Chapter 13 – Oraculum
January 4th, 2552 - (15:14 Hours - Military Calendar)
Daedalus system, Ballast
2.5 Kilometers below Kassarina Nature Preserve
:********:
Duncan was just as incredulous now as he was when they first reached the cave and found out about Renni's connections. This time was slightly different though. The connections between the two were easy enough to make. However, the connections being made between Dr. Strawson's instructions and what was needed of Epsilon were less than clear.
"We'll need you to maneuver around in order to trigger the reaction we need." Strawson said before the doors. "I recommend moving from left to right, kind of like a dance. From there, we should be able to..." He trailed off, cupping his chin in thought. "Um, no wait, from there we'll need to, um, I-"
"You don't know where to go from there, do you?" Cordova asked.
For once, the Lieutenant Commander acted as the voice of the squad.
Strawson straightened up. "I-, ugh, okay wait, we should-..."
"We don't know." Sorvad admitted. "But we need to turn the doors on first. We know they can activate because of minor pulses of electrical activity we detected in our examinations of them. From there, we'll be groping at straws to see what works and what doesn't."
The squad was nonplussed. Cordova turned to them. "It can't be helped. Let's try it."
"You heard'em." The Staff said. "Start dancing."
Epsilon took the hint and gradually, albeit reluctantly started defusing about the space. The scientists that were with them began doing the same. The group moved off to the left, right, forward towards the doors and backward towards the rock formations. Each step was casually paced. Duncan himself did all he could to gravitate away from the doors. The Staff took notice.
"Ep-8, come closer or you're going to be out of range."
"But, sir, how can you tell? I might still be in range."
Sniffing out his excuses, the Staff pointed to him then back to the doors. Duncan relented and hesitantly moved towards the two behemoths. As he did, he caught on to a progressively unnerving sound. Rather, it was a lack thereof; the dull whine of abject silence. Its non-volume rose into his ears with each second until he was almost deaf. His sixth sense went haywire. Within three meters of the doors, he could feel a strange pressure building in the atmosphere around it. Somehow, the two scientists were still prodding around, virtually unaffected. He wanted to know how they were pulling it off but found he barely had enough focus to think.
The strange pressure continued to build to the point where he was certain he wasn't imagining it. He slowly backed away.
"Ep-8?" The Staff said from even closer to the doors.
"Sorry, sir, I'm just-" Duncan stopped when he noticed the pressure was actually increasing the farther that he got from the doors. Whatever it was, it was inverting itself. The muscles in his legs stiffened, turning every step backwards into a laborious task. After three, he was spent. "What is this?"
"Guys, I feel-..." Rico drawled, audibly tired. "I feel...heavy. Anyone else feel heavy?"
Duncan checked on him. He was even farther away from the doors and a bit closer to the left side of the cave.
"I feel fine." Nova said.
"Same here." Hector agreed.
Duncan sucked in a breath. "No, I'm feeling it too."
The group's attention turned his way as well as Rico's. Before the Staff could ask them what was going on, Dr. Strawson peered over his shoulder at them both, wide-eyed. "What did you say? You feel pressure?"
Duncan replied with a slow nod. "Like someone's putting extra weight on me that I can't see."
"Si." Rico said, sounding more tired than before. "Mi armadura...se siente...más pesada."
"What?" Strawson asked. "Wait, what'd he say?"
The Staff gave the two troopers a worried look. "He said his armor's feeling heavier. I don't know why it would though."
Strawson blinked, his eyes filling with hope and concern at the same time. He fixed his glasses back into place with a trembling hand. "You're certain that's what you're feeling?"
"They're certain." Hector stated. "Ep-6 only goes full native if he's real happy, wants to bust somebody's balls or under stress, and he's not doing any of those first two. They're not faking it."
Duncan nodded. "What's going on, doc?"
Strawson reexamined the right-side door in front of him. He stopped brushing his hands over the surface and shared a look of uncertainty with Sorvad. "I think they triggered it."
"Triggered what?" Duncan asked.
Strawson made one last examination of the doors before suddenly rounding on the gathering. "Nobody move. Stay where you are."
They all stopped.
Strawson took careful steps away from the doors. He kept a close eye on Duncan and Rico as he walked past the others. He halted at Rico's side. Probably not feeling the sensation the trooper was talking about he moved over to Duncan, only to experience a similar nothingness. Then he took a closer look at the two. Slowly, he began backing up towards a point on the right side of the doors.
"What're you doing?" Sorvad called.
Strawson seemed to measure each stride, never putting more than half a meter between each movement as if he were walking an unseen tight rope. His attention stayed on the ground, regularly observing Rico and Duncan's position as well as his own. "I'm finding the pattern."
Duncan watched closely when the man finally stopped backpedaling. But Strawson didn't appear to stop of his own fruition. His last steps became discernably labored and heavy-footed until he seemed too tired to go any further. Haggard breathing followed. He grasped his knees and took a few seconds to breathe.
"Strawson?" Cordova called.
He held up a reassuring hand. "No worries. I'm fine."
"Marcus, be careful." Sorvad said, not believing the façade.
Strawson surveyed the space leading up to the doors. Duncan did the same, trying to figure out what he was searching for. Following his gaze, he found that the doctor was gauging how far the three of them were from the threshold.
"Okay." He said. "You two, the guys feeling the pressure, take two steps towards the doors with me. We'll do it at the same time, alright?"
"Si."
"On your go, doc."
