Library of Alexandria
Chapter 6
The boys walked over to last night's rescuer and smiled. They introduced themselves officially and found out that his name was Jared. "Thanks again for pulling us out of the condo last night," Michael said. "We were effectively prisoners in our own home."
"All part of my job," their rescuer replied. "I was only too happy to help."
"Are you part of Mr. Asquith's security team or an outside contractor? I haven't seen you around the estate before," John wondered.
"I was recently hired by Mr. Asquith to augment the security staff he already had," he revealed. "That seems to be in response to the number of brilliant people he's brought here to help with the translation and cataloguing of his recent discovery. The media can be quite persistent."
"Oh, yes, they can. We've already had some experience with them," John sighed.
"Yeah, I saw you on television with Andrew. I thought you acquitted yourselves very well," Jared smiled. "The camera is very kind to you."
"Where did you get your security training?" Michael wondered, deflecting the praise.
"I was in the Marines for four years," Jared revealed. "I knew after two tours in Afghanistan that I didn't want to stay longer. More realistically though, I have always had an issue with authority, especially authority that I think is several sandwiches short of a picnic." The boys laughed at his characterization. "When my enlistment was up, it was an easy decision to leave. But, my commander suggested that I look up a company here that recruited and placed security type people like me. I always thought of my commander as one of the few who had brains, so I followed his suggestion and got this gig right after I mustered out. I was in the right place at the right time." He paused for a moment. He seemed to be considering saying something more. He came to a decision and added, "And despite the Defense Department making it perfectly okay to be gay in the military, it is still deeply frowned upon in the Marines. I didn't need that pressure in my life, too."
"That's very brave of you to admit that," Michael said. "I guess you thought we were safe to reveal that to."
"It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that you're a couple, especially when your gaydar works as well as mine does," he laughed. "So, uh, do you guys mess around?"
They smiled and Michael answered, "You're certainly direct. And to answer your question, that depends on the man and his interest and our interest. In your particular case, the answer would be yes!"
Jared glanced at his watch. "I'm on duty in another 30 minutes. I need to shower and get some breakfast, so we'll have to continue this discussion later. How about tonight?"
"Uh, we were asked to have dinner with Mr. Asquith tonight at seven," John said. "How about meeting us at eight? Your place or ours?"
"Your place," Jared decided quickly. "I'm in a dorm kind of situation, so it would be better at your place. I assume you have private quarters?" The boys nodded. "Good. See ya tonight at eight," he smiled.
They watched him walk away, admiring the sway of his beautiful ass and the roll of his broad shoulders. "A major stud and a nice guy," John observed. "I wonder how versatile he is?"
"We'll find out tonight," Michael smirked. And they did find out. Jared was a total bottom. He had no interest in topping either one of them. But, he was insatiable. He couldn't get fucked long enough or often enough to meet his needs. Jared revealed that he hadn't had sex in several months, so this was just the release that he needed. He hoped that they could continue this fun several nights per week. Michael and John loved the idea. Jared always left them about midnight, so he could get some rest as well as get his workout in before this morning duties. That was the time that John and Michael bottomed for each other. Occasionally, they waited until the next morning after their workout. They still had that need and fulfilled it daily.
By the following Monday, there was a clamoring from the media for the weekly press release. Michael and John met with the translators of the play and found that the translations were complete. One of the ancient language professors had written up a brief comparison of the play as written in the seven languages. He tried to demonstrate where the play differed between the languages and how they all said essentially the same thing. The places where they differed were insignificant to the totality of play. That written brief was not shared with the press, as Mr. Asquith didn't think that it was germane to the translations and the message of the play.
The press release that Michael and John wrote and Mr. Asquith approved was as follows:
The play that was written in seven languages was entitled by the Romans as "The Gods of the Ages". However, if you look back at the original text written in Atlantean, you'll find that the correct translation is closer to "The Age When Gods Ruled". As most of you are aware, the children's game of "telephone" shows how easy it is for the original message to get twisted, so that by the time it comes out the other end, it is hardly recognizable. We have the title as it was translated into the other languages, and we can see the progression of how the title changed through time.
