The Eye of Elektron: A Clean Urban Fantasy (The Sumrectian Series Book 1)

by Leigh G. Wynn

  Good, Myles thought. Now, where are you, Blair?

  Then, as if in response to his question, a hard bump on the back drove him forward into Nico. Inches in front of Myles, sneering into his face, floated the bald, muscular Sumrect who had probed his memory.

  Quinn! Myles let out a muted scream inside his gilled mask. We are under attack! He looked at Nico, not sure if they should tell the other Sumrects to abandon plan. But Nico, looking unperturbed, simply chortled at the sight of Regina’s burly brother. Bewildered, Myles faced Quinn again and tried to make sense of the situation.

  That was when he spotted the butterfly earrings dangling from his earlobes. His earlobes?

  How do I look? Blair’s playful voice boomed.

  You have looked better, Nico replied while Myles blew out a series of bubbles in exasperation, peeved that Blair had the nerve to prank them during an already stressful situation.

  Nico, on the other hand, did not seem to mind. Come on! We have no time to waste. With great effort, he formed an air bubble to envelop Myles and Blair at the front entrance, allowing them to pop open the door and pull themselves into the boiling hot interior. He maintained the bubble until Blair and Myles disappeared into the Morvyann.

  Morphed into Quinn, Blair sprinted down the Morvs-packed corridor. Despite the heat, Myles shivered at the formidable Sumrect running beside him. Never would he have pictured himself hijacking a Morvyann with Quinn. But reality was often more absurd than imagination.

  Phew! That was close, Jarret’s voice rang in his ear as he ran.

  Jarret, what happened? Lorenzo asked right away.

  The Morvs almost got us in the second vessel. I was only barely able to make it out without detection. You must act quickly. Remember, once the conversion is complete, you become the target.

  A momentary silence ensued.

  Then, Lorenzo’s voice boomed once more, Will do, Jarret. We’ll reprogram as many vessels as we can. If all else fails… we must shut them down.

  Much to Myles’s consternation, the Morvs shifted ever so slightly as they flew past.

  The Morvs are not buying my morpheum. I think they were upgraded along with these new machines. Blair wiped away the sweat on her forehead.

  Myles’s stomach dropped when he heard her thoughts, but he tried his best to maintain his composure. They could not afford to panic now. We need to move quickly.

  Upon arriving at the control room, Myles kept an eye on the Morvs while Blair headed straight for the basin in searched of the junx and eamus. She placed her fingers underneath the burning hot basin rim and ran them along the edge as she circled the fixture. About halfway around, she dropped to her knees.

  “Bingo!” She clapped once loudly and gestured for Myles to look.

  Sure enough, on the underside of the rim, two faintly illuminated buttons were labeled with the Sumrectian words junx and eamus. When she pressed down on them simultaneously, the buttons vanished, and two braided strands of electricity, one purple, one green, snaked from the holes. All she needed to do, according to Jarret’s instructions, was to unravel the braid without touching it and cross the filaments over so that each new strand contained both a purple and green component.

  That was supposed to be the easy part.

  However, the strands proved much harder to unbraid than anticipated. As soon as she separated the two, the filaments snapped back together like powerful magnets. Her fingers shook with nerves. Meanwhile, the faceless robots grew restless. One of the Morvs inched forward to the basin, and Myles promptly shifted his body to block Blair from view. Before long, a second Morv joined the first. And then a third.

  “Done!” Blair declared as the Morvs closed in on the two of them from all sides.

  Exhaling a shaky sigh of relief, Myles turned to congratulate Blair, but when he saw her, his smile vanished.

  Something was wrong.

  Frozen on the spot, her eyes had clouded over. Her face displayed no excitement or recognition. Sluggishly, she stood up and advanced toward Myles, dark smoke emanating from her right hand.

  “What are you doing, Blair?” Myles slowly backed away.

  Head tilted, she studied him with an unusual snarl on her lips.

  Myles grimaced. This must be what Jarret had warned them about; Blair’s previous dabbling in the dark forces had made her especially susceptible to the influence of Etherian powers.

  Nico, we have a problem, he thought, hoping the audicog would transmit his message.

