I found myself standing beside Haseem at the fourth wall's panel. I was uncomfortable standing so close to him, but there was no way around it unless I wanted to make him move. I considered it, but heard Jeff's voice in my head tell me to try and be thoughtful; Hassem loved the puzzle as much as I.

"Nothing but color changed, you said?"

"Correct. It was like it was expecting input, you know?" he said, "And, took, there are four sections of buttons. Do you think each section corresponds to one of each of the four symbols?"

"Possibly. That certainly seems logical. And I'm betting that the panels go right to left, corresponding to the pillar going top to bottom. That seems to be the pattern for the glyph in the main hall."

I saw out of the corner of my eye that Cally took out her camera and began scrolling. "Thought of something, Cally?" I asked.

"Well, I thought I'd take a look at the glyphs around the pillar's symbols on the wall and see if they might hold some clues now that we think we're looking for some sort of mapping system."

"Oh, good thought!"

Cally shared her pictures with her students and I shared mine with Jeff. We all started staring at them.

"Does anyone else think that top glyph beside the top symbol looks like a galaxy?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, and there's a solar system-looking glyph, too," Jody added.

"What's that quartered cross symbol, though?" I asked.

"Okay, so don't think it weird, but, in Star Trek, the galaxy is sectioned into four quadrants, alpha through gamma."

"So, you seriously think our aliens might actually be using Star Trek coordinates, Matt? Really?" Jody asked, the sarcasm rolling off her tongue.

"No... well, yes, but hear me out. If you were aliens and you set something like this up someplace, wouldn't you want the inhabitants to eventually be able to figure it out? And, wouldn't that mean you'd have to set it up to be something familiar?"

"But, that would mean that our aliens were time travelers, too, in order to have built this in Egyptian times, but have it relevant to us today," Jeff pointed out.

I looked back at the panel wall. "Okay, so, if these four button on the left are the four quadrants of the galaxy, what's the third set of buttons?" I asked the team.

"There'd have to be a way to designate which solar system the coordinates were referring to," Haseem said, talking out loud more than trying to explain anything.

"But, wouldn't that mean there should be a whole hell of a lot more buttons than that?" Jody pointed out. "I mean, aren't there, I don't know, billions of solar systems out there?"

"Yeah, there are, but, if you were aliens, would you want to build one of these just anywhere? No, you'd want to build them where you have a vested interest in the location."

"Okay, so we have," I paused to count, "twenty-five systems to choose from. It seems as plausible and idea as any other. So, what next?"

"Well, then we need to know what planet of the system the other room is located on."

Haseem stared at the section of the panel. "I swear I think this looks like some kind of digital pad. Maybe they type out the number?"

I nodded and tried to ignore that everyone had now worked their way over to the fourth wall. I started to get anxious and I glanced at Jeff, who was back near the pillar. He picked up on my discomfort.

"Hey, could you all not crowd Dr. Graham so much? He's feeling a little anxious."

Everyone took a couple of steps back with a quick, "Sorry," or something similar, but I could see the disappointment on their faces. I stepped away from the wall and opened my phone.

"Thanks, but why don't you all take a closer look while I study the picture for a while? Maybe you'll see something that I don't."

Smiles around indicated I'd scored some "friendship points" with them.

I heard Jody sigh, "I would think that last set of buttons would be for the locations on the planets, but that's what the other walls are for. So, what's that section?" she asked as she pointed to the right-most cluster.

Cally spoke up, "Well, didn't we suggest time travel? Shouldn't there be time traveling controls somewhere?"

"Wow!" Haseem nearly shouted. "I think that's it! Imagine. We can go to, what, potentially a hundred places, on each place there several locations and, then, to top it off, we can go to these locations at different times?"

Now that Haseem had pointed out all the options, I was feeling overwhelmed. "Good lord. How do you decide where to go first?" I asked quietly, meaning for it to be rhetorical, but it got answered anyway.

"Maybe you don't decide where, but when," Matt said, reaching for the fourth wall's time control panel.

"Wait!" I called, but it was too late; he'd pushed a button.

