1st Adventure
My name is Thomas Corbin; I was a leading zoologist with the State of Texas University. I am considered one of the best in the field by my peers and colleagues… or at least I was. Now I’m somebody nobody wants to know. I was blacklisted from teaching by my contemporaries, and I’m not entirely certain why. All I know is that I received a package from Glenn Bush, an old colleague of mine (a mentor really), filled with memos and reports about animals I thought were myths. At first I thought it was a joke, but there was simply too much to be a prank. The box was overflowing with photos and DNA results, and every single scrap of paper was marked with four letters: SIRU. The “Society for the Investigation and Research of the Unexplained” had funded all of this material, which seems to stretch back to the start of the twentieth century.
I spent the rest of the day trying to contact my friend, to no avail. I was about to leave for dinner when my dean stopped by my office… flanked by security guards. To say I was confused is a bit of an understatement. He looked like a whipped dog when he started stammering, “Tom…I…you’re fired.”
“Wait! What?! Is this a joke?!” My screaming indicated I didn’t take it very well.
“No, Tom, I’m not…you need to leave now.”
“W-Why?!” He nodded to the guards who took a step back as he closed the door.
“Tom,” He said in a mellow brown tone not looking me in the eye, “take this box and run. Don’t grab anything else in this room, just this box and run like hell. The same people who made one call and had Jameson’s funding for his Intelligent Design research cut, and had Wilkinson’s funding magically disappear when he wanted to go investigate that temple off the coast of Japan called me today. They made it perfectly clear that you were to be fired and I was to confiscate this box or our department would lose all funding and accreditation. I don’t know who they are or what is in this box, but you need to run right now; take these files with you and disappear. Whatever is in these reports is worth more than I can imagine, and it needs to stay safe.” He pulled a hand full of twenties and a .44 caliber snub-nose from his pocket and placed them on the files. “I don’t know that they won’t try to kill you; what I know is that you’ve been black-listed from teaching. Their story is that you’ve been teaching creationism and…they made me sign an email stating as much…I’m sorry I can’t do more, but if you don’t walk out of here with this box, I will. If that happens, your career is over and whatever is in this box goes away forever. But if you run maybe you can figure out why they want it so bad and get your life back.”
I wanted to hit him, this man who’d been my friend for seven years…I wanted to hate him…to scream and curse…. but I just grabbed up the box and stormed out, the guards doing their best to keep up with me. They stopped caring as I threw the box in my car and pulled out of my parking space. I was frustrated and confused and enraged. I could barley form a coherent thought, but as I pulled by the LBJ Presidential Library my phone went off. It was a text message from Kim Bush, Glenn’s sister: “Glenn died in car accident, call when you get this.” I sat there, blocking traffic, realizing that Glenn was murdered for this box… and if I want my career back, if I want to save my life, I’ll need to find out who made these reports and follow the SIRU Papers.
