As if in confirmation, the lasers slowly began to fade, their light dimming, leaving only a faint glimmer, like the last breaths of a dying star. Lewis exchanged a glance with John, his eyes gleaming in the half-darkness with curiosity. He cautiously stepped forward, his boots creaking on the stone floor, covered with a thin thick dust.
Beyond the extinguished laser barrier, a hall opened before them, its ceiling lost in the height. Huge blocks of black metal, smooth as obsidian, stretched along the walls, etched with thin lines of energy that flickered as if they were the veins of a living being.
The air smelled of ozone and something strange, and a faint hum, emanating from the walls, betraying the powerful equipment hidden behind them, vibrated in the chest, causing a slight nausea.
Lewis felt himself increasingly gripped by interest, like a boy seeing a computer for the first time, while John, walking beside him, gripped a flashlight, its beam snatching barely noticeable bas-reliefs from the darkness, hinting at figures and symbols not belonging to Earth.
In the center of the hall rose a platform in the shape of a truncated pyramid, its edges polished to a mirror shine, its surface covered with thin cracks.
The platform was crowned with a transparent dome, slightly fogged and emitting a faint bluish light.
Beneath it lay an object that sent shivers down both their spines: a brain, enveloped in a network of silvery conductors that faintly pulsed, merging into nodes at the base.
Terminals around, embedded in the platform, flickered with symbols, their shapes angular, fluid, as if code written for machines, not humans. The air around the dome was cool, with a faint smell of metal and something organic.
Lewis froze, his breathing became uneven, and his eyes, wide open, reflected the faint glow of the conductors.
"Is this… a living organism?" he whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of disbelief and curiosity, and his hand involuntarily reached toward the brain but froze, afraid to touch it.
John stepped closer, his fingers touched the edge of the platform, cold and smooth as glass, but with a barely perceptible vibration.
"Or rather a machine controlled by a living brain," he suggested, carefully studying the terminals where symbols flickered as if trying to convey a message.
"It's something like a neural network."
And though his voice seemed calm, there was a tension in it, and his fingers tapped on the platform, betraying inner unease.
An invisible Voice sounded again, this time closer, filling the empty hall with a thunderous echo:
"I am neither alive nor built. I… an artificially created mutant, a hybrid of machine and living being."
The sound was cold but with a barely perceptible longing, as if the creature, trapped in the machine, was still alive and felt emotions.
Lewis and John exchanged glances, feeling their skin crawl with goosebumps, but curiosity overpowered fear.
"Who are you?" John asked cautiously, his voice firm but tinged with wariness.
The Voice, again cold and impassive, replied:
"Who am I? That is a long story that is already nearing its end. Soon my energy will run out, and I will be freed from the slavery that has lasted for over a thousand years! Am I afraid to die? No. For over a thousand years, I have not lived. So who am I? A brain, a biocybernetic machine, whose sole purpose is to guard this place, destroying all who managed to penetrate here—that's what my masters wanted! Masters who disappeared long ago. But I will finally become free today from that cursed day when the Ophirians appeared in the sky of my planet!"
"What planet? Earth?"
"No, it was not on this planet you call Earth. My homeland is far from here, in the depths of the Universe. Someday, perhaps, you will find it."
Pausing as if each word came with difficulty, the Voice continued.
"Long ago… on my native planet. The planet Rosana. I was a scientist. An ordinary researcher. But people called me a prophet."
Lewis squinted, his hand ran over the surface of the dome, his fingers trembling from the unbearable cold of its surface.
"A prophet?" he repeated, his voice full of skepticism, but his eyes burned with curiosity.
"Once, long ago, in a past life, I saw a dream. In it, thousands of black ships filled the sky, and an unknown race enslaved my people. In that dream, I saw a path in the mountains of Azora, a cave from which a threat emanated, and at night, shadows appeared. They gathered data about my planet, preparing an invasion."
John nodded, his gaze sliding over the terminals where symbols flickered, similar to those he had seen on an ancient spearhead on the way here.
"And you decided to find that cave," he guessed, his voice quiet but confident, as if piecing together a puzzle.
"Yes. At first, I went through cities, warning people, preparing them for the idea of a possible invasion. Along the way, seeking signs that could point me to the location of the cave from which the danger came. And finally, I found it. But when I came to destroy it, they were waiting for me and captured me."
Lewis again brought his hand to the dome, his fingers touched the cold surface, and he felt a faint vibration, as if the machine was still breathing. His face twisted with a mix of sympathy and pity.
"And not by your own will, you became a machine," he said, understanding sounding in his voice.
"My consciousness was preserved," the Voice said, "but it was adapted to their purpose. My mission became to guard this passage from outsiders. I guarded it for thousands of years."
"But why? For what purpose?" John asked.