Strawson bit his lip as he raised a foot. Duncan and Rico mirrored his actions and took a single step forward followed by another. The relief was instantaneous. Immediately, Duncan felt the invisible weight ease off of him ever so slightly.
"Woah." Rico groaned, rolling his shoulders. "I felt that."
"It got lighter?" Strawson queried.
"Yeah."
"Hey you, other trooper? Same thing?"
"Yeah. I wouldn't mind taking a few more steps though."
"Alright, three more. On three. One...two...go."
They took three more strides in unison. A wave of even greater relief washed over Duncan from head to toe. "That's way better."
"Good. We'll take five more and see what happens."
Looking up, Duncan saw that so many steps would take them within five meters of the doors. A sinking feeling settled in. "You sure that's a good idea?"
"Positive."
"Stop being scaredy cat and just do it, Ep-8." Yuri huffed.
"Hey, you wanna do this job for me?"
Yuri quickly shook his head. "Nah, you're good."
"That's what I thought."
"On three." Strawson said. "One...two...go."
The three of them took five more steps, passing through the gathering while staying in stride. Strangely, Duncan noticed that the three of them were now in a perfect lineup with one another. That was despite that Rico started feeling the pressure farther away than all three of them. Whatever force they were dealing with, he wagered, it only manifested itself on those that were the farthest from the doors. Then he reconsidered it. Maybe it wasn't that the pressure was only manifesting on those farthest away. Maybe they were the only ones at the right distance. The right distance to be detected, possibly by the doors themselves. Maybe the force was not of some unexplained and natural origin, but artificial. Strawson had mentioned that the doors responded to motion. Perhaps everyone else was simply not in the right spot.
On their fifth step, they were five meters short of the threshold.
Sorvad winced as she felt along the surface of the left door. "Hey, its-, the exterior, it's warm. It was icy just a second ago, but now..." A steaming sound came to ear. She flinched and quickly yanked her hands away from the metal. She shook them to cool down her palms, observing the monolithic objects in surprise. "It's heating up." She turned to the approaching trio. "Whatever you're doing, they're responding."
"Good." Strawson said, scanning the doors which themselves showed no visible sign of heating up at all. "Let's see if we can turn them on all the way. One more step."
Duncan and Rico warily followed his lead.
Nothing happened at first. A heartbeat later, the doors came to life.
The sizzling sound grew louder and more distinct, like an onrushing deluge. A subtle brightness bloomed through the metal exterior. What followed reignited that burning sense in Duncan's gut to get as far away as possible. But it was already too late.
A wave of silvery-blue light washed down from the top of the doors like a tidal wave. As it rolled across their surfaces, rows of symbols appeared. On first glance, Duncan thought they were some form of hieroglyphics. Covenant perhaps? Yet he'd seen enough Covenant glyphs to know that these were not the same thing. Far from it. These used straighter lines, wider angles and a pronounced fixation on finished as well as unfinished circles.
The wave continued its descent, causing the symbols behind it to darken again while those further down were eventually lit. In five seconds, the vibrancy vanished into the floor. No sooner did it disappear that a new wave surged up along the doors. Without warning, it stopped at head-height. The glyphs within its range vacillated in their luminescence like twinkling stars or sparkling gems.
Rico quickly took a step back. "Hey, Strawman, what'd we just do?"
Strawson on the other hand took a step closer. Fixing his glasses, he stared up at the line of glyphs in awe. "Amazing." He whispered, eyeing them closely. "I wish we could take a lexicographic record of all this." He took another step.
Suddenly, a set of the symbols near Strawson brightened. Things that Duncan could only describe as strings of concentrated light reached out from the glyphs. They lanced a short distance across the floor to coalesce at the same point; directly in front of Dr. Strawson.
The doctor flinched and instinctively took a step back, as did everyone else.
The point of coalescence morphed almost instantaneously, blowing up like a balloon from the size of a coin to that of a basketball.
Strawson took in the sight, observed the tightened strings of laser-like luminescence and the glyphs from which they projected. Gathering his wits, he moved tentatively towards it.
"Strawson?" Cordova called after him. "Don't."
If the doctor heard her, he made no pretense of showing it. His hand edged towards the projection. Possibly detecting his approach, the light orb fluctuated then steadied as a resulting hailstorm of what looked like snow swirled inside of it. The vortex pushed the 'snow' out into the surface of the orb where it resolved into the clear visage of linguistic characters. None that Duncan could tell were Covenant, and certainly not human.
"Marcus, stop." Sorvad echoed in a similar vain.
Strawson froze momentarily but resumed until his palm was aglow. His forefinger ventured towards one of the symbols. A careful poke elicited an immediate reaction; a flash of red light that briefly altered the orb. The characters swirling within quivered and hazed before returning to their original clarity.
"What're you-"
Strawson held up a hand, quieting his associate. He reached again for the orb. On contact, he was met with the same red flash. "It's a warning." Strawson surmised. "God, I wish we had Catherine here. She would have made this look a lot easier." He squinted at the newly resolving characters following his last disruption. "It's not letting me do anything other than touch them, as if I don't have access...or full access" He peered over at Duncan and Rico. "You two, can you take two more steps forward like I did?"
"Why?" The two asked simultaneously, making no moves to hide their unwillingness.
"Because I think this system is waiting for all three of us to get into position."
"You think?" Duncan questioned.
"It's an educated guess."
"How educated?" Rico pressed.
Strawson sighed. "Listen, can you please just trust me here. You're the only other persons that this thing is reacting to."
