The eeriness of the black rock had them so mesmerized that they almost missed the sound of voices coming towards them. When the realized, they quickly ducked into a side passage and watched. Two men in lab coats carrying cold weather gear and air masks walked by not noticing them. They were talking in a strange language that none of the group understood. All Pogo could get from their surface thoughts was a strange mathematical problem he did not begin to understand. After the two had entered the airlock the group moved back out into the main tunnel and kept moving.

The black rock seemed to absorb all sounds and it gave the place an even more eerie feeling. After a while they came upon some rooms. Some were empty while others held strange machinery. Yalp was fascinated by the alien technology and even theorized what some of the things might be. They were all just guesses as they did not have time to investigate fully. They moved on and the tunnel began to wind back and forth. There were also numerous branches off of it. It seemed as if they were in a maze, but someone had marked a path through it and they had no trouble. Just as they were about to exit the maze they heard a very loud "pop". Everyone stopped and looked around. Denise thought `had they triggered some sort of trap or maybe an alarm'? Everyone was listening for some clue as to what it could have been. After a couple of minutes they thought they heard voices. The voices seemed to be stationary so they moved down the tunnel.

As they got closer to the voices they moved slower and stayed in the shadows. After a few minutes the voices seemed to be just around the next corner. Denise signaled everyone to stay there while she took a look. Moving as silently as she could she moved up to the next corner and looked around it. There in front of her was a large room. It looked to measure about 30 meters by 30 meters with the same black walls. In the middle of the room was a large rock formation that had an opening 3 meters high and 10 meters wide. It looked like it might be some sort of sculpture. In front of the sculpture about 6 meters was another smaller looking sculpture. It was about a meter tall, about a half meter wide and almost 2 meters deep. It had sharp angles to it so someone or something had carved it. Around this were standing 6 men talking and pointing at different areas of the rock. She could not hear what they were saying, but could tell they were not agreeing on much.

Then she felt it. A vibration in the room. Small at first, hardly noticeable. It grew until her whole body was a tingle. She also noticed the walls, floor, ceiling and the two sculptures started to shimmer. It seemed as if they were all forming gold veins that looked as if they were pumping something into the small sculpture. The small sculpture seemed to be filling up from the inside with a golden light. When it was full there was a loud "pop". Denise noticed the large sculpture. It's opening was now full of blackness. The type of blackness that seems to absorb all light and energy. It was almost as if the sculpture had formed a big hole into nothingness.

Denise was mentally catching her breath when she was startled by someone behind her. She turned to see that the group had moved up. She motioned to them to stay hidden but they did not see her. They were all looking past her with looks of shock and fear in their eyes. Denise turned to see a cyborg standing in front of the large statue. `How did it get there?' she wondered. Suddenly she got her answer as two more cyborgs stepped out of the blackness. Well, that explains how they got there - sort of. What is this? A type of gate? She had many questions and they could not be answered hiding here.

The cyborgs moved off down the tunnel and Denise motioned for the group to follow. The cyborgs headed through the maze and towards the airlock. Just before they got to the airlock, they went down a side passage. Denise looked down the tunnel and saw it had no lights, but there was a strange glow coming from the end of the tunnel. The group started to move down the tunnel towards the glow very cautiously. The glow was coming from a room about 100 meters down and as they got closer they could see it was a huge room. When they got to the door and looked in, Denise could not believe what she saw. There must have been a thousand beds, and they all had a strange canopy over the head. About fifty of the beds had occupants and they were all cyborgs. They seemed to be unconscious.

Denise looked around the room but there was no one else there. She signaled for the group to enter. They had not seen it before but now they could see some sort of control area. It appeared to be empty so they went in. Yalp and Christine at once went to the controls to see if they could figure them out.

"Connor, how about going with him?"

Connor followed Pogo out of the room . Connor, with his gun at the ready, walked beside Pogo as they made their way to the closest cyborg. When Pogo was within reach of the cyborg he put his hands on it's head. Then he closed his eyes for a couple of minutes. Connor was watching the cyborg when he noticed Pogo go all tense and a look of pain crossed his face. Connor at once pulled Pogo away from the cyborg and gave him a shake. Pogo's eyes popped open he gave his head another shake. After a minute to compose his thoughts he said,

"They are being brain washed. It is almost like a mind walker's suggestion but much stronger. The funny thing is I do not sense a conscious mind in the body. They must be suppressing it somehow."

In the control room, Yalp and Christine were starting to figure out how the machine worked. It seemed to take a brain wave pattern and slowly modify it so it would be susceptible to suggestion. No, not exactly suggestion, more like new commands. Neither Yalp nor Christine had ever seen this sort of technology before. When Pogo and Connor came back to the control room, they all compared findings.

"We have to get out of here and get this information back to Beighur. Then he can get the Concord Marines and Magistrate in here. To do that we have to get out of here and back to the ATV, so let's move!"