All eyes turned toward him.Some curious.Others... annoyed.
— An anomaly does not anchor itself in rock,retorted a physicist in a gray lab coat sharply.
What we have before us is no myth.It's a raw topological event.
She activated a small terminal.Holographic readings floated above the table.
— What you call a miracle is a stable deformation of spacetime.But... it matches no known model.Not even non-Euclidean ones.
— You don't understand,the mystic replied, voice trembling.
This is not a monument.It is not a message.It is a test.
He stood slowly,looking at the frozen faces around him.
— We did not build this Tower, no...but it is here to judge if we would have.
And if we approach it like the first...then we will suffer like the first.
— What are you implying?asked a diplomat.
— Destroy it!he begged.
Before it's too late.Before God scatters us again.
A brutal silence fell.Even the holograms seemed frozen.
— So if I understand correctly,the physicist resumed, frowning,
you compare a gravitational anomalyseveral hundred meters tall...to a four-thousand-year-old religious myth?
She sighed.
— Forgive me,but that kind of rhetoric helps no one here.We need facts.Data.Not parables.
The mystic didn't answer immediately.
An older cosmologist sat up a bit,hands folded before him.
— Interesting fact,he said softly.
You reject the idea of a Tower of Babel...but you cannot explain this one.
Neither its origin,nor its matter,nor its behavior.
He turned to her,without arrogance.
— Which, you will agree,is quite ironic for a representative of rationality.
A slight throat clearing caught attention.
— If I may...
An older man leaned forward slightly.Tweed jacket.Thick glasses.A calm tone.
— I am neither theologian nor physicist.But as a historian,I can at least recall some documented facts.
He tapped briefly on his tablet.Ancient images appeared:Mesopotamian engravings,Egyptian frescoes,medieval manuscripts.
— The figure of the Tower...recurs in nearly all great civilizations.
It changes shape,name,role.
But its essence is always the same:a structure coming from the sky,or erected to reach it.
He paused.
— And in more than a third of these accounts...the attempt ends in catastrophe.
— For those who have just arrived,or to centralize available observations,here is what we know.
The structures — nicknamed "Towers" — all share a perfectly identical morphology:
• Shape:A black monolith, square-based,whose exact height is impossible to measure —optical readings systematically diverge.
• Surface:Perfectly smooth at first glance, but non-reflective.No visible inscriptions.
However, discreet grooves are carved on the surface —straight, discontinuous lines,sometimes running the entire height of the monolith,with no apparent pattern.
• Material:Unknown.
No tool, laser, or samplerhas been able to extract a fragment —
for the simple reason that nothing workswithin a 150-meter radius around it.
Any technology,whatever it may be,ceases to emit or interact as soon as it crosses this boundary.
The monolith reacts to no known temperature,pressure,gravitational wave,or magnetic field.
• Color:Absolute black.
No thermal absorption.No spectral emission.
Light itself seems to extinguish on contact,as if it refused to reveal its surface.
To tell you the truth,what one analyst slipped:
It's not that it's black...It erases everything it touches.
• Resonance:No classical electromagnetic frequency seems emitted.
• Mist:Each Tower is surrounded by a dense, unstable field,gaseous in appearancebut not composed of known particles.
This mist slows local time,disturbs gravitational fields,and disables technologieswithin a variable radius.
— To this day,the general concluded,twelve Towers have been located,spread over five continents.
He paused.
A hand slowly rose from the scientists' side.
A woman.Closed expression.Glasses in hand.She was not looking at the general.
— Twelve known,she specified.
The silence fell again.Even denser.
— We have detected five other signatures.
All eyes turned to her.
A technician next to her projected a globe map,marked with five red points.
— These Towers are not visible to the naked eye,nor accessible by conventional means.
But they all emitthe same gravito-fractal resonance frequency,recently identifiedin our transcontinental laboratories.
She inhaled slowly,then enumerated:
— The first is located at the exact center of the Bermuda Triangle.
— You mean a submerged Tower?the general interrupted.
— No, General.
The Tower appears to float on the surface.Motionless.Without drifting.
She resumed:
— The second...in the crater of Mount Erebus, Antarctica.Active volcano.Permanent fire.No effect on the structure.
— The third is buried in the Mariana Trench,over 10,900 meters deep.
— The fourth...under the Sahara sand,at an abnormal depth,in a zone without tectonic activity.
— And the last...in the Darvaza crater, Turkmenistan.
— The Gate of Hell,whispered a voice.
She simply nodded.
— Those are the last five.Which brings us to... seventeen.
— I maintain that we must strike now,insisted a Central Asian military representative.
Show that we are not weak.Test their reaction.
— Test a reaction?the general repeated,a smirk at the corner of his lips.
— Very well.Let's begin.
He stood slowly.Hands clasped behind his back.
— Who do we sendunder 11 kilometers of water,where pressure exceeds a thousand bars,with what?
Remote-controlled torpedoes?Time-delayed explosives?
He paused.
— And in an active volcano?You propose bombing a lake of molten lava,just to "see"?
His tone remained calm,but sharp.
— And while we're at it,maybe we should flatten the Sahara,or empty the Bermuda Triangle with a spoon?
He sat back down, slowly.
— Enough with your nonsense.It's time to make a clear decision.
A faint crackling broke the silence.
A security adviser,quiet until now,stepped slightly into the light cast by the screens.
— We have prepared a proposal for immediate action.
He projected a series of maps,each marking a red circular zone around a Tower.
— Establishment of a one-kilometer containment perimeteraround each structure.
Total isolation.
Construction of autonomous military bases,with surveillance centers,logistical infrastructure,and restricted access.
He stopped,then added in a neutral tone:
— The goal is not confrontation.
The goal is to observe.To document.To remain ready...if things change.
He turned to the room.
— We do not understand these things.But we know how to build walls.
So let's build.And wait.
As the adviser folded his terminaland the general was about to close the session,a shrill sound cut through the silence.
A phone.Then another.Then all of them.
Mobiles.Landlines.Satellites.Walkie-talkies —
Even offline devicesbegan ringing simultaneously,on all frequencies.
In the room,voices died out.
One adviser fell back from his chair.Another tried to turn off his device...in vain.
And thenthe field alerts began pouring in.
— Direct interception from Delta base.— Same thing in Tokyo.— Instant update on all channels...— What do they see?!
A voice cut sharply:
— A silhouette.— What? Where?— Everywhere.
A technician slowly rotated his screen.Videos flooded in mosaics:
Seventeen streams.Seventeen Towers.Seventeen identical silhouettes.
Motionless.Hovering,fifty meters above the ground.
Hands clasped behind their backs.Black clothing.Face invisible under shadow of light.
— It's the same person...someone murmured.
— The same one.
No variation.No speech.No movement.
It... waited.
The silhouette didn't move.Not a gesture.Not a breath.
Everywhere in the world,fifty meters above ground,in front of each Tower,it stood there.
Black suit.Hands clasped behind back.
As if waiting for us to organize.Or... to give in.
And in the room,without a word,without a single name spoken,two military men thought exactly the same thing —
Two survivors.Two marked.Returning from the same terrifying trial.
"Oh no... it's him."