At dawn, Jace stood again before the inner vault door, lantern in one hand, jaw tight.
The previous night had given him no rest. The desert was too quiet. Too expectant.
Beside him, Brian tapped frantically at his tablet, running diagnostics on the alien control panel. Elsbeth sat nearby on a folding stool, squinting at a hastily sketched replica of the door's script, cross-referencing it with every known language database they could pirate from the university archives.
"It's not a cipher," she muttered. "It's a constructed language. Every symbol's built off a base root, and they combine phonetically—maybe even mathematically."
"Meaning?" Jace asked.
"Meaning we're not looking at tribal markings or some cult's graffiti," she replied. "This is systematic. Designed for translation. Someone—or something—wanted this to be read."
"Assuming they also wanted the door to be opened," Brian muttered nervously. "Which I'm not so sure about."
Jace stepped back, eyeing the vault's thick seal.
"No visible bolts. No hinges. Just another panel. Any progress?"
Brian sighed. "Every time we pulse power into this control array, it flickers like it's receiving something... then dies. It's like the internal battery is dead and the circuits are waiting for a proper reboot."
"Then we give it one," Jace said, reaching for the portable fusion core they'd hauled in.
He connected two thick cables to the generator's terminals and nodded to Brian.
"Hit it."
Brian toggled the switch.
The hum was immediate—and louder. The panel sparked. A low-frequency tone vibrated through the chamber, too deep to be heard, but felt in the bones.
The door glowed.
Not from a light fixture or a screen—no, the material itself began to emit a soft, cold light, the color of faded ice and static. Then, in the center of the panel, one of the symbols began to change.
It rotated.
"Whoa," Elsbeth whispered. "That's... not just writing. That's a command interface."
Another symbol lit up. Then another. The entire panel activated like a puzzle awaiting a solution.
Brian stared. "It's asking us something."
"No," Elsbeth said slowly. "It's testing us."
The glowing symbols flickered in sequence—two long, one short, one repeating.
"It's a pattern!" Brian said. "It's... it's like a response code. Maybe if we mimic the rhythm..."
He tapped the pad, replicating the flicker manually.
The chamber went dead silent.
Then, with a seismic thud, the door clicked. Not a dramatic swing or opening—just a change in tension. Something behind it had been unlocked.
Before anyone could speak, a new sound filled the antechamber: a low hiss, like air being drawn inward through ancient filters.
The door didn't open.
But something else did.
A vertical slit in the wall behind them widened with a hiss—and a hidden passage was revealed, leading down. Cool, dry air rushed upward. Dust danced in the shaft's glow. Stairs led into darkness.
"Well," said Jace after a moment. "That's one way to be invited in."
Back at the surface camp, Hutch was pacing outside the tents when his comm chirped.
"Yes, Mr. Charles," he said stiffly. "They got the inner chamber lit up. One of the doors responded to a code sequence. Greaves is leading the effort."
He paused, listening.
"No, sir. No resistance from him. Yet."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Yes, I understand. We'll extract what we can from the vault—then bury it again."
Miles away, in the Marshland precinct, Elena Pryce stood beside a high-resolution holo-map of the western desert.
She tapped the location Jace had sent, frowning.
"Disappeared off official satellite feeds two years ago," she muttered. "Covered up with camouflage nets and false topography."
Senior Constable Pye leaned over her shoulder. "You thinking government blacksite?"
"No," Elena said. "This isn't Imperial."
She looked at the blinking signal from Jace's tracker.
"It's older. And it's not supposed to be found."
She checked her sidearm and locked her terminal.
"Pye, you're in charge until I return. I'm going out there."
Pye blinked. "Out where?"
"To see if the scum mechanic who's too charming for his own good," Elena said, grabbing her field coat, "has just opened something we'll all regret."