Ṯ̸͠ḧ̴͙͍́e̵̯͝ ̶̬̜̚J̷̹̽o̸̞̪͑ū̵̻́ř̷̪n̷̝͔̊̌ȧ̶͓̊l̴͖͆

	I appear in a chamber. A time and a place. I am sometimes in neither so I must specify when such descriptions collapse. I no longer need to hold my breath, my mind-lungs have become accustomed to the Void's impossibility, like a new-born learning to cough up its old medium and breath air on its own. It helps to not need to maintain one's self. I have learned to travel light, and while at first it would seem to defeat the purpose, I have learned that it is best to leave much of myself behind as I travel. You would be amazed at how much of one's self is not at all needed.

	My new chamber has walls, I realize, and air... and living beings. Humans even! A rare find in the universe, they- we, have not many time-places to reside in. I recognize the shape, but not much else. I struggle to see the links, but my self in this moment has not yet seen what has drawn me here. The others do not see me, of course. I am unsure if what I see is real, if my own projection is real, or if this is simply all a projection, a recording viewed from an infinite archive of reality. The truth, of course is that it does not matter.

	The chamber itself is a place of learning. It is shaped as my own university hall was, like the theaters of the ancient greeks, the whole room focused on a holo-projector suite at the base where a woman stands calmly, exuding knowledge like radiation from an isotope. Her future and past glows with the chain reactions of learning, of knowledge imparted to the ignorant and sophomoric alike. The seats are filled with students, each an eager part in the reaction, not just a sponge, but a participant, like an accelerant in a reactor. This must be an advanced class. The tablets on their desks confirm as much, all written in english with the seal of the Commonwealth Fleet authority and the title of the class marked in fine, clear print; “Applied philosophy and theory”. This was an officer academy, though where and when I could not say. It must be recent to you, as you were the topic of the discussion. Perhaps that is why I was attracted to this place and time?

	“Good morning class, let's get right into things, shall we?” The instructor says. “We've had a number of interesting developments that may alter some of our discussions and I'd like to review your untainted thoughts before revealing those details. We're having a special week this week, and once again today much of our topics are highly classified. You will receive more than a failing mark if you take these talks to anyone without clearance.” He grave demeanor holds for a moment, and then cracks with a sudden clap of her hands as she flips a switch on her desk her holo-projectors boot with a slow, soft whine of cooling fans. “So!” She says. “You assignment was to assemble a collection of working theories on the methods of communication and social organization of our current species of focus, the Xeno Formictidae Sanguinatus.” The holo projectors complete their boot, and several hive drones materialize in front of the desk in high definition still images. They seem to all be mixtures of data, patchwork images formed from field footage and sketches of second hand reports. Judging by some of the implied data, the Commonwealth clearly seems to have some sources within the Union, as a slightly... incorrect image of a thinker spins slowly over the desk, its image clearly taken from estimations made on the studying of the smashed thinkers taken from your aunt's crashed ships. Most of the others are warriors of all sizes and classifications, their sizes scaled to all fit together, but center stage is an image that seems to be of you, or at least what they think you look like, according to Lee's own description. It's not all that far off, though it certainly fails to capture the non-physical majesty of a Hive Queen's worldline.

	“You were then to form into groups in order to more fully assemble that working theory into a proposal to be tabled at our opening discussion. I've read your reports and I think we have some interesting theories, so let's get started with the basic facts that you have all accepted.” She points a small pen sized object to the back wall behind her desk and a two dimensional projection appears showing a spider web of info-points clearly intended to represent Hive social structure. “The Hive species is divided into genetic castes, which can be quickly altered or customized to suit nearly any function. At its most basic, these castes include, at minimum, warrior, worker, brain, and queen. The degree to which these castes are able to function independently are unknown, the method of communication between castes is unknown, and the level of interchangeability is unknown. After reading through your theories, I am sorry to say a few can be crossed out immediately given some new information.” She swings her pen in the vague direction of some students. “Radio, or any known EM spectrum radiation.” She says. “While it is possible this could supplement their short range communication methods, they are capable of transmitting data over interstellar distances without visible use of Q-comm technology, and at an apparent rate of data transfer we are not able to accomplish without a device the size of a house. In addition, this data transmission seems to be blocked by the meta-physical phenomena of Warp Drive transit, as evidenced by a member of the diplomatic caste being rendered comatose for the duration of warp travel aboard a Commonwealth vessel. Whats more, it anticipated its own impairment. The drone was left... conscious, but inactive. Lethargic and mostly non-responsive. It became hyper-obsessed with its genetic function, but unable to accomplish its function to any degree of competence.” She waves her pen again and a short video places from a security camera of your Ambassador drone chittering meaninglessly about human languages and vocal patterns within its designated living quarters as a human smiles and nods seemingly at random. He slowly leaves, still facing the drone, until the door separating them seals, leaving your drone alone. It suddenly stops, looks about its room, and seems to slowly lower to the floor like a pneumatic device losing pressure as it gradually crumples to in a heap like a discarded puppet. The recording fast forwards several hours to when the door opens again, and the drone instantly stands back up, resuming its speech from the very syllable it left off and follows the human back out into the hall as he says something of warp emergence soon. There is a murmuring in the audience of students.

