Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 155 of 365. Sol standard year]

  Days after of Crash landing/ 4

  Uninhabited Island / Clearing of Escape Capsule # 405/ Unknown Structure/ Water Chamber

  Galactic Standard Time / After 1620

  Bryke

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  “A cruise ship!? Out of all the kinds of things that this could be, a cruise ship!? I don’t know if the galaxy has a sense of humor or if we have that kind of luck!” Bryke snarled as he looked around at the fish swimming ‘on’ and ‘through; the walls around them. He couldn’t understand any of this, and the theory that Jessie gave them didn’t make sense as far as he was concerned. But the more he thought about it, the more that it sounded true. And looking back ‘down’ the tunnel from where they had come from, he had to admit. This whole tunnel thing was beyond anything that their ship had.

  “We know man, so please keep calm,” Zevortro said from ‘behind’ him. The four were in a formation, with Jessie leading, “And you wanted to watch the back man.

  “Yeah, I know. But my idea makes sense,” Bryke said with a scowl as he turned around.

  Terra behind him with Zevortro behind her and Bryke as the rearguard. As they thought the only threats might come from in front, they didn’t think anything would come from behind. But then Bryke had spoken up, saying how something could try and follow them. He spoke about how the fact that those things were beyond anything they thought they knew about life. And he had mentioned at the end that there might be things like winged apes among the filers or the sea.

  That had been enough to let Bryke watch their back, and they had moved on.

  “But I have to agree with him, I mean what happened here? What are those robots we fought?” Terra asked, her voice echoing down the tunnel.

  “Even the Spirit had a few robots, I mean sure. They weren’t made for war but there are a few machine shops to repair them. I guess the survivors here changed the bots so they’d defend them,” Jessie said, a hint of anger in his voice.

  Bryke looked at Jessie’s head and frowned a little. The idea that these people had done that made sense, but there were a few problems with it. Like what was the race that created all these things and what happened to them? Did they leave this place and abandon the animals they had? And the one question that was the most important that they needed to find an answer to.

  “But that mad realm back there, why did they leave it like that? And how long was it left alone to create that?” Bryke asked horror in his voice.

  For a few moments, there was nothing but silence as everyone thought of the answer. Then after a wide fish swam ‘above’ them, casting them in shadows Jessie spoke up.

  “I would have to that this place has been here for centuries. Maybe even back to the time of the Ruin Builders, maybe longer,” Jessie said. He kept walking, but everyone else had stopped and was staring at him.

  “What?” Terra asked, her voice horse.

  Bryke had to agree with her, he felt his mouth drop open in shocked horror.

  “What are you talking about!? How could it have been that long!?” Zevortro asked in horror.

  Jessie sighed and looked back at them all, projecting a quiet calm. He looked over everyone and then sighed, shaking his head before he spoke. “Think about what’s up there, that jungle. It had to have taken a long time to grow so wild and large. Plus, there are no signs of this place up there, just that clearing. I think this is one of the building blocks of the island. Everything up there grew came after this place did.”

  “Oh nova,” Bryke said as he looked around his eyes wide. “Wait, that doesn’t make sense! All this tech wouldn’t have lasted with all that wear and tear of use! I mean how could this still be active!?”

  “Repair robots! Like the ones we fought! I can see it! The flyers are to check damaged sections! The models that walked on the wall must be to repair anyplace that’s high up!” Zevortro exclaimed in shocked horror.

  Nodding, Jessie looked around and sighed, shaking his head. “Yeah, and that means that we might run into a repair bot down here. So we need to find a way out before that happens!”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “That’s if those things are down here. Maybe this just wasn’t used until we came down here?” Bryke asked, a spark of hope in his throat. But that hope died when Jessie looked at him with a hard stare. “What? What’d I say?”

  Jessie just looked at him and then he exhaled and shook his head. “That’s the worst thing that could happen to us. It means that the power here was never on before we got here.”

  “And, what does that mean!?” Bryke asked with a savage edge to his voice.

  “Oh. Yeah, that would be bad,” Zevortro said as he looked around.

  Bryke could see his friend’s eyes looking at the wall, and to his horror, he saw fear in them. But before he could say anything, Terra gasped.

  “By the Black-hole! This is terrible we need to move, now! Double time people!” Terra exclaimed, horror in voice.

  “Right!” Jessie said as he nodded.

  Bryke looked around, trying to understand what they were talking about. Nothing made sense to him and when they started to run without him, he exploded. “Wait! What are you all talking about!?”

  Jessie looked him dead in the eyes and took a deep breath. “It means that if there’s an AI controlling this place, we just screamed, ‘We are here’ at the top of our lungs.”

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  ???????????

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  Unknown invaders have held back all units sent to occupy the new area.

  Scouts report near all enemy forces are all use ranged weapons.

  Basic defense bots have been sent outside of the area with no reports sent back.

  Higher mind unit sent to deal with enemy and report back was taken beyond control range before enemy numbers counted.

