by Mikayla Lane
Grai wanted to hit something.
“How many of our people do they have? Do you know where they are?” he asked, forming a team in his mind, of people to take with him on a rescue mission.
Thjodhild shook her head.
“Not really. There are too many options and Fiorn has never allowed us to try and capture one of their people to try and find out more information,” she said with a sigh.
Reven was pissed.
“So, the Relians and the Dark Prime want our people dead and the elite want to torture us to save their own pathetic and useless lives . . . nice. Tell me again, why we don’t just expose ourselves to the real people on this planet?” he asked in frustration.
Slate turned from his control center.
“Because in doing so, we would also have to tell the people what their own governments have been doing to them. The loss of life would be catastrophic as the people rebelled, and the governments would use it as an excuse to cull the people they didn’t want and institute martial law,” he explained.
Grai shook his head.
“In most countries they’ve been forced to be completely defenseless. It’s hard to fight a tank and fully armed military personnel with a stick and a pocket knife. They’re waiting for the majority to be unarmed before they fully sweep in and enslave them. Hitler’s playbook all over again. Obviously, they took more than just the doctors and scientists from Germany,” he added with disgust.
Reven growled in anger and frustration, knowing it wasn’t their place to interfere, but wishing they could anyway. Everyone felt the same way, but their hands were basically tied until the people decided to wake up and stand up on their own. Then, maybe they could step in and help.
Grai felt the vibration in his comm and saw the response from his covert teams and entered a response with an additional request. He grinned at the immediate reply. If anyone could find out something on a group of hybrids being kept prisoner by the government, it was this team. He also contacted David, to see if he knew of anyone that he could trust to find out more information.
Slate sucked in a sharp breath and turned quickly to Thjodhild. “Ma’am, Fiorn was just seen at Beta. Looking for True and Leif. They say he was mumbling something about the truth . . . and a traitor,” he said, his concern clear in his voice.
Thjodhild erupted. “Damn that stubborn bastard! This is not the time for one of his temper tantrums!” she said, rubbing her temples too vigorously to actually do any good.
Looking up at Slate, she ordered, “Get my team there now,” before she turned to Grai. “Fiorn would never harm those kids. But, send along some of yours too. They can take a look around Beta and ease your mind on True’s safety there. ”
Grai nodded and looked at Ivint and Reven before calling out, “Niklosi, Discorian, Vader, Spike and Makeerno on deck!”
Chapter Fifteen
Countdown Clock to Human Discovery
10:00 Hours
This is a WSBC Channel 9 News Special Report. Another large explosion was heard in the Burnt Tree Ridge area moments ago. The area has again become engulfed in a thick dust cloud visible to our crew set up in Gypsum, 10 miles east of Burnt Tree Ridge.
Geologists at the Adventure Caverns believe this is more falling rock after an aftershock from the 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck last night. Aftershocks, which should lessen in intensity should subside within the next several days. Further study will have to occur over the next few days and weeks to determine the stability of the area, but they believe that area of the park would reopen again in time for the spring season.
WSBC News had tried to get one of our drones inside the area to view the mountain, but it was apparently hit with debris from the more recent collapse and we’ve not been able to reestablish communications with it. We will get you updated news and information as it becomes available.
True stared at Leif in shock as she shivered from the cold. This place was the most bizarre that she’d ever seen. An hour ago, they had walked into what Leif had called the school, and now they were walking through ice covered passageways.
When they first walked in the large, Greco-Roman looking building, True had wondered why Leif called it the school, but she didn’t have to wonder for long. There had been a large, airy, open room that greeted them when opening the door. The walls were completely lined from floor to ceiling with stone shelves and there were long, stone tables behind each of the shelves.
As Leif pulled her to the nearest wall, he’d pointed at what appeared to be small niches carved into the shelves, each niche containing an elaborately crafted stone jar with foreign writing above each niche.
Leif smiled at the wonder in True’s eyes as she looked at the thousands of niches and jars around the room.
“This isn’t all of it either. We stopped counting at around 10,000 scrolls. That’s what each of the jars contain. Scrolls. Written in an ancient language of Earth that I’ve never seen before. Our own people seem to think it’s knowledge. Ancient scrolls of knowledge that the humans will need in order to rebuild after the conversion,” Leif said as he opened his arms wide to encompass the room. “A repository, kept safe from the evil in this world and we’re now the keepers of that knowledge.”
True was stunned. She ran her hand along one of the beautiful jars and was tempted to try and look at one of the scrolls, but was afraid of the condition it would be in and she didn’t want to damage anything.
Instead, she turned to Leif.
“How do you know what’s on them?” she asked.
Leif laughed.
“We looked at them, silly girl,” he said as he grabbed the jar she’d been looking at and pulled it gently out of the niche.
Within moments he’d walked to a table behind the niches in the wall and placed the jar on it. True was far too curious to complain when he reached in the jar and pulled out a pristine scroll. Not the ancient kind she was used to seeing, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, all brittle and in delicate pieces. This was a brilliant white fabric with gleaming golden rods.
