'Black Caiman here, reporting in to Nest. Over.' I transmitted through my watch.
'This is Nest. Go ahead, Caiman.' my watch blinked and vibrated.
'We have passed the destination point, and are now at the first of the few sites. The archeologist is also safe with me unharmed.' I responded the incoming message.
'Nice work, Caiman. That is one more relieve for all of us.' my watch replied to me.
'There is another thing.' I transmitted again. 'On our way to the destination and the site, we found out that the mist that formed after it rained here can somehow decrease the effectiveness of their stealth camouflage. We are still figuring out if we can somehow use it to our advantage in tighter situations. In the meantime, any form of suggestions will be appreciated.'
'I see… I will direct this problem to the whole members, and see what I can find out about it. Do not let your guard down out there, and keep the archeologist away from harm.' the message shown.
'Copy. Caiman out.' I ended the transmission.
Billy's transmission ended almost at the same time like mine. He told me that his single further order was to accompany the E.X.T.I.R.T operative, which was me in investigating further about the reason why the aliens made their sudden attack on the village. I also shared what my order was to him, to which he responded with a bit of confusion shown on his face and said that would indirectly mean we were to assist Jessica should she decided to continue along with the excavation process.
His thoughts were exactly the same as mine. If I had to assume, apparently E.X.T.I.R.T themselves were not even sure on what to do or where to go next, as no one had any clue about the purpose of the village attack. Even if we decided to go back to where we found the gathered aliens back at the path leading to the first site and took them down, it would barely yield us any further progress since we could not interrogate the aliens by any form of means.
Since there was nothing else that we could do at that moment, I turned my attention to Jessica who seemed to have her eyes locked on one of the spots on the flood basin wall. Walking up to her, I first approached a scattered short pickaxe which was lying on the basin ground, before I finally reached where she was standing on.
"This pickaxe seemed sturdy. It may be useful for close combats later on, if any." I said to her, as I handed her the one handed tool.
"Oh… yeah thanks…" she responded to me, as she took the tool but somehow barely spare any seconds on looking at the tool, before she went back looking sharply at the basin wall that was only barely three inches away from her eyes.
I looked at Billy, who seemed to notice what I had just done and in response he just lifted his shoulders before he went back on looking away while he still sat down on a rock. Not sure on what to do next, I decided to ask her what she was staring at for quite some time then.
"What is wrong with the basin wall?" I asked her, as I also began to try and figure it out myself but to no avail.
"Since the very first time we have arrived here, I noticed that there seemed to be something stuck, or buried under those walls." she responded to me, still looking at the same spot. "At first I thought it was only my imagination, but now that I looked at it thoroughly, I know I am not mistaken at all."
It was already quite dark outside, so I took out my flashlight from my pants pocket. At first, I did not see anything unusual on the wall. That was until Jessica pointed that there was a little difference in the color of the wall, which was actually a soil. The soil had a dark brown color, and since the sky was already pretty dark then, I had trouble in noticing the very faint difference between the color of the thing buried there and the soil.
"You want to try and dig it out?" I asked Jessica again, as I was still flashing the spot with my flashlight.
"I would if I had a better tool." She responded me with a disappointed tone. "Thing is, the more specialized team with the safer and softer tool kits was originally to come here tomorrow morning, but with all of this incidents that has happened to us… well…"
Even though I could not understand which tools that she had mentioned, I could understand completely that she did not want to risk the buried thing to be damaged by the pickaxe if she were to dig it out right away. Then again, the dark sky would also definitely reduce her sights and therefore the risk of damaging the thing by the digging process would be higher.
Just then, I had an idea to extract the thing out of the soil by using the pickaxe, albeit quite risky. I first asked Jessica if she would like to hear about it, to which she said yes since she still could not come up with any other ideas.
I first took a standing lamp that was lying on the basin ground not too far from where we were, and stood it up almost right in front of the spot. After that, I told Jessica to dig at the soil several inches below the spot, making a hole until it was quite deep to see if the soil above it would collapse and release the thing that was buried.
However, I also mentioned that since we could not be sure at all if the thing was of a small size or rather a big one, my suggestion would only work if the thing was about the average size of a textbook or smaller. She seemed to have her doubts for a moment, but it did not really take her long before she finally agreed and began to dig very carefully. At that moment, Billy approached us and also began to help her by lighting his flashlight towards the hole that was made.
Finally, after several careful and meticulous but rushed digging, the thing began to show signs of moving, an indication that it had indeed a rather small size. I carefully hold the edge of the thing and gently try to pull it out as both Jessica and Billy kept on digging deeper and flashed the hole. As the thing got more and more loosen up, I eventually managed to pull it out slowly and seemingly without any noticeable scratches.
The thing had indeed a rough size of a large textbook, with the thickness of about two inches and the shape of a trapezium. Despite being rather thin, the thing was heavy for something its size, probably more than twelve pounds. It was a good thing that I managed to hold it still on my hands as I pulled it out just then.