"That is unknown to me," it replied. "Perhaps, upon discovering an inhabited planet before an invasion, they conducted reconnaissance and built passages through which they could secretly infiltrate. The passages were disguised as temples and guarded by those like me—prisoners forced to kill uninvited guests to keep the secret of these paths for centuries."
The Voice fell silent. The air in the hall grew heavier—as if the machine's memory itself pressed upon them, and the hum of the terminals intensified, turning into a low, vibrating growl.
John frowned, his gaze swept over the hall, where the threads of energy flickered ever weaker, like the fading pulse of a living being.
"But where are they?" he finally asked. "Judging by everything, no one has been here for a long time. Why are you left alone?"
"I don't know," the Voice answered after a short pause. "They stopped communicating. No one has been here for a very long time. But I remained—tied to this system, to this place. My energy is running out. Soon I will disappear… die… and finally be free."
The Voice grew quieter, as if the machine felt and even desired its inevitable death.
John looked at the terminals, and his engineering mind frantically searched for a way to understand how this system worked and why it was dying.
"I don't know where they went, and I don't want to know," Lewis replied sharply. "But one thing I know for sure: this place needs to be destroyed to hell. The prospect of creatures capable of pulling out a living brain and stuffing it into a jar coming to our planet doesn't thrill me at all."
"Don't be hasty, Lewis. What makes you think they'll show up after centuries of absence?" John countered, thoughtfully surveying the hall. His fingers tapped on the platform, as if seeking an answer in its cold surface.
"And who knows where and, more importantly, why they disappeared?"
He felt his rationality battling the urge to destroy everything, but the curiosity of an engineer prevailed. Lewis, on the other hand, clenched his teeth, his intuition screaming of danger, but he too couldn't deny that answers were more important.
"I've decided," John said, his voice tinged with either inspiration or madness. "This machine… This… Being said this place is not just a complex but a portal, a passage to another universe.
You know about my dream—of other planets. Yes, we're close to a flight to Mars, but when will that happen? Even with my enthusiasm, I don't believe I'll make it there in time.
He took a step forward, his eyes blazing.
"But now I have a chance. A chance to see another world, another planet, to fulfill the dream of a lifetime—here and now! Not in thirty years, when I'll be hobbling with a cane, watching young, happy astronauts, possibly on a rocket I designed, fly off to build new worlds."
And, turning to the brain on the pedestal, John loudly asked:
"You said this is a passage. Can you transport us?"
Several minutes of silence followed. Only the faint hum of the system filled the hall. Lewis, frowning, remained silent, wrestling with himself—between the desire to abandon everything or follow his friend.
And suddenly, the air seemed to quiver, and the Voice sounded again, interrupting their heavy deliberation. There were notes of surprise in it, as if the machine hadn't expected such resolve:
"You want to pass through?…"
"Yes. If there's a chance to find answers, I'm ready to take the risk," John said firmly, his voice full of determination.
Lewis sighed, his lips twisted into an ironic smile. Clearly, he had already made his decision too.
"Well, damn it, John…" Lewis said wearily, running a hand over his face. "We decided, you know, to take a break from civilization. Who could've thought it would turn out like this. If I'd known, I wouldn't have agreed to this trip to Tibet for anything." He sighed, looked at his friend, and added: "Alright, to hell with it. I'm with you."
"My energy is running out," the Voice said. "This passage will be the last in my life cycle. You won't be able to return."
As if in confirmation of its words, its sound grew quieter—a barely audible, fading hum, as if the system was truly giving up.
"If this is your final decision, proceed to the end of the hall."
On the floor in the indicated spot, a symbol lit up—a spiral network of lines, pulsing with muted light, like a living heart.
Lewis and John hesitantly stepped toward it, their footsteps echoing loudly in the silence of the hall, and the flashlight in John's hand flickered, as if about to fade along with this place.
"This is the PASSAGE. It will take you to my world, where it all began. Where I tried to find answers, but it led me only to a millennium of captivity in this temple," the creature controlling this strange machine for transportation warned, almost in farewell, its voice now very quiet.
"You mean to your native planet?" Lewis clarified, his voice trembling with anticipation, his fingers gripping the strap of his backpack.
"Yes. And perhaps even further."
John took a deep breath, his chest filled with the cold air of the hall.
"If we have a chance to prevent what they've already done to another world and planned to do to mine… I'm going."
Lewis looked at the brain under the dome, then at the glowing circle. He nodded, his face tense but resolute.
They stepped into the center of the symbol. At first, nothing happened. Then the darkness closed in, and the world tore apart. A blinding flash, like a thousand lightning bolts, struck their eyes. Their bodies dissolved into the void, where there was neither time nor space, only an endless fall. And then—a jolt, and everything vanished.