by Aer-ki Jyr
“That would be me,” Liam said, placing a hand in front of him.
“Be my guest,” he relented as Liam squeezed his linebacker-sized frame through the tiny gap.
3
Eric stepped up and over the bottom edge of the hole in the foot-thick door and emerged into a hallway lit only by his and Liam’s glowrods. It was ovoid, with the floor the only flat exception to the elegant curve, which extended upwards a good 10 meters. He stepped aside to make room for the others, guestimating the width of the hallway at the base at four meters, then widening up above head height to maybe five or six. The video recorder that Adam was carrying had a distance finder that would record all dimensions for later analysis, but regardless of the exact measurements it was the largest hallway he’d ever seen.
Davis came through fifth in line, and took everything in with a discerning glance. At the far edge of their visual range the hallway ended in a junction, but before that were two doorways, one on each wall. Both were sealed shut, with no visible opening mechanisms.
Eric noticed his line of interest and walked over to the tall doorway on the left and gave it a closer look under the direct light of his glowrod. It wasn’t ovoid, rather it was a straight rectangle, beveled to match the curve of the hallway. There was a narrow slit down the middle that wavered slightly at chest height.
Taking a step closer and holding up his light bar, Eric ran the fingers of his other hand over the warm material of the door and felt a slight depression where the line wavered. It was minute, but visible now that he knew what to look for.
A moment after his hand touched the slightly recessed surface the entire block of rock-like material pushed out towards him, prompting an involuntary jump backwards that nearly sent Eric to the floor as he stubbed over his own booted feet.
“Steady,” Davis calmed as the curved door panel slid out into the hallway then split in two, sliding laterally to open the doorway. He waited until the smoothly gliding panels came to a halt then walked up alongside Eric, who was holding his ground while peering inside.
“Liam…” the guide urged.
The taller man nodded, barely visible in the shadows cast by the orange lights, and walked inside, his glowrod held in front of him, both defensively and to provide maximum light. All the expedition team members were jittery…only Davis seemed to have a steady hand, though whether that was out of ignorance or experience was unclear. The others had had days to observe, wonder, and worry about the mysterious structure…while Davis had just arrived and perhaps was a bit too eager for his own good.
Or so Eric wondered as the CEO followed Liam inside without hesitation. He went in just behind his boss, noticing more smooth lines to the geometry of the large room which clashed with the blocky outside of the pyramid. But what drew their immediate attention were the racks of egg-like pods spread out in concentric rings, three high and what looked like four deep. Eric guessed at more than 100 total as they walked to the center of the formation where there was a low pit.
Two stair steps depressed into the floor was a reflective circle a little over a meter wide. Around it were three curved, low seated benches with gaps in between. Liam crossed the center circle enroute to the other side and began to step over the far bench when the room suddenly lit up with a non-orange glow.
Above the reflective circle a holographic icon appeared, glowing deep red. It was a symbol of some kind, similar in script to Chinese, but unlike any language that Davis had ever seen…and given that he spoke five he was something of an expert on linguistics.
“It has power,” Eric noted, bypassing the obvious ‘holographic technology shouldn’t exist’ issue. “Don’t suppose there’s a light switch anywhere?”
Sam didn’t feel so generous. “How is this possible?” he asked, looking at Davis who was studying the floating and slowly rotating symbol intently.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, carefully cataloging his thoughts as they flew through various permutations. “But I have a feeling that the answer to that question is going to rewrite our history books.”
“No shit,” Sam echoed, ignoring the hologram as he walked over to one of the pod racks. The top of the ‘egg’ was open, with a curved depression inside yet well above the bottom. He poked the end of his glowrod into the depression and it sank into the smooth material a few inches deep.
“I think these are bunks,” he offered as the material reformed when he withdrew the rod.
“Heated too,” Kevin added as he felt another one on the opposite side of the hologram.
“Bunks for who?” Eric asked. “Who used to live in Antarctica?”
“Some say the legend of Atlantis originated here,” Davis offered, reaching a hand out to touch the symbol. To his surprise the hologram resisted the pressure and wouldn’t allow his hand to pass through. “Interesting.”
“Another chamber,” Liam’s voice called out from behind the far rows of bunks. He was out of sight, but the ambient glow from his rod marked his location.
“Alright, everyone spread out and give me a check of the room,” Eric ordered. “Liam stay put.”
“Got an alcove,” Sam’s voice announced as Davis and Eric remained at the central hologram.
“Another here,” Kevin reported.
Eric waited for the others to conduct their search, but nothing else was found aside from more bunks.
“Sir?” the guide prodded.
Reluctantly Davis stepped back from the hologram and followed Eric across the room, taking a closer look at the pods as he passed them by enroute to Sam’s position.
“Storage, by the look of it,” the man surmised as they walked up. “Don’t know how to open the doors though.”
Davis frowned as he saw the problem. The alcove was the equivalent of a huge walk-in closet, with clearly visible containers protruding up from the floor, coming out from the walls, and hanging down from the ceiling. None of the curved structures had ornamentation of any kind…no edges, symbols, ridges, bumps, or hairline gaps to indicate their function.
