The desert wind kicked up grit as Jace, Elsbeth, and Brian stood at the edge of the pit.
Below them, scaffolding clung to the steep sides of an excavation about twenty feet deep. At its base, half-buried in sand and rock, lay something impossible: a smooth, metallic doorway embedded in what looked like solid white stone. Symbols—none of them human—ran along the edges, etched into the surface like runes burned in by light.
"Well," Elsbeth breathed, shielding her eyes. "That's... not a crashed ship."
"Nope," Jace murmured. "That's a vault."
They descended the ramp slowly, guarded by two men with rifles and no patience. At the bottom, the air felt cooler, heavy with old dust and something else—something sterile, mechanical.
Brian walked up to the keypad beside the door, brushing sand away with his sleeve.
"No numbers. No letters. Just... symbols," he murmured.
Elsbeth stepped forward, eyes glittering.
"They're not decorative," she said. "This is language. Structured. Purposeful. Whoever made this—human or not—had rules."
Jace crouched beside the door, running a hand along the surface. The material was cold and unyielding, smoother than steel, almost ceramic.
"No seams," he said. "This thing's been sealed a long time."
Behind them, Hutch—the second thug from the van—cleared his throat.
"Mister Charles wants results," he said flatly. "You've got two days to get that door open."
"And if we don't?" Jace asked without looking up.
"You won't like the alternative."
"Noted," Jace replied.
The three of them went to work.
Brian set up a portable generator and a diagnostic rig scavenged from the supply crates. While he tested voltage points and jacked cables into the alien panel, Elsbeth used a portable scanner to capture the symbols and compare them against linguistic patterns. Jace paced the site perimeter, quietly searching for weaknesses, patterns in the stone, anything that felt... off.
By evening, they'd found a small emergency panel buried beside the main door. Inside it were two ancient buttons and a long-dead power cell.
"Hook up the rig," Jace instructed.
Brian jacked a cable in and held his breath. A soft hum echoed through the air—then a click.
The hatch shuddered, then opened—just a crack. A hiss of stale, pressurized air spilled out like a breath exhaled after centuries.
"Well," said Elsbeth, eyes wide. "That's new."
Jace grabbed a long-handled lantern from the crate and nudged the hatch open further. Dust swirled in the sudden breeze. Beyond the door was a short corridor, dimly lit by thin, metallic panels in the walls that flickered weakly as power stirred to life.
"I vote we don't go in just yet," Brian said nervously.
"Not until we know what's beyond that second door," Jace agreed.
They cautiously moved inside the first chamber—an antechamber of sorts, containing racks that might've once held clothing, and a row of narrow lockers. At the far end: another door. This one was sturdier, darker, and had a larger panel of alien controls beside it.
"No override slot here," Brian muttered. "They really didn't want this one opened."
"Whatever's behind this," Jace said, "isn't for visitors."
They returned to the surface for the night.
Back at the tent camp, under the fading twin moons, Jace pulled a small device from the inner lining of his boot: the tracker he'd smuggled past Thumper's search.
He tapped a message.
"Made contact. Opened first door. Definitely alien. Door two secured. Two locals with me—students. They're not ready for what's coming."
Moments later, the screen flashed with a reply.
"Tracking live. Proceed carefully. Eyes on you."
Sergeant Elena Pryce had received the signal.
Inside her cramped apartment in Marshland, Elena sat with the device in one hand and a mug of cold coffee in the other. Her jaw clenched as she zoomed in on the coordinates blinking red on the screen.
She whispered to herself, "Jace... what the hell have you walked into?"