Free The Kukulkan Manuscript by James Steimle Page A

though his time is extremely short,” said Wilkinson.
    “And therefore so is mine,” Alred replied with a sting at the aged scholar.
    Goldstien squinted at Alred, “But Porter will also have a resolute Mormon bias.”
    “What we want from you is an unbiased study of Ulman’s discovery,” Masterson finished. “While Porter quickly presents his dissertation, which will no doubt excel in the field, you will present a counter dissertation just as briskly, which will be the first objective view of the discovery presented by Porter. The scholars of the world will love you, and you will soar to the top of all the most recent doctoral graduates. You will then gain access to any university in the world and be set for life as a well-known scientist!” He grinned, and it was his real smile: one full of greed.
    Alred shot a quick and curious glance at Kinnard who continued to silently stare into the tabletop.
    Masterson added, “You and John Porter are assigned to work together, and that you will. At the same time, you shall be fighting head to head with him. Only…Porter must never know it!”

C HAPTER S EVEN
    April 10
9:54 a.m. PST
    “Well it’s about time you showed up,” said Porter with a smile on his face and fire in his eyes.
    “Good morning,” Alred said as she slid through the tight portal. The door wouldn’t open all the way.
    “Sorry about the mess,” Porter said without enthusiasm.
    The stuffy air choked Alred almost as badly as the tension she felt from her fellow student. She thought she smelled forgotten lettuce and bologna sandwiches and wouldn’t be at all surprised if a few hid beneath the disordered piles of papers, the open files, the scattered heaps of books.
    “Need a bookshelf?” she said, only to regret it. The walls were naked and white, but there definitely were enough volumes in the tiny room to carpet at least two walls. Obviously, whole cases wouldn’t fit in the room. If Porter lined each wall with independently hanging shelves, his books would practically be falling on him. His desk wasn’t a desk, but a common four foot by two and a half foot classroom table, and some of the stacks on top of it stood two feet high. Florescent lights shined from behind a rectangular plate in the ceiling. There was no phone that she could see. His ergonomic chair squeaked with every movement.
    “I’m fine, thank you,” Porter said, bending around his desk to remove a one-foot high mountain of pages from the only extra seat in the room.
    Alred stepped carefully wherever she could see the floor. She really couldn’t believe it. “Nice office,” she said. If it sounded sarcastic, she didn’t care. Porter’s response would probably be bitter no matter what she said.
    “I realize the room is disguised as a closet,” he said, landing noisily back in his chair. A pencil dropped from behind his ear, and he bent to pick it up while speaking. “I won’t be offended if you try to hang your coat on the door.”
    Alred sat.
    “How’d you manage to get an office?” she said, trying to see what he was doing. His back and shoulders shook quickly as he erased some unseen mark his stylus must have made on one of the open files on the floor, and the jiggle made the chair squeak like a captured rodent.
    “Oh,” Porter said getting up. His short hair fell like the fur of a long-haired dachshund after hanging upside down. “I’m a research assistant.”
    “I know plenty of research assistants without offices,” she said, measuring him with her eyes. He looked tall, but that may have been due to his thin bone structure. His face also looked thin and awfully plain. There was nothing attractive about him, but nothing unattractive at the same time. Well…his hair did look soft, but it caused no emotional stir. If only he could clean up his attitude.
    Porter smiled again and sighed. “It’s who you know in the world that counts, they say.”
    “Yes, but who is
they
?”
    “The cause of all good and