Death Message

Chapter Eight

Maggie examined the map Brad was holding, then turned her attention back to the outline of the craggy pork-chop-shaped black line looping around the bottom of the disk. She looked up at the Southern hemisphere once more, and then back at the illumination on the disk. "Well, look at that, it's Australia," Maggie said quite astonished.

"There's your proof. It's in Australia. You were right, Maggie." Brad congratulated her, punctuating his praise with a kiss. Then he continued. Look, the disk is displaying an exact outline of the continent and the center of the red triangle on the disk must be showing us the location of the next clue."

"Australia, indeed, mate," She quipped, and he kissed her again.

"Let's see if we can get a detailed topographical map of Australia and compare some of the prominent elevations to the green lines and circles on the disk. If they're the same, babe, we've got a match."

"Let's do it," Maggie said, clearly rejuvenated by the latest revelation.

Brad went over to a small desktop system in the lab and within minutes was paging through the results of an Internet search engine looking for a detailed map of the Australian continent. Maggie stood, anxiously peering over his shoulder.

"There's one that looks like it might be detailed enough," she said pointing to an item on the screen.

"Looks like it just might do the job. They're indicating it's to exact scale." Brad said and double-clicked on the appropriate Internet line containing the address of the site. Moments later, a topographical map of Australia filled the monitor. Maggie and Brad studied the graphics and the accompanying legend closely. Finally, satisfied with the content and accuracy, Brad forwarded it to the printer. A few moments later the map slid onto the output tray on the HP LaserJet. At the worktable, Brad placed the new map, and the disk side-by-side. All of the key continental markers shown on the disk were identical to the map. While the printed map had far more detail than the disk, it nevertheless seemed to be an exact match. Brad ruled a quarter-inch grid over the laser printout and, as closely as possible, duplicated the location of the three blue points displayed on the disk onto the grid. He then drew lines between the marks to form a proportionate version of the triangle appearing on the disk, found the midpoint of each side, protracted lines from the apexes to the center of their opposite side, pinpointed the center of the triangle, and found the approximate location of the next clue. If their theory was correct, the clue would be found just south of the remote town of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Brad quickly jumped back on the Internet, located information regarding Tennant Creek, and printed all relevant data about the town. When the printer stopped, Brad handed half of the output to Maggie, and they began to read.

Minutes passed in silence when Maggie said, "I should have known. It says here that Tennant Creek was founded in the 1930s when a beer wagon broke down."

"I like it already. Look here," Brad said pointing to an area underneath the center of the triangle he'd drawn on the topo map. "If I'm not mistaken, the actual location is in an area known as the Devil's Marbles. It says here that it's a hundred and four kilometers south of Tennant Creek."

"What the hell, excuse the pun," she smiled, her cutest smile, "are the Devil's Marbles?"

"According to this," Brad said shuffling several pages back and forth, "The Devil's Marbles are huge boulders made of granite. They were created from molten magma forced up to the surface over one point six billion years ago. The original magma dome had formed, cooled, and broken into boulders. Over time, weathering processes rounded off the corners leaving them the way they look today."