Conflicts of the last progenitors

The white sun has risen higher in the sky, and though no direct sunlight penetrates the crevasse, each person’s perspiration-darkened bodysuit attests to the advent of an Option-1 afternoon.

Sven walks beside a six-legged stone serpent, shaking his head. He points up ahead: in four-hundred feet the two walls of the narrowing crevasse join together.

SVEN

The defile ends there...and I don’t see another sculpt-93.

A low RUMBLE interrupts the Swede’s statement; a few loose stones tumble down the western wall, CLACKING upon the pebble-and-sediment defile floor. Zria raises her j-gun; Kenneth fingers the safety on his springblade, CLICK.

Lo-Cheun TAPS his earplug.

LO-CHEUN

Armadillo-3, prepare to swoop.

Kenneth points to a spot on the ground just before the western wall: resting near the vertical surface is a detailed sixclaw wrought in white stone.

KENNETH

Over there. Another-

Darkness spreads down the crevasse wall: a panel of stone sinks into the ground, revealing a portal twelve feet wide and fourteen feet tall.

The rendezvous party stares at the dark passage in silence.

ABACUS

(whispered)

Do you...do you see how big that

is...?

Three six-legged serpents emerge from the darkness, writhing like snakes across the stony floor of the crevasse. Zria and Kenneth finger their downward-pointed armaments.

LO-CHEUN

Do not point your weapons unless

Jesca or I give the order.

The serpents widely circumnavigate the party. An EERIE

WHISTLE comes from within the darkness of the door, two discordant pitches. The serpents writhe back to the western wall and there attach themselves with sticky toes; they scale the vertical surface and ingress the fourteen-foot tall portal.

JESCA

I think we’re supposed to follow

them inside.

LO-CHEUN

Can we shine a light in there?

94.

JESCA

That might be construed as hostile.

Especially if they live in

darkness.

LO-CHEUN

Zria. Put in a thermal.

Zria resets the safety on her j-gun (CLICK) and clips it to her hipcache (SNAKT). She slides a small vial from her belt, SNAPS it in two and with her index finger, withdraws a green contact lens from the top half. She places the concave disk in her right eye, and- with the bottom half of the vial-sprays saline mist atop it.

Sven, Abacus, Kenneth, Lo-Cheun and Jesca glance at the Indian woman. She shuts her left eye and peers into the darkness with her optically-enhanced right pupil.

Zria’s breath catches; her hand slowly reaches for her j-gun.

Sven pales; Abacus shakes his head; Kenneth looks back and forth between Lo-Cheun and the doorway; Jesca and Lo-Cheun stare into the darkness. Zria unclips her gun but does not raise it.

ZRIA

They’re watching us.

LO-CHEUN

How many?

ZRIA

At least three. They’re-

Zria cuts herself short and (involuntarily) steps back.

ZRIA (CONT'D)

One’s coming.

All eyes are focused on the aperture. The sound of rolling pebbles (POP, POP, POP) and shifting grit (SHZ-SHZ) sounds from within.

Into the crevasse steps a glistening, gray-skinned eleven-foot tall being, roughly human in shape, though asymmetrical.

The stunned party stares at the towering humanoid.

The creature’s squat head juts like a hump from its right shoulder; its nearly featureless cranium is only distinguished by two holes (themselves resembling empty eye-sockets). Jutting from its left shoulder are three “bowls”; 95.

they stand on their edges, pointing outward like satellite dishes; each is a quarter the size of the head.

The creature’s two arms are of different lengths: the one below the head (the right) is eight feet long and nearly touches the ground; the left arm is half as long but much heavier. Both appendages terminate in a cluster of white skeletal fingers-- nine on the right and seven on the left; the final segment of each digit is a curved talon. The creature’s long thin legs bend backwards like those of a flamingo and terminate in skeletal feet. (The creature appears sexless.)

The humanoid- its dark eye sockets trained on Sven- strides forward on its taloned toes, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK. The young Swede is terrified.

LO-CHEUN

Statues. Everyone.

The desire to run away and the urge to strangle Lo-Cheun war within Sven, yet he remains still.

The humanoid stops and stands over the young Swede; Zria keeps her weapon down but points her lensring at the duo, capturing the historic moment.

With its nine huge skeletal fingers, the humanoid seizes Sven’s head. Abacus looks away; Kenneth mouths the word

‘no’; Zria and Lo-Cheun stare into the creature’s eye sockets, gripping- though not raising- their weapons; Jesca puts her hand over her mouth.

The tableau darkens: Armadillo-3 hovers overhead.

The humanoid lifts Sven up and (effortlessly) tosses him toward the doorway; the young man soars twelve feet and lands on his outstretched hands and knees, directly in front of the open portal, THUD; he suppresses his pain with a GRUNT.

On its nine-toed skeletal feet, the humanoid turns back, walks past Sven (CLACK, CLACK...) and ingresses the doorway.