"Artefak bukan, Jess?" Billy asked to Jessica, as he immediately lighted the thing with his flashlight and asking if the thing that I had taken out was some sort of an artifact.
"Iya, mungkin." She responded to him, as she proceeded to took out her folding knife and admitting that she also had the same guess.
She began to lift the soils covering the surfaces on the thing, making some of the soil chunks to fall into my hands and eventually to the ground. The layers of soil seemed to be getting thinner and some sort of drawing, most likely made by carving began to be seen. When most of the soils had been gone, we could finally know for sure that the thing was some sort of a stone, and we could also see the drawing shown on it.
The drawing showed a figure of four stickmen lining up on the right side of the drawing, and what seemed to be a pyramid on the left side of the drawing. The stickmen were all of different sizes, and were not exactly lined neatly on the drawing, whereas the pyramid too had an uneven size on its steps. Then again, what we were looking at was most likely a drawing made on prehistoric times and so it did not surprise me that much. I had to admit however, that I had not expected to find an artifact right there of all places.
"Jesus Christ…" I said with a low voice as I looked at the figures drawn on the stone.
"Turn it over!" Jessica then responded impatiently.
The other side of the stone was also covered in soil. Jessica proceeded to do exactly what she did to remove the layers that covered the stone. That time, she was able to do it a little quicker which was most likely due to both of her impatience as well as getting familiar on dirt removal by using just a folding knife. Unfortunately, there was nothing else on that side of the stone other than few scratches that was definitely made countless of years ago.
"What… kind of an artifact is this?" I asked her, still having myself partially unbelieving of what I had just seen.
Jessica seemed to be completely awestruck by what we had just discovered, and also apparently did not hear what I just said. Billy turned to me for a very brief moment before looking at her, an indication that he was also confused as to why she did not answer my questions.
Very shortly after, she rushed towards the basin wall and began to walk along the wall while looking up at the wall corner until she almost reached one of the edges of the basin. Of course, both Billy and I had to accompany her since she would definitely need the lighting.
"Hampir tiga meter…" she muttered to herself, saying that the height of the basin wall was very close to three meters.
"What is wrong with three meters?" I asked another question to her, as I also began to feel irritated since I could not understand what she could mean.
Jessica told me that each tiny bit layers of soil would take at least roughly a hundred years in order to be formed. The basin that we were currently at had a naturally formed soil layers with the height, or rather thickness of nearly three meters. That would mean the lowest part of the basin wall had been formed from at least ten thousand years ago.
It was then when I finally understood that she was trying to figure out the age of the stone by doing a rough calculation on the basin wall height, and then through the estimation of the age of the soil. Since the stone was dug out quite far from the lowest part of the wall, she estimated the stone to be around five thousand and five hundred years of age, meaning that it was possibly made at around 3500 BC.
However, she was almost immediately put herself into confusion. She said that something must have forced the layers of soil to get elevated or lowered, or else the most outer layer of the wall would not be able to be identified easily like that. She also mentioned that the archeology team had never received a report about any potential prehistoric sites there, until suddenly they got one about findings of few rather large sized old dry flood basins.
"That is it! Earthquake!" Billy suddenly spoke.
I was a little jumped by Billy's voice. He first said that he lacked a decent knowledge on geology, however he did remember that an earthquake could cause a landslide, which would reveal the layers of the soil once some parts of it had collapsed away. Very shortly after, Jessica remembered about the earthquake that had happened five, four, and three days earlier consecutively.
She also recalled the first day she arrived at the village, few of the villagers told her they were concerned that the earthquakes might be the signs of active volcano in the area. But after the national geophysical board confirmed that there were no active volcano detected in the area and concluded that they were probably the signs for tectonic plate movements, the villagers quickly dismissed it.
Apparently during the three days of earthquakes, few landslides took place as a result, leaving several flood-basin-like marks behind. Since landslides were a very common phenomenon there, the villagers were not too concerned about them.
With those questions answered, I came across something on my mind. It was the possibility if the earthquakes were made due to an alien mothership's landing not far from the formed basins. I first thought immediately to tell the two of them about it, however my feelings told me not to, at least not before I told Commodore Quentin about it first. I then began to transmit a message of what we had found to him.
'Black Caiman here. Do you read me, Nest?' I transmitted the message through my watch.
'This is Nest. Clear as crystal, Caiman.' my watch blinked and vibrated.
'We found something that could possibly date back to 3500 BC.' I responded the message. 'It was a drawing of four stickmen figures and what seemed to be a pyramid, etched by carving on a stone.'
'Did you find it from the first site?' my watch replied to me.
'Yes we did.' I answered the transmitted message. 'Also, apparently the first site which has the form of a dry flood basin was created due to the earthquakes that took place not until a week ago. We also supposed that the rest of the few other sites will most likely have a similar form.'
