by Jessica Gunn
We circled the building as best we could, given the thick forest growth, until Major Pike discovered an opening that probably used to be a door. I couldn’t help but think back to those old Indiana Jones movies and wonder if this was wise.
We encountered no traps, trick doors, or resistance of any kind as we entered the belly of the building. Dr. Hill babbled the entire way. I mostly tried not to trip on debris and upturned stones. Of all the time periods we’ve been to, none of them involved abandoned ancient buildings. Being in this one made me understand why Chelsea and Dr. Hill were so fascinated by them. People lived here, or at least walked here. Used the building. Built the building. Now they were gone, the structure left for us to explore. It was strange, almost melancholic.
We turned a sharp corner and entered a hollowed-out space with a ceiling that rose high in the middle. The spire room.
“This must have been a hall of prominence,” Dr. Hill said. He stared with wide eyes at every stone we passed in the circular area. Every surface. Every bit of writing, or lack thereof. Everything was a clue to him, another puzzle.
Colored stones lined the inset at the center of the fifty-foot diameter area. Anything that once stood on the center was already long gone, probably looted by treasure hunters. I pulled out my scanner, one of the devices TAO built and employed to compensate for lack of super soldiers to identify Link Pieces. The scanners weren’t even eighty percent accurate, though. They worked off the same idea as limiting Chelsea’s powers did: electronic wave interference indicated the presence of something Link Piece related. Or, in the case of Chelsea’s powers, electronic interference could take away or restore them. We’d learned that when SeaSat5 had been hijacked, and ran into issues with it again in the future against Germay.
I scanned the area for anomalies and came up with nothing. Not surprising, given the lack of any significant artifacts in the room. Half a dozen carvings hung on the walls, but this place had been cleared out long ago.
“I’m going to explore the next room over,” Sophia announced. “My concern at this point is not finding a Return Piece.”
“The Waterstar map said one was here. And you confirmed it,” Dr. Hill called out half-heartedly. Something told me he wouldn’t care if we got stuck here for good.
Pike cleared his throat. Obviously he cared.
“I’m only human,” Sophia returned.
“I’ll go with Sophia,” I announced. I didn’t want to be in the middle of that verbal sparring match if one started.
I followed Sophia through another set of doorways arching wide overhead. With every step, my frown deepened. Chelsea should have been here. She would have been as captivated by this as she was the day we found the Atlantean outpost. She also would have helped Dr. Hill determine everything about this place. Even though she’d graduated, Chelsea had gone back to school at a local Ohio college for a couple classes in Art History and Archaeology, to beef up her skill set. I mostly thought it was a way for her to get off the base, but as I walked through these ancient halls, I realized it was about so much more than that.
What I wouldn’t give right now to know all she knew about this stuff, to be able to see what she’d seen that day we found the outpost. She’d picked out that Amarna piece like it was nothing, and was able to tell the Captain her hypothesis. She’d blamed it on a recent project for an archaeology class, but you could tell she was so obsessed with ancient history; it had sucked her in and told her all its secrets.
“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble finding a Return Piece after all,” Sophia said as she stopped dead in her tracks.
“What do you mean?” I peeked past the doorframe into a room that literally looked like a grocery store for artifacts. As if you could take a cart down the aisles and pick out whatever artifacts you needed for the week. “Holy hell.”
Rows and rows of tables stretched out before us for at least a hundred yards. Each table was covered in layers of items, everything ranging from statues and idols to texts, paintings, and reliefs. I hadn’t seen anything like this, anything so untouched since the outpost.
Layers of dust and time sheltered the artifacts. Gold coins were scattered on the tables and on the floor. It looked like a scene straight out of a National Treasure movie, only the room was very clearly booby-trapped. Everything screamed this was too easy, too perfect to just run in, snatch up what we needed, and leave.
“Don’t touch anything,” I told her.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” she said, eyes narrowed in concentration. “For the record, there’s at least twenty Link Pieces in the immediate vicinity. Don’t think they’re what we need, though.”
