The trio walked confidently passed the few Titan workers. Who were themselves busied with their own projects. A few of them looked up briefly to regard them, but since they were dressed in Zenith uniforms, one wearing a white lab coat and the other two wearing orange worker jumpsuits, they didn’t hold their attention for long. Likewise, the security drones standing about let Ricky’s group pass also.

The final test came when the last security drone they would have to pass, standing directly next to the two imposing mobile gun platforms or MGPs standing sentry before the yawning wide entrance underground, stepped forward to check their credentials. Ricky was ready, and held out the E-badge he found inside the footlocker.

For a moment, doubt crept in as Ricky smiled at the impassive robot. It was difficult to ascertain the mind of a mechanical being, one that ran off artificial intelligence as opposed to discernable body language and facial expressions. The robot thankfully stepped aside quickly and let them all pass.

“Good day to you.” Rocco saluted the machine as he passed by last.

Next, they reached the mouth of the opening leading to the underground passage and stepped through, not eager to look back at those imposing dual mounted machine guns on each of the MGPs standing guard over the entrance.

The tunnel led down and down, much further underground than could have been estimated from the surface, but there were lights set up at regular intervals just enough to keep most of the area moderately lit. The deep travel signified that this temple likely would have been a truly gigantic ancient structure.

The tunnel that the robots had bored into the ground went down much more than it went horizontal. In fact, when they reached the bottom, they had maybe only traveled a few hundred feet from the courtyard they had passed through to get here.

“Look at this!” Eligah stopped moving and cried out.

The two Procyon brothers turned and looked over the older Titan’s shoulder. Somewhere along the way down, the soil walls gave way to carved stone, likely the ancient freshly unearthed walls of this primeval temple. Eligah was looking at pristine hieroglyphs carved into the stone.

The pictures portrayed images of the early indigenous Titans that had lived here thousands of years ago, probably the ones that carved these walls and built this structure in the distant dawning of time. Pictures of ancient hunters chasing down what looked like enormous long extinct creatures, scenes of chariot battles and wars and many other things. The one specifically that drew the old Titan’s attention, showed a massive burning figure watching over the site from the sky.

The tunnel that had led them down abruptly ran out and they now found themselves standing before the entrance to the temple that Eligah had spent so much time and effort researching for years of his life. He stood overwhelmed by the experience for several moments, while Ricky and Rocco waited and shifted uncomfortably.

“This is…this is exactly what I’ve read about. All those hours of study…Professor Ingo’s notes…I can’t believe I’m actually here. Standing before history.” Eligah was clearly overwhelmed by his current status.

Ricky gently nudged him from his awestricken stupor.

“What do we need to do now? We risked our lives and got you here. Let’s do whatever you came to do and get the hell out.”

“Right. Before something goes wrong.” Rocco agreed.

“Oh. Yeah.” Eligah shook it off like a Titan waking from a deep slumber. “Indeed.”

As they walked closer to the prehistoric ruins of the temple, they soon discovered, unbelievably enough, they were alone in the subterranean antechamber. Besides the guards up at the entrance there were no other automated workers, drones or Titans down in the site.

It took a little time for Eligah to look around, get his bearings and find what he was looking for. Truth be told, all the research he did had not prepared him for the moment at hand, actually standing before the mythological Temple of the Pheonix Flame. According to mythology, once upon a time, there had been hundreds of such sites scattered across the surface of Titan. Every major ancient civilization had at least one of these types of sites. But little by little as the centuries went by, the sites were abandoned and forgotten to time. Now, this one here on the Rook Coast, due to the extensive research by Eligah’s colleague Professor Ingo, was the only one left that could be traced with any level of certainty by the historical records.

Much of this was in fact due to the megacorporation that controlled the planet, Zenith. Several generations ago, there were kingdoms and governments across Titan, each with their own lands, style of government and Titans to rule over. That all changes with Zenith, who systematically undermined and erased all identity and cultural uniqueness from the lands. And one of the first things they accomplished with this agenda was to erase and scrub history. Acedemia, schools, media, all were taken over from within before finally, the Titannet which unified the planet was also the very tool they used to take it over. Since Zenith controlled the Titannet, it was no large feat for them to scrub history and leave only the propaganda they wished others to read.

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It was for this very reason that researchers such as Professor Ingo were so very rare at that time on Titan. It took specialized AI systems, hidden and disconnected from Zenith and many hours of patience for the AI to scour the remnants of the archived Titannet and discover true history before the Zenith purge.

