Now that underground of Industrial Caves was considered secured after the mystery of setting up its layout was solved, most of the scientists in the group were delegated to research and investigate the purpose of this facility, including all the objects, tools and systems applied inside this alien installation.
However, while they could adjust the layout of underground chambers and open safe passages to go from one area into the another, no one knew for what reasons these were moveable in the first place and, for John personally, it was a huge unknown to be cautious of when keeping so many key people in this location.
Of course, his current visit in this facility was unofficial and pretty much only a stroll to see what was done since he left the camp, but Marlow wanted to be absolutely sure nothing unusual is happening right now, especially with the news of RuzDet being involved. In that regard, what he spoke about with doctor Cunningham, was his honest goal, though not the only one for appearing here on a day off. After all, John was curious about the functionality of this alien construct and there were a couple of things for him to check based on his memories of the place back from when his party went underground to find Jackie. Specifically, origin of the voice and theory of the energy veins were the topics to look into, yet he did not want to involve others, even more so when he did not have any clear proofs and trust issues after events in First Haven.
The main observation so far was that the place surely changed since his first visit - subsequent chambers were carefully cleaned and moveable objects were collected, leaving only solid and fixed appliances inside, which all were now catalogued with all the notes researchers had, including the guesses about the usage. As John proceeded through one chamber after another, he was reviewing all the notes others took, just to make sure none of these were pointing out towards the object being potentially dangerous to the crew. Fortunately, so far he did not come upon any such dangerous object - having said that, there was no guarantee observations done by scientists could not be off and missing something, but truth be told, Marlow had limited time to spend on checking each object if there was no clear clue suggesting it could cause trouble. All in all, it seemed the original approval for letting more people in was a correct course of action, which made major relieved, based on the data he could review, of course.
Since all details he checked so far led to a conclusion that investigating the area should be still fairly safe, yet he was disappointed none of the findings seemed to be a relevant breakthrough - quite contrary, it felt as if there was no visible progress aside from he already knew. It was clear that the place stored lots of energy, but they did not know how it was managed and for what reason. Needless to say, they also had no way of making use of it yet.
Previously, John was able to progress through the facility with the support of unknown voice speaking straight into his mind. Unfortunately, despite him spending several hours in the area already now, he could not hear the voice anymore for which he hoped to be able to answer some of his questions. It was unusual that the voice that could so precisely lead him through the underground labyrinth went completely silent. Reviewing all the facts from his encounter with the voice before, the only conclusion he could make was that some action done by people in this facility possibly cut the connection. However, possibilities of what could have caused it were numerous and tinkering with different settings on his own right now was completely out of the question - for any tests that he would like to do to be allowed, he had to make requests and record all of the actions performed. Obviously, going to colonel McRae and telling him that Marlow was hearing someone's voice and wants to conduct some tests to re-establish the connection could label poor major as mentally unstable - in the end, in era of implants allowing for people to communicate without words, doing so without support of advanced technology was still considered as something crazy.
Given that he already spent so many hours looking around, John finally decided to leave the underground facility and go back to his quarters. Then, when he barely passed through the gate, his PEC notified him about receiving a message from Martin Johnson, who was apparently trying to reach him for a direct call some moments ago, but Marlow had his implant offline to calmly focus on his personal investigation. Apparently, John's friend found something interesting he wanted to share, yet instead of telling him this over the secure PEC connection, he insisted for meeting in person as it was supposedly a thing to see with own eyes.
Recently, Martin was transferred back to duties he originally joined the expedition for - that is mechanics and repairs, therefore his request for major to meet him was surprising for John, who did not expect anything extraordinary to come out from his friend's current routine. However, while Johnson was obviously an easy-going man, joking around whenever possible, he was not a type of person to call Marlow for something silly, especially knowing recent events.
For John, it was yet another friend wanting to meet directly with him within a short period of time but, remembering what Keira showed him only a few hours ago, he could not exclude the possibility of Martin also finding something relevant not only for expedition's, but maybe even for his personal research, though John also knew to not get high hopes.
