Deep within the dense vegetation of the African jungles, the Congo, it is pouring. A massive storm worthy of its own name but of course none is given to it. The rain stomps down from the sky and pummels the earth and the vegetation; it also pummels a structure few will ever see.

A massive, silver, brick-like pyramid towers above the rest of the jungle. Easily 50 stories high and built stronger than anything that will ever be built upon this earth. It looks newer than most buildings do a week old, but it has been around long before people even thought about standing with two legs rather than four.

Lightning strikes and two men can be seen coming out of a massive door at the apparent front of the building. A door obviously not made for men. The are scarcely clad around the waists with animal skins. One holds a torch and is very bloody, he hobbles behind the other man but still moves very fast. The other man carries a crude pole perhaps used as a weapon in one hand. He holds a dirty animal skin covering something in the other hand.

The two men continue to run from the massive building. The rain crashing down upon them with all its might. They trip and stumble over the leaves and roots, and they continue to run. As they run, an intensely bright light erupts from behind them. They both stop and turn around. They can not see what is making the light for it is brighter than the noon sun. They squint in the direction of the light and cover their eyes with their hands. Suddenly, the light goes out and a massive, invisible force blows them through the trees. They fly at least a hundred feet, bouncing off of stones and trees. The one with the pole ends up suspended from a fallen tree with one end of his pole in the tree and the other end covered in his blood.

The other man gets up from the ground where his head had impacted a rather large rock. Blood from his head wound glistens as it flows over his brow and is slowly washed away by the rain. His torch was extinguished now but he can still see what he is doing. He turns around to where the light was and during a flash of lightning realizes that the massive building from which they had fled is no longer there. He grabs the animal skin that the other man was holding and immediately starts running again.

He enters his village running as fast as he possibly can, straining more than he had ever before. He enters a hut filled with many old men. As he gets through the entrance he starts to hold out his animal skin package. But before he can he passes out onto the floor with his hand held out before him. The other men stare wide-eyed as a small metal sphere rolls out from under the animal skin and into the center of the hut.

"Dr. Roberts! Dr. Roberts! Where's Dr. Roberts?"

"I'm right here Jake, what is it?"

"We've found something."

"What is it?"

"I-I don't know. Just follow me."

Dr. Roberts follows Jake to a small cave that looks as if its entrance was recently created with several sticks of dynamite. They enter the cave, but with their eyes adapted to the light outside, they can't see a thing. The two men stumble around for a few moments.

"What is it? I can't see anything."

"Hold on a second."

Jake lights a match and puts it into a lantern near the ceiling. The lantern sparks and lights. The room slowly starts to fill with light.

"What the hell is that?"

Dr. Roberts gets down on his knees to look at the object which is sitting on a crude, stone pedestal. The object is a shiny, metal sphere, about six inches in diameter. The sphere is covered with thin, dark-black, geometric designs unlike any he has ever seen. The designs are engraved into the metal and appear incredibly precise. There is a thicker engraved line that runs around the middle of the sphere parallel to the ground. At four evenly spaced places on this line are four orange colored, triangle shaped pieces of metal.

"Hey, be careful down there. You wouldn't want to break anything."

Dr. Roberts looks down around his feet. Under every triangle marking on the sphere except one there is a pile of bones on the floor. They look like complete human skeletons but all of the bones are heaped into piles.

"Are these complete?"

"Well, the one we took out is. There appears to be four complete skeletons, which is odd, because they're just in piles on the floor. If these people died in here, you'd think their skeletons would be laid out."

"What about the sphere?"

"We're going to be taking that down to the lab this afternoon."

"Do we have any experts here to examine this thing?"

"I sent some pictures of it out, no one's ever seen anything like this before."

