Chapter 2

There was no doubt about it.  The pyramid wasn’t natural.  Its walls were made of a shiny black substance that was honed to a razor’s edge.  It towered over the three rovers, silent and foreboding.

The interference had gotten worse to the point that Bruce could only talk to Andy through direct contact.  Any radio transmission was a garbled mess, even when the recipient was only a foot away.

Apparently, the rover was steering like it was a bathtub being pulled through tar.  Bruce had no idea where Andy had heard the euphemism, but it sure went a long way to explain the way the increasingly frazzled man had been wrenching on the wheel only for the car to turn slightly a full second later.

Their rover came to a stop some 200 feet outside the pyramid.  Maddox’s vehicle was already silent, and even as Andy began his final checklist to make sure that the engine was powered down and that the radiators and solar panels were extending, the team leader’s roof popped open.

Maddox’s suit pushed into view, leaning on the magnetic assault gun as he looked at the pyramid.  Bruce reached up, hitting the release on the top of his rover before joining his team lead.

As soon as he was half out of the car, Bruce could feel the interference.  It should have been impossible but he swore he could taste metal in the back of his mouth, and his teeth were tingling.  The only thing stopping him from ducking back into the rover the minute the sensation hit him was the geiger counter in his suit blipping contentedly to the background radiation.

If the instrument was to be believed, he was only experiencing Earth Standard radiation, something that was clearly impossible.  Honestly, Bruce wasn’t sure whether he should be more worried about the obvious but invisible radiation shielding than he would have been about the geiger counter going wild.

The radio channel clicked on, unleashing a torrent of static as Maddox motioned with a gauntleted hand toward the pyramid.  Bruce didn’t even bother replying, instead shrugging theatrically at the team leader.

Maddox raised a single hand, the universal sign for ‘hold on a second’ as he fished something out of one of the carrying compartments built into his suit.  A moment later he triumphantly pulled out a laser pointer.

Slowly, painstakingly, he flashed a message in morse code.

“D-I-S-M-O-U-N-T_L-E-A-V-E_8-5_W-I-T-H_R-O-V-E-R_M-E-E-T_S-T-R-U-C-T-U-R-E”

Bruce sighed, reaching down to put a hand on Andy’s shoulder so he could transmit to the other man through direct tactile contact.

“Sit tight and watch the scanners Andy,” he said, checking his mag pistol.  “Sounds like Maddox wants a couple of us to scout the pyramid, but he doesn’t want to leave the rovers unattended.  Never know when a hostile or a dust storm is going to show up.”

“Stay safe,” the scientist replied.  “If anyone tries to remove your organs through your nose and stuff you in a sarcophagus, don’t let them.”

He only snorted, climbing out the top of the rover and letting the planet’s limited gravity pull him back toward the ground.  The silver cars had normal doors, but if MarsCorp was going to give Bruce a sunroof, by God he was going to make use of it.

Bruce led the way toward the pyramid as Maddox finished conversing via pen-laser with the other rover.  This close to the giant structure, he could almost feel it calling out to him.  Something was making his teeth itch and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end, and that same something drew his gaze toward the base of the building.

There was a doorway.  A massive slab of the glossy black material was rolled to the side, exposing a dark passageway that their team could have easily driven all three rovers into at once.

He glanced behind himself at where Maddox and Trey were trudging through the sand toward him and the yawning portal.  Bruce nodded.  Two security officers and a tech specialist to investigate while the others guarded the rovers.  He couldn’t remember corporate policy on xenoarcheology beyond knowing that there was a written action plan buried in the massive binders of operating procedures that he had been forced to read before taking the job.

That said, Maddox’s decision made sense.  If they needed to leave and clear the interference that seemed to be centered on the structure, having half of their team ready to rev the rovers up on a moment’s notice was only logical.  If the worst happened and none of the explorers returned, there would be someone to report back to Eagle Base.

The three of them walked briskly into the open doors built into the base of the pyramid.  The instant Bruce crossed the threshold, stepping from the dust and sand of the martial plains onto the pristine glassy black of the building’s floor, he felt an electric tingle run through his entire body, setting the hair on his arms and neck on end.

A hush fell over their team.  That was especially strange because the thin atmosphere barely carried sound, and almost anything that was carried was dampened by the suits they wore.  Bruce had walked from his rover to the pyramid in silence, but somehow things had become more silent and that really shouldn’t have been possible.

He leaned forward a bit, peering into the dim light.  For a second, he considered turning on the electric lamps built into either side of his helmet, but he didn’t bother.  It was dark and Bruce could only see in black and white as the lack of light leeched definition from the world, but he could still see.