True watched in awe as Leif lay the scroll gently on the stone table and slowly rolled it out so that she could see it. She stared at the elegant, yet bold symbols that covered the fabric-like material, trying to discern anything familiar about the unique writing.
Leif grinned at True’s wide and interested eyes and he took her hand in his own and ran it down the fabric of the scroll. “You feel that? We don’t even know what it’s made of. It’s almost like silk, yet it’s not. The composition is unique, even to us. It’s even fire and water resistant,” he said and at her curious look quickly added, “Don’t ask. We had a few blunders when we discovered this place.”
True pulled her hand reluctantly from Leif’s and allowed the feel of the fabric to tease the tips of her fingers. She smiled as she felt the silky smoothness . . . and something else.
“It has metal fibers in it?” she asked, looking up at Leif with wide grey eyes.
Leif chuckled and smiled at her. “Yeah, it’s shot through with precious metals. Platinum, gold, silver . . . it’s like a code,” he said.
“Huh? What do you mean a code?” True asked, running her fingers down the fabric again.
Leif pushed away from the table and walked a little way down the shelves and grabbed another jar. True watched him bring it back to the large table and pull out another scroll, this one with gleaming silver rods. He laid it out on the table, underneath the other one that was already out.
“This one,” he said, pointing to the one with silver rods, “has silver rods and the fabric is shot through with silver threads. The gold one, is shot through with gold threads, the platinum, etc. You get the idea,” he said with another grin at his curious mate.
True ran her hand down the fabric of the new scroll and it felt the same as the first. She could feel the metal strands woven in with the fabric and it was almost like they possessed their own energy.
“Do they resonate?” she whispered, a little in
awe of the feelings that the scrolls seemed to be evoking in her.
True could feel her energy dipping and spiking as she ran her hand down the fabric, as if it were trying to speak to her energy through the energy in the metal. She knew it sounded crazy, but she couldn’t help but think that the scroll was trying to communicate its contents to her.
Leif grinned and quickly pulled the scrolls from under her hands and rolled them back up as True looked at him in open mouthed surprise.
“Hey!” she said in irritation.
Leif chuckled as he put the jars back on the shelves where they had been before. “They do resonate, little firefly. In fact, we found that they can be ‘read’ that way. You don’t have to know the language for the contents of the scroll to be imparted to you,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall of shelves.
True sputtered and looked around at all of the scrolls. “Oh my God! How many have you read like that? What do they say? Can I read one?” she asked in rapid succession, her excitement going through the enormous roof at the knowledge contained here.
Leif held his hands up and shook his head.
“No! First of all, only part of one was read and it was by accident. Second, we have no idea if we read one completely, if it will disappear or be unable to be read by another. Third, they are not ours to read. If these belong to the humans and are meant for their survival after the conversion, then we have no right to read them. We can’t take the chance that we’ll be taking away their future in order to satisfy our own curiosity,” Leif said with conviction.
True was a little surprised. She hadn’t considered any of that when she’d touched the scroll. She hadn’t thought at all beyond her own curiosity and thirst for knowledge. It was those realizations that brought things fully into focus.
“Oh my God . . .” she whispered, turning in a small circle as she looked around the room.
Leif smiled sadly and said, “Yeah . . . now you get it.”
True’s breath left her in a rush as a thought struck her. “Oh God, if the wrong person got hold of this place . . .” she said, thinking of the Relians, the Dark Prime, or even the elite human scum. Hell, even a regular human with bad intentions.
Leif nodded.
“It’s why Nana will never leave here and why there are guards outside. She believes we were guided here to protect this place. To keep it safe for the humans. Like an Antarctic Alexandria. A repository of knowledge. Most of us believe she’s partly right. Whether we want to be or not, we are now the keepers of this place and the knowledge within. And we have a duty to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands,” he admitted, believing they were doing the right thing.
True knew in her heart that he was right. This place needed to be protected, but the temptation to read the scrolls still beat at her energy like a throbbing pulse.
“I get it . . .” she said, nodding her head slowly as she looked around the room.
Leif chuckled.
“This is only the first room,” he said and he grabbed her hand and pulled her across the room and into a hallway.
Just like in the folly, the floors lit up as they entered the darkened hallway, illuminating the way. This time, the walls didn’t light up though; the ceiling did. The walls were completely lined with niches and more jars, presumably containing more scrolls.
An hour later, they’d reached an area that extended into the wall of the mountain surrounding the exposed city. There was a walkway that looked like it’d been melted, that ran the length of a hallway. It was large enough for them to slide onto the ice, down the hallway.
True gasped at the frozen niches in the wall here. There were gleaming plates of precious metals, inscribed in a different language than the one on the scrolls. She held her hand flat against the ice wall covering the plates and could swear she felt energy resonating from them like she had with the scrolls.
