Fly In The Lotion

Posted on Tue Mar 18th, 2025 by Lieutenant Commander Samuel Bancroft & Ensign Dexter Elliott

1,019 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: M01 - The Hooke
Location: Ruins, Terra Nova
Timeline: Present

Sam was just in front of Dexter as they made their way deeper into the ruined tunnel, following the electrical wire. "You know what I find kind of odd about this wire?" Sam asked Dexter somewhat rhetorically, he then answered the question before Dexter had a chance to say anything. "It seems so out of place." He found himself adding. Sam paused for a moment and looked at the wire for a moment. "I don't think this was here originally."

Dexter stood next to Sam and looked at the wire for a moment before nodding in agreement, "I think you're right sir." He rubbed the bottom of his chin as he thought about it for a moment. "I wonder who put it here, if not the original builders of this place."

Sam shrugged and continued to walk down the corridor, "If the original Terra Nova colonists found this place first then they could have found whatever this wire goes to and tried to use it as a power source. It may not have been compatible with United Earth technology though," Sam remarked. It seemed to go on a while before they'd finally found the room where the wire stopped.

Along the back corner of the wall there was a large device that was nearly unrecognizable. Sam stepped forward and looked at it for a moment, "This thing is very old. It's not even," He hesitated and began looking around it. There was all sorts of dust from the room covering it. He couldn't even recognize the technology that was used to construct it, much less the metallic materials over its outer shell.

There was a graphical user interface connected to it, and the wire seemed to come to a stop near the device, however, it wasn't connected to the device itself. Dexter was able to pry the wiring slightly to try and discern the innards that were exposed to the elements. "It may have been attached at one point, but I cannot figure out where it would have went in the first place."

"I don't think it was ever attached," Sam told him.

Dexter had to agree with that assessment because the wiring didn't seem to match the mechanical device itself. "They may have put the wiring here with the intention of connecting it, but were unable to do so." He shrugged and released the wiring that had been in his hand. "There's no evidence that the colonists were ever in this room."

Sam shook his head as he fiddled with the interface, however, it seemed to have no functional purpose beyond controlling the mechanical device it had been attached to. "There aren't glyphs in this room either, it's as if they stop just before coming into this room. Also, given what kind of development stage a culture would be at to use glyphs doesn't match the technology level of this device."

Sam grinned and thought he had it figured out, "Whoever built this didn't paint the glyphs on the wall, there may have been a different culture here after this device was placed. I don't know what it's original purpose was, but look at the walls they're made from a different material than the rest of the temple."

Dexter looked around and realized the walls were no longer made from a type of limestone native to Terra Nova, but made from the same metallic base material as the device itself. "So this chamber was constructed then someone built a temple around it?" He found that to be rather odd indeed, "Makes no sense to me."

Sam took a few steps until he came to a stop in front of the Ensign, "It makes sense if you think about it. There was a more advanced culture on the planet, for whatever reason they left the planet. Natural progression took hold and eventually a much younger culture formed here, they found this chamber and probably thought it was built by their gods. They built the temple over it, probably without entering the chamber itself."

Dexter's eyes lit up the moment he got what the Lieutenant was trying to point out. "Which is why we were going deeper into the temple and crossed what seems to be a time warp. But, where does the wire come from? If this ancient culture didn't put it here, then the Terra Novans must have."

Sam shrugged, "They may have found this room and thought this power source was something they could use. They then tried to run a wire to it without paying attention to the temple itself. When that didn't work, they gave up the entire project. I doubt it was ever recorded anywhere hence why the Novans wouldn't know about it until now," He rubbed the bottom of his chin in thought. "I think we're looking at a construct from multiple cultures and the Novans just happened to stumble upon something that had been previously found."

Sam nodded, he was pretty confident in his theory. He went back to looking at the device trying to discern what it may have been at one point. "The advanced culture that existed here may have used this as a power source, or they may have not done so. There's really no way to know just from looking at it. And we have no way to activate it, at least not from what I can see." He sighed and shook his head, "We probably should head back and meet with the others."

"Agreed," Dexter said. He turned to leave when he noticed the door had sealed shut behind them, "Um sir, I think we have a problem."

Sam noticed the door sealed shut, "There's got to be a way out of here. See if you can find an activation switch somewhere or something." He began looking along one half of the wall while the Ensign began working on the other end of the wall to try and find something, anything, that would open the door. "Did you hear it shut behind us?"

"No sir," Dexter said while he looked.

"Strange." Sam added and continued to look.

 

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