  At that instant, Blair’s arms shot past her head. Yet before she could strike him, the Morvs attacked, sending a shower of electricity upon her. A blood-curdling scream ripped from her throat as she redirected the dark smoke in her hands to the silver robots encircling them, incinerating the innermost ring of Morvs upon contact.

  More silver soldiers crowded into the control chamber after hearing the commotion. Myles gulped. An out-of-control Blair and a hundred roused Morvs did not make a pleasant combination. Drawing upon the Etherian power that permeated the vessel, Blair flung out a crackling electric current which tied the Morvs together much like a rope. Then, with a force so powerful it shook the walls, she hurled the tied up Morvs away from her. Myles ducked when a group of silver creatures flew over his head and crashed straight into the control basin.

  The explosion rocked the ground. Like a dying animal, the Morvyann groaned and sucked in its last breaths before it spluttered into silence.

  Chapter 23

  Eerie stillness engulfed the entire vessel. Myles wondered if Crimson Sumrects would notice if one of their vessels suddenly died. But he did not dwell on the thought. He had other, much more pressing concerns to attend to.

  “Blair?” Coughing from the smoke, he screamed into the dark, above the deafening static noise emitted by his broken earpiece.

  No response.

  He dug out the device from his ear and crawled forward inch by inch, grabbing blindly at the space in front of him. Blair must be close by. Last time he saw, she was only a few feet away.

  “Blair, can you hear me?”

  Something stirred in the stillness. Myles started in the direction of the sound, but at that moment, another blast from the front of the vessel shook the ground. Alarmed, Myles heard rapid footsteps on the floor below.

  “Blair? Myles?”

  The desperation in Nico’s voice was apparent.

  Myles answered immediately, “We’re up on the second floor. Use the stairs at the end of the hallway!” Before long, Nico rushed in, holding a beam of light in his hands. When Myles could finally see his surroundings, he shuddered. The walls of the control room were half melted. A pile of scorched Morvs covered a distorted and still burning basin. And on the floor by the starboard side—

  “No!” Nico’s cry reverberated through the charred chamber.

  There, lying face down next to the Morvs was Blair, her long brown hair sprawled over the floor.

  Nico ran to her, quivering, and flipped over the body. Her eyes were closed, her mouth half open.

  “Blair!” When he shook her gently, her head rolled to the left like a broken doll.

  Sensing Nico’s panic, Myles placed a finger under Blair’s nose. Thankfully, he felt her shallow breaths. “She’s alive. Come on, we have to go before we’re discovered!”

  A dazed Nico followed Myles out of the control room, carrying Blair’s body in his arms.

  “The machine is dead. How did you get inside?” Myles said as they squeezed past Morvs frozen on the stairs.

  “Lorenzo came and blasted a hole in the belly. We need to leave fast. Vance’s soldiers are approaching…” Nico could not finish the sentence.

  Once on the ground floor, they could see a bright light by the entrance and the air bubble Lorenzo created. They sprinted toward the exit, racing against time.

  As Myles burst out of the Morvyann with Nico, he saw a string of lights in the distance, and his stomach sank. He glanced over at Lorenzo, who nodded in understanding. If they were disco
vered by Vance’s soldiers, their entire plan would have failed. Even if they were to escape without detection now, the soldiers would surely notice a dead vessel.

  In Nico’s arms, Blair’s eyes flew wide open. She wriggled free from his grasp and swam toward the string of lights in the distance. Bubbles escaped from Nico’s mouth as he tried to scream after her.

  But Blair was much too fast. It was not more than a few seconds later that a rib-rattling rumble rocked every water molecule around them.

  A massive humpback whale glided through the water. Its body settled like a wall between the Morvyanns and the approaching guards, concealing the Phyon Sumrects from view. The daunting creature swayed and squawked, its mischievous eyes coming to rest on Myles, who gaped back, aghast.

  The whale let out another long, low-frequency vibratory groan. This time, it flapped its pectoral fin to push the water between the Morvyanns, thus creating a strong enough current to carry Myles, Lorenzo and Nico away from the Crimson soldiers.

