by Ben Johnston
Spirit’s eyes gleamed with the light of the twelve shining bars as he turned his attention to Anniya. “It is not possible to have more than one hundred percent, Anniya. And I know of no thing that lasts forever.”
Although her expression was still joyful, Anniya’s eyes were low as she regarded the shiny little fox. “You’re so literal, Spirit.”
She gazed upwards at the ceiling. “Anyway, I’ve got better things to do than discuss math and philosophical notions with a lightfox in my basement.”
With a burst of sunlight in the already bright room, Anniya shot up and out of the underground space.
Rising up through the hot air, reaching the top of her trajectory, Anniya stepped onto her high balcony, then walked up to her front door. Phasing it open, her eyes rolled back and her mouth fell open as she found herself engulfed in a breeze of cool air pouring out from inside. She hopped inside the doorway, slapping her hand onto a wall panel. Every light in the treehouse blazed to life. The door phased closed behind her. She gazed around at all the bright lights and all the cascades of mist from the glowing blue devices above every doorway.
Whirling into the kitchen, she fixed her gaze on the twelve glowing bars on the wall. With a grin, she swung her black bag up onto the countertop, pulled the bag open, phased away the door to her refrigerator and began to hurl and shove packets of food into the fridge. Phasing the fridge door shut, she turned and stood, smiling, looking around again at all the lights and the cooly-glowing devices that hung above the doorways around the house, spouting out thick, cold cascades of mist.
Shivering with a teeth-chattering grin, she phased open her closet and pulled on a thick, long-sleeved shirt. She then went to her large front room with the wall-spanning window. She pulled out a box of small glass cubes and selected one, put it atop a circular device, and slid a slider up on the side.
Pounding, undulating sound blasted out from the device. Anniya began to dance. Spirit was laid-out on the wall-length couch, his eyes half shut, his ears laid down, pressed against his head.
Anniya turned, dancing, to look at Spirit. “What’s wrong, little oracle! Not a music fan?”
Spirit’s eyes looked up to Anniya, his ears remaining pressed, closed against his head. “What is and is not considered music is not something I can tell, Anniya. I can only tell if something is sound, or if it is noise, or...”
Anniya performed a quick spin to face Spirit, ending with one hand pointing to the sky. “Or if it’s shiny dance music!”
Ears still pressed against his head, Spirit’s eyes fell from half-shut to drooping. “Or if it’s noise that someone calls music.”
The music of the jungle rose as the nocturnal animals began their nightly routines. Above, the stars shined above through the openings between the thick clouds. Below, in the jungle, Christopher and Tom stepped-out from thick overgrowth to behold an expansive grove of evenly-spaced trees. The leaf-strewn ground of the grove had no grass.
Staring up at the thick canopy, Tom walked forward. Christopher held out his arm, stopping Tom in his tracks. The young scholar looked down at the archeologist’s arm, then up at the man.
In his free hand, Christopher held up a pen-sized canister, and with his finger pressed down on the top of the shiny device. A fine, glowing, blueberry-colored mist sprayed out, spreading and falling gently to illuminate long lines of light strung across the ground between the trees.
A wide grin sprouted-up on Christopher’s pre-bearded face. “Now this is archeology!” He gave Tom a pat on the shoulder.
Christopher stepped carefully over the fist blue line of light. “The soulspray is permanent, Spark, so these lines will stay lit for good now. But watch your step. Don’t trigger any traps.”
Tom watched the well-travelled archeologist stepping carefully over the lines of light, spraying occasional spritzes of glowing blue mist. Muttering under his breath, the young scholar shook his head. “Don’t trigger any traps.” He took a deep breath of the hot, damp air, lifted his foot, then placed it carefully down on the other side of the lightline before him. “That’s blinding great advice, Doc.” He walked forward to the next line, clenched his jaw, then stepped over it carefully. Then the next line. “Just as shiny as a shard.”
Anniya stopped dancing, then turned to shout through the blaring music at Spirit lying on her long couch. “Just for old time’s sake, you know, after I dim it down for a year or so, maybe I’ll sneak into town! But not to steal anything or anything. Just for fun. What do you think of that, Mr. Shiny?”
