AWAKEN - HUMANITY: Book One

Chapter Thirteen: Alarm

The group of three had now become a group of seven, they all stood together, Captain West having quickly introducing his team to the others. They moved as a collective, the ground rumbling beneath their feet as they rounded a sharp corner stopping by a small entrance where a light blue glow kissed the edges of the rocks that formed the archway leading inside.

A body, male, young with eyes wide open lay on his back, Craig stepped over and awkwardly kneeled down at the body, pulling a small mobile phone sized card from his utility belt on his suit, pulled a small wire from within it attaching the small suction pad to the wrist.

The Doctor nodded inside his helmet. "As I thought, dead, heart failure and high levels of radiation." He gently touched the face turning it away from him, staring at the red burns to the skin. "Looks like intense radiation burns, whatever that blue light is its giving out lethal high doses." With his gloved fingers he closed the dead man's eyes.

A sound...like a slow rhythmic beating heart began to echo from within the cave, the light starting to pulsate with the sound. Captain Carmichael turned to look at Captain West who turned to Samantha.

Safron moved forward. "My sensors are reading high level of radiation activity inside."

Samantha moved alongside the android, "then we had better go and turn it off." She went to walk towards the entrance.

Captain Cade put his hand out and stopped her. "Wait a minute we don't know what is in there."

Samantha turned to Captain Carmichael, "but you do."

The female Captain nodded.

Captain Carmichael and Samantha slowly entered the cave entrance, quickly bathed in a pale blue light, Captain Cade and the rest of the team reluctantly waited outside.

Inside they stepped through a small archway covered with leaves, moss and idle branches, until they reached the main opening. It was a deceptive cave, outside it looked small but inside it seemed huge, as wide as it was tall. A circular space. Stalactites hung from the ceiling in various lengths and sizes and the walls were covered with a metallic silver finish, like a spray paint that glistened depending on how the light caught it. The floor was solid, smooth and covered in age old dust.

A body, lay still propped against one of the wall units, his face blistered and red, eyes wide open staring into space, arms resting loosely at his side. Samantha turned away in horror as the Captain moved past her and knelt down next to the officer. She recognised him straight away, one of the scientists, a promising young man who had his whole life ahead of him. She carefully closed his eyes.

A series of grey cabinets at waist height and a foot deep ran around the entire cave, the odd sections had wall units attached stretching upwards with switches and lights of various colours constantly turning on and off in a sequence. Some had graphical displays showing different levels of green or in some cases orange or yellow, whilst others had etched diagrams showing futuristic designs.

A flickering silhouette caught Samantha's attention, she turned to look but nothing was there, she frowned inside her helmet, did she see something? She shook her head thinking her mind was playing tricks, that and the blue light casting weird shadows.

In the centre of the cave was a large silver metal cylinder from floor to ceiling completely solid, at the middle section of the structure a set of three thick dark metal rings, each as thick as a hand, at its base were white and black pipes running to a cabinet attached to the cave wall. A console, angled downwards from waist height was attached to it with a bank of controls, lights and displays all frequently flashing, the graphs flowing up and down.