'Is that so…' the person right in front of the transmitting device replied to me.
'Do you have something to fill me in with, Nest?' I responded to the message.
'Yes. We have just received a few info.' my watch blinked and vibrated again.
I then received the much more detailed information about the three consecutive earthquakes that took place less than a week earlier. The transmitted message informed me that the first earthquake that had happened five days earlier was caused by a tectonic plate movement, and even though was only considered as a minor earthquake, it had the potential to cause slight cracks on poor soils.
Then, the second earthquake that had happened four days earlier was also caused by a tectonic movement. However, the scale could be considered as twice as the day before, and had a good potential to cause soil collapsing on cracked and weak soils, resulting a landslide.
Finally, the third and the last earthquake that had happened three days earlier. The earthquake was the weakest out of the other two, even far weaker than two days before it by scale. The strange thing was, the national geophysical board still could not determine the cause of the third earthquake.
Since the first two days of the earthquake both had the same cause, they eventually decided to report the third one with the same cause. However, they also gave a note that further investigation might be necessary. While the first two earthquakes originated from deep below underground, the third earthquake began pretty near to the surface of the mountain peak, although still from inside the mountain, which was exactly the reason why the board still could not determine the cause for sure.
I was extremely surprised to realize that there was indeed a possibility that the third earthquake might be caused by the arrival of extraterrestrial creatures. With that in mind, I also took it for myself that if it was indeed true, then the aliens must have also used stealth technologies for their mothership as they could come again completely undetected. When the transmission had ended, I informed both Billy and Jessica. Of course, they seemed to have a hard time in swallowing the possibility that I explained to them, especially Jessica.
"Hold on…" Billy said to me, as he gestured a stop sign with his hand. "Assuming that the possibility also turned out to be true, do you have any guesses as to why they chose to land there, of all places?"
"I… honestly still have no clue…" I responded to him, as I looked down for a brief moment.
I had actually thought for a short while that those creatures might be coming for the pyramid drawn on the stone. However then again, I also held back and considered as to what the possibilities were.
The thing I knew for sure was that the third earthquake had happened not to natural causes. Somehow, I sensed that the two of them, especially Billy might be aware of my thoughts as well as he looked straight to my eyes for a few moments before he nodded twice and looked away.
"So… does that mean that our next destination… is somewhere a little below the mountain peak?" Jessica asked the two of us, but particularly more to me.
"Yes…" I said with a lower voice as I looked to Billy.
"That means I have to go along with you both too…" Jessica responded to me, with a little shaky voice.
In reflex, I looked straight to her eyes right after she finished her words. I did not see Billy's facial expression but I was completely sure that he was also surprised to hear it.
"Jess, you do not have to…" I tried to make her reconsider her decision, before she cut off my words.
"Tag along? Is that what you are trying to say?" she cut me off with a shakier voice. "You guys need to know why the aliens chose to land up there, do not you? Well, I also need to make sure that they do not destroy the prehistoric sites that could rewrite the history of prehistoric human societies!"
Both Billy and I were completely at lost for words. I greatly admired her sense of duty, but at the same time I also felt like another burden had been placed on my shoulders, realizing that we would most likely be faced with more dangers as we investigate deeper into the matter. That, and of course, keeping her safe.
"And besides…" she said, as I noticed her lips began to shake. "I could definitely use some protection…"
With that instant, I noticed that Billy looked straight at me as I began to approach her and hold her hand firmly, fully aware that she was very scared at that moment. I tried to calm her down as Billy looked down and apparently seemed to tighten his grip on his submachine gun.
"Okay… you want to come with us, it is fine...." I said to her with a low voice. "It is your decision, I understand. Just do not make any rash moves later on, okay?"
She responded me with a single nod, and closed her eyes for a short time as she took a deep breath and looked straight to my eyes. For a moment there, I adored the way she looked at me with her shiny black eyes. I could not even explain how mesmerizing her expression was when she stared at me on her frightened state. I knew it might be wrong to adore a lady in her frightened state, but seeing her like that somehow gave me a boost of spirit in guarding her for the rest of the operation.
I then went back to our current situation and gave the stone to Jessica, who proceeded to very carefully put it inside her bag. As I asked them when we should begin to go back to the mansion, Billy suggested that we were to go to the next village which was closer in distance compared to the first village.
I asked how near it would be, to which he said that only about twenty minutes of walking. Once we arrived at the second village, it would be best for us to rest for the day before proceeding again to the next sites on the next day.
Jessica, already began to look exhausted nodded twice as a sign of agreement, and I immediately agreed to go for the second village. I asked Billy to light my watch since the sky had gone much darker, and looked at it to realize that the time was already 06.13 p.m.
With Billy leading the line, Jessica on the middle, and myself on the rear, we then began to head to the second village where we would then find our sanctuary, a safe haven from the harms of the extraterrestrial creatures for the rest of the day…