Aeolus Investigations Episode 9

Available on Amazon.com.

It’s been two years since Lexi Stevens discovered she had a 14-year-old sister. Now, Allie is 16. But she’s not your average teenager by any means. As a birthday present for Allie, and a vacation for Lexi, the two join an archaeological dig in South America. Steve, the dig director, is hoping to discover evidence of an unknown Mesoamerican culture older than the Mayans, the Aztecs, and even the Olmecs.

What should have been a fun few weeks turns deadly. Old enemies are gunning for Lexi resulting in treachery at the dig site. Then there is the alien starship with a weapon never before encountered by the Accord. When Lexi is taken out of commission Allie has to rise to the occasion.

Archaeologist Chapter 1 – Trapped
Archaeologist is available on Amazon.com.

Coughing out dust, Lexi asked, “Is anyone hurt?” She could feel the other two with her mind, but it didn’t hurt to ask. She was virtually certain her sister, Allie, wasn’t in any distress. Steve, their putative boss, on the other hand, was in a great deal of pain. The small cave was in complete darkness. Dust from the cave-in was choking all three of them.

“Bruises, maybe. I’m not hurt,” Allie answered, her voice, as was Lexi’s, a little raspy. “How about you, Steve?” She could be heard stirring around as she asked.

Steve groaned. “I’m pretty sure my shoulder is dislocated. I think that’s my only injury.” By then, Allie found and lit one of the lanterns. Steve looked at the tumble of rock only a few feet away and added, “Better than being under that. I guess that’s where my flashlight ended up.” As the lantern attained full brightness, pushing back the darkness of the cave, he was able to see both of his companions. Allie looked fine, just dusty. “Ah, Lexi, what about you?”

In the glow of the lantern, it was clear that Lexi, face down on the rough floor of the cave, was partially buried under rock. “I wasn’t able to move fast enough to get the two of you clear and get out of the way myself.” Weird, I should have been fast enough. When did that change? Moving at less than what my full speed should be actually caused my legs to ache. “Something’s wrong with my legs.” Something over and above just having a ton of rocks sitting on them.

She considered while she looked over her shoulder at the mound of rock pinning her. “We can put your shoulder back in place, Steve, but Allie, unless you’ve taken medical, first you’re going to need to move these rocks off of me. Popping a shoulder back is easy enough to do and you’re strong enough, but I don’t want to try talking you through it. Have you ever dislocated a shoulder before, Steve?”

He shook his head, trying his best to sound encouraging. He led these women into the cave. He was responsible for them. There was no way he was going to let his concern for the situation show before he had to. Keeping his tone light, he said, “No. I’ve never been buried by a cave in, either.”

“It will hurt less as soon as it’s back in place. You’ll need to wear a sling for a few days to keep it immobile. You won’t have full use of it for about twelve weeks. No heavy lifting during that time.” Lexi certainly sounded like she knew what she was talking about. She and Allie had been working for him for only a few days. Other than the fact that she was rich, he had no clue as to her background. Maybe she had medical training?

While Lexi was talking to Steve, Allie stood and carried the lantern closer to where Lexi was pinned, face down, on the rock floor, her legs buried to mid-thigh. “Medical is still on my to do list. Admittedly, it may have just moved up a notch or three. Can’t you pull yourself out, big sister?”

“Yes. But I’ve never been this severely damaged. Nothing is crushed, but I do have multiple fractures in each leg. I don’t think any of them are compound. I’m not losing blood. I didn’t think I could be this badly damaged anymore. Since I am, I’m not sure I wouldn’t rip my legs off. You’d have to carry me until they grew back.” My bones shouldn’t break this easily. Sometimes I hate being my own guinea pig. It has to be the new nano-cell technology making me more fragile than I am without it. Hate it when that happens. Still, this doesn’t compare to my first use of the hulk-meds. That nearly killed me. I suppose this nearly killed me too. Damn.

