The man in a suit that was way too clean for the environment, stood on a temporary observation platform looking over the devastated street with eyes hidden behind dark rectangular shades.
The platform was just a crude, quickly bolted together structure, but he made it his own personal room, fitted with a single tall dark chair and a plastic folding table clustered with documents and paper cups with leftover cold coffee. Separated from the rest of the place by a short barrier and stairs that no one dared to take.
And in front of him, dust and rubble of the destroyed neighborhood.
Pulverized concrete in the air and smell of broken sewage pipes, workers running around the chaotic site, trying to fix whatever was broken around them.
"Sir..." a young intern in a neon-orange shirt slowly walked up the metal stairs to the platform and stopped at the top before talking to the man, who didn`t turn around at him even when his steps were making so much noise in his silent sanctuary.
After a long silent break in the "conversation", sunglasses were pointed at him with an expressionless face.
The intern quickly showed him a stack of documents and stood with them in an awkward pose. Glasses slowly turned fully, and nonchalantly walked up to him to grab the pile and get back to his observation place. All without a word from his mouth.
Director Ellias Thorne did not believe in miracles, and well, he didn`t have to today.
Papers contained only disaster in written form by its current name "Emergence" : numbers and photos from the biggest earthquake in the country. The problem was, this site was small less than half a kilometer across the whole thing, and it still had so man issues.
And it was one of many, even in the city there were 12 sites like this one.
But , Dr. Thorne was assigned this specific down-town district and its dark Tower, so that`s the only one he cared about. Papers were now a quite detailed rundown of all the buildings that were destroyed in the Emergence as well as a general list of missing and injured.
"Sir...the press is here" The intern said quietly , still standing on the top of the stairs just in front of the platforms entrance.
"Hmm.. Im coming" Thorne answered with a dry voice, as he prepared an announcement for the news-hungry journalists.
------
On the ground level, away from the Tower and guarded by the local police forces, he gave a small speech on the current situation.
The platform as all other temporary construction was very rudimentary, but at least the government added their own touch with posters and party logos.
"As you all know" He begun with a steady tone " It has been over 48-hours since the seismic event, know colloquially as "The Emergence". Thermal scans are unable to penetrate the monolith, scans of other methods - Lidar ,XRay and sonar - are failing too. The structure is made of an unknown material, since the surface cannot be altered or sampled by any means available to our crew during this time. As of right now ...."
The explanation was cut in the middle by a loud heckler with several microphones."BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE"
"Yes..." he fixed his glasses "Due to the now 2 days of the event, we have managed to mage a general list of people in the area that may or may not be deceased. Sadly it has been quite extensive and difficult to judge. In this particular case the "Presumed Dead" contains 2500 people as of today and is public right now."
The heckler, and basically every other camera man went silent
"If anyone on the list is listening, please contact the authorities to correct the record. If not, we will update the list on our own when we find any bodies under the rubble. We give our deepest condolences to everyone that have lost someone dear in this event" Thorne continued with a voice lacking any emotion.
Long silence after that, ended with another question
"Have any scientist managed to discover the purpose of the object?"
"Great question. No. However we are presuming a fact, purely based on the architectural look of the object, that what the internet is colloquially calling them is quite accurate for our usage. The structures will be refereed to as "Towers" in the future and will only change if meaning of them will be found and proved."
And many similar questions later, that were mostly disregarded as useless or pointless later, Dr. Thorne went back to the site, moving away from confused journalist and their flashing cameras.
In a small tent , that sided the Tower, there was a small base of operations. Few computers and employees at them, others trying out different tools at the base of the monolith . S. All that with one potent light and a hum of servers working over-time.
A team of engineers and construction workesrs were trying out methods to sample the surface of the Tower - drills, blowtorches or even industrial acids, that only hissed at the obsidian-like surface and went down into the concrete floor below them.
"So" Coming through the opening "I assume he isn`t back yet" zips the tent back
"No sir. No signs of Micheal since he disappeared" The researched looked back from his terminal, clearly lacking sleep based off the shadows under his eyes "We have nothing from him - We tried to track his smartwatch but that`s gone, his phone appears to be offline."
Thorne grabbed another coffee pot and poured a fresh cup.
"Theories?"
"Either one-way portal to...somewhere, or he couldn`t find his way back" Sticky notes over his screen were mostly crossed out, with ideas like "biotracking" or "Babel".
"Sir...what if"
"Then we tell the same thing we tell all others - missing, probably under the rubble -Brad. He didn`t do anything dumb, we didn`t know him and especially, HE DIDN`T ENTER THE FUCKING TOWER" Thorne started to show his favourite emotion - stress-induced anger.
"Okey okey..." Brad went back to analyzing the info they currently had.
Thorne walked up to the Tower and touched it.
[???? Tower ??? ?????]
[Would you like to enter]
[yes] [no]
And without any thought, pressed the [no] button. They tried it before.
Micheal, Vanessa, William.. all gone without a trace.
After a few hours, off no answers from the engineers and additional names to be cleared off PresumedDeceased list, his phone finally rang
"Good day Ellias, I hope nothing happened today" an older voice sounded quite happy over the phone.
"Thank you sir, and not really. Press came, press went. Rubble is slowly getting moved away, but slowly" Thorne changed his tone, giving some happy emotion to it while still being utmost respectfull.
"Yes yes, we know it does not look good for now. BUT. we have some news for you. We want to send someone experienced to you.
"Oh, you`re replacing me?"
"No no, of course not. But, since we have a few problematic monoliths around here, they need a bit more special treatment"
"Aaaah, so the crazies were right?"
"Yes they were. And that`s the problem. In 3 days there will be a guy at your site to enter. Treat him well before he gets in, will ya?"
"Yes boss. I`ll report if anything interesting happens"
"I know" ends call
'Fuck' he said to himself, while watching the dark tower mingle with the night sky.