As part of this press release, we have attached the text of the play as written in each of the seven languages and translated by us as well as photocopies of the original. If you take the time to compare them, you'll find that some words were left out or their meaning changed by the omission or addition of words. For the most part, the text is fairly transparent and consistent from Atlantean through the other languages all the way to Latin. The translators of the text in ancient times often substituted their gods for the ones written about by previous translators. Consequently, Ra became Osiris who became Zeus who became Jupiter. These gods are familiar to most of you. Mesopotamia had Marduk as their chief god. An or Anu was the father of all the gods in Sumeria. Atlantis had a chief god called Archon.
The play is about Archon and his family and how they interacted with humans. Several of the gods are named. Most of them are given defined roles. A few, we know only by their names.
It is clear from the play that Archon and his immediate family are not of this planet. They were gods from another place, a place not revealed by the play, but evidently known to the Atlanteans. This is a play, not a history. We don't know if the gods they speak of are real or invented. Most cultures invent their gods to explain the world around them that they don't understand.
Without plowing through the play line by line, it is more instructive to give a synopsis of how the people of Atlantis viewed their gods and the civilization. This play does not deal with the destruction of Atlantis. Consequently, based on the sovereigns of Atlantis from other documents and the king mentioned in the play, we estimate that the play is set in about the year 8257 BCE. The Atlantean civilization had been around for about 5200 years by that point. From the general tone of the play, we conclude that they were unaware of their impending disastrous end. The list of sovereigns goes on for another 550 years before it ends. That doesn't mean that's when Atlantis ended. It only means that the chronicler died before more sovereigns took the throne.
The Atlantean gods lived for over 10,000 years, unless killed by another god. Humans can't harm them. The play doesn't say why that is. But, the play does state that the gods came to Atlantis to teach humans how to be civilized and give voice to all Atlanteans. They established a republic with elected representatives. However, the sovereign was a direct descendant of the first king of Atlantis. Again, there is no verbiage in the play as to how that person or family originally claimed the throne.
The gods were teachers and guides, showing the people how to improve their lives with better medical practices, sanitation, diet, and trade. The gods also showed them how to defend themselves from attackers, but were told several times that they were not to oppress or enslave other people who were not of Atlantis. There were oblique references to the gods stepping in and removing from the throne a king who moved to enslave or oppress others. Again, there were no details as to how this was done or what the particular instance or instances were that caused the gods to step in.
Atlantis was the military and trading power of the world at that point, having trading posts across the seas. The fast ships that they used were powered by an unknown source that allowed them to travel far faster than with sails. Based on only one line of the play, we have concluded that the Atlanteans were not restricted to the Mediterranean Sea, but did make voyages to the New World. The nature of that trade and with whom they traded is not mentioned. However, we still don't know where Atlantis was located. Nothing in the play tells us whether it was in the Atlantic or it was in the Mediterranean Sea, or somewhere else entirely.
The gods were not always in residence in Atlantis, but would appear from time to time as they were needed or the gods thought their presence would be of benefit to the Atlanteans. Again, we don't know what precipitated those visits. But, when Atlantis was in need of assistance, they gods were always there to render counsel to help them solve their own problems. Rarely did the gods step in and intervene directly. Enslavement and oppression seemed to be the most frequent triggers.
The play is a morality play, reminding the Atlanteans to think of their responsibilities to their land and people before they thought of themselves and how to enrich themselves. And when they did think of others, they were rewarded with riches in trade. Evidently, Atlantis was a land of businessmen. There is no mention of government officials or a priestly class, so we don't know if they existed or not. We assume they did.
