Hermes Out of Hades

United nations Special investigation report, July 8, 2045

In accordance to the access to information act of the Paris convention, the following evidence has been released to the public regarding the ongoing investigation of the colossal landmass disappearance in Western Australia, circa. 2037. Over forty people are still reported missing from within the radius or from nearby areas. No evidence of extra-national aggression was ever uncovered nor any credence to support alleged scientific experimentation by undisclosed governmental/affiliate, or otherwise. No natural causes have been found. How this incident occurred is still under investigation. The UN special-investigation team has not been able to corroborate the claims or veracity of the following document.

UN-SI Item 36 (Notebook, recovered near quarantined zone):

Jorgensen expedition notes, March 18, 2037 (Cambridge, MA, USA)

Finally, our grant was approved. Up until a few weeks ago, my old thesis study—that was even purported to be charlatanisms, as sensational were its claims—of the ancient past, proposes that cultivated human settlements in Australia might far antecede the "accepted" anthropological emergence of culture out of the crux of Sumer. Indeed, old minds were rigid at the idea, going even further back in time, that the expansion of the evolved man, homo sapiens sapiens as it were, out of Africa might not have occurred how the textbooks explain exactly. Mitochondrial Eve pointed to that theory when we were pre-hominids maybe, but mitochondria were inside our animal progenitors long before we became men; men that spread around the world, perhaps multiple times, much earlier than we can appreciate.

It has been a long struggle of years of my life as I studied ancient language structures here at the university, as well as genetic evidence, astronomical star-mapping, orbital-scanned subterranean sonar, and even carbon dating. But alas, the new data from colleagues on site is that they have found more writing, cuneiform hieroglyphics that share commonalities with both the Sumerian tablets in Western Asia and to that of the city of the Sun, Tiahuanaco in Bolivia of South America. This new evidence, as my script scanning algorithms deciphered from their topographical photographs, is painstakingly being revealed to be the Rosetta-stone of the most ancient cultures spread around the world.

The review committee couldn't look away anymore, and, grudgingly, released the funds to us. Another younger assistant professor, Tom, and his PhD student Melissa, will also be coming. The dates were set, the hiring contracts signed, and our tickets bought.

I was advised to keep a journal of my daily activities. Thus, this will be the logbook of our journey, as detailed as can be for scientific posterity, and as time to write permits. Deep-learning deciphering is great, but it can be done almost anywhere; I want to be there. I want to touch the masonry built by hands far older than anyone thus far realizes. The research paper can be written later.

We chartered guides and a handful of highly skilled professional outdoorsmen, honed with ample survival and outback exploratory experience. They are substantially well paid, I assure you ... and thus, we hope will prove highly beneficial to our expedition. The closest road where vehicles can progress, owing both to natural barriers and national habitat-conservation laws—the archeological site potentially stretching miles within and around the protected area—leaves us with a six-hour trek on foot. Which, in my fairly decent shape despite my age, should be doable. The last email showed two possible cavern entries that, sonar confirmed, could lead to substantial underground cavitations-shafts, or perhaps I can even hope, tunnels of aeon-old cities. Odds are they were bored by ancient lava flows (despite my skepticism that this region ever was magmatically active, even all the way back to the pre-hominid past). No, I think that these cavities look too regular, too indicative of city-street layout, but on a vast, three-dimensional scale going deep underground. I haven't told anyone this yet, but we shall see if my hypothesis holds true. Thus, in foresight of potentially venturing below, we have brought spelunking hardware as well (which I am proud to say, I am accustomed with). My team has assured me that, in the event of too perilous a task, and sparing my greater age, their training would easily permit them to successfully explore any cavern system as long as it did not lead to the endless shallows of an empty Earth—whatever that meant; Aussie humor, I suppose.

The diggers (Archeology team from U. Melbourne) on site have already set up work tents and sheltered cots. They must protect the site from sand each night by installing canvas scaffolds over the dig. That needed to be done—as was reported to me—every evening before sundown. Which would leave us about 8, hair-bleaching hours of workable sunshine, after that we had to protect the excavation from the nightly winds—winds that could lead unprotected wanderers to hypothermia in less than a few hours.

They have already identified two potential openings, barred by large stones, nearby the quartered site. I hope they don't jump the gun and open the thing before I get there.

We're all packed and Tom's detouring in a few minutes to pick me up and load the rest of the gear. Should be here, I thought, by the time I finished today's entry.

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes, March 20 (Somewhere over Australia)

I'm fifty-six, but I seem to have more energy than the rest of these people. Perhaps it's this growing excitement that I feel, as if I were still a child. Even with the jet lag, and lacking sleep, I can't sit still. It's already tomorrow here; my head still has trouble with that. The last updates, I was happy to receive (curse my ambitious heart), were that they still hadn't opened the stone doorways. They said that some local hire, descendant from the native tribesmen, had begun to protest the idea to open the rock slabs. They feared some mumbo-jumbos, and other ridiculous mystical curses that we could not give any credence to. Ignoring this as nothing of any concern—as I'm certain my colleague thought likewise at the time—he at least attempted to remain politically correct by respecting the young man's wishes; temporarily delegating the heartbreaks and legal reparations of this unavoidable and irreverent act of sacrilege to the Australian Indigenous courts (as I'm sure any tucked-tailed, un-tenured university professor would have done in his place). Which Peter—Ass. Prof. in Applied Archeology at U. Melbourne—arranged to be handed to me, in person, by the Dean of the Ethical Affairs. Boy, little Peter was surely trying to climb in this world. But I am certain they had this legal application written beforehand. If Peter got it pushed through this fast, it meant that the people here were much more excited about this than my colleagues in Boston—and that he was as eager as anyone else.

