Artifex

by Gentry Race

  “‘Visit the interior of the earth, and by rectifying what you find there, you will discover the hidden stone.’”

  Arthur thought for a moment, reflecting on their location and the events that had transpired. He felt a crescendo of facts, lore, and history culminating to a grandiose eureka.

  “Don’t you see, Liz? Think about where we are, and those rings Captain Ellis pointed out that weren’t supposed to be here,” Arthur said. “You remember the stories. Their great city’s defenses were in concentric rings. This is about the Philosopher’s Stone and Atlantis is tied into it.”

  “That is ridiculous,” Liz said. “You have to remember, the texts back then were cryptic and allegorical. Some men lost their minds and fortunes trying to figure out how to change lead into gold.”

  Arthur thought for another moment. Lead into gold.

  This was something already achieved with modern day physics and high-speed particle accelerators. Country-sized colliders that could create the white matter they were using. The same kind of collider was being constructed above Earth, on a larger scale; Annulus Space Station. There, an infinite amount of white matter could be created, and the possibility of a technological singularity could occur.

  Arthur was giddy at the idea. Technology evolving so rapidly and becoming so advanced that the 3D printing process would become indiscernible to the naked eye. In a blink, we would become gods.

  Could the Atlantans have already possessed the technology to allow for such possibilities? Is it the reason my nanites suffocated?

  The best of his scientific curiosity got to him. He needed to find a solution, fast—before the cavalry showed up. General Malick would not be pleased to hear that his mission had gone awry.

  “I’m not sure about any of this, Liz,” Arthur said. “But I know what I saw last night, and it can’t be explained by logic or science. The best thing I can do is follow the instructions I was given: align the pictures with the inscriptions on the codex to open the gates. That’s all I have, and I get one chance to do it.”

  5

  Fire

  Arthur cut through the dense jungle, hacking away brush and vines with his voxelized machete. The razor-edged blade sliced through the roughage, the nanites ever rearranging to create the finest edge.

  As Arthur chopped through the last thick branch, he saw Captain Ellis standing in front of a cavernous pit similar to the one he’d seen the night before. The bright morning light revealed that its sides, layered in prismatic rock, descended about twenty feet, where it met the surface of murky green water. The crew was a few feet away, standing next to a large rig that was chewing through and spitting out the rock.

  “Arthur,” the captain acknowledged him.

  “Drilling already?” Arthur asked.

  “Yes, and making good time, too; this is the third hole. The rock is a lot softer than we expected, but we hit a pocket of water on the first two.” He shook his head in disappointment.

  A heavy scent filled Arthur’s nose.

  “Is that sulfur?”

  “Yeah, seems there’s pockets of the stuff trapped in the rock. Goddamn, real fire and brimstone around here,” the captain complained.

  A loud noise sputtered from the machine, and Arthur could see the small hole the drill had just created was now filled with water.

  “Goddammit!” the captain screamed. “The whole damn island is cursed. Every time we start to drill into the rock, it fills with water and stinks like fucking sulfur. It’s like it’s floating. It should be connected to solid rock.”

  “Captain, I think I know what these are,” Arthur said.

  “Yeah, some kind of sinkhole. We found three more about half a klick south. It doesn’t matter, I got men on their way down to inspect. We’ll get that iridium. One way or another.”

  Arthur walked to the edge of the rock to see two men in the pit with scuba tanks. The divers began their descent toward the water, and Arthur remembered his studies of the area. The cenotes sinkhole that surrounded the impact crater on the mainland of the Yucatan peninsula. They terminated along a half circle just outside of Merida, a main city inland. It was undeniable proof that an asteroid had struck here.

  “Cenotes,” Arthur expanded on the captain’s guess, and dialed something into his mechanical vambrace, bringing up a hologram of a nearby geologic formation.

  “It’s Karst rock,” Arthur said.

  “Karst?” The captain asked. “Limestone, right?”