“What?” Steve asked, still keeping his voice light. “Legs don’t grow back. And those rocks are far too heavy for Allie to move. I don’t think the two of us together could shift the bigger ones even if I could use both shoulders. I don’t like it, Lexi; just being realistic, but we might need to leave you under there until help gets to us.” Lexi looked up at him. She wasn’t exactly glaring, but he translated her look to mean, “Shut up.”

As Steve was speaking, Allie was surveying the pile of rocks pinning Lexi. She knew if she pulled out the lowest ones, those above would roll down onto her sister. If anything smashed her spine, that would be far worse than the current bad situation.

She reached out for a boulder at shoulder height that didn’t look like it was holding anything else in place. It probably weighed in excess of a thousand pounds. Two years ago, she watched as her sister easily bench pressed over twelve-hundred pounds. Lexi was fourteen years older than she was and four inches taller. Still, Allie wasn’t sure she was any stronger. She was pretty sure she could pick this up if she braced herself.

As she lifted the boulder off of the pile and walked it several feet away, she saw Steve’s wide-eyed expression and winked at him. As she went after a second, slightly less massive stone, she heard him comment, “So is this your way of telling me that maybe legs do grow back?” No one answered him, but that was OK. He didn’t really expect an answer.

It took Allie almost ninety minutes to carefully remove enough of the rock trapping Lexi so that she could extract her from the pile. Once Lexi was carefully turned over, sitting up with her back against one of the boulders Allie had relocated, Lexi said, “Steve, come sit next to me. Let’s fix your shoulder first.” As he complied, he thought that sitting her upright must have been agonizing considering the shape her legs were in. She hadn’t made a sound, though.

The relief wasn’t total, but it was instant once Lexi was done. It took only seconds for her to pop his shoulder back into the socket. He had seen people on TV fix their own shoulders. Mel Gibson’s character in Lethal Weapon came to mind. He assumed it could be done, but he didn’t know how. And the pain was so awful, he didn’t want to try. He looked at Lexi’s obviously shattered legs and said, “You should be in traction. The pain must be incredible. How can you even still function?”

“I’m blocking the pain. The purpose of pain is to let you know something is wrong. I can tell that without feeling it. Allie, help him get his shirt off and use it to make him a sling. Then I’m going to need your help again.” Once Steve was taken care of, Allie moved closer and Lexi said, “We’re going to fix my legs now, honey. Take off your boots and sit opposite me.” Once Allie was sitting, Lexi said, “You’re going to pull my legs straight toward you, one at a time.” She glanced at Steve. “Steve had the right idea. You’re putting me in traction.”

“I’ll just drag you across the floor if I do that, Lexi.”

“No, that’s why I wanted you to take off your shoes. One foot in my crotch to brace yourself.”

“Really? OK, then what?”

“A steady pull on the leg. No jerking.” As Allie did as instructed, Lexi said, her voice strained, “That’s good, honey. Don’t worry. You aren’t going to hurt me. Use a little more force.” Allie gradually pulled harder on Lexi’s ankle. “OK, that’s got it. You’re going to have to hold it, keeping the pressure steady for ten minutes or so. My eyes are going to be closed. I’m concentrating, not passing out.”

The ten minutes passed in silence. Steve wanted to talk, but didn’t want to break anyone’s concentration. He did note that it looked like Allie was exerting far more effort stretching her sister’s leg than she had when moving impossibly-sized boulders. Both women looked pale and sweaty as Allie worked. He didn’t for a moment think it was from the harsh glow cast by lantern or the temperature in the cave.

Having time to think while the two women were busy, he realized that Lexi was in motion before he even realized the ceiling of the cave was coming down. The thunderous boom preceding that event momentarily distracted him. Based on how close to the back of the cave they had landed, she tossed both him and Allie a good sixteen feet from where they had been standing. He was two-hundred pounds, give or take, and she tossed him with one arm at the same time she tossed Allie with the other.

