The Pyramid Chronicles: Tyche Point (#1)

Chapter Three: Everybody's Looking For Something, Part Three

The laboratory outside the town of Tyche Point, California had been abandoned for twelve years now.

Everyone knew it was a lab accident that forced the researchers to leave, but the tourist spots in town were happy to fuel the rumors that aliens had been involved. It was good for business, after all.

And it helped that Delta Labs had been built in the middle of a small crater.

But it was the true cause of the accident that drew SCI to the lab twelve years later. After the building was determined to be stable—despite the cracks and crumbling outer walls—Agent David Martin's team was approved to move in and establish a temporary lab. They passed through the graffiti-covered lobby into the sublevels of Delta Labs.

The artifact was exactly where the previous researchers had left it: a chamber at the center of the lowest sublevel. Everything had been excavated except for a tower of dark stone directly beneath the artifact itself.

It was a triangular shard of metal, about five inches tall and two and a half inches across the bottom. The metal itself was a dark bronze that almost verged on black, flecked with pieces of gold that glinted under the chamber's red lights. One side was a perfectly smooth angle, the other a vertical jagged line, and the bottom flat except for a single notch.

Agent Martin's team took new readings of the energy emitted by the artifact and compared them to the old reports salvaged from the lab's computer drives and filing cabinets. While some scientists worked on data analysis in the upper levels, many stayed in the chamber, continuing to take readings day after day.

This morning was no exception. Researchers clad entirely in black—including their SCI-issued lab coats—circled the fragment, armed with a wide array of equipment. The only thing they wore that wasn't dark in color were their white gloves.

Martin watched them from the walkway above, dressed similarly in a completely black suit. He'd been apprehensive about standing up here at first, not convinced he could trust the lab's infrastructure, but nothing had broken since they arrived.

At least, not yet.

Agent Dawson approached, her gaze fixed on the team below, her hand grazing the railing as she walked.

"Did you read the new report?" Martin asked her when she reached him.

She nodded. "We don't have much time, do we?"

The artifact was still giving off energy, generating a field that had enough destructive potential to level the small town a mile away. And neither SCI'S team, nor the Delta team that had worked here twelve years earlier, could figure out how to remove the strange shard of metal from the earth.

"This thing's so unstable, it's a miracle the energy field hasn't collapsed already," Martin said. "That whole town is doomed."

~

Malcolm watched Delta Labs for two days before making his move.

The SCI team that came in nearly a week earlier had only set up basic security measures. Their comm signals weren't even protected. Not from Malcolm's equipment, anyway. They'd clearly intended for this to be a quick operation.

Unfortunately, the artifact they were here for was giving them a hard time.

Malcolm took his time making his way down the hill he'd been observing the lab from. SCI had set up cameras to ensure kids from town didn't come to poke around or add to the graffiti, but Malcolm didn't care if they saw him coming. They'd know he was here soon enough regardless, and there was nothing they could do to stop him.