Hybris

By Don Trimble

Organizations exist in the world that are attempting to subject mankind to the domination of one-world government for the single purpose of exerting their will of total control on the world's population far beyond that penned by George Orwell in his book 1984. The reasons for a one-world government are obscure and undefined except by those who would be in command. Hampton Squires is a member of two very powerful organizations that would combine with other one-world advocate associations to become the agency running the world dynasty. But what good is this ultimate power if your expected life span is only eighty years? Squires is in his sixties; he needs a fountain of youth.

Squires' pharmaceutical companies have searched for the secret of youth for over forty years, spending billions of dollars to control the aging process; their research has managed to add three years to the average life span.

During an oil exploration flight, one of Squires' pilots discovers a large pile of interesting boulders in the northern Sahara Desert, lands, and finds the ruins of an ancient people. An archaeological team sponsored by Squires confirms the pilot's suspicions and, in the process, discovers what may be Squires' "fountain of youth." However, before the team can discover how to maintain youthfulness and share the information with Squires, they perish in the Sahara.

With the news of the archaeological team's disappearance, Hampton Squires gives no thought to the families left behind before enlisting Doctors of Archaeology, T. and Renée Mansfield, to finish the exploration and to bring back to him what they learn.

The Mansfields are not prepared for what they find; they are equally not prepared for the life and death threat that pits their survival skills against would-be assassins. Hampton Squires will stop at nothing to obtain and control the knowledge hidden among the Sahara boulders. And the Mansfields will stop at nothing to make that same knowledge available to all mankind.

HYBRIS pits evil against good, control against freedom, and disease and early death against the primal desire to live a long and healthy life free from unnecessary governmental intrusions. Is there a winner, or does everyone lose?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781623095437

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Landing

Renée sat lost in thought staring out the one little window of Squires’ chartered cargo plane while T. slouched in his web chair, one of six supplied for the occasional passenger. T., one leg crossed over the other, was reading an old issue of LifeExtension, July 2009.

Listen to this. Without waiting for Renée’s reply, T. began to read from the crumpled pages of the magazine that some other passenger had left behind years ago.

Professor Zs-Nagyu’s quoted statement validates what I have been saying for years.

I’m sorry, T., I was lost in thought looking at the Mediterranean and the faintly visible landfall of Africa; what were you saying?

Just listen, I’ll read it to you.

. . . complete disregard by certain individuals bearing some of the most prestigious affiliations in the gerontological establishment for truth, academic integrity, and scientific professionalism. Instead they have waged a wanton effort to sabotage and retard a global movement of clinicians, practicing physicians on the front lines who have embraced that aging is not inevitable and is, indeed, preventable.

. . . the gerontological elite have instead sought to obfuscate the facts . . . the reason for this is nothing less than an abject fear . . . to avert their loss of control, power, prestige, and position in the multi-billion dollar industry of gerontological medicine.

The gerontological elite have waged a multi-million dollar campaign to influence media and exert deliberate control of public information . . . selective funding of journalists aimed to deliberately misrepresent the anti-aging medical movement with . . . public funds that were appropriated by the US National Institute of Aging.

OK, so what is he saying?

There’s more, just a few more paragraphs.

. . . the gerontological elite have trumpeted meaningless public relations stunts . . . mocking the anti-aging medical movement and its physician leaders. These frivolous efforts, led by non-physicians . . . were clearly mounted for personal gain and speak volumes as to the extremes of intellectual dishonesty.

Under the influence of the misinformation campaign contrived by the gerontological elite, US Federal Statute 21 USC Sec. 333(e) enables a witch-hunt of (anti-aging) physicians who judiciously administer HGH (human growth hormone) therapy, when instead the statute was intended to prohibit trafficking of performance-enhancing substances by non-physicians, prior to the existence of the anti-aging medical movement.

Prof. Imre Zs-Nagyu, MD, a part of the gerontology movement for four decades and founder and editor-in-chief of the Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, has courageously stepped up to speak the truth. At great professional risk, he has come forth to blow the whistle on fourteen years of censorship and repression of the science of anti-aging medicine and advanced preventive medicine by the gerontological establishment.

All right, so the pharmaceuticals are spending vast amounts of money to suppress discoveries and discredit the scientists that are studying anti-aging, and aging may not be as sure a thing as we thought? Or at least it can be slowed down?

