At the center of the massive city was a flat expanse. At the center of the expanse was a widening gap, as two flat doors opened and exposed their insides to the sky. Inside, Eddy saw what looked like a radio telescope. It looked different, fancier, like the Lamborghini of radio telescopes, but the basic design was the same. The doors clunked to a stop, but nothing else happened. The transmitter was dormant, waiting to be activated. Eddy was sure that was where they needed to go. They just need to find a way there.
“Hey, guys…”
Eddy turned toward Steve’s voice. He was standing with Kevin and Norwood on the mesh walkway. All three were looking at some sort of device embedded in the tower wall.
“I think this is a door,” Steve said.
Eddy walked behind Steve and saw a faint line in the wall, like the scratch of a razor blade. It was in the general shape of a door. The device next to the door looked like an inverted sculpture of a human face. The material inside glowed like sea-glass.
“I don’t see a door handle,” Norwood said.
“Try pushing it in,” Eve said.
Norwood, Eddy and Steve set to pushing at the door, while Kevin inspected the strange device off to the side.
Steve grunted with effort. “Don’t just stand there, Buck, give us a hand.”
Kevin waved him off and continued inspecting the inverted face.
Eve looked down and her face went slack. She rammed the door and pushed with the men. They all looked at her with questioning eyes.
“Our friends are back,” she said.
Everyone looked down to see all four Ferox, in full bestial form, bounding up the side of the tower like rabid mutant squirrels. Everyone pushed harder, but the door did not budge.
Kevin looked at the pushing group. It was apparent that even with his help, the door was going nowhere. It occurred to him that the door had no hinges. It must slide open, he thought, like the doors in Star Trek. But how to open them? He looked down and saw the Ferox approaching. He could hear their breath, their growls of bloodlust. The team was running out of time.
Without another thought, Kevin placed his face into the depression and felt warm energy tickle his face. Through his closed eyes, he could saw bright white light move up and down, from forehead to chin and back again. The door whooshed open and Eddy, Eve, Norwood and Steve fell inside. Kevin stood in the doorway with a smile.
Steve was flustered. “How the hell did that happen?”
“Every door has a lock,” Kevin said. “I just figured that in this case, the most logical choice for a key would be the human body.”
Steve stood up and looked down, out the door. The Ferox were within twenty feet and closing fast. “That’s great, Buck, really it is, but can you figure out some way to close the door?”
“Stand away from the door,” Kevin said.
Everyone moved back as Kevin placed his face into a device just like the one outside that had unlocked and opened the door. Whoosh! The door slammed shut.
Steve walked to the door, sighing with relief. “I think this should hold them off.” Steve tapped on the door twice with his knuckle.
Tink. Tink.
Whum!
The door was hammered from the outside. Steve fell back with a shout. The door was hit again and again, followed by muffled roars from the outside. The group backed away from the door and found themselves confined in a small cylindrical room, like the inside of a soda can. The only light came from a glowing golden circle on the wall opposite the door.
Steve turned to Kevin. “Okay, Buck. You’re the sci-fi genius here. You got the door open. How do we get out of this room?”
“I have no idea,” Kevin said with a shrug.
“How about we push the yellow button with an arrow pointing down?” Eddy said. Without waiting for an answer, Eddy pushed the button, which was at waist level directly across from the doorway.
Like a theme park ride, the floor beneath them shot down so fast that their feet left its surface for a moment. But soon they were safe, rocketing down the dark tunnel into an alien citadel. Eddy’s stomach twisted as the descent continued. At least they were moving away from the Ferox, who continued their assault on the outer door. A roar, muffled by the door, echoed off the obsidian walls that surrounded them. Eddy felt like he was being swallowed by a fiery dragon. He only hoped the belly of the beast they were descending into would be more hospitable than the frozen wasteland outside.
26
THE CITADEL
The ceiling rose fifty feet above them to an arched point. Columns ran from floor to ceiling every ten feet like ribs, and in between each column was a window forty feet tall, which let the bright blue sky fill the hallway with daylight. The floor was tiled in varying shades of red and the walls and ceiling were constructed from a deep maroon metal. Eddy felt as though he were walking through the veins and sinews of some massive creature.
They had been walking for almost ten minutes, passing from hallway to hallway. They came across a series of compartments that looked like barracks, with row after row of enormous metal beds, ten feet tall and thirty feet long—the beds of giants. Pressing forward, they continued on a course that Eddy hoped might take them toward the transmitter he saw from the top of the tower.
At the end of the hallway, which Eddy believed was at least the twentieth of its kind they had tried, was something they hadn’t yet seen within the confines of the massive citadel: double doors with actual handles. But these were no ordinary doors; they spanned the entire distance between floor and ceiling, fifty feet tall. The handles, if that’s what they were, looked to be six feet wide. The doors were a deep yellow and played in beautiful contrast to the ruddy walls. Eddy found it curious that a structure he believed served as a transmitting station was as massive and elaborately designed as a royal palace. The team stopped ten feet from the tall doors.
“Anybody got a ladder?” Steve asked. “I don’t think we can reach those handles.”