On a whim, he triggered his radio.

“This is Sierra Charlie 86, can anyone hear me.”

Both Maddox and Trey jerked up.  Evidently they had-

“I hear you Bruce.”  That was Maddox.  Clear as day as he glanced around the dark passageway that drove straight into the depths of the pyramid.  “This place gives me the heebie jeebies.  Talk to me Trey, tell me you’re getting something that will let me blame this entire mess on the Chinese or the Euros so we can just go home.”

The specialist pulled out a tablet.  Other than the pair of metal antenna coming from the top, it looked like something that Bruce’s nephew would have played Temple Crush Royale on back on Earth.  Trey tapped away at it for a couple of seconds before it beeped.

Bruce heard it beep.  There was no radio transmission.

Without saying anything, he reached down, snapping open the button that restrained his mag pistol with an audible ‘click.’ Once again, he noted the ordinary lack of sound and atmosphere as he drew his weapon and tapped the button that would run an automated self test.

Capacitors, nominal.  Electronic sights, active. Flechette banks, full.

“Bad news 81,” Trey remarked, looking up from his scanner.  “I’m getting impossible readings.  I can’t tell what the walls are made of or why the interference disappeared.  I can tell you that we are now standing in an atmosphere that while uncomfortable is breathable.  I can also tell you that the air here is old.  Trace isotopes, anything with a half life?  Its either being scrubbed from the air itself or we’re in an area older than human civilization by tens of thousands of years.”

“Yeah,” Maddox drawled, “I don’t care if the air is rated as safe to breathe.  I’m keeping my helmet on.”

“I would prefer to not inhale alien corpse gas,” Bruce replied, nodding fervently.  “This place is too weird and too, well pyramidy, for me to think of anything but the people that died after opening King Tut’s tomb.”

“That wasn’t a curse you know,” Trey said absently, tapping another set of commands into his tablet.  “Most scientific recreations of the incident seem to think that there were fungal spores of some sort that survived for a millenia in the stagnant air that infected the explorers.  Between the toxic fungus and simple bad luck, that’s why everyone died.”

“And that’s why I’m following Maddox’s lead and keeping my helmet on,” Bruce answered with a chuckle.  “If your scanners can’t identify the walls, they certainly can’t identify the Alien Facemelting Virus in the air.  I like my face and I’d like to keep it if at all possible.”

“You sure about that?”  Maddox asked.  “From what I’ve heard from the ladies at Eagle Base you could do with a new one.  Maybe a nice prosthetic with a better nose and a squarer jaw?”

“Hardee har har,” Bruce responded.  “Now if we could get a move on, I’m sure there are plenty of horrors beyond the scope of human imagining that we’re supposed to bumble into and accidentally unleash.  I’ve watched enough horror movies.  I know how this ends.”

Maddox started walking again, leading the three of them into the dark that wasn’t dark.  His voice still carrying over the radio.

“I don’t know Bruce.  I’ve seen plenty of pornos like this too.  Ancient space babes awakening from their timeless slumber in order to revitalize their race with the fresh DNA of strapping young Earthlings.”

“We’re in a tomb made of magic black rock or… something,” Trey replied, the barest hint of a quaver in his voice.  “I’m pretty sure that any aliens trying to harvest our DNA are going to do it in decidedly less sexy ways.  Probably from our spinal fluid.”

“Don’t kinkshame me!” Maddox chirped back in faux indignation, a hand slapped to his chest.

That brought a chuckle from both Bruce and Trey, but Bruce couldn’t help but notice that the hand that wasn’t swinging theatrically was on the team leader's waist.  Specifically, wrapped around his mag pistol.

He might be using crude humor to diffuse the tension of the situation, but that didn’t mean that Maddox was stupid.  He’d served in all of the ‘police actions’ and ‘humanitarian interventions’ Bruce had and then some.  Maddox knew better than to trust a situation this strange.

“Just make sure not to touch any obvious buttons or levers covered in alien writing,” Maddox quipped.  “We have to half translate it, find it says ‘please push’ and press it only for us to finish the translation and discover it says ‘please do not push’ first.  Only then can the fist sized brain spiders start dropping from the ceiling.  There’s an order to these things.  We don’t want to break the dramatic tension of the documentary about our terrible demise.”

“I’ll keep it in mind-” Bruce began, his smile hidden behind his faceplate, only for Trey to cut him off.

“What about yawning portals made of crackling energy that I can’t identity carved into the floor at the absolute heart of the pyramid.”

He tapped a couple of buttons on his tablet before looking up.