Yep.

So what’s news about that? The pharmaceuticals have been doing just that for over a hundred years, and what does that have to do with our little expedition into the vast and unknown?

Don’t look at me that way. This stuff is interesting to me; I was just sharing. And it is the reason we are on this plane.

That was your conclusion and your conclusion only. You read a lot into what Squires said and jumped to some wild hypothesis from the sketchy information sent back by the first team that, I should remind you, vanished without a trace, Renée stated with a nod of her head.

Yeah, OK, I may be reading more into it than Squires intended, but I still think I’m right.

T. and Renée looked out at the Mediterranean from their small porthole-like windows and then to the barren terrain of North Africa. Besides the uncomfortable, short, steel-framed, webbed chairs, there was a his/hers bathroom tucked under the flight deck just in front of their seats. The door to the bathroom would not stay closed but banged back and forth against its frame. On a number of occasions, either T. or Renée had tried one idea or another to keep it either open or closed, but nothing lasted very long. T. glared at the door as he finished defending his position.

Secured with ropes and chains in the cavernous belly of the cargo plane and just a few feet behind T. and Renée was their equipment for the exploration. Included was one olive drab diesel all-wheel-drive former US military truck, equipped with a heavy tarp to protect their gear, and a trailer to haul their water and fuel. The other vehicle was a well-used, tan, one-ton diesel Land Rover, the Sahara model, with huge truck-sized wheels and tires, monstrous springs, an aluminum body, a double roof, and room to seat nine with the cargo on the roof rack. It was old, but the entire running gear had just been rebuilt. Renée would soon be driving the Land Rover, the smaller of the two vehicles, through the Atlas Mountains and out into the Sahara.

T. hated driving the truck; it roared all the time, and the seat was like sitting on a cactus with just enough padding to keep the needles from poking through, but the former military truck carried their supplies, spare parts for both vehicles, food, water, large and small generators, and gear needed for what was scheduled to be a three-month dig. Besides, no one goes into the Sahara with just one vehicle.

As the plane circled the airport, T. and Renée looked down on the beautiful port city of Mostaganem, Algeria. The pilot was visibly checking to make sure the airstrip was clear of debris and animals; sometimes someone waved that it was OK to land and sometimes not. Either way, they would land the plane and off-load the cargo then deal with the authorities as needed. They were low enough to see small waves lapping at the shore of the Mediterranean. The blue waters looked much more inviting than the dry desert mountains that rose from the relatively flat area around Mostaganem. The Sahara and the Hauts Plateaux awaited the two-person team.

It always sounds so romantic until you see reality, T. thought, almost out loud.

The Sahara, the quintessential queen of deserts, protects her secrets like a demanding mistress who lures and entices some to venture forth—those foolish enough to listen to stories of adventure, near-death survivals, and treasures guarded by ruins found and lost to the barren waste and shifting sands. Only the very well prepared should challenge the Sahara, and T. and Renée were as prepared as two people could be.

Casablanca, Morocco, would have been closer to the dig, but the dig was in Algeria, and the border between Algeria and Morocco was closed—had been for years. According to Squires, the ruins that looked more like a mass of boulders were uncovered by the wind and discovered by his low-flying, oil exploration aircraft. Squires sent in a six-man team to investigate. Seven weeks later he received the next-to-the-last phone call from the team leader. The call had been full of static, but Squires thought he heard that the dig was yielding significant information.

The first Squires team had underestimated the amount of water and food needed to sustain six men for three months, which made it necessary to cut their time at the dig short by almost half. On the group’s trip out for supplies and R&R, the team made one more static-filled phone call to Squires saying they were making a supply run. At the time of the call, a monstrous sandstorm was overtaking them and they were looking for some kind of shelter. Then—nothing but silence.

Renée and T. both proposed to Squires that a team of perhaps twelve to twenty was needed to begin the grid process and initial charting of the area. If all went well, perhaps they would need more help, or if events really went well, they could reduce their staff to six or seven. Squires refused, stating that this dig, according to preliminary reports from the first team of archaeologists and his pilot, was too important to have so many people involved.

No, two will have to do, no discussion.