Homes and businesses were lighted by curious devices we can only guess at. We don't know if there was a power grid or each home had its own devices or generators. However, with their frequent references to the sun and the power that it provided, we assume that they had some kind of solar energy capture system. And that system had to include some way to store the energy for when it was night-time. Again, we don't know what it was. Only passing references are made.
You can read the dialogue yourself to see what morals the play was trying to preach to the audience. As we don't have any other plays to compare it to, we don't know if this was a frequent theme or just one that was preserved for reasons unknown to us.
Remember, this is a play, not a history. Similarly, the Harry Potter books and movies are fiction, not history. Please, don't draw any conclusions that aren't there based on facts that aren't there. Now that we have more than a rough alphabet and some guesses at words, we can go back to other Atlantean documents and translate them more easily. We still don't have a very large vocabulary, so some of the documents may never be translated fully. But, as we get close to a finished product, we will share them with you.
Thank you for your continued support and interest in our project. We ask that you respect the privacy of our staff and not ambush them with interview requests and speculations. Occasionally, we will happily provide the media with the most learned of our colleagues to help you understand what we have released to date. We also ask that you not ask us to speculate about what hasn't been translated. We have no idea what is still to be revealed. The future may bring us more amazing discoveries, or we may find something as mundane as a cookbook.
The warning about ridiculous speculation fell on deaf ears. Of course, the media was rampant with speculation about the extraterrestrials that had visited Earth and had been directing the development of mankind. And they speculated about why the gods left mankind to flounder without direction. There was no end to the bizarre and looney conclusions they reached, based on nothing in the play but their own delusional fantasies.
The boys spoke with Mr. Asquith about how to go about squashing such rampant speculation, but there was really nothing that could be done to thwart that. Even if they had released a cookbook, the crazies would still make their moronic claims about the true nature of Atlantis and the gods.
"Perhaps in the next press release," Mr. Asquith snarled, "we should warn them that stupid speculation like we're seeing now will delete them from our list of approved interviewers."
"They'd just see that as a form of censorship and make even more profoundly ignorant claims about all the good stuff that we're holding back," Michael offered.
"You can't fix stupid, nor can you slow down the human imagination," John added.
Mr. Asquith sighed. "Of course, you're correct. I suppose meeting their speculative claims with silence is the only answer."
"That's probably the wisest position," John agreed. "But, that does leave us in a pickle if it should come up in an interview situation. They could easily include the speculative nonsense in the interview and ask for a comment."
"We'll just have to remind the interviewees to say something that is more than `no comment'," Michael cautioned.
"Maybe, we should just suggest to our people that they say that the question is without merit and has no validation with the current state of our knowledge," Mr. Asquith suggested.
"They will be pressed," John warned.
"And they should repeat what they had just said," Mr. Asquith asserted. "Besides, there are only a few of the people here with a clear enough head that I'd trust in front of the media. We can control the message more readily with fewer people speaking for all of us. And that means that you two are going to be the sacrificial lambs nearly all the time."
"But, they will ask for the experts on a particular language or culture," John pointed out.
"Yes, they will," Mr. Asquith agreed, "but we don't have to make them available to the media. It might be instructive to have a short class on how to deal with the media and their lunatic questions and how they ambush you with questions that will only get you in trouble. Michael, you must know someone in the media that you trust that could give us snippets of interviews that went very badly."
Michael smiled and nodded. He was sure that Andrew would have a large collection of such events. Perhaps, with the promise of another exclusive interview, he could get precisely what he wanted.
"After our experts see the catastrophe that can happen in interviews, most if not all of them will see the light and decline all interviews," John said.
"I don't want to appear to be completely selfish on access," Mr. Asquith said. "If the print media would like to send us their questions, we'll have the appropriate expert answer them. The problem with a live interview is that the media can edit the answers to come out as exactly the opposite of what was really said."
"So, what is in the pipeline for release to the public?" Michael asked.
