Sonora, and the Scroll of Alexandria

by Travis Hall

  “Thank you, Kali,” Allora said, giving the girl an unexpected hug. “And thank you,” Allora said to Jakar, rubbing his hair. “You’re a really brave little dude, you know that?”

  He smiled back and held onto his sister’s hand. Allora and the others entered the tunnels, moving slowly through the dark passageway. They followed Kali’s directions, stopping at a cement wall with a carved-out door.

  “Allora, I think that you should leave the interrogation up to me,” Mr. Swan said. “I actually have experience in this field.”

  “Do I even want to know?”

  “No, you don’t,” Mr. Swan whispered in the dark. He motioned one of the guards to give him his backup pistol and pulled out a small marble from his pocket. “As soon as we get in there, I need you two to take posts on the windows, making sure to have a full view of the exterior points of attack. Dax, Tanner, I need you guys to grab any weapons that this guy will most certainly have. They will be hidden in certain accessible points, such as under the counter and in this back room. I need you guys to post up at the back entryway. You’ll have about four minutes until they get to the tunnels, as they will be less visible. As soon as you get overwhelmed, you’ll need to shoot this.” Mr. Swan handed Tanner the object. “It’s a nova grenade. As soon as it’s sparked, it will act like a miniature supernova, imploding and then exploding like a grenade. Very effective for collapsing this tunnel. Katie, I need you to access his records. They will most likely be encrypted, so Allora, that’s where we come in.” He pulled out a ball of balloon glue. “We will trap him with this and then coerce him into telling us the access code.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Allora asked.

  “With these,” Mr. Swan said, pulling out two vials. Allora had to look close in the dim light of the tunnel. One of the vials had a black liquid, and the other had a clear liquid. She gave him a questioning look. “Are you sure that you’re up for doing whatever it takes to get this done?”

  Allora stared back at the sullen face of her history teacher, knowing that what he had planned would be ethically questionable. After some thought, Allora nodded.

  “Ready?” Mr. Swan said with his hand on the rock lever. They simply stared ahead, readying themselves for what they needed to do. With one more long, deep breath, Mr. Swan hit the hidden stone button, opening the secret door. They stormed into the room, moving with a purpose through the back. Up ahead the sound of crashing ceramic echoed into the hallway, followed by a bright flash ahead.

  “Duck!” Swan said, rolling along the ground. Allora pressed against the wall as a hadron burst exploded into the back. Swan tossed the balloon glue and shot the object as it rolled along the ground. The pistol burst hit the marble-sized orb as it got to the small man with pointy ears at the end of the hallway. He screamed as the orb exploded, encasing the elf in a prison of glue.

  “All right, you know what to do,” Swan said, moving toward the elf as he grumbled and rolled along the ground.

  “Do you know who I am?” the elf said in a high, screechy voice. His face scrunched at the top of the ball. He had cream-colored skin, long pointed ears, an oblong-shaped head, and beady, dark-yellow eyes. “You are so dead. No one comes into my shop and tries to steal from—” He kept rolling, and his head went underneath the ball, drowning out his squeaky, annoying voice. The guards went to the barred windows and posted up on the sides, peering out into the busy square with their pistols drawn at their waists. Allora locked the front door and placed an old wooden dresser against it.

  Swan rolled the ballooned elf so that his head was back on top and pulled out the black vial. Without a word, he opened it, pulled back the elf’s head, opened his mouth, and forced the liquid inside. The elf choked, trying to spit it up. Swan put his hand underneath the elf’s chin forcefully, held onto his head, and plugged his nose. The elf finally swallowed. Swan let go, and the elf began coughing violently.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Morsatra,” Mr. Swan said.

  The elf’s eyes turned to fear, and he struggled within the bubble of glue containing him.

  “What did you just give him?” Allora asked.

  “Black Death. You gave me the Black Death, you bastard!” the elf screamed, writhing angrily.

