January 1997 Heliopolis.

Found and Remembered.


An old man sat on a beach as the breaking waves rumbled upon it, and the trail that he left behind was fading with each passing wave causing him to think of his own predicament.

For fifty-two years Ernest Littlefield had been trapped on this world of deafening silent forest and lifeless seas ever since he volunteered to go through the device that had turned out to be a gateway that took him across the stars and onto another world, and found that the controller for the gate was damaged beyond all repair. After weeks of waiting for it to reopen from Earth, he realized that no one was coming, and he was doomed to be alone.

And now the tide was coming in, erasing all traces of his passing. Just like time itself.

A wave of grief began to overcome his senses and he covered his eyes with his hands, but before he broke down completely he heard what he needed to hear most.

"It's getting late Ernest."

Ernest looked up. Catherine was there, looking as beautiful and radiant as the day he left, dressed in a tight-fitting swimming costume and lightly kicking the surf in a carefree manner, her long hazel hair being ruffled by the breeze coming off the ocean. The site of her brought him out of his lament.

"Is it now?" he inquired even as he looked behind him to see that the sun was, in fact, beginning to set. So he pushed himself up with a grunt and beginning the journey back. "Alright, I'll just have to wait until next season for the closer palm trees to bloom again." Ernest knew they weren't really palm trees but that was the closest thing he could compare them to.

"And don't think about home, Ernest," Catherine chided as she followed him from the surf.

"Keep your mind on that ancient Knowledge Repository. It's bad enough that I'm here…your sanity is close to riding on a knife's edge."

"Yes dear," Ernest nodded obediently. He had long since learned to trust this ageless Catherine

and he ignored her advice at his own peril. "Have you any new thoughts on the Norse runes?" he asked as he walked.

"No," she shrugged in apology. "That subset you've been working on recently is promising in developing an alphabet, but again, we have no context to do any translation. It's not like you learned Norse at University."

"I'll just have to stick with that geometric language then, the math I've pulled out of there recently is intriguing… well, the parts that I understand at least."

Ernest's footsteps sunk into beach sand as he made his way back to the castle while he walked with the aid of crude but a well-worn walking stick, while Ernest himself had skin that was near brown from life under the alien sun and wrinkly from both age and exposure to the elements. His face, head, and body were completely devoid of hair, he suspected that it was due to eating the local food as it began a few weeks after he was trapped. He also wore no clothing, as he truly didn't see the point…there was no society here, and his only clothing that still survived after all this time was the old diving suit, cut so it would form a heavy frock and served to keep him warm in winter months, whilst the old castle provided more than enough shelter.

Then finally, after roughly three hours judging by how dark it was, the ominous black castle perched on the edge of the ocean cliff that had been home for the last fifty odd years came into view. He walked off the beach and climbed the dunes up to more stable high ground slowly. He longed for the time when he could've climbed that cliff, but now he was forced to do the longer and easier route.

His customary entrance to the castle was in actuality, a large broken gap in its exterior wall. Its gigantic doors were impossible to open as they used some form of advanced hydraulics that had long since broken down. Of course, that was just his personal theory; he hadn't seen anything remotely like hydraulics in the sections around the door since they were intact and he had no means to cut into the hard stone. For all, he knew the doors were 'teleported' open. He wouldn't put anything above the four alien races who had gathered here in the past.

Oh, how he wished that they had still been here when he stepped through the Gateway. It would've been amazing. Then again, he was also relieved in a way; there was no way he wanted to bring these four great races back to Earth at the time he had left, a world near torn apart with war and death. He was sure that the War had long since ended maybe another year after he left or so…then again, he knew that war was something mankind would need eons to truly leave behind. Perhaps the Soviets had caused a new one in the past fifty years.

He was so deep into his thoughts as he walked the familiar worn corridors of the castle, that it took a while for him to realize that there was a new, totally alien sound echoing through them. It was not the breaking of waves, it was not the whistling of the wind, it was not the structural noises of the age-old castle… it was the 'kawoosh' sound the Gateway made the night it was activated, the gate was on!... which was something his mind had tricked him into thinking several times before.