  You have really outdone yourself this time, Blair. Myles connected himself to Lorenzo’s diving rope, and the three of them headed at full speed to West Shore.

  ✽✽✽

  Welcome back, Gatekeeper. The wispy hologram words sprouted from the orb’s amber core.

  Eleven years.

  About to reclaim a dusty dream, Dawn’s hands trembled from the sudden responsibility that had befallen her. She understood what a reawakening of the Eye meant for the humans trapped in Fors.

  They can finally go home.

  The 360-degree, cylindrical hologram screen cascaded from the ceiling, surrounding her from all sides. A list of about five hundred names appeared, arranged in alphabetical order. Some names glowed in green while others shone in red, and still others, yellow. Dawn spun around to the end of the list where she located the key.

  Green—Loyal to the Cause

  Red—Deserter of the Cause

  Yellow—Undetermined

  Astounded, she continued to turn on the spot, scanning the entire screen with fascination.

  Two-thirds of the way down, a blinking green name caught her eye: Basil Brighton. She drew a sharp breath, recalling the conversation she had with Kai about the Brightons. Guided by her intuition, she reached out to touch the name, but a hologram of Basil appeared before her fingers even came in contact with the screen. It responds to thought! she realized.

  With a hand under his chin to support his head, the Basil on the screen was fast asleep on a wooden bench.

  “Basil?”

  He did not move.

  “Basil!” Dawn repeated in a much louder voice.

  This time, he jumped almost a foot into the air from his sitting position. The Pathfinder squinted at the screen, and suddenly, a giant smile spread across his face.

  “You must be the bringer of new light!” he exclaimed, his voice dripping with exhilaration.

  “Yes, Mr. Brighton. My name is Dawn Rene.”

  He was blinking away tears of joy. “When we saw the sphere glow as it did in the past, we could not believe our eyes! Your name says it all, doesn’t it? Dawn Rene… light reborn! How on earth did you do it? How did you reawaken the Eye of Elektron?”

  “I’m not quite sure.” Pink crept into Dawn’s cheeks. “It’s a long story…”

  “A great story, which I’m confident you will share with us when the time is right!”

  “Us?”

  “Oh, can’t you see? I’m here at Nymion Clearing with the Lang family, my three little rascals—Ovra, Oakley, Opal—and of course, my lovely wife, Francesca. As you might already now, Francesca’s sister, Amber, was the original Gatekeeper and owner of the Source.” Brighton gestured to the fuzzy figures behind him, intentionally obscured for security purposes.

  “Yes, I know of Amber. Mr. Brighton, was there a reason your name flashed green on the hologram screen moments ago?”

  “Of course! Ever since I noticed the glowing of the Eye, I have been trying to reach you.” His smile evaporated. “We have learned of Ansel Cassadian’s recent capture at Crimson Estate, and we need your assistance in assembling the Pathfinders at Tempeia. We have a plan to rescue you, Ansel and the one hundred imprisoned Crimson workers.”

  “What’s the plan? How can I help?” Dawn asked urgently.

  Basil explicated the plan, including the Phyon Sumrects’ efforts to hijack the Morvyanns.

  The more Dawn heard, the more absurd the proposal sounded. She had witnessed firsthand Vance’s incalculable capacity for evil and the massive damage a single Morvyann could cause. Even if one of the vessels failed to be reprogramed, without Ansel’s help, the Pathfinders would be fighting a battle doomed to fail from the beginning.

  “Basil, the chances of everything proceeding according to plan are slim to none and should the Phyon Sumrects successfully convert all six Morvyanns for their own use, we still have Vance and Regina to worry about. Both are incredibly powerful blue Sumrects,” Dawn said. On top of that, if the spell has indeed been completed, Vance should now be the most powerful Sumrect ever to have existed.

  “Perhaps…” She hesitated before going on, “It’s best that I open the gate now and let the Pathfinders go home—”

  “And leave our fellow immigrants trapped in Fors forever?” Basil cried out in indignation. He leaned into the screen and said with passion, “Miss Dawn, if we go, we go together. The goal of the Pathfinders has always been to eradicate evil… In any reality!”

  “I will fight with you, Mr. Brighton. But I can’t keep our people here any longer than they choose.”

