The next day
Date: April 10th
Location: Zula mountains.
The pelican descended through the dark cloudless sky back towards the Zula mountain range. On board was Marcus. He had been given orders by John an hour ago to come back to the mountain range to scout out the area he and his team had gone to yesterday.
Marcus, at the moment, was lying down on the resting area seats, fast asleep. It was about 05:00am and he was still tired, partly from being woken up early but also because of the night before from when he had told Anya, a member of the taskforce he was secretly in love with, that the Covenant had been coming to Reach and scouting out It's surface. They had had argued and it had made him very tired.
In the cog pit of the pelican, the pilot opened the door with his free hand and looked through into the resting area.
"Wakey, wakey, Marcus!" he called, receiving a groan from the taskforce soldier. "We're almost there,"
Marcus groaned again in reply and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He looked out through the resting area entrance to see the colours of gold, red and orange breaking on the horizon far away. Dawn was coming and soon it would be daytime.
It was really surprising for him to be coming back here just a day after their mission. Although John had not briefed him on why he was coming back here, he had a feeling it was to do with that cave he had seen yesterday when he and his team were on the scorpion tank and were attacking the Covenant outside the CCS battle cruiser. He had wanted to know what was going to be inside that cave and why the Covenant were digging in that cave. Well, it looked like he was going to get both answers to both of those questions now.
The tops of the mountains began to pass by the resting area entrance as the pelican descended towards the large clearing the Covenant force had been stationed on. Marcus reached under his seat and took out his battle rifle. He loaded a clip of ammunition into it and then took out a small object from his chest pocket. It was a small square shaped object that was silver coloured and no bigger than his thumbnail. It was a data cord.
John had given this data cord to him back at the base and when Marcus asked why he had given it to him, John told him that it would help get any useful information and then, just before he had walked off walked off, he had told Marcus to place it on his shoulder. Why had he given this to him? What could this data cord have that could help get any useful information? And why had he told him to place it on his shoulder? It was strange, very strange.
"Alright, we're here, Marcus," the pilot called out again from the cog pit.
Marcus looked out through the resting area entrance and saw an enormous clearing in front of him. Scattered around it were the remains of Covenant ghosts, banshees, wraiths and the bodies of Grunts, Jackals, Elites and Hunters of all ranks. This was the evidence of the great battle that had taken place here just twenty or so hours ago and, as Marcus stood up and stepped off the pelican onto the snow covered ground, the cold instantly hitting him and making him shiver and he felt his hairs on his arms stand up, he saw several huge metallic remains at the other end of the clearing. That was what was left of the CCS battle cruiser they had boarded and the Elite captain had self-destructed in order to kill them. Obviously it had failed and the result was that the captain and all remaining crew members were blown to smithereens in the explosion.
"Base wants you to contact 'em when your inside the cave," the pilot's voice erupted through his ear radio. "Then contact me and I'll come and pick you up,"
Marcus placed a finger on the radio in his ear. "Roger that," and, as he lowered his hand, he watched as the pelican hovered into the air and flew off into the sky, disappearing behind the mountain peaks. Marcus breathed a sigh and looked around at the wasteland strewn with metallic wreckage and the many bodies of Covenant. So he was on his own, but what about that data cord. As he held it between his fingers and looked at it, turning it from side to side, John's words: Place it on your shoulder echoed in his ears.
"Might as well try and see what it does," he muttered and he placed the data cord on his shoulder.
For a moment the data cord just sat there, Marcus watching intently to see if anything happened. Then, when Marcus was about to take it off his shoulder, it suddenly morphed with his suit and sank into it like quicksand. Almost instantly as it had disappeared, a voice in his head said: "Hello!"
"Whoa!" Marcus exclaimed, pausing for a second as if expecting something to happen. "Where are you?"
"I'm in your head," the voice said. Then, a purple colour fell onto Marcus' right eye and he looked to see a seven inch high purple coloured holographic person standing there. He was dressed in a high ranking officer's uniform and some sort of dark blue/purple coloured lines rising up from his feet up to his body. "Or, now on your shoulder," the person said.
Marcus stared at him with wide-eyes, obviously meaning he had never seen anything like this before.
"What are you?" he asked.
"I'm an Intelligent A.I," the person answered. He held out his hand. "My name is Auto," he said.
