CHAPTER 135: LIZARD PEOPLE

Professor Lawson carefully took down the image casually printed on colored paper. He gave it to Marcus to look at closely. Since it was just a print he seemed not to care about handling it.

Upon closer inspection Marcus became sure. It was the same lines and curvature formed on the Earth seed of Ephus. And since they could not travel back and forth, only one thing remained. These were somehow taken from Earth's seed.

"Do you know where these were taken?" Professor Lawson asked Marcus.

"No I am wondering though."

"These were recently taken from Göbeklitepe, Türkiye. Have you ever heard of it?"

Marcus was a good student but recently enjoying trivia of his second planet wasn't on the list. He gestured no.

Professor Lawson smiled. The kind reserved for students about to discover how little they truly knew.

"Göbeklitepe is older than history," he said. His eyes gleamed with passion. "Older than writing. Older than pottery. Older by several thousand years than the pyramids you were taught to admire." He tapped the image lightly. "Twelve thousand years ago, when humans were supposed to be wandering hunters, they carved this. Massive stone pillars. Perfect alignments. Symbols we still don't fully understand."

Marcus frowned. "So... an early temple?" Or a birthplace, he thought.

Lawson shook his head vigorously. "That's the unsettling part. We don't know if it was a temple, an observatory, a calendar, or something else entirely. What we do know is this: it shouldn't exist. Not with the tools they had. Not with the social structures we assumed."

He leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Göbeklitepe forces us to rewrite the order of civilization. It suggests belief came before farming. That ideas built cities, not the other way around."

Lawson paused, letting that settle.

"And now," he added, eyes flicking back to the image, "we find its geometry mirrored somewhere that isn't Earth." He looked around and whispered. "Aliens."

"Sorry?" Marcus was surprised.

"I think aliens did it. What do you think gentle giant?" He turned and asked Tom directly.

Marcus intervened. "My cousin doesn't speak English. He is from Bulgaria."

"Really? Bulgaria is neighbor to Türkiye. He should visit."

Professor Lawson's alien theory cut Marcus's rising excitement about uncovering secrets. Tom was technically an alien but blatantly using that term made Marcus reconsider. He was thinking about taking out the seed and showing it but Mr. Lawson with all his enthusiasm was acting like a conspiracy theorist.

"They left a small group of them to advance us and in the end rule us," Lawson finished with conviction.

"The aliens?"

"Yes."

Marcus hesitated. Then laughed once, short and uncertain. "So... you're telling me there's a classified group? Something tied to Göbeklitepe? Because this feels like the kind of thing people don't publish in journals."

Lawson raised an eyebrow. "You think I'm part of some shadow council?"

"Well," Marcus said carefully, "ancient impossible structures, off-world geometry, missing history... it sounds very organized."

For a moment Lawson said nothing. Then he snorted and leaned back in his chair. "If such an organization exists, they forgot to invite me."

Marcus blinked. "Wait. What?"

"I'm not hiding secrets," Lawson continued, suddenly animated. "I'm looking for them. There's a difference. Governments bury things. Academics avoid them. And something, something, has been nudging humanity for a very long time."

Marcus felt a chill. "You mean... aliens?"

Lawson grimaced. "Worse. Lizard people."

Silence filled the office.

"I'm serious," Lawson said, pointing at the image again. "Perfect skin. Cold logic. Long memory. They don't conquer. They curate. Cultures, myths, belief systems. Göbeklitepe? A test site."

Marcus stared. "You're joking."

"I wish I were," Lawson replied, eyes gleaming. "I've been hunting them for forty years."

Marcus slowly stood. "Okay. So you're not part of a secret organization."

"No," Lawson said cheerfully. "I'm trying to expose one."

When Marcus gave up and was about to leave Tom turned to his cousin.

"Did you learn anything useful?" Tom asked in Valdrian.

"No. He is a lost cause."

"This image who drew it on the paper?" Tom asked.

It was a valid question. Since Professor Lawson was a history teacher he must have gotten it from someone.

Marcus turned once again to Professor Lawson. "When I looked online for similar images like this one I couldn't find any. Who took this photo?"

"Ah yes. People love their statues and jewelry but my old faculty friend Anthropologist Alexi Gurbanov took this and sent it directly since he knows how much I like these kinds of things."

Marcus's excitement returned. A faculty member here. Someone who had actually visited there. Maybe actual knowledge.

"Where is he? How can I find him?"

"He is very old. He only comes for the days he gives lectures. He is kind of a legend on discovering old buried relics." Lawson turned around to his old cabinet. Pulled out some papers.

"Call this number and take a day if you want to see him."

"Thank you Professor Lawson. You helped us immensely."

"Bye kids. Napusni bezopasno," he finished his goodbye with foreign language.

Marcus didn't pay much attention to his saying since he was somewhat of a nutjob. He was more focused on finding an actual anthropologist who had apparently worked all around the world.

The paper in his hand felt like a lifeline.