THE OBJECT BENEATH MARKER 7

FILE NO. 0007-B · STATUS: UNCLASSIFIED · THREAT LEVEL: UNKNOWN

Marker 7 has sat on every regional survey since before any of us started keeping our own. Rusted, tilted, unremarkable. Nobody thought to look under it — that was the point.

We didn't find debris. We found a surface. Smooth where it should have corroded, warm where it should have been cold, and etched with a pattern that repeats every 4.7 centimeters with a precision no hand tool we know could produce.

It doesn't match anything in the archive. It predates the marker by centuries, maybe more.

Here's the part we can't explain in the report: the pattern had changed by the second visit. Not eroded — rearranged. As if it noticed we'd been reading it.

We're not publishing coordinates. Not because we're protecting a find. Because we're not certain, yet, whether we found it or it let us.

◎ FILE REMAINS OPEN. THEORIES WELCOME BELOW.