Dr. Marcus was the first to wake up, it took her a few seconds to remember what happened but when she did, she bolted upright. The last thing she remembered was entering that thing in space, once they entered it the ship started to shake, the light was extremely distorted. After a while she passed out, she was just happy she hadn't eaten anything before, being inside there was like being in a roller coaster.

Now she looked around her, and she saw both Angela and Paul, lying down on their sides, she recognized it as the recovery position based on the basic emergency training she had. The only reasonable explanation is that they were rescued, but for some reason they weren't taken to an infirmary, she looked around and that is when she noticed that it was not outer space outside the shuttle.

She got up and carefully walked to a window, the outside looked like the whole shuttle was inside a hangar, and now was the first time she noticed that she had gravity, were they somehow back on earth, as far as she knew mars didn't have any facility like this, the future dome city was still under construction, and the gravity was wrong, mars gravity was much lower than earth, she jumped up to make sure, and sure enough the gravity felt like earth, something didn't feel right, she looked around again, and that is when she noticed the door, it was ajar, she turned around and went back to her two friends, she needed to wake them up

"Paul ... Paul, wakeup" She started with Paul, maybe he could help make sense of what was happening,

"What happened?" It looks like Angela was the one waking up instead, she looked around then spotted Dr. Marcus

"Alicia, what happened? Where are we" she asked, looking around

"Ok, we are in the shuttle, I had a really bad dream, like we were swallowed by something out of a sci-fi movie in space" she continued

"It wasn't a dream, honey" Alicia Marcus said, she also remembered what she saw, it looked eerily like a what they scientists believe a wormhole should look like, and it pulled their shuttle even at the distance they were

"What do you mean it wasn't a dream, it had to be a dream, things like that don't happen in real life" Angela was looking a little scared, sitting up and looking around "Why is there gravity?"

"I don't know, we need to wakeup Paul, there is something strange going on outside" she answered, while pointing to the window

"Outside? Outside where, why did you drag us to the back of the ship?" Angela asked, still confused about thing

"Calm down. I wasn't the one who dragged us here, I woke up here just like you" Alicia answered her

Angela was looking around and focused on the metallic object she had her head on, "what is this, it looks like a suitcase" she picked it up, it was surprisingly light, it was the first time Alicia had focused on the object. She looked where she had been lying and noticed the case as well, it looked like a suit case, there was something etched on it that looked like a writing of some kind, but she couldn't recognize the alphabet, some characters looked like Greek, but most are strange.

Paul chose that moment to wake up and unlike the other he simply bolted upright like someone threw cold water on him

"Alicia? What happened?" He asked groggily

"I don't know, why don't you guys come and check this out" She told the other two and lead them to the window

"What?" Asked Paul, now very alert

Alicia lead them to the window "Better you guys just see for yourselves".

When they got to the window, the other two looked just as confused as she felt

"Where are we?" asked Angela while getting closer to the window trying to see more of what was outside.

"I don't know, but we have gravity, and the door is open, it's like we are on earth" answered Alicia, sounding hopeful just to hide the nervousness underneath, because this didn't seem like earth, too many things didn't add up.

"How did we get to earth, the shuttle had to be guided there somehow, and although this shuttle's heat shield can theoretically handle entry to earth it has never been tried" Paul said, he was right, it would be easier for them to be somehow docked with another ship unconscious than it would be for the shuttle to reenter earth, and even that would be dangerous as hell, and they didn't know anyone who could achieve that.

"Where else could we be, we have gravity, it looks like normal earth gravity, and it looks like we are inside some type of hangar, and it was designed especially for the shuttle given its size" Interjected Angela, clearly trying to be hopeful about the situation

"I'll go there and investigate" said Paul, while 

"Why you?" asked Alicia, she didn't know what was happening so, better be careful

"Well, someone needs to, we can't stay here forever, and if they wanted us dead, we would be" he answered, clearly intent on going

"Well then we all go" she fired back, no way she is going to let her friend handle it alone

"Do we have to leave, right now, can't we just stay here and wait for whoever it is that got us here to come back?" Asked Angela, it was obvious she was a little apprehensive about the situation, it's a little spooky to wake up on earth after being in space for so long without any memory on how they got here

"We have to find out what is going on" replied Marcus

"We can find out later" said Angela

"They left the door open, they are probably waiting for us to leave on our own time" fired Marcus

"Which I don't feel like it's now" Angela shot back

"We can wait here for another hour and if no one comes we can explore around" says Alicia cutting the argument that was developing. Their focus on their argument was a little unnerving, now was not the time for pointless arguments

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The other two agreed, the went back to their chairs back it seemed no one wanted to sit down

"So, what do you think is going on?" Angela asked Alicia

"I really don't know" Alicia answered

"Any guess?" asked Angela, Alicia was good at figuring things out.

"Nothing, there are too many inconsistencies for anything sane possibility can think about"

"Like what?" Asked Paul

"Like you said, it would be almost impossible to get us back to earth. Whoever saved us left us here after making sure we were all right, even if the shuttle fits in this hangar it is still too small for it to be made for spacecrafts, the writing on the suitcases are on a language I don't know, I can't even recognize the letters, it looks like runes"

"What do you mean writing?" Asked Paul

"The suitcases that we used as pillows have strange writings on them" Angela said. Paul went to pick one, but Alicia stopped him

"Here" she had one with her, she wanted to investigate them even more

He took it and started to check it out, after a while he tried to open it

"Where do you open it?" he asked while turning the suitcase around, as if looking for something

"What do you mean?" Alicia asked him, confused by what he was saying

"There isn't any type of button or handle a person can use to open it, the only reason we think it is a suitcase is the shape, and the handle" He kept turning it around to see if he can find a way to open it

"Ok, that's strange" said Angela looking at it herself, Alicia went there, and they spent the next 3 minutes trying to figure out how to open the suitcase.