Everyone looked up at the large handles floating ten feet above their heads.
“I’m starting to think,” Eve said, “that this place wasn’t designed with just humans in mind.”
“I would have to concur,” Norwood added. “It’s possible that this structure is a kind of prefab dwelling created with a myriad of different corporeal species in mind. It could accommodate humans and a variety of other species.”
“I have a different theory,” Kevin said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
Everyone turned to Kevin. He stood next to another inverted face key, frequent among the many doorways.
“Let’s hear it,” Eddy said.
“Did you happen to notice what surrounded this structure?”
Everyone glanced at each other like clueless kids in a history class. Steve raised his hand.
“You don’t need to raise your hand, Steve,” Eve said with a snicker.
“Just being polite… Ah, walls. There was a pretty tall and thick wall that ran around the entire city.”
“Bingo.”
Steve stuck his tongue out at Eve.
“The only things out of place are these key mechanisms shaped like human faces. They look like they were installed after this structure was built. Their coloration is off and the materials they’re built from are different from the walls. This structure wasn’t built for human occupation; it’s been modified so that human beings could open doors. The rooms full of gigantic beds and these enormous doors…it all leads to two conclusions.”
Kevin looked into everyone’s eyes, one at a time, making sure he had their attention. “This is a base, built for creatures much larger than human beings.”
“And?”
“A base implies occupation,” Kevin said then paused, letting the implications sink in. “If the Aeros return to rid our world of the Ferox, which I believe such an advanced race could accomplish from orbit, why do they have a heavily fortified base of operations placed in a region of the globe that is 100 percent inhospitable t
o human beings?”
Kevin scanned their eyes. “They don’t plan on leaving.”
Norwood scratched his head.
“So you’re saying the Aeros are just as bad as the Ferox?” Eddy said.
“No. I’m just saying it’s a possibility…that the layout of this structure implies certain things that I find unsettling.”
“What do you think we should do?” Eddy asked.
“At this point, I don’t see that we have much choice. We know the Ferox are attempting to infiltrate the citadel. Maybe they have already. If we don’t get help soon, we’re all going to die in here. We should keep moving.”
The men jumped as the doors rumbled to life. They stepped back as the golden door swung in, revealing a massive domed amphitheater. Eve took her face from the facial-key. “Let’s stop jabbering then, and get a move on.” She walked through the doors backward, without looking where she was headed. “And people think women talk a—”
Eve had turned around enough to see the new room and take in its massive size. She stopped walking and looked up at the ceiling, hundreds of feet above. “Oh…my…God.”
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
Standing at five hundred feet tall and more than three football fields in diameter, the alien amphitheater was a marvel of engineering and staggering ingenuity. Eve imagined that architects could spend a lifetime studying the internal support structures for such a creation. But the size of the place wasn’t what was most striking. It was the domed ceiling that was separated into six sections, each a massive, arced triangle. And within each section was a magnificent mural that put the Sistine Chapel to shame. It would have taken Michelangelo and his assistants a thousand years to complete the images on the roof of the dome.
Eve couldn’t make out the medium. It held the brilliance of fresh paint, but it was not paint. The images were so vivid that they were almost three dimensional, as though she could reach out and touch an alien civilization. Knowing they were still being pursued by creatures who’d like nothing better than to feast on their entrails, Eve lingered on each image for only a short period of time.
She saw images of a civilization. In the background was a city that looked much like the citadel they were now making their way through. Lounging around the city were thousands of creatures, whose true form she couldn’t make out from the mass of individuals. She skipped ahead. The next image was much the same, only it had a darkness to it that she couldn’t quite capture. The next image showed one creature becoming two: one she had never seen before, large and flowing…but she couldn’t keep her eyes on that creature because the second held her attention—a Ferox.
She scanned the next images that depicted a war, an end to a war and a single image of the new alien creatures standing on top of what looked like planets. Eve was about to further scrutinize the images when her train of thought was interrupted.
“You guys getting any bad vibes about this place?” Steve asked.
Eve blinked and looked away from the ceiling. “It’s beautiful.”
“Depends on your definition of beauty,” Steve said.
Eve raised her eyebrow and looked at Steve.
He smiled. “C’mon, Eve, use that feminine intuition and tell me what you see, aside from the pretty pictures.”
Kevin, Norwood and Eddy had been listening to the conversation and at Steve’s insistence to Eve that she look at something other than the ceiling, they all looked down. Kevin’s eyes went wide. “Whoa.”
Eve looked out at the amphitheater and took it in, looking for whatever it was Steve had found. At the center was a large flat surface, like marble. Its single varying features were what looked like drainage grates in the floor. Surrounding the oval floor were a series of massive barred gates built into massive walls, three smaller gates on each of the long sides and two very tall doors, perhaps fifty feet tall on the ends. Above the walls were row after row of seats like oversized bleachers, though plush and more comfortable looking. Then she noticed something else—the place smelled new, sterile, as though it had never been used—as though it were waiting to be filled by an expectant audience ready to watch some kind of spectacle taking place in the arena below.
