Gaian Pyramids V
John, accompanied by Keira, scientists and two soldiers, approached the mysterious wall that was now blocking their original path.
Saying "approached" was a bit of a stretch as no one got closer than five meters from the solid, black structure, main reason being safety. However, they had several drones secured so data could be gathered from a distance.
- Let us see what we have here - said John, sending the first drone.
He first directed it to the front side of the wall.
- Readings are all over the place. There's some kind of interference. I can't even measure its temperature.
- Any ideas what's the reason? - asked Keira.
Marlow sighed.
- Looks like electromagnetism plays tricks on us yet again. I guess it's either we get closer to the structure, or bypass it.
- I'd like to vote for going with the investigation - said Jackie - It looks interesting.
John did not find this reaction to be unusual, and seeing the faces of other scientists with them, if they were to go with a majority vote, the decision was way too obvious.
- Ok, let us go closer - major instructed the group, first looking at military men - You two, take the sides, and walk slightly to the front, I will be going just after you, others keep a safe distance behind us. Everyone, don't rush and watch your steps.
Slowly, but steadily, they started moving forward, towards the closest part of the wall. Even at slower pace, it was not a great distance, given there was nothing in their way.
However, as if it was some kind of a rule already, something had to complicate things. Out of nowhere, a herd of Gaian Caribous emerged, visibly in a state of panic. The animals were named that way because of several common traits they had with Caribous on Earth, but the size and power were at a completely different level and colliding with such a creature could have been fatal for humans.
- Nevermind the original plan, just move forward and don't stay in the open! - John quickly instructed to avoid the stampede.
Fortunately, everyone managed to react in time, and no one got hurt. Still, this sudden event seemed suspicious.
- I wonder what scared them that much - Jackie looked into the direction where these alien deers ran - Can you see anything chasing them?
Soldiers shook their heads after looking into the opposite direction for a longer while.
- Let us better get to work - Marlow fixed his eyes on the mysterious wall - We've wasted enough time already.
He started walking towards the wall until some unseen power threw him back. To others it looked as imitation of some classic comedy gags with someone not seeing a glass door. However, it was not a joke this time and another person who attempted that experienced the same thing as major.
- It's some kind of barrier - said John, scratching his head - We need to turn it off.
Jackie's face was smiling after the word "barrier" came up, but smile disappeared once he heard about turning it off.
- C'mon, it's one of the technologies we wanted to check out specifically. Shouldn't we investigate it a bit?
- We will, to the point that allows us to turn it off without getting killed - Marlow explained - If we don't manage within the deadline, we just drop the idea and go with a detour. Let's try to figure out if it can be passed somehow - when he was saying that, a thought came to his mind.
He looked around, picked up a small stone and threw it into the direction of the barrier or the force field, depending how one would have preferred to call it. Regardless of that, this small stone managed to pass the border humans could not.
- Okay, so the stone went through - Keira was observing his actions - Why is that?
- When you want to create a barrier, there are many things you need to take into consideration, including what kind of objects could get through - Jackie jumped in to answer the question - There is a number of variables to be taken into account, such as the size, density, material or properties. We don't know that much about the barriers, especially force fields, yet. That is why investigating the ones used here is so important. Really sturdy.
- Wow, that's interesting... - doctor Evergate replied as if she was not interested at all, but it was likely due to Jackie being the one to answer, and continued talking to John - So, did it help you to figure out the way in?
Marlow sighed.
- I have a couple of ideas, but most of them would require more time than we have.
- Let us share the ideas then, maybe? - Jackie suggested.
Major agreed that may be actually a good approach, so everyone gathered to discuss their opinions before making a decision about their further move.
The biggest problem was already mentioned - despite being already quite advanced in terms of technology, humanity still knew only a little about non-physical barriers, and anything like that of bigger size was not possible yet.
Number of variables was indeed considerable, but the main factor in modern science was density of particles that could go through. In barriers humanity managed to pull off until now, size of object was the main parameter research revolved around - basically, anything exceeding specific size would be blocked from passing through. For now, they knew that pebbles and small rocks were not repelled, and humans were thrown away.