Spirit was not lying on the couch anymore.
“Spirit?”
There was no sign of the shiny little fox, just loud music. Anniya’s eyes shot to the front door.
“Visitors.”
Chapter 27
The road-worn archeologist and the ruffled, sweaty-faced youth stepped out from the glowing tree tunnel and onto Anniya’s plot.
In Christopher’s hand, a torch that was spraying out verdant light suddenly went dark as he deactivated the device then slipped it into his jacket. The bowed-out trunks behind them straightened-up, closing the green tunnel of trees behind them.
“Seven traps, Spark.” Christopher gazed around Anniya’s darkened plot. “That was a lot of traps.”
Staring up at the gigantic woven tree in the middle of it all, Tom nodded. “Yeah. Good traps, too. Especially the box trap made out of actual living plants. How do you make a trap from living plants?”
Christopher's smile tensed, his eyes dancing around Anniya’s gardens. “Lightmakers can grow crazy stuff.” His gaze jumped over to, then climbed the winding trunks of the big woven tree, all the way up to the big house held in its boughs. The windows were all brightly lit. A subtle pulsing sound made its way down to them through the ringing noise of the jungle.
Tom stared up at the bright, thumping house high up in the giant tree. “So. Should we. What.” He shrugged. “Say hello, or something?”
Suddenly, from out of the darkness above, Anniya slammed into Christopher, knocking the archeologist to the ground onto his back, one of her knees on his chest.
“How in the fracted Ruin did you get in here! Nobody has ever gotten in here before!” Anniya pressed her knee down on his sternum.
Christopher smiled up painfully at the girl. “Hey, take it easy, Goldie. I’m an archeologist. This is what I do.”
Tom lunged forward, thrusting out the compass in his open hand. “We used this compass!”
Anniya removed her knee from Christopher’s chest, and stood. Her eyes fixed on Tom. Christopher began to get up but immediately found Anniya’s boot pushing him back to the ground.
Tom took another step forward, holding out the compass to her. “Technically, it’s not actually a compass. It’s a goldenlight source detector. A goldenlight sunstone detector.”
Her eyes shifted to the coppery object in the young scholar’s hand. Pushing down on Christopher’s chest with her foot, Anniya reached forward and snatched the compass out of Tom’s open hand. Her eyes grew wide, glittering with speckles of light as she gazed at it. “What kind of thing is this?” The shining glimmering vanished, her eyes returning to hazel, her attention snapping back to Tom. “Where did you find this?”
Tom shrugged. “We didn’t find it.” He smiled. “I made it.” He frowned. “Well, more precisely, I invented an autosheet which I then used to make it.”
Anniya frowned. “You invented a what to do what?”
Tom’s lower jaw pulled back. “Uhh. An autosheet. I invented a device called an autosheet. It’s a microsigled, mega-unit (probably gigga, maybe terra unit to be honest), ultra-high-plane lightfield material autoforge imbued with infinitely-regressive indexlight, all engraved at the sub-visible scale using fractional line-light.”
Anniya blinked at Tom. She then blinked at the compass in her hand. “That’s what this thing is?”
Tom shook his head. “No, no, no. That’s a golden light detecting compass. I made that by using an auto
sheet. But that compass is something completely different from an autosheet. That compass itself is actually a multi-age, artificial, compound-artifactual, inverse…”
Anniya shook her head, then threw the compass back to Tom. “Just keep it.”
Stuttering over his words, Tom caught the compass. He looked up at Anniya, opened his mouth to say something, then froze.
In the garden around them, crystal lamps on posts had begun glowing faintly to life, casting slowly changing colors of pastel light around them. The young scholar stood staring with bright eyes at Anniya standing in the gently changing colors, the fragrances of garden and flowers around them. A warm, soft night breeze rustled in the leaves above.
Tom unfroze. “Wow, you’re pretty.”
Anniya, foot still on Christopher’s chest, narrowed her eyes at the young man.
Tom swallowed as he drew back slightly. “Without makeup, I mean. You’re not wearing all that eyeshadow from earlier. You look nice without makeup.”
Under Anniya’s boot, Christopher groaned.
