The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) (13 page)

What could it be? I was still at the start
of the investigation! I considered everything, and only had the
metal detector that had activated it, and that never added up to
much.

After I was asleep later on the bed I
awakened and realized I had missed something, while I had been
asleep, and I watched the paranormal scientists and technicians
rushing excitedly back and forward checking their equipment all
over the woman’s outer corridor, and where the source had mainly
been detected, and where I had activated the metal detector, and
collapsed, and wondered what was going on, and I realized that they
were about to activate their equipment, and braced myself.

When nothing happened I looked up and saw
Oswald look into the room, and I wondered if anything had
happened.

“
Are you scanning below the building?”
I asked.

“
Yes!”
he replied.

I gasped, and
tried to detect any differences in the surrounding environment, and
I jumped off the bed, and stood at the room entrance, and watched
all the scientists standing around waiting for something, and I
wondered what, and as I approached them I realized they had all
been standing waiting for me, to continue and activate the
equipment and experiment, and I wondered why.

When they
activated it nobody reacted and barely noticed anything. My mind
wandered through all the occurrences that had led up to its
discovery.

Suddenly a
vast unstable energy blast, which seemed to come from somewhere
else, and not below, or from anywhere in the normal universe, and
like it came from another outer dimension, and emerged all about
the place, with so much force it threatened to warp space, and I
went back to wondering what it really was and what damage it could
do, and I watched parts of the equipment burst into flames, and the
scientists quickly turning it all off and going crazy trying to put
out flames.

I was happy it was over and nobody had been
killed, and that they could not use the equipment.

Yet I noticed
Orwell and Higgins and some other scientists were not concerned,
and I saw them at the equipment, and a scientist holding a sheet of
paper, and I moved over.

The
scientist explained that the
energy blast had damaged
the equipment, as they had predicted, and their swift instantaneous
scan of below the building had worked, and that they had used the
instantaneous rough scan below, with a fast enough speed capable of
checking there, before the equipment was damaged, and he showed us
the sheet of paper with the rough scan, and at first I thought it
had not worked as it looked like a blur of lines, but as I examined
it further in more detail I grasped a strange image in it of an
unusual formation.

Chapter 29

The Exploration

I stood blinded by the black abyss below me,
as I searched into the depths of the tunnel, as though it led into
some strange region of space, outside normal space, and I saw the
stone steps below, which were the same as they had been in the
tunnel going under the hospital, which had been accurately
made.

They were in a hole, below the woman’s hall,
at the exact point the occurrences had originated, and it had been
uncovered by the archeologists, with help from the scientists, who
were all standing along the hall in a line, with the woman standing
at the end, with them all standing with their mouths partially
open, with a slight look of horror, waiting for me to descend down
into its depths, and I knew I was the chosen one.

I gripped my light, and shifted down the
stone steps, looking for any obstacles ahead, and moved a little
faster, and watched their faces vanish behind me as I went down,
and saw the two paranormal scientists enter behind me, and the
others watch as the three of us descended, and left them behind,
and I wondered what the hell I had done and if I would someday
regret what I had done.

At a point deep below I heard scientists,
which seemed magnified by the tunnel, as they conferred on what was
below, after so much they had found so little so far, and they had
been arranging the exploration of it for a long time, and I had
been unchallenged in going down, and the scientists and
archeologists had insisted, and had done everything to help.

It was strange as I thought of what was
there, if I was not insane, and I realized it could be dormant, and
being partially awakened, and was far different than anything else
on this world, and it seemed to want to do something!

Our scan had activated something, and there
were reports of ghost sightings in the region, and there were
sightings of the soldiers from the battle that had taken place, and
their ghostly figures marching along a region of the battle
site.

A deep thud echoed came down from the top as
someone at the top dropped something inside, while trying to look
inside, and I and I speeded up.

It was their ultimate discovery and
expedition and I wished it to be done right, and to give the full
discovery everything that it deserved. Though I was mainly confused
as to what had been discovered and would be found, especially after
being surprised at so much in the past week, with such strange
occurrences, and being given such little facts, and I believed the
war had generated all the action, or perhaps something else had
done it and had caused the war.

Hazy echoes off our deep breathing broke the
extraordinary silence that accumulated, and we examined the walls
around us with surprise as we shifted downwards, and it still
mystified me, and I wondered what I was missing.

For some
reason I realized that the other tunnel that we had been going
through from the hospital led to what was at the bottom of this
tunnel, and in its original state it had not wanted to be
discovered and had later put the occurrences at the hospital to
make us go there, and it had checked me out in the other tunnel,
and before that in another state in the woman’s house.

I realized how
ancient it was and it had been trapped on this world, waiting to
leave this universe, which it had tried to do before on many
occasions, and it had been buried higher above at one point.