"Sounds like it's coming from the gate room," Catherine stated; she was now dressed in a floral skirt and blouse that he had always loved seeing her in. "You better go and see."

"You remember the number of times I simply imagined Gateway was on?" Ernest question.

"Yes honey, but call it intuition saying that you still want to investigate."

Ernest sighted in resignation. "Very well." and he proceeded to the Gateroom.

Ernest navigated the corridors to the device which had brought him to this world, walking hesitantly down the last corridor which led to the Gateroom, before putting his makeshift monocle on his right eye, all that remained of his old pair of glasses, and he peeked around the corner. His first thought was that his imagination had finally decided to conjure up something new for him to see, in the image of an odd machine with six wheels in front of the Gateway, some other features of the machine he could see was that it was painted the color grayish white, it had a mechanical arm on the top front of it, a tower in the middle, and a backpack on its… back.

"What is this?"

"I can't say," Catherine shrugged. "It could be one of the Four Races coming to see what has transpired since they been gone…" she paused in response to unexpected movement.

They watched as the six-wheeled machine moved to a pile of fallen stones, proceeded to slowly pick up one of the smaller stones, take it right in front of the Gateway, clumsily throw it through the pond-like portal, and stopped like it was waiting for something. Before Ernest could make sense of what he was witnessing the tower in the middle turned revealing an optical camera upon it, a camera that was looking right at him. It was then that the machine spook in a voice that was modulated yet had a child-like innocence to it called out to him.

"Hello?"

Ernest felt a sudden bout of nervousness and he retreated behind the corner, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves all while trying to remember when his illusions had ever called out to him like that, or with a voice like that.

"We are explorers and we come in peace." The child-like machine called out.

Ernest hesitated until Catherine encouraged him "Go, Ernest, they already know you're here and whoever they are, it's better than dying here alone." Ernest swallowed his nervousness and shuffled forward slowly, revealing himself from behind the wall he was hiding behind and looking down the steps right at the new arrival.

"Are you real?" he asked the machine.

"Yes... " the machine told him ever as it was moving its arm between its tower and Ernest. "And you're naked."

Ernest smirked a little, partly due to the fact he didn't particularly care, partly due to the fact that none of his delusions ever pointed out the fact that he was naked. "If you are real then how are you able to speak English and where are you from?"

Still holding its arm over its tower the machine responded with the sentence that would shock Ernest to the core. "To answer both your questions, we are explorers from the planet Earth." The arm lowered just enough to allow Ernest to see that there was some sort of optical camera on top of the tower, which he guessed was now looking at just the top half of him at most.

"Who are you?" It asked.

He struggled to overcome his stupor, should he tell this machine about a top-secret military project from over 50 years ago? Was anyone or still around to remember or care? And was this machine even telling the truth?

"You should tell them, if they are lying then it won't matter what we tell them, if they're telling the truth then they'll probably learn about it eventually."

"Very well my dear," Ernest replied as he looked where she was. The machine's tower turned to followed his gaze and found no one where he was looking and turned back to look at his face.

"Who were you talking to?" It asked in that controlled-yet-childlike voice.

"You can ask me that later, as for my name, it's Ernest, dr. Ernest Littlefield. In the year 1945, I was part of a team of people working for the United States government to discover the secrets of a strange artifact found in 1928 buried under the sands of Giza, of which the ancient transcripts called The Doorway to Heaven..." After explaining the rest of the events that brought him here he sat down and reflected on how reliving his life had been somewhat therapeutic.

Then, after roughly a minute of waiting for a response, the machine spoke again. "Well… it looks like we have a few questions for the United States government… Mr. Littlefield, we must ask, did anyone else come with you?

Ernest shook his head slowly. "No, I came here alone, and I've walked in every direction for dozens of miles in every direction when I was younger… and I found no one."

It took almost a full minute before the machine replied.

"...You've been... alone... for over fifty years?" the voice was astonished and sad.

"Save for several illusions... yes." Earnest solemnly confirmed before looking at Catherine who was studying the machine with interest from its side.

"... We have no words…"

Ernest how had a look of confusion on his face, "Who would be 'we' in this context?" Remembering all the times the machine referred to itself as a 'we'.