The not-so-distant rumble of the encroaching plasma torpedoes drew everyone's attention upwards.
"If you don't try, we won't leave." Strawson said. "So, for all our sakes, please try."
Duncan clenched his jaw and inwardly cursed his own luck. What were the chances that the strange, alien doors would decide to pick on him and Rico?
He took a step forward. A section of the symbols directly in front of him brightened, just as they did for the doctor.
He willed his feet forward one more time.
The same strings of light leapt out from the glyphs. Before him, they hastily coalesced into a second orb. The sphere projected within arm's reach. Its characters rotated from the core and resolved onto a contactless surface. Or so he thought. Ignoring the hand of his anxieties clutching at his throat, he reached for and made contact with his forefinger. To his surprise, the surface was not holographic, not in the same sense as the tactical planners he was used to using. He could physically feel the orb. It was there in real time with a texture closer to glass than thin air.
The moment he touched it; the orb flashed red.
"Hey, you?" Strawson called. "You too."
Duncan saw that off to his left, Rico had yet to approach. With the pressure of everyone's eyes turned his way, Rico finally relented and took two steps forward.
The doors reacted in a similar fashion and a third orb projected in front of him. "So, what do I do from here?"
Strawson looked around his orb. "Well, let's see."
As he did, Duncan checked on his own. There was a plentitude of glyphs that he could pick out. All of them were distinct. He only wished he was able to read them. Even someone like Strawson who should have been accustomed to strange sights like these looked to be having trouble deciphering what was what. What meant 'Latrine' and what meant, or could mean 'kill me'.
He had decided on waiting for the resident expert to figure it out when he noticed something out of the ordinary. Within the orb, there was a glyph unique from the others. It passively resisted the clockwise current of the other glyphs. Another feature that made it stand out was its comparatively simpler design; a segmented crescent moon that encased the bottom of what looked like a radiating, circular lightbulb.
He inspected the symbol in passing. Yet when he tried to look away, he found that he could not, or rather that he didn't want to. He felt compelled to turn back to it. More than anything, he felt a growing urge to press it. It was something involuntary but on a level of instinct as basic as breathing. He'd only had such a strong, unexplained compulsion once before. The memory sickened him. He forced his eyes to look away.
And the symbol followed.
He stopped the second he noticed it, that the glyph also came to a halt at the center of where he was looking on the orb. He glanced at a different spot. Once more, it snapped into place as if it were always there. He tried again though slower in order to test what he was seeing. Sure enough, the glyph floated past the others at a speed that matched his own.
The urge to back off resurged and competed with his newfound desire to stay put. Someway, somehow, the glyph was purposefully following his vision. That meant it knew where he was looking. But how? How when he'd already repolarized his visor?
He glimpsed the doors. The increasingly familiar sense of being observed from them was now almost overwhelming.
"I think I found something." He said. "It's one of the symbols."
"Wait, you see it too, right?" Rico asked, sounding no less concerned, a fact that amplified Duncan's own worries.
"You mean the lightbulb looking thing?"
"Yeah, with the moon-shape at the bottom?"
Duncan's mouth went dry. "Yeah, I see it."
"So do I." Strawson added with a greater air of awestruck wonder than before. "I think we need to press it. Gentlemen, if you would?"
Duncan gritted his teeth but nodded in agreement. "Just say when."
Rico's agreement came after an understandable silence. "Let's hurry this up."
Strawson breathed out. He slowly brought up a hand that subtly shook. "On three...one..."
Duncan raised his hand.
"Two."
Rico raised his.
"Three."
They pressed the symbol.
Duncan watched as a pulse of new light washed over the orb from the point of contact. He felt a shiver travel up his arm which did little to distract him from the way that every other glyph disappeared. Except the one that he pressed. The 'bulb' part of it began to change. A new design etched through the circle, four lines bearing the impression of circuits, two outer and two inner. The outer lines hooked across to the left and right while the inner lines sprouted upwards to the top of the circle.
The lines took on a ghostly glow. Their brightness increased too fast for even his visor to compensate. He was sure he heard the Staff and the others calling for the three of them to back off, but his body refused to move. The symbols luminated to the point where their light outshined that of the two Jotuns.
There was a flash.
When the brightness vanished, Duncan found that his eyes stung. He stumbled as he tried blinking away the stars swamping his vision. Through fits of blinking, he saw Rico and Strawson doing the same, groping about and clutching at visor and face alike. The others rushed over to help them. Someone took Duncan by the arm to steady him. He couldn't see who though because even as the stars were fading, the outline of the glyph hung around in his vision. Then it too faded away and his eyesight slowly readjusted.
A voice spoke. The words were unintelligible. He hadn't realized that his ears were also ringing. The doors had really flash-banged them all. Was it a trap?
He reached for his rifle as he looked up into a bulky ODST's visor. It was Hector. The bigger trooper depolarized to expose his worried face and mouthed words that gradually became clearer.
"Hey, you alright? Come on, say something, D. Talk to me."
Duncan shook his head to throw off the last of the effects. "Yeah, I'm-...I'm good."
"Can you stand?"
"Yeah."
Hector let him go and he restored his balance. He moved to ask what had just happened when a rumbling noise told him that it was far from over.
The sound came from the doors directly in front of them. Everyone armed leveled their weapons at the giant barriers while those unarmed quickly got behind them.
