Aberrant: The Long March - Chapter 1: First steps on the Road

[Andrew Murphy]

Randall ponders the information for a moment, "This complex predates man, at least homo sapiens, it's entirely possible we're looking at extra-terrestrial origins. As far as the missing star more than likely it was subject to stellar aging, either it went nova or burned out and is no undetectable as a brown dwarf or similar. I'll run some comparisons on current analysis of that sector of the sky and hopefully I can determine what happened."

[The White Rat]

Omar was stunned when he heard of the cave's age. He looked at the others and blanched. "If the star constellations tell us that the these caves are over 3 million years old, and humans didn't exist yet, then who lived here?"

"I agree with Randall about the anomalous star. It probably went supernova millions of years ago, and is no longer visible on today's star charts." Just then, another thought occurred to Omar, and he began to sweat at the revelation. "What if the person or persons, who made these caves, were from that exploded star?"

[Andrew Murphy]

Randall uses his wireless OpNet link and quickly access an online encyclopedic database, "It says here that modern humans are around 200-300 thousand years old. That puts this complex at least 10 times older than mankind.

"I think Omar could well be correct, it is possible that the peoples who builts this complex came from that star system. There have been many stars to burn out or go nova in thye past 3 millions years but this one is the most noticably conspicuous."

"It's no small wonder that somebody is willing to kill to cover this up. The big question is who are they and what do they know?"

[Isabel Mendoza]

"Government?" Isabel adds her input from an edge of the room, where she's still closely studying the technique used in the paintings, "maybe too big for any one government. Anyone with enough money who wants to keep the technology for themselves. Many people have money, and just about everyone has motive."

[Thoranon]

Marcus ponders things for a minute,"What about time travel?"

[Mr Fox]

Morgan looks to Carter, "Can you use that wireless connection of yours to look up info on time travel? I pretty sure science hasn't figured it out yet, but what about Novas? Are there any that could do that?"

[The White Rat]

"Time travel might certainly be a possibility. But if you could travel in time, why come here, and to 3 million years in our past?" Omar knew there was an answer, but he also knew that it would not be easy to find. "Well Marcus" Omar sighed, "It looks like finding the answers to one question, just lead to more questions."

He turns to the young female artist. "Isabel, I'm thinking Government...or Military. Either way, they see this place as a threat. We must be careful."

Omar sat on the floor and crossed his legs. He needed to think.

[Medianoche]

Estaban continues along Isabel's line of reasoning,

"Hiding this site wouldn't be that difficult until the early to mid-twentieth century, would it?"

After dusting out the dim cobwebs of his own incomplete high school education he adds,

"That would mean something with the global reach and power like the Catholic Church, the British Empire ... of the time, or the United Nations or whatever organization came before it."

"As to the importance of the site itself; isn't this close to were Dr. Leakey discovered 'Lucy' - the place were mankind started on its long road to homo sapien sapien ... or homo sapien novus?"

[Andrew Murphy]

Randall looks up from studying his computer, "Eh what's that?" He closes the laptop and sets it down on the table, "The league of nations came before the UN but that was still less than 100 years ago.

"I'll be honest I doubt it's a matter of long standing conspiracy to cover up the origins of man, just my thought, after all if it were the dig team would never have gotten this close to anything, they would have been denied access to the area and forced to dig elsewhere.

"No ... we're dealing with somethng recent, somebody found out about this and wanted to keep it quiet, I'd wager a corporation of some sort, the technology here is way ahead of our own and could provide a lot of information to a well funded study."

[Mr Fox]

Dr. Flowers smiles at Estaban, "In fact it's because of Lucy that our expedition was sent here. We were searching for early homnid remains. They've recently discovered even earlier homnids that date back even further than this cave complex. We were hoping to find such remains here in this area."

[Thoranon]

While everyone is do reasearch Marcus decides to look around some more. He bodymorphs into lightning and begins making trips in and out of the walls. At one point he stops dead,"Woah! What was that?" After another few seconds, "Ahhh! Well it would appear that the lights do need power of some sort. They just took some from me, but it would appear that they have a very long term battery life."

He ponders for another moment or two,"Oh yea, I think I know someone I can contact that will know if there are any recorded occurances of novas having time travel abilities." He then walks over to one of the laptops, morphs back into normal form and begin typing an email.

[Andrew Murphy]

"Indeed it looks like these fixtures act as some sort of capacitor capable of drawing energy from nearby EM sources.

We should isolate one to see how long it can glow off of a given charge, do we have any that have not lit yet?"

[Medianoche]

Estaban looks at his companions then shakes his head.