Either way, Marlow, who almost managed to get back to his quarters by the time he noticed the notification from his friend, had to take a longer walk since Johnson was currently on the opposite side of the camp right now. The reason for Martin's group to be in that very area was due to the spot being both outside and in the secure zone of the encampment - since they were working with various materials, including some that could be potentially toxic towards humans, there were specific procedures for them to follow.
On the way - as John was walking outside, without taking any routes leading through the alien settlement's buildings, enjoying the fresh air - he ended up meeting more people, specifically spending more time on chitchats with soldiers, who also mentioned to him that Martin's group was experimenting with some equipment. It seemed that whatever Johnson was doing, it already caught an eye of other people.
Soon enough, Marlow understood the reason why would they notice what mechanics were doing - after all, the sight was not something you see everyday, not in such circumstances at least. What John could see already from a distance was a series of electrical breakdowns - as he was approaching, he could clearly determine these were happening at regular intervals, which suggested these are not a natural phenomenon. However, from a distance, he was unable to tell what was causing this.
Once he got as close as approximately one hundred meters from the source, major noticed a group of people walking around, some tinkering with several control panels, while others were making something with a small assembly line.
As he approached, two soldiers stopped him and let Marlow through after a standard verification process, then Johnson appeared, welcoming his friend.
- Hey Martin, are these electrical breakdowns the thing you wanted to show me? - John asked him immediately, looking at how breakdowns continued to occur, observed by small group of people.
- These are only a product, but indeed connected to the reason why I invited you here - Martin started briefing him - As you can see, we have a small assembly line here and a spot to do tests of equipment we are making. A test we did for one particular tool resulted in electrical breakdowns. It's better to not get too close to individual rods, but we will stay in a spot from where you will be able to clearly see them and area around.
Before reaching the point Johnson was leading him to, Marlow already noticed what kind of device the guys made and were now testing, though he had no idea how such a tool could cause this kind of phenomenon.
- How much energy did you use to cause something like that? - he asked his friend - It's first time for me to see something like this happening with the use of metal rods.
- It might surprise you, but it's just a weak electric current we are talking about, a regular intensity you see for modern metal detectors. And that's why I called you here. After all, it's not a normal result and it feels something's odd with this spot. I thought it might have something to do with this energy flow you mentioned you observed in the underground.
It was indeed a curious occurrence based on what Martin said - in the end, you usually do not use lots of energy when running searches in the ground for identifying minerals in the soil, whether it is about metals or anything else. Moreover, getting bolts of electricity emitted from the metal rods like that required much more energy than what John would have expected from any similar device.
- And you are absolutely sure no one messed up here and there was no malfunction? - Marlow asked his friend.
- We did everything according to blueprints, you know - Johnson replied - We also used that assembly line made of pre-built modules with only a tiny bit of handwork, so only bare minimum of space for error. Even so, I have no idea what could someone do to causing something of the sort happening. Energy source we are using here is unable to produce such a big charge.
They have now reached a spot Martin considered to be a safe location to observe the testing grounds - it could be quickly noticed by someone like major that the place they ended up in was an enclosure made of metal, so definitely a type of Faraday's cage.
- Quite thoughtful of you to have built this - he commented to his mechanic friend.
- Oh, we only made this one after the shit started happening. Imagine how scared we were at first. It was not easy to figure out the safe zone, so we decided on making secure spot even if discharge wouldn't have reached here. Julian almost ended up shitting himself and I doubt Thorsten and Liu will ever forget him this panic reaction he had. I can't blame the kid, but the guys are sure to make fun of him because of that.
- I'm happy to hear all's well with them - John said, referring to his mechanic friends - Because of all the stuff that was going on, it was either me or them not having a chance to meet and talk. Even today, I have a day off, but I knew you guys have work to do.
- Honestly, if it wasn't a special case, I wouldn't have contacted you so you could rest, John - Martin told him with a smile - Not that I don't appreciate a moment to speak with, but not having a break in a long time will ultimately exhaust you.