	“Second theory: Pheromones. You got lucky with the scavs but this is a different beast altogether. Wrong for the same reasons. Third theory, Sub-vocalizations supplemented with centralized EM transmissions and Q-Com analogs. I won't rule this out yet, I'd like to hear your group's defense of it, but I would like to focus on something several groups came up with, each in their own terms, that exemplifies the out-of-the-box thinking this class is trying to foster: Telepathy. To those of you in the radio and pheromone groups, you were so caught up trying to avoid sounding crazy that you ended up sounding unimaginative and boring. Plenty of people peg officers as that stereotype already, don't go confirming it.” She says, some of the students laugh softy, but not many.

	“Now, before we break out the harmonic crystals and start charting stellar leylines into our chakras, let's hear from some of our Telepathy theorists. Anyone?” Several groups of students murmur among themselves before one stands up, a young woman with her brown hair tied into a short ponytail that is just barely under the regulation maximum hair length limit. “Ms. Carmen?” The teacher says.

	“Telepathy is a bit of a misnomer. Our theory revolves around an internal organ utilizing an as-yet undiscovered form of radiation. Something unbound by C.”

“Did your group have any theories on what it might be, or where we could potentially find this particle?”

	“Not quite.” She says, glancing to her group, a small huddle of five other students, two more girls and three boys of similar age. “We took the understanding that their starships are organic in nature to imply that they are also a part of the hive species, to some degree, at least in origin. Their drives give off massive amounts of radiation across the full spectrum, every frequency known to man, as well as gravitational irregularities as seen from several sensor buoys, meaning their drives are altering spacetime on some level. The ships read a lower gravity field than normal moments before and moments after a maneuver. We suspect this is in part or in whole in relation to some manner of radiation or metaphysical property that uses this reduction in mass to move past light speed. Information is already without mass, so this radiation would be able to function without the mass-reduction at a far less energy intensive process which could potentially be held within an artificial organ.”

	“Linking the jump radiation to the idea of a natural FTL radiation is clever, but dangerous.” The teacher says. “You've started at your conclusion and worked backwards to justify it. It doesn't mean your wrong, but it's not evidence. Anyone else? You, Mr. Xelan.” A boy stands across from the room, his cadet uniform having alterations to accommodate several religious or cultural garments on his belt, a sash, and a small knife no larger than a letter opener. Thick stubble uncharacteristic of an officer cadet spreads in spots across his chin.

	“My group has assembled a working theory of metaphysics to account for this telepathy. Using this altered version of the E8 mathematical system, we've made a model of the universe that contains multiple interacting spacial dimensions. We suspect that the Hive species can, on some level, interact with intersections of these spacial dimensions and transmit data using typical short range transmission methods, such as radio or sub-vocalizations over theoretically infinite distances by sending the data through these intersections.”

	“I really liked the effort you've put into this, but from what we can tell, spacetime is flat. You go through a lot of effort to make it almost into a spiral of sorts in order to have it intersect frequently enough for this method of communication to function, and in the process I think you may have busted a few mathematical proofs, but I'll let it pass for now as most of your violations won't be covered until next year.” The instructor says. “Now there was one more group.” She points to several other students, and a girl stands up, her head is shaved military style, but a small pocket holo-projector in her cadet visor creates a cascading set of hair like a softly glowing wig.