After a lengthy process to exit the terminal, I had a quick out-of-the-airport adventure in Melbourne; I shook hands with a clouty, dejected fellow with a greasy combover. He gave the envelope and a Godspeed.

This was all somewhat of a hassle, sure. But as I always say, if you aren't doing science by the seat of your pants, you aren't doing science right.

I returned by taxi to go through the almost-as-bad-as-a-cavity-search security barrier, and return to Tom watching the mountain of luggage and gear in an empty corner of the airport. Half a dozen seats down the aisle, Melissa played with her phone—reading research papers, I am sure. All that accomplished, we still had three hours before our connecting flight we chartered to a small town named Coober Ped, then we trek west towards Tallaringa Conservation Park.

About an hour after I got back, the expedition crew arrived. Some burly no-nonsense men we quickly surmised, but they have, as I had anticipated, a queerly good sense of humor—albeit not for the tenderest of ears. Their hierarchy, as Tom pointed out, followed the thickness of their beards. Above that, I was quickly reassured by their professionally exact responses; they knew the packs they carried to the very kilogram, with itemized lists of all they contained at all times. They quickly listed the extent that they would risk, or permit myself to risk my own life, to precise bullet points. We weren't to go deeper than two hundred meters below the surface—noxious gases and increasing temperatures were jeopardizing acceptable survival rates. They had masks in such an event, but the plan would then be to send reconnaissance probes further than that. It would need to be explored in an ulterior expedition. If I were to venture too far, they grudgingly would be forced to attempt to rescue me, but only under reasonable assumption that I am still alive. We could very well explore, but one careful and calculated step at a time. I go in with them as a team, obeying always, and being prepared to do exactly what was required; the lives of the rest of the team might depend on any one of us if disaster befalls. They would refresh us, and the others already on-site, on the procedures before going in. And as was reiterated twice by the leader Stan, who must have wished to taper my childlike eagerness, that we go in, only segments at a time, learning and testing the cavernous structures as we go—laboriously, inch by inch, if we must. We hired them for two weeks, I hope we might at least produce evidence that would justify expanding the study. That, I promised myself.

The last to arrive at the airport was the pilot, who boarded the same time as us, did his safety check and start-up during the time we stored our own gear in the barely fitting back compartment. Must have been a quick routine check, because we were in the air as I was sitting down and trying to buckle my safety belt. No peanut serving stewardess on this flight.

We must be getting closer as I see the desert growing wider and the sand redder. Shrubs grow rare and the vegetation is withered and thorny. But I can see that we are flying lower, my ears popped to the change in pressure. No welcomed update on our ETA from our questionably-sober pilot.

He stayed in the plane.

The hired help is hardworking and require little direction. Not long after the plane hit the burning hot landing strip, they were piling the gear and the people into two Jeeps already waiting for us. Tom was quick to handle the paperwork here and we were off in impressive time.

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes, March 21 (somewhere west of Couber Ped)

Already a few hours hiking and our front man Stan has ordered break. There is a certain outcropping of ancient limestone which shielded us from the sunlight, so he ordered everyone to drink water. I hadn't felt myself sweat all this time, and it hadn't been unbearably scorching either, but I am told that our sweat evaporates so fast that we barely perceive losing any water at all—just a thick grime of salt remaining after a long day's hike. Alas, before I could object to our unneeded repose, I noticed, there upon the limestone face, old-style engravings that were smoothened by millennia of blowing sands. It is hard to appreciate the extent that this slow process of erosion can completely devastate any writing over time, but I was fortunate, and a prepared eye can spot these things. There, between the cracks, where the shape of the rock-face naturally restricted wind-flow, were images of people—not just persons—but people, in different anthropomorphisations of characters and function. It was highly indicative of organized societies. Certain imagery displayed gross sexual activities—gross as in copious, not disgusting, you literary twat—that was apparently glorified through yearly festival, and as the sun is prominently displayed, most likely to the winter and summer solstices.

Immediately, I ran to Stan, and urged him to relay his GPS coordinates. Inadvertently it would seem, miles from our destination, was already more evidence of ancient culture that could predate Sumer by thousands of years. This was only a small fragment of what I think we can find. Nevertheless, I've noted these coordinates in our maps and someone else, in the wake of our impending magnanimous discoveries, could come to this site (tentatively noted Epsilon) to survey with ample funding of their own. I could feel the scientific energy emanating from our destination; the closer we got, the more I could feel that we would forever change the way we humans see ourselves on this world.

Indeed, this anecdotal finding might further indicate the widespread nature of this, still-yet-unknown, ancient culture; ancestors of the aboriginals or even, as I am beginning to believe, of humanity itself. There might be ruins and underground tunnels only a few inches below the sand, stretching in every direction for miles ...

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (somewhere west of Couber Ped)

It appears my scientific zeal, so to speak, is not as openly shared with my fellows. Although Tom has listened and nodded to my ideas in the past, I fear that it will take much more evidence to push him past the threshold to openly criticize—as was his responsibility as an educator, he reiterates—our current anthropological model. I hope his stubbornness is simply a result of his rigorous scientific method rather than a lack of courage and a blind adherence to orthodoxy on his part. Nevertheless, Tom is a good scientist and he will annotate, analyze, and document whatever we find, no matter how existentially jostling the evidence might appear. Before he decided to voluntarily lag behind, alone to his thoughts, what he told me, was:

"If humanity is much older than we think, it's not going to solve mysteries, but bring about very difficult questions that we might not be ready to ask."