  “It’s a synthesized poison that will cause the nervous system to react as though the body is being slowly pressurized, like dropping him into the ocean abyss.” Mr. Swan looked eerily serious, staring into the elf’s eyes. “In about five minutes, this elf will experience excruciating pain until the cells within the body collapse, turn black, and die. It is said to be the most painful way to die. Now you’re going to give us your access code to get into your records.” The elf spat at Mr. Swan, and Mr. Swan punched his face. “Tell me, now!”

  “Swan,” Allora pleaded. “We can’t do this.”

  “I asked if you were ready to do anything to get this done,” Swan said, grabbing the elf’s cheeks in his grip. “Now tell me or I let you die.”

  “No. I did not sign up for this,” Allora said, glancing back at Katie, who looked terrified. “We are not this kind of people. We can’t do this.”

  “Well, then maybe your mother was right. Maybe you’re not ready for this life. Compassion is a weakness that our enemies do not subscribe to, and that is why they will win.” Mr. Swan faced his shocked student. He could see that the innocence of this girl was being slowly ripped from her. He kept his serious demeanor but then gave Allora a slight wink, turning up the right side of his lip.

  Allora caught the motion while remaining shocked. “Fine. Do what you need to do, but I’m not going to watch.”

  “You crazy psychos!” Pipmar exclaimed.

  Mr. Swan pulled up the other vial. “I’ve got the antidote right here. You tell us how to gain access to your records and we’ll let you live. If not, you will die a horribly painful death.” Mr. Swan pulled up his watch and glanced back at the elf. “You now have about three more minutes.”

  Allora’s heart pounded in her chest as she paced anxiously. The elf tried pathetically to move, spinning his head.

  “Tick tock, tick tock….”

  “OK, OK!” the elf said, stopping his movement and lowering his eyes. “The password is PipRocks123.”

  Mr. Swan gave him a puzzled look. “Really?”

  “Yes! Now give me the antidote!” Pipmar said emphatically, opening his mouth wide.

  “Katie, check it,” Mr. Swan said, opening the clear liquid vial and holding it over the elf’s mouth.

  Katie pressed a couple buttons, plugged in the password, and nodded. “We’re in.”

  Mr. Swan poured the liquid into the elf’s mouth and then left him to roll around the ground. Allora ran over and hung over Katie’s shoulder. She searched through the database for a jade cube–like item. She made the screen pop up above the desk and filtered through a number of pictures of similar items, but nothing was exactly like the one that Allora pulled from her pocket.

  “Guys, we’ve got a problem,” Brutus said, inching away from the exposure of the window and pulling his pistol up against the glass.

  Mr. Swan ran over to see that people were sprinting out of the square. In seconds the entire area was clear of anyone.

  “They’re here.” Mr. Swan ran back to the records desk. “We need to find this thing ASAP.”

  “I’m trying,” Katie said, emphatically swiping through the numerous records of odd jade artifacts dating back to ancient times. “It’s not exactly easy finding a needle in a haystack.”

  “We’ve got company,” Tanner yelled down the hall. Suddenly the whole building shook. Tanner and Dax were thrown off their feet. The back room filled with dust and black smoke. The boys pulled out the pistols that they had found and began shooting erratically into the back room.

  Mr. Swan rushed through the hallway. Out of the black smoke, a series of lights escaped, shooting through and striking Swan on the shoulder. He hit the wall violently, crumpling onto the groun
d. Dax screamed, shooting at the shadowy figure that moved forward. He hit it in the chest, and it collapsed. Tanner pulled out the nova grenade and rolled it along the ground as three more black shadowy figures burst through the opening. He shot the orb with the pistol, grabbing Dax and stumbling along the linoleum floor. The orb imploded, sucking in the matter around it, and then exploded violently, collapsing the tunnel and room around it. A piece of the ceiling shattered, falling on top of Tanner. He crashed to the floor, surrounded by dust. Dax tossed off the shard of rock and turned his friend over.

  “Tanner, Tanner!” he yelled, shaking his friend’s unconscious body.

