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Reunion: Chapter 3

Emil poked the fire with a metal prod. The embers glowed as they were exposed to a fresh source of oxygen and quickly sparked into small flames that licked at the sky. Emil frowned at the fire he had built, it was pitiful in his opinion, it always was. The burning of wood was prohibited, so instead he brought fuel bars. They were hunks of an oil like substance that was often used as an industrial fuel, the problem was, it burned painfully slow and not very hot.

"You're not going to get much more than that." The Canis who was sitting across from his spoke up. Marcel, Emil's co-worker and friend who had agreed to come with him to the mountains shivered and pulled his insulated jacket tighter against himself. It was fall and snow was expected to begin to fall any day now, but the New Earth government was going through an exploration phase and was sending out teams to map and chart the planet. Satellites could only do so much, eventually there had to be boots on the ground.

"Well it's better than freezing to death."

"You can freeze to death even if you covered yourself in that stuff and set it alight."

"Just stop complaining." Emil pointed the stick and the man. "We're heading back tomorrow." They had been mapping and surveying the land for an entire week like planned and were both eager to return to the capital of New Sydney.

"I'll stop complaining when we do head back." Marcel pulled up his coat so that it covered most of his face. He crossed his arms and hugged them to his chest. He did not do well in the cold despite being a Malamute. He had grown up in the tropical regions that New Sydney occupied, not the more unforgiving northern regions that saw some of the biggest blizzards he had ever seen. In reality, they were just as big as any other blizzard, but any blizzard to him was massive.

Emil rolled his eyes and went back to prodding the fire mercilessly in his attempts to get a bit more warmth out of it.

"We should set up here." Emil stopped walking after reaching a cliff face. He didn't feel like attempting to climb it, he was a scientist, not an adventurer.

Marcel walked up next to him and gazed at the sheer granite wall that faced them. "Fine by me." He quickly agreed and began to set up the survey equipment that they had both lugged several miles all day. They simply needed to cover areas that the satellites were unable to see. Not too far off from where they were, there was an area that was interfering the satellite imagery. Anytime one of them would go over the area, it would go dark and then come back online after passing over. There were several areas on the planet like this and it was hypothesized that the planet was giving off electromagnetic rays that were more concentrated in those areas. More teams would be sent out eventually to investigate, but for now Emil and Marcel were just here to map it out.

"There." Marcel stepped back from set up of devices that were needed to begin the survey. "I'll start up the warmup sequence." He said and leaned down and flipped a switch. Several red and green lights came on and the largest of the machines released a small cube that hovered a meter off of the ground.

"Ok." Emil pulled out a boxy device from his pocket that told him everything was in the green and ready to go. "Go ahead and send out the drone."

Marcel nodded and input a command into the device and the drone shot up into the sky where it would begin to take images and scans to map out the area. The data began to appear on Emil's device immediately and what he saw did no surprise him. It was all grassy flatland and more mountains beyond the cliff face. The entire planet was like that. There were no trees or tree like plants, only grass and shrubs as far as the eye could see until you hit the mountains. New Earth's topography was very similar to Earth's. There were gorges, rivers, oceans, mountain ranges, volcanoes, everything, but trees. The wildlife had evolved to the treeless environment and were generally either very short and low to the ground to hide under the bushes or very tall to look over them.

"Now we wait." Marcel stretched his arms up and yawned, his canines flashing in the sunlight. Emil tried not to stare, but he was always interested in Canis and how they had stemmed off of humans. The details behind what had caused Canis to appear had been lost a long time ago when the colony first arrived at New Earth. The ship that carried much of the history of Earth had crossed into one of the dead zones above the planet and a lot of the data it stored was lost. As a result, not much was known about their original home planet. They knew that they came from Earth because the colonists themselves remembered that, but lot's of history from the twentieth century and beyond was lost and forgotten.

Several hours went by as the two waited for the drone to finish until the data suddenly stopped flowing in. "Shit." Emil cursed and slapped his hand on the side of his device. "Marcel, are you getting anything?"

"No." Marcel answered as he studied his own set of devices. "I think it's the drone. Must have gone down. I have its coordinates."

"I guess we should go get it." Emil pocketed his device. "Where'd it go down?"

"Just northwest of here, past the cliff face." Marcel looked up the sheer rock wall. "Good luck, I'll guide you from here."

"Don't think you'll get the pleasure of seeing me scramble up that thing. The drone did manage to spot a way around. I'm taking that way." Emil began to walk parallel to the wall. The drone did scan a way around, the land slowly rose, following a dry river bed up to the top of the cliff. It would be a bit of a walk, but there way he was going to risk a fall for the drone. They weren't cheap, which was why he didn't want to just leave it behind and call it a day.

