One night, Max and Olga stormed into their base (the garden shed in Slavi’s back yard) with a pile of papers in hand and the most exited smiles they were capable of.

“Yes! Yes! YES!!!” shouted Max dancing around like crazy, shaking the little hut to its foundations. “We have a hot lead! Ha, the idiots from NASA would be green with envy.”

“Chill, dude!” Slavi patted his shoulder. “We can’t get it either if you don’t explain.”

“Pyramids!” shouted his friend. “Orion’s belt! Isn’t it obvious?!”

“Sorry, Max-san,” Hiro took off his glasses and frowned with all the solemness of his fourteen-and-a-half years. “Your train of thought is so elated that the mentally impaired amongst us can’t catch up.”

“You know that the pyramids of Giza mimic Orion’s belt, right?” Olga stepped in with sparkling eyes.

“Ye-es…” Samira lifted her eyes from the book she was reading.

“Yes, but it’s not only them!” Olga put down a map on their improvised table. “The pyramids in Teotihuacan do the same.”

“But that’s not all!” Max stuck his finger somewhere in Central China. “Together the pyramids in Giza, Teotihuacan, and Xi'an also form a triad and mimic Orion’s belt.”

“So what?” Slavi leaned over the map and curiously followed the many crisscrossing colorful lines on it.

“What do you mean with ‘so what’?” Olga was deeply offended. “The Bosnia pyramids, the pyramids of Argolis, and the ones in Giza also build a straight line.”

“And do you know what follows the same model?” Max was almost jumping up and down. “Do you remember that village where we got lost last summer? The one that I can’t even pronounce?”

“Pishurka?” reminded him Slavi.

“Exactly! No matter what anyone says, those hills there were without a doubt pyramids. Well, that village also forms a straight line with Giza. And between them lies Belintash!”

“Um, not that I want to burst your bubble or anything, but Belintash is not a pyramid.” Samira slammed her book with a sigh. “Your theory, whatever it might have been, is busted.”

“Come on now, listen to the end, Habiba.” Max gestured to Olga who lеyed a piece of transparent parchment paper on top of the map. On it with colorful markers were drawn concentric circles of different sizes that intersected occasionally.

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“Max and I were comparing magnetic anomalies and that’s when it hit us.” The girls smiled proudly. “Pyramidal structures, be it natural or man-made, serve as a… let’s call it magnetic field enhancer. Always three points on a straight path. The maximal amplification of the signal occurs at the middle pyramid where the signals overlap.”

“Belintash,” jumped in Max, “is indeed not a pyramid, but the plateau generates strong enough magnetic field on its own even without an ‘amplifier’.”

“Well, well,” now Hiro was hooked up too. “And this leads us to what?”

“There already exist theories that the pyramids are spaceports or even landing platforms for space ships.” Max drummed with his fingers on the table.

“But that’s all wrong,” stated triumphantly Olga. “They are portals!”

Silence fell.

“You mean… something like Stargate?” Slavi’s eyebrows flew up and Hiro whistled quietly.

“Exactly!” Shouted both their friends at the same time. Max continued:

“If you ask me, the distance between the three points determines the travel distance. Closer triads like Giza and Teotihuacan lead to star coordinates closer to Earth. Big triads made by many separate pyramids like the Mexico-Egypt-China are reserved for trans-galactic voyages. This means that Belintsh gives us something in-between.

“It all sounds great,” sighed Samira, “but there is no way to prove it.”

“Well, here you are wrong, habiba!” Max pointed triumphantly into the air. “Drums, please.”

After waiting a couple of minutes for effect, the boy put another piece of paper on the ever-growing pile on the table. This one was of humble dimensions but covered from top to bottom with tiny rows of numbers. In the lower right corner, a group of numbers stood out, underlined thickly with a color pen and surrounded by exclamation marks.

“Periodically during the year peaks of the magnetic anomalies can be observed around Belintash. One of the strongest ones would be in three weeks. Exactly during the Summer Solstice. We can’t miss such an opportunity!”

“Yes, but the school term ends on the thirtieth,” reminded him Hiro.

“I intend to suddenly feel undisposed around the Solstice,” suddenly proclaimed Samira.

“You know that uncle Lyosha will be getting married on the twenty-second. I can’t miss such an important event,” Olga gave her a wink.

“Well, I have all my grades already,” sighed Hiro, accompanied by friendly hoots.

Max turned to Slavi.

“What about you, my man? You are unusually quiet.”

“Look, Max…”

“Just don’t tell me that you are chickening out!” He grabbed Slavi in a bear-hug. “Butch can’t go without Sundance Kid!”

“Come on. Slavi,” pleaded Olga. “It won’t be the same without you.”

“Absolutely!” Hiro adjusted his glasses. “It would be horrible to be the only normal person in the expedition.”

“… I suppose… that my chronic migraine could flare up unexpectedly around that time…” Their friend shook his head and capitulated.

“YES!” Max whistled and jumped around. “Aliens, here we come! This CACTUS has a full set of thorns!”

Everyone burst out into hearty laughter. Only Slavi felt how his migraine really was starting to rear its ugly head. His mother was supposed to be on excavations at Belintash exactly at the same time.