"What I don't get is the Why? of it all. Okay, so we have a site ... here, that dates back to the origin of homo sapien evolution. Why is so dangerous about that this site is discovered and dated back to that period of time? Why is it worth killing all these people? So maybe someone, or somebodies, tinkered with pre-human evolution. Is that so bad ... or am I still missing something really big that the rest of you see?"

Estaban sits down, puts his head in his hands, and runs his hands through his hair. He looks up a the group and asked again, "Why?"

[Mr Fox]

Morgan looks thoughtful as he answers, "I'd guess it's about the technology. They came and took the one bit of tech that was here, killed everyone that knew about it and closed up the site. That could be government or corporate. Either would want tech in advance of the rest of the world, and either would be willing to kill for something like this."

[The White Rat]

"If this is all about who has the technology, then why don't we advertise that we have such technology. We could say that we are willing to sell it. If it is about money and technology, they might decide to stop us. We can set a trap for them." Omar puffed his chest with pride, as he imagined pinning one of the killers to the ground until he gave up all the information.

"At least we will have taken the profit from their venture."

[Andrew Murphy]

"If we decide to use one of these lamps as bait we'd better be careful how we proceed. The people who did this will quickly find out that they missed something either from what the dig team took or from a room within this complex that they missed, that might lead them back here, a chance I'm not sure we should take.

"With the help of the Doctor though we could devise a false location to claim this artifact originated from, revealing a false second complex might be enough to draw out the purportrators."

[Mr Fox]

Morgan looked interested, "Hey, a second complex sounds interesting. We could definitely use that to draw them into a trap." He pauses for a second seeming thoughtful, "Speaking of complexes, how do we know there isn't a second complex or even a whole bunch of them? That's something that has been bugging me for days, why did those guys sweep in here grab the lights and not even take the time to study the place? Could it be that they've seen it all before somewhere?"

[The White Rat]

"Let them come! I will crush them!" Omar flexed his muscles, and began posing like a bodybuilder. "They will not be able to withstand the power of Ziggurat!"

Omar stopped, realizing that his companions might not appreciate his showmanship. "I suppose we should show some restraint." Omar said with a satisfied grin.

I will still smash them into paste, he thought to himself.

[Thoranon]

"How can we go about looking for other sites? I mean I can attempt to look around the gereral area walking through the ground but thst will only get us so far. Is there maybe something we could try and dig up on the net? Maybe similar art, or other dig cites abandoned?"

[Medianoche]

"As far as other sites are concerned, are there other sites of similar interest? Other sites that are known to be cradles of human development? If we can figure out what they were up to, or after, we can really narrow down the search areas."

[Mr Fox]

Morgan looked around at the others, "Well, I supose you could look on the internet and search for recently discovered sites, or search for similar artwork. Dr. Flowers might be able to check with her collegues to see if they've heard any rumors."

Dr. Flowers cleared her throat, "Hmm. Talking to my friends in the field could be problematic since the bad guys think I'm dead, but there are one or two that I could ask that I trust." She begins to dial her cellphone as she walks from the room.

[Andrew Murphy]

"Hold up Doc," Randall shakes his head, "You guys are hearing me but not listening, I'm not saying we actually FIND another site like this, we just need to bluff our way through it.

"If we show that we have the item we can claim that we found a similar site and know nothing about this site. It will draw in the people who did this without revealing our whereabouts or that the complex they raided had more going on than they saw."

[The White Rat]

Omar listened to the others, as they each put forth their opinions, and then spoke. "I was proposing a ruse as well." Nodding to Randall, then addressing the group. "We don't actually have to have a real site, just make THEM think we do. All we need is a place where we can ambush them."

[Mr Fox]

Realization dawned on Morgan and he smiled, "I like that. Sounds like a good plan. Where do we wanna set up this ambush? Should problaby use a cave somewhere to be believable." He grins maliciously, "There's some poetic justice in that."

After a minute he continues thoughtfully, "Still wouldn't hurt to search for other sites though. I think they must have seen someplace like this before to have show so little regard for this one."

[Mr Fox]

As you are standing around talking Carter's computer beeps repeatedly. There is a flashing message on screen reading:

NEWS ITEM MEETING SPECIFIED CRITERIA

Hit F5 to display item.

[Andrew Murphy]

"While it wouldn't hurt I think we should probably focus our attention on one thing at a time no? I will act as the seller for the object, I'm the least likely to be connected in any way back to the doctor and the dig site here. Hopefully they will nto see the trap before it is sprung. I can contact ..."

Randall turns to the computer, "Eh what's this?" he hits F5 and quickly scans the text on the computer.