So this temple was another cache, much bigger than the one at the Atlantean outpost. I lifted my scanner and verified what Sophia had said. There they were, twenty Link Pieces glowing blue on the screen.
“I’m going to take a quick walk and see what else I can find. Don’t touch anything,” I warned again.
“You either,” she said.
We each took an aisle and combed through it. I walked slowly and scanned the floors, the walls, and the tables, looking for any sign of a trap trigger or another Link Piece. We reached the end of the room twenty minutes later, without triggering anything or finding a Return Piece.
Sophia sighed and appraised the other ten aisles. “This will take days to wade through.”
“You’re right,” I said, taking in the expanse.
She moved to another aisle. “I’ll begin scanning another aisle for a Return Piece, but won’t touch anything until you confirm with there’s no trigger with that x-ray device you have there. You do the same until Major Pike and Dr. Hill come for us. Does that sound like a good plan?”
A chill scuttled up my spine. Not really. We were lucky with the outpost in the Sargasso Sea; it was a museum or a lab, so it hadn’t been booby-trapped. This just felt like one huge trap.
“Yup,” I said.
She had to be careful. We both did.
Sophia worked swiftly, looking at each object in turn for no more than a few seconds. She’d been identifying Link Pieces for TAO for five years now, so I was confident her quick assessments would be sound.
I took to scanning my own new aisle now, working at a much slower pace. Each scan cost me a full minute per object if I wanted a reading of any value. One artifact almost made me jump when a scanner immediately recognized a trip-switch underneath it. If I lifted the urn off the stone, a mechanism would trigger God only knew what. Indiana Jones came back to haunt me. I shivered, imagining darts flying my way.
The next artifact over, a carved statute made out of what looked to be clear quartz, was chiseled into the form of a large, curvy, pre-historic woman. It glowed red on the scanner screen. I peered closer. What made it so different? Nothing had ever glowed red on the scanners before, at least not when I’d been using one. Link Pieces glowed blue, not crimson. I changed the scanner settings to look for trip mechanisms, but nothing registered. What?
“Hey, come look at this,” I called to Sophia. There was no trigger showing up on my display, so I let my fingers brushed the polished quartz as I cleaned off some of the dirt. This was the weirdest thing we’d ever come across.
She turned to me. “What is it?”
I lifted the small, perfectly carved statue in the air for her to see. “It’s glowing red on the scanner. Isn’t that—”
“Trevor, no!” she screamed, eyes wide as saucers.
I jerked my hand down and replaced the statue on the table. “What? What happened?”
She ran to me, practically vaulted over the table standing between us to do so, with wild eyes and shoved me away from the statue. My pulse raced, sweat slicking my palms and neck. I’d never seen her act this way before.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, breath quickening.
Sophia raised her hands. “Don’t.”
“What?” I asked again.
Pike ran into the room with Dr. Hill right behind him. “Everyth
ing okay in here?”
Sophia held a hand out. “No one move. Don’t touch him.”
Pike’s head tilted in question but he heeded her warning. His fingers inched toward the gun at his hip. “What’s wrong?”
“Trevor found a Link Piece,” Sophia said.
“Yeah, I can see that much,” Pike said. “What’s wrong with it?”
I pointed to the readout. “It’s red. I don’t know—”
Blinding pain pierced my skull, ripping me from reality. I slammed my eyes shut as stinging needles sprang from the nerves in my head to every receptor in my body. I fell to the floor, a ragged scream clawing its way out of me, stripping my lungs raw. It hurt. It hurt so damn much.
“Trevor!” Dr. Hill yelled.
God, everything hurt. Why did I pick it up? I didn’t have to pick it up.
Red means bad. Red means no. Hands off. Don’t touch. Do not pass go.
I laughed. That was funny—ahh!
My body convulsed. Chelsea’s face appeared above me.