Maybe I was speculating too wildly, or placing my hypothesis on a limb too far to test scientifically, but I was courageous enough to ask the tough questions, the questions that would reveal to us, finally, that we are indeed a species with amnesia, that has re-emerged out of some terrible cataclysm that wiped out all our pre-historical culture and any signs of our ancient past. I don't teach this in my classes of course, but the deeper I dug, and the further back I explored, the more weird and incredible things became. One coincidental example would be: that the iron age and the bronze age date as far back as oxidation would permit those tools to still exist—earlier than those periods, its statistically almost impossible to find any sword or shield, fabricated from those metals, still intact! (Unless one were to preserve it in grease or vacuum, for example).

No matter, the truth will shortly be revealed. For now, I will try to keep some of my more unsettling theories from Tom, at least until he returns to Boston, with his creature comforts and a glass of whiskey in reach.

Otherwise, his eager student (eager rather in the sense of recommendation letters, I don't believe she fully appreciates the magnitude of what we might discover here) finds me to be a hoot. She half believes I am old and crazy and is half amazed I know so much. I suppose I haven't shut up enough (an indication to my lapsus in log keeping perhaps), but safe to say, that it seems she would, equipped with a fresh, young brain, more easily accept our pushing back humanity's accepted history by thousands of years.

P.S. And No, Melissa, you will not be quizzed on this. But I would appreciate that you find and read those references I noted to you in length during our long walk, in anticipation of the research paper I'm sure we will be writing.

P.P.S. Thank you also for the plums. They will have no bearing whatsoever on your thesis evaluation ... none whatsoever.

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (somewhere further west of Couber Ped), Late evening, March 21

So close, yet so far. The archeological dig at Alpha quarry was barred when we arrived late in the evening. The walk was longer than I thought, and although I passed the task adequately enough, we arrived later than expected. I might have a few blisters to contend with, but that's nothing compared to handling competitive undergrads. Due to high winds, Peter, the site director from U. Melbourne, had to close early, secure the site from the elements. I suggested respite, but Stan had ordered secure and shut down for the night, with a brew—he himself already in a hammock with a pint.

"Tomorrow, we start early," he had said.

All these proletariat types, always this "early bird catches the worm," shit. Well, I'm up all night reading and writing, and at the end of the day the hardest worker always got the most done. We weren't on Starbucks time, we were under the stars and the elements like those ancient humans hundreds of centuries ago. I don't like mornings, I like to work late in the evenings, not wind-down and retire at five pm. I never could have gotten tenure that way! Myself, and many others, remain productive well into the evening.

We have so many portable lights, I would have penetrated the barrier already were it not for some political correctness on my colleague's part. Indeed, there was one person fitting the aboriginal phenotype that eyed me with poison daggers—so to speak. And my suspicions were quickly whispered correct, that indeed was the gentlemen whose holiness was so wholly disturbed by our potential violation of their prehistoric souls—balderdash! His last shift ends tomorrow morning and he, with his team, would be leaving then (ours replacing and inhabiting the shelters). Shortly after, I estimate, we would be discovering new wonders of our true, ever-expanding history. The permit in hand, we held government support to conduct a bona fide scientific dig on these grounds. We would learn more of his true culture than he knew himself. Let Aussie lawyers wrestle the implications of their eternal souls.

Otherwise, I had to be satiated by the neat display and annotated pieces from the growing catalogue in the microscope tent. Tonight, we were to bunk like war-buddies, but tomorrow the camp population should be cut by almost half and our elbows will be pleased. For now, I will have to contend with Tom's smelly feet. Bunkmates until the crew shift tomorrow.

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) morning, March 22

Minor bout of indigestion forced me out of bed earlier than normal (perhaps the jet lag too). But I took the opportunity to volunteer some hands on at the dig, and to enjoy the stern first-hand lectures of what-not-to-do under their operational procedure.

"What kind of archeologist are you," the senior technician, Mary, demanded about two seconds after I set foot inside the perimeter.

"Linguistics, mathematician—Graphetics really," as I truthfully proclaimed.

"You must be Paul Jorgensen," the lady quickly reiterated. "Around here we work our entry into the quadrants from the North side, everything comes out from there. Don't dirty the scene with cross-contamination." And this droned on like machine-gunned divined, dig commandments. I will have to begin conversations with her with numerous apologies for all the rules I've already forgotten or broken.

She did not see any humor to my comment about my taking a more Indiana Jones-like methodology. Somehow, I don't think Stan would like me dislodging giant rolling boulders and poison darts within this cyclopean structure either.

After a monumental display of patience on her part, I was escorted to the dinner table where she listed a few anecdotes of the worst-students-to-ever-visit one of her setups. It was either to help me learn with a little humor or to dare me to find myself on top of that list. Safe to say, I won't be pouring high-grade sodium hydroxide on dinosaur bones to try to clean them in a rare epiphany of dumbfounded initiative. But I might think twice about deeply inhaling and savoring the fragrances of an ancient tomb—there are ample number of dormant spore that can quickly find its way to your nose or lungs. This was the reason the curse of the Mummy persisted, some unlucky grave explorers—freshly shaven and without aerosol protection—were exposed to some nasty spores, millennia-old fungal meningitis. (We had a quick mask-fitting tutorial with Stan.)