	“We based our working model off of the one-electron universe theory. It's never been proven or disproven, and it remains theoretically impossible to do either with our current technology, but the theory has been around for a thousand years or so without much improvement. We think that the Hive species is using this singular electron to inscribe information by bouncing it in certain ways that cause it to behave in a predictable pattern at another point in spacetime, allowing for two otherwise unrelated particles to function similarly to a quantum entangled pair. By using known electrons within a dedicated organ of the drone, these predictive electron wobbling could be used to send and receive data in parallel along multiple electrons simultaneously and in concert, dramatically increasing the amount of data through-put that could be accomplished using far, far less physical space than a Q-com device.”

	“You went diving through the historical archives for this.” The instructor says. “Again I appreciate your effort, but there are a lot of unprovable theories out there made of bunk science, and typically being unable to prove a theory is just as good as ruling it out. If it cannot be verified, it cannot be studied. Still, there is another field of would-be bunk science that I'm rather disappointed nobody came across in their research. Anyone want to take a swing at it?” There is a nervous silence in the room. The instructor seems slightly disappointed, but quickly moves on.

	“Okay.” She says, “Let's move on to that critical new information I mentioned earlier. This is actually rather old, but it's taken quite some time for the data to be considered relevant and safe for dissemination across our intelligence network and R&D departments, and even still, it has more redactions than we're normally used to suffering through. This academy is prestigious, and maybe one day you lot will be able to requisition the full reports, but until then, you will need to deal with the inconvenience.” She flicks her remote and the projector on the wall shifts again, changing to a display of text and video files along a grid. The students quickly pick up their tablets and begin streaming the various files to their devices.

	“During the end of the war, the public record states that a kinetic impactor strike detonated a weapons stockpile large enough to crack open the Earth's moon. This is a half-truth at best. The second best historical record, the one you know, is that it was not a massive munitions cache, but a singular, experimental weapon. Some manner of powerful anti-capital warhead with the potential yield to function as a planet cracker, and crack Luna it did. This is about two-thirds the truth. The third historical record, the one that until now only a select few terminally mentally ill scientists and a hand-chosen collection of people whose number could be counted on one hand between both the Union and the Commonwealth have known. That this experimental weapon was not of human design, but was in fact built using direct, telepathic instruction channeled through an artifact of alien origin found buried beneath the surface of the Earth's Moon.” She pauses for breath, looking over the students as they examine the provided records and skim through the layers of black bars in search of select few doses of information.

	“All of this is old data, but the new information adds a massive amount of context.” She says. “That is to say, that this alien origin, was our species of focus.” She waves a hand in the direction of the estimated image of your form, as if introducing you as a guest speaker to the lecture. “To what end, we still have no idea, however intelligence is almost certain of the connection, and 'almost certain' to that paranoid lot of over-thinkers means being one step away from providing a mathematical proof.” A student stands up.

	“So according to these records, the Commonwealth has had access to this technology the entire time? Why hasn't it been given any practical application?”

	“Technically, the Confederacy had it. The moon was destroyed and the lab along with it. Several researchers survived the event, but most were captured by the Union, as well as a great deal of research material. The Commonwealth only managed to salvage what data was already copied and exported off site, but the material components were all lost, and are presumed to be in Union hands. This, according to intel, is the main reason for the Hive's borderline hostile interactions with the Union, as well as a possible reason for why the Ceph seem to raid Union space, but not Commonwealth space. According to the research notes, these devices were built using a similar property of physics as the telepathic relic in question, however, also according to those notes, as well as comments of hive diplomatic drones, these devices are highly volatile, unpredictable, and incomprehensible to beings of our own tech level, and thus pose an existential threat to any who would attempt to handle them.” The instructor seems to pause for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “I believe some of you have taken a Pre-Colonial Literature class, do any of you know of the title Roadside Picnic?” She asks, then frowns briefly. “Actually never mind, I'm sure you'll see the parallels on your own. My point is, even with the small amount of information given to us, we can clearly see that we are lagging behind in an entire field of physics, to the point of not even knowing about it. I would like a thesis on this topic from each of you tomorrow.”