A five day journey over the Atlas mountains and across the desert and two months of digging and charting, and T. Hill Mansfield still looked as though he’d stepped out of a TravelSmith catalog—a soggy TravelSmith catalog. His air-conditioned baja shirt, and everything else he wore, were sweat soaked. The shirt stuck to his skin, the outback hat was soaked, and his socks sagged into his ECCO track boots.

T. looked at the thermometer stuck on the side of the sleeping tent: 121 degrees.

Dr. T. Hill Mansfield, archaeologist, six feet two inches tall, one hundred ninety-five pounds, sun-bleached sandy brown hair, brown eyes, muscular, tanned, with an unbending sense of ethics and integrity combined with a quick sense of humor, had been concentrating his efforts on the one promising area that they had discovered upon their first review of the dig.

T. had spent the last three hours deeply engrossed in attempting, one more time, to record-chart the writings chiseled into the sandstone blocks that probably formed a wall to a hall. Or perhaps the wall was the interior of the hall? However, time and the elements had worn the sandstone down so much as to render the chiseled forms almost indiscernible.

Ah, my wife and teammate approaches. It’s the heat, my dear. I’m having delusions of water—water everywhere but not a drop to drink, T. stated jokingly

Renée, a woman of complexities, barely five seven, one hundred and twenty-five pounds, tanned, with brown eyes and blond hair, continued to close the gap and was saying something T. could not make out because the wind was blowing toward her and taking the sounds with it.

T. smiled to himself. Watching Renée as she approached, he reminisced, It’s been about twenty years since we met. We married before receiving our Doctorates—a small conservative wedding. Only thirty people attended. A look of sadness passed over T.’s face as he then recalled, Renée’s family doesn’t like me; I have no close relatives; I never even knew my dad, and my mom died my senior year in high school. H

CHAPTER 2

Classroom

T., what are your theories regarding the manpower problems to build and feed the people who built the pyramids?

Renée held up a hand. No, don’t tell me—I’ll do it for you. Your theory is that somehow only a small number of people were needed to build the pyramids, correct?

You’ve speculated that longevity and strength may be spin-off benefits for a person learning to control their glands, which could allow a person to perform such feats and may have accounted for the long lives of some of the ancients, such as Methuselah and Moses and perhaps the strength of Sampson.

T. tried to speak, and again Renée’s hand went up to stop her husband from speaking.

She continued, "The other part of your theory is the possibility that if man can learn to control his body in such a fashion as to enhance his strength, then perhaps illnesses could be cured by using the same techniques, namely controlling the release of adrenalin and other secretions from glands that attack hostile viral and bacterial intruders.

"Of course, you need the right evidence, drawings, hieroglyphics, or other indications to support your theories. You would then be able to prove that it did not take as many years, or as many people, to build the Pyramids or to move large stones such as those that were used to build Stonehenge.

If you could find the evidence, any or all of the needed information, you would prove your theory, right?

Renée, if you’ve found even one shred or shard of evidence to prove my theory, I’ll just shit.

Well, my man, do whatever you have to do, but follow me.

Why, what have you found?

I’ve found a room, a very large room, deep underground filled with writings I have never seen before. T., it looks like a classroom.

What do you mean it looks like a classroom? He could not contain his excitement.

If you’ll settle down and give me time to explain what I’ve found, maybe you’ll agree. Renée was barely able to contain her own excitement.

Squires only gave us three months to complete our investigation and bring him anything of interest. In two months we haven’t found squat—just that wall we’ve both been working on for weeks. At the same time we have even been questioning if we should actually be doing our exploration in the other rock outcropping because possibly our GPS was incorrect by five kilometers. I got impatient and ventured away from our area of concentration and, well, follow me, see for yourself.

About three hundred meters from the wall, Renée stepped into the shadow of a large block of sandstone and disappeared. As T. caught up to where Renée had vanished, he could see her flashlight ahead of him. As he crawled through the one-meter high by half-meter wide hole, he could see that the boulders weren’t boulders at all. They were huge, weathered, blocks of carved sandstone, similar but different than where he and Renée had been working.

Specks of dust danced and whirled in Renée’s wake as a solitary shaft of sunlight streamed through a small opening from somewhere between the blocks above.