- Ok, so what about drones? - Jackie was interested in the barrier the most, and throwing suggestions one after the another - What I think is either their size is acceptable, or this barrier has gaps we managed to go through.
- You mean it's actually a net that surronds the wall, and connections are what repels you? - John was interested in the idea - That would make sense, also in terms of energy saving. It is worth trying if your hypothesis is correct.
Without additional thinking, he started one of the drones and moved it straight into the spot where he got thrown away just a moment ago.
There was no reaction - the machine went through all fine.
However, a single attempt was not enough of a proof, so Marlow started selecting points around the area matching his body size, flying the drone into them. Most of the time, it was going through, but on the eleventh attempt, it bumped finally.
Jackie let out a shout of victory.
- C'mon, it's too soon to celebrate - John said to calm him down - We still don't know how these are structured.
Of course, each attempt was recorded in form of a dot on the virtual map that was expected to reflect the shape of the barrier, so they could visualize its shape. Still, in order to measure the size, they needed many more attempts and they did not have much time to do that.
Knowing the time is limited, major involved everyone into operating drones to get readings all around the area. The idea was to map a chunk of the barrier around the place where he hit a wall to see whether passing through was possible for a human in any way.
Because of that idea, everyone focused on flying drones around. Dots were multiplying on the map much faster now, but Marlow quickly noticed some kind of anomaly - one of the drones was not producing markers in the same way as the others, as if there was some kind of passage.
John immediately approached that spot, where Keira was controlling one of the drones. He tried to pass through, but bumped away same as before, despite the map showing no red dots in front of him.
- What the... - he let out a bit of his anger and moved a bit away to observe the drone Keira was using.
At first, he did not see anything unusual, but looked around at the others and finally noticed there was one big difference between how the drones were flying - everyone, aside from Keira, was flying the drone into the barrier, and repeating the attempt should previous one allowed the machine to successfully fly through. Contrary to that, miss Evergate was also moving the drone around when it still did not pass the barrier fully.
Said observation gave him an idea.
Instead of just going through the barrier, he first made sure he was crouching just next to it so it was in his hand's reach, and attempted to put one hand inside.
The right hand went inside without issues, so he put in the left one, which also got in. Then, the time came for the main part of his idea - John started moving right hand to the right, and left hand to the left, moving them further each way, expecting the barrier to repel him any moment, but nothing like this happened even when he stretched his hands to the limit.
He looked at the others, and then put his right leg into the space between the borders set by his hands. As nothing repelled him this time, Marlow decided to try and crouch through.
A moment after, he was already on the other side of the barrier, being close enough to touch the dark wall.
- Wait for me!
Jackie, who observed what John was doing, started doing the same, but tripped during the process. The man screamed loudly as his leg got twisted.
John started cursing, while starting to apply first aid to Jackie. Fortunately, the field kit he got was able to fix this kind of injury in a matter of minutes - still, it meant several minutes were lost.
Finally, after taking care of this accident, Marlow and the rest of group could have a much closer look at the wall, or rather - everyone aside from Jackie, who decided to investigate the barrier.
He was particularly interested in "the system" allowing to create an entry point basically anywhere between the connectors. If they could find out how this was consturcted, that would mean a huge step forward in barrier science - John knew it would be huge and was also curious, but they had a different mission for now.
They repeated scans from much closer - still, no changes, as if there was some kind of interference.
Remembering his previous experience with the barrier, Marlow carefully reached out with his hand to touch the wall, having all safety systems on. The very moment he expected to get any kind of reaction similar to barrier, the black wall surprised him even more.
At first, he felt only cold typical of metals, but within seconds the part of the wall his hand touched reached temperature akin of human body, and the material started changing shape, behaving more like a fluid than a solid body.
Hearing reactions of the rest of the group, even Jackie left "his barrier" and approached the wall to observe what is happening.
Everyone was observing in awe now, despite not knowing what is going to happen next. The sight was just so amazing that they simply could not take their eyes off it.