- Either way, we are not some grandpas to talk about our health, so maybe you can show me whatever the data you may have, anything you guys noticed or registered.
Until now, all that Marlow could see were electrical breakdowns occurring in regular intervals - at least, this was the case during the time he spent in the area and actually doing observations and recording footage with his PEC. However, he knew experienced crew like this one for sure already had relevant data he could use recorded.
Indeed, Johnson opened a secure channel to share the data from his own PEC and granted access to diagnostics systems of the scanning tool and assembly line so major could not only see the readings from the scanner and connected rods, but also review the logs from the start of the device's construction.
After a short, follow-up discussion, Martin left to take care of further scheduled work and John effectively stayed alone in a secure zone - he was provided with a comfrotable chair and table, making it a convenient spot for relaxing, if it was not for peculiar sound of electricity emitted from metal rods.
Only several minutes into looking through the construction data, it was clear for Marlow that nothing unusual happened when Johnson's team was making the device, exactly as his friend said, which left him to review the calibration data before thoroughly checking the environmental effects.
And yet again, having spent another ten minutes or so on calibrating information, John confirmed all the recorded readings were within the acceptable margins, therefore proving Martin's claim about the reason for electrical breakdowns happening indeed lied underground.
It has been only a short period of time since major appeared and started looking into data, but with subsequent tests, he could see two potential reasons as to why his friend's team was observing such a peculiar sight - either the original electric charge was strengthened by properties of the soil, meaning some highly conductive mineral was there, or there was some kind of device or artificial source of energy involved.
Due to disruptions, he could not easily verify the ground's structure - portion of it closest to the surface had a clear mapping, but anything deeper than five meters underground was only printing a blurred picture, completely useless for analysis. However, he could compare their current location to the underground layout of the alien facility they were aware of - for this one, he noticed that rods are not directly above any of the main chambers they found so far as only part of one of the corridors passing under the patch of ground rods were placed on. This meant he could not make any definite conclusion as it was now, because it was still either some mineral or there might have been another chamber hidden somewhere underground with an unusual equipment operating there.
For now, this was as much as he could do, therefore he called Martin to share thoughts with him.
- Ok, so long story short, we should prioritize constructing an excavator, while science team looks into checking underground for undiscovered chambers? - Johnson summed up what he heard from Marlow in his own words - Other than that, did you find any signs of something we should consider harmful?
John shrugged.
- Well, you know that electricity can kill a person, right? Still, looking at readings, as long as you utilize F-suits properly, you should be able to remove the rods without getting hurts. Having said that, it would be best to put a note for anyone who will be using this for electromagnetic surveying about such incident happening so they will be careful in case something similar occurs.
Martin sighed.
- I would love for things to finally calm down, you know. I was kinda relieved that we can focus on our actual job now and construct something, and here we go again, having such complications. If this continues, I don't know when exactly are we going to have a decent base of operations. As it stands now, we still only have the basic assembly line so constructing anything more complex is just a dream.
Marlow might have been a science team guy in military, but he considered himself to be mainly an engineer since his student time, therefore he could understand really well where Johnson was coming from.
To be completely honest, he had this worry since the moment they were forced into emergency landing - after all, the original plan relied on deploying necessary equipment from orbiting Future, but as it was now, they did not know where their ship was and no contact so far meant either transmissions were disrupted by electromagnetic interference of the planet or the ship did not making. Whatever was the case, it still came down to them not having tools and vehicles in sufficient quantity to properly proceed with their mission.
Not that John wanted to rush anything. Due to events he was through so far, major preferred to take things slower, at reasonable pace, therefore he supported the idea of establishing base of operations here at Industrial Caves. In the end, once they secure the area, it could enable them to find necessary information for the expedition's main goals and allow to build infrastructure for key needs, making it easier to travel further towards the megacity.
- Keep doing your job as you do, Martin - he told his friend in the end - We finally have a calm enough place to stay, so we'd better use it well.