T. turned on his flashlight and followed down what appeared to be steps. At that moment, T. realized that they had actually entered the structure through what had once been the ceiling. T. worked his way down the rubble.

As he descended, he stopped and shone his light on the walls of the blocky construction he was standing within. This, this hallway, is constructed totally different from the structure where I’ve been working, he thought in amazement.

For the second time, T. noticed that Renée’s light had disappeared. The hallway, or what was left of it, zigzagged in such a fashion as to give the illusion that one had found perpetual dead ends. Its design reminded T. of a bolt of lightning and was probably designed this way to more easily be defended in case of intruders.

In some areas the hall was nearly filled with sand that had seeped in or been blown in over time. To keep up with Renée, T. had to crawl up the miniature sand dunes and slide down the other side. T. was attempting to judge how long ago this building was constructed, as the perfectly formed stones had to weigh eighty to a hundred tons each, and the joints were reminiscent of those the Toltecs and Incas used in their construction.

Who were these people?

Renée, T. shouted, this place is pre-Mesopotamian, pre-Egyptian. Hell, it’s pre-civilization, as we have thought of it. This construction must be thirty, no forty thousand years old—maybe more—and that’s impossible.

Look, the stones are perfectly cut, the off-angle joints are indeed reminiscent of Inca construction. However, there the similarities stop. These stones aren’t just cut and fitted together to such exacting standards that a person would have trouble sliding a knife blade between the massive pieces, the blocks are notched on the sides like tongue and groove boards. It appears that each block had four sides with either a tongue or groove cut into it, so that once placed, each eighty-ton block of sandstone was locked into place. This would make the entire structure very solid. How did they do that? T. asked Renée, who was too far ahead to hear.

T. looked around, shrugged his shoulders, and decided he would examine the construction in depth later and continued on after Renée. Apparently an earthquake toppled a few of the goliath stone blocks, he said to himself. He stopped again and stood there, alone with his thoughts, as Renée became more and more distant. He could not imagine how people forty thousand years ago had been able to slide these huge stones into place. Impossible, he thought out loud. These stones weren’t placed one on top of the other, but rather, place one, skip one, and slide one in.

Renée backtracked to see what had happened to T. She had been explaining her theory to him as she climbed over one pile of sand and slid down the other side, all the time thinking that T. was behind her. When she shined her flashlight behind her and discovered that he was nowhere to be found, she felt very alone in this very dark place, and she felt as if someone were watching her. Renée got a really creepy feeling.

Urgently, Renée retraced her tracks, walking back through the dust that still hung in the air, dust she had stirred up with her recent passage.

She reached the top of a mound of sand; T. was standing at the bottom. She lost her footing and tumbled down, landing at his feet. T. remained perfectly still while he studied the design of the blocks; so intent was his focus that he failed to assist his wife in regaining her footing, but he did notice that Renée had completely lost her top as she had tumbled down the dune. Renée dusted herself off, adjusted her top, and glared at T.

Do you think you’re ready to continue now?

Piles of sand, mortar, and sandstone had almost reached the ceiling. T. and Renée crawled up and picked their way down the other side into the eerie darkness.

How much farther?

Not far now. I should have brought you in here as soon as I found the room, but I got so engrossed, I couldn’t leave.

I can’t believe that you crawled all the way back in here by yourself.

I can’t either. We’re here!

T. quickly shone his flashlight around the room and cautiously began to straighten up. He had bumped his head on numerous occasions when he had stood up without observing his position. He directed his flashlight above so as to avoid more unnecessary knots on his head.

As T.’s light illuminated section after section of the room, he became weak in the knees; his heart began racing and his words came in gasps. T. turned on his LED floodlight for a much improved overall impression.

Good Lord, Sweetheart, what have you found? I’ve never seen writings like these before. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?

Take a look here. In the upper right hand corner of the wall, do you see what appear to be several young men sitting on stones around a teacher? This is why I think it could be a classroom? And here, a person is standing on a large block of quarried stone. Drop down to the next series of hieroglyphics or pictographs, Renée said excitedly.

"Look, here it appears that forty full grown men are dragging a large block up a ramp, twenty men on each rope.

Now take a real close look at the next set. It may be my imagination, but I think it shows only twenty smaller men, perhaps boys, moving the same-sized block of stone. Do you see what I see, or am I trying too hard?