The doors vibrated. Despite that the orbs were gone, new waves of light appeared. One flowed in from the left door, another from the right. Both waves washed through the briefly illuminated icons before they met at the central seam. There, they disappeared.
Several silent seconds passed.
At the end of that nothingness, every glyph on the wall came alight at once. Visors struggled to compensate while those without them shielded their eyes. The doors groaned and sizzled. Then all was still again.
The movement was so minute that Duncan failed to notice it at first. Once his visor was able to adjust, he finally saw what was happening.
The doors were moving.
Both of the massive barriers were pushing outwards. He almost refused to believe they were moving at all because neither one made a sound. There was barely a hint of a groan of mechanics or anything at all whilst the doors performed their deft procedure.
"Back up, back up." The Staff ordered.
The gathering withdrew from before them, making room. The doors hinged open with a growing speed until the seam was fully parted. Darkness lay on the other side.
The group gave the doors the time and space they needed to finish clearing the way inside.
"Switch to VISR mode."
At the Staff's next order, Epsilon switched on their visuals.
Nothing happened.
The growing space on the other side of the doors remained a featureless void.
"Mine's isn't working." Hector said.
"Same here." Mito parroted. "Sir?"
The Staff shook his head. "Neither is mine."
Duncan peered inside. "Wait. Hey, I see something. Its-…"
A new feeling surged through Duncan's very being as he had never experienced it before. Red hot dread pulled at his innards.
The featureless void was not entirely so.
Far beyond the threshold, three eyes stared back.
They were orange and vibrant, but partly dull, and arranged in a triangle.
No, not eyes, he thought. Lightbulbs?
He questioned whether he was seeing things or not because unless he was mistaken, each 'bulb' was the size of a streetlight. He could guess the size despite how far away the objects were; perhaps a good 50 meters from the threshold.
The sensation of being watched amplified and concentrated into the three bulbs of bright orange.
The sight of them wrought a burst of déjà vu for Duncan. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen something like them years before. The hazy memory resolved into a recollection of his time on Onyx. He had nearly died along with Spartan B312 when he risked his life to help the latter's malfunctioning stealth pod escape from slipspace. He and the spartan had survived the crash-landing down to Onyx' mysterious Zone 67. They rendezvoused, talked it out and found themselves experiencing a similar feeling of being watched. Just like back then, they were approached by something comparable to what lay before them now, an object Six had later described to SCPO Mendez as "some oversized lightbulb".
Every gun pointed in the direction of the lights.
"What is that?" Nova asked.
"Good question." The Staff said, eyeing the lieutenant commander.
Cordova shook her head as she cautiously slipped her helmet on and twisted it into place, never taking her eyes off the lights. "For once I'll be straight with you, Staff. I don't know what I'm looking at either. Strawson?"
Strawson responded from the safety of the rear. "My knowledge stops at the doors, mam. I'm just as clueless as anyone else beyond this point."
No one moved to step inside.
Duncan watched the three lights within the confines of his reticle. He was ready for it to react in some threatening fashion. However, a new compulsion flooded over him.
Trust.
He was less than sure why he thought that. Nevertheless, the impression in his head told him that what lay at the center of his gun-sights posed no threat to him or anyone else. In fact, he could discern that the thing in question was the exact opposite of a threat.
He failed to take notice, until his third step, that he was actually walking towards it.
"Ep-8?" The Staff said warily. "Hold up."
Not certain why or where his newfound confidence was coming from, Duncan replied: "It's no threat, sir."
"...How do you know that?"
"Just a feeling."
Epsilon shared in a collective uncertainty, but the compulsion to move forward seized Duncan again. He returned his attention to the lights. This time, the Staff let him be. Instead, he gave his next order over the recovery team's comms. "Lima, Kilo, ditch the entrance and get over here. Come guard these doors. Epsilon, prepare to move in."
Thirty seconds passed before the two squads arrived. Their sprint slowed as they came across the sight of the two doors. They stopped just short of the threshold once they saw the darkness, and beyond that, the three lights.
"Mind filling us in, Ep-1?" Lima-3 asked with palpable apprehension.
"We opened these doors." The Staff said. "And we need you to guard them. Can you manage that for us?"
Another subterranean tremor shook the cave courtesy of the encroaching bombardment. For the first time, sediment sprinkled down from the ceiling of the cave.
"I guess we'll find out." Lima-3 said. "We got your back."
"Copy." The Staff brought his shotgun to bear on the mysterious light source. "Epsilon, move in. Ep-8, take point."
Regardless of his unfounded certainty, Duncan still caught a hint of uneasiness at being given the position. Nevertheless, he kept his MA5C leveled. He steeled himself and led the way.
:********:
Duncan had never experienced infinite darkness before, so each stride through the one in front of him was a uniquely troubling experience. Since his VISR mode refused to work here for whatever reason, he was left with nothing to guide him through the dark. Nothing but the three lights.
They remained a constant fixture in the world of nothingness that kept him oriented in the space. He wished he could get an idea of where he was. All the same, simply seeing what he was walking on would have been good enough.
He was wondering why it was that he could barely see where his own two feet were when a burst of powerful illumination threatened to overwhelm his visor. He snapped his rifle back to the three lights but found that they were unchanged. A new light source was coming from above. He sighted up, then all around. Though he saw no obvious lights, he could now make out his surroundings.