---

	I am in a tunnel, my incorporeal form dragged along in the wake of a small, open topped vehicle. The focus of this vision is held within it. He is a stern faced man, young looking, but also wealthy looking, so age is difficult to judge by sight. His well polished armored hazard suit reflects the shimmering lights of the passing floodlights in stark contrast to the surrounding dirt covered mine workers who watch from the sides of the tunnel as the vehicle passes, though despite a polish shine, the armored plates still show a level of wear that no amount of careful maintenance can prevent. He is a wealthy man, yes, but he leads from the front. A powered officer's sword is strapped to his belt, and he grips it with his armored gauntlet like a decorative walking cane. Even under the rebreather, his face is held firm in annoyance more than anything. He seems familiar, you have met this man, or you will, it is hard to tell the difference, but his line crosses with your own in several possible realities. In some, tangling together for vast spans of time, while in others drifting through your shadow in passing before sublimating into oblivion, leaving behind a tangled knot of the lines of his many children as they tear apart his remaining legacy like carrion.

	The man's annoyance is understandable. He has surrounded himself with the best and brightest men and women his realm could claim to have, and yet nobody can give him a straight answer as to why his mine has halted its work. His fleet needs metal, and his geologists had long suspected these mountains rich in ores usable in industrial purposes, it seemed to him the most simple of commands, and yet here he was, a sovereign, touring a mine shaft because a drill broke down on a slab of bedrock.
	“This had better be good.” He says finally, his frustration bubbling to the surface. His aides look ahead, concerned at the statement as if reading a rapidly dropping barometer.
	“It is just up ahead, Sire.” One of them says. He is the mine's foreman by the judge of his dress, though the stern looking man has never seen him before and does not remember his name. If he needs to know it, one of his aides will whisper the name in his earpiece. He has many thousands of laborers under his employ, it would be impossible for him to know them all.

	The vehicle turns a corner into a side tunnel and the man rises to his feet, pushing the sheath of his sword against his seat as his other hand grips the bars of the vehicle's roll cage, his face mask making a hissing pop of quick air intake as he gasps suddenly. Yes, it was worth it... whatever it was.
	“We started in this section with the drill on a perfectly new bit, and it stripped it to the nub before we realized it. Whatever it is, it's dense. We figured it was some native quirk of the planet, we were told to expect unusually dense chunks of rock between veins, so we set some shaped charges,” the foreman points to several locations along the tunnel, but the man doesn't notice where, “but after we blew the fuses, we got this.” The man still stares in stunned silence at the wall. Within the rock, revealed by several large blasted holes in the thick stone, is a perfectly smooth metallic surface. Lines trace through it at irregular intervals, all perfectly parallel or turning sharply at forty five degree angles, sometimes merging or splitting, but never intersecting. Near the center is a small circular set of slight scratches where the drill had broken against the surface, but upon closer inspection, they are not quite scratches, but marks where the diamond of the drill had smeared against the surface in sufficient amounts as to stain. There is a sudden voice in the man's ear as an aide whispers on a private channel using his own rebreather's mic.
	“We've still been unable to gather a proper sample of the material. The drill couldn't even harm it, although there is very faint superficial damage from the blasting caps. We have a laser drill we can bring in, Sire, if it pleases.”
	“What about the geological scans? How did they not pick this up?” He replies.
	“We did, we just didn't know how to interpret the data.” The voice in his earpiece says. He can't tell which aide is speaking with their hazard suits on, their voices indistinguishable over the static filled short range comm. “Top-side scans indicated pockets of hollow cave formations throughout the upper crust, and layers of ultra-dense bedrock. In several other mines we've found that layers of thick granite seem to be found surrounding dense ore veins, so we concentrated on those locations. Unfortunately the surface scans lacked the resolution to detect the finer details.”
	“Finer detail?” He says, incredulous, “This is an artificial formation!”
	“Yes, Sire.”
	“Get the laser drill!” He says, quickly spinning around and tossing his arm in a wide arc, gesturing to the whole of the tunnel at once as workers leap to try to appear busy. “And get some more scanners down here, I want to know just what the hell this thing is.” The foreman answers, his voice breaking with nervousness over whom he addresses.
	“Seismo- Sire, the seismographs we have monitoring the mountain range indicate a very large layer of similarly dense material which seems to cover most, or possibly all of the mountain range.”
	“Do you have any more accurate sensors available?”
	“Not on site, Sire.” He says. “We have been redeploying the thumpers to get a more focused seismograph, but so far all we know is that the other side is hollow, and the structure itself is massive.”
	“We have better scanners on the Prospectors.” The man says. “Get some of them down here, I want a full image of this mountain on the double.” His aides glance to each other briefly with a worried look.
	“The Prospector drones are Earth tech, sire, they will expect us to report what we find with them.”
	“And we will find nothing.” He snaps back. He glances down to the soil under his boots, and to the machinery on the walls, his eyes looking past them blankly as his mind races into a plan. “We need them to navigate these... hollow caves. The mountain offers a natural fortification, but laying the foundations will require better geological sensors.” He looks back to his aides with a pointed finger. “Tell that to the Hegemon's office if they ask, but volunteer nothing.”