I think you’re right, T. stated, concurring with Renée.

And look, look here; it shows the students sitting and contemplating. Why, it’s almost a cartoon balloon with the students’ and the teacher’s thoughts displayed.

T. and Renée were half crazy trying to read the writings on the walls, and as highly professional as each of them was, considering what these pictorials could represent, the plethora of information was totally overwhelming. The classroom was over twenty feet high, thirty or thirty-five feet square, and there were writings on every inch.

"The images are totally uncharacteristic of other writings we’ve seen. They’re almost modern in their form and more like thoughts instead of pictures of thoughts. T., do you think these people had developed the written word before Egypt was even thought of?

T., sit with me on this stone and relax your mind. I want to see if you feel the same vibrations I do. It’s like these writing can almost convey thought.

Renée, these are only paintings. They can’t convey thoughts or electrical impulses. We’re going to have to sweat and grind our way through the deciphering process.

"T., I feel like there’s almost a magic to these writings. It’s as though we were not meant to read them at all but to feel their message. I think these images are transposed or conveyed into thought, or a series of ideas in the mind. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say," she ended, sounding confused.

This rarefied air has made you crazy, T. replied teasingly.

Renée released his hand, stood up, and gave T. the look she reserved for him when he playfully annoyed her.

Actually, I do like your romantic idea, but let’s be realistic. It’s going to take us months to decipher the information written on these walls, T. said, totally ignoring what Renée had said about ‘feeling’ the writings.

We must concentrate on how we are going to get all this done by the time we’re scheduled to leave and, more importantly, how to keep this find quiet, with the supply trucks arriving in two days.

O God, I almost forgot Jason! Jason is coming with the re-supply convoy. She came out of the trance-like feeling she had been in a few minutes before. In her transported state, Renée had all but forgotten about their son’s planned visit the last two weeks of his summer vacation, even though they had talked to Jason on the satellite phone just a few nights before.

T. began to study the writings in earnest. He needed to locate the beginning of the text. He hoped it wasn’t a circular writing.

Both T. and Renée concentrated individually and paid little, if any, attention to the other. After a few hours, they discussed the find until the flashlights had gone through their second sets of batteries. They discussed the writings on the way out through the entrance hall. And still the questions continued to pour out of both of them.

This room appeared to be a school or university of sorts, one that taught students from a rather young age how to use their mental abilities to assist their muscle strength in lifting and moving heavy, very heavy, objects.

Was it a place of higher learning that schooled the pupil in self-healing through mind/body control? T. asked.

At first blush it appears to be, Renée offered.

When T. and Renée emerged from the classroom as they were calling it, it was night. The moon was full and seemed to dance on the desert sands. And the sky was as black as the deepest hole. The stars were so unobstructed by any other light source except the moon that they appeared like diamonds that could be plucked from the sky. It truly was a spectacular night.

Do you think Jason will be in any danger staying here on the dig?

What makes you ask that question? Of course he’ll be safe here, T. responded, a little bit caustically.

Renée ignored T.’s tone and continued, When we were in flight, you read me that article from that old crumpled magazine, and you said that if a cure for the common cold were discovered you felt the pharmaceutical companies would kill to keep a find like that quiet. Do you really think that’s true, or were you just trying to make a point?

Exactly.

Exactly what?

I was just making a point as to how much money those companies would lose if the common cold were no longer a problem. Now that we may have found the information that appears to give us the possible solution to man’s maladies, I really feel that those companies will embrace the information.

I think the best place for Jason is with us, and where better for all of us to be than in the middle of the Sahara? Besides, if we’re correct in what is written here, and if, and it’s a really big if, modern man can learn to use the information that is contained here, and if it is practical for the everyday man to use the teachings, then the pharmaceutical companies will be beating a path to our door.

Why do you say that?

"The general population is going to need a lot of chemical help to develop their awareness levels. Renée, for the most part, people of the world today are too lazy to spend years developing their minds to control their adrenal cortex functions in conjunction with their immune systems or to work on heightening their strength levels through mind control or whatever the ancients used. We won’t even know if what we think we have found will prove out until we actually try to train a number of individuals.