  “Precisely, which means there are no rivers here, only these water pits—or cenotes, as the Mexican mainlanders would call them.” He looked over the edge again. He was distraught, seeing the military men for hire descending upon the fantastical, watery world below. How will they react?

  Privatized military and extraordinary claims had never had the best results when mixed in the past. The slogan ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ came to mind. And then his brain conjured up the memory of Autumn. How could he let her be harmed?

  “You’re sending men down?” he asked, trying to stall the surveying.

  “Sensors are showing a high concentration of iridium just below,” the captain said. “And since we can’t fucking drill for anything topside, I thought we might get to the jackpot if we dive instead.”

  Arthur toyed with ideas in his head, forming a conclusion that matched his first instinct.

  “Captain, it’s much too dangerous to risk these men’s lives,” he said with a slight smirk. “Let me offer you an alternative.”

  “Dammit, Arthur, I don’t want another one of your contraptions foiling an operation. Look where it’s gotten us so far.”

  “Captain, trust me, I have an option that is risk-free.”

  The mobile white matter reserves were in a container no larger than an average air tank. The cylinder’s sides were scraped and worn from the men dragging it through the jungle. Arthur attached various connectors that appended to the android he affectionately called “Lucy”. Her skin was matte in color; the silicon absorbed most of the wavelength of light. Her private parts were dull and blended to nothing like a life-sized Barbie doll. Instead of eyes, a goggled black mask was affixed to her face, in the middle of which, a thin, glowing red scanning sensor lay horizontally. This allowed for the user to see what she saw.

  “What the hell is this, Arthur?” the captain demanded, disgusted, his eyes tracing the hundreds of black wires that stemmed from the android’s head.

  “Captain, this is Lucy,” he explained. “My latest cyber experiment. She is the answer to our needs.”

  He scanned through the various designs uploaded to his vambrace. He couldn’t help but chuckle at an image of Liz’s old professor’s poorly designed space craft. He swiped it away, replacing it with the plans for a helmet, and voxelized it instantly. He then fitted to it the wire connectors extending from her face mask, linking the embedded goggles to the user’s helmet.

  “Arthur, she looks like a goddamn monster,” Captain Ellis said. “Why didn’t you give her a face?”

  “You see, to accurately control the motor functions, I had to build a larger receptive driver system—”

  “Save it,” the captain interrupted. “How is she going to help?”

  Arthur picked up the helmet with hundreds of wires stemming outward from its top. “With this. You put it on and simply think about how you want her to move.”

  “You drive it by thinking?” the captain asked.

  “Precisely! It uses your consciousness to operate the motor. State-of-the-art tech! You are looking at the future, Captain Ellis,” he said excitedly.

  “Who will drive it?”

  “We can have one of your men do it. It’s quite safe.” Arthur assured him.

  The captain turned around to the men breaking the surface of the water.

  “Charny! Get over here. We’re going down a different route.”

  A few hours later, Charny laid in a reclined chair that Arthur had voxelized. Arthur was prideful of this new techn
ology that gave them the ability to form anything at will. The only problem they faced would be afterward, when they wanted to pack it back up, as he hadn’t created a molecular disassembler yet.

  “Okay, just close your eyes and you should feel a little tingle,” Arthur said.

  Charny closed his eyes as Arthur slipped the large wiry helmet on him. A similar red strip glowed over his eyes as the connection to Lucy was made. Shortly after, Lucy stood up, staggering, and walked toward the cliff. Everyone watched a small monitor just off to the side, which showed what Charny was seeing along with his vitals.

  She stepped away, her head pulling on the wires connected to a machine that Arthur stood by monitoring. The gangly wires regenerated and extended as she got further away.

  “The wires grow?” the captain asked, baffled.

  “The nanites are voxelizing them on the fly, providing the slack we need.”

  Arthur handed Lucy the emerald tablet he pulled from a small knapsack.

  “What the hell is that?” the captain asked.

  Arthur fumbled his words, searching for a quick answer. “Power source. Solar. Bleeding edge technology.”