  “Go ahead! Open the gate and see how many will take you up on your offer! If I know anything, it’s that us Pathfinders will fight until our freedom is secured.”

  “It would take a miraculous intervention for us to succeed…”

  “And you are correct in your assessment of this situation. The odds are stacked against us,” Basil said, acknowledging her concerns but grinning once more.

  “You agree then?” Dawn was surprised by his jovial tone.

  “There is a one percent chance we will carry our plan out to fruition, but you have already proven that even the impossible can become possible. I had doubts similar to yours… until this evening,” Brighton said. “When I saw the Eye glow like it did in the past, I realized there are forces beyond our understanding working for us.”

  “But we are outnumbered,” she pointed out.

  “Dawn, the key to manifesting an idea is belief. We all agreed—we all felt—that by believing in the possibility of victory, however slim, we are paving the way for the miraculous to happen… We are only limited by our minds.”

  It took a while for the meaning behind Basil’s emphatic words to sink in. As Dawn pictured Henry, crouched in the holding cell, and Ansel, wrapped in Vance’s flaming vines, her clenched fists tightened. Fighting back was their only option, their only hope. Successful or not, they could no longer allow evil to flourish.

  Two weeks ago, she never would have imagined the Eye of Elektron could be reawakened, and yet here she was… the Gatekeeper…

  She breathed deeply. “Tell me, Mr. Brighton. What am I to do?”

  Basil held up a finger and exited the screen without answering. When he returned, he brought his wife.

  “Thank you for taking over my sister’s role,” Francesca said, studying Dawn with curious eyes. “She would have been so proud of your bravery.”

  Dawn blushed as she glanced down at her feet. “I only hope to be helpful to you all.”

  “Oh, you have already helped more than you realize.”

  Basil squeezed Francesca on the shoulders before reclaiming the screen. “First thing Dawn, I must warn you…” He leaned in until his entire face occupied the screen. “To open the gate, you must first say the words Acktum Opta before you turn the Eye to the right a half circle. To close the gate, say the words Sentius Opta and turn to the right again. Never, ever, under any circumstances, turn the Eye of Elektron to the left!”
<
br />   “Why?” She squeezed the glass orb in her hand.

  “Turning the Eye to the left opens up the gateway to Etheria.”

  Etheria? The revelation struck Dawn as a bit odd. Why did Ansel make a pathway to the Etherian realm? Didn’t he create the Eye to keep out the Etherians?

  “When you leave our conversation,” Basil continued, “you’ll see an option labeled ‘send message.’ We have about two hundred centinums at Nymion Clearing ready for distribution and will need you to spread the word.”

  While Dawn listened to Basil delineate the plan, she kept thinking back to what he had said earlier, “We are only limited by our minds.”

  What if…?

  Abruptly, the hologram screen changed to a deep shade of red. A loud siren blared. The word “intruder” flashed across Basil’s frozen face. By default, the screen vanished, cutting off their line of communication.

  Someone tried to access our conversation! Dawn realized with dread.

  ✽✽✽

  Vance snarled in frustration as the hologram vanished. Before him, a shivering human kneeled on the floor, holding an Eye of Elektron that had stopped glowing. With one swooping motion of his arms, he hurled the human backward to the wall of his study, where he fell to the floor, unconscious. Though Vance could not bypass the strict security measures Ansel placed upon the device, he was at least aware that the Pathfinders’ lines of communication had indeed been opened.

  He could not afford to wait any longer.

  “Vance,” Regina began in a trembling voice, “I’m sorry… I had not meant to nullify the Etherian spell.”

  Vance spun to Regina and her brother, standing next to one another by the window. Her admonition earlier rang clear in his mind, but he knew better than to believe her lies.

  “You couldn’t nullify the spell even if you tried.” Vance sneered.

  Before Regina had a chance to respond, a flustered guard rushed into the study. “Good evening, Atma. We have received an error message from one of the Morvyanns—”

  “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something important?” Vance dismissed the report; there was always something wrong with the vessels. Most of the time, it was either power running low or sea creatures disrupting their signals. Impressive machines, those Morvyanns, but an absolute pain to maintain.