	The man waits almost an hour for the laser drill to be brought in. Everything else in the mine has stopped, allowing the machinery to move at his request far faster than they otherwise would, and yet, to keep a man of such rank waiting for so long seems unprecedented. In the time it takes for the drill to arrive, the rest of the workers are evacuated, save for those the foreman chose by name as being able to keep a secret. Even as his workers run comm cables all the way into the tunnel from radio posts outside, the man simply stands by the wall, examining every inch of its uniquely perfect form. Even against a diamond bit excavation drill and RDX mining charges, there is no visible damage, just dust, and even that has begun to drift away. The newly arrived science team say it is a low level electrostatic field, which means it is powered somehow. As the man watches the laser drill power up and fire its beam, there is near instant panic among the workers as alarms flair along its controls. A fuse somewhere blows with a loud pop and the device shuts down as smoke billows from under the casing of its projector. Time accelerates, there is yelling, confusion, excuses given and dismissed, and requests for more heat sinks and thermal conductors coils, more than the drill should ever need, and from a large and magnificent court room, the man occasionally reads new requisitions for yet more of them, with the last batch having been reduced to slag. He signs them, and demands an updated geological map of the mountain each time. It is weeks until a new report arrives. Something new has been found. The detailed scans have been completed and the data processed, and a possible point of interest located. The response is much faster this time, as the mines have been cleared out and replaced with extensive construction work as the foundations of a new facility are in the first stages. Materials have been stockpiled along the mountain side, and ships have docked along the range in ad hoc scaffold structures. Before he even reaches the site, he is given images and readouts of geological data.

	The tunnel is perfect in all respects. A single, cylindrical shaft perfectly vertical running from the mountain's peak into its heart. The natural rock has been dug through to the point where the shaft becomes artificial, all made from the same material. Non-invasive tests, as there is still no method of breaking or collecting any samples from the material, reveal a level of materials engineering far beyond what humanity is capable of, even with Earth tech, let alone the more primitive colonial standards.

	“Have we been able to interact with the device in any way?” He asks as several attendants assist in assembling his heavy protection suit. The response is difficult to understand through the thick filters of the technician's own suit's mask.
	“That depends on your definition of 'interact', Sire. We have been able to interface with some manner of device through a series of small openings in the material, but we have not received any form of response, or at least none we can detect with our available technology.” The technicians step aside as the man steps through a metal mesh gate. The technician follows, closing the gate as the lift descends. Floodlights have been set up at regular intervals down the shaft, bolted into the rock walls until it gives way to the artificial surface, at which point scaffolding runs the rest of the way to the bottom, secured into the rock above. The lift slows to a stop with a screech of metal winches, and the man steps forward to examine the new discovery with his own eyes.
	“We are working on possible translations to the inscriptions.” The technician says. “Though without context, it could be nearly impossible to determine a proper understanding. I have teams examining ruins from across the planet that until now we had assumed were stone age monuments due to their simplicity, but given that simple structures survive the longest-” The man holds up his hand, and then in the resulting silence points to the center of the room. The cylindrical shaft ends with a flat floor of the same metallic surface, with its only feature being a single, four foot tall pedestal. It is several feet thick, and is topped with what at first glance appears to be a bowl shaped indentation. Wires and sensor equipment runs up into the bowl, where several other protection-suit wearing technicians stand on scaffolds, examining the pedestal. At its rim are a series of strange, circular symbols etched perfectly into the material.
	“You say there are openings in the material?” The man says. “You mean within that?”
	“Yes, Sire. It is clearly some form of interface, although clearly not for our own biology. It is possible we are looking at a form of alien ergonomic design. Within the openings are very fine, hair thin fibers. Unlike the rest of the material, we've been able to remove some of them for study and found that they are all a form of silicon poly-alloy capable of functioning as a room temperature super-conductor.”
	“How is that possible?”
	“We... have no idea, and what's more, the fibers regrow in their slots after removal, while the removed fibers seem to degrade rapidly. The end result is a hollow carbon tube filled with silicon dust, though the dead fiber itself is still incredibly durable, as the strands themselves are made from carbon nano-structures. The interior of the strand housings seem to function akin to a hair follicle, producing the strands, likely to replace those lost or damaged during use.”
	“So we can confirm the interior structure is still powered and operational on some level?” The man asks. The technician nods, his suit crinkling loudly along the neck's thick layering of protective padding.
	“Yes, the electrostatic field along the surface could be powered by an ambient electromagnetic field, but the arrangement of nano-structures requires a constant feed of both power and matter, meaning the facility is powered and has access to either raw materials, or has a sufficient stockpile of processed resources to last it countless thousands, maybe millions of years, judging by the carbon dating of the surrounding rock.”