We know that this area was very isolated from other areas of ancient civilizations. I don’t know—maybe this was the only civilization in the world at that time. Maybe the isolation and the ‘tribe’ mentality is the key to why they were able to gain control of their bodies, if that’s what happened. Maybe the people just didn’t know anything else. Maybe they just didn’t have a choice. In any case, if our early thoughts prove out, the pharmaceutical companies will have to step in and create a shot, or a pill, that will allow the average lump to utilize these teachings—plus some group will have to do the training. They’ll make a killing on this discovery, and so will we.

Their flashlights were very dim as they reached camp. T. was overwhelmed with the magnitude of the discoveries and the probable impact it was going to have on their lives.

We promised Hampton Squires that we would call him as soon as we found anything of interest; he’s been very patient. What do you think, Renée?

Call him. He deserves to know what we think we have found.

T. used their only form of communication, a satellite phone, to call Squires. Thirty minutes later, T. ended the conversation.

First, we have less than two days to record the entire room. We’ll need to hook up the big generator and set up the floodlights to make sure we record every square inch of the room, T. said, half out of breath. Then we’ll seal up the entrance so it can be found only by us. T. was rambling now. No, wait, we don’t have time to record and seal up the room before the convoy gets here; we’ll have to seal the room and then unseal it after Kareem drops off Jason and departs. T. was talking faster and faster, his mind whirling.

The 120 degree heat and the excitement of finding possible proof of his old theory and a lifetime of searching for a true find were all taking their toll.

Renée brought a glass of cold water from their refrigerator. Just as T. reached for the glass, Renée poured it over his head.

Whoa, what’d you do that for? T. asked, standing straight up and gasping for breath.

"You were starting to have a panic attack. I half expected you to get up and run around in circles, throwing rocks at the moon or some other weird action. Calm down.

First, let’s take inventory of what we’ve found, Renée stated in an I’m-in-control-now voice.

"We’ve found a room full of writing—hieroglyphics of sorts. They aren’t Egyptian or any other pre-Egyptian Saharan culture that we’re aware of. And, although the hieroglyphics aren’t Egyptian, I believe they are decipherable through my knowledge of ancient languages, Egyptian, and pre-Egyptian cultures. There also appears to be an order to them that would indicate that students are being led by a teacher. However, the teachers seem to be more than teachers. They are depicted more as shaman or biofeedback leaders, and the students appear to be learning how to enhance their strength and their immune systems.

In any case, until we’ve spent many hours deciphering this information, we can’t be sure of anything.

Renée looked over at T. to get his approval.

T. was gone. He was in the supply tent digging out the generator and lights they would need to record the room. He had forgotten about the convoy. He had forgotten about his son, about the men who would be there in a little over one day, and about his plan to seal up the entrance.

T. found himself asking a long list of questions:

What would they learn about the concise control of the endocrine system, or would they learn anything?

What would be the side affects, if any, of prolonged use of adrenalin, if that’s what they did?

How had these ancient people stumbled upon this ability when modern-day scientists were still working on the cure for the common cold?

T. had recently read that modern man used only one one-hundredth of the brain’s capacity before the body gave up and died.

Could this civilization have figured out how to use maybe forty percent or more of the brain’s capacity?

How had the ability been discovered? How had it been lost? When was it lost? Was it lost forever? Could it be retrieved?

Were these the only people to have possessed such a skill?

Had it been passed on to other civilizations?

Did these people disperse or send out exploration parties to educate other cultures in the four corners of the world?

Was Sampson of the Bible one of its last pupils?

His mind rambled on. Was this the method used to build the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt?

Could this site explain the humbling stone structures in South and Central America and Mexico that were constructed of eighty- to one hundred twenty--ton stone blocks? Not one piece of equipment on earth today is powerful enough to move such an immense object.

Were a few men, who had been trained in their youth in the art of the controlled release of adrenalin, able to move and lift such massive structures without the use of machinery?

Did this knowledge spread from the center of the Sahara until it was worldwide and then forgotten?

And what happened to these people?

In the event that any of these questions proved out, this find might explain how a few men who, trained well, were able to achieve the inhuman results of moving eighty-ton slabs.

Could this site explain the impossible?

Was this truly a classroom for a chosen few? For the gifted? Or did all the males in this society get the same training? What of the females?

T. could not believe that females would be left behind,