Leif grinned and pulled her hand down from the wall.
“The plates also resonate and we try to keep from messing with them,” he said, keeping hold of her hand and gently rubbing the back of it.
True looked at the rows of different plates in the hallway.
“Why did you melt the hallway then?” she asked.
Leif shook his head. “We didn’t. This place has been melting on its own since we arrived here. When Nana first came, she said that only the entrance room was thawed out. Different areas have melted since then on their own,” he said, also curious how and why it was exposing itself like this.
True wasn’t too surprised. Everything about this place was kind of ‘magical’. Like a real life fairy tale. Of the apocalyptic kind.
“Do you think its thawing because the conversion is close?” she asked.
Leif sighed, then nodded.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the opinion around here. We can’t read this language either. It’s as much a mystery as the language on the scrolls,” he said, wondering what her thoughts were on the mystery of the place.
True looked back at the plates frozen behind the wall of ice.
“Do you think the plates hold knowledge as well?” she asked.
Leif chuckled at the awe in her voice and pulled on her hand.
“Come on, the scrolls and plates aren’t all that’s thawing,” he said as he led her down the rest of the thawing hallway.
They got to the end of the hallway and saw that it opened up to the left and the right, but each were sealed off approximately seven feet in by a wall of ice. Leif turned them to the right hallway and stepped carefully onto the melting ice, leading her just inside the hallway enough to see what was in the niches in the wall there.
True sucked in a breath at what was in front of her in the niches and she used Leif’s body to slide around him so she could see the other items that were still frozen behind large sheets of ice.
She was getting ready to hold her hand up to the ice in front of one of the items and Leif gently grabbed it and pulled it away as he shook his head.
“No. This place started melting 14 hours ago — when Tristan blew up the folly,” he warned. None of them were sure if that meant anything, but they agreed that no one was touching anything in here until things were settled at the folly.
True turned stunned grey eyes to his.
“Are you serious? How do you know?” she asked.
He pointed to the melting ice beneath their feet and several small hex cams. They were little, hexagonal shaped cameras that could be rolled into an area, where eventually it would stop and right itself into a position to give a 360 degree view of an area.
“This place is monitored 24/7 to make sure that no one tries to take the knowledge. As areas begin to thaw, we throw in more cameras. Until 14 hours ago, we had no idea this was here,” he said before correcting himself. “We knew that there was another hallway, we just didn’t know this is what was in it. We assumed it’d be more scrolls or plates.”
True looked at the gleaming items hidden behind the ice and had to stop herself from reaching up to touch the ice again.
“What are they?” she asked.
Leif crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “I have no idea. They appear to be made of precious metals like the plates and scrolls, but we don’t know if they’re weapons, technology . . . or what,” he said, looking closer at the shining golden box behind the ice.
A thought occurred to True and she sucked in a breath and looked up at Leif with wide eyes.
“Do you think these are items mentioned in the human religious texts?” she asked, trying to recognize any of the strange items behind the melting ice.
Leif shook his head.
“I don’t know. There’s nothing like that in the parts that have melted, but there’s no telling what we’ll find when this place fully thaws,” he said, curious to see what would be revealed to them next.
True pushed off of Leif and slid across the hallway to the other side that was melting.
“Where does
the water go?” she asked, looking around and seeing no slush to denote the thawing.
Leif chuckled and slid across the hall to True.
“It’s about time you noticed that! We have no idea,” he said with a grin as he bumped into her, then grabbed her to right them both.
True grinned a little shyly as she pulled away and looked at a jeweled dagger behind the ice in this hallway, as well as more items that she couldn’t begin to guess at what they were.
“How big is this place?” she asked, trying to peer through the ice blocking the rest of the hallway from being accessed.
Leif threw his hands up in the air and let them fall back to his sides. “At first, we thought it was just the exterior building. We had no idea that it extended into the mountain until the other hallways started melting. Now we have no idea how large it is. We could probably figure out a way to scan it, but Fiorn has never let us do anything to discover anything about this place. He’s always said it was a waste of time,” he said with a disgusted shake of his head.
True snorted and stared at the silver, gold and platinum items behind the ice.
“How the hell can he say it’s a waste of time? Look at this stuff!” she said, pointing at the golden and jeweled dagger.
Leif laughed and nodded his head.
“You’re preaching to the choir, firefly!”
True ran her hand over the ice in front of the dagger and put it back at her side. “Can’t your nana force the issue? I thought she ruled here,” True said a little petulantly.
Leif chuckled and grabbed her hand and pulled her from the icy hallway back to an area where the floor was ice free before he set a leisurely pace for them back towards the entrance.
He smiled down at her as they walked. “It’s not so much that she can’t order it done, so much as the fact that we really don’t have the personnel to spare. Not yet anyway,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her until she giggled at him.
True sighed when they left the building. She hadn’t realized how much the building affected her energy until they were clear of it. She could feel her heartbeat slow and didn’t know it had been racing while she’d been inside.