They spent maybe five minutes like that before the part of the wall stabilized, now looking like some kind of a display, or even...
- A control panel? - Jackie suddenly lost interest in the barrier, and was standing just next to John.
- Jackie, could you please not stand so close to me? You are nearly drooling on me...
Everyone laughed and Jackie took a step back.
- Apologies for that, but it really feels like an interface so I wanted to have a look if it displays anything.
- Sorry to disappoint you, it's all black.
- Did you do anything? Maybe it has to be started somehow?
Marlow sighed.
- That's what I would expect, though the problem is how to do it. None of us is an alien as far as I know.
Truth be told, John did not like to take risks and all the things he did within the last hour could not be considered safe according to his vocabulary - at the same time, not trying to open the route and taking a detour could be even riskier, so he had some hard decisions to make.
In the end, he decided to tinker with the weird metal - after all, it did not hurt him so far. Since nothing was happening for a while now, major tried touching the area that seemed to be a screen - nothing happened.
- Well, that would've been too easy I guess - he said it more to himself than to others and started moving his hand all around "the panel".
Suddenly, some symbols started shining, immediately catching Keira's eye.
- These are similar patterns to what we saw on the obelisk before - she pointed at several symbols.
- Ok, so what are these saying?
- I'm not done with deciphering the full text from the obelisk yet, so my findings so far are limited and only theoretical.
- So nothing you can help with?
- I didn't say that. I have some idea, but not sure if I'm right, and if it's going to help us any way.
As they were discussing, everyone received a message from sarge:
- Fifteen minutes left, please hurry.
- Let us go with whatever you have - Marlow said to Keira after hearing the message - Time's running out.
Miss Evergate nodded, and put her finger on the panel - one of the symbols started shining, but nothing else happened. Then, after scratching her head for a moment, she touched yet another symbol which also started shining - this time, however, a new group of symbols appeared.
Keira was looking at symbols for a longer while, her face really tense.
- No, I am not sure here - everyone could hear disappointment in her voice - It doesn't make sense...
John was also looking at the panel, seeing only a number of repeating symbols.
- What exactly?
- First entries we saw had something constructed like sentences, with a number of different symbols, but in here...
- You mean that there are only two symbols repeating?
- Yes, it was not the case before.
- Do you have an idea what these are meaning?
- Well, I do, but I couldn't figure them out properly, they seemed quite ambiguous.
- In what way?
- They could be nouns, but also numbers. Initially, I assigned them meanings of "right" and "wrong", or "good" and "evil". Later on, I also found it possible for them to be "something" and "nothing", evolving into numbers, where one would stand for "positive value" and the second would be "zero".
Marlow was listening carefully to what she was saying, trying to find any useful clue. The most interesting part referred to values.
- Were there no "negative values" then?
Miss Evergate shrugged.
- Maybe "zero" could be this "negative value"? I'm not sure. The thing is, what I'm really sure about is that they are referring to things that are opposite.
John continued thinking, while looking at several rows of repeating symbols.
- Repeating symbols, in several rows - he said that aloud, which made Keira look at him - Is there a chance these values are "one" and "zero" or "true" and "false"?
- It's possible. You think it may be some kind of matrix?
- It may be. Matrix is a type of universal language, if you ask me.
- Can you figure out how to use it though?
- If I had some point of reference, then maybe. What were the two symbols you used before?
- Well, the first one was the word I believe refers to "wall", while the other is something about connections, so I guess it may be something like "system".
- Connections in the system you say...
Marlow looked at the "matrix", and then at the wall in front of him, including its top and sides. After that, he decided to go with the first idea that came to his mind - he started selecting symbols, but once he did choose two of them, they swapped places, making that first idea crumble. At the same time, everyone felt the ground shaking as if something huge just moved or fell.
- Ok, I believe it's not the matrix I thought it could be. It may be something much less sophisticated.
He set his eyes on the wall and started moving the symbols. In a matter of seconds, they learned the wall was made of a number of panels reflected as symbols in the interface John was using. By moving said symbols, he managed to open a path for their vehicles to pass through.