In its current
partially awakened/dormant state it was like some form of ultimate
advanced living computer, in the ways it thought and existed, and
in its partially altering state, still waiting to accomplish its
plan, and had other forms and powers that could never exist in this
universe.

Humans
had once worshipped it when they had encountered it, and they had
hidden its location, and
Mary Queen of Scots had once
been hidden away near it, before she was captured, when it had last
met humans
.

For some reason I knew things that I had not
known, and I knew I was approaching something, and I tried
straining my eyes to see further down, but there were no features
of anything, and the steps vanished away into deep blackness.

When I looked backwards I saw the top of the
tunnel had vanished into darkness, and I looked around and saw the
paranormal scientists had vanished, and I knew it would make
contact with me alone!

Chapter 30

The Lost Chamber

A loud screech
from something strange startled me and nearly made me fall down the
stone steps, and I waked on, and I stood dazzled and blinded as
bright light exploded out, and I held my hands over my eyes, and my
eyes slowly adjusted from the dark tunnel behind me, and I
staggered down the last steps, into a twenty foot circular
cavity.

I staggered
straight into the blinding light, beaming from a large sphere
formation, and felt its powerful energy pulsating through the
floor, with some form of life, floating over the central region of
the cavity, and I tried to grasp what was in front me!

Silent sounds
manifested around my surroundings, as though invisible things were
surrounding me, and I saw strange glowing and swirling ghostly
formations, forces, and some were like spirits with shrouds, and
flew about with silent wails, and I realized why people in the past
reacted as they had.

The central
thing resembled a magical living sphere, altering its forms of
energy, and I felt its energy and powers, and knew it had no
physical form, and it normally had a colossal size and powers
somewhere else, and I tried to grasp what was there, and why it was
there, and what Marple would explain it as!

In its
blinding light I grasped little, and physically felt its powers
everywhere, and saw mental images of stars exploding around me, as
though I was shooting through the cosmos, some strange form of
space, and I knew it was giving it to me.

Its formation
seemed to have constant dramatic changes, and powerful energy
surges, as though unstable, and it bordering on vanishing, and
rejuvenating itself, and I watched it shift in its central region,
as though trapped in some force field, and for a moment something
formed in it, with some unknown form of life, and it altered as
though its energy was constantly controlling itself.

In the
blinding light I saw another tunnel entrance at the opposite side
of the chamber and knew it led down to the tunnel that we had been
going through from the hospital, and it had made it in an attempt
to make contact with us, and it had made the black sphere in the
cavity, under the hospital, after it had realized it would not
work.

The black
sphere had the capacity to communicate with us for it, but it had
realized it needed to make contact differently and by itself, and
it had chosen me to do it as a representative of our species, as it
had checked me out, especially after my use of the metal
detector.

It was from some other form of existence,
and it used vast amounts of energy making contact with me, and
remaining out of its normal hibernation state, and I thought of
what paranormal really meant, and thought of ancient devil and
black magic worshippers, and I knew it was far more and from
somewhere beyond our comprehension, and had been hidden away there
from mankind from the dawn of time!

At one point
something had been caught in its energy field, and it fought for
its life to escape, and it altered itself, and it vanished from it
to survive, and I was staggered at the sheer power of it and at
what had been caught in it!

It was
something artificial and something alive and I had to decide what
to do, and I decided to do my best to help it!

I could not
allow such a life form/existence to die, and such an advanced and
rare species, after being alive for so long, and with it being
trapped and trying to escape from there for so long, and I decided
then and there to do my best to find a way to help it, and I would
get Marple to help me do it as he was known to find solutions to
such problems and had solved some of the hardest most advanced
cases I had heard of.

I decided to
leave and was about to climb back up the steps, to the building
away above, and felt sorry for it being trapped there, and perhaps
for eternity, and I wondered what the scientists would make of it
and I knew that they would help it, and I decided what to do, and I
realized I could be famous and remembered in history for the
discovery, and the first discovery of an extraterrestrial.

I was sure it agreed, with my way to
proceed, and as I was going to enter the tunnel, to go to the
surface, I spotted something shine over at a hidden dark region of
the cavity, and after careful examinations I realized it was a
large black chest
,
and
I rushed over and crouched in front of it, and
held it.

At the
side of my eyes I saw something emerge in the darkness of the
tunnel, where I had been, and spotted two figures appear, and saw
it was the two paranormal scientists, emerging there, with their
mouths open, coming to a halt, and standing staggered, looking
everywhere, more astonished than I had ever seen them, as they
tried to control themselves
.

I pulled
the treasure chest open and discovered the colossal royal jewelry,
which once belonged to
Mary Queen of
Scots
, and I
played with incredible jewels, as I watched the golden and
colored radiance explode out, over the walls, with bright sparkles
from gigantic diamonds and rubies.