  Lucy got to the edge of the water pit, holding the tablet in one arm, and glanced down. Without a moment’s hesitation, she jumped off the cliff and hit the water with a splash, disappearing beneath the muddied surface. As she descended, the rocky wall passed by her glowing strip of goggle. Lights in various parts of her helmet illuminated the rock and jungle vines in her vision.

  “What do you see, Charny?” the captain asked.

  “It’s thick, a lot of roughage,” Charny said.

  Lucy stopped, hitting the bottom.

  “I’ve reached the floor,” Charny announced.

  A flash of motion whipped by Lucy’s face, stirring up more sediment. The captain startled, and Arthur leaned forward in curiosity, while Charny’s grip became tighter on the chair.

  “What the hell was that?” Captain Ellis asked.

  “It was like a large fish,” Charny said.

  Arthur knew what it really was and couldn’t wait for the men to see. He reached over and pressed the ‘record’ button.

  Another motion whipped past Lucy.

  “There it is again,” Charny said.

  He whipped Lucy’s lights all around, trying to scan for the large fish, but to no avail. And then he and Lucy both froze in place. A set of glowing red eyes burned in the dark water before him. He centered the beams of light onto the figure, and it was unmistakable.

  A half fish, half woman-like figure floated effortlessly just ahead of them. Her brilliant red hair danced in the current like a slow flame. She twisted a half-smile toward them when she saw what Lucy was holding, and began to gently swim her way toward the bot.

  Captain Ellis nudged Arthur, who never took his eyes of the monitor. The figure there was as beautiful as Autumn, yet she seemed to have a more fiery temperament about her. Maybe it was her hair or fiery red eyes. Arthur didn’t care—he was lost in her beauty.

  “What do I do, Captain?” Charny asked, hesitant to act on any natural reaction he might have to the sultry siren.

  Arthur turned to the captain to see his mouth agape, stricken by sheer wonder at the creature he was watching. Is it part of their magic? Do they have power over men, like in the fairy tales of old? It was no coincidence they had been spoken about for centuries. Sirens, Nymphs, Naiads, Melusines, Mermaids… They were here and they were real.

  “Approach her,” Arthur instructed.

  Charny had Lucy step closer, bridging the gap between she and the mermaid. As she got closer, Arthur could make out symbols on her brassiere, composed of seashell cracked in glowing fire that climb to a one piece shoulder armor. Concentric circles seemed to be the common theme running throughout, along with a solid triangle. In her hand she held a long staff that was crested in seven spikes with glowing flame at the center.

  As she glided through the water, the mermaid reached out and touched Lucy’s face. Arthur quickly looked at Charny, who was now at ease from her touch.

  “She is so warm, Captain,” Charny said, releasing the firm grip he had on the chair.

  The fiery redhead mermaid leaned in closer and kissed Lucy’s lips. Charny had his own lips in a smooching position, as he was experiencing everything Lucy was. Arthur couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this mermaid and Autumn save for the red markings that dove down her forehead and onto her cheeks. They must be sisters, but this creature’s eyes were more restless, optimistic, and excitable.

  “You have brought me the Earth Gate?” she asked. Then she pulled back from Lucy and whispered excitedly in her ear, where Arthur had put a sensor. “To ónomá mou eínai Theros.”

  Arthur recognized the Greek. “Her English name is Summer, Charny.”

  Charny’s heart fluttered on the monitor as she seduced him. He held his arms out, caressing the air. Arthur tried not to look at Charny’s junk, as he was obviously getting an erection from the stimulation.

  Arthur watched the monitor in shock. Charny had turned Lucy’s head down, and he could see the fiery, impulsive mermaid now feeling the nub that was Lucy’s missing genitals. She was trying to stimulate her.

  “I am seeing something,” Charny said. “Flashes of a red room. Three walls. I can’t touch them.”

  Arthur couldn’t contain his joy. “What else, boy?”

  “I see… three walls in the shape of a triangle,” Charny said.

  “What is on the walls?” Arthur asked.