Marcus stared at Auto's hand for a moment before he decided to be friendly and shook Auto's tiny hand, which he could actually feel in his.
"Wait," Marcus said as he let go of Auto's hand and began walking towards the cave. "Isn't an Intelligent A.I formed from someone's mind?" he asked.
Auto nodded. "That's right. My mind was created by Doctor Alfred Martinez,"
"He's dead now, isn't he,"
"Yes, sadly. Right in the middle of his work on finding something that was apparently very old, older than our civilization even,"
Marcus went to reply but looked at Auto and then at the cave. He racked his brain and remembered that the doctor had been working on something here on Reach and if Auto was right about it looking for something that was very old…could it be what was in there?
"Are you alright?" Auto asked him.
Marcus shook his head a few times and nodded. "Yeah…yeah, I'm fine," he replied and he ran towards the cave.
When he reached it, he saw a silver colour covering the walls, ground and ceiling of the cave that seemed to descend down at a bit of an angle into the mountain. He stared at it, wide-eyed.
"What the Hell is this?" he asked as he stepped into it.
"No idea," Auto replied as his form disappeared back into Marcus' bodysuit.
Marcus went to step in further but stopped and looked at the pitch blackness that seemed to engulf the entire cave. It was very dark. There was no might at all and he was reluctant to go in further. He had no lighting equipment with him and if he got lost or trapped then he could well and truly die in here.
"I don't know," he said. "I have a bad feeling about this place,"
"So do I, but we have to go in," came Auto's voice. "I have a motion tracker so I'll try and guide you in,"
"Just please try not to get us lost,"
"Don't worry, I won't,"
Marcus nodded, though he still felt a bit reluctant, and walked into the cave, the lightness of the breaking dawn outside slowly fading the further in he went. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, light suddenly erupted everywhere and filled the entire cave. Marcus was blinded for a second before he slowly moved his arm from in front of his eyes and looked ahead of him to see the cave was a tunnel. The light seemed to erupt from the walls, floor and ceiling. Marcus looked down the tunnel and saw a kind of opening at the end.
"Wonder what's down there," he muttered under his breath and he ran down the tunnel towards the end.
As he got closer to the end, he saw that the opening led into a kind of large chamber that seemed to have been built right into the base of the mountain. He stopped at the end of the tunnel and gazed around the chamber. The chamber was about six hundred feet long and about the same in width and was about two hundred feet high. A single thin pathway led from the opening to a kind of circular shaped platform in the middle of the chamber, which seemed to be hovering above a huge dark abyss that covered the entire bottom of the chamber. Looking down into ti, Marcus felt like going down there meant entering Hell itself.
"Jesus," he gasped as he looked around the chamber. "I've never seen anything like this,"
"Neither have I," Auto replied. "Or anyone else for that matter I don't think,"
"I better contact base," Marcus muttered and he placed a finger on the radio in his ear. "Base, this is Marcus. Me and Auto are in the mountain and we're in some kind of huge chamber,"
Static was Marcus's reply for about a minute before a voice began to talk from the radio.
"Roger that, Marcus," the voice said. It was John. "Is there anything that looks like it might hold anything useful?" he asked.
"Well there's a circular platform in the middle of the chamber, which I can reach over a pathway, but it doesn't look like there's anything on it,"
"Well, have a look. If there's nothing, then leave and the pelican'll come and pick you up. If there is anything, put Auto in it and he'll absorb it into the data cord, then leave,"
"Roger that, sir," and the radio went quiet.
Marcus lowered his finger from his ear radio and ran down the pathway towards the platform. As he approached it, he saw a kind of small control panel built around the edge of the platform. Maybe that might hold something useful.
Marcus slowed to a walk when he reached the platform and walked over to the control panel. It was light blue coloured and had many holographic buttons, slots and switches moving about on the top of it. Marcus was intrigued by it all and he squeezed his shoulder and Auto's data cord rose up out his suit and sat there on his shoulder. He took it between his fingers and placed the data cord in one of the holographic slots. The data cord was suddenly sucked into the control panel as it had been sucked into a hover. A second passed before Auto's A.I rose up out of the top of the control panel; though this time he was about Marcus' height rather than his normal seven inch high form.
"It's amazing," he said in a fascinated tone. "I can't believe it. All this knowledge,"
"Fun?" Marcus asked.
Auto nodded. "Very,"
"Is any of it useful?"
