Despite
the auto-cooled systems within the armor, the heat was nearly
unbearable. What breeze there was only cut the faintest edge across the
Saharan dunes, stirring up small dust devils and reflecting the swelter.
He had been walking for nearly an hour, moving methodically across the
barren landscape with such mechanical cadence someone might have
mistaken him for a drone at distance.
His armor, normally
green and gold was now in chameleon mode, reflecting dull browns and
yellows while shifting subtle tones to blend him into the environment.
He stopped, checking the GPS systems to gain his bearings. In doing so,
he saw a snake slither nearby....a desert horned viper, known for its
unique venom and 13 separate types of toxins. For a moment, he kneeled,
looking at the snake as it moved, turning his head to watch quickly
depart across another dune. As he turned back towards his targeted
direction, he stopped...
Across the dunes, hundreds of
snakes slithered towards him, a roiling mass of serpentine bodies that
was made up of a variety of species - moorish vipers....saw-scaled
vipers....spitting cobras....hundreds if not thousands, slithering away
from the direction he was headed towards. Rather than wade through the
mass, he remained still, allowing the snakes to pass him by. There was
no doubt in his mind if there ever was - He was near the target site.
After
ten minutes, he moved through the shifting sands to the top of the
dune. The site came into clarity directly in front of him - an immense
bowl of blackened sand, blasted to a dull ebony color. The pyramid, for
that's all it could be, rested in the center of the desolated area, He
paused, there was no reason to move forward...and it was the first time
he actually felt a sense of coldness... a numbing chill which passed
over him. It reminded him of a quiet memory of childhood - Seeing the
movies of ancient temples and lost Arks, and the eerie music that played
when the artifacts were uncovered. If it were possible to feel fear, it
was those moments that quietly affected him...but the reality was far
different. He stood watching the light disappear into the mass of black
sand and darkened limestone....as much a tomb as what it really was...a
prison.
He took a few tentative steps forward, finding the
sensors in the armor reporting a drop in ambient temperature of around
30 degrees. The clouds seemed to darken slightly to his perception...as
if he had stepped out of a desert and into an overcast afternoon near
the beach...but there was nothing friendly about the outing, and the
destination loomed like a leering gargoyle at him. He moved forward,
noticing in his perception that the remains of the 1986 expedition camp
sat undisturbed. For a moment, he debated going over....but there was
something that stopped him. Although he could not place a finger on what
it was that made him pause, he knew if he proceeded he would join the
unfortunate members of that expedition, and his mission was more direct.
Turning away from the diversion of the ruined camp, he proceeded
quietly towards the pyramid.
His first steps into the
pyramid echoed down the long entrance. Although open to the elements,
there was no build-up of sand nor debris. He didn't really expect there
to be such - The place wasn't of mortal man, and he could feel a dull
presence that seemed to slow everything in its awareness. In that
moment, he understood why he had been chosen for the mission...he had
shown remarkable resistance to such things...he had survived more than
his share of calamities and enemies, and it was his ability to evade and
escape such dangers which bordered on the supernatural. Normally, that
sixth sense which existed to warn him of trouble would be a dull noise
in his head....but now...now it was screaming. Nothing about the mission
was safe, he knew that...but it seemed foolhardy to move forward.
Girding the reserves of willpower, he moved forward in to the darkness.
It
seemed forever to move forward in the darkness. He struck a light-stick
and dropped it, moving another 200 yards before doing the same. He had
done this four times before he found the first one, and realized he was
moving in a circle. It didn't make sense...nothing about the darkness or
the interior pyramid did...but he warned for that. He moved forward a
few steps, the stopped...quirking his head slightly. Taking a step back,
he turned and moved back the way he came. Within a few moments, he
stood in a long corridor, outlined in glyphic images and writings. He
spent a few moments moving down each section, photographing with his
helmet's interior cameras while taking the necessary readings. He didn't
understand half of what he was recording, not out of ignorance, but the
sheer alien nature of tools. It was a good thirty minutes of intense
study before he reached the wall at far end of the section. There he
stood, facing a black wall - dull in years with only a single heiroglyph
in its center.
His fingers moved out, tracing it for a
moment and checking tactile surface readings. It wasn't stone, it wasn't
metal...it was something...else. The hand-held system attempted to
trace the material through the periodic table and the alien
cross-section element guide, but nothing known on Earth or twelve
surrounding star systems even came close. It would be a puzzle for the
scientists back at the lab, his work was finished.
He heard
something quietly behind him, and he turned to see a similarly clad
figure....riddled with bullets and other wounds. For a moment, he
stopped moving. The figure helmet, split from force had cracked just
enough that he could see an eye looking through the visor, looking at
him with a maliciousness that wasn't human. He knew what he was looking
at - an impossibility that bordered on the mad or a victim of MvRS, but
part of him knew it wasn't either.
'Thief' was all it said,
pointing a jagged finger forward, a reminder of something that only
three people should know about. The revenant stood silently, a witness
to an unsaid crime, and for a moment, neither moved. Finally, the image
faded, it had served its purpose...but still...there wasn't any
movement. With effort, steps were taken, footfalls moved forward, and it
wasn't until waning daylight of the outside that he felt himself
swallow hard. It wasn't a ghost...it was a reminder... a reminder of the
secrets he had to carry. He moved over the blackened landscape, over
the dune, and the hour south through the desert towards extraction. It
wasn't until he reached the extraction point that he actually stopped
moving. As the scarab-ship landed, he moved into the back, saying
nothing to the pilot, instead falling to the jump seat.
_______
DESTINED
January 15 - 17, 2016