On impulse Davis reached out and touched one of the wall mounted pods…nothing happened.
“Hold on,” Eric said as an idea struck him. He reached out his hand and pressed his fingertips on the top of the smooth, almost soft material, finding himself flinching backward again when the material seemed to melt as the pod morphed into a flat workbench taking up a third of the space in the alcove.
Gleaming like forgotten treasures were five objects neatly aligned in small niches. Each held jewel-like components in metallic sheaths.
“What the hell?” Eric asked, not wanting to touch anything again.
“Gloves,” Davis commented, pulling his thin hand protection off. He reached to the right and touched another wall mounted pod. It extended as well, revealing three larger objects, also gleaming with jeweled insets.
“What do you think they are?” Sam asked, taking a closer look but knowing better than to get grabby…though the objects did seem to invite curiosity.
“As much as I want to know,” Davis said wisely, “there’s too much here to investigate in one trip. Let’s focus on a general inventory for now.”
He touched the pod again and it retracted back to its storage position, once again hiding and protecting the items it contained.
Eric touched the other and hefted his rod in front of him, motioning toward the next point of interest.
“Large room, multiple alcoves,” Liam reported, standing in the archway.
“Go ahead,” Eric indicated.
With his glowrod moving inside, the adjunct to the ‘barracks’ revealed several individual compartments set within the walls, bracketed by hourglass-shaped columns in the center, six in total.
“Lavatory,” Davis guessed, more on instinct than deduction. The architecture was altogether unfamiliar.
Eric approached one of the columns and circled it, noting that the center had three deep depressions. Not wanting to risk his fingers, he pointed the tip of his
glowrod into the hole…where it was met with the crackle of what looked like a forcefield, at least according to Star Wars standards. He’d never seen anything in real life remotely similar.
Liam managed to open one of the chambers, noting an entirely empty interior of the roughly cylindrical chamber. “Shower maybe?”
Davis glanced around, noting that there were no other exits. “Let’s move on.”
Investigation of the other alcove resulted with similar, but not exactly duplicate containers. He really had no idea what they were, but the feel of the location suggested residential support facilities…but which was the restroom or kitchen he couldn’t tell for sure, perhaps neither, and he had the feeling he could spend the next 24 hours in the room and still not find out. He had to squelch his curiosity for the moment and keep the team moving.
Remembering the size estimate Eric had quoted him, he chose to bypass the other door and directed the team forward toward the end of the hall, which split in a curvy T-junction. They took the left branch, dropping a small glow stick on the floor to mark their passage. If the pyramid was as big as suggested, they didn’t want to get lost inside.
They bypassed more doors enroute to an even larger spherical atrium that sprouted two additional hallways. Attempting to proceed towards the center of the pyramid, Davis headed the team to the right, bypassing yet more doors until they reached a series of ramps heading up and down.
Upon closer inspection the ramps resolved into stairs, with random block-like protrusions providing footholds.
“Sam, Kevin, Adam…head up one level and report. Liam, Henry, Cam…down one.”
He received confirmation nods, then his team silently split and disappeared with their diminishing glows never completely fading from view.
“We’re going to need a much larger team,” he whispered to Davis.
“I know,” the CEO agreed. “But we can’t bring in too many people without risking a security breach.”
“Humans or aliens?” Eric asked lightly.
“60/40…our hands opened the locks.”
“Point,” Eric conceded.
“It’ll take some time, but I can assemble a 50 man team of experts from Pegasus personnel…maybe a month.”
“My people can map out the place in the interim,” Eric offered. “But I have a feeling that 50 isn’t going to cut it.”
“We need to take this slow,” Davis warned. “The most important thing right now is to keep this secret. We can and will take our time. I don’t want to squander this opportunity.”
“I hear that,” Eric agreed, “but we’re still going to need more men.”
“We’ll get them, one way or another,” Davis promised as Sam ran back up the ramp and into view.
“Boss, you’ve got to see this,” he said, slightly panting and eyes wide in awe.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but it’s big.”
“Go ahead,” Eric said, “I’ll wait here.”
Davis nodded and followed Sam down the ramp, taking care to watch his steps. The blocks were uneven, so he had to dance around a bit, but the descent wasn’t overly difficult. They emerged into another hallway with a distinctive orange glow coming from an offset atrium. He followed Sam inside and found the other two men standing on the edge of some type of hip-high bench.
“Look down,” Sam gestured as Davis joined the others, suddenly realizing that it wasn’t a bench, but a railing of some sort. The glow of their rods didn’t extend to wherever the far wall was, but it did outline the ceiling just a few meters above their heads. He looked down, but saw nothing.
“What am I looking for?”
“Step back,” Sam told the others as he took Davis’s glowrod from him. “Look again.”
As their illumination sticks moved back from the edge and lessened their glow, Davis was able to spot a tiny dot in the blackness below them, but couldn’t make out what it was. He had to squint to confirm that he wasn’t seeing things.
“That dot?” he asked.
“It’s my glowrod,” Adam said.