  “A king on the left and a queen on the right, standing in an open landscape,” Charny said. “The king is holding a scepter in his right hand. The queen is holding a three-blossomed flower in her right and a peacock feather fan in her left. In front of the king, a wolf or a dog is jumping over a triangular crucible that’s been placed on a basin of fire. In front of the queen, an old man with a crippled leg, holding a scythe, walks across a fire on which a vessel is being heated.”

  “Do you see a number?” Arthur asked.

  “No,” Charny said. “Just something that says prima clavis.”

  “Prima is one and clavis is key,” Arthur said.

  Arthur quickly jotted down the first number and turned his codex disk to it

  . The mermaid kissed Lucy again and continued to stimulate Charny.

  Charny resumed speaking in a trance as he was fed more information via sexual contact. “On the middle wall and to the right, a woman stands beside a rectangular furnace. In her right hand, she holds a heart, out of which grows a seven-blossomed rose. A flask resting on the furnace has a layer of liquid in it, and fumes are rising from it. The top of this flask seems to merge with the woman's head. Beside this woman stands an alchemist with a pair of bellows, and flames are coming from his mouth and the top of his head. In front of the furnace, a blindfolded cupid aims an arrow with his bow at the woman. On the left stands a lion with a crown above his head. He raises his left paw as if to attack the cupid or the woman. Above the lion’s head, a large sun shines.”

  Arthur made sure the recording had not stopped. He wasn’t sure what to make of all the information, but he knew Liz could help later.

  “Is there a number with this image? Arthur asked.

  “Yes,” Charny replied. “The number five.”

  Arthur jotted it down and watched as the mermaid grabbed Lucy’s hand and slowly positioned it over where her scaly waist transitioned to softer skin. Charny tilted Lucy’s head down to watch, and everyone could now see the mermaid’s hot pink muff, ready for pleasure.

  Charny reached out and felt the mermaid gasp, a breath of water flitting a few bubbles from her mouth as she eased into the rhythm of Lucy’s robotic hand. He was in trance.

  “On the last wall, in a circle at the bottom, are three hearts, out of which three snakes emerge, their heads arching around as if to seize one another’s tail.”

  Arthur whispered to himself, “The ouroboros.”

  “The what?
” the captain asked.

  “The snake that eats its own tail,” Arthur said.

  Charny continued. “On top of this circle are a man and woman, their bodies bent so that, together, they point in the four directions with their head and feet. At the woman’s feet, due south, is a peacock; at her head, due west, a swan. At the man's feet, set north, is a crow or blackbird, and at his head, set east is an eagle with wings outspread.”

  The aggressive mermaid felt Lucy up, perplexed by the bot’s lack of anatomy. She slowly searched for a nipple on each breast; of course, they were missing, too. Arthur could see the mermaid’s touchy frustration, as she took the tablet, pulled back, and then swam violently away.

  Is she going to get her sisters?

  “She’s gone, sir,” Charny said. “I think I see a wall moving. Opening up.”

  “What is the last number?,” Arthur said, trying to hold his patience.

  “I don’t see it,” the man said. “Let me get closer.”

  Charny had Lucy look around and extend her arm. Arthur had Lucy extend sensors out and she waved her hand towards the ground. Meters and indicators signaled in alert that there was something below.

  “Iridium,” Arthur said, looking up at the captain.

  “We should set up a rig here!” Captain Ellis said, smiling.

  “Wait, I see a ledge! It goes deeper,” Charny said.

  He had Lucy step forward, and her leg caught on a protruding rock. Arthur watched the slack in the wires become taut as Lucy hit onto another level. The rock was darker than before.

  At this deeper level, Lucy could move her hand over a larger area. Charny guided her head, looking closer at the ground as a plume of pinkish stew billowed in the thick water.

  In his study of the ground, he realized that Lucy’s feet were dissolving.

  “My feet! They’re melting!” Charny struggled and thrashed.

  “Charny! Calm down,” the captain urged.

  “Did you see the number?” Arthur begged.