Author: Don Nigroni

On September 2nd, 2049 at the Prime Storage Facility, Jules Deschamps told me, “In the 12th century, the Templars, whilst looking for the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy Land, stumbled upon a three-foot diameter tungsten sphere hidden in a cave beneath a crevice near Jerusalem. They considered it a holy object and shipped it back to their headquarters where it remained until 1307.
According to the testimony of Jean de Chalons at the 1308 papal investigation of those warrior monks at Poitiers, France, their treasure was removed from the Paris Temple by Hugues de Chalons just before their mass arrest. Then Gerard de Villers and 50 knights took it to a port whereupon 18 galleys sailed westward, away from Europe.
After six previous relocations, the gold, silver and tungsten orb were finally moved in 1936 from a church crypt in Boston to the Prime Storage Facility, this enormous storage site located within a sprawling complex in a middle of a godforsaken desert. And Storage Unit #999 now contains said tungsten sphere.”
I replied, “Should you be telling me this? I just run a subsection of the joint for Prime Security, Inc.”
“Last summer, our scientists realized it was actually a quark bomb, capable of annihilating virtually all life on Earth. Apparently, our planet has been seeded with such devices, which are timed to go off tens of millions of years apart. The last one exploded 66 million years ago and exterminated the dinosaurs. And, two months ago, we learned the subatomic bomb in Storage Unit #999 was set to detonate on December 3rd, 2049.”
“That’s just three months from now.”
“Most in the Grand Master’s Council favored letting the device demolish our planet in order to renew Earth. They felt whoever put those bombs here were superior beings and knew just what they were doing and we shouldn’t interfere with Providence. The Grand Master himself said, ‘Had those fantastic beasts, the dinosaurs, not left the scene, we would never have had our glorious moment in the sun.’
Others, like me, thought we should deactivate the device. We believed those superior beings felt that, when life on our planet reached a certain stage of technological development, then that civilization could and should dismantle the bombs. So I need you to let me inspect Storage Unit #999 early tomorrow morning, alone. I can render the bomb harmless.”
I already knew Deschamps was Senior Vice President of Accounts for Prime Security, Inc. but he told me he was also a Master of the Knights Templar. Although I agreed to cooperate with him, I reported the incident to the section head.
That evening, we made our way through the scanners and past the armed guards to Storage Unit #999. After inserting cards and imputing codes into the access units on either side of the stainless steel entrance door, we entered the chamber to find stacks of gold and silver but no tungsten orb. We immediately alerted the company’s president. He swore both of us to secrecy and I wasn’t fired.
Most people remember December 3rd, 2049 as The Day of the Great and Terrible Second Sun and where they were when they saw the spectacle. But I also remember it as the day I was initiated into the Order as a non-noble sergeant and received a black robe with an embroidered red cross pattée. And what became of Jules Deschamps? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ended his days as ballast on the private spacecraft that carried the tungsten orb safely into outer space.