It was at the breakfast table that I saw Melissa looking somewhat distracted. I thereupon noticed that Tom had also changed sleeping quarters in the early morning, going into the woman's tent (that is, until the change of personnel which would become our University's tent). A little precocious perhaps, but it didn't help the slight awkwardness I felt between him and his student throughout the arduous trip here. I don't think he would have brought her for ulterior motives, but it surely seemed that he tried encroaching towards her at times. He certainly knows the regulations about such relationships, but perhaps I should have a quick man-to-man talk about this with him, or with her.

But this also brings the other dawning certainty that I will need to keep my journal private until otherwise befitting. I would not want to bring undue awkwardness or jeopardize Tom's position through inadvertent interference from me. We are all here for the dig and to open the rock-face; I am sure my worry in this regard will blow over easily enough.

I am also glad to report that we have an internet uplink, thanks to their solar-powered satellite-router. The real data can be sent to my staff in Boston right away. This journal, as you can see, is inscribed in the Ye olde style, using my best cursive (apt for a linguistics archeologist, I hope).

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) mid-morning, March 22

The man, named Okomom, or fated man in a certain Pama-Nyungan dialect I am told, has not departed with the return party. Peter knows this, but said nothing. He has simply walked away and gone to his tent. I am not certain what Okomom's intentions are, but I hope he will not become a security concern. The efficiency of the dig at the moment is reminiscent of bureaucratic filibustering, nothing is getting done. Everyone is stalling and waiting for someone else to break the standstill, and by god, if no one does, it shortly shall be me.

Irreverence is the spice of life. All of humanities greatest discoveries came from challenging the laws or holy recipes guided by dogma. Like Galileo which brought heliocentrism or the chef that dared to burn the cream to create crème-brulé. To question the unquestionable was the fire which Prometheus brought down from Mount Olympus to enlighten man.

We would get nowhere with that sad, placating face standing firm before our equipment. I pray that he loses his faith; that the Lord smite him free of his spirituality. That he may leave unburdened, so that we may dig in thy sacred earth. I fear he might have a fortitude of will that might be completely alien to our high-paced, big-city selves.

Please pardon my pre-senile cynicism. I believe these notes shall be fortuitously edited before they see publication or posterity.

Otherwise, I believe Peter might have notified the authorities regarding mister Okomom's annoyance. The professor, looking like he had accomplished something, rushed in my direction before being intercepted by the head outdoorsmen. The crew have been waiting, as Peter asked of them, before beginning the slab excision.

Peter couldn't yet give the order (i.e. he wasn't tenured yet). Stan then told him, "Boy, if you keep us off work too long the men are going to drink our stock dry, and you don't want to know what happens after that. Our time here is paid for. We were told everything was a go."

And indeed, I thought likewise. This stalling had gone on long enough. We would be laying the tarps even before starting at the new site. Amazing how much one person could accomplish—prevent from accomplishing—by simply standing there, and saying, "This ain't happening." He was a large man, but extremely doubtful he could tackle with the half-dozen trained spelunkers. No one wanted violence, but we couldn't stand by and do nothing either.

Oh, something's happening...

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) afternoon, March 22

The situation is resolved, for the moment. Okomom is tied to a post and chair, with perhaps a broken arm to spare. One of the crew, James (it might have been Jim), took it upon himself to move the man aside. He resisted. Turned into a scuffle which ended with the other spelunkers each grappling a limb. Okomom was subdued readily enough, and cursed in his native tongue, a long string of words I wished I would have had the presence of mind to record. Then, after a while, he elected for silence and poignant glares. Peter said law enforcement was notified and they were sending a pair to escort him back to civilization, so to speak.

At an eager pace and with a good GPS it would take them at least four hours getting here, so the captive man would have to be patient. We also can't leave him out to the elements before then. Depending on their plan of action, all of them might need shelter and sustenance for an early departure east in the morning. We would not refuse hospitality to anyone of course. Sacrilegious perhaps, but we are at least humane.

Alas, the work had started. Using the small excavator, we affixed an adhesive scaffold onto the forward scoop. This would hug the stone as to do the least damage while we retract it. One door was somewhat larger and more encumbered. So, we chose to start with the smaller eastern Portcullis (tentative name). It was a large limestone piece of about two meters by one and one half. The edges were precisely cut along each side without noticeable handholds, yet our sonar probes were very accurate, there were no internal joints that should prevent this stone from being pulled outwards. Beyond it we detect a long corridor extending farther than can be determined, it goes down at an inclination of approximately 7 degrees for as far as our instruments can ascertain. We surmise that these lead to the underground cavitation we detected by orbital scans (we have yet to correlate the underground sonar we are picking up here, it's possible the satellites detect something much deeper). All this we shall see shortly. I write this as they are preparing the "Pull."

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) evening, nightfall, March 22

Despite my reluctance, the exploration was paused for today. As we thought, this was a doorway to a straight, rectangular corridor, leading downwards.... Stan's team ventured to about a hundred meters, upon seeing more of the same, they paused to let us investigate what was behind. They thought it all the same, but I saw something far more valuable. The walls were inscribed with words from bottom to ceiling, until a sharp change at around 10 odd meters. It starts with numerous pictographic symbols of larger size, they seem to be diverse and quite creative, beside them (often to the right of each) are what I've come to call chicken-scratches, cuneiform-styled, much simpler characters. Evidently, it looks like the two share some function in the language structure of the time. But after the change, the murals become almost exclusively cuneiform-like.

