Sunstone: A Steampunk Reality

by Holly Barbo

  “Are you Mikla? Dylan sent me over. I’m Tuft.” He touched his forehead in welcome. “Show me what you want me to take an impression of. Dylan filled me in and I’ll be discreet. We need to do something soon or all of Myrn is in serious hurt.”

  Mikla walked him over to the glyph and ran her fingers gently over the three areas. “Feel here. That slight soft spot here, here and there. Feel that? I think those are pressure plate points for the keys. It’s possible there may be others. We need an impression so we can get an idea what we are looking for in the way of keys.”

  He nodded. “I’ll take a very careful and accurate set of impressions, then a larger one of the entire glyph. My materials won’t leave a residue, and no one will be the wiser that a mold has been made. Dylan asked that we meet tomorrow morning in his office and pool our information.”

  Mikla nodded and returned to the archives. It felt good that they had a direction to go.

  A Direction

  Early the next morning, Mikla and Tuft entered Dylan’s office and closed the door. Tuft was carrying a small box. He set it on a side table and, opening it, handed Dylan a waxed data cylinder.

  Dylan stood and engaged the geared locks in the door, then closed the curtains on his windows. The room plunged into darkness until he turned up the aether lamps.

  “Chief,” started Mikla.

  Dylan held up his hand. “Let’s skip the honorarium. We are working together for the benefit of Myrn, Mikla. I need to know what each of you have.”

  Tuft laid out a series of diagrams and sketches on the desk and started his presentation. “Dylan, this is the wall glyph in question. It is an interesting piece. It was carefully designed to be wall art, but there are three parts of this pattern that are just a little different. Mikla had the sense to discover some pressure plates, so I was alerted and examined the whole thing with my instruments before I took the impressions.” He smiled over at Mikla. “Your fingertips are very knowledgeable, young woman. I compliment you. My instruments are what we use out in the field when we are trying to detect trace magnetic signatures in artifacts. They were a big help in this situation. Though this appears to be an abstracted rendition of old cave art, it contains three key pads hidden within the complex pattern—here, here and here,” Tuft said, highlighting the three parts of the design. “Only these three have the magnetic signature points. It’s my guess, by the readings I got, that the keys are very specific and have a corresponding signature, perhaps magnetic but possibly not entirely so. I took the impressions very carefully so as to not abrade or clog the contact points. I was surprised when I was able to clearly see the impressions.” He reached into the carton again and got out a flat specimen box. He carefully removed the lid and brought the bottom tray of the box over to Dylan’s desk. On it were three small items made of the archeological impression material. “What we now can see are the lower part of each key. There is more to the keys than this. It is my guess that not only are the keys’ shape and magnetic resonance specific,” he pointed to the little objects, “but I believe that they are of a particular weight for each key. So it is the weight, pattern, shape and resonance that will activate the…” He held up his hands in an open and questioning gesture.

  Dylan looked over at his two guests. “Let’s hold there, Tuft. I want to go back and learn what you have to say about what these keys look like. Which aren’t completely clear to me but seem to be to you. But first, I want to hear Mikla’s report. What have you learned, Mikla?”

  She paused in thought as she framed in her head what to say. “From the old documents, I’ve been getting information from a time roughly a century ago. That corresponds to the era when we just started to develop clockwork technology using electrical/mechanical circuits and the early use of a variety of automaton bots. It also was close to a time of crisis. I believe it had to do with lack of political leadership in the Council and the resulting hardship for the population. It was then our scientists made unexpected breakthroughs.” She paused and collected her thoughts. “The information is sketchy and I have a lot of gaps in what I’ve learned. They built a mechanism. I believe it’s somehow part of the structure of the building itself, but it could have communication with other such devices. I’m concluding this because the glyph key pad would most likely be attached to the mechanism. The other reason is the location of the building. As you know, we call that specific area Four Corners because it was the geographic center of our city and the quadrants meet there. It would be a logical place to position this sort of device.

  “The main mechanism is linked to the glyph. It is activated and supplied necessary information from the keys themselves. There were just a few lines about the keys. It isn’t clear, but at this time I’m working under the assumption that there were groups that would want to seize, damage or destroy a device that had the power to somehow enlighten or guide us into new avenues of thought under the mistaken belief that they could wield power or get their agenda addressed by doing so. The makers felt that this was too critical a thing to become a political pawn in a power struggle.” She shrugged. “I’m guessing on this part as the pieces I have don’t give me details. The keys are a crucial part of this mystery. They are extremely uniquely specific… and they are hidden.”

  Dylan stared at her for a moment before he said, “Where?”

  Mikla shook her head. “We don’t know for sure. All the documents indicated that they apparently were afraid that they would be taken, destroyed or somehow used as pawns. Something. But they divided the three up. Spread them apart. They could be anywhere. There was a note that these keys would be safeguarded. Top secret items. It has been a century since our last crisis was averted. I haven’t any indication how many times this mysterious mechanism has been activated. We don’t know what it does or if it was used after it was first built. We literally know just the tiniest piece of this. I’m only guessing at its age. It could be a great deal older, and the thing may not work anymore. It’s possible we’ve had centuries of technological advancement since it was first made, but there was an interesting phrase in the paragraph. It said: will activate the release of information no matter what the newest innovation. That is a bold statement and I haven’t any idea how that would be done, but,” she shrugged, “that was what was written. We are building toward civil unrest again. If it could help, it would be nice.”

