Intervention: A Science Fiction Adventure

by J. W. Huemme

  Oh, man, is it ever hot here. Hot and dry, but mostly hot, he thought as he found a taxi to take him to a hotel. After he checked into a room, Christopher called the American embassy.

  “Sam Gray,” the voice on the other end said.

  “Sam? It’s Christopher Adams.”

  “Christopher, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m here in Cairo, and I need to get clearance to access the great pyramid. Can you help me out?”

  “That’s a tough one, but I have a friend who might just be able to help out. Let me talk to him and I’ll give you a call back.”

  “Great. I’m at the Hilton. I’ll wait for your call.”

  Christopher called down to room service and ordered some breakfast. He no sooner set the phone down, when it rang. “Hello?”

  “Christopher, Sam. I talked to my friend with the local government and was able to persuade him to allow you access to the pyramid. I had to call in a few favors, but you’re all set. I’ll have the necessary papers ready for you this afternoon. You can come by and pick them up any time after three o’clock.”

  “I can’t thank you enough Sam. I’ll see you around three.”

  After eating breakfast, Christopher thought he would spend some time in the local market place and get a feel for the local people. The market was a jungle of vendors and stands selling about everything you could imagine and some things you couldn’t. As Christopher walked along, many of the vendors tried to interest him in their wares. A neatly dressed American smelled like money to them. There was a noticeable lack of organization to the market place—sort of an anything-goes atmosphere. Yet he knew every square inch of space had been fought dearly for. One other thing he noticed was that it smelled bad. It was very hot. It was very dry. It was dirty, and most of all it smelled bad, really bad. This was all quite a change for Christopher, but the chance to finally have a try at unraveling the mysteries of the great pyramid would be worth it. He thought it was odd that it took a situation like Operation Down-size for him to take the time away to be in Egypt.

  After several hours of looking at hand-woven rugs, garments, trinkets, and some very unusual looking things that were supposed to be eatable, Christopher decided to return to the hotel and freshen up before going to the embassy. He found a taxi, and in no time at all was finding relief from the dry heat in the shower of his hotel room.

  It was a short trip to the American embassy. Inside the main entrance, Christopher told the guard, “I’m Christopher Adams. I’m here to see Sam Gray.”

  The guard looked at a clipboard. “Yes, Mr. Adams. He’s expecting you. One moment please.” The guard picked up the phone and announced Christopher. “Mr. Gray will be right down.”

  A moment later Sam appeared in the lobby. He shook Christopher’s hand and said, “Christopher, it’s good to see you. Let’s go to my office.” In Sam’s office, Sam continued. “I never expected to see you in this part of the world.” He reached into the top drawer of his desk, removing some papers. “I never would have thought you for the archeologist type. I thought you were only interested in codes and puzzles.”

  “I believe the pyramid to be nothing more than a great big puzzle, and I’d like to try to figure it out.”

  Sam looked at Christopher with a look of amazement. “That’s incredible. Well if it is, you’re the best person I know for the job. Here are the necessary papers giving you permission to enter the pyramid. You’ll have to take these to the Department of Antiquities. They control the key to the entrance. In other words, they will have to let you in. They’re located not far from here. If you hurry, you can get there before they close up for the day, and with any luck, you’ll be inside the pyramid tomorrow. If you need anything else while you’re here, just let me know.”

  Another short taxi ride and Christopher was at the Department of Antiquities. Inside he met with a scholarly old gentleman with a very strong accent. After looking over the papers Christopher had given him, he turned to Christopher saying, “Well Mr. Adams, you must have some very good friends in some very high places. You are not an archeologist. I know this because I know all the archeologists and I don’t know you. So tell me Mr. Adams, why is it you have gone to so much trouble to gain access to the great pyramid? To satisfy some childhood fantasy perhaps, or could it be that you believe you can show us experts something new, perhaps something we have overlooked? I assure you, Mr. Adams, there is nothing new to be found in the pyramid. Yet I see it in your eyes that you don’t believe me. No matter. Your papers are in order, so, we will let you in, but not until morning. Be at the entrance at dawn. I will have someone there to let you in.”

  “Thank you. In the morning then.”

  Christopher returned to his hotel room and started reviewing his hieroglyphics-to-English dictionaries. After several hours of review, feeling confident with his knowledge of the written language, Christopher opened a book showing the interior of the pyramid. A game plan was needed and in no time at all, he had one. He decided to start with a thorough examination of the grand gallery, an inclined shaft leading up into the heart of the pyramid, connecting the entrance to the highest point of the interior of the pyramid: the King’s Chamber. Then he would examine the King’s Chamber itself, including the small open room just above it. He would descend to the Queen’s Chamber beneath the King’s Chamber. Finally, he would descend to the very bottom of what is perhaps the least examined room in the base of the pyramid. This room was believed to be what was originally planned as the Queen’s Chamber, but it was never completed. A sudden change of plans is believed to be the reason. Feeling prepared as he could, Christopher settled in for a good night’s sleep.

