Their intelligence was less than they had thought and they were barely human, and only tried to kill or scare them, and Bryson rushed over to one and threw it on the ground and took his sword and shield, and he used it to get another zombie’s sword and shield that he gave to Merton.
They soon stopped them, and moved sideways over towards the route, where Bryson was sure they could not go.
Later Bryson started to realize that they were wearing things of the future and that the swords were not made by ancient craftsmen but future technology, and he was sure that they had been created by the starship to scare outsiders away at sometime, and Bryson was astounded when he saw an immaculate woman with long shiny golden hair appear, who was not like the rest, who seemed not to be a zombie, which he remained unsure of, and he saw her giving commands to many of them.
While they were moving away from them the fog thinned more and more and Bryson saw the route that they had followed the killer on, and they rushed over to it as fast as they could, and when they arrived there they all rested and waited for the outcome.
It was like being in someone else’s nightmare and Bryson started to get annoyed over his avoidance of doing anything to stop them not taking the same route back to the castle, and when he turned he saw an immense shadow spread through an area of the fog, where sounds exploded out!
They were breathless and they all stared blankly, and the dark shape shifting through the mist.
It was like a phantom oasis out on the edge of realism, with the things charging out of the depths of hell!
The mist and everything started vanishing and he watched the woman warrior as she left and wondered who she was, and knew she had been a famous queen, and he saw a colossal ghost demon shape floating through the last of the mist, before it vanished.
Chapter 24
The Exploration
When Bryson arrived at the center of the castle he was amazed at the activity and equipment in the room at the central tunnel, and they were amazed at how positive he was that it was the ultimate time traveler buried there.
The scientists were still adjusting and setting up equipment all about the region around the tunnel, and by their descriptions he knew that their technology had gone beyond anything that they had seen, which was immense and powerful, and the power supply there had been increased immensely with large cables being fed into there from massive generators that they had fitted there.
He had not even been able to get near Mortimer, who was now an advisor on things!
Most of them had so much work that many of them had not slept in a long time!
The Parker’s scientists had full control of the situation, and they clearly knew the equipment far better than any of them.
Their mission there seemed to be like a death or glory scenario. He was sure that they really wanted answers to what was there! And to make contact with it! Their interest in the alien there was tremendous and far more than he had thought! They were also checking out the tunnel up at the castle tower, and where the steps had collapsed and they were lowering cameras and equipment on ropes to the bottom.
There was still much confusion and variation on what they thought was there, and they could only really investigate things as far as he was concerned.
One of the pilots arrived and was escorted around places by Merton and he occasionally gave gasps at what Merton suggested they were doing, and had the look of someone considering finding a hidden place when the action began.
The killer and deaths there surprised them and he told them what had happened, and what the castle was and they all listened in amazement!
The pilot then told him what had happened when they had left to go on the expedition to find the structure, and while they had been sleeping their camp had been attacked by a real prehistoric dinosaur, and the Tyrannosaurus rex had smashed up their camp and they had escaped, and he claimed that it was larger than the original version, and had altered in many of its features, as were the most of the prehistoric animals and things that they had encountered, and many had been larger than the largest skeleton specimens that they had seen.
It surprised Bryson that they had gone to the coast of the island to see if there had been any other islands visible, and that they had encountered many incredible things there, and that the coast at the sea had gone straight downwards for at least a mile, and the horizon over the sea vanished into mist and they had just been able to see through it before they had left there and that there were no islands there.
All their accounts and their flight over the island proved that different areas of the island had different landscapes and wildlife inhabiting it.
Bryson was amazed at their recorded findings there, and realized that they all seemed to believe it in their ability to find a way to return to the Earth.
According to one scientist that arrived there they had been two more sightings of other things of paranormal that resembled ghosts, which resembled the thing in the spacesuit that had arrived in the meeting room. The disturbances were clearly increasing and some scientists were working away to solve the mystery, and find a solution, and Bryson realized that they had found evidence that it had been the castle’s defenses, which they had encountered outside in the jungle, and that it had not been it, which Bryson believed was true, especially after Mortimer told him that he believed that it had not.
He believed it knew everything and that they had to do something for it!
Yet Bryson and nobody there could fully prove that they were not in any danger, and if they could get away from there alive!
Bryson knew there was far more behind Parker and his scientists, and he left things there. He wondered again what they put in their reports about all the occurrences.
In the end the scientists decided against going near or in the direct path of the alien if possible and to detect as much as possible, and if possible where and what it was, which was what they were attempting to do, and mainly to locate it and everything with it in other dimensions, and find out what was there and build up an illustration of it and what they were dealing with.