  Dylan looked at her for a moment, then covered his face with his hands. After a moment, his fingers moved through his hair in frustration. “Is that your complete report?”

  Mikla nodded. “There are other old buildings and archives. I’ll continue to look. I’ll set Oshe to specifically search for information on who the players were at that time. There should be some record, though it may be sketchy. He’ll try to reconstruct likely scenarios and candidates, but at this time this is all I have.”

  Dylan nodded. “Good job. This gives us a direction that, without you, we wouldn’t have. I just wish we had more. That’s okay. We will.” He turned back to Tuft. “All right, so what do you think these keys look like?”

  Tuft took out a small palm-sized magnifying glass from his pocket and laid it over the three small impressions as he held the models near the aether lamp. “Do you see the shallow wavy depression lines? They’re subtle. Each key has them. Folks, I believe we have three palm-sized navorite keys.”

  Dylan’s jaw dropped open and Mikla sat down suddenly. Her hand fluttered to her chest just above her corset, before it stilled and dropped again to grasp the arm of her chair.

  Dylan spoke in an explosion of breath. “But you said that the keys would have something like a magnetic resonance or, and I’m paraphrasing here so correct me if I misunderstood, something like a vibrational frequency?”

  Tuft nodded. “That is correct. For further information, you’d need to locate the mechanism and have someone that you absolutely trust look at it. We can’t take it apart. By the Goddess! We may not even be able to get into it. I am making assumptions based on what m
y instrument readings told me. There have been one or two mechanisms I have come across from that era. Not as complex as I am assuming this is. But there was a genius during that time who made some astounding devices. I can look into any archived notes on her to see if we could learn anything.”

  Dylan put up a hand. “Tuft, that is a great idea, but the point I was making is that our navorite fossils don’t vibrate. They don’t have resonance or magnetic anything! They’re just really nice stone fossils!”

  Tuft shrugged. “You’re right. The fossils don’t vibrate. Not the ones we’re familiar with. But Dylan, right now I have to operate on what my instruments tell me, and they indicate that they would have to have some kind of magnetic or vibrational signature. My friend, if you eliminate what we know these things aren’t and input the data we have on the mechanism, what we have left is what I gave you. We may have some very unique navorites hidden out there. Three of them, to be exact, and they have, naturally, been cloaked in secrecy.”

  Reconstructing

  As soon as her meeting with Dylan and Tuft was over, Mikla strode quickly to check with her team. She knew they were in the archival research room, concentrating on their tasks. It was a good place for this activity. It was secure, and this search required cloaking their actions in secrecy. Frea and Ran were sitting at their desks, and Oshe was flipping through their collective notes when Mikla secured the door and turned to face them. She had their undivided attention.

  “Have you found anything we can use?” she asked as a general question to her team.

  Ran looked over at Frea, then spoke. “Not really. I’ve been through all of the avenues I can think of and haven’t come up with anything. I’ve a list of contributions each elder has received. By law, monetary gifts have to be declared, so the information wasn’t that difficult to find. Some elders have received more than others. When I try to look at who owns the companies or anything beyond the name of the contributor,” he held both palms up and shrugged, “I get nothing. Part of the problem is that the information is buried under a maze of shell corporations and non-profit organizations that are owned or run by a variety of people. I’m trying to sort out the main players. I suspect that there will be a small core of names that control everything. Once I have that sorted out, I can start untangling the information.”

  Frea caught Mikla’s scrutiny next. “I’ve been pursuing Kes’s question.” Her face flushed for just a moment. “I haven’t found any record of a company wanting to use the Okamak water at all. I’ve cross-checked with ‘designer water,’ ‘bottled water,’ ‘sea salt,’ medicinal salts,’ and ‘bath salts.’ I’ll continue to search, but it’s like Ran said.” She shrugged. “I believe it’s there somewhere. Ran and I have talked about going to the licensing bureau in the Council of Elders building but that might cause some attention that we wish to avoid. We were hoping that we could help your search since ours have been hitting walls.”

  Mikla nodded but held up her hand. “Oshe. How has your work been doing?”

  He smiled. “I didn’t strike anything useful with ‘keys’ and ‘mechanism.’ But got a little with ‘glyph.’ There had been a plan to put a wall sculpture there when the building was being built, but they didn’t get around to it until they were modifying the whole top of the building, many years later. The architect discovered the omission when he was studying the original plans and set about rectifying the oversight. The artist was a young man named Kessan. He never got famous, really, but did several pieces for government and science buildings. His father is better known. He was a real genius and ahead of his time in designing gadgets and machines as well as some architectural work. The man’s name was Hankel.” Oshe stopped and grinned at everyone’s recognition of the name. “Frequently, the father and son teamed up on the same building projects, though in unrelated areas. If the mechanism were a little older, I would throw in one more name. Hankel’s mother was a brilliant, though unknown, inventor. Her notebooks were passed down to her son after her death, and he credits some of his breakthroughs with her research in mechanical gearing in automatons as well as pressure plates. Ravarian was her name, if it helps in your research. That is about it. Do you have further information that we can sink our researching skills into?”