  Tanner grumbled, signaling he was alive. Dax pulled on Tanner’s shirt, dragging him toward Mr. Swan, who had his hand pressed against his blackened shoulder. Dax pulled back his bloodied palm to reveal a wound the size of an orange.

  “Are you guys all right?” Allora asked, kneeling down to examine the three. “Oh God, we gotta get out of here.”

  Allora took the jade object in her hand and went to the only one who might have answers to the artifact’s origin. She rolled the big balloon ball and pulled the elf’s head up to the top, pushing it against one of the shelves that lined the middle of the room.

  “I need you to tell me what this is,” Allora said, placing the jade artifact in front of the elf’s eyes.

  “Well, why didn’t you ask? Of course I’ll tell you,” the elf said, and then he stuck out his tongue.

  “I have no time for your sarcasm,” Allora said, picking up a vase and tossing it onto the ground.

  “Hey! That was a priceless ancient dryad vase!”

  “Then tell me what I need to know!” Allora said, picking up a glass orb.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” the elf pleaded. “Please don’t break that. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

  “Ms. Sona, there is way too much movement in the square,” Brutus said, followed by a grunt from his partner. “Looks like they are preparing to attack.”

  “What you have there is an ancient shipping departure cube,” the elf said. “It tells you the location where a ship departs from. It’s used for tracking purposes. It goes into a jade orb, which acts like a black box or shipping manifest for one of the older carrier models. It’s thousands of years old. If you’d like to part with it, I’m sure that I could get you a fair price.”

  “How do I access the information?”

  “You can’t.” Allora pulled the glass orb above her head and looked down at the ground. “Stop! You can’t access it because you’re missing the orb that it plugs into. The ancient carriers used information orbs to store shipping manifests and critical flight information. The departure and destination cubes are detachable for security reasons so that if someone finds the manifest, they can’t find out the locations for where the ships departed from and where they went. You’ve got to find the jade orb.”

  The shadows in the square appeared and moved quickly toward the shop. The two guards began firing, shattering the front windows as Tanner and Dax helped Mr. Swan out of the hallway. They put him down, grabbed their pistols, and ran to the other windows. Brutus suddenly fell backward onto the floor, his chest smoking. The front side of the shop had been hit with a barrage of hadron bursts as the number of shadows increased.

  Tanner saw a small orb flying toward the front door and screamed for everyone to get down. The entire front side of the shop imploded and then exploded into the square. Allora flew against the wall, collapsing a shelf on top of herself. She pushed the debris from her body and pulled up her pistol. Her vision was blurry, and all she could hear was ringing. Between the splintered wood of the large hole in the shop, she could make out a couple of blurry black shadows advancing. There was no escaping. Then she felt a violent shaking, like an earthquake. Screams came from the square as streaks of blurred light shot down from the sky. Allora stumbled as she tried to gain her footing. From all fours, she scanned the double image of her friends as they escaped the debris. Allora crawled forward, blinking several times. From the sky, numerous soldiers jumped from five transports that hovered thirty feet above the square. They fanned out, taking out the remnants of the shadow gang as they scattered.

  Allora’s vision was coming back as a woman approached, clad in a full battle suit. She smiled at the worried woman, who was screaming her name. Once the adrenaline had receded, Allora collapsed onto the hard stone. The last things she saw before the world went black were the bright-blue eyes of Jakar, staring from the alleyway. She smiled at him, closed her eyes, and dropped into her dreams.

  chapter

  THIRTEEN

  Bubble Jump

  Allora woke and nearly fell off the bed when she saw the skeleton head of a bear staring at her from the headboard. Covering her was a thick bear hide. All around the small cavern were random animal hides, spears, ancient Chinese pottery, human skulls, and wooden furniture. She rolled over to her right, where an albino ferret was perched on the side table. It was still, like that of a stuffed animal. Allora tried to touch it, and the creature shrieked, which made Allora scream. The animal leapt up on her head and scurried down under the covers. Allora quickly got out from under the sheets as a white warlock burst into the room.