Eye’s still narrowed, Anniya raised a single eyebrow at Tom before her gaze fell back to archaeologist underfoot. She removed her boot then dropped, pressing her knee back down onto Christopher’s chest. “Who are you, really?”
Christopher squeezed his eyebrows together. “We told you. We’re School scholars. Union School scholars. We came here to get the goldenlight sunstone.”
Anniya nodded unbelievingly. “Sure you are. You’re from the legendary School. And for some reason, you’ve come halfway across the universe, made your way through the deadly Ruin to this splinty, sticky planet just to see little old me.”
She stood, removing her knee from off of Christopher’s chest, but not replacing it with her boot this time. “Prove to me that you’re scholars.”
“Seriously?” Tom held his hands out. “You want us to prove that we’re scholars?”
The young scholar motioned to Christopher who was cautiously still laying on his back on the ground. “That’s Doctor Christopher Cernon. The Doctor Cernon. You know, the famous Republic hero and School archaeologist. He just disabled all of your traps!”
He held up the compass. “We have a goldenlight sunstone detector.”
He pointed off towards the direction from which they had come. “We gave you a ride here. You were just in our yacht. That’s a giga-unit starship. It’s a blinding Union star yacht!”
Her eyes slits, Anniya glanced back and forth between Tom standing there and Christopher still on the ground. She tapped her lips with her finger, drawing in a slow breath through flared nostrils. “Fine.” She reached down to Christopher, helping him to his feet. “Those are pretty good points.”
Christopher eyed her as he dusted himself off.
Anniya gave a quick huff. “Look, when you live around the threat of the Vectans, you learn to be suspicious.”
Christopher held up his hands. “No apologies, Goldie. It’s all shiny.” He looked Anniya in the eye. “But we can’t waste any more time. We gotta get the stone so we can get out of here as soon as possible. It was easy for Tom and I to find you, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be hard for the Vectans.”
In Anniya’s bright basement, there was a flash and Anniya was standing there, frowning. She took a few unenthused steps towards the round, concrete stand in the middle of the room. Beneath the round glass covering the slot on the surface of the stand, the sunstone glared.
She reached out and flipped a small switch by the glass-covered slot. The covering slid back and the sunstone went instantly dark. Immediately, the jeweled lights that lined the curved walls of the basement began to dim. The twelve brightly glowing bars on the panel set into the surface of the stand vanished.
Joining the scholars back up on the surface, turned, lookup up to watch the lights in her treehouse dying away. One by one, each window dimmed slightly, then winked-out. After the final window fell dark, the deep thumping of her music faded away last, leaving just the chirping buzz of the jungle.
With a look of deep dissatisfaction, Anniya dropped her gaze away from her lifeless treehouse, turning to her new companions. “This totally fleckin’ fades, guys.” She tossed the dark, lifeless goldenlight sunstone to Christopher who caught it, blinked at it, then placed it inside his jacket. He glanced up at Anniya, one eyebrow raised.
Anniya gave him a weak toss of her hand. “Relax, Doc’. I’m not going to take it again.” She gazed back up to her lifeless treehouse above. “No more surprises.”
The starry night sky was suddenly filled with a bright flash. Tom and Anniya gasped.
Christopher looked at the sky confused. “What was that?”
Suddenly he started, then patted his chest pocket. He reached into his pocket and took out a device. The device had a single ruby red light on its surface. The red light was pulsing. His eyes went wide, staring at the pulsing light as his other hand went to his head. “I think that big flash was the yacht.”
Tom and Anniya turned to Christopher. Tom blinked. “What do you mean? Why did the yacht light up the sky?”
Christopher looked up to the sky. It was now dark. “Because I just lost contact with the yacht.” Suddenly, a great clapping, boom sounded out.
Anniya looked up at the big dark canopy above and nodded. “So that flash was an explosion. It was your ship blowing up.” She turned to look at the two disheveled scholars who were staring up at the dark canopy above, their mouths hanging open.
Drawing in a deep breath, Christopher slid the device back into one of his jacket’s pockets. “It didn’t just blow up by itself. Someone destroyed the yacht.”