Dr. Zephen is sitting at a lab table examining the metal sphere. She takes a small medical swab and wipes it on one of the grooves on the sphere. She puts the tip of the swab in a vial filled with some sort of clear liquid and shakes the swab around slightly. She then takes the swab and puts it in a bio-safety trash container. She takes a pipette from a rack in front of her and draws some of the liquid into it from the vile. She drops some of the liquid onto a slide, puts a coverslip on it and places the slide onto a tray on a microscope. She looks into the microscope and turns the small knobs on the side to focus it.

"That's strange�"

Dr. Roberts peers a little closer, "What is it?"

"It's some sort of bacteria. I don't think I've seen this strain before though. And besides that, it seems to be organizing itself."

"What?"

Dr. Zephen pulls her head away from the microscope and faces Dr. Roberts. "The bacteria are arranging themselves equally around the slide. They're all the same distance from each other, and when one splits they all move in order to accommodate it."

"This is bacteria that you pulled from the sphere?"

"That's correct."

"So it's possible that the entire sphere is covered in this bacteria."

"I suppose, but I'd have to look at it."

"You should do that. Can you tell me anything about the bacteria?"

"I'm afraid not. It generally looks like most any bacteria, but there seems to be extra organelles, looks like some sort of modified mitochondria. Which is extremely odd for bacteria. That and the organizing thing."

"Well thank you. Can you call me when you're done with the examination of the sphere?"

"Certainly."

Dr. Roberts turns to leave. "Thank you for your time Dr. Zephen." Dr. Roberts pulls a cell-phone out of his pocket as he walks down the hallway. He dials a number and puts the device to his ear.

"Jake? Yeah, This sphere thing is awfully strange. It's got some sort of unknown bacteria on it. Yeah, it is really strange. Have you guys finished examining that skeleton? Really? OK, I'll be right over there."

Dr. Roberts closes the receiving end of his cell phone and taps the antenna against his chin. He furrows his brow and walks out the door towards his car. He gets into his car and drive's towards Jake's lab.

"OK Jake, tell me about the skeleton."

"Well, it's mostly normal, complete too. Our dating tests show that the thing is about 6 thousand years old though.

"Seriously?"

"As far as we can tell. We also found some scrapes on one of the hands, between the second and third metacarpals. Looks like this guy's hand was stabbed with something."

"That's strange. Is there anything else?"

"No, but this guy's age sure raises a lot of questions. Especially with that sphere we found."

"Right, what do you think we should do with the sphere?"

"Well, eventually we're going to have to give it to a museum."

"Yeah, then maybe we'll get some more funding�"

Frank, a janitor at the Boston museum of fine arts, is busily mopping the floor at one of the new African exhibits. He stops for a second to watch some people put a strange metal sphere onto a pedestal. He wonders where such a strange object might of come from.

Frank's supervisor walks over to him. "Frank, could you dust off this thing here?"

"What? That sphere thing?"

"Yeah, we got some tours comin' through here tomorrow, just get the dust off it, nothin' big."

"OK�" Frank pulls a fairly clean rag out of his pocket and walks over to the pedestal with the sphere on it. He wipes the strange metal object with his rag and looks at it for a moment.

"What are you lookin' at Frank?"

"Oh nothing. Just ain't never seen nothing like this before."

"Well, this thing's gonna be here a while, so you'll have plenty of time to look at it."

Frank goes back to his mopping and the workmen place a glass box over the sphere. Frank's supervisor walks down the stairs and heads towards his office. In an hour Frank finishes his mopping and goes home to prepare for the next day when he'll have to mop the place over again.

At a few minutes of four a tour group stands in front of the display of the strange metal sphere listening to their tour guide. The group mostly consists of parents and their young children, and some 20 year olds getting research material for their classes.

The tour guide begins to describe the sphere on the pedestal. "This artifact was recently excavated from a small village in central Africa. Nothing is known about the village or the people that lived there, and scientists can only speculate as to the origins of this object. For now, this sphere is a complete enigma. The sphere was found by world renowned archeologist Dr. Herbert Roberts�"

Just then the clock strikes four. The strange metal sphere begins to spin. Faster and faster inside of its little glass box. As the perplexed crowed watches in shock a sharp, shiny metal blade shoots out of one of the triangles on the sphere. Then another shoots out, and another. The sphere continues to spin and spin, and the last spike pops out. The sphere begins to slow down and eventually stops.