Davis did a double take, then the sheer size of the chamber struck him. It had to be at least 100 meters down, if not more.
“Big is right,” he agreed.
4
It took them more than an hour to navigate their way down the ramp system to the main floor where Adam’s glowrod lay, during which they realized that the large scale of the hallways and rooms on the upper levels expanded drastically below. The ramps broadened to the size of a freeway, with the individual blocks looking more like basketball courts than steps. Along both sides the smaller steps remained, allowing the Humans access, otherwise they would have had quite a bit of climbing to do.
The ‘main floor’ wasn’t the bottom of the pyramid, the ramps continued on lower, but Davis and the expedition team didn’t want to press their luck just yet, so they exited into the great chamber and headed towards the tiny glow in front of them.
“Is it just me, or are we too low?” Eric asked after walking several hundred meters from the entrance. Their small light sources didn’t extend far into the room, and it felt as if they were walking in a dark mist without sign of ceiling or walls.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Davis said walking on his right. “Perhaps the floor here isn’t entirely flat.”
“Hold up!” Liam’s booming voice announced.
“What?” Eric asked, taking two steps towards him on the left.
“Something over there I think,” he said, pointing off into the darkness. There was some sort of object, barely visible, picking up a small reflection from the glowrods.
Eric pulled out another small glow stick, snap-activating it and dropping it on the floor to mark their position. In the distance behind them was another marking the location of the ramp, though it was now too far away to be seen without turning off their glowrods for contrast.
They’d been following a straight line trajectory from the entrance towards the distant light source, and Eric knew better than to start wandering around in the dark. With their waypoint marked, they deviated from their route and headed for the object Liam had spotted.
“Bones,” Sam pronounced when they came closer.
Eric wasn’t sure until he got a closer look, but as he knelt down next to the pieces of skeleton he nodded his agreement. In the orange light they looked odd, but bones they were, and large at that. “Not Human.”
Davis stooped down next to him and began studying the skeleton intently. Eric watched the older man quizzically until his eyes widened with surprise or alarm, Eric wasn’t sure which.
“What is it?” he asked, glancing around.
“I’ve seen one of these before,” Davis admitted. “In a museum.”
Eric frowned. He couldn’t make out what the tangled mess was.
“Holy shit,” Kevin said as he suddenly made the connection.
“What is it?” Eric demanded.
“It’s a dinosaur,” Liam said slowly as his mind sorted out the skeleton. “Raptor I’d guess.”
Eric turned to Davis’s orange-lit face. “Seriously?”
“I believe so,” he answered as Cam walked a long circle around the skeleton, recording all angles.
“Hey, there’s something else,” he noted when he got to the opposite side. He pointed with his foot.
Eric and Davis circled around to get a better look.
Loosely shackled to the wrist bone was some type of object, similarly jeweled to the items found in the ‘storage closet’ but definitely different in shape.
“Is it wearing that?” Adam asked.
“Some kind of tracking device,” Sam offered. “This place is big enough to be a zoo.”
Davis reached out and touched the glittering device. “I have no idea.”
Eric pulled out another glow stick and snapped it on. “Mark and move on. We’ve got a lot to see.”
Reluctantly Davis agreed and stood up. He followed Eric and the others back to
the waypoint marker, then they headed on towards the glowrod which, ironically, should have been near the ‘edge’ of the room rather than the center based on where it had been dropped from. He was beginning to wonder just how massive this pyramid really was.
They passed three more small skeletons that popped up within glow-range, two Raptors by the look of it plus another slightly larger one that none of them could guess at. Each of them also wore some sort of device on their wrist bones.
“It keeps getting higher,” Eric noted of the glowrod’s position.
“So far this room has been entirely flat,” Davis commented. “I’m interested in seeing what it’s laying on. This room must have some purpose.”
“Holding pens, maybe?” Kevin guessed.
“That’d explain the size,” Eric agreed.
“I doubt it,” Davis said, his eyes focused on the ever rising position of the glowrod in front of them. “There were no gates.”
“Not to mention the size of those ramps,” Liam added.
“So what, you’re saying the dinos built this place?” Kevin asked, half laughing.
“Or giant aliens,” Eric responded. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, so let’s have less guessing and a little more shut the hell up.”
“Agreed,” Liam said, mildly frustrated. The lack of visible objects was beginning to wear on him.
“Here’s something new,” Adam pointed out, bringing the butt of his glowrod over a small depression in the floor. “Looks like it was melted.”
Eric knelt down next to the thumb-sized mark on the otherwise perfectly smooth floor. Given how hard it had been to cut through the outer wall, whatever had damaged the stone-like material here must have been intense. He looked up, unable to see anything, wondering if they were in some kind of smelting factory. Adam was right, the mark in the floor had been melted.
“Watch your step,” he warned, getting back to his feet and moving on. “There could be more.”
Liam paused when he crossed over the mark, letting the others get a few steps ahead of him. He knelt down and rubbed his massive index finger through the groove. “Weaponsfire, maybe,” he whispered to himself, then walked off to rejoin the group.
