by Perrin Briar
“May I?” he said.
“Sure,” Rosetta said, surprised at his level of manners.
“Wow,” King said. “Do many people have arms like this on the surface?”
“A few,” Rosetta said.
“I’d replace my whole body with technology like this, if I could,” King said.
“Don’t say that,” Rosetta said. “I wouldn’t lose a finger, much less an arm, for any price.”
King nodded.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “It’s still cool though.”
“It’s the kind of thing you could be capable of down here one day,” Rosetta said. “And you’ll achieve it much faster than we did, if you make the changes necessary.”
“Changes?” King said. “We’re already teaming up with the pirates. You’re saying we have more enemies?”
“Yes,” Rosetta said. “It’s because of them that I lost my arm. The enemies of reason are the ones you have to fight most, and the hardest to defeat. The human mind is a primitive thing in many ways. It is only by embracing the modern world that we can overthrow the old. But it’s not easy.”
The world was evidently going through a tumultuous period. Just my luck, Rosetta thought. The lost world she’d originally entered the world beneath the Earth’s crust had been going through a period of change too. Was it all a coincidence?
Rosetta had managed to slip away from the monkey men in that first world. They’d been determined to treat her as some kind of goddess. She’d managed to get them to follow her through the forest and in the direction of a giant crack in the wall on the opposite side of the world.
As she approached the crack, her apemen followers became skittish and nervous. Why they should become nervous would soon become apparent, as she pushed through the foliage and came face to face with more modern men, who she would have mistaken for Native American Indians if she hadn’t known better. It was they who helped her through the Passage and into this world. She’d been thankful at the time, but now she was perched on the edge of the great abyss, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
She straightened up and looked Admiral in the eye. He had a funny little smirk on his face. Rosetta extended her arm and aimed a middle finger at him. His grin faded while Rosetta’s grew.
She jumped.
29.
THE ROLLING dunes met the hard wall on the left, stretching off into the distance like a great dome. There was nothing there, not even a forest. And certainly no mountain. Bryan and Zoe were silent a moment as they took the area in.
“There’s supposed to be a mountain here,” Zoe said, lowering the map Sturgess had given her. “Did they lie to us?”
“Why would they?” Bryan said.
“Then where is it?” Zoe said. “A mountain isn’t exactly the kind of thing you can easily miss.”
“Unless it doesn’t look like a mountain from our perspective,” Bryan said.
“And what does that mean?” Zoe said.
“It means, we’ve seen how gravitationally challenged this world is,” Bryan said. “What if this is just another quirk?”
“You’ve lost me,” Zoe said.
“Is it just me, or is that stalactite the biggest one you’ve ever seen?” Bryan said.
He pointed up. Zoe frowned at what he was pointing to. She still didn’t see it. Bryan bent over and looked between his legs, upside down.
“All is revealed,” he said.
Zoe turned her head to the side. What she saw took her breath away. Hanging from the ceiling was a giant triangle of land in the classical mountain pose.
“It’s the mountain!” she said.
“Yes,” Bryan said. “And more than that, look at what’s on the top of it… Or, the bottom of it.”
Zoe squinted and spotted what Bryan was referring to. It looked like a sprig haircut, sticking up at right angles on the top of a skinny man’s head.
“It’s a nest!” Zoe said.
“Yes,” Bryan said.
“You think they’re there?” Zoe said.
“Yes,” Bryan said. “I can see them.”
Zoe needed her glasses. She couldn’t make them out, but she was willing to believe Bryan’s twenty-twenty vision. Bryan cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted. There was no response from the figures.
“This is the most surreal thing I think I’ve ever seen,” Zoe said.
“I’ll second that motion,” Bryan said.
“How are we going to get to them?” Zoe said.
“I don’t know,” Bryan said. “But we’re going to have to hurry, whatever we do. It looks like they’re in trouble.”
30.
THE EGGS began to crack open at the same time, as if they were all pre-installed with the same activation timer. Only Wayward’s timer had been faulty.
“The glue!” Cassie said, scooping up the bowl with the sticky paste inside. “We have to seal the eggs!”
She and Aaron ran toward the eggs. They got halfway across the nest when all shell hell broke loose. The shells imploded, spilling shards across the floor. A flapping sound like the propellers of a helicopter thudded overhead, and the kids skidded to a halt.
A flash of vibrant green, and a parent bird screeched and landed, blocking their approach to the hatching eggs. The Humungo reared its head back and snapped forward, aiming her huge beak at these pesky tasty morsels.
Cassie and Aaron dived to either side, avoiding the strike. Cassie rolled onto her feet. Aaron hit the ground hard, skidding. It wasn’t difficult for the parent bird, who peered down at them with her black inquisitive eyes, to decide which morsel was easiest to hunt.
Wark!
Cassie could make out the fluffy multicolored feathers of the chicks inside their protective cases.
