Alien Knights

Earth, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Reston, Virginia, 24 hours before beacon activation.

Professor Clemens Scott, sitting in front of the computer in his office, looked at the picture on the screen and fell into deep thought.

In the picture, on the snowy land, a pitch-black spire breaks through the ice, looking out of place with the surrounding environment.

Clemens put his face close to the screen and whispered to himself: "What the hell is this...?"

"No one knows." A young woman wearing a researcher's white coat walked into the office, holding two cups of coffee and a thick envelope under her right arm. She was heard saying to Clemens: " Three days ago, it suddenly appeared on the Antarctic Peninsula."

Clemens looked back at the woman and asked, "Liz, tell me again the details of your discovery."

Liz put the coffee on the table and said: "Three days ago, a magnitude 5.3 earthquake occurred in the middle of the Antarctic Peninsula, about two hundred kilometers east of Alexander Island, on the west coast of the Weddell Sea."

"Since this area is not in an active area of ​​​​tectonic plates, and there are no sudden disasters in the surrounding area, the Esperanza Antarctic Station sent a scientific expedition team to the area for investigation and discovered this..."

Liz pointed at the black spire on the screen with her chin.

Clemens took a sip of coffee and asked, "Does the scientific expedition team have any conclusions?"

Liz: "They checked the black thing on the spot and found that it neither looked like metal nor the common carbon family, and that its source was very deep underground, even beyond the limit that the machine could detect. ."

Clemens raised his head: "Did they take samples?"

Liz: "They tried taking samples with the tools they had and found that no matter what tools they used, they couldn't get even a small sample."

Clemens frowned and was silent for a while, then suddenly asked Liz: "Besides these vague pictures and images, and those specious speculations, isn't there any other data?"

Liz shrugged: "You know those people."

Clemens fell silent again.

Liz squatted down, looked at the picture on the screen, and said with emotion: "Can you imagine? Inside the earth, there is such a building buried underground... If it hadn't been for the earthquake, no one would have discovered it. "

Clemens took another sip of coffee and said slowly: "The radius of the earth is 6371 kilometers. The deepest underground location currently explored by humans is only 12 kilometers below the surface. In other words, humans' current understanding of the underground is It only stays at 0.2% of the Earth’s radius. Further down, humans know nothing about it.”

Liz cast her sights on the huge black tower on the screen: "You don't really think that this building extends to the center of the earth, do you?"

Clemens shook his head and said, "I don't know. For those in our industry, it is the minimum duty to remain cautious about unknown things."

Liz smiled and leaned down, slowly put her hand on Clemens' leg, and said softly: "The night before yesterday, I never saw the word reserved in your eyes..."

Clemens was a little embarrassed and reached out to touch Liz's cheek.

"dad……"

A little girl in a pink dress stood at the door of the office, disrupting the rhythm of the two.

Clemens sat up quickly, coughing to cover up his panic, and said to the girl: "Alice, didn't you go to the exhibition hall to visit? Why did you come back suddenly?"

Alice looked at Liz, then at her father, and said, "I have read it all, but if you want, I can go back and read it again from the beginning."

Seeing the wry smile on Clemens's face, Liz smiled and said to Alice: "Let your father continue to work, I will take you downstairs, where a batch of doll machines have just arrived."

Liz took Alice's hand, put the thick envelope she brought on the desk, and said to Clemens: "I almost forgot, you have an urgent letter, I got it for you."

Clemens let out a long breath as he watched Liz and Alice leave the office.

He focused on the letter and first looked at the sending address.

The letter was sent from an unknown town in Norway, but when Clemens opened the letter, he discovered that the text inside was actually in Russian.

After reading the text of the letter, Clemens understood what was going on.

The sender was a geographer whom he knew well in Russia. Three days ago, an earthquake occurred in Murmansk, Russia. During a routine screening of the earthquake source, the geographer discovered something surprising.

Opening the photo in the letter and seeing what was inside, Clemens' eyes widened for a moment and his mouth opened slightly.

In the scene deep underground, there is a huge black tower that breaks through the soil and pierces straight to the surface, exactly like the one on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Clemens turned the back of the photo and found a line of small words in the bottom margin - taken in the Kola Super Deep Borehole.

The shooting took place exactly three days ago.

The second black tower?

Clemens looked at the photo, dumbfounded, his mind filled with questions.

He began to check the information and compared the data again and again, and found that the truth of the matter was far more complicated than he imagined.

When he logged into the national geological database and searched using the keyword black tower or underground tower, the results returned were empty.

But when he checked the database update records, he found that the relevant search bytes were obviously artificially blocked.

Someone up there is trying to cover something up.

But Clemens is more concerned about the why than what is being covered up.

In this way, Clemens sat at his desk, smoking and thinking until he got off work.

When Alice and Liz stepped into the office, Clemens decided to put aside all the clues and prevent them from seeing the clues.

Walking up to Alice and looking at the rabbit doll in her hand, Clemens smiled and said, "Have you ever thanked Liz?"

Alice looked at Liz, and then said to her father: "Rather than my thanks, I believe she wants to hear your response more."

Clemens paused, and then looked at Liz with a bit of helplessness in his eyes.

Liz patted Alice on the shoulder and said to her: "Your father has already got off work. He will take you home soon. Go ahead and wait for him in the lobby. He will come later."

Looking at the girl's leaving figure, Liz said softly: "She has a maturity that her peers don't have."

Clemens said: "This is my fault. I can't be with her all the time because of my work. I can only imagine how lonely she must be."

Liz turned to look at Clemens: "You can't live in memories forever. Alice needs a mother, and I also need a commitment."

Clemens wanted to say something, but found that Liz had turned and left.

Half an hour later, Clemens drove the car and Alice sat in the back seat, and the two drove home in silence.

Looking at the sunset scenery on the street, Alice hugged the rabbit doll and suddenly said: "Will Liz be my new mother?"

Clemens, who was thinking about things, heard this and slammed on the brakes, stopping in front of an intersection.

Clemens: "That's a matter for adults..."

Alice looked at the shops and the park and whispered, "I don't mind her coming to my house."

Clemens once again used silence to hide his embarrassment.

Alice said no more and turned her attention to an old beggar at the intersection.

The old beggar was wearing a robe full of holes, and his beard and hair were all tangled together because he hadn't taken care of them for a long time.

He had very few teeth left and was already blind.

He sat in the corner of the intersection with an empty iron plate in front of him, quietly waiting for others to give him alms.

Suddenly, the old beggar suddenly turned his head and "looked" in the direction of Alice.

He struggled to find a wooden sign that had been prepared from behind, and raised it tremblingly above his head.

The front of the wooden sign reads - The day of the apocalypse is approaching.

Soon, he turned over the wooden sign, and there was another sentence written on the back - Accept your fate.

Alice was startled by this scene. She quickly retracted her head under the car door and repeatedly said in her heart: He is blind, he can't see me.

As the car drove away, the old beggar dropped the wooden sign in his hand, stood up, danced and laughed happily.

Under the strange gazes of passers-by, the old beggar opened his mouth and shouted loudly: "It's coming! It's coming!"