All of the sudden Alicia got up and told them "This isn't working."

"What isn't working?" asked Angela confused by what she meant.

"Waiting, I am too anxious, I want answers" she answered, trying to wait for whoever put them here is making her anxious.

"You were the one who suggested we wait" countered Paul

"Well, I was trying to get both of you to stop arguing, but the longer we stay here the more questions arise and I get more anxious" Alicia replied

"But you said we should wait for the person to show themselves" said Angela, sounding a little nervous, and Alicia remembered that the main reason they aren't leaving is because Angela is reluctant to go out, but they will need to face whatever is out there sooner or later.

"Well, I will go look around and you tell you guys what I find out" she said.

"No, we'll go together" said Paul, there is no way he will let he go there alone

Angela waited a few moments before adding "I will not stay here alone, this is sounding like the plot of a bad horror movie"

"Or a great sci-fi adventure" Added Paul, and they all remembered the whatever it was that the shuttle went into

With their minds made up, they went to the door and looked out. There were no stairs by the door, but there was some sort of metallic cabinet or table propped by the door that could be used to jump down

Paul was the first and jumped down on top of it, it moved a little and lowered itself but then they heard a small hissing noise and it came back toward the door, Alicia jumped next

"You should have waited for me to jump down to the ground" hissed Paul

"Well, it held, so, you can go now" replied Alicia, he was right, she was just a little impatient

Paul jumped to the ground, then turned and froze

"What?" asked Alicia

"Get down quickly" he said with some urgency in his voice

"Why?" she asked again

"Just do it" he said a little louder

She did, then turned around and froze as well

"What is happening?" Asked Angela

"This, ...., this thing" Alicia said, pointing to the thing they used as a step in their way down

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's not on the ground"

"What do you mean it's not on the ground?"

"It's floating in the air" what they thought was a metallic table or cabinet was actually a metallic box that was hovering one meter over the ground without support.

"Floating?"

Paul pushed it and after an initial resistance it moved gliding in the air

"What the..." Angela paused in mid-sentence "how is that possible?"

"It doesn't seem to have any know type of propulsion, so maybe its magnetic"

"That would mean that the ground is magnetic as well, but if it was then the table would have flipped, because the only thing that could keep it over is if its polarity was inverse of the ground, but the magnet would try to flip itself to a direction that would allow it to stick to the ground" said Alicia

"Not necessarily, if it is some diamagnetic material..." he tried to explain a way it would be possible

"ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS?" Angela yelled "I am stuck up here, now is not the time to have a scientific debate"

"Ok, sorry" Paul brought it back toward the shuttle and held it there

"You want me to jump in that thing?" asked Angela

"It held both mine and Alicia's weight, it can definitely handle yours" he answered

"But you don't know how it works" yelled Angela

"Do you have any other ideas?" Alicia asked

"Isn't there something with actual legs out there?" asked Angela, better not step on a flying thing without knowing what it is.

"No, this place is completely barren, sterile even, well except for us" said Paul

"Did you have to say that?" asked Angela, a little miffed about what he said

"Say what?" he asked

"Sterile, now I'm thinking about laboratory experiments with us as the guinea pigs" she answered

"Look, you'll have to get down there somehow, here we'll hold it so you can be at ease" said Alicia

"You don't know what it'll do if you hold it, it might assume it's okay to relax and we'll have to support its weight" interjected Paul

"It doesn't think, it's a machine of some kind" said Alicia

"It might be a machine but It was created and it has some specific type of behavior, all machines have, and you don't know what it is" said Paul

"Just push it to where it was before, I'll jump down" Angela said, better to stop their discussion on technology right now

Paul did as she said, and foot a deep breath she took a step forward, the floating thing held, 

Angela sat down and scooted to the side and put out her feet before jumping down.

"Are you Ok?" asked Paul

"Well, the flying brick didn't kill me, let's see what else is there"

Paul grumbled under his breath that it could just attract bad luck. Before they did anything the flying brick as Angela called it lowered itself down on the ground.

Paul tried to pick it up and it was heavy.

"Do you thing that someone is watching us?" asked Angela

"Probably, or else why would this thing only lower itself after all of us left the shuttle" answered Paul

"Why don't they try to go and meet them" said Alicia

They looked around and saw what looked to be one big hangar door behind the shuttle and two doors on the wall on the front of the shuttle, the problem is that one door was on the ground but the other was just hanging there above the first one, there was no stairs to lead up to there, they couldn't understand why anyone would create a door up high like that.

"Look, up there. How would you get to that door?"

"Well, probably the flying brick can get higher" said Angela, they had no way to refute that, they didn't know how things worked. 

"Where do we go first, the hangar doors or those what I assume are office doors?" asked Paul

"Hangar doors first, we might see outside" answered Alicia

They went to the hangar doors on the back of the shuttle, but there was no way to open the door, no panel, no handle or anything like that. There was a small crease in the middle that suggested that the doors slide to the side when open.

"Let's try the other ones" said Alicia, turning around to go to the supposed office door

They walked to the wall on the front, even from a distance they could see that there was no handle as well, but when they got close it opened by itself.

The froze waiting for something else to happen, but after a few seconds they continued, it probably was an automatic door. On the other side of the door was a wide corridor with two doors on each side, and at the end of that corridor there were stairs that lead up to what they could see as an open area.

The doors in the corridor had handles, which was a relief, they went there and tried the doors, the one that opened looked like it had stalls, with fogged glass and two extra doors, looking up they saw the universal symbol for toilets

"It looks like these are the toilets and I think showers too" Paul said, stating the obvious

They then made their way up the stairs, they could hear a soft music playing on the background in a very low volume, Paul went first, when he got on top of the stairs he froze.