Both of these women were well built, not stacked, but muscular. That was obvious. When work was done for the day and the sun went down, they tended to change into halter tops and cargo shorts. But even those muscles shouldn’t have been capable of tossing him like a child or, for that matter, of relocating boulders. He originally thought they were just rich people out for a lark. He now realized he didn’t know who these people he was trapped with were, but if he had to be trapped with anybody he was beginning to suspect he couldn’t have chosen better.

Eyes still closed, Lexi said, “Now rotate it three degrees counter-clockwise.” Eight minutes later, she said, “Good. Set it down, gently, please. Do you want to take a break before working on the other one?”

“No, I’m good. Do you?”

Lexi smiled. “OK, then, same thing on the other side.” As Allie pulled, Lexi said, “Move it slightly further out and twist four degrees clockwise. The breaks are angled differently on this side.”

Twelve minutes passed before Lexi said, “OK, you can relax now. Thank you honey. I’ve got them sealed back together.”

Steve asked, “Can I talk?”

Both Lexi and Allie smiled at him. “Go ahead,” Allie said.

“Did you just set two legs that should have required surgery and pins and a stay in traction in a hospital bed?”

“Yes, she did,” Lexi explained. “We don’t have a hospital bed handy. This was more practical. We also might be short on time. Also, before you ask, she was lifting stones that weighed, what, a thousand pounds, Allie?”

“Most of them weren’t that heavy,” Allie said, adding, “although a couple were more than that.”

“I see,” Steve said, looking from one of them to the other. “How long before you’re able to walk on two broken legs?”

Lexi laughed. “Don’t be silly, you can’t walk on broken legs. However, I’ll be mobile again in around two hours, maybe less. Why? You have somewhere else you need to be?”

Steve shook his head. “You can’t be serious. Who are you ladies? Or should I be asking what are you?” He hesitated a minute. “Ah, if you’ll have to kill me if you answer that, I’ll stay in blissful ignorance, I think.”

Before saying anything, Allie glanced at Lexi. Getting a go-ahead nod, Allie said, “If there’s something we don’t want you to know, we won’t tell you. So you should be safe enough.” She paused momentarily. “She’s completely serious, Steve. My sister is Marshal Lexi Stevens of the Accord. Both of us are genetically modified to be stronger than normal. We heal faster too. In Lexi’s case, much faster. Although I think we’re lucky the impact was to her leg bones and not her knees or ankles. That would have crippled her for a day or two. Anything else you want to know?”

He considered that. “Not at the moment, but that’s good news, right? If you’re missing, people will come looking. I was trying to figure out how to get us out of here, but that might not be necessary.” He paused. “If you’re a high government muckity-muck, shouldn’t you have a protection detail traveling with you? Is the air getting stuffy?”

Lexi looked from him to Allie. “The problem I have with protection details is that protecting them slows me down. This issue with my legs shouldn’t have happened. I’ve been experimenting with what’s termed nano-techology. I’m not sure why yet, but the nano-cells I injected myself with seem to have weakened my bones. While I’m trying to fix that issue, why don’t the two of you take one of the lanterns and explore deeper in the cave. That’s why we’re in here. Try not to get lost.”

While they were collecting gear, Lexi continued, “I think you’re right about the air in this chamber; it is getting stuffier. However, for now at least, we’re on our own. None of my people on Earth know where we are. Nor are they expecting to hear from us anytime soon. The two people who could find us no matter what are both on Ackalon, which is at least three weeks away by hyper-drive. The others who know are even further away.”

She looked at him. “It’s possible the men you brought to record the markings at the mouth of the cave weren’t trapped by the collapse. If they’re OK, they can call for help when they get back to the dig site.” Lexi looked at the rock. “Worse case, we might be able to dig ourselves out. The rock fall is at least forty feet thick, still, it might be possible.”

Steve took a piece of what in the states would be called sidewalk chalk out of his backpack before slinging the pack on his back. “That makes sense. They were still near the mouth. Let’s go Allie.”

Lexi added, “Allie, if you find you’re running out of air you know what to do.”

Archaeologist is available on Amazon.com.