The illumination had ripped away the darkness from what was otherwise a stunning scenery. They were in a chamber. An unbelievably large one that easily dwarfed the cave they had just left. The far sides were comprised of metallic walls with a surprisingly new looking sheen, showing a material different from the comparatively smaller doors. However, they were likewise covered in rows upon rows of the glowing glyphs which sparkled in that same stellar pattern. It was as if the new arrivals were at the center of their own galaxy. Then Duncan realized why he couldn't find the new light source, because it was coming not just from one direction but from everywhere simultaneously. The glyphs were lighting the way.
Duncan turned again to their path. To his surprise, he found that they were on a bridge. All metal, no rails, the bridgeway was guarded by several sets of pincer-like pillars that framed it from one end all the way to...
Duncan stopped mid-stride once he became aware of what lay ahead. The initial darkness within the chamber had not completely gone away. In fact, a substantial amount of it remained in their path, veiling the area opposite the entrance like a fog.
The line-up halted behind its point-man. Everyone was too stunned to say much of anything. Duncan took a second to peer back at the Staff. He nodded, giving him the go ahead.
Duncan resisted the fear now threatening to choke him as he forged on. The rest of the squad stayed close on his heels.
Each step towards the darkness became more laborious than the one before. Ten more paces later a new light-burst pulled his attention to the walls where more glyphs were turning on. Their activation peeled away more of the darkness but never seemed to fully dissipate it.
In their progression, more glyphs began to activate on the far walls. Doing so exposed more of the chamber's details, most shockingly that the chamber was something more like an assembly room. From the lower levels stemmed what appeared to be hundreds of seats of a patently alien design. Row after row descended into a thick mist that filled the very bottom of the chamber and blinded anyone above from seeing where the floor was, if there was a floor.
Eventually, the 'darkness' was forcibly compressed by the light into a single spot. Duncan upped his visor's magnification to get a good look at it. The spot marked the end of the bridge. There, the far-off structures that looked like chairs and even the walls of the chamber itself noticeably curved to encircle it.
The three lights stared from within.
Duncan pushed through the last of his angst. Five more stops were all that was needed.
In response, more glyphs activated, wiping out the last spot of non-light.
Duncan's first thought was not of fear but of fear mixed with confusion. The unhealthy combination prepared to burn a hole through his stomach as he got an eyeful of...what? Exactly what was he looking at? The best he could do was understand that it was a kind of central platform. But that was not the thing that confused him most. Rather, it was what lay on top of it that he had a hard time figuring out.
A dais-like structure stood at the center of the platform. It was surrounded by four more pillars that extended down to the non-visible chamber floor. Moreover, it was the object at the center of the dais that was beyond explanation.
The source of the three glowing lights sat on the dais, a large device whose shape appeared closest to an upside-down pentagon. It was combined with a three-headed hourglass shape at its center that stretched out to its upper left, upper right and lower edges. Each end possessed a bulb-like glass panel from which an orange glow emanated. Its form was comprised of multiple dimensions that dimpled its 'face', but the crowning feature was a symbol at its core; a set of circles that interlocked within one another. A new glyph.
It was immediately obvious that it was some kind of construct, one that was two to three times the size of a human being.
"Take it slow, Ep-8." The Staff said. "Nice and slow."
Duncan didn't answer with more than a hesitant flash of his acknowledgement light. Everything in him told him to move forward. Yet his logic was of a different opinion. Torn cleanly in two, he chose to trust his gut and hoped to the almighty that it wasn't leading him astray.
The moment his boot made contact with the central platform, symbols flashed into being all around them, starting from the doors and lighting up the bridge. They reached the central platform in seconds and formed a ring of glyphs around its edges. The symbols on the far walls scintillated before emitting multiple holographs. The images resolved into a sandstorm of individual points of luminescence that blew along invisible winds throughout the chamber. They developed further into smaller celestial bodies rotating around larger ones, innumerable stars, planets and planetoids, millions of solar systems and dozens of dusty galaxies.
Amidst the lightshow that stopped the squad dead in their tracks, the wave of symbols reached the dais itself. They flooded along its frame and concentrated around the device at its center.
A moment later, the three glass panels on the machine warmed to a dull red. A new symbol slowly emerged on each panel; a glyph Duncan could only recognize as a horizontal portrayal of the capital letters 'YI' but joined together.
Then the three lights shifted to an active blue, and suddenly Duncan became aware that he was looking someone in the eyes.
The rest of the squad and the scientists carefully filed onto the platform. They made sure to keep at least two meters of distance between themselves and the object in question. Duncan was the closest to it. He could feel the thing watching him and everyone else.
Without warning, a voice spoke.
It was discernably automated and gentle, but full of authority. That was about all that Duncan could tell other than that it was coming from directly in front of them. From the construct mounted on top of the dais.
The machine was speaking. Yet whatever language it was using, Duncan had never heard anything like it in his life. There was a focus on vowel-sounds along with hard consonants and other phonemes he had never heard before.
Then just as quickly as it started to talk, the construct went quiet, as if waiting for a response.
"...Ep-1?" Duncan asked, his voice wavering.
The Staff didn't answer, remaining just as silent and taken aback as everyone else.
The only one to respond seemingly was the construct itself. Its lights shifted intermittently from blue to red then back to blue. It spoke again, this time in a much more distinctly male voice, though it never lost its tone of authority.
"Nullum est signum contagionis. Quare me excitasti?"
It wasn't English but it sounded closer to it. No one moved to answer it until at last, Strawson mumbled "Excitasti?". Their attention turned his way as he took a careful step towards it. "That's Latin. I...think it's trying to communicate with us."
