39. Miracles are created by people, not gods

It took three days for fires to burn out.

On the second day they made a tour around the area, to see if fire spread outside planned bounds, but buffer zone they left on the edge prevented that.

When they approached the obelisk again ground was still smoking and some piles still had embers in them. Mani held The Head of the Great Serpent, with its two eyes glowing and beeping, and pressed it against carved triangle on the doors.

Same as in the basement of their pyramid, there was no sound as doors single panel moved. It retreated in, then moved to the side, sliding open and allowing them to enter.

Obelisk was completely hollow, walls made of some smooth material that reflected daylight coming in through the open doors. The places where equipment was meant to be were empty, as it was never installed after construction was halted.

In the glimmering illumination, they spotted a single panel on the wall opposite to the door, with two indentations at eye level. Mani examined it first, then looked at Ivan.

Ivory shook his head, there was nothing in his memory that would correlate to this place.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Blaze asked from behind.

"Can you see anything that would seem like a switch?" Jone examined the walls.

Mani looked at indentations, then at the pendant in his hand. "Can these gems be moved out?"

"Sure thing." Yax took it and pressed two top corners with his fingers. There was a click and gems popped out of their sockets.

Mani picked them up and inserted in slots that fit them perfectly. Noting happened.

"Well, either its broken, or.." Floreo got cut off by sudden movement on he panel.

Under two glowing gems, a part of the wall moved aside and a little drawer slid out. On it, displayed quietly, was another shiny gem.

They stared at it wondering how many eyes does that Great Serpent have?

'Warning to all personnel! Station relocation protocol is now activated. Station will arrive to current location in T minus 10 hours.'

Mechanical voice of a recording made them aware that their mission was indeed done. They laughed, and patted each other's back. Mani even brazenly kissed his Yak right then and there. They did it!

'Warning to all personnel!' Voice started to repeat the message 'Retrieve the vital equipment and evacuate the landing location.'

They stopped cheering and looked around, what vital equipment? It was empty already.

Yax stared at the new gem on a display and picked it up. Drawer closed and two eyes got pushed out of indentations but Mani caught them before they fell to the ground.

'Warning to all personnel!' message that was supposed to be an automatic repeating loop started again.

'Who do we try to lie to, there's no personnel left to evacuate.'

There was rustling in the background and then another voice.

'To whoever activated this sham of a protocol, you are likely the last people alive on this planet, congratulations to you all. Surviving must have been hell.'

Recording paused again and third voice continued while everyone in the team stood silently.

'We are the engineering team of a company that no longer exist by the time you are listening to this. We hope that humankind survived, and that our bastard boss got eaten by his greedy..'

Recording paused again.

"What.." Blaze started to speak but Yax silenced him with a shush as first voice started to talk again.

'Unfortunately, we could not leave our project behind, and now, well, we can live here for a while, but we are just natural humans, we will die before outside is safe again.'

Second voice interjected amid scraping sounds in the background noise.

'If Earth is habitable again by some miracle, our prayers were answered and we are happy for you. But if your station is relocating to here due some malfunction triggering the Protocol then we are really deeply sorry.'

Third voice came back maliciously

'Those greedy bastards never finished drilling deep enough for pipes to reach required depth on this location, and if there was malfunction on your original spot it was not due Earth core going cold for sure *snort*'

'Stop it, give me the mic, go sober up.'

Recording continued to play and they heard steps of several people moving away and doors closing, then one person walked back and they heard sound of a chair squeaking under a heavy body sitting down. Voice of the second person continued their story.

'Geothermal power plants can work indefinitely on locations they were build on, providing that they are maintained properly.'

'But, to do that you need materials and educated personnel. Who is going to invest in that when world is falling apart? Majority of supplies is being shipped up to orbit, together with enhanced engineering staff.'

'Those like us are left behind. Once we die, our expertise will be gone as well.'

'If your station malfunctioned, then it's likely that rust ate through somewhere. Turbines alone were made to last up to 500 years, but with ideal conditions and maintenance. If they held longer than that, you were lucky.'

'And, getting here is not all for nothing. Our base is underground, in the hills just north of the obelisk. We were tasked with finishing touches and were supposed to evacuate, but transport never came for us, and outside conditions are too toxic to move.'

'We will stay here, and work on our side hustle *chuckle* that used to be our main job, before boss sold it out. It's a solar powered movable habitat. It would have been put on market as an option for smaller towns, up to 10 000 people, and we almost finished it when the project was scrapped and…'

'Well, we have a crew of a few thousand left here. If we manage to finish it, we might take it out for a spin *laughter* I ramble.. We will leave the spare key to our workshop in the obelisk, come and visit us.'

'Oh yeah, clear the site and wait for a day first. Those mechanics working on those pyramid propulsion systems poured their souls into it. Their children were promised a spot inside of them. You might be their grand-kids.. It might actually fly over, so be careful not to get crushed.'

Recording stopped, and in silence that was left behind it everyone just tried to put their thoughts together. Yax felt Mani squeezing his hand.

"Let's go back to our camp."

Sun was shining high above, in the same way it was before they entered, but somehow it all looked different now. Smell of smoke and burning wood made them nauseous, so they hurried to leave it behind.

Sitting under a tree back at their camp, Mani sprawled his upper body over a table made of half a log. Warmth of the sun on his skin and a cricket perched on his finger went completely unnoticed. His mind got into calculating probability of keeping power plant operational without sufficient energy supply.

By now, Yax and the rest knew that if he mumbles numbers, then its nothing serious. Left there to digest the news in his own way, he lost track of time for a while. Everyone dispersed, dealing with the information they got in their own way.

After a while his vacant eyes focused again, following Eco who shuffled in his kitchen gazebo, cooking, of all the things to do. Flower was also there, helping his brother. Blaise went with Cindy to get some fishes for lunch, under Eco's firm instructions of course.

Eco was force of nature now, holding their sustenance in his hands for almost four months, they were all conditioned to follow his orders. Ivan and John were sent to pick vegetables, and Yak went with them.

Mani picked himself up, if calculations gave no solid solution, it was pointless to keep trying until new input. The Head of the Great Serpent laid disassembled, three gems sparkling in the sunshine. Mani tried to arrange them back into three sockets, but the newest gem just did not fit.

So he gave up. Was there a fourth eye somewhere?

He turned his head to the other side, watched the far horizon and tried to remember the nursery rhyme that played in the back of his mind. How did it go? He hummed it to himself.

"Four gems are made of dreams

Who would dare to disagree

World is green…."

He looked back at his gems.. and fire is red? What's yellow then?

He wanted to give up on it, but constant niggling brought him back to it over and over. He closed his eyes and tried to remember where he heard it. He was still young back then, yet not young enough to listen nursery rhymes.

He visualized the light, air, touch sensations connected to remembered sound.

It was dim, neither warm nor cold, hard surface he was sitting on. Fiddling with his father's personal library that he found during his self study time. He was supposed to watch educational videos on proper manners in formal occasions, yet those bored him so he browsed through files to find something more fun to watch.

Mani shuddered and opened his eyes. If it was something from those logs, it was not a nursery rhyme. He heard Yak calling him, so he got up and joined in meal preparations. Eco said that everything's better on full stomach.

They ate, took a nap, muddled through the day, waiting to see if that colossal pyramid is really going to fly over. Hard thing to imagine, really.

What should they do if it does not move?

All they could do in that case, is to go back. They learned enough about survival in the wild to be able to live outside of it now. Shame for supplies and comfortable living quarters, yet it's not as if they would die without it.

Sitting by crackling fire, they waited.