She smiled.
hat the hell! They were supposed to be using rubber bullets or non-lethal means!
Panic flooded my system and I lost sight of what I had to do. But my Atlantean instincts were stronger than the fear. It was like a light switch that came on when I needed it most, a survival instinct that took over from a place I didn’t know I had. It’d saved me on the Bridge the last day of the hijacking, and had been flipped by Thompson prior to him burning me.
And now, the moment Truman’s fingers closed around my throat, my Atlantean instincts allowed me to focus enough to teleport behind him. I kicked the back of his knees then shaped my fingers like a gun and said, “Bang.”
He limped sideways as if it’d been rubber bullets. Even I wasn’t that stupid.
Still high off Atlantean adrenaline, I continued onward. More wooden targets passed me, each falling quicker to my water than the last, until I came to the last room. The area was bigger than the others and a large “EXIT” sign hung over the only other door to the building. Problem was, the room was completely devoid of anything but the lights overhead. Nothing visible and nothing to hide behind. I’d only taken out Eric and Truman, which meant Josh, Mara, and Weyland lurked somewhere inside. But heading straight for the door seemed like the stupidest idea in the world.
Before I could decide what to do, gunfire rang out. A bullet zipped past my head, and I ducked. But ducking in an empty room did little good. Something grazed my arm and pain radiated out like a lightning strike. Then it dulled.
I rolled out of the way and came up with water poised into daggers behind me. I launched them toward the source of the gunfire, despite knowing the water would collapse against flesh. The attack worked as intended because the team’s fire withdrew from me and landed on the water, drawing them out of hiding.
Josh, Weyland, and Mara were spread out. Two fired on me from the far left of the room, and one on the far right. But the lights were dark in the corners, and I couldn’t see. All I knew for sure is they fired from hidden panels because the room appeared otherwise empty.
I launched another wave of water daggers, keyed into their locations. They fired again, giving away their positions.
I zeroed in on the lone gunman to my right and teleported just beyond where I thought the hidden panel was. I reappeared beside the panel and could now see the end of a gun sticking out of a hole near the top. I waved water in front of the opening, drew their fire, and grabbed the gun right from their hands. Throwing it to the ground, I sent water in through the opening, soaking whoever was inside.
The other two started shooting again, and I teleported to their panel, using water to pry it off the wall. Before I could do anything else, three targets dropped behind me. I turned, ready to fling water at them again, when the people inside the panel fired again. I ducked and rolled, flinging water at a target as I went. Even if I used the gun, it’d be pointless without first removing the paneling that hid my last two human targets.
I had to draw them out, or distract them long enough to use water to pry off the paneling by slipping into the cracks too small for my fingertips. I slammed both palms on the paneling and flooded every crack and opening in the wood with water. It splintered apart. Now unconcealed, I stepped out to disable my targets. But they fired quick and without hesitation, even at such a close range. I took a bullet or two to my vest before I teleported out, back to the door I used to get into the room. I had to put space between them and myself to give me time to think.
I had none. They fired relentlessly, even from the other side of the room. Especially from the other side of the room. Josh and Mara advanced on my position, and though I flung water up to knock bullets from the air. I wasn’t fast enough for all of them and the missed shots drove into the walls of the room. I dodged and ducked, but I couldn’t keep up. I took two more bullets to the vest, cracking a rib or two and crushing my chest.
But the bullets moved faster than my water, and I had no cover to play with. This was going to end badly.
The super soldier part of me swam to the surface, rippling on the horizon.
“Come,” she seemed to say. “Let me take care of this.”
So I let her.
In one swift movement I relived my holster of the gun it carried and shot off the whole round. I hit Mara in the chest and she dropped, playing her part. I did the same to Josh, but he kept advancing. Maybe I hadn’t hit him. Or maybe he’d changed the rules.
He kept coming, unrelenting as he fired. Unfortunately for him, my switch had already flipped and there was no turning back. I threw the gun to the ground and whipped water up at his hand, disarming him, before tackling him to the ground, poised to start throwing punches.