  Now it was Mikla’s turn to grin. “Yes, I do. We definitely have specific directions to search now! I need to caution you that should any part of your research attract attention, please have a very good counter story ready. The information we need is of extreme importance and top secret. When I arrived at the old research facility yesterday, I interrupted some workmen who were going to remove the glyph and replace it with a piece made by Marova. The orders had been signed by Elder Rune. I was able to stop them and notified Dylan, who got the orders changed and handled the elder.”

  Ran covered his eyes at the thought of losing the important piece.

  She outlined the combined information from Tuft and her research but didn’t go into the specifics of what he surmised about the keys. At this point in time, that wasn’t something that would add anything to their investigative work. “If the wall piece had been damaged, the mechanism would be a moot point. It wouldn’t work. Even though we are not sure what it totally does, we are assuming that it is of extreme importance. The whole project was done under ultra top secret status. There was some civil unrest at the time, and it was the belief that certain individuals or groups would try to jeopardize or ruin the project to gain assumed political advantage. The keys were handled with even more extreme secrecy and caution.” She stopped here and pointed to Ran. “I want you to concentrate your efforts on Hankel’s work and particularly those projects where he worked with his son and perhaps Ravarian, too.”

  Ran nodded but remained quiet to hear the rest.

  “The keys themselves are small.” She held out her hand and made a circle on the hollow of her palm. “They are about that size, and we are hoping that they still exist. We know little about them, but they have some kind of magnetic vibration.”

  Various looks of incredulity were on each face of her team.

  “Eventually we need to find the keys. It’s possible that, because of the civil unrest, it was decided that not only their existence should remain top secret but that they should not be kept together. All we can do at this point is to hope that they surface. Our energies must focus on the tasks before us.”

  Oshe groaned as the other two were struck dumb with the magnitude of what they didn’t know.

  “Frea, I need you to start delving into the history of that time and see if you can come up with individuals of the citizenry that might have been respected and trustworthy enough to be entrusted with that precious artifact. Then trace their descendants forward to see who might be in possession of a mysterious key. Oshe, that leaves you with trying to get further information on the mechanism. We don’t know if there was anything obstructive behind the plans to remove and replace the glyph. Everybody keep that in mind as you search. You three need to work together and share information among you. Nothing can be said outside of this room. Keep to your normal quiet routine. Do your best to not attract attention.”

  They nodded solemnly.

  “There are other old archives and old installations around Myrn. Because of my ability to speed-read and decipher some of the old verbiage, I will take that part of the assignment. The only other person you can report to is Dylan, and only if I’m delayed in getting back. Be careful how you word your messages when you must contact me. Dylan is working with his friend Tuft, who is an archeologist in high repute but also fairly familiar with some of the interesting old mechanisms, though nothing of this complexity. That means all information we get has to stay within this small circle of six people. To be on the safe side, secure all of your information location and notes in your personal code in notebooks and secure them in that hidden vault that M’nacht built into our office. Clear your desks of your searches when you shut down for the day. Let’s be very careful about this!”

&
nbsp; Ran held up a hand. “Do we know anything about what this mechanism is supposed to do?”

  Mikla shrugged. “I’ve part of an answer. Pardon me for leaving that out. All I know is from a small nonspecific reference I found yesterday. The thing is supposed to protect Myrn somehow.” She was smiling as she shrugged. “Rather inconclusive but still something to give me hope. So you can see how important it is that we learn everything we can. Pray that the keys can be found. The mechanism is genius but without these phenomenal keys it is just a piece of machinery that is idle.” She looked at each of them solemnly. “Anything you can find is important. I’m off to the next really old science building. I’m hoping the old ones will yield old information faster that the new ones. I may need to go to every one of them, though, before we find all of the answers. Those places are remote, antiquated, and their access is code-protected. Dylan seems to feel he can obtain some of the codes. I hope so, as otherwise I won’t be able to get in or a security beacon may be triggered.” She gave a rueful chuckle and shook her head. “That wouldn’t help us keep a low profile with our searches.”

  A Bird’s Eye View

  Quin turned from the shadows of the window. Weariness bowed his shoulders like a physical weight. Moving toward the small kitchen, he rotated the valve, filling the kettle with the hot condensation from the steam heat unit. A small sound startled the old man and hot water splashed onto the gas stove.

  “Can you make me a cup of kris before you spill all of the hot water?” came a voice scratchy with disuse.

  “M’nacht! How are you feeling? You’ve been sleeping for days!” He helped his friend sit up and, after adjusting the pillows, placed the warm drink into the outstretched hands.

  “Have you been drugging me?”