I took high-resolution photographs under flash—I understand the light's capacity to dull the colors of ancient murals, but these photographs are better than the eye can see and will be publicly available shortly after the paper is published. I already have gigabytes of ancient cyphers at my disposal to decode. This would thrill me, if I received it while sitting at my desk in Boston, but here, the entranceway opens further beyond, and discovery is within our reach. At least they take that decision out of my hands, when Stan says out, everyone gets out of the caverns (although they were clearly intelligently designed and not caused by magma flow cavitations). The surface smoothness rivals some of the great pyramids for its precision.

For now, I am monopolizing the nightly batteries with my computer algorithms. I see familiarities in this ancient language already, there are many patterns like childish attempts at Egyptian hieroglyphs. The chicken mark were more likes of runic cuneiforms. But if I am correct, this could predate the pyramids by many thousands of years ...

Perhaps they proclaim a greeting or a warning.

The way my software works is that I programmed it to machine learn from the natural changes in known written languages. Like culture, words change as society evolves and requires new concepts and ideas. This change, just like biological evolution, slowly transforms with every creative stroke jotted down by prolific authors. Followers of these authors then try to replicate the words and letter-shapes exactly, yet unknowingly, add certain peculiarities of their own. These can be perpetuated and glorified (or not) by the hands of the next scribe. Evolutionary Graphetics, as it were, studies the process of transition of how α became a, through minor variation of writing styles over hundreds of years.

* * *

The law enforcement contacted us to say they would be delayed by the winds at dusk. "The man is still pacified?" or, "I'd advise you to put him in shelter, with a guard if necessary," and, "Unless urgent, we'll camp midway for the night. We also brought another agent who can appraise the situation, stay if needed, and coordinate a quicker response if necessary."

Surely, they were overdoing it a little? Maybe there was some interest in this site from those above the academic echelon. Either way, I suppose it can't hurt if they truly are here to protect the dig. Okomom would spend an uncomfortable night, but that was the least we could do. Melissa has even fed him, although I cringed at the time—not certain why. She's a good girl but the man could have bitten her fingers off if he were crazy.

* * *

We blocked the doorway with a thick layer of adhesive canvas to protect any sand and debris from entering the caverns (Grand Hallways was my suggestion, but Tom vetoed this nomenclature). The equipment and rigs have been sealed and Stan ordered an early start. Okomom wasn't their concern anymore. The law would be here for him early tomorrow. And I couldn't sleep late even if I tried; I'll be with them at the crack of dawn.

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) dawn, March 23

I placed my pack in line for Stan's assessment while waiting for them to get ready. Oh, these younger guys have a hard time keeping up with this old man. I set a series of analysis and comparisons going for the next few hours of CPU time. The result summaries would be printed out as they are computed. Nevertheless, I have some minutes to note a few curious observations from the morning.

Mary reported that the canvas covering the doorway was cut in three places, gashed about 10 to 20 cm, some places broken in stride. Doubtful that the winds could have caused this, I inquired. And what she said sent a shiver up my spine.

"The sharp object was pushed outwards, from the inside."

Some animal must have found its way to the darkness below somehow, some fissure open to the elements perhaps. The caverns might be teeming with wildlife for all we know. But the spelunkers also noted that their motion-sensor lights had been activated—twice—during the night. Stan said that flashlights were the best tools to scare away animal cave-dwellers. And our flashlights, I was told, can blind a bear under its intensity—no idea why anyone would think of doing something so horrid to the animal. POINT AWAY FROM FACE, was clearly written on each handle though.

I have appraised Okomom's status myself. He confirms he is well of body—satiated and relieved—but urged that we should not dare encroach deeper within the "Ancient Realm." When asked further about this topic, he would volunteer nothing more and I left him to his patience.

Unwilling to wait till the authorities decide to find this place, I volunteer to head the team until our first check point. Stan bows me entry, with a false sense of deference, as I adjusted my mask and visor. Like the day before, there was nothing in our path until I reached the first sensor markers.

Stan told his men to divide in three teams and explore past the first junction until they find another fork in the road, and place motion sensors (now with automated camera equipment). Again I was the designated photographer, but quickly decided to forgo meticulous categorization for now, as I would be the bottle-neck in the team. The length of tunnels simply made my task unrealistic as the spelunkers now opted to jog between relay points.

Their remote probes identified certain junctions further, at roughly three hundred meters ahead (approximately 40-meter vertical depth). The slope then becomes flat—as confirmed by the team's use of laser and level tripods—and branches out towards other cardinal points.

Further funding to explore this wonder of the ancient world is almost guaranteed. They will have to pull me out of here kicking and screaming.

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) mid morning, March 23

I can only describe what I beheld as compared from one terrible childhood memory that afflicted my peripheral nervous system with testicle-pulling, soul-wounding revulsion. It was the moment I learned that insects were fundamentally different things than us human mammals.

Not proactive in the cleanliness department, I once noticed a small centipede-or-the-like's carcass on my bathroom floor. It was dead I was certain; for weeks leading onto months, it remained there, accumulating dust, unmoving for ungodly amounts of time. Nothing could possibly remain alive all this while, forever immobile, for months on end. One morning for some reason, I decided to poke at the carcass, and immediately regretted it. Some vestigial neural activity in the seemingly-dead thing had reacted to my touch, sent the entire insect bolting, running out from under the layer of motes, skin flakes, and hair, and finding a crack in the wall-boards, escaping from my reality forever.