“They’ve already hatched!” she said. “We have to try to imprint them now!”
Aaron was slow to react from his hard fall. He wobbled on his feet, unstable. The parent bird was already taking aim with her beak and preparing to bring it down. Cassie was too far to save Aaron directly. She hurled the bowl of glue at the parent’s huge head.
Squark!
The bowl struck the bird on the side of the face, spilling the glue over one side of her beak. She flew back in surprise. She attempted to open her beak, but the glue held it shut tight. She scratched at her beak with her clawed feet.
Cassie ran to Aaron and helped him to his feet. She led him back toward the back of the nest. The other chicks were emerging from their cocoons, a couple of them upside down and kicking out with their feet. Another one ran around with the remainder of its shell over its head like a bulletproof vest that had been put on incorrectly.
The mother parent bird scratched at her face a few more times before she straightened up. The glue hung in fragments from her face. Now she sported a few deep gashes from her own talons. She hissed through the nostrils on the top of her beak and peered down at Cassie and Aaron.
“I think it’s about time we get out of here, don’t you?” Cassie said.
“How?” Aaron said.
31.
IT’S AMAZING how often coincidence and fate intertwine. This is perhaps the main reason why the human race so often ascribes meaning to things that are nothing more than incredible acts of coincidence. Right at that moment, on the direct opposite side of this world, a seemingly insignificant event was taking place.
In the mining village that until recently Sturgess had never set foot outside of, Sturgess’s wife Greisha was stirring in bed, finding it difficult to fill her time without preparing her husband for the day ahead.
She was saved by a knock on the door. She answered it to find Axel, the foreman, standing there. She knew she would have to face these questions if Sturgess didn’t return home by morning.
“Good morning,” Axel said through his crocodile smile. “Is Sturgess in?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid he’s sick,” Greisha said.
“Oh,” Axel said. “I’m sorry to hear that. Will he be present
today in the mine?”
“No,” Greisha said. “He’s too sick to even lift an axe.”
“That’s a shame,” Axel said. “I have to admit, I’ve never known Sturgess to take a day off sick before.”
“Then you must know it’s serious,” Greisha said.
“Can I see him?” Axel said.
“It’s best if he rests,” Greisha said, bracing the door with her shoulder.
“Of course,” Axel said. “You know, it’s strange. Sturgess isn’t the only one to be sick today. In fact, almost all the team leaders are ill. I haven’t gone to check on Old Man Marley yet, but I suspect he’ll also be down with this sickness.”
“They’re team leaders,” Greisha said. “Maybe they had a meeting, one of them was sick, and spread it to all the others. It’s not the first time an illness has spread through the village.”
“No, not the first,” Axel said. “But the first to isolate itself to such a small and easily identifiable group of individuals.”
Greisha knew there wasn’t anything Axel could do to her. The worst he could do was spread rumors. Sturgess and the others would return soon, resume their positions, and things would continue on as if nothing had taken place. But until then they had to deal with the likes of Axel, as well as nosy neighbors, who would do everything they could think of to get inside Greisha’s home to see what was going on.
Axel checked over his shoulders before taking a step closer.
“Is something going on here?” he said. “Something you might want to tell me about? Something I should know?”
Greisha shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Sturgess is sick, that’s all. He’ll be up and about in a day or two.”
Axel nodded, frowned, and took a step back.
“I see,” he said. “And until then, we’re all meant to sit around and wait for them to get better?”
“That’s about the thrust of it,” Greisha said.
Axel pursed his lips. Then he looked Greisha straight in the eye.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think I will.”
Greisha blinked.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Precisely what I said,” Axel said. “There’s no need for the rest of us to get in trouble with the Merchants if there’s no need. We won’t be blamed for this.”
“That’s against protocol,” Greisha said.
“I think you’ll find I’m well within the rules,” Axel said. He quoted from memory. “‘If the number of team leaders is equal to, or less than, half the number required to sufficiently manage all teams, the foreman may assume control and continue operations.’”
“No,” Greisha said. “You can’t do that. You have to wait for my husband and the other team leaders to return.”
She regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth.
“Return?” Axel said. “I thought they were all at home, sick?”
“They are,” Greisha said. “I meant, return to full recovery.”
“I have to do no such thing,” Axel said. “And as you refuse to do anything to aid me, I am forced to do this.”
“Please,” Greisha said, stepping onto the threshold. “Don’t do this. If you keep digging, we’re all doomed.”
“Then you shouldn’t have spat on me or my authority,” Axel said. “Sturgess and the others have until noon to show up in their positions.”
He turned and marched toward the pit.
Greisha gritted her teeth. They were in trouble.
32.
AXEL THE FOREMAN blinked against the sun, ascertaining the time. So far as he could tell, it was midday, and then some. He hadn’t hefted a pickaxe in years, as his form attested. He was thick around the middle, his arms thin and without definition. But you didn’t need to be a smart person to know how to use an axe. He picked it up and began to hack at the rock. Someone had to do it.
