Beneath the Red Sand

21 || Chapter Twenty-One

Dawn's feeble rays light our way as we gather at the excavation site. My muscles burn, but I'm flooded with energy and raring to go. Mr. Gryffin assigns several teams to help me and Noah excavate what I like to call the grotto. We spend backbreaking hours of satisfying labor. By the end of the day, we have managed to uncover about a quarter of the building. The grotto measures roughly twelve square feet, and we have to dig another three feet to reach the floor, all of it made of that strange material that flows with liquid, like ocean waves inside. A survey drone hovers over this site to confirm how deep the structure goes. By the time we cover the site with a tarp to protect it from the elements, my limbs are shaky, but I'm not so tired I want to collapse.

Back inside the habitat, I peel off my sweaty spacesuit and dump it in my locker. A hiss of steam sanitizes the contents of my locker, suit, boots, and all, once I slam the door shut. As I pass along a wide corridor leading back to the atrium, I peer into the research lab through the glass partition to my left. Fragments of pottery adorn chrome shelves mounted to one wall. Some of the pieces have been restored to their original form, their decorative symbols painted in vibrant hues. The lab is a state-of-the-art facility that boasts a scientist's dream setup of computers, equipment, and delicate tools lining a bank of storage shelves along an entire wall. 

I recognize one of the workers as a woman who hadn't made the excavation team. She drizzles a liquid over the pot I unearthed yesterday, and a pearly mist rises from it, leaving a clear glaze over the clay. Other researchers, about ten in all stationed around the lab at their centers, run various tests and analyses on the collection of artifacts the team brought them today.I recognize one of the workers as a woman who hadn't made the excavation team. She drizzles a liquid over the pot I unearthed yesterday, and a pearly mist rises from it, leaving a clear glaze over the clay. Other researchers, about ten in all stationed around the lab at their centers, run various tests and analyses on the collection of artifacts the team brought them today.

Slipping into the lab, I observe their work with wide eyes, mesmerized by their calm, clinical efficiency. What secrets have they uncovered? On the computer screen nearest me, data scrolls, and I squint as I try and fail to make sense of it. A single word stands out among the gibberish onscreen -- guardian.

One worker glances up from her task and frowns at me. "Hey! What are you doing here? If you're just going to stand around gawking, move along, and don't mess anything up."

All work pauses. Heart thrumming, I back out of the doorway to avoid being caught in that room by anyone else. I'm not sure I'm even allowed in their section.

The walk back to the apartment is easy today, and after my shower, I get back on the computer to research some of the symbols that keep cropping up everywhere. Maybe a new textbook would have more information, but a search through at least three other tomes proves fruitless. Again I have no luck identifying the symbols. I know they're not hieroglyphics, and so far I can't seem to find any other picture-based languages this could be based on. For all I know, it might not even be a language. When I'm so tired my eyelids won't stay open, I abandon my research for the evening.

I send quick notes to tell Anna and Ben all about my adventures, even about the cave-in simulation that turned way too real. I'm already having to keep so much from them, I can't hide this, too, even though my almost death will worry them. Oh, I can hear Anna now: "'You suffocated during training and came within seconds of death? Why are you going out there still? Tell me you're not suicidal from missing us too much.'" At least she'll be excited about our trip to the pyramids. She's one of those people who always believed they were built by aliens, not some natural formation. Maybe because we've grown up with talk of Mars, she's always been fascinated with the alien connection.