"I've asked the experts in each language to have dinner with us tonight," Mr. Asquith revealed. "We'll all find out then."
Mr. Asquith let the attendees at dinner know of his plan to show all of them disastrous interviews to convince them and their colleagues that interviews with the media are fraught with danger. They all nodded their agreement, having seen such interviews go bad before. No one mentioned whether it was a personal experience or a close colleague who had been savaged by the media.
"Another reason that I invited all of you to dinner tonight was to get an update on where you stand within your individual expert areas," Mr. Asquith smiled. "Let's start with the Romans. Anything new that we don't already know about them?" He got a negative response from Michael, John, and Professor Latimer. "How about the Greeks?" Again, a negative response from the three parties. "Phoenician?" Drs. Fraser and Strickland had nothing to offer. "Egyptian?" Drs. Abernethy and Steele shook their heads to the negative. "Drs. Irvine and Pelham, is there anything in the texts from the Sumerians or Babylonians that reveals something new about them?"
"Nothing so far," Dr. Irvine admitted. "But we haven't looked at more than 10% of the total."
Mr. Asquith nodded. "How about our friends on the Atlantis team?"
Dr. Dunbar spoke up. "With our confirmed alphabet and many more words in our vocabulary, we are making progress on several documents, but it is slow going with a lot of holes in the narrative still. The computer symbol recognition software has been a great help, but it can only go so far. I'd estimate that we are going to translate about 75% of each document. That leaves out a lot of text that could be vital to understanding the document we're working on. In almost every case, we know what the word sounds like, but we are clueless as to the meaning of the word," he sighed.
"Well, let me know if you do have anything that can be released to the media by next Monday," Mr. Asquith requested. "If we have nothing new, we'll just give them one of the documents that contain known data. No one ever said that this would all be new material, although I'm sure the media thinks all of it is new. We should include that caveat in the next news release," he added, nodding to Michael and John. They nodded back their agreement.
The rest of the week was filled with nightly fuck sessions with Jared and the boys. Michael and John tried to help the Atlantean team, but they didn't add much to the discussion as the other people were more versed in ancient languages than they were. They were beginning to feel fairly useless. Still, dinners with Mr. Asquith were always pleasant and enlightening. He really is a brilliant man, they agreed.
The young graduate student who had interrupted the Atlantean meeting a week ago was recognized as an asset to the team and was included in the discussions. Michael and John found out that his name was Eric. His emphasis in his graduate studies was early Egyptian hieroglyphs. And to his credit, he did point out an Atlantean character that no one had been able to translate that he saw right away what it was. Each proper name was preceded by this symbol. And there was another symbol that was used before the name of a nation or a people. However, common nouns didn't seem to have any modifying symbol. The Atlantean team looked for other symbols preceding or following other characters, but saw no other commonalities.
Tentative substitutions were made for words that sounded the same in Atlantean and early Egyptian. Sometimes those substitutions made sense, other times it made the sentence nonsense.
The team always wondered why some documents had been preserved, because they seemed mundane. There was no comprehensive work on their history, culture, deity hierarchy, or government to government agreements or treaties. Why hadn't their history and cultural achievements been saved? Except for the play that was more of a Rosetta Stone than it was a play, nothing survived. What they had seen so far was business transactions with other nations. And the other nations were only names. The translators had no idea who they were or where they were compared to the modern map of the world.
But, once again, Eric came to the rescue. He was working on another book that contained several texts about early Egypt and the first three dynasties. The book was entitled "The History of Our World" which wasn't very helpful in describing the contents. Eric had translated several pages before he began seeing references to Atlantis. The inference was that the early Egyptians were survivors of the great catastrophe that struck Atlantis and buried it beneath the waves for all time. The tag on the book only mentioned that the contents included a history of early Egypt and was silent about Atlantis.