"What is it exactly?" Cordova questioned.
As if to answer her question, the machine's lights changed again before returning to their original hue. Its voice exuded forth.
"Welcome, reclaimers. Why have you reactivated me?"
Duncan froze. So did the rest of the group. Even Strawson stepped back.
No reply came.
Seeing that it was not getting the answers it sought, the construct paused. Its lights made another intermittent cycle of blue to red and back before speaking once more. "From what I have gathered from data collected in my standby systems, the current statuses of the atmosphere and bio-geographical composition of this planet are completely sterilized. There is no sign of the plague. Why have you reactivated me? What assistance do you require?"
Duncan's jaw stayed locked in place. He could hardly think yet alone try to open his mouth. How could he? It was abundantly clear that this was a first contact scenario with a being, or artificial intelligence that had never been encountered before. The best he could do was a hard stare into one of the three lights in the hope that maintaining eye contact would be enough.
Finally, the Staff spoke up with the most obvious question. "What-...what are you? Who are you?"
The construct was quick to reply, ignoring the context of this strange new meeting in exchange for the calmness of someone expecting company.
"Although I am only a fragment of my whole self that has been tasked to this location, I, or rather this fragment of myself, am a Contender-Class Metarch Ancilla. You may refer to me by the name given me by my masters if you so wish."
"And what's that?" Cordova ventured.
"Offensive Bias." The construct replied. "That is my name, at least in your language."
Everyone stood stunned. Not only did the device speak perfect English but it also had a name. It sounded deep and profound, although Duncan had a hard time understanding exactly what it was supposed to mean; 'Offensive Bias'. The first part of it sounded like it was related to its overall purpose. Offense against who though? He gripped his rifle tighter at realizing that the name carried a connotation of war and conflict, a weapon of unknown origins and capabilities.
"Who-" Strawson cleared his throat. "Who are your masters?"
"As of now, you are." Offensive Bias said. "But the question still stands; why have you reactivated me? You would have to have reached a consensus of at least three to open the doorway, meaning you are mostly in agreement that there is some emergency requiring my attention. What is the nature of your-"
A new tremor rocked both the cave outside and the chamber inside, but the tremor was substantially lessened within the chamber's walls.
"Tier 2 energy weapon discharge detected less than 200 meters above our current location." Bias reported. "Is that your emergency?"
The Staff spoke up. "Okay, Offensive, was it?"
"Offensive Bias." The intelligence corrected.
"Right...listen, I don't know where you came from or why you're here, but you seem like a smart AI."
"Ancilla." Offensive again corrected.
"Right." The Staff sighed. "Okay, we've got a situation on our hands. There's a corvette right now that's shooting its way in towards us. The Covenant are trying to get in here to finish us off. We need assistance in dealing with them. Can you help us with that?"
Offensive Bias' reply, for once, was delayed. "What is 'The Covenant'? Are they the ones responsible for the recent conflagration in orbit?"
If Duncan was stunned before, he was floored now. The question, to him, sounded so outlandishly ignorant that he wondered if the machine was joking. If it was a smart AI or something more than that, how could it not know about something that major? However, the understanding soon set in for him as well as everyone else who were just as perturbed by the question.
"Excuse me?" Strawson intruded. "I don't mean to switch topics, but...how long have you been down here?"
Duncan thought a better question would have been to ask how old the machine actually was.
Offensive replied; "To answer both of your questions, reclaimers, I have been authorized to explain this much. Following Life Succession Protocols, I have been tasked solely with conducting quarantine and sterilization contingencies against any outbreaks of the plague in this solar system, pending a potential infection of the quadrant. That is my priority task. I cannot override it, not even to support your reclamation efforts for this planet."
"Why not?" Strawson asked.
"Because that is my priority task set forth by my masters."
"And who are your masters?"
"As of now, you are."
"No, sorry, I meant who are your makers? Who made you?"
"What do you mean who made me?" Offensive Bias queried with what sounded like genuine confusion. "Do you not know that the very same ones who ceded you are the ones who made me?"
"Ceded?" Sorvad asked. "What do you mean by that?"
Offensive answered the question with one of his own. "How do you not know this information already?"
"Probably because you're not telling us." Cordova said, her aggravation clear in her voice. "So how about it?"
Offensive quieted. Its lights dimmed. Duncan thought it was shutting down, but then the AI's lights returned to full vibrance. "I am a Contender-class Metarch Ancilla, the second of my kind, created by my makers, the Forerunners, as a counter to my predecessor. And now that that purpose has been fulfilled, I am to guard worlds such as these for your inevitable return, reclaimers. And so I have done. I say this to explain to you that my purpose here is defense, not edification. If that is what you seek, I can commend you to a local terminal to grant you the information you desire. Only questions related to my station are within my purview to answer."
For an AI not meant to explain anything, it had somehow managed to explain an awful lot while creating more questions than it answered. A contender-class Metarch? It had said so about itself before but Duncan had never heard of the classification. Neither had he heard of any group or organization that referred to itself as anything remotely close to the name 'Forerunners'. Unless that was a secret ONI trick. The idea that the Office was responsible for this machine, for this potential misdirection, was not so hard to believe. Another question from Dr. Sorvad started to make him doubt that though.
"Are you the one that sent that signal to the UEG ship in 2492, the Pillar of Hercules?"
"It was the first human ship to come to Ballast." Strawson clarified. "Were you the one that made contact with it?"