Steve grew impatient as Eve looked the amphitheater over. “Let me give you a hint,” Steve said, as he held out a clenched fist. He extended his thumb, which he then turned down.
Eve’s eyes locked on Steve’s fist. “Gladiators?”
“Or something like it,” Kevin said. “Those grates in the floor suggest that some kind of liquid is being drained from the floor and those barred gates don’t look very friendly.”
“But this is an advanced civilization,” Eve said.
“People said the same thing about the Romans,” Norwood added.
“I think it’s safe to say,” Eddy started, “that there is more to the Aeros than we expected. But these are alien creatures. We can’t make any judgments based on assumptions. This whole place could be a giant swimming pool where they hold synchronized swimming matches, for all we know. The one thing we do know for sure is that the Ferox want us dead. I suggest we speculate later, if we live.”
Eddy started the long trek around the alien coliseum and Eve walked with him. Everyone else followed close behind. “Eddy,” she said. “What if Steve’s right?”
“Sporting events similar to gladiatorial battles still happen today,” Eddy said. “Even in our modern society. Bullfights in Spain, cowboy rodeos in the south, even cock fighting in Mexico are basically the same as the original gladiator matches. Animal versus animal. Man versus beast. Most societies on Earth have their own form of entertainment where life and death hangs in the balance.”
“Even still,” Eve said, “you can’t deny that what we’ve seen since entering this…fortress is slighting disconcerting.”
Eddy looked into Eve’s eyes. “Actually, I find everything that’s happened in the last three days extremely disconcerting. But I have yet to see an alternative. If the Aeros hold gladiatorial matches where one of them battles an animal, or maybe even a Ferox, fine. Far be it from me to judge an alien civilization.”
“Could it be that the amazing Eddy Moore is missing the obvious?” Eve smiled at Eddy.
Eddy returned the smile and put his arm around Eve, pulling her close to him and squeezing her tight. “When this is all over, remind me to ask you on a date.”
Eve’s face flushed red, but she staved off the urge to act like a giddy little girl. He was probably joking, anyway. She was sure of it. Eddy had said that before, using it as a defensive weapon whenever she brought up a difficult subject. Eve pushed him away. “That’s not going to work this time.”
“What?”
“You’re trying to get my hopes up, thinking it will distract me.”
Eddy glanced at Eve. She caught the nervousness in his voice. “Get your hopes up?”
“Yes. You say that, thinking I’ll get all giddy and stupid because the man I love has finally asked me out, then you shut me out again.”
Eddy stopped in his tracks. His face fell flat. He looked sick, like he might throw up. “Say that one more time.”
Eve ran through the sentence, looking for what had made Eddy react so strongly. When she heard the words inside her own head, she reacted just as strongly. But this wasn’t the right time. This wasn’t the right place. Standing on the cusp of some kind of alien coliseum while running from savage creatures was not how Eve had envisioned telling him how she felt. She decided to play it cool.
“See?” Eve said. “Two can play the distraction game.”
Eddy’s face relaxed.
Was he relieved?
Eve pushed on. This was a subject for another time and place. “Tell me what you’re afraid to say out loud,” Eve said, knowing it would put Eddy in an awkward situation. Was she talking about love or aliens? Even she wasn’t sure.
Eddy rolled his neck on his shoulders and ran his fingers through his wavy black hair. Steve, Norwood and Kevin stopped next to Eddy
. “What’s up?” Steve said.
“Eve was just making a valid point,” Eddy said.
“I did?”
“You are right about everything.”
“I was?”
Eddy nodded. “About what I didn’t want to say…”
Eve felt a knot in her stomach; twisting, tightening. Having this nervousness right now is ridiculous, Eve thought. This whole thing was silly. She had forced Eddy’s hand, and now she would regret it. She’d be embarrassed in front of the others and would be reduced to a blubbering emotional woman in their eyes. Still, she waited to hear his voice.
“What if the combatants of this arena are human?” Eddy asked. He raised an eyebrow at Eve, smiled, and walked on. The others followed him, discussing the possibilities of human combat in an alien arena, but she ignored most of it. She replayed Eddy’s words in her mind.
Valid point…
Right about everything…
Everything including what? Eve’s mind demanded to know.
Everything!
Eddy knew what she was really talking about. She had said the word.
Love.
Everything included love.
Eve ran to catch up with the others as they neared a new set of doors with an inverted human face next to it, but somehow her feet felt lighter and the concerns of the past few days seemed less painful. She had found love, and it was the most precious discovery of her career. Maybe.
27
STRATEGY
After leaving the coliseum, they stumbled upon a room that was different from all the rest for two reasons: first, its door was human-sized, and second, the door was open. At the center of the room was a circular console built from emerald-colored steel. The only lighting in the room shone red from the floor along the curved walls. Eddy crept toward the console as the rest of the crew followed him into the room.
The surface of the green console was etched with intricate designs of wavy lines, just like the outer walls of the citadel buildings. Eddy searched the console for a screen or some kind of interface, but all he found was an imprint of a human hand. It was much like the inverted human faces they had used along the way—illuminated green glass, but the light from within was pulsating, beckoning.
Raising the Past Page 24