	Time continues to pass. The pedestal remains steadfastly stubborn in its silence as technicians continue to study it, returning with every new technological advancement or archaeological study to try something new, or something old with new or more sensitive instruments. The construction work breaches the rocks above, showing an expansive structure growing above as more permanent elevators are installed into the shaft and the top of the structure sealed with the floor of the building above. Months, even years pass in darkness and silence between bouts of new attempts at research, until one day the man returns, his hair long and gray, his armored suit ill-fitting, his muscles unable to fill out the suit in his age. He has a slight hunch and a limp, and his suit whines with servos, assisting him even with the most mild movements. There is another man at his side. He too is familiar, and much younger.
	“We found the artifact at one of our dig sites. We suspect it is related in nature. It was inactive at the time but it still holds residual power, as well as a number of other components that we can't quite identify.” He says. The old man nods calmly, though his face betrays a ravenous curiosity, but also greater knowledge, like a child who has found one Christmas present, and now seeks the rest with even stronger fervor.
	“You were right to bring it here.” He replies. “If this works, I think this will be the start of a wonderful working relationship.”
	“We will still need your fleets devoted to our cause.”
	“Yes, yes.” The old man says, waving his hand dismissively. “The Confederacy was increasingly desperate, and they were straining our relationship near the end, but without a starving Earth to pull you down, and your bureaucrats buried under Luna I think we see much more eye-to-eye.” He glances over to his companion, a strange blur whose face shifts in obscurity, his prosthetic arm the only concrete object of his form. The old man seems to look for some expression or social cue, but seems to find none as he continues. “Not that I'm not... choked up about what happened at Sol. Those rebels have killed more than a few of my friends. Neo-feudalism isn't very popular among their lot, but that entire project reeked of desperation. They never earned what they built, they were just handed instructions that they could not understand the consequences of, and given a power they were not ready for.”
	“And you are?” The blurred man replies. “Ready, I mean, for whatever is beyond that wall?”
	“I have been staring at that wall for over a century now.” The old man says, his voice almost rushed. “I won't be delayed further by rhetorical debate.” He waves a hand, and several technicians nod in response as they walk up to the pedestal. A large, opaque white sphere has been placed into the bowl of the pedestal, its shell torn open to reveal a strange assemblages of organs arranged like a gyroscope. The researchers claimed it to be some kind of silicon based life form with clear signs of artificial engineering. A few suspect they were the builders of these ruins, but the old man refuses that claim. The others agree, and suspect the sphere is some kind of servitor, a robot built using principals far more advanced than anything humanity has ever accomplished, with the notable exception of their recent annihilation of Earth's moon, that is.
	“Power online. Cuticles engaging.” A technician says blandly, his practiced tone breaking for a moment as a wave of excitement washes over the select few honored to be in this room at this momentous event. “The interface seems to have recognized the artifact. We're detecting a power surge.” Several of the cables running from the pedestal spark and catch fire as the technicians rush about to their stations. The floodlights flicker and die as several burst overhead.
	“Unplug us from the system!” Someone shouts. “Our tech can't handle the power spike!” Several more sparks fly out from clusters of wires and glowing displays as the surrounding electronics all fail at once, and the chamber is bathed in darkness. The old man feels the sudden grip of gravity, his armor locking into a failsafe as its joints seize to prevent his collapse. He wheezes heavily against the suddenly failed synthetic diaphragm meant to assist hist respiration, but even he holds his breath at the sudden sound of grinding stone and a growing soft light. The lines along the walls begin to glow like soft blue running lights, flashing like the silo dock of an orbital shuttle which run down the sides of the walls, and along the floor into the center, up the pedestal where the rim of symbols strobe, and spin clockwise. Each symbol seems to move, adjusting like a flat puzzle of interlocking shapes to make new symbols from its compost parts, forming and reforming until the alien force driving it seems pleased, and the symbol stops and its strobing light calms to a steady blue glow. When the last symbol locks into its steady glow, the pedestal slides down until it becomes flush with the floor, and one by one, layers of the floor peel back, falling away with the descending pedestal like stairs unfolding. The old man suddenly feels the impact of his guards as they grip his armor and begin to carry him back to the lift like a pile of luggage, his labored breathing drowned out by the sound of grinding stone as he is tossed to the floor of the lift and into a pile of medical and mechanical apparatuses as his guards work to reboot his suit's systems. He tries to argue that he can still stand on his own, damnit, and that they are blocking his view, but he finds he cannot speak the words properly through his struggle to breath, and can hardly lift his armored arm, let alone stand.

