Athyyah

Chapter Eleven Compact

Two days later.

Garrett came into the control room.

"You found something?" he asked Higgins on his arrival.

"I did indeed. As you know, I believe that the group was transported to another planet?"

"Yes."

"As well as how the equipment on the surface shut down just a little after the ones down here?"

"Yes, where are you going with this?" Garrett asked getting impatient.

"Well, the equipment managed to pick something up. It wasn't on a frequency we've dealt with before. It was higher than ultraviolet. But after reconfiguring a few things and digging through the records and sorting out the background information. I've determined that a power stream was sent from this facility. Proving that they may have indeed been transported."

"And this helps us how?"

"Well sir. You did ask for proof. It at least eliminates the paraellel universe theory. As well, we found the source of power for this facility. And it's like nothing I ever seen before. I hate to say it, but I believe I was correct and we depleted it. I think we used up the last bit of power sending our men away."

"That's not the news I wanted to hear," replied Garrett. All he was getting from all of this was that their chance of retrieving their lost comrades was getting less all the time.

"I know sir. But even depleted, this technology could lead to a whole new industrial revolution."

"I'm sure it could," he replied showing little enthusiasm. The betterment of mankind was not high on the list of things he cared about. "Did you manage to get the computers here up and running."

"We were just about to attempt it." Higgins answered turning to his screen. "We should be ready to try it right about now," he said and the screens in the room flickered to life for a moment then died.

"That didn't really look like it worked."

"I know. Keep in mind we are trying to adapt our systems to a completely different and more advanced type of technology. This was our first attempt," Higgins replied. "Actually it was better than I expected and I'm confident in a few hours we'll have minimal power running.

"Well, try and get me results as quickly as you can. I can't keep this situation from Reverstone for long. I'm already under a lot of pressure from them for a situation update. If they find out what happened here, they may cut our funding and have the place torn apart for anything they may be able to use and study in a nice warm lab in a city like Edmonton or Montreal. Forget about the people we lost. If that happens we lose the only chance we've got to help them."

"I'll do my best sir, but this is incredibly complicated. We have no reference on the language that's written all over the place. Kaitlyn was the one who was on that front and as far as I know, she made little to no headway."

"And of course we can't get a new person in to replace her without explaining to Reverstone why we need it," replied Garrett scratching at his chin.

"Sir, we have the old power source removed in order to hook up our generators. You want to come down and take a look at it?" said a voice coming from Higgins radio interrupting them.

"I'll be right there," Higgins replied into his radio and stood up. "You want to come and see this?" he asked as he walked to the door.

"Why not, you did say this could be the biggest discovery since the invention of the combustion engine," answered Garrett, though truthfully he didn't care. Though he knew it be good to see it first hand. After all, he'd have to write a report on it and the last time he let the workers poke around when he wasn't there, they lost five of their brightest minds.

"I technically never said that. I only said it was big," replied Higgins

"Well, you were hinting at it."

"In any case, this is huge and I'm excited to just examine it. If only it still had power. Just think what we could accomplish," Higgins replied as they made their way through the complex to what seemed like a boiler room. a space no bigger than the furnace room of a regular household.

"Lets see what you've got," said Higgins as they approach three men waiting there for them.

"Well sir, here's what was giving off so much power at one time." One of the workers answered standing aside for Higgins and Garrett to see the power source. It was about the size of a person and was cylindrical that split in two sections with eight smaller cylinders two feet long in between the two ends. Along the two ends were red markings all around it. Half the smaller cylinders were dark and blackened, like a burnt out light bulb.

"So, this is what managed to pump out so much juice to send our friends to some completely different location," Said Higgins with a bit of admiration.

"Looks like a battery and some light bulbs. Somehow I expected something bigger and a little harder to remove from a wall," commented Garrett.

"Honestly, so was I," replied Higgins. "Amazing how whoever built this place managed to get a power source comparable to that of a nuclear generator down to the size of a person." He said as he knelt down to examine the burnt out piece of equipment.

"Well, I hope we can duplicating this technology some day, but right now our focus is to try and find where the machine sent our people," Garrett said to him after a moment.

"Right, sorry." Higgins apologized adjusted his glasses and stood up.

"We saw this and it's quite remarkable, but now can we get back to the pressing matter of getting power up?"

"Of course.

"The shall we return to the control room and see if you can access the computers?" asked Garrett

"We came, we saw," Higgins replied a little disappointed to leave so soon as they returned to their previous location.

When they were back at the control center, systems were starting to come online. The old cracked screens of the computers there were flickering to life along with the lights. The place felt like it was breathing a new life, like they took a defibrillator to it. For the first time in thousands of years, the lights that remained intact lighted the halls. They no longer needed the lamps they put up and the place glowed brightly. The brightness was so sudden that it hurt their eyes and it took a moment for them to adjust to the sudden change.

"I'd say they got one of our generators hooked up. So you'd better get busy." Garrett said as he sat down.

Higgins turned to his computer and began attempting to access the facilities database, praying that there was no password needed.