The chronicler wrote pages and pages about what his people knew of the Atlanteans. He made reference to several books he had at his disposal that told of many tales involving the Atlanteans and how their civilization began and ran for more than 8,000 years before the end of their lands and people. As Eric read farther and farther into the book, he knew he had to share with the Atlantean team. He sent a message off to the team, asking them to meet in the conference room at noon on Friday for more exciting Atlantean news. Eric spent the rest of Thursday and Thursday evening reading and translating the astonishing tale of Atlantis.
He asked Grace to get one of her people to scan the entire book before the meeting on Friday. When he told her of the content, she performed the scans herself and had two of her assistants proofing each scan for clarity.
Eric shared the first 20 pages of the book with the Egyptian experts on Friday morning. He asked them to confirm his translation or fix it. The meeting started promptly at noon. Mr. Asquith made sure that lunch was provided in the room for all the participants. Jared provided security for the room as all the people filed in. Michael noticed that Eric and Jared exchanged glances that spoke to more than a passing interest by each of them in the other. Immediately, Michael told John of the look that Eric and Jared had exchanged.
"I think our bed may not be warmed by Jared very soon," Michael smiled.
"We should do something to encourage that," John agreed. "If they don't hook up tonight, we should suggest that Jared pursue him while we're banging his butt tonight," he whispered.
As Eric was only a graduate student, Dr. Abernethy made the initial and brief remarks. "Our brilliant early Egyptian graduate student has done it again," he smiled. He turned and pulled Eric up to the lectern. "Although this is hearsay as it was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs and not Atlantean characters, this is an amazing story about the history and culture of Atlantis. "My colleague, Dr. Steele confirms as do I the correct translation of the early Egyptian book that Eric has already done. The first twenty pages are remarkable, but I'll let you read them for yourself," he concluded. Instantly, the first 20 pages were available on every computer screen in the room. The participants read voraciously through the translation, murmuring to themselves and their colleagues what a magnificent find this was.
"How did we miss this?" one of the people asked.
"The tag attached to this book only said that it was a history of early Egypt," Eric pointed out. "And there is no cross-reference in the bibliography of the find that indicated anything in it was about Atlantis. However, some of the tag appeared to be rubbed off or scrubbed away. It could be water damage for all I know. But, it is puzzling that the subject matter about Atlantis wasn't in the bibliography."
"Bibliographies aren't always complete when it comes to material within a particular work," Mr. Asquith pointed out. "And the two men who secreted this material away may have been in a hurry and only glanced at the first part of the book. After all, they created a bibliography of this collection, not of the entire Library of Alexandria. We have only a portion of that library."
"We will work over the weekend," Dr. Abernethy stated. "Dr. Steele and Eric will verify the translation and get it on to the computer system as soon as we can. I hope that is before Monday morning. I know that Mr. Asquith wants to send out a press release every Monday afternoon."
"Don't let be of any concern to you," Mr. Asquith assured him. "Work at your own pace to get the most accurate translation you can. If you aren't ready by the time we need to put together a press release, we'll merely include something else mundane from the Sumerian or Babylonian texts that are complete. No one promised astonishing news every week."
"And that would give us more time to put it into context with what we know about the very earliest Egyptians," Dr. Steele volunteered. "And it may lend some validity to the play that we've translated, or tried to translate," he added.
"But, these first 20 pages are dynamite!" Mr. Asquith said, looking up from his computer. One of his many skills was speed reading. He'd already finished the 20 pages in about three minutes. "You're certain of the translation to date?"
Drs. Steele and Abernethy looked at Eric and smiled. "Oh, yes," Eric smiled, "very certain!"
"However," Dr. Abernethy cautioned, "not every early Egyptian hieroglyph is known to us, so we may have a few spots where we don't have the correct word, but that should be rare."
"Is there anything that the rest of us can do to assist you?" Mr. Asquith wondered.
"Lots of good food and drink for the weekend, I suppose," Dr. Steele joked.