  Enemy bellow sending push against force there. Defensive line remains priority, keep sending secondary reinforcements to deal with the enemy above……

  Alert! ‘Tunnel of the Deep’ is active.

  Distance to protected area open.

  Threat level beyond acceptable.

  Guard Unit One go to fully active state.

  Sending drone hunter to chasse out or scout out what is below. Another creature that has evolved limbs most possible outcome. Possible ‘Sentient’ creatures hunting captors, high. Purging units on standby.

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  Jessie

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  As he led the way down the tunnel, Jessie kept looking around, trying to find if there was anything that might be a way out. So far, he was sure that there were only two choices for them to leave this place. One, another chamber like they came from, or two, the entrance of this place.

  All in all, he didn’t know what he was hoping for, but the room they had come from had to have been something important. Maybe an emergency escape route that the builders put there for safety reasons. He had to admit, that the last thing was what he was hoping for. That meant that there had to be another one of those chambers nearby. And that was just what they needed to escape from this tunnel. He didn't know if this was 'underground' or on the 'floor' of the ocean out there, but if it was the second. Well, then that meant that the 'Big Thing' Bryke saw could probably break this tunnel open.

  “Okay, I get what’s wrong about being down here, but how are we going to go up?” Bryke called out.

  Jessie gritted his teeth and sighed, trying to think up an answer to that question. The only thing that he could think of was the symbols that led him to the waterfalls. “The way I figure, the waterfall gave us the biggest clue there is.”

  “The waterfall? You mean the symbol! We need to track down every symbol that might be the way to the escape hatch?” Bryke asked shock and disbelief in his voice. “That’s the plan to get out?”

  “Yeah. Look, I know it’s not a ten-step plan, but we work with what we have. And that’s what we have. We find ways ‘up’ and hope we can get to the hole we made coming in,” Jessie said with a scowl.

  “Smart! The first thing to do when making a ship is always to have directions to the emergency exit visible! So if we find the same symbol in multiple locations, do we follow that one? Who’s got a memory nanite?” Zevortro asked, hope in his voice.

  “Me!” Terra called out as they reached a turn in the tunnel to the right.

  Running ahead, Jessie took the turn and looked down the tunnel. Ahead of them was a space, maybe a place the builders set up to rest. The more he looked around, the more he started to get a bad feeling. This whole location, there was something about it, and the walls. He touched it and then drew his hand back, looking at it in shock. Staring at his hand, rubbed his thumb and pointer together as he thought.

  “Everything okay Jessie?” Terra called out as the others reached him.

  “Yeah,” Jessie said as he rubbed his right pant leg. Nodding to the others, he started to run as he led the way. If he was running a bit faster than before, no one noticed.

  Reaching what he had seen, he looked around a large circle over sixty feet wide. There were four symbols on the floor. A blue waterfall below him, a green plant to the right, a purple square to the left, and a black square ahead of them.

  “Okay, so here are a few of the wonderful symbols we need to figure out. Great,” Bryke said with a scowl.

  Zevortro only sighed and shook his head as he and Jessie shared a look. Jessie was starting to think that Bryke was being a pain on purpose besides trying to cope with this.

  Terra meanwhile was looking at the symbols, muttering to herself. “ So the green? I think that’s for the forest we saw. Maybe a ‘Nature’ path or something? But the two squares, that I can’t figure out. But they're new, so maybe one of them?”

  Jessie looked at the tunnels ahead of them and frowned, something was there, at the edge of his senses. Then he saw a text block at the corner of his right vision and went still. “Down the right passage, now!”

  “What?!” Bryke asked as everyone looked at him.

  “Don’t talk, move! Something’s coming from both of the other tunnels!” Jessie barked as he looked at the others.

  Without a word, the others all went still and then they ran down the tunnel that Jessie had indicated. As Jesse took the rearguard, he looked at the message his nanites were sending him. His watcher nanites had detected the sounds of something flying towards them, and that was all he needed to know this was bad. If this was a robot, then it might be sending data over a network. And then this thing could come to send all the horrors it was holding at them.

  As they ran down the tunnel they saw a small chamber twenty feet wide.

  “There! Hold there!” Jessie barked as soon as they saw it. His nanites told him that whatever was coming was almost here, they needed to get to cover now!

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  ??????????????

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  The defense unit floated down the hallway, its scanner going along the floor. So far, nothing had seemed to indicate that anything was here.

  The limited mind controlling the robotic shell kept scanning for the specific life codes that it had been sent to find. As it moved along the lightened tunnel, it finally reached the circle. Moving around in a slow orbit of the room, it stopped as it saw marks in the dust on the floor. Standing still, it moved closer and scanned the prints, and then when it didn’t find what it was looking for it moved on. The marks were made by something beyond what it had been sent here for. As long as whatever made these prints wasn’t what it was after, then the small mind didn’t ‘care’ what made them. All ‘it’ wanted to do was follow its orders and track down the subjects that had activated the tunnel.