How horrible it can be that something thought inanimate, abhorrent was in fact alive and waiting. Perhaps we should not have penetrated so deep. But the human spirit must push the boundaries, sometimes unleashing the very Hell in its process. I recount the events transpired as best I can, under such circumstance of fright and terror upon beholding the thing.

The man called a break and we were to call in our status. I was with Melissa and, acknowledging my nod, she called that we were both here, in corridor Alpha One C. After she did, she answered the question which I had been reluctant to ask. I add this here as testimony to protect both parties involved. It seems that Tom was indeed trying to be more than a mentor to her. She relaxed my misgivings by saying she had herself invited sexual advances, very willingly at one time (I hoped on a sober evening). But he had not been able to do the task (un-tenured pressures too high perhaps), yet he was ardent to get another chance. She didn't know how to handle the situation as her thesis was involved, but she no longer wanted to pursue this relationship opportunity. This I note because that is when Tom found us, as she was confessing to this, non-co-ed, certainty. Humiliated that I learnt of this, Tom stormed out—I hoped that he wouldn't lose his way, accidentally bypassing all the other adventurers in the process, and losing himself, during his emotional stupor, to the endless tunnels stretching kilometers deeper. I remember thinking this at the time, and that Tom had already notified his position, seconds before he had approached ours.

That was the last time we saw him.

Trying to change that topic of conversation, I then proceeded to show her how to photograph the wall for rapid comparison by aligning the photography. With smart technology, we could easily superimpose whatever markers we chose from previous images. The camera, attached to the tripod, could orient itself. This permitted easy comparisons between two different wall faces with extreme precision.

About ten odd minutes following the call in, we heard some scuffling nearby. Jim, further ahead, yelled some question, but it sounded muffled through my earphones (so much gear tied to my skull that nothing fit perfectly right). Nevertheless, I approached where I thought something had changed in my neighboring environment. About ten meters ahead, seen with low light (unless necessary, I had everyone keep their output low to preserve the light sensitive pigmentation in the engravings), was a statue.

As I approached, my thinking was, "How could Jim be so sloppy to miss such a significant piece of cultural art." It was hideous, like a cathedral gargoyle, but with the head of an insect, ant-like, yet flattened and wide like a hammerhead shark. It stood on miraculously skinny limbs—apparently carved from a single piece, the pristine yet ancient integrity of it all was immediately apparent. The limbs joined into nodules of larger swelling, and it stood on four tripods that looked curiously like carved wooden-table legs. Two long arms, curled inwards like knives, rested at its chest. I must have stared at it, like a deer in the headlights, for long minutes; it did not move in the slightest.

But then, that same childhood terror and utter revulsion returned—fifty years later—through something far more hideous than a centipede. The thing jolted the instant I reached within a millimeter from its surface. It pushed me off balance, sending me sprawling to the hard limestone where it rained two or more wicked slaps before it stabbed me—shallow, I am glad—three times in the chest, it then skittered, aided by its forelimbs, into a wall segment that opened where I thought no alcove could have been. The shaft clanged shut and I could swear I heard a hermetic hiss. I laid on my back for a good ten seconds before Melissa dared to approach the direction of my screams (I don't know how I sounded, but Jim and Stan thought I had died). I heard footfalls rushing towards me from both sides of the corridor, yet nothing stirred from the panel ahead (we were unable to dislodge it, but I noted in my camera, identifying the precise symbols over the wall-writing, the exact location where it was). Bright beams in every direction showed nothing but further emptiness within the endless cyclopean tunnels.

They weren't too spooked by my story, agreeing I was jumped by something, but that I didn't know what (I should have photographed it prior to approaching it, I am such the fool).

When I dusted off, having pulled my mask and visor to take a drink of water, I checked my cuts (contaminated with cave germs if anyone was), but saw that they were mostly superficial, needing maybe a stitch or two. So, I was then ordered, along with Melissa, to head out with some of the guys. Either way, he wanted me to corroborate the Okomom story with the law officers if they had arrived. Stan was thorough, but I felt he actively wanted to avoid the law if he could.

Then we heard the noise.

Like a large whoosh, it felt like the entire world was suddenly opened to a vacuum. We physically felt the pressure blowing through the caverns and I surmised—too early for the temperature change at dusk—was caused by some force trying to push us out. But there was a rumbling and echoes that could only have been caused by a distant upheaval.

Confused babble and havoc echoed through the long hallways. We all paused, Stan called heads, those of us still within the caves sounded off, but the lookout outside didn't.

"Com malfunction. Some dipshit must'a tripped the tower," said he. Which I thought Tom, in haste, might have been that dipshit. After more silence, he ordered everyone out. Something had happened and he wanted surface recon before continuing today. "And I need to take a good crap," the man added.

He stood at the surface hatch urging us to pick up pace. It was still far, but I could see him, and I could see that he wasn't happy.

Winded, he helped me out of the dusty atmosphere to the fog of sand that was our campsite. Certainly, against Mary's rules; the dig was ruined worse than any ill-witted amateur could have done. Whatever freak dust-tornado hit Alpha quarry, it hit faster than anyone could defend the site. But I quickly realized it was worse than that.

Across the divide, the west hatch was a crater. Like it had been hit by a bomb; rocks, rubble, sand, and limestones, were scattered over the clearing. Yet it hadn't exploded from the outside. A large crater, looking like a mole-hole, of about five meters in diameter remained. The giant slab had been vaulted, high in the air, and thrown a good twenty meters down camp—crushing computers and one of the extra latrines.

Something had burst forth from the other, larger hatchway.

The worst wasn't the damage, it was the absence of carnage—everyone was gone.