If anything attacked them they had a procedure to escape from there, which Bryson thought was useless!
Bryson was surprised when one of the scientists called them over to a computer screen and showed a blurred view of some form of energy in the tunnel, which Bryson was sure was authentic and that it was normally invisible.
“This is entirely new!” Mortimer stated, considering it from various perspectives, and he watched it as if he had been waiting all his life to see what was there, and gasped slightly.
“What do you make of it?” Parker asked, walking over to them. “We so far have had nothing properly put forward on what its identity is?”
“How about calling it the ultimate time traveler?” Bryson stated, realizing that they dismissed it.
“Well it’s a start!” Mortimer continued. “Its shown some of its energy, and I reckon that it will remove it soon!”
If only they could find something there that had gone undetected by everyone else, with their detection methods and equipment being improved!
Yet he gasped when he considered what they could come up with if they had something that really worked, as they had advanced far further than he had imagined, and the place was packed solid with ever form of equipment.
It was like an experiment to Merton and Mortimer to see what would happen if they searched beyond the boundaries of natural science, and finally out into the supernatural.
The dark sky over the castle appeared on a screen from a camera on the roof, with its abyss of billions of light years of intergalactic space, showing the dangers of deep space exploration, and Bryson considered if they would find anything out there if they used the right equipment.
Chapter 25
The Alien Source Code
Bryson sensed that there was something that they were not saying, but he knew he would only needed to wait for them to tell what it was, and he kept wondered if they wer
e in danger and tried to get Parker to give him what needed to know.
While Bryson considered what could happen next Parker and his scientists started consulting with each and made an agreement!
“The stuff is highly classified!” Parker announced to Bryson and Mortimer. “We’re still just playing safe and assuming that we return home at the end of this ...”
“But if it is used we are going to see it anyway!” Mortimer stated, seeing Bryson’s viewpoint.
“It might not work! Why release it for nothing is the argument against it! We have already gone over the borderline of giving highly classified material ...”
“We’ll give our word not to reveal it anywhere unless we have to!” Bryson replied. “We have also been given classified material in our past projects, and we helped create some! For instance at the last castle exploration ...”
“There is little to it anyway!” Parker moaned. “In the nineteen seventies they had a first contact scenario that they gave to scientists and others to handle, and one of the outcomes of the project was The Alien Source Code, which was designed to communicate with any extraterrestrials through communications, which was later improved, and was to be also used in physical communication.
“All the old stuff is out date ... But it has been vastly improved, especially since the Pacific island incident, and, of course, your encounter at the castle! With the incredible advances in computer technology!”
“Well, there’s a version that does not need special equipment for it! It was made into software and is to be used if a sudden encounter occurs again, and we were to use it to communicate ...”
“You have the technology to communicate with it ...” Mortimer replied cheerfully.
“And perhaps make a first contact situation occur!”
“So what’s happened?” Bryson replied, anxiously waiting for a reply, and answer to what was occurring.
“We haven’t found a way to communicate with it! It has not replied to anything we have done, which we have gone by the instructions with!”
Bryson laughed and replied, “So we are trying to find a way to talk to it!”
“Correct!” Parker replied firmly, hoping for an answer.
“Thanks!” Mortimer answered firmly. “Since you have given what you know ... I’ll add what I know! I believe that what’s active there is the equivalent to our subconscious mind, while it’s in a type of sleep or suspended animation state, which acts as its defense and carries out various other functions. I think it brought the airplane down and for some reason wanted us here, especially by showing the structure to you on your scan of the island!”
“So we’ve to contact its subconscious?” Bryson replied.
“Right!” Parker replied. “Another classified element of The Alien Source Code is that we can send it or communicate with it telepathically, using some of our equipment!”
“I think it has a physical presence!” Mortimer replied. “As the alien in the Pacific island spacecraft had! And the entity at the other castle had! We’ll have to find it as we did before. And we’ll find it down the tunnel from the tower, and we’ll have to use ropes to reach it at the bottom! Unless there’s a way of making a hole through this wall here!”
Chapter 26
The Bottom of the Tunnel
Bryson was blinded by the black abyss below him as he was lowered down through the tunnel, from the last stone steps from the tower above.
He gripped the rope hard, but spun round, and fixed his foot against a wall to stop it, and looked up to the top of the tunnel and through the hole there, and listened to two archeologists over him still conferring and arguing on what way to lower him.
They had found little there so far and had taken a long time arranging the exploration of it, and Bryson had been unchallenged with his insistence in going down, and the archeologists had agreed to help and to follow him.