	By the time the suit is repaired from the electromagnetic pulse, the shifting has stopped. His guards pick up the old man and place him back on his feet like a cardboard cutout, their pragmatic and irreverent treatment a well trained and practiced policy that is only acceptable of his personal honor guards. They say nothing, but simply step back, their task done, and allow their sovereign to recover his composure and pretend nothing at all has happened, but it has. The room has changed, the floor shifted into a new shape. One quadrant of the floor has descended further than the rest, forming into a flight of stairs reaching down from the pedestal, while the others remain secured at the edge, but lower like a funnel shaped stairway down to the where the white sphere sits in its bowl in the center of the room. The blurred man stands leaning over the sphere, examining it with a focused curiosity. The old man makes his way down to where he stands, and the blurred man speaks as if he never realized the old man had left him for that short moment at all.
	“These threads, they look like some sort of neural interface. Parts of the artifact's internals are twitching. Whatever it is, it's giving plenty of input. If this is the industry standard for their culture, we may have some major issues interfacing with their tech.”
	“From the looks of things, they seemed to have automated plenty of their devices.” The old man says, his voice strained, as if he had just ran a mile. “And once we get inside, they seem to be soft enough to poke around in. Now that we know they can interface, we can get to work creating our own version.” He looks up from the blurred man, gazing towards the stairway further down. At its base, the wall is open. He walks forward as fast as his suit will take him, stumbling over several steps as he reaches the bottom. Past the threshold of the now open door is some manner of balcony, a semicircular pedestal, or some manner of console is placed at its end with an overhang above holding four long, slender rods of blackened metal. Beyond is a vast cavern of smooth metallic stone structures, like windowless buildings of some unknown alien purpose that stretch on into the distant darkness, silhouetted by the soft blue light for miles.
	The old man walks forward, hesitating for a moment before passing beyond the rods and up to the smooth, blank console. The blurred man stops behind him, just barely passing the threshold of the door, watching as the old man reaches out to the console with some device taken from his pocket and presses it with the palm of his hand into its smooth stone surface as the small device sinks into it as if it were made of sand. A moment passes, and there is a strange hum, inaudible in nature, a phantom noise that holds no sound. The old man doubles over in sudden pain, gripping the sides of the console as he sinks to his knees, but after a brief instant the hum stops, and he slowly pulls himself back to his feet, his nose trickling with blood. He looks back to the blurred man with an expression of overwhelming joy as he gasps out bouts of laughter, and the two look back to the console as its surface reforms with symbols and creases begin to form in the smooth surface, creating something that could be considered an array of buttons. In the central pad, where the small object had been inserted, the imprint of a human hand is now visible, clearly imprinted into the once-flat stone. The old man reaches out again, pressing a button with some gleaming understanding of its function, and holograms form, flickering into the air as ancient, unseen projectors power up for the first time in untold millenia. His laughter abated, but his smile growing stronger across his face, the old man turns back to the door as he presses another button, and the wall unfolds and seals shut. The vision snaps, the wall itself too thick to pierce with my own gaze, and in the sudden shock I tumble through the nearby threads to somewhen else.