“I’m pretty sure there are some sort of markings around the outside of the energy source,” Trey continued helpfully.  “Also, what appears to be about two dozen human skeletons, but they’re decayed to the point where it’s hard to be sure.”

Maddox stopped and turned to look straight at Trey.  Bruce couldn’t help but notice that his mag pistol had cleared his waist and was held tightly in the man’s right hand.

“What do you mean decayed,” Maddox said tightly.  “You’re the one with the biology PhD, but the last I heard you needed bacteria to decay.  Sure, sand from the storms can scour metal and strip flesh from bones, but that’s only if you’re out in the open.  I don’t care how long they’ve been here.  People don’t just ‘decay.”

“I’m just reporting what the scanner says,” Trey replied with a shrug.  “Skeletons, dust, and an energy source giving off readings that it doesn’t pretend to understand, all in a room that’s about 50 feet by 50 feet.  That’s all I’ve got.”

“Weapon’s free,” the team leader growled. Bruce looked down to find that his pistol had appeared in his hand at some point after Trey’s revelation without any conscious thought.  His instincts had a strong preference against getting caught fumbling for the mag gun’s handle through the clumsy grip of his suit’s gauntlets if some ancient xeno terror jumped out of a closet at him.

“At least tell me there’s no active machinery in there,” Maddox continued.  “Nothing moving?  No eldritch chants just outside of the audible register?”

Trey tapped at his smartpad a couple of times before looking up and shaking his head.

“Nothing but dust and an unknowable portal into the void.”

Maddox didn’t say anything for almost a whole minute.  Finally, he sighed into his microphone and turned back to the tunnel they had been walking down.

“Come on,” he said unhappily.  “Corporate will dock my pay if we don’t investigate without a good reason.  Unless there’s a threat, we need to at least take a look at what we’re dealing with.”

Bruce bit his lip as the three of them began to walk down the tunnel again.  The silence only grew, reaching an almost oppressive level as their boots squeaked against the glassy floor of the pyramid.

Finally, they stepped past another massive door that was stuck open and entered the room Trey had detected.  Bodies lay everywhere, nothing more than skeletons that had been picked clean by time and rot.

“Maddox,” Bruce called out, walking closer to one of the walls.  “Look at this.”

The team leader joined him in staring at the wall.  It was a bit hard to tell in the not-quite black and white of the dark interior, but a series of divots pockmarked the shiny material next to a ragged line that had ripped deep into the barrier.

“That’s weapon fire,” Maddox whispered, reaching out to place his hand against the surface.  “I can’t tell what kind without knowing the tensile strength we’re dealing with, but someone was shooting this place up at some point and it never got repaired.”

Bruce lifted his mag pistol, motioning toward the damaged wall

“Do you want me to?” He asked only for the team leader to shake his head.

“Negative.  Whatever’s going on right now this facility is dormant.  I don’t want you to wake up sleeping defense systems with a pistol shot.  I plan on dying in a bed filled with money and beautiful women.  I’d prefer to not be ripped limb from limb by some sort of murder bot here and now.”

The two of them tore themselves away from the wall, looking over the rest of the room.  Other than the large circle in the center where a horizontal crackling nimbus of violet energy lay just below floor level, it was featureless.  Just walls and desiccated bodies.

Bruce frowned, walking over to one of the skeletons, going down to one knee to inspect it.  He tapped a button on one gauntlet, triggering his in-helmet cameras to take a snapshot before he stood up.

“Boss.”  Bruce nodded toward the body.  “I think Trey’s right.  I’ve seen a lot of dead people, and if this isn’t a human, it’s something close enough to one to be indistinguishable.  Look at the skull and limbs.  It's certainly some sort of terrestrial primate.  Of course, if this place really is older than human civilization, that’s impossible, but-”

“But this entire place is impossible,” Maddox replied.  “You know those heebie jeebies I had at the start of our expedition?  Out of control right now.  This room flat out gives me the creeps.”

“Maddox,” Trey called out, standing up from where he had been crouching next to the portal built into the ground.  “I’ve analyzed the markings around the outside of the energy source, and I’m pretty sure they’re writing.  I can’t make heads or tails of it.  Hell, I can’t even figure out how many letters are in their alphabet, but it’s almost certain it's some sort of writing.”

“Libera te tutemet ex inferis,” Bruce remarked, staring at the circle of crackling energy.

Trey cocked his head, sounding out the words as he tried to translate the Latin phrase.

“Liberate you-”

“Just something from an old movie,” Bruce replied, still watching the portal as if it was going to grow arms and tear itself from the ground to attack him.

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