"Oh…right. One moment,"
Auto's form descended back into the control panel. Marcus stood there and gazed around the chamber again, taking in all of it. The ceiling was rock, as were the walls, but he kept thinking that he could see hundreds of small holes dotted around the walls and ceiling. It was strange, but amazing as well. He had never seen anything like this being built from Humans before, and he knew the Covenant could never build anything like this as well. Who did build this, and why? It was a question he really wanted to find the answer to.
"Whoa! Marcus, look at this!" Auto's voice erupted from the control panel, making him jump.
Marcus looked at the control panel to see a holographic screen rise up from the top of the control panel. On it was a green coloured background that looked like the interior of a machine with seven light green rings going across the middle of the holographic screen from one side to the other. Above each one were Roman numerals with I above the first ring, II above the second, III above the third and so on.
"What are they?" Marcus asked.
"Some kind of…creations," Auto replied. "There seven of them and…wait a minute,"
"What is it?"
"I've found something else…or two things to be exact. Look,"
The rings on the holographic screen disappeared, except for the fourth ring, which grew until it covered the middle of the screen and two sets of numbers appeared below it. One of them said A113 and the other 343.
"What do they mean?" Marcus asked.
"Your guess is as good mine," Auto replied. "Okay, I've downloaded it all. Let's go,"
Marcus nodded and, when the holographic screen had promptly disappeared from above the control panel, he took Auto's data cord and placed it on his shoulder. The data cord morphed within his suit and sank into it like quicksand.
Suddenly, a low rumbling filled the air. Marcus paused and raised his weapon slight, looking around as if expecting an attack by someone, or something, at any moment. Panic began to fill him and he gulped in fear. What the Hell as that rumbling? Why was it happening?
All of a sudden, the hundreds of tiny holes along the walls and ceiling suddenly began raining objects. Marcus could not see them clearly as it was quite dark. Then…
SMASH! A large rock ploughed down through the platform, tearing it from the pathway and making it fall into the pitch black abyss below.
"Oh crap!" Marcus shouted.
He turned and ran down the pathway towards the tunnel. Behind him, he could hear loud crashes and thuds as the rocks struck the pathway and the sides of the chamber. He tried to run faster as the panic within him overwhelmed him like a flood. He had to get out of here! He had to. Just another one hundred feet!
CRASH! Another rock landed a few metres behind him and the pathway shook. Marcus ran as fast as he could and, when he was about six feet from the end of the pathway, he dived into the tunnel. Just in time as another large rock smashed against the remainder of the pathway and tore it away from the tunnel and took it into the abyss below.
Marcus breathed a sigh of relief as he stood up. "Jeez!" he gasped. "That was close!"
"Yeah it was," Auto replied. "I think I must have activated something that caused that to happen,"
"Ancient booby traps. Never gets old when you go into a large place," Marcus told him. "Let's get out of here before the whole place decides to come down,"
"Good idea,"
Marcus ran up the tunnel to the entrance at the end. When he emerged from the tunnel back into the light outside, he ran a few hundred feet from the tunnel, just in case something else happened and he got caught within it.
Stopping behind the remains of a ghost, he sat down on the remains and placed a finger on the radio in his ear.
"Bravo 521, this is Marcus," he said, breathing heavily a little. "I'm ready to be picked up,"
"Roger that," came the pilot's voice from his ear radio. "Are you alright, man? You sound scared and out of breath,"
"Let's just say: me and Auto have had a very near death experience," he replied. "I'll see you in a minute,"
He took his finger off the radio in his ear and laid down on the remains of the ghost, breathing heavily to try and get his breath back. That was a close call. He and Auto could have been killed if he had not been fast enough, but he was out now. They were both safe and now they had to get back to base.
A few minutes later, a large shape descended down and came to a halt near Marcus. It was the pelican. He stood up and climbed in, sitting down on the resting area seats and resting his back against the wall.
"Everything go alright, man?" the pilot asked from the cog pit.
"Yeah…great," Marcus replied, giving a thumbs up at the same time.
A few seconds passed before the pelican jolted slightly and hovered back up into the air. When it had risen about twenty feet, it flew off into the mountain tops. Marcus looked out through the resting area and saw that the sky was now much lighter as dawn came ever closer to breaking to start a new day.
He and Auto would have a hell of a story to tell John when they got back to base.