[Mr Fox]

Houston Chronicle

Explosion at Lab:

"A local building today suffered major damage when one of it's R&D labs exploded shattering windows in a three block radius. Amazingly, only three lives were lost and five were injured, despite what appears to be several million in damages..."

The news article continues giving details about the explosion and those injured.

[Isabel Mendoza]

Isabel peeks at the computer screen from behind Carter, "Oh dear, is that our people again? Who died?"

[The White Rat]

"R&D...Is that research and develpoement? If it is, it could be the facility where they took the stuff from here? If not, then the killers have more blood on their hands." Omar was getting more agitated, and his voice began to rise. "May God have mercy on their souls!"

[Andrew Murphy]

Randall gives Omar a wry look, "Or perhaps it is comepletly unrelated? I'm not dismissing that there could be a connection but we shouldn't immediately assume that one exists without further eveidence."

[The White Rat]

"I think we should look into finding other caves. I can ask some friends and family back home, if they have heard of anything strange. Since Mesopotamia was the birthplace of humanity, there might be some other caves in that area. "

"After we have finished searching for the caves, and if we still don't know who these evil people are, we can set up our trap."

Omar crossed his arms and waited for the rest to opine.

[Thoranon]

"I'm good with trying to find more caves. Let's give that a shot."

[Mr Fox]

A week and a half go by, while you search the opnet, and question various trustworthy sciencetypes of your aquaintence. You hear several rumors of a cave that was discovered a couple years ago in Egypt that has been kept from the public by the Egyptian antiquities office. The only really unusual thing about it is that no pictures at all have leaked to the public or even to the scientific community, which has several leading archeologists up in arms. The antiquities office claims that it will not allow the chamber to be opened because of fear of damage to the Sphinx which sits over the top of the chamber.

Meanwhile, there have been explosions or fires at the R&D labs of three other companies. The similarity is that the labs were total losses, with a minimum of life lost. Also, apart from claiming on insurance, none of the companies has asked for any assistence from law enforcement or Utopia.

[The White Rat]

"Someone needs to look into the bombings. I'll head to Egypt and look into the cave there. I speak Arabic and have some influence in the region. Who wants to go with me?"

[Mr Fox]

Morgan speaks up, "I will go with you so that I can warp us into the chamber once it is located. I'd suggest either Marcus or Estaban as well since they can go through walls. Hopefully we won't need to deal with the government, since we can go where normal people can't and have no need to dig or excavate to get to the chamber. In fact I'd suggest we do it without asking permission. I'll open a warp right between the paws of the sphinx and then one of the two gentlemen that can walk through walls can go exploring. When they have found it I'll open a warp to let the rest of us in. Omar, if anyone discovers what we're doing you can try and talk our way out."

He smiles, "So do we split up and half go to the chamber and half investigate the explosions, or do we do the one then do the other as a group?"

[Thoranon]

"It's probably safer if we stick together or at least only have one group out at a time. Either way I'm good to go."

[Isabel Mendoza]

Isabel steps back somewhat and looks over to her brother when the decision-making starts. She doesn't say anything, but the slightly nervous glance is a question, what do we do?, and a request for him to speak and reach a decision.

[Omar]

"I suppose we all could go, but I think that a larger group will attract more attention. We could send three to Egypt, where two can pose as tourists, while the third looks through the cave complex. Once inside, we can all warp there without the authorities seeing. They are not kind to people who break the laws...They will...torture you...." Omar looks a little nervous at the end of his statement, but soon shakes it off, leaving only a stern look on his face.

"Believe me, you don't want to be tortured." Omar pulls up his shirt to show the scars on his back.

[Mr Fox]

Morgan winces at the site of the scars. "My friend, it will not come to that. We can go now, this minute. It is dark there and between the paws of the Sphinx we will not be noticed. I can set us all right up against the legs, no one will see unless someone is standing there when we emerge. I'm sure you can take care of that if necessary."

[Medianoche]

Estaban thinks for a few seconds, glancing over to his sister before speaking.

"We should stick together. The main reason to split up is that we can cover more ground, but since we can cover ground instantly when needed, we are safer sticking together. Whomever we seem to be up against move quickly and without much of a trace. Its too likely that half the team would be in trouble over our heads before we could even think about calling for help."

Estaban shakes his head.

"Of course, sticking together is also the course of action most likely to keep them from acting against us. Still, I would rather we be around to live from our mistakes instead of dying from them."

"We check out the chamber and the Antiquities Ministry first then find out what those labs were working on. It looks like we are going to start seriously bending some laws too, so anyone who wants out should speak up now. From here on out, I think this is what qualifies as a criminal conspiracy ... breaking and entering, trespass, and most likely a few judicious threats to get people to tell us what they know."