Almost everyone.

Okomom sat, looking befuddled, in the same seat to which he was tie-wrapped when we departed. But no one else was around. Tom, the spelunkers, the dig crew, Peter, or the Police that were destined to arrive, no one was here.

* * *

Reverting to his native tongue, his long slurs of panicked gibberish do not help us at all. He doesn't seem to understand anything I say anymore, simply shouting that the Deliberator—or the Great Decider—has been released. I don't understand nor have the time to translate anymore of it. Melissa is trying to calm him.

* * *

Something else highly inconvenient—in Boston, this would otherwise have been horrendous, but today, it was simply a new hitch which I'm still not capable of processing fully—of all the results accumulated to data drives, all the solar powered hardware to use them ... everything more complex than a skin razor was rendered useless. Whatever jostled loose that door, also cleared out our data disks like a magnetic pulse. This again, for a scholar, should have been the end of me, but it's simply the next inconvenience in a long string of jostling experiences. The last of our notes are scribbled here by hand ...

* * *

We are still awaiting the law to arrive, it is almost dusk now. No one has yet returned.

* * *

Okomom seems to have lost his ability to speak English.

* * *

Looking down the western door (heading downwards in opposing directions), there are only endless hallways. The scriptures, those that remain undamaged, were of the same cuneiforms.

Me and Stan agreed, whatever had happened to that hatch needed to be checked and marked by his people before anything was decided. Whatever had come out of there might have taken everyone. We still have no idea what happened.

* * *

Stan stands watch facing the door with a shotgun on his lap. He will see the light activate if anything approaches from within the tunnel. He has nerves far more tempered than mine.

* * *

My images confirm that perhaps more of those hatchways, that my giant bug assailant crawled into, exist throughout the structure.

My camera—the one which I held within the caves—is already getting glitchy. Am I paranoid for believing that there might be some type of surface ionization? Like radiation ... If so, we might be getting more than a Curie's worth of an exposure. Can't tell without a functional Geiger. The generators have fused or are giving out. We are rationing the use of those still functional.

Under candle light. How romantic ...

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) night, March 23

After waiting for law enforcement that has yet to manifest itself, and with no sign of the others, we were forced to stay the night. Some argued rushing towards civilization, fleeing, everyone for themselves, but Stan stamped his foot firm, we weren't leaving until those that might be dead or wounded were accounted for. I agreed likewise. We still have no idea what happened, or for what help should be sought.

But also, I had discovered we still had the paper printouts—in fugue I had completely forgotten. The hard drives were kaput, but parchment had endured.

My software worked! This proves my theory about the numerous language correlations because pages of text have already been decoded; the cursive cues were correct, either this civilization was using multiple dialects, or served as the root of what became the thriving languages that spread around the world. The two different writing styles I found on the walls could have been indicative of two languages or, as I am learning, both a word/pictographical language and one that is principally mathematical. The words can write numbers and the numbers can represent letters and words, so they could be interchangeable; this seems to be the case as the same topics are discussed using both writing styles. I believe it is simply explained twice. Perhaps two or more cultures shared these grounds? The hieroglyphs are highly similar to the Tiwanaku tablets in Bolivia while the chicken script, I would say numerical (twelve main character base) writing, closely matches (with expected evolutionary divergence, of course) the old Sumerian cuneiform, a language that hasn't been linked to any antecedent. It also looks like the morphemes in the pictograph oddly mimics the engravings found at Balathal in India, the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) culture that developed out of the Indus Valley.

But the story that is emerging is even more interesting than that. These cyclopean structures [the word they used is the same for sea-ship] were built to preserve humanity's integrity—of body or soul, I am still debating—by immortalizing our modular units (some type of building block I can only surmise, my translation being perhaps 80% accurate at this point). Then, incredibly, stupendously, it seems to detail some type of cellular division. An amateur scholar might have argued a crude genesis parable like Adam and Eve, but these module units, as the imagery seems to indicate, finalize in the creation of a person, or a god (the female figure seems to have a halo). Reviewers will argue that this might symbolize the analogy of a city; arguing that they are guiding principles to building a functional society. But nay, for after the explanation of how an ovule becomes inseminated, there are exemplified figures of cells—some smaller with a flagellum! This will need to be highlighted in the manuscript figures. Following the pictographic and mathematic co-occurrence, there is a long, endless string of chicken scratches filling the walls, potentially for miles underground. I can't be certain yet, but my camera's calculator can at least compute, that with our standard model of genetic code (ACGT), the entire human genome could be laid out onto these walls. It might be a monumental task to get a contemporary molecular biologist to try to decode ancient scriptures, but perhaps we must. There is also prominent representation of a character in the introduction like the section sign, §, which, to me, could easily resemble the Watson and Crick helical DNA structure.

The message also writes: This poem must be remembered for as long as the sky burns. The ritual shall churn until the passengers can quiet it, so that if the skies burn forever, then something new, born from us, can emerge and thrive within the fires. But some might survive the great ordeal, and the skies return to the sun and stars. If those that survive the great ordeal and repopulate the world do not resemble man as created by the ritual of the poem, there would need to be a new plough, to end the new and restart the old. The ship knows (curious, this verb symbol normally refers only to the action of people) that the world might be changed forever and that the poem might need to change accordingly, but only if Akhaknahnaya... [that which ploughs] determines that the world deserves to be preserved.

The poem, meaning the long message conveyed from start to end—or end to start for all I know—across the endless kilometers of underground tunnels. Tunnels that could be teeming with those hardened insects, molting away the ages.

