Tough Love
My eyes blinked open and I lay awake staring at the ceiling for a moment as the images faded from sight within my mind. I glanced at the clock, it was two a.m. I had slept the day away, which was unusual for me.
I sat up and put my feet on the floor, as I wiped the sweat off my face and held my head in my hands for a long moment. I had needed sleep, but I could've done without the last part of my session of restful unconsciousness.
I shook my head and got up. I was awake now and I might as well be productive with my time.
I walked across the dark cabin to my laptop and pulling the lid up I flipped it on. When the computer was ready I hacked into someone's wireless link and gained access to the Internet.
It took me about thirty minutes of searching before it finally clicked in my head where the memory of 'pig iron' seemed to fit in with my mysterious device. I typed in 'Delphi Pillar' and came up with lots of interesting articles on the mystery of the solitary pillar located in India.
The date of the pillar's creation was uncertain at best, but now I remembered what had really stood out to me at the time I had read about the pillar sometime in the past, which was the pillar's composite element makeup.
The Delphi Pillar was one solid piece of cast-iron. It differed however from other iron objects most notably in that it did not rust. The pillar had long been a marvel to the scientific and metallurgical communities as to how it could be composed of iron and yet not rust in the humid subtropical environment that it was found in.
Analysis of the pillar had determined that whoever had created it had smelted iron ore that was low in sulfur and had treated the outside of the pillar in such a way that the normal elements at play within iron were realigned in a form that resisted oxidation. There was a thin layer over the outside veneer of the cast-iron pillar that oxidized only slightly like copper, which inhibited the rest of the pillar from experiencing the normal process of iron rusting when exposed to air and water.
The capability of doing such a process was beyond any Indian ironworkers of the antiquity era. Rumors abounded as to the makers of the solitary pillar monument. Most attributed its creation to the mythical land of Lemuria, which was the South Pacific's version of Atlantis.
I rubbed my eyes hard. What was I getting into?