“Chelsea!” someone shouted as I straddled Josh, ready to keep fighting. “It’s over, stop!”
Their shouting snapped me out of my super soldier mode before I could inflict any further damage on Josh. Lights came on and brightened the space around us.
“Good job,” Josh croaked.
“Are you okay?” I slid off him and offered a hand to help him up.
“You shot me in the same arm you pinned behind me.”
“Oh, my God,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
He rubbed the injured arm and shrugged. “It’s okay. Happens.”
Great. Shoot the guy you’re interested in. That’s the move to catch ‘em all, for sure. He let me help him up, and we joined the others outside.
“How’d she do?” Josh asked Eric.
“I guess you passed,” Eric said.
I shot him a glare. “You guess?”
“You really don’t like using guns, do you?” he asked me.
I shook my head. Obviously not.
“Just watch the teleporting and splashing when we’re out there,” he said, gesturing to nothing in particular. “If we don’t get the guy, he could tell people.”
In other words, don’t use your powers on a job. Ever. But I’ll give you a pass for today because you kicked our asses.
Good enough for me.
The smell of grilled steak permeated the air. I decided on the way home not to hide from Josh anymore. He’d already seen my powers, the tunnel vision, and my vast inability to do whatever this job would entail. To start making up for nearly throttling him with my fists, I cooked him dinner. Well, grilled him dinner. I placed a plate with two steaks and vegetables in front of Josh, then spun to his fridge to grab a couple bottles of beer, and sat across from him.
“Well you sure know your way to a man’s heart,” he said, eyeing the steaks. “I thought you said you couldn’t cook.”
“I can’t. Grilling is totally different. My best friend made sure I knew how to grill after a failed beach trip to Cape Cod.”
His eyebrows furrowed, but I pushed off the story. Now wasn’t the time for rehashing Logan’s drunken antics and near arrest.
“Good friend,” he said. “This is fantastic.”
I smiled. “I’
m happy you like it.”
He grinned up at me, eyes warming, but he didn’t say anything.
God, this was so easy. Falling for him or whatever this was. But would it be worth it? Eventually this appointment would end, right? Or some other Lemurian attack might whisk me away, just like what’d happened on SeaSat5.
“How long are you tied to this place?” I thumbed toward the ceiling, but meant the TruGates complex at large.
“My contract with TruGates is up in a few years. The paperwork’s tricky, but then I’m free.” He grinned. “It sounds stupid, but I’m hoping to open a repair and pawn shop. Keeps the cash flowing and my hands busy.”
“It’s not stupid. I always think one day I’ll be able to settle down and do something with archaeology.”
Our dreams weren’t so different. One day, when the world saw fit to let my life mellow out, archaeology was the plan. Always had been. And I could totally see Josh taking in item repairs and selling off the rest.
We ate the rest of our dinner in friendly conversation about everything and nothing at the same time. Topics weren’t too heavy, although Weyland had let it slip before leaving to see Erin that I had a band.
When we’d finished dinner, I stood and went to grab his plate. He followed and hovered behind me, warm hands coming to rest on my shoulders. He slid them down to my forearms. “You cleaned up last time.”
“So? I made the mess.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. A desperate longing reflected in his eyes, like he wanted to make a move, but didn’t know if it would be wanted or returned. Which seemed silly after the other night. I turned into his embrace, pressed a hand to his cheek, and drew him in. Josh leaned into me and I pushed my lips against his, opening up the opportunity for however far he wanted to take this. He brushed his fingertips up the length of my body, from just above my knee, all the way to my face, finally resting on my hips, pulling me into him. Electricity coursed through me at his touch, his strong embrace.
Josh reached a hand into his pocket and took out his radio. He depressed the power button at the top.
“Isn’t that against orders or something?” I asked as I ran my hand up the back of his neck and into his brunette curls.