Frank walks in to the room with his right hand raised. His eyes are blood shot and he has a nosebleed. He starts walking towards the sphere. He pushes the restraint ropes out of the way with his feet and continues to walk forward towards the glass box and the sphere. He keeps walking until his hand presses against the box.

The tour guide approaches him and begins to talk, "Excuse me, are you OK? Frank? What are you doing Frank?"

Frank keeps pushing on the glass, harder and harder. The veins on his arm begin to stick out and sweat begins to form on his brow. Blood drips out of his nose and splatters to the floor.

"Frank? FRANK!!??!?!"

The glass breaks and Frank's hand plunges into one of the spikes. He makes no noises or even flinches. A stream of blood begins to run down from his hand, collecting on the underside of his arm and dripping into a pool on the floor. He rolls his eyeballs back and closes them. His jaw hangs open and mucous dribbles down his chin.

"Oh� My� God�" The tour guide faints to the floor. Some of the tour group runs off down the stairs. Some of the children start crying. Some of the 20 year olds start to inch towards the sphere.

Detective Murphy walks up the stairs and enters the room with the sphere in it. He stops for a second, examining the scene. He looks at the sphere and the janitor who seems to be connected to it. He looks at the tour guide being questioned in the corner. He walks over to one of the many deputies.

"Why is this man still here?"

"Who? The janitor?"

"Yes, shouldn't he be taken to a hospital or something?"

"We tried to, but we can't move him."

"Can't move him? What the hell are you talking about?"

"There's nothing that we can do to move him. Not legally anyway.

"Is he still alive?"

"I suppose so, you should talk to the doc over there."

"Thank you." Murphy walks over to the only person not in a uniform besides Frank and the tour guide.

Murphy taps the man on the shoulder. "Excuse me. Are you the doctor here?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

"Good, I'm detective Murphy. What can you tell me about the janitor?"

"Well, his name is Frank Sislov. He's still alive, but I'm not too sure about brain activity. He hasn't reacted to anything we've done to him so far, not even when we tried to move him. He's as stiff as a board."

"Has his family or friends been contacted yet? Does anyone know why he might have done this?"

"He doesn't have a family that we are aware of, and no one knows whether or not he has any friends."

"Right, thank you."

Detective Murphy begins to walk towards the tour guide when someone down the hall yells out, "Hey! You can't come in here! Hey! Damn it! Stop walking! What the hell!?"

Dr. Zephen walks in from the hallway with her right arm outstretched. She is pushing a police officer forward who is desperately trying to stop her. Her eyes are blood shot and she has a nosebleed. Her left leg appears to be broken and is bleeding, leaving a streak on the floor and squirting more blood out every time she steps on it.

The cop turns to the people in the room and says, "Could somebody help me here? I can't stop her!"

The cop keeps being pushed back. His legs get crossed and he falls to the floor. Dr. Zephen keeps walking and steps on his chest.

"OW! Goddamnit!"

Several other cops run up to Dr. Zephen and try and stop her. The weight of the extra men slows her down but she still manages to push them along. They crowd around her but her outstretched arm continues to creep towards the strange metal sphere.

"Man, she is strong! We can't stop her!"

Several other cops rush towards her trying to stop her. Her pace is slowed down to a crawl. Her hand is only centimeters from one of the blades protruding from the sphere. She continues to move forward. The blade begins to push against her hand, splitting the skin open and letting a stream of blood spill out. She continues to move forward. The blade pushes a little deeper into her hand. A small bulge begins to appear on the back of her hand. The blade cuts through her hand and more blood pours out. She continues to move forward until her palm rests on the sphere. Her eyeballs roll back and she closes her eyes. Her mouth hangs open and faint gurgling noises can be heard from her throat.

"What the hell is going on around here?!?"