It was incredible that they had weak lights again, after all their technology advances, and making lights the way that they wanted them, and he could see nothing in their dim light and occasionally stopped and checked his light as he fed the rope away and lowered himself.
A deep thud echoed down from the top as the scientists at the tower gathered there to look down and he wondered why he was lowering himself so slowly down when they could easily lower him faster, making the task easier.
It was their ultimate discovery and expedition and he wished it to be done right, and as one of his adventure expeditions and to give the full discovery everything that it deserved. Yet he was mainly confused as to what had been discovered and would be found, especially after being surprised at so much in the past with such things, and being given such little facts.
The ebbing radiance of the torches clearly was not enough to allow them to see much, and he realized how tired they all had become and that they had not even bothered getting someone to get another light!
A bright radiance of a large star beamed down through a gap at the top of the tower and he watched its reflections from things with his dreamy sight, with it probing amidst the abyss below, scattering beams in clusters.
Some of dust entered his throat giving him cough sensations, but he speeded up and unleashed the rope allowing him to fall down and to inhale better air.
What was the outcome of all this? Would they even find a treasure? What would it being doing with treasure?
Hazy echoes off his deep breathing broke the extraordinary silence and he examined the artificial walls around him as he shifted downwards, and he started to find the stale air harder to inhale and he frequently gasped for air, while dangling, with hideous expectations of plunging into some mind-bending hideously dangerous vortex.
The walls interested him and he was sure that there was a way to alter them, and that they could rearrange the castle/starship walls to allow them to enter below, making a door into the tunnel through the room wall, and he realized that it might be done by a different method and that there might be a control center where all the structure rearrangements were carried out.
What if it had not been the precise spot of the disturbance and that they had detected it wrongly? Where would it be?
Yet he just accepted it, and the frantic reactions of the two archeologists to increase his speed.
A distant rumble above released debris and he realized how dangerous the area the two archeologists were on might be, and that it might not be able to support their weight, and he recalled Merton hanging from there by his fingers when he had saved him! It had been damaged with age and he imagined it and them crashing down on top of him, and considered if he could survive!
In an instant the rope jerked and wildly oscillated and he spun uncontrollably around and a surge of blackness engulfed him.
It mystified him! He thought of ancient devil and black magic worshippers concealing something below, beyond their comprehension, hidden away from mankind!
He tried straining his eyes to see further down, but there were no features of anything. Its tunnel shape vanished into darkness!
When he finally hit the ground he never fully realized where it was, and in the turmoil he fell over sideways into rocks.
He got himself up with the help of the rope and released the rope’s tightened grip around his body, and shivered at what was there and how dangerous it was.
He cleaned away dirt and casually gave looks around him at the debris from the above steps piled there, and wondered how they could shift it and what was under it, and he realized that the others were about a room below just feet away from him through the wall in front of him, and they would be monitoring him with their equipment, and he fitted a small camera to his jacket and switched it on, for them to see what was there.
He switched on his communicator and started talking to Mortimer, who was standing at the other side of the wall staring at the wall.
“As you can see there is far too much rubble over the bottom to see anything, and the tunnel in front of you is packed with debris from the coll
apsed stone steps!”
“What do you think we should do?”
“Well, if there is nothing in the castle/starship for altering and removing parts of structures like the wall there we’ll have to hoist up all this rubble and clear it away!”
“We’ll get onto it!” Parker replied, from beside Mortimer. “I’ll have the archeologists start removing that rubble below you, and I’ll send out some people to look for a way to remove the wall!”
Chapter 27
The Search for the Lost Artifact
Bryson examined equipment about the top of the tunnel, below the tower, and heard the archeologists finish clearing out the debris and watched the others near him hoist it up and get ready to remove it from there to nearby rooms.
From the edge he saw the powerful lights at the bottom, and the now empty shaft there, and he realized that they would now begin digging into the ground below the castle.
Dreamily he observed the twilight sun rising up over the castle, diverging its golden rays amongst it.
He moved out into a corridor when he heard a voice further along from there and he saw one of Parker’s scientists and wondered what he was doing there, and realized he had something for them and waited until he reached him.
“We’ve been able to locate where they altered the structure and we’ve started work on removing that wall!” he announced excitedly, and Bryson watched him enter the bottom of the tower and look down at the bottom, and investigate everything there.
Bryson was sure that he was looking there for problems or dangers to them, if they removed the wall.
“Is everything going as planned?” he asked Bryson.
“Yes! Especially if they remove that wall down there! I don’t think they would be able to remove it through the tunnel!”
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