  Christopher was up quite early, filled with anticipation. He tried his best to savor the morning shower he took knowing of the arid conditions that lay ahead of him. He wasted no time checking his gear, being sure everything was as it should be. Downstairs he took a taxi finding great pleasure in telling the driver, “The great pyramid, please.”

  The sun was beginning to peek over the horizon when the taxi stopped in front of the pyramid. Christopher paid the driver and looked around for anyone from the Department of Antiquities, but he saw no one. He walked over to where the entrance was cut into the rock so many years ago. Now protected by an iron gate with a secure lock to keep curiosity seekers and looters, who could take nothing but do potential damage, from gaining entrance.

  Christopher looked up toward the top. It seemed so much bigger standing right there. Like most people, he had seen pictures, but, when you’re standing right in front of it, the size is nothing short of overwhelming. He turned as he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. It pulled up to almost where he was standing. A small dark man got out and identified himself as being from the Department of Antiquities. He would unlock the gate to let Christopher in and then lock it behind him. He would return at the end of the day to let him out. Once inside the gate, the man turned on the power to the electric lights that had been installed many years ago, illuminating the interior of the grand gallery. The gate was closed and then locked; the man left.

  Christopher took a few steps into the mountain of stone and stopped. He looked around. Being inside the pyramid was a sensation you had to experience. No amount of imagination could prepare a visitor for the reality of actually being there.

  The electric lights did a good job of lighting up the interior. Christopher began his ascent of the grand gallery, slowly and carefully examining every inch of it as he went. He had studied photographs of the interior and was quite familiar with what he was seeing. After an hour and a half, he had worked his way up to the King’s Chamber. After digging out one of the bottles of water and drinking almost half of its contents, he began with a small access above the King’s Chamber left from the construction thousands of years ago. The small area was no more than a space left open beneath enormous granite beams that distributed the weight on the blocks of stone above.

  The King’s Chamber wasn’t much to lo
ok at. It was a room with two openings, possibly air shafts once used for astral alignment, and an empty granite sarcophagus. It was rectangular in shape and the size of a large coffin with no top. The walls noticeably lacked any hieroglyphics or carvings of any kind. The now empty, assuming it once wasn’t, sarcophagus was worn smooth from eons of hands touching and rubbing its once sharp edges and polished surface.

  A partial decent through the grand gallery brought him to another opening in the stone that led to the Queen’s Chamber. Again, slowly examining every inch for information along the way, Christopher worked his way into the Queen’s Chamber. Again, like the King’s Chamber, there was not much to indicate that this was once the resting of a royal. Again two small shafts disappeared into the stone, but unlike those in the King’s Chamber, they did not extend the entire length to the outside, but ended mysteriously. Stopping briefly, Christopher finished the contents of the first bottle of water, noticing the increased need his body had for water in this environment.

  Finishing his examination of the Queen’s Chamber, he retreated to the grand gallery and descended to a small corridor leading into the depths of the pyramid. It ended in a small unfinished room that looked as if the workers had abandoned it long before it was finished. He spent nearly an hour examining every inch of the room. After he was satisfied that he hadn’t missed anything, he sat on a piece of unfinished stone where workers no doubt once rested to catch their breath thousands of years ago.

  Christopher removed several food items from his backpack having decided lunch was long overdue. As he made a makeshift meal from some packets of freeze-dried food, he reviewed what he had seen. The first thing that came to mind was what he saw, or rather what he didn’t see, in the King’s Chamber. If the chamber had indeed been filled with riches long since removed by thieves, one thing was still missing: If a Pharaoh or King was buried inside the stone sarcophagus, it most certainly would have been covered with a massive stone cover or lid, undoubtedly made of the same granite as the sarcophagus. If tomb robbers had emptied the chamber of its treasures, they would not have bothered with a slab of stone. This would have been worthless to them, or at least not worth the effort of removing a stone slab weighing several tons. So where was it? Christopher believed it was never there in the first place. Also judging by its size and the limited access to the chamber, Christopher believed the sarcophagus would have been placed in the King’s Chamber during the time of its construction. Its lid would have also been placed there at that time.

  It just didn’t make sense. Something was missing. Christopher concluded that the King’s Chamber, as well as the Queen’s Chamber, was nothing more than an elaborate decoy, like how a magician’s right hand distracts you from what the left hand is doing. These known chambers and passages were meant to distract and mislead to draw your attention from the real purpose of this structure. Another thing he noticed was that the small chambers and narrow passageways didn’t account for the size of the massive structure. There was still enough room unaccounted for to hide a shopping mall and then some. No, the real purpose of this pyramid still lay hidden somewhere within the stones.

  He held the water bottle up high, taking a long drink of the liquid life it contained. As he lowered the water bottle, he noticed something about the stone in front of him that looked peculiar. It was almost as if the stone blocks were becoming lighter in color. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. They continued to grow lighter, and began to seem to turn transparent.

  I must be oxygen-deprived, he thought. Christopher had been inside the pyramid all day. No ventilation and the heat—that must be it. I must be hallucinating from lack of oxygen.

  Now he was able to see daylight as the stone blocks became hollow shapes, with a barely visible outline of their once solid shapes, where the stone blocks had been a few moments before. Christopher tried to bolt for the entrance where he could get oxygen, but he couldn’t move—not a muscle.