"Just ask," Mr. Asquith assured him. "John, would you and Michael take lead on babysitting our esteemed colleagues?" That got a laugh from the group. "Make sure they get everything they need. But, do NOT let them tire themselves out. This find can wait another week before the world knows about it. I understand from Grace that the full book has been scanned. After you are satisfied with the translation, you can release it to the other members of this group. I'm not expecting any of you to burn the midnight oil to read, digest, and comment on the content. That can wait until well beyond Monday."
As the meeting broke up, the participants were abuzz with what had been discovered. No one took to heart Mr. Asquith's warning about burning the midnight oil. All of them were excited to read the next pages as they became available. At 10 p.m., the three translators finally gave up, saying they were tired and needed rest. They sent a message to the rest of the group informing them that translation work would begin again at eight the next morning. Several members of the committee stayed up well beyond midnight to digest and comment on what they were reading. Giddy would be understating their state of mind.
Jared did spend time with Michael and John after the translators stopped. They mentioned to Jared that there was significant chemistry between Jared and Eric and he should pursue it. Jared blushed, but did say he was interested in the young graduate student. "Do you know if he's a top or bottom?" he asked.
"We don't have any idea," Michael sighed. "That's for you to find out, I guess."
"But, he's so busy with the translation right now, that I'll never get close to him," Jared pouted.
"You do have security duty tomorrow, don't you?"
"Uh, no. That's my day off."
"You could always switch with someone, so you could be near him," John suggested. "And we'll be there to make sure they get everything they need. During their breaks, I'm sure we can let him know that you're interested in him."
"I don't want him to think that I'm desperate or a stalker," Jared blanched.
"Not to worry," Michael said. "We know how to be Minerva Matchmaker."
It was no secret that Michael and John are a couple. When they drew Eric aside and revealed Jared's interest in him, he grinned broadly. "I think his an amazingly gorgeous man," he allowed. "But, I doubt that we'd be sexually compatible."
"Why is that?" John wondered.
Eric whispered, "I'm a top, and he's obviously not a bottom," he signed.
Michael and John grinned, nearly laughing. "Don't judge a book by its cover," Michael opined.
"So, he's sorta versatile?"
"Uh, no," John smirked. "We have it on very good authority that Jared is a very hungry bottom who loves to get fucked long and hard and often."
"You're kidding!" Eric blurted out.
"Not even a little," John replied.
"But, how can we connect when I'm so tied up with the translation?"
"That's easy," Michael grinned. "Just tell your colleagues that you need to get more rest. You were so wound up about the find that you got little sleep last night. So, you'd like to call it an early night tonight. They may have the same problem."
Eric thought a moment. "I think that's true. Drs. Steele and Abernethy looked pretty wiped out this morning. Neither of them are young men."
"So, what time should Jared come calling?" John asked with a devilish grin.
"We'll stop at five and have dinner. Perhaps, we'll work another hour or so. How about you tell him that I'm available at eight tonight?"
"We'll let him know," John said.
"Does he know which room I'm in?"
"I'm sure he does or can find out. He's part of the security team and they know everything about everyone," Michael revealed.
"And get some sleep, even though you may want to play all night with him," John suggested. "You need to be rested and ready for more translation work on Sunday morning."
"Slave driver!" Eric laughed.
The three men stopped their translation work earlier than Eric thought they would. They didn't resume their translation after dinner, pleading fatigue.
Michael and John left them and went to their own quarters. They saw Eric and Jared strolling down the hallway ahead of them and the two of them turned toward the room that Eric had.
"Tonight, it's just us," John smiled.
"And I'm very ready for a `just us' night. As much as I enjoyed Jared in our bed, it will be nice to have you all to myself, again," Michael sighed. "And we'll get a lot more sleep this way, too."
This is a work of fiction. Your life isn't. Always play safe.
This story appears on www.nifty.org. It costs some serious money to buy the servers and the electricity to run them. Please be generous in your contributions to this site.