  “What is going on, child?” Yeti asked, watching Allora dance with a disgusted look on her face. The ferret popped its head up from the bear hide and chirped. “Oh, I see you met Snowball.” The ferret crawled along the bed and jumped up onto Yeti’s shoulders. “Come on, deary. We are having pancakes.”

  Allora followed Yeti through the archway, into a narrow tunnel, and out into a vaulted cavern where all of her friends were seated, stuffing their faces at a long rock table.

  “Hey, you all right?” Tanner asked as Allora sat down on a smooth, flat boulder, still wearing the same clothes as the previous day.

  “A little dazed, but still in one piece.”

  “You guys are lucky,” Yeti said, grabbing some more yak milk from a snow-filled compartment in a makeshift kitchen. “Those shadow gangs can be ruthless. The interior defense force has been trying to eradicate them, but since Shangri-La is overcrowded and only getting worse, they’ve seemed to be growing in numbers.”

  “Milly, I’ve been trying,” a man said from the other side of the cave. “They won’t listen to me, no matter how hard I try to convince them.”

  “Are they blind or just cowards?”

  Two figures rounded the corner of the cave and walked through the vaulted opening. Milly and Captain Theus marched over to the rock table.

  “You four sure know how to make a splash,” Captain Theus said.

  “Are Brutus and Grunt all right?” Allora asked.

  “Yeah. They are getting checked out at the hospital. Mostly just bruised egos, and they received a nice little earful from your mom.”

  “Maybe if they did their jobs, I wouldn’t have had to berate them,” Milly said, still angry about the whole incident.

  “Mom, it was my fault,” Allora said. “I made them stay longer than we should have.”

  “Oh, I got the whole story, missy. Those guards were very forthcoming with information. What were you doing in that shop?”

  Allora hesitated, anticipating her mother’s reaction. She pulled the jade cube from her pocket and held it out in her palm.

  “I’m following Ben’s memories. It’s a departure cube for some ancient ship during the Titan Wars. It’s supposed to lead us to the lost city of Alexandria.” Milly took it in her hand, rolling it over. “The shop owner told us what it was.”

  “Theus?” Milly said.

  “Already on it,” he responded, sparking his communication bracelet. A head popped up. It was another guard—stoic, serious, and fully clad in uniform. “Toom. Do you have that shop owner in custody?”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard responded in a deep voice.

  “Keep him there. I’d like to interrogate him for a bit. Double the guards on him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I
want you four to stay here until I get back,” Milly said, handing back the cube. “Yeti, do you have some time to teach these guys a few things while I’m away?”

  “How about bubble jumping?”

  “Yeah, that would be great.”

  She quickly went back through the cave entrance.

  “Does anybody else think it’s weird that my mother didn’t just explode?” Allora asked, still perplexed by the abnormal restraint.

  “Oh, she already knew about your little quest,” Yeti said, flipping a pancake. “Swan told me that he had discussed everything with her at length a little while ago.”

  “Why didn’t she ever tell me?” Allora said, shocked at the revelation.

  “You’ll have to ask Swan,” Yeti replied.

  “Hey, where is Swan?” Katie asked.

  “Oh, he left about an hour ago with Abe,” Yeti responded, flipping another pancake on the coal-fired stove. “Not sure what they were up to, but it seemed important.”

  After they cleared the table, Yeti led them to a storage room that was filled with all sorts of clothes, climbing gear, tents, backpacks, hats, shoes, skis, poles, and other gear they found around the Himalayas. They took a spoonful of warming liquid to keep their temperatures up and then stepped through the liquid rock security wall at the cave’s entrance and walked out into the frigid mountain air. The sun shone down on a beautiful white, snowy landscape. Rocky mountain peaks jutted up from a long valley of powdery snow. They stood on a ledge, staring down fifty feet to a snowy descent. In the distance, Everest loomed with a ring of clouds circling it. The wind gusted through, blowing specks of ice against their exposed cheeks.