"I believe I know which one you mean." Offensive Bias replied. "Yes, I did contact it, but I must correct you. It was not the first human vessel to come to this world. Far from it. It was merely the first that I had detected entering this system since the life succession protocols went into effect. While I was mostly dormant, my standby systems attempted to contact the ship to confirm that its crew and cargo were sterilized. When I received no response, my rudimentary functions simply conducted a scan of the vessel to ensure its safety. I have been initiating similar scans with each vessel that has come to this planet up until the present time."
Strawson, Sorvad and the other scientists observed the construct with renewed awe.
"So it was you." Strawson came closer, becoming more breathless by the second. "You're the one we've been looking for. This whole time you've been down here waiting for us. I have so many questions to-"
A new tremor went off. It was so close that the thunderous impacts made Duncan's helmet rattle.
The Staff stepped in front of Strawson, cutting him off. "No time, doctor." He turned to the construct. "Offensive, can you-"
"Offensive Bias." It corrected.
"Yeah, sure. Different question. We need an answer right away. Can you help us fight or can you help us get out of here? Either one of the two would help keep us alive. That seems to be part of your purpose here, right? Helping us?"
"My priority task is to prevent any potential spread of the-"
"That's not what I'm getting at. Look, right now we have an enemy bearing down on us that wants nothing more than to see us dead. Our only options are to run or fight. It seems you're not going to help us with that last one, so how about the first?"
Offensive took a moment to consider the question. Strawson grabbed the Staff's shoulder. "What're you doing?"
The Staff shrugged him off. "My job."
"No, we-, we have to get information out of him. He's the culmination of decades of hard work just to reach him."
The Staff looked unconvinced behind his darkened visor. Strawson gestured to Cordova. "Lieutenant Commander, you're his superior right? Tell him we need the intel. That's why you came to our site in the first place, isn't it? Intel?"
Cordova, after a brief contemplation, shook her head. "No, the Staff's right. We need to leave with the information we already have. That has to be our top priority."
A look of horror descended over Strawson's face. He rounded on his fellow xenoarcheologists with greater desperation. "Guys, come on, we need the info. We need to know."
But the scientists didn't budge. They did little more than turn away, no less pained than their coworker.
Strawson finally turned to his closest associate. "Elicia, help me tell them. Help me to-, help me to just explain to these people that we need this."
Sorvad looked the most pained out of anyone. Yet the slow dip of her heard allowed Duncan to see what it looked like for someone's last hope to be dashed to pieces. Strawson's figure slackened. Frustrated tears welled in his eyes. He pinched his nose, gritted his teeth and turned away from the gathering.
"If ONI needs this intel, that just makes me feel even less inclined to help them get it." Hector openly admitted. "A giant chamber with no natural reason for it to be where it is, a space bot so old that it doesn't even know about the Covenant? Sorry doc, but all that jazz is just way too high above our paygrade."
A quiet air of agreement pervaded among the troopers. Duncan likewise agreed. He was beginning to feel way over his head, more so than he had ever felt with training Beta Company or infiltrating the AMADDS. This was by far the most unconventional mission he had ever lived through. Another tremor reminded him that whether he actually lived through it or not was still up for debate.
Then Offensive Bias spoke one more. "Unfortunately, no teleportation grids were ever established on this planet, at least none that I could transport you through with any guarantee of safety. However, I can open one of the passageways to the surface. You can follow the passage until you reach the exit. The end of it will lead you to a nearby body of water."
The Staff nodded. "Perfect. Can you make it happen?"
"I can. One moment, please."
The chamber shook again, albeit in a certain part of it and in a much more controlled manner. A set of symbols on the right side of the central platform winked off and on, as did a set that lay on the far wall to their right. Then a section of flooring slid out from the platform. Simultaneously, seams appeared in the far wall and part of its surface was gently pried apart. Two doors were formed which receded into themselves like blinds, opening up to a well-lit passageway.
Once the way was open, long gleams of silvery-blue light phased into being between the central platform and the new passageway. It quickly resolved into a translucent surface whose full length spanned over the murky depths below.
"The bridge is now ready." Offensive said. "You may leave when you wish, although I would advise you to leave sooner for the sake of your wellbeing."
A not so gentle trembling of the cavern wrought by a new salvo suggested that the AI was giving them good wisdom. "Energy weapon discharge detected 50 meters above our location."
"Ep-8, on me." The Staff said. Duncan followed him over to the threshold of the bridge. 'Bridge', he felt, was a deceiving term. There was nothing there except a projection of light perhaps 60 meters long. He could see straight through it to the mists of the lower areas, an unpleasant sight for someone being asked to walk over it.
"Let's try it." The Staff said and turned sideways. Planting his right boot firmly on the metal of the platform, he slowly reached out with his left to touch the surface. Duncan followed his lead and reached out.
To their shock, their boots did not pass straight through it but were blocked by a hard, tangible surface. Seeing this, the Staff risked planting a little more weight on it. Nothing happened. He was still upheld. The Staff took another risk and lifted his right boot to plant both on the bridge. When nothing changed, he took one step forward and then two more. Duncan held his breath until his squad leader came to a complete stop. To him, it was like watching a man walking on air. The Staff seemed to relax as he turned back to the rest of the group. "It's solid."
"How?" One of the scientists, Dr. Carson, asked.
"Can you feel anything?" Another, Dr. Madeira, questioned. "Radiation? Electromagnetism? Are your legs experiencing any numbness?"
