The team gathered at the entrance, where the dark, silent corridor gaped beneath the Moon's surface. Alex's suit light cut through the shadows, barely illuminating the metallic walls ahead. Unlike anything he'd seen, they seemed alive with a dull sheen, not rusted or corroded, as if time had simply paused here, waiting for them.
"Everyone stay close," Colonel Torres whispered, his voice hushed in awe. "Keep an eye on your scanners. This isn't just an artifact—it's an engineered structure."
They moved forward slowly, each step sending echoes into the hollow space. The air—or lack of it—pressed against them, dense with an eerie stillness. It wasn't just the absence of sound but a feeling, as if they'd entered a place that wasn't meant to be disturbed.
Mia's scanner pinged softly, the sound muffled in the silence. "This passage goes deeper than our instruments can detect. I'm reading strange energy signatures… faint, like something dormant, but it's there."
As they moved further inside, something shifted in the walls. Panels, which had been featureless and dark, began to flicker with faint, almost imperceptible lights. A pattern, a language… something beyond their understanding traced through the metal in dim, pulsing symbols.
"What are those?" Elena whispered, her voice barely audible in the comm.
"It could be an ancient script," Alex replied, mesmerized. The symbols pulsed in sequences, like an old, tired heartbeat, a rhythm that felt both foreign and strangely familiar. He reached out instinctively, but stopped short, wary of touching anything in this place.
Without warning, a low hum resonated through the corridor, vibrating their suits and making the lights on their helmets flicker. The hum became a tone, low and powerful, and then—words. Disjointed, distant, and fractured, an echo of something long forgotten, trying to speak.
"...comm...com…muni…cate…"
The garbled syllables froze them in place, each one cut with static and distortion. The sound was old, as if it had been buried under layers of time, struggling to push through.
"Is that… a voice?" Raj murmured, his eyes wide.
"Hold your ground," Torres ordered, though his voice shook slightly. "Everyone, stay focused. This might be an AI, some kind of ancient interface. Let's see if we can make contact without triggering anything aggressive."
Alex steadied his breath and activated his own comm link. "This is Dr. Alex Thorne of the Luna's Edge team, Earth representatives. We're here to investigate an anomaly with the Moon's orbit. Do you—" He paused, feeling absurd talking to a centuries-old wall. "Do you understand us?"
A long silence followed. The symbols pulsed in response, rearranging themselves slowly, as if absorbing his words. Another hum reverberated, and then the distorted voice returned, still fractured, but trying, reaching through the chasm of time.
"...lan…guage…unfamiliar…process...ing…"
Alex exchanged a glance with Mia. "It's trying to learn… trying to make sense of us," she said, awe in her voice. "This AI—it's ancient. Like nothing we've encountered before. It's probably taking fragments of our speech to understand us."
The AI's attempts grew stronger, the voice now clearer but still slow, cautious, as though it were awakening from an eons-long sleep.
"Or-bit-al…stability…deter…iorating…must…restore…func…tion."
"It's aware of the orbital shift," Raj whispered, half in disbelief. "It knows something's wrong."
"Yes. It's… sentient, at least partially." Torres nodded, taking a cautious step forward. "Let's try to find out what it knows. We need to understand what kind of system we're dealing with."
"Can you—can you tell us your purpose?" Alex asked, his voice reverent. "What is your function?"
The symbols on the wall pulsed again, and the AI's voice, now more measured but still distant, responded slowly.
"To…stabilize…orbital mechanics…of…lunar station. Created…long before…your civilization's rise. Parameters require…maintenance…as…resources…deplete."
A chill ran down Alex's spine as the implications sank in. This was no simple machine; it was a caretaker of the Moon, an ancient construct that had been maintaining the Moon's position around Earth for an unfathomable amount of time. And now, it was failing.
"What happened to your creators?" he asked, feeling a strange sense of both curiosity and dread.
A long pause followed, the hum in the corridor taking on an almost sorrowful tone.
"Creators…absent…ten thousand centuries…systems degraded…awaiting…command."
"Ten thousand centuries…" Mia whispered, her eyes wide. "This AI has been functioning, alone, for over a million years."
"And now it's reaching the end of its resources," Alex finished, his voice heavy. The AI had likely been watching over the Moon since a time when human ancestors were little more than primitive beings on Earth. The idea was staggering.
Torres cleared his throat, refocusing the team. "We're not just dealing with a broken machine; we're dealing with something that's… almost alive, almost self-aware. And it's asking for help."
The symbols flickered, glowing brighter for a moment before dimming again. The AI spoke, its words a faint echo of something it could barely remember.
"Systems… compromised…primary reactor…inoperable. Must restore…before…collapse."
"We'll need to locate the reactor and understand its system architecture to even begin restoring it," Alex said, feeling a daunting weight settle over him. "This isn't just a repair job. This is… reviving something ancient, something forgotten."
"Agreed," Torres replied. "We'll need to gather as much information as we can from the AI. If we don't understand how to bring this back online, all of this—Earth, everything—could collapse."
The AI's voice broke through again, softer now, almost plaintive. "Assis…tance…required. Language…integration…incomplete…knowledge base…updating…"
Alex realized that it was asking for help, reaching out in the only way it knew how. Despite its age, it had waited, stored data, and kept its systems functioning all this time, hoping for someone who could bring it back from the edge.
"Don't worry," Alex said quietly, his voice filled with unexpected compassion. "We're here now. We'll do everything we can."
The symbols flickered, pulsing gently in acknowledgment, and the hum in the walls softened, as if it understood, as if it felt, at last, that it wasn't alone.