees in molecular biology and biochemistry, I focused my research on my own DNA.  I discovered that the cells in my body—in all life, plant and animal—have a certain DNA mutation I attribute to the event, a code for shapeshifting characteristics.  Without the crown, my experiments were limited, but I believe the newly evolved lower life forms lacked the conscious thought necessary to activate the mutated genes.  Of course, I could be wrong, and life at the time could have been shapeshifting in response to fight or flight stimulus, thus contributing to the amazing biodiversity on earth, but I digress.”

Kevin saw Zach’s chin go down and a crease appear between his brows.  He seemed about to say something, but Caitlin went on.

 “Once the biometal sank into the lithosphere,” she said, “and all but disappeared from the environment, the genes became dormant and remained so throughout evolution.  It appears exposure to the biometal alters the three-dimensional structure of DNA-binding proteins, which control gene expression.  Thus, the dormant genes responsible for shapeshifting can be ‘unlocked.’

“You asked how you could know what the crown looks like, Zach.  It is because it is literally in your blood.  When the crown was created, those exposed to the biometal were tainted by it as I’ve described.  Most got sick and died.  Those who survived passed on certain traits to their progeny, who were then more likely to survive when exposed to the biometal themselves.”

“So we’re, like, the progeny?” Lizbeth asked.

Kevin sat there, stunned.  His parents hadn’t hidden the fact that he’d been adopted, and upon reaching the age of majority, he’d tried to locate his birth parents.  Turns out there wasn’t even a trail to follow; he’d been left in the emergency room of a Dallas, Texas hospital.  Authorities had never discovered who’d abandoned him.  He’d convinced himself that his mother had been a teen who’d concealed her pregnancy, a happier thought than the more realistic notion that she’d been a prostitute or a drug addict, or both.  Now his mind’s eye conjured a twisted, nebulous creature, wisping in and out of the hospital, leaving a wailing infant behind.

 “All of you descend from the ancient lines, but your blood is dilute.  I am the last pure Shapeshifter,” Caitlin said. 

Kevin detected no pride in the statement, or sadness.  Not that Caitlin ever seemed to show much emotion.  He wondered if she were capable.

“I don’t—I don’t get it.  You want us to believe you’re a Shapeshifter now?”  Zach asked.

“She is.  I’ve seen it,” Lizbeth said.

“Me, too,” Kevin said.

Zach clearly hadn’t, but he seemed to take Lizbeth and Kevin at their word.

“Isn’t Shapeshifter another word for fairy?” Zach asked.

“There have been many names given to our kind, and many attributes, some false, some true,” Caitlin said.

Lizbeth shifted forward to put her elbows on the table and rest her chin in her hands.  She didn’t look tired anymore.  “So me and Kevin and,” she looked at Zach, who obliged her with, “Zach.”

“Yeah, Zach.  We can’t shapeshift or anything?”

Caitlin shook her head.  “No.”

Kevin was almost afraid to ask, but he croaked out, “What does the sphere do?”

“It was sent to harness the magnetic field.  Earth is an enormous communication satellite.”