Christopher’s eyes scanned around Anniya’s darkened plot. “We skipped the pre-flight checklist when we flash-dashed out of Naamu. Vectan security must have tagged the ship while it was sitting parked and we missed it, or something.” He made a pained face, punching his fist into his other open hand. “Ruin me, security must have been watching us since we first landed.”
Anniya spun to face Christopher. “Well this is just flecking great. So you guys follow me, then the Vectans follow you!”
Slapping both her hands over her face, Anniya gave a few quick nods. “It’s OK. It’s OK. Nobody has ever found this place.”
She dropped her hands and blinked at Christopher and Tom. “Well, almost nobody.”
“But that doesn’t matter.” Giving a quick shake of her head, she forced out a fresh smile. “Even if the Vectan patrol does come too close, there’s no way they’ll be able to get through my traps.”
Tom frowned hard at Anniya, then turned his wide eyes to Christopher.
Scrunching his face, Christopher scratched his head. “Uh, Goldie. I disabled all your traps. Remember?”
Anniya grabbed her hair with a shriek. “You what!?”
Holding out his hands, Christopher squinted and smiled. “I told you! I’m an archeologist! I disable traps and find stuff.”
Christopher’s eyes then grew wide as his grin expanded to show his teeth. “But don’t worry. Disabling traps isn’t my only skill.”
With both his hands, the archeologist reached inside his jacket’s pockets and withdrew two objects. Throwing his arms wide, a shiny, lilac-metal rifle blinked into existence in each of his hands.
“I was a Republic Ranger.” The grinning, wild-eyed archeologist tossed one of the gleaming, grape-colored rifles through the air to the young scholar.
Catching the rifle, Tom’s mouth fell open as he examined the feather-light weapon in his hands. “Doctor Cernon, these are phastic weapons!” He stared up at Christopher. “You’ve been armed this whole time!?”
“A Republic Ranger is never unprepared!” Holding the phastic rifle against his chest, Christopher flashed a grin at Tom. “And now you’re prepared too!”
At the wall of trees at the end of Anniya’s main garden path, there was a sudden, blinding flash. In a skull-slamming explosion, a section of the tree wall blasted out, hurling jagged remains of tree
trunks spinning through the dirty air. The tumbling, flaming debris rolled tearing through nearby hedgerows and fruit trees.
Immediately, from out of the thick dust swirling around the sizzling hole in the tree wall, bolts of flame-blue shot out. The shining, sapphire bolts streaked across Anniya’s plot, striking the ground or the bushes, plants and trees, flashing blindingly on impact with slamming bangs. The bright explosions shredded any material around them, blasting burning plumes of smoking dirt into the air, throwing out splintered remnants of the garden like a violent landscaper.
“Get behind me!” Christopher pulled a small spike from his belt and drove the spike into the ground. Instantly a curved glassy surface appeared. He rotated the surface so that it stood between them and the gaping, smoking hole in the tree wall. Deadly blue bolts flicked through the air overhead. “Quick, spark. Get behind the shield!”
Tom scurried into a crouch behind Christopher just as one of the searing, sapphire rounds struck their shield.
With a blinding flash and a teeth-rattling clap, the shield directed the explosion out and away from them. Tom shouted and dove to the ground, covering his head as the backblast threw out a great cloud of grass, dirt and debris up into the air around them.
The smoky debris cloud rolled back and around the shield, enveloping them, bits and pieces of grass and plants sprinkling down around. Christopher phased the shield back into a spike then spun around searching through the smoke to find Tom on the ground crawling away. Reaching down, Christopher pulled Tom to his feet. Sapphire lights lanced past them and overhead through the opaque air, glowing as they flew by, flashing blindingly on impact with slamming bangs.
“We gotta move, Spark! Let’s go!” Christopher and Tom sprinted through the strobing chaos and the burnt, dusty air, diving to take cover behind the massive trunks of Anniya’s woven tree. Sitting with their backs against the tree, Christopher whipped his head around. “Spark, where’s Goldie? She’s gotta have some kind of secret escape route. Or a tunnel. Or a plan or something!” Christopher’s eyes scanned frantically through the dirty mist, searching.