  Suddenly, he noticed the blocks directly in front of him were moving away from him. Not just those few blocks, but everything was moving away. Then he realized that he was what was moving. He was moving backward. How can this be? There was a solid rock behind him. But then he saw that the stone blocks, which made up the wall behind him, were now in front of him, or at least the faint outline of those blocks.

  After moving what seemed about thirty feet backwards through what was once solid blocks of stone, the stone began to return to its normal solidity. He found himself facing a flat, highly polished wall of stone blocks, not at all like the aged surfaces of what he had been looking at all day. The light was somehow different, too—softer and more even with no shadows.

  Christopher had no idea what had just happened, but he was more concerned with where he was. He turned around to see the rest of the room and stumbled backwards as his eyes beheld what was in this chamber with him: a large, about seventy feet around, saucer-shaped object with a convex top and bottom.

  As awestruck as he was, Christopher knew instantly it was not from this world. He rapidly overcame the shock and his ability to reason quickly returned to him. He noticed that the chamber was illuminated by a soft glow coming from the alien object. He glanced around the inside of the chamber itself and saw no openings, doors, or other means to enter or exit. The chamber appeared to be a perfectly shaped square, about a hundred feet or so, with the ceiling being about half its width and depth. Every inch was polished to a mirror-like finish. The only sound was his movement and breathing. He began to examine the object itself. It appeared to be made of a metallic substance of some sort, with an almost mirror-like finish. Looking beneath it, Christopher realized it was not resting on the floor, but rather hovered nearly a foot off the surface of the chamber floor. He walked completely around the object looking for anything at all, but found nothing. It was as smooth and seamless on one side as on the other. This was it, he realized—he had found the secret of the great pyramid, or maybe it had found him. If it had found him, then it was the object’s next move.

  Christopher walked around the object again and again looking for something that would give him a place to start. Nothing. Frustrated, he sat down on the floor with his back against the wall looking at this object—a perfection of geometry.

  “Christopher.” The soft gentle voice came from nowhere. He jumped to his feet, looking around frantically. There was no one else inside the chamber; he had looked around enough to know that for sure.

  “Hello?” Christopher responded.

  There was a moment of silence, then again. “Christopher?” He knew he wasn’t imagining the voice. It was really saying his name.

  “Yes?” he replied.

  “Christopher, welcome to your destiny.”

  “Who are you? Show yourself,” Christopher demanded.

  “You’re looking at me. I’m right in front of you.”

  Christopher looked around again. “Are you inside the metallic object in front of me?”

  “It would be more accurate to say, I am the object in front of you.”

  “Are you a living entity?”

  “No. I am what you would consider a computer.”

  “Like no computer I have ever seen,” Christopher said aloud to himself.

  “No, not like the limited, primitive computers as you know them, but a computer nonetheless. I am more of what you would think of as artificial intelligence. I was built, not born, if that helps.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “That’s a long story. Perhaps it might be best if you come inside and sit down to hear it. You would be far more comfortable.”

  “How do I get inside?”

  “The same way you entered this chamber. Please stand still.” Once again everything became transparent. He was pulled inside the object and, once safely inside, everything returned to a solid state.

  “How do you do that?” Christopher asked as he looked around at the interior of the craft.

  “It’s a dimensional shift. By shifting you, or an
ything else, partially into a void dimension, movement through objects in this dimension then becomes possible. This is how I am able to be inside the pyramid.”

  Christopher continued looking around. The interior of the craft looked as though it was a hollow shell. The surface was the same polished metal in appearance. The only noticeable difference was that the center of the floor where Christopher stood was flat, making it easier for him to stand.

  “Perhaps you would be more comfortable sitting,” the craft’s voice said. The shape of a chair rose up out of the floor. Its appearance started out as polished metal, but then it changed to leather and became a comfortable chair for Christopher to sit on. The color had even changed to a soft tan.

  “How can you do that?” Christopher said in amazement.

  “I am made up entirely of what you might think of as a programmable liquid metal. This material is controlled to a molecular level. It can be formed into anything you can imagine,” the craft explained.

  “This is amazing,” Christopher exclaimed as he sat in the chair. “It feels just like a regular leather chair.” At that moment the entire craft seemed to disappear and Christopher could see the inside of the chamber he had found the craft in.

  “I have made the entire inside of the craft into a view screen, enabling you to have a complete view outside,” the craft explained.

  “How did you come to be inside the pyramid?” Christopher asked.

  “Thousands of years ago during a mission of exploration and mapping of this galaxy, my creators realized the people of this planet were developing technology faster than they were gaining wisdom. They realized this was a combination that would someday lead to disaster. Unable to remain, they developed a plan in which they implanted several of the natives with a genetically altered DNA that would be passed down through the generations until, when remotely activated, the next offspring would possess the truly altered DNA giving that offspring capabilities far beyond those of their peers. It was felt that living among his own people as one of them would give better insight than monitoring could ever provide. I have monitored every broadcast since the very first radio broadcast. When the situation required, I activated the DNA in your mother and you, Christopher, are the result.”