The floor, walls, and ceiling immediately fell away, replaced by the Void, and everyone, even myself, cried out and fell, our balance lost to vertigo. To my horror, there, where the fourth wall had been, were the eyes, the deep, unforgiving eyes I'd seen in the Void in the beginning.

I fought a scream rising in my throat. The eyes were turning, searching, and I knew, I knew, they would find us... would find me.

And I was right. They focused on us in the room, and then on each of us in turn.

How did you come to be here? I heard a voice ask. I couldn't tell if it was spoken in me or all around me or both.

Matt began to scream and Jody whimpered, both pushed up against the far wall, having scooted as far from the eyes as they could get. Haseem and Jeff were in the fetal position where they had dropped. Only Cally and I braved looking at the eyes.

"I found the room," I said, tears streaming down my face. Cally inched toward me and I grabbed her and brought her close. For once in my life, having someone near was exactly what I wanted. "I brought them here."

"No, we brought them here," Cally said, defending me and her students. "Please don't punish them for something we have done."

Matt's scream was cut off and I glanced behind me to see him slumped. Jody was limp too, as were Haseem and Jeff.

"Jeff!" I shouted before turning back to the eyes, "Please, don't kill them. They meant no harm. None of us meant any harm.

They are not dead, merely unconscious.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Did you not receive the warning? the voice asked.

"Warning?" Cally asked.

"Yes, I received the warning," I said. "I told them not to dig."

Yet, here you are, it said to me. It was all I could do to breathe while the eyes looked at me. How did you come to be here?

"I have a talent, a unique skill, and I used it to gain entry to the room," I explained.

You are not meant to be here yet, the voice declared.

"Yet?" Cally asked. "When will we be ready?"

The timing is unclear, but not until we can trust that you will simply travel for the sake of travel and education and not domination and war.

"Well, that will be a while," I couldn't help but say.

You must leave this place.

"Yes, of course," Cally said. "Only, how do we keep the others from revealing this location of this place. How do we forget where it is?"

You will forget, as they will forget.

"I don't understand," I said. I felt myself grow heavy and I couldn't resist laying on the floor.

You don't need to understand, the voice said.

Soon, I realized it was true. I didn't need, nor did I have the desire, to understand. I was content not knowing.

And so, I slept.

~~~

My head was swimming when I finally woke. I didn't know how long I was out, but I was missing enough time to be taken back to my tent and for Jeff to arrive. He was sitting beside my cot reading a book when I peeled my eyes open and rubbed the gunk from them.

I checked my watch, squinting at the dial. It had been eighteen hours since I went out to the grid! I estimated that I had been unconscious for ten of them. Now, it was morning, and I could hear the workers beginning their day.

The dig! I looked at Jeff, wide-eyed. "Please tell me they're not digging where I told them not to."

"As far as I know, they are not," he reassured me, "but, I wasn't told all of the details. You feel like going over it?"

"I have to pee first. And I want a shower," I said. I was feeling pretty nasty. "And breakfast. I'm starving!"

I noticed that my left arm hurt but before I could panic, Jeff explained.

"They gave you an IV with fluids and a sedative. When it looked like you might wake up, once the sedative started to wear off, I had them take it out."

"Thank you," I said, relieved. Medical procedures and equipment made me feel extremely uncomfortable and I'd have been hard-pressed to not panic had I woken and had an IV. But, first things first: pee, shower, food, in that order.

I sat up, only to grab my head. I had the worst headache! I hated headaches. Jeff knew this, too.

"Headache?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, it's pretty bad."

"You want some Tylenol or Advil or something?" he said, reaching for his bag. He was resourceful like that; always having on hand the small things I might need. No telling what else was in that bag of his.

"Yeah," I said again, releasing my head and letting it hang, my eyes closed. I felt unnerved. Something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"What's wrong?" he asked, handing me two capsules and a bottle of water.

I downed the pills and emptied the water, which only served to remind me I had to pee. I tried to stand and he reached out to help.

"Just an intense feeling of deja vu. I really feel like I've done this before." I explained.

"Oh? That's weird."

"Isn't it?" I asked.