"Where do I go now?" Emil spoke into his radio. The walk around had taken him longer than he would like due to the rocky terrain of the dry riverbed. He looked south to the setting sun. New Earth was sideways when compared to the other planets in the system and caused the sun to rise in the north and set in the south. Emil didn't like the idea of walking in the dark and he couldn't just call for help, they had left all of the long range communication equipment back at the small base they set up. He called it a base, it was nothing more than a tin shack.

"The drone went down a few clicks to the north west." Marcel's voice came through the radio gravelly.

We can go to space, but not make a decent radio. Emil thought and then began to head north-west. Now that he had left the riverbed behind, the going was a lot easier. He made good time and soon he found the drone lying in a bush.

"I found it." Emil kneeled down and lifted the drone. It was heavy. Small boosters on the back kept it stable while antigrav lifts allowed it to travel at high speeds and traverse the landscape. There were no signs of physical damage beyond the few scuffs it had on its grey shell from the fall it took when it went off line.

"Good, head back now. I want to get home before the sun gets back up. I need a shower."

Emil was about to head back until something caught his eye. There was a building not one hundred meters away from where he was. He didn't know how it had eluded his sight since now that he saw it, it stuck out of the ground like a sore thumb.

"Hold on. I found something." He got up, with the drone still in his hand and slowly approached the building, curiosity taking over. The building was a made of a metal he didn't recognize. The surface seemed to shimmer like a liquid, but it was clearly solid since it was standing erect. It was no larger than the shack he and Marcel had slept in for the past week and there were no windows, only a slight ridge ont eh side that faced hint that hinted at an entrance.

"What is it?" Marcel asked, sounding annoyed, but clearly just as curious as his colleague.

Emil stopped just shy of the building and stuck out his hand. The surface seemed to flex lightly as he pressed against the surface. It was cold and after flexing slightly, it turned hard like steel. "I'm not sure. It's some kind of building."

"Out there? There's not supposed to be anything out there, just scrubland."

"Hey, don't question me. It's a building alright."

"You want me to come out there?"

"No, it'll take too long." Emil said, sort of wanting to keep the discovery to himself. He felt like a child, excited at this discovery and a bit selfish. "Go and head back to the base and call the city to get some people out here to investigate."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." He didn't wait for a reply. Marcel would do as he was told and contact the right people. For now, he had an urge to go investigate. He ran his hand along the inside of the ridge of the building, trying to find a way in. There was no noticeable controls or handle to open it up.

An idea came to him and made him feel silly. He stepped back a bit and raised up a fist. He knocked on the side of the building. The sound of the knocking echoed inside and he could hear it, strangely, the echoing was going down into the ground.

He tried again, except with his ear against the wall and gain he heard the echoing of his knocks sink into the ground. As he pulled his ear back, the building groaned.

Emil, startled by the sudden noise, stumbled back and fell onto his rear. The building continued to rumble and the edge on the building slid away, revealing the inside of it.

Inside was a room, an empty room made of the same material as the outside, but lit. The light poured out into the dark surrounding. The sun had gone down some time ago and Emil had been studying the building in near complete darkness. There was no reason to be afraid of the dark on New Earth. Even the largest of predators avoided humans and there had never been an account of an animal attack.

Emil stood up and dusted the dirt that had stuck itself to his green overalls. The empty inside of the building was foreboding and ominous, but the same urge that kept Emil from going back to Marcel drove him to step inside.

He looked around, expecting something different, but was disappointed. The light seemed to pour out of the walls, but that was the only difference from the outside.

"That's a shame." Emil mumbled to himself. The echoing had made him think there would be a shaft of some sort and there still could be, but the floor was blocking his view of what could be below him.

"What's a shame?" A heavily accented voice call out of nowhere.

"What?" Emil looked around frantically and then tried to leave, but the door had silently closed as soon as he had stepped him without him noticing. He pressed himself to try and open it back up, but with the door closed, he had no idea which side was the exit. Each wall looked exactly the same.

"You verbally indicated that something was a shame. I am inquiring what that may be."

Emil couldn't discern the location of the voice, but he did feel the room he was in slowly begin to descent like an elevator.

"Where are you taking me?" Emil asked, panicked. He hands were shaking as he scratched at the walls.

Whatever was talking to him, ignored the question. "It had been far too long since the last organic has been here."

"Organic?" The word rang in his ears clearly and fueled his scratching. "What do you mean by that?"

"Are you not a user?"

"User?"

"User confirmed." The voice exclaimed too excitedly for Emil's comfort. "User access granted." The elevator stopped moving and the wall to Emil's right opened up.