"None of that." The Staff answered and pointed to the passageway. "This leads us out of here, right?"
"Correct." Offensive replied. "Will it suit your needs?"
The Staff took another good luck at it. "I think so. Thanks."
"You are welcome."
The Staff set a new Nav point on the passage and he comm'd the other squads. "Lima, Kilo, rally on our position. We've got a way out."
"Sounds good." Lima-3 replied. "We were starting to worry you'd forgotten us over here."
The rest of the recovery team withdrew from the doors. They sprinted across the first bridge only to slow upon reaching the platform, and seeing the construct. They kept a wary distance from it as a few asked Epsilon questions about what they were looking at, some being perceptive enough to ask what or who was looking at them. The explanations they received were evidently less than encouraging as they still stuck to the edges of the platform.
"Hold on a minute." Strawson said. "Can't we find some way to...I don't know, disconnect him from his position?"
"You mean the AI?" The Staff asked back.
Strawson nodded.
"You mean the giant, alien AI so big that none of us here can carry him? The one that we don't have the slightest idea where he begins and where that post ends, or how to bring him down from there in the first place? That AI?"
Strawson deflated at the comment. "We can try."
Cordova grasped him by the shoulder, patted it and said in no uncertain terms; "No, we can't. You're a xenoarcheologist, not a technician. You said it yourself. And you're certainly not one good enough to be able to know how this thing works."
The words seemed to kill the doctor's spirit. The residual strength he had left directed his attention towards the construct. "Offensive Bias."
"Yes, reclaimer?"
"Are you able to be detached from that post?"
"I am. I can disconnect myself without issue and move on my own without assistance. However, I have not been permitted to do so. My priority task is to maintain the sterilized status of this planet and this system, not to aid you in your reclamation efforts or even to help you as an arbiter in your current conflict with this Covenant. Given these circumstances, this is the most I can do to preserve your lives. I am sorry."
Offensive's announcement had the effect of dashing any of Strawson's remaining hopes.
Everyone gravitated towards the threshold of the light bridge in preparation to cross it.
"Ep-4 and 10, you're on point. Let's move."
At the Staff's order, Hector and Mito moved to the front. They stepped out across the bridge with slow caution that gradually built into confident strides, beginning a general migration across the bridge.
There was one that refused to cross. Looking back, Duncan saw that Strawson was still standing out in front of the construct, eyes full of awe and frustration. Sorvad saw him too and grabbed him by the arm. "Marcus, come on. Let's go."
Strawson didn't shove her off but he didn't move either. "No." He said, his voice hoarse. "No, this can't be how this happens. We were supposed to have years here. This is our first contact with potentially an entirely new civilization. We should have been able to study this for the rest of our lives."
"We're going to lose our lives if we don't leave." Sorvad rebutted.
The words left Strawson even more on the verge of tears. He looked on the construct in denial. "The pinnacle of our findings..."
Knowing that he was not about to move, the Staff instead moved towards the doctor. Seeing him coming, Strawson turned to the AI one last time. "Who are the Forerunners? How do you know Latin and English? How did you even get all the way down here?"
The Staff grabbed him by the collar of his coat but still he called after the AI. "What is the plague?"
With a rough shove, The Staff forced him towards the bridge. Sorvad stayed close behind to shepherd him along, although just like him, she repeatedly looked over her shoulder at the ancient intelligence.
Duncan took up a position at the rear of the group. He was more than glad to be leaving. However, his feeling of unfounded confidence was also leaving him. How did they know they could trust this old AI with their escape route? And how old was it anyway?
Halfway across the bridge, the AI spoke again, its voice sounding off from the walls themselves. "Reclaimers."
The group came to a halt where they were and turned back to the construct. Offensive Bias could not look at them since it's positioning on the dais oriented it towards the doors. However, as a new shock of vibrations rattled the chamber, the AI spoke clearly and plainly.
"Just so that you are made aware, I have selected some of you for my purposes. I pray that you will serve them well when the time comes."
Duncan felt a chill flow through his being at the ominous statement. Purposes? When the time comes?
No one got a chance to ask it what it meant. A new tremor shook the chamber. It was far different from the rest as it was followed by an explosion in the cave beyond the main doors. The sound of rubble and debris crashing down on the other side made it clear what was happening. As a debris cloud slowly rolled through the doors, beams of fresh sunlight filtered through the haze and into the chamber.
The plasma bombardment ceased.
"Move it!" The Staff ordered. "Troopers, double-time! Let's go!"
The recovery team broke into a sprint. Their charge of ONI personnel followed in haste. They pushed across the rest of the light bridge and stormed into the interior of the new passageway. Nearly there, Duncan peered back at the ancient AI just in time to see its three lights switch from an active blue to a dull red. The same 'YI' symbol from before flashed across what were essentially its eyes. Then the light changed to a final, dormant orange.
Around them, one row after the other of the glyphs on the far walls deactivated. The many stellar projections winked off. The chamber was returning to its original darkness.
The last of the recovery team ran into the passage. Duncan and the Staff held up on the safe side of the threshold. Before them, the bridge of light fizzled and faded out of existence. They were reassured that they wouldn't be followed as the entrance to their exit route began to close. Its doors unfolded themselves and proceeded to slide in on each other. They stepped back and out of the way.
Nearly closed off, the chamber was almost completely restored to the void. Only the sunlight coming through the main entrance and the three lights of the construct known as Offensive Bias kept the shadows at bay. Then those too were sealed from sight.
Oraculum - Oracle