From known language clusters, it then says in a sentence or two: to play the poem will create one fertile woman. This then proceeds into long clusters of chicken scratch, that could depict this information in an uncountable number of ways. Just like languages, scientific discoveries repose on the achievements of those that preceded them. Progress shapes the scientific language. So, translation is not as easy as you'd imagine.

Genetic information as we understand consists of four basic nucleotides—so there would have to be a mathematical overlap (4³ possible nucleotide combinations coding for twenty or so amino acids)—that translate proteins from our genetic material. e.g. They could use the letter e to call the nucleic acid A, but there are non-coding parts of our DNA to consider as well, such as promoter regions, various epigenetic modifications, etc... then e could also appear as è or é. The possibilities and permutations of this language are simply beyond my cerebrum's and that of my fading camera's—piece of shit can't even send email by satellite reception—ability to decode. I would guess they start from the X chromosome. My department head would remind me to stay within my field and to publish more within my niche (sic).

But if I am right, the entire gamut of the human genetic code could be sung in one long poem covering the walls of this ancient underground labyrinth. I wonder how the longest song in the world would sound.

The other down-sloping cyclopean hallway is damaged beyond recognition. There is no way to corroborate my new hypothesis. Whatever came out of it—I fear might have been [that which ploughs]—erased the western sequence from history.

"What if the thing that did that comes back," Melissa asked more than once.

"We don't know crap about what happened to that door," I replied, perhaps too forthwith. Whatever happened to it was far beyond a single human's capacity.

But I knew I couldn't leave. Even if it were my death, I wouldn't leave. More people needed to learn of this. We couldn't flee, I knew this discovery would, somehow, become buried again.

Places like this tend to hide from the world.

* * *

Jorgensen expedition notes (Alpha quarry) Morning, March 24

Curse my curiosity and my hubris to see this through. We should have fled when we had the chance. Why it chose to leave me behind is uncertain. The greater horror returned shortly after dawn.

We had released Okomom (under Melissa's urgency) who said he wanted to flee more than prevent our research. And we couldn't ethically keep him bound indefinitely.

He began packing his gear, but then stood transfixed, and yelled—of the Deliberator.

And it came fast.

The abhorrence of the thing cannot be sufficiently described. It travelled on amorphous limbs that extended and then retracted back into itself, some bulbous monstrosity, much bigger than the ruptured entrance, filled with dark goop and decaying limbs. It had not been hiding below like we feared, but roamed the Australian country-side, doing what it had been designed to do. The Great [that which ploughs] absorbed everything it trampled upon, and to my dismay, that is within where I must assume my fellows would be found.

As quick as it was upon our camp, it latched onto Okomom, then Melissa. Stan fired at it; his blast barely created a ripple upon the slimy surface. Heading directly towards the Western opening, it steamrolled the head spelunker like an elephant through grass. The others couldn't escape it either and, as I beheld this petrifying sight, I could do nothing more than observe the awesome force that it was.

Voracious and insatiable, it latched onto anything that moved. Jim dashed for the empty desert, but one long slimy appendage, patched with beetle hide and bulbous chunks of what looked like a scorpion's venom sac, lashed out like a dart, and skewered the flailing man. His screams were muffled as he was pulled into the dark goop of its digestive core. It had no mouth—it was a mouth.

All were absorbed into it, into that monstrous thing to be digested. And it would grow, expand the living cancerous mass that it was. Only I remained behind and I see no other reason but random chance. Not piety or purity here, but chance; Okomom might have been spared simply because he was not in its direct path.

Then it was gone. A wretched gurgling noise blew forth from the Western orifice for long minutes as I stood paralyzed and hoped to awaken from this nightmare.

What could I have done?

* * *

Earlier we had come to an increasingly startling belief.

About the song, Melissa had said, "Feels like an experiment to make a new type of human being, like homo sapiens that can survive crazy planetary conditions. Maybe that was what jumped you in the cave."

"That's an interesting thought. With scary implications." It didn't look very human to me. "What about the Plough," I then asked.

"That part's scarier. Sounds like a bio-weapon."

"Still functional. All this time?"

"Maybe it's been continuously re-designed, perfected? Like when a superhuman intelligence creates an even superior intelligence."

"If they had the technology and knowledge to transform genes, they could have done anything here, undisturbed, underground, for hundreds of centuries ..."

"How would they know if we're adequate for the Great Decider?" she then asked after long minutes of difficult introspection.

They would require a sample of our genetic material. I told her so as I felt the cuts over my arms and chest.

They got their sample.

***

The ground has started to shake. If I am right, then this place will soon no longer be here. I believe that this structure is in fact the fabled ship that is purported at the entryways. Whatever ancient technology these "humans" had is evidently much superior to what we have now. There must have been a calamity of unimaginable proportions if they dared to create such a laboratory—an ark of Noah, really—except here, they created a new race that could survive that Armageddon. They have their answer and they have decided. Whether we must be scythed down or if we have passed the test of [that which ploughs], I do not know, but soon we shall see.

Now, I must take my chances and do what I know I must. I don't even believe I still have freedom of choice in the matter. I must confront our past and try, if I might, to save those that I have cursed into this. I know that my curiosity will drive me to my doom, but I embrace it with all that I am.

End log

THE END

Bio: Jason Arsenault is a neuropharmacologist currently working at the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children in Canada. Beyond writing and tirelessly escaping from the creeping void, Jason is an avid martial artists and philosopher always trying to push the boundaries of the human experience. He also likes card games.