The other miners stood watching anxiously. They hadn’t worked without a single qualified team leader before. They were not sure they wanted to take the risk digging without someone with experience to guide them. They looked from their instruments to the giant Gravitas rock and back again. They were clearly having second thoughts.
Greisha stood with her arms folded, as did many of those who carried out activities unrelated to mining. They stared, watching. Many of them were married to the miners standing on the chunk of Gravitas, their disapproval having a clear impact.
Even Axel was having doubts. It was highly unorthodox to work without a team leader present, but then, they had left him with no choice. If they thought Axel could not lead the miners, then they were under a severe apprehension.
He raised his axe above his head, hesitated only a moment, his arms shaking, and then brought it down with all his weight. Sparks glinted off the stone and burnt his eyes. He forgot to turn his head to one side. Yes, it had indeed been a while since he had hefted an axe. He was reminded how little he cared for it.
He much preferred pushing a pen around a piece of paper than to have to use his muscles. He knew his job was of less significance than the rest of his peers, especially since his job was to ensure all records were in perfect order for when the Merchants came down to check their workload.
His chest would swell on that day. He would be so proud of himself. All those years of ridicule would finally have been worth it, where he had eschewed friendship in exchange for his own sense of self worth.
He brought the axe down again, and was rewarded by the sound of others striking at their own rocks behind him. He’d struck something.
It filled him with a heady excitement he’d only experienced when he was a child, when he wielded his very first axe under his father’s tutelage. He felt the thrill all the miners felt. It was a gambler’s temperament, not knowing what it was they were going to find beneath the earth, a treasure they could not claim for themselves. Only in the name of the Merchants, to whom everything they discovered belonged, including themselves.
And then he felt something travel up his arms, shivering, shaking. A deep growling in the earth, powerful. It struck him in the chest, knocking him off his feet. He was on his back. His skin was burning, red hot and in a rage.
There was a throbbing red pulse, like the nerve ending of an eye’s vein, the Gravitas boulder’s eye. It looked angry.
33.
GREISHA KNEW it was a mistake to let Alex lead the day’s mining activities. But they were only following protocol. And if it was one thing Alex excelled at, it was following protocols.
She could have had a couple of the larger miners hold Alex back, but in truth, he was such a skinny, flaccid kind of guy that she never believed he had the ability to do much harm.
But as she was about to discover, a powerful man wasn’t required to light the fuse of a stick of dynamite. It was an apt analogy as it turned out.
Right at that moment Alex was lighting the fuse of a natural nuclear bomb. And it had an effect far greater than merely this world.
It was responsible for the death of thousands of people on the surface too, in the form of simultaneous earthquakes and volcanoes. There had been little in the way of early predictions. Experts called it an anomaly. Unprecedented. If they had known Axel’s personality type, known the resentment he felt toward the other miners for the years of abuse, it would have been anything but an anomaly. It would have been inevitable.
34.
THE MINERS crowded around the window, looking down on the blood-splattered body of the richest man in the world.
“Can we go now?” Robin said. “We came all this way to speak to him, and now he’s just tossed himself off the building.”
“Now we take control,” Sturgess said. “And we do what the Merchants were too greedy and stupid to do: we stop digging.”
“But digging is our livelihood,” Robin said. “What would we do if we couldn’t dig?”
“We develop, learn, farm,” Sturgess said. “We educate ourselves. We take over from where the M
erchants left off and begin again. Only this time we won’t fall for the greed that consumed them.”
He allowed himself a small smile.
“It’s a bright future,” he said. “Our future. We have control of it now. We are under nobody’s heel. Nothing can stop us. Save ourselves.”
BOOM!
An eruption. It tore through the silence like it was committing a sin. It first sent out a shockwave that began in the sky and then rushed around the opposite half of the world, before reaching Sturgess and the others. It was weak when it reached them, but still strong enough to blow out the windows.
Then the eruptions burst forth, pulsing, tearing up the sky in a circular pattern. For miles, it looked like, but it was hard to judge at this distance. Black clouds, roiling and boiling, rose toward Sturgess and the other miners in their tower. It was unlike anything Sturgess had ever seen.
Magma spilled across the sky in dozens of rivulets, feeling across the surface like the roots of a tree. The magma’s heat blew out the cloud, revealing the other side of the world. It had been destroyed, blown from existence.
Sturgess felt weak. His legs shook and gave out underneath him. He slumped to the floor. Everything he had ever known, everything he had ever loved, had just been swept from existence. His wife. His baby growing in her belly. Gone.
“We were too late,” Old Man Marley said. “Just like the Merchant said. We should have come sooner, when there was still time.”
The red rivers reached the distant horizon and then began to stretch toward them. Nowhere was safe.
“We have to get out of here,” Robin said.
“There’s nowhere to go,” Sturgess said. “It’s over. It’s all over.”