"Well, that would be a long and complicated stor…" The machine began before the gate shut down and the machine went still and silent, and for the next 10 minutes, nothing Ernest did you get the machine to respond. Fortunately, this didn't last for long before the Stargate began to reactivate, creating the water-like substance which burst out before being reeled back into the ring creating the calm puddle that would take you to another world.

It was then that the machine began to move again. "...And we're back." It practically cheered before its tower turned to find Ernest making a move towards the gate.

"Wait! Stop!" It cried out and Ernest thankfully stopped and turned to the machine with a look of confusion and dismay on his face.

"The gate only goes one way, and that is the way it was activated from! You need to turn it on from this side in order to go home."

After blinking off the weird use of words Ernest questioned. "But you threw that stone through the gate and it when fine didn't?"

The machine looked at him straight in his eyes with its optical camera and it spoke in a quiet and piercing voice. "No, it came back wrong."

Understanding washed over him and his old body began to tremble from the realization that even though he was found he still might not be able to go home.

"I… I can't activate the gate from here, the controller…" he feebly pointed at what would come to be known as the DHD on across of the room. "It's broken."

"We understand… you said the team you worked with was able to activate the gate by manually turning the gate and supplying it with the needed electricity correct?" The polite, childlike voice of the machine asked. Not waiting for an answer, it continued. "We'll assemble a team of volunteers and the necessary equipment to be sent through the gate and establish a base on your side without delay, don't worry, you'll be coming home soon." It promised.

In most other circumstances, Ernest would have been happy with that declaration and waited for the rescue that he knew was finally coming. But he didn't feel satisfied with what little the machine had told him, and he chose to make his discontent known.

"I would like to believe you, I really would… but you haven't told me who... or what you are." As he once again thought about all the times the machine referred to itself as a 'we'. "And if you expect me to trust you, then I first need to know who I'm trusting. For example, why did you become silent when the gate was deactivated?"

About 10 seconds of silence was handled before the machine responded. "We understand… for starters, we aren't the machine you've been talking to."

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember the Germans Beetle tank, Mr. Littlefield?" The childlike voice asked after a slight pause.

Ernest searched his memory. "Yes, it was a tiny tank filled with explosives that could be driven via a quarter mile long command cable. This allowed it to be driven from a distance to and be detonated against any fortified position. Why?" The realization hit him just as he asked.

"Technology has greatly improved since you been gone, for example, it is now possible to remotely pilot similar devices with radio waves, like this one, the Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe or as it is abbreviated; M.A.L.P. we're sorry for any awkwardness you might be feeling, but you've been speaking to a puppet this whole time."

Earnest smiled indifferently to that statement. "If that's the case, then who is the person behind the controller, why are you referring to yourself as we, And why do you have that particular voice?"

"We are referring to ourselves as 'we' because there is no singular pilot controlling this M.A.L.P. and we're using this particular voice because we decided to try and sound as innocent and friendly as possible in case we met anyone that might have been scared of us otherwise."

The near mindlessly blank face Ernest had was all that was needed for the mysterious operator[s] to continue.

"As we said, it's complicated and you'll need to learn more about how things have changed since you've been gone to understand. So we're sending you something to help... and clothes."

Not a moments later two objects came through the gateway, one was a folded shiny green jumpsuit which on closer inspection had multitudes of pockets that was thrown through the gate, the other thing on first glance looked like a suitcase which was slid along the ground.

"You can figure out what the green jumpsuit is for so we'll just explain the other item, it's called a laptop…" after explaining how to use the laptop and how to watch the video on it explaining the general overview of history which happened while Ernest was gone, the people speaking with the childlike voice had their last word for now.

"Okay, …we must sign off now. See you in two hours."

"See you."

The portal in the gateway vanished with a whooshing sound. Ernest turned to Catherine who looked at him with a brilliant yet sad smile.

"You're going home, Ernest."

"We don't know that for sure yet."

"They'll do it, honey. Maybe you'll even get to see the real me again. Though I'm sure I'll be wrinkly and grey if I'm still alive."

Ernest didn't know what to think of that so simply got dressed, sat down with his back against the M.A.L.P. and began to learn about what he missed while trapped on this world.