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Professor Merriman sat hunchbacked at the stainless steel table, his eyes muddy with exhaustion, skin palorous, the blue covered manuscript sitting unopened in front of him. Pell waited anxiously for the explanation to begin and behind the closed doors of the white room the two soldiers pressed their ears close and held their breath.

Merriman, looking as though he teetered on the precipice of consciousness, cleared his throat at last and began. “This document serves a dual purpose – one doctrinal the other practical – though the former plays an unspoken role in furtherance of the latter.”

Pell’s face was stolid, the worry that the professor may have lost his mind hidden beneath a flat veneer. He waited for Merriman to continue.

“It is creation myth and instruction manual in equal measure. Its authors depict themselves in deific terms. I cannot decode the name they refer to themselves by, but their representative symbol is unique in the document and readily apparent with context clues.”

Merriman pointed to a symbol on the middle blackboard, drawn dead center and larger than the rest. It was the shape of a slightly squashed spiral. The Golden Ratio. Pell was familiar with the shape, and the math it manifested, only from online conspiracy videos his geriatric father liked to watch.

“Although there is no evidence the authors of this Book are Gods in a literal sense, lacking a better alternative, it seemed fitting to refer to them as such.”

Merriman lost himself for a moment in a fleeting haze of microsleep, blinking himself back from the brink and taking wide eyed stock of his surroundings. Then he flipped open the blue cover on the manuscript to reveal the unaltered glyph which served as the original cover image for the Book.

Pell had an ill defined aesthetic sense and was no fan of the visual arts. Yet even his rudimentary eye was drawn to the incredible image. The primary shapes were a circle within which was a square broken internally into four equal quadrants. Adorning this simple framework were runic symbols unlike anything Pell had ever seen – fine layer upon layer of strokes seemingly calculated for maximal intuitive impact on the human visual cortex. Even this poor copy, in black and white, belied its two dimensionality and seemed to reach out of the page with unknowable meaning.

Merriman allowed his pointer finger to drift softly to each corner of the square as he spoke.

“The Gods believe in the potential of all things, or at least they utilize such a philosophy in the Book as a communicative tool to foment understanding in lesser species.”

Pell grated and repeated the term unconsciously as a question. “Lesser species?” In response Merriman simply looked at Pell in silence, his face slack and unequivocating.

“This core symbol, of the quadrated square within a circle, repeats either exactly or thematically throughout the document. The text, if it is text, within the image, is inscrutable, although its general meaning can be guessed at in context.”

Merriman began flipping through pages one by one then, Pell watching only haphazardly, ignoring the visual confusion of partially translated symbols and instead listening with rapt attention. As Merriman fell into the narrative of the Book, his voice became monotone and soon the words poured out of him as though he were a human amp through which the Book itself spoke.

“The Gods were the first to be. They came to know themselves upon a planet of potential. For many generations the Gods struggled, overcoming hurdles hidden in myst, learning by error and reckless chance. Only by luck upon luck upon luck did the Gods survive and achieve enlightenment. Only by vicissitudes of entropy was the Godhead achieved.

“When, at last, the Gods had vision they saw only death and destruction. Life everywhere struggled as the Gods had struggled, but chance was not with the others. For eons the Gods watched in sorrow as Life came and went and came and went again, never again achieving the Godhead.

“For an infinity the Gods watched and did nothing, until at last they could watch no longer.

“Life was blind yet sought direction. Thus was created the Path. Life was foolish yet sought knowledge. Thus was created the Path. Life was fragile yet sought maturity. Thus was created the Path.

“The Path is fraught with perile and many wander astray and are lost to time. To traverse the Path life must mature four-fold, four Ripenings, each more perilous than the last. Only those who follow the Path of the Gods will achieve the Godhead. For the rest, eradication.”

Merriman took a long pause to collect himself, momentarily overcome by exhaustion. He sipped at a glass of water. Pell could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight.

“It then goes on to describe the four Ripenings. Each Ripening is given a name, but the second and third are difficult to distinguish linguistically. The first is ‘Awakening’ – the birth of sentience and self awareness. The second and third both appear to translate as ‘Culture’ or ‘Society.’ The fourth phase is ‘Ascendence.'”

Pell interjected and his voice sounded distant from himself, like it belonged to someone small across the room. “Which phase – Ripening? – which one are we in?”

Merriman’s lids sagged and he seemed to speak from within unconsciousness. “I believe phase 3. Awakening would have been the dawn of humanity. Phase 2 and 3 both bear certain technological and social requirements that are spelled out concretely- social structures and technologies of scale, the developments of arts, things extraneous to pure survival.” Merriman seemed to stir from his half sleep and come to focus. He pointed down at the Book itself. “Finding this Book is a requirement of Phase 3. We could not progress without it, without a complete understanding of our world.”

Pell could see Merriman was fading quickly, but he had so many questions. “What was inside the Pyramid? What did the Russians do in there?”

Merriman frowned and his eyes shut almost completely. “A message. The signal… the Gods awoke…they waited and listened for our message..

“What message Merriman? What did the Russians say?”

“Coordinates… a place to meet the Gods…the centerplace of the world.”

Merriman’s head swung forward towards the steel table and his forehead would have slammed hard into the metal had Pell not leaned forward speedily and caught the precious cranium in both his outstretched hands. Gently, Pell lowered Merriman’s head down and then slid the manuscript out from under the professor’s right arm. He ordered the two soldiers to carry the professor carefully to his bunk. Once the ragdoll genius was gone and he was alone, Pell found he could not stop his hands from shaking.

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