The Mummies of Blogspace9 (5 page)

Moving along, I got to the Archive by about 9:30, a little later than usual, but I have my groove all worked out by now. After passing through the metal detectors, I climb up to the reading room, sign in using my investigator license, and then head for my cubby. People come and go, but I’m one of about six regulars.

This one guy Tomas is a grad student at the University of Puerto Rico, and he’s studying the first fifty years of the island’s settlement. Then there’s this girl Eva who looks like she’s about fifteen but is a law professor in Barcelona. She told me what she was looking at but I couldn’t understand her accent. In any case, we’re all friends now. We watch each others’ things when nature calls, which isn’t really necessary since there are two armed guards always present in the room.

This morning, I started working on the names and words you sent me from the journal you found. I keyed in
‘Fr. Sebastiano.’
There are dozens of references to priests named Sebastiano, including a Fr. Sebastiano from Extremadura who was killed by headhunters in New Guinea in 1933 but I doubt he’s your guy.

Then I started looking in some more obscure places to try for cold hits. A couple of hours into my search, I came across a reference to a document called (and I will translate for those of you not well versed in sixteenth-century Spanish)
The Flora and Fauna of Trujillo as compiled by Sr. Fulvio Benavides with special consideration of the men of God performing His work in this land.
I can’t imagine why the good Mr. Benavides decided to write about flowers, beasts and priests in one volume, but I’m thankful he did.

So I punched in the code to make a formal request for the document, referencing again my investigator number. But this being close to lunch time, I had to wait until 2:00 before one of the curators wheeled a little trolley up to my cubby, and gently placed the document in front of me.

I snapped my cotton gloves on and had a look. This is an original manuscript, so the guards pay special attention. The archivists are trying to digitize all the original texts, but there are still tens of thousands left to do, and this one is almost certainly not high on the to-do list. There probably have not been too many researchers interested in the ecclesiastic mammals of old Peru.

I spent about two hours reading. The document is forty-four pages long. It goes on and on about the lizards and the guinea pigs and the flowers in bloom in the greater Trujillo area in 1585. But it also had a section on the Trujillo monastery. And since Trujillo was/is the biggest city on the north coast, this monastery would have been the administrative center for the region.

There’s a nice list of priests and their hometowns and dates of arrival in country. In 1580, there arrived in Trujillo, a
‘country boy from Extremadura, prone to sickness and distresses of the psyche named S. Gota.’

How’s that for a hit, guys? That fits the timeline. There are no first names in the list, only initials, but this may be our priest –S. Gota is Father Sebastiano Gota! I think I just earned my keep.

So I got all excited. Then I turned to the last page, on which only one line was written. “
Vendra portigo ahora.
” It means ‘he’ll come for you now.’ Sound familiar? That’s the same thing the gypsy guy told me. Coincidence? My hands were shaking when I closed the book. Guess what was written on the back cover?

“
Vendra portigo ahora.
”

It’s evening here now. I’m sitting at the bar at this little bistro called Duplex which is right next to my apartment. I’ve been coming here every night so they know me. The food is cheap and tasty, and the beers cost about $1.50. My only complaint just now is that I’m staring at the front window where two little gypsy twins are staring back at me.

June 16, 2011
Cupertino, CA
Administrator

On behalf of the senior management team here at
Blogspace9
, I’d like to congratulate you on your progress thus far. When we began this experiment, pairing scientific investigation with social media, we were certain that the excitement of discovery would bring a resurgence of interest in exploration, research, and communication. And we weren’t wrong.

Your excavations have already attracted more then 700, 000 unique visitors to this domain. We’re quite pleased! But we’d like to take a moment to remind you of your contractual obligations.

The central premise of
Blogspace9
is that nine authors is optimal for the telling of any story. Any more muddles the text. Any fewer fails to deliver enough points-of-view to allow unfettered consideration of phenomena. Therefore, it is necessary for you to include more of your personnel in this endeavor.

Furthermore, a cursory read of your communications suggest, to our security analysts, a need for additional safety provisions to be put into place. Therefore, in order to protect our investment, and in concert with section 6.2.11 of the grant application submitted by Drs. Michelle Cavalcante and Cyrus Sanderson, we are sending a risk analyst to designate new security parameters as we move forward. A package has been sent to him at your address in advance of his arrival.

June 16, 2011
Segovia, Peru
Kim Castillo
http://www.bellisima.blogspace9.ex

You know, the whole point of having a generator is to be able to generate electricity. I can appreciate that we’re off the grid, stuck out here between the cane and the ocean, jammed up against this god-forsaken, demon-spewing hell-mouth of a pyramid. What I can’t understand is why the generator so consistently and regularly fails to generate.