But now all those painstaking hours of fishing for lost information and piecing it all together were over. The hard work was completed, and Eligah now stood in the only known discoverable temple site on Titan. It was not only overwhelming to discover such a venerated historical site, but also the discovery of such an old myth having a basis in fact which was frankly mind-boggling.

Eligah found it. It was badly worn away, but a worked stone crafted archway, that had probably once been a true work of art in architecture in the antechamber led into the inner sanctuary. He stepped inside of this much smaller room and found in the center, badly eroded by the eons of time, what had once been a great bowl on a stand.

To the Procyon brothers, who had not spent long hours inside studying such things, it just looked a little like an old, curved or hollowed out boulder. With some imagination it was not hard to see what it might have once looked like, but the weather and time had beaten it down until it very nearly lost all shape.

“This has to be it.” Eligah pronounced reverently. “This has to be what they called the Keeper of the Flame.”

“Looks like a big rock.” Rocco scoffed, unimpressed.

“It was once a caldron shape, hollowed out…like a stone lantern almost.”

“I mean, Titans in the past worshipped fire. They also worshipped the sun and moon, right? Do you actually believe any of this old stuff?” Ricky narrowed his eyes. It was one thing to find the old site and physically stand on top of real history. That was a cool feeling, the Procyon had to admit. But it was an entirely different thing to start believing in ancient fire gods coming down from the sky.

“Look, you blokes are young, inexperienced. Science is a complicated matter to be sure. It’s not a megalithic thing like Zenith tries to portray it as. The science says this, or the science says that. Real science is pockets. Pockets of curious individuals trying to get to the truth of a particular situation.” Eligah smiled and adjusted his spectacles. “But one thing about science that could be said to be universal…all science begins with a simple question. What would happen if…? And today we find out…”

* * * *

Bingo did not like leaving the site and the others behind, but found it to be the best solution for now. He had done his part, had gone in and presented himself as a licensed Reaper, looking for a target on the Rook Coast. It was not a complete lie and he had the documentation within Zenith’s record systems to back up his story. Since repossession agents did not technically work for Zenith, but did often work on behalf of the various bionics companies like Angelware or Redstar, under Zenith, they were afforded a unique position within Titan society and were often treated as above suspicion.

The cyborg was not sure how well his diversion worked for the others, he did manage to attract the attention of several of the overseer bots and many of their security drones for a time but given the fact that he had not heard any explosions or shooting yet, he took to be a good sign. Maybe the others had slipped past and reached their objective while he attempted to keep as many busy as possible.

When his diversion ran out of steam and he could not possibly ask any more questions or keep the robots busy for any longer period of time without attracting suspicion, he continued his act and left the site. He did not go far, however, and opted to stay hidden along the outskirts of the dig site. He took the moment of peace to contact the ship through his implanted cybernetics.

“Bingo?” Came the unsure answer from Rocky.

“Yes it’s me.”

“Why didn’t you go into the private channel?”

“Because I did this instead.”

“How’s everything going out there? Reegan is worried for her father.”

“Yes, I do hope he’s okay.” The young female’s voice could be heard on the speaker.

“I broke away from the others. It looks like they made it inside.”

“Well that’s good then. I guess we’re almost ready to finally leave.”

“Maybe. Amiga got separated from us. I saw some others take her. I think they were like her.”

“Well that sounds bad…”

“Have the ship scan the area. See if there’s any incoming or outgoing flights. If she’s still here there’s a chance we can…”

“A small shuttle craft…probably not any bigger than this one left for orbit about a half hour ago.”

“Shit. That’s what I was worried about. I bet that’s her. Find out anything you can.”

“On it. I may be able to trace it.”

“Sounds good. Get at ‘er.”

Suddenly Bingo’s attention was drawn behind him. A cloud of dust arose from the horizon as a large caravan of vehicles traveled with purpose down the path leading to the dig site. He found a nearby rock large enough to hide behind and watched carefully.

Bingo quickly switched to the private channel at that point as he watched the line of vehicles get closer. Two of the vehicles stopped when they saw the security van that their group had taken to get here pulled off to the side of the path. A dozen or more Zenith MV1 battle units immediately surrounded the vehicle and began investigating.

“Shit. You guys there?”

“Shit. Yeah we’re here. We’re at the temple thing Eligah wanted to find. Why?” Ricky answered.

“Because our time just ran out. They tracked us here.”

But there was no reply. Bingo realized the channel had been cut off abruptly. A signal jammer. The Zenith forces arriving were obviously using a signal jammer to prevent communications via the Titannet. And there was no way to know then if that last statement Bingo had said had been received or not. Not without reestablishing communication the old-fashioned way.