After the Fall

by Janean Worth

  Chapter Twelve

  Kara stroked the smooth delicate-looking surface of the Old Tech, remembering her father’s fascination with the devices that he worked with on a daily basis at the Sovereign’s House. Why had her father kept this one? What was so special about it? Why had he risked their lives to hide it in their house the night before he had left on the Sovereign’s errand?

  They were questions that Kara had often wondered about, but she had never had the courage to look upon the Old Tech until now. Before, when she’d thought of the thing hidden under the floor, cold dread had filled her and her stomach had knotted with worry. The thing was a secret that promised instant death if discovered. It was forbidden for the people of GateWide to own or possess Old Tech. Expressly forbidden by the Sovereign’s decree. Only the Sovereign was permitted to own Old Tech.

  Old Tech was from the time before the Fall, and the people of GateWide had been taught to fear the things that had been left behind from that time. But Kara’s father had been gifted with discovering the purposes of the Old Tech that the Enforcers found on their forays out into the wilderness, and he had often told Kara that the Old Tech was not dangerous in and of itself. He had said that some of the Old Tech could be used for bad purposes, and had hinted that the Sovereign did, on occasion, use Old Tech for just that. Bad purposes. Her father had said that, like anything, the Old Tech was not dangerous on its own; it took a person to use it for ill or for good. He hadn’t shared many of his discoveries of the purposes of the Old Tech with her, for he knew that to give her that knowledge would put her in danger, but he had told her some of what he had discovered of the time before the Fall. Bits of knowledge that he’d gleaned from the Old Tech. Tales of fascinating things and places called cities and times when the world was crowded with people and there had been no vast wilderness of mutated creatures.

  The tales had both delighted and frightened Kara.

  Kara ran her fingers around the sides of the thing, feeling the sleek angles and odd texture of the Old Tech, her eyes straining to see detail in the dimness of the cave. The material that the Old Tech was made of was like nothing that was made in GateWide. Kara had seen glass before, but none so thin and glossy as the piece on the face of the Old Tech, and she had never seen the material that made up the rest of the thing. It was a strange, hard material that covered the surfaces not covered by the thin glass, consisting of meshed lines and glittering flakes of some shiny material that were embedded within a clear hard surface that was not glass, but yet looked like it.

  Kara’s fingertip caught upon a raised circular protrusion on the slim side of the thing. She prodded the small circle with her fingernail, pressing against it, surprised with it depressed into to the side of the Old Tech, then popped out again.

  The face of the thing flared with light, temporarily blinding Kara in the gloom, and she gasped and dropped it into her lap, where it landed with the glass surface facing up at her.

  Frightened that it could emit light, but not heat, Kara pushed it off of her lap and scooted backwards quickly, staring at the Old Tech much as she had stared at the snakes she’d found in the cave earlier. To her amazement, the bright blue-white light formed into a symbol on the face of the Old Tech for a moment, then resolved itself into an image. An image of her father!

  Kara’s heart thumped against her ribcage with astonishment, joy filling her thoughts. Her father’s face stared back at her.

  She quickly scooted back to where she’d been and picked up the Old Tech gently, staring lovingly at the man’s face. How she missed him! She stroked the glass surface of the thing with her fingertip, and then gasped as the image moved and her father began to speak.

  “If you are seeing this, then it means that I have not returned from my journey. Fear not, for I am not dead as the Sovereign has told you. I have moved on, through the Narrow Gate. You must flee GateWide when you see this message and you must never return. You must follow me. And to do that, you must study the Word and learn to do the right thing. It is only through doing the right thing that you will find the Narrow Gate. Be safe, my beloveds. Keep this device with you always, and I will try to contact you. This Old Tech will allow me to speak to you and ...”

  Her father’s image went still on the face of the Old Tech, his words cut off in mid-sentence, and Kara felt tears pool in her eyes and stream down her face as she stared at his much-loved face. He looked exactly as she remembered him. Exactly. He must have somehow put his moving image into the Old Tech on the day before he had left on the journey for the Sovereign.

  Kara suddenly realized what that meant. Her father had known that he might not return. What sort of dangerous errand had the Sovereign sent him on? What secret had her father known that he had not told them before he left?

  The Old Tech in Kara’s hand began to dim, the image of her father going gray, then fading to darkness.

  “No,” Kara gasped as the Old Tech’s glass surface went black and lifeless once again. “No,” she moaned into the silence of the cave, missing the sight of him as soon as his image was gone.

  A sob caught in her chest, and tears fell in a stream upon her hands. She brushed them away from the Old Tech, then carefully wrapped the thing back into its soft leather covering as she cried. She missed her father so.

  His message had given her hope. Perhaps she was not alone in the wilderness after all? Perhaps her father was there, somewhere, looking for her?

  But, what had he meant by learning to do the right thing? And how was she to study the Word, if she had no Book?

  Kara put the Old Tech back into her bag, then dried her tears and lay down again next to Jax, cuddling his warm form against her stomach and pulling her mother’s shawl over the both of them.

  She knew a little of what her father had meant by doing the right thing, her mother had taught her much of it from the Book, though the Book’s teachings had been frowned upon by the Sovereign. But Kara didn’t understand how doing the right thing would help her reach her father at the Narrow Gate. The Narrow Gate was supposed to be a religious myth. A sacred place that was visited after death. How could her father be there, and yet still be alive?

  She had so many questions. She didn’t know how to do what her father had asked. But, she did know one thing without a doubt. She knew that she had to try.

  Read more of Kara’s story in THE NARROW GATE

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