We buy fuel. We pour the fuel in the tank. The generator turns on, and half an hour later, for reasons unfathomed by God or man, it turns off. I swear I’m close to my breaking point. I can take the frigid nights, the biting winds, and the relative deprivation. I’ve gotten used to the cold showers, the relentless sexual harassment, and the shuffling ghouls or whatever they are that prowl at night. But could someone please just fix the goddamn generator so that we can have predictably cold beer and a warm laptop?

My name is Kim Castillo, and I fell in love last night. Please understand that the two previous ranting paragraphs are more a reflection of my normal self than an indication of my current mood.

By way of introduction, I am an archaeologist working on my Ph.D. Cyrus is my advisor, which is why I’m down here slaving away on his project. I was originally supposed to be the lab director, but we never got it together to put up a lab. So I do a little excavating, but mostly I process the documents that Michelle and Leon dig up.

Michelle tells me that I have to write something interesting, and there’s little enough in my young life that has been more interesting that the last 24 hours, so I’ll tell you about them. I’ll start with last night when the lights went out.

There was a knock on the door. Big deal, right? But here’s the thing; nobody knocks on our door. We don’t get visitors. Ever. And nobody comes or goes at night due to the shuffling zombies that nobody will acknowledge. So I have to admit that we were all a little alarmed by the knocking.

Next thing you know, Leon lunged for the door. Leon is a drooling cretin on a good day, but he’s been wearing these pirate guns that came in the mail. And on his way to the door, he tripped and one of the guns fell out of his pocket and snapped, or whatever it is that guns do. It didn’t have any bullets in it, but if it did, it would have shot one.

Cyrus was wearing his headlight, so he came over and took the guns away, put them on the shelf and went to open the door. Meanwhile, Michelle and I were lighting candles.

A car drove away just as the door opened, leaving a man standing outside with his bags. Cyrus sped out to the yard, furious that the gate was open, and got it closed as he waved the man inside. I almost melted.

This man was maybe five and a half feet tall but I swear he was the best looking human I’d ever seen. He had black hair and black eyes. He wore a black leather jacket and matching boots. “Forgive my tardiness,” he said, “I only arrived in the country today.”

“Can I ask who you are?” Cyrus had that headlight shining on him.

“Yeah,” said Leon, sounding like an idiot. “What’s your business here?”

The man took out a cigarette. And with his other hand, he struck a match against the zipper on Leon’s fleece jacket. I didn’t know that was even possible, but I guess it is. And it was about the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I swear, if he hadn’t been holding a lit match, I would have jumped into his arms and made myself his.

“The young lady requested assistance,” he told Cyrus, lighting his cigarette. “And I am here to provide that assistance.”

“What young lady?” Leon demanded. “And what kind of assistance?”

He pointed at Michelle. “This young lady. My work is of a protective nature. I keep people safe.” He snapped his fingers, and Leon went out to carry his bags into the house, as if that was the most natural thing in the world to do when someone snapped their fingers.

“Wait a minute,” Michelle said, “are you saying that Blogspace9 sent you?”

“That is correct.” He turned to Cyrus. “You’ll forgive me. It was not possible to bring my weapons on the plane, so they had to be delivered by other means.”

“Who are you?” Cyrus asked him.

“Bolivar,” he said. “I believe you have my guns.”

I won’t lie. Once everybody got themselves sorted out, once the lights were out, I tiptoed across the cold tiles of that great hall, and I tapped three times on Bolivar’s door. When he opened it, I stepped in without waiting for an invitation. He was wearing a silk robe, as was I, and I swear his was shorter.

He grinned at me, a thin cigarette between his lips. He took me firmly by the arm, spun me around, and then smacked my butt as he led me back into the hall. Just before he shut the door in my face, he bowed and clicked his heels together. I didn’t know that heels actually made a clicking noise all on their own, without shoes, but they do. I went back to my room, but I didn’t sleep much last night.

phone: 954 50 05 28

HOURS: M-F 8:00-3:00

Completed in 1584, this building served as the principal economic and political locus of federal Spanish interaction with the colonial Viceroyalties.
A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Archive now contains an estimated 80 million pages of Spanish colonial documents.

June 17, 2011
Seville, Spain
Bruce Wheeler

Sorry to hear about your unrequited crush, Kim. I’m crying on the inside. But remember, you’ll always have Leon!

It’s been a busy day here at the Archive. I’ve been going over those documents that you guys found, and I have to say that this is an extraordinary trove of information.

May the Inca gods bless the arid sands of coastal Peru for this remarkable preservation! Think about it, guys, we’re reading bits of a journal that’s more than four hundred and thirty years old. And seeing how you just dug it up, we’re the first people to read it in four hundred and thirty years. Let’s hope we can make something of it.