“And once we find the culprit should we try and catch him?”
“I doubt we can rewrite history, Sage. If the thief got away then we can’t do anything about that. What we’ll need to do is follow him to the place he took the book. Once we make it back from the past, we’ll know where to go to find it.”
“What if we get seen?”
“Try not to. If the portal drops us off in the past maintain a low profile. We might even have to disguise ourselves. Hopefully the portal works like a crystal ball and all we’ll have to do is watch where the thief goes,” Chad said.
“That would be ideal, but just in case it doesn’t work like that I’ll need to change.”
I went off to my room to change into clothes that were less conspicuous.
I emerged wearing all black with my hair wrapped in a black scarf.
“What on earth are you wearing?”
“I blend in with the darkness with this on. I figured no one would suspect me.”
“You look like a ninja.”
“A ninja can never be seen, Chad. And you should change your clothes too. Those blue jeans are your trademark,” I said.
“It’ll be fine. We need to get going anyway.”
We moved to the center of the living room and held out the portal in between the two of us.
“Remember, think hard about where we’re going: The Power Society Library.”
I closed my eyes and imagined. The society library was vast with high ceilings. It was meant only for the society members, but occasionally a teacher would allow their class to use it. I had been there once and was astonished by the architecture. There were pillars framing every doorway that looked like pillars from ancient Greece. There were murals on the walls of old people in togas. I heard they were painted to replicate famous art from the old world.
In seconds, we would be there and so would the thief.
The portal began to shake as we held it with both hands. Suddenly the little wooden door flapped open and a bright light shot out from within it that went through the roof of my house. I wondered if the neighbors would notice.
Suddenly the ceiling seemed to open exposing the sky. The beam of light got stronger and stronger until the living room was filled with a white light, and we were blinded.
Then it felt like my body was being pulled up fast towards the opening in the ceiling. Once we made it above my house everything went black for a split second and then we were standing inside the Power Society Library.
“Crap, it dropped us off,” Chad said.
“Do you still have the portal?”
“Yes it’s here. Let’s whisper just in case the thief is here.”
It was dark. So dark that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.
“I can’t see a thing. How are we going to find the thief if we can’t see?” Chad asked.
I thought for a second and then had an idea.
“I can do a light hex. I learned this last year in Mr. Clerick’s class.”
I raised my hand in front of me and pointed my index finger to the ceiling.
Suddenly, a dim light appeared on the tip of it. I closed my eyes and the light grew brighter and brighter until I could see a few feet in front of me.
“That’s awesome Sage! You look like that alien from the old age that the naturals are always talking about; E.P., or is it E.D….something with an ‘E’. Anyway his finger would light up like yours. It’s funny how history repeats itself.”
“I’m sure that was a fictitious character, Chad. Aliens never existed.”
“And what makes you so sure of that? This thief could be an alien for all we know!” Chad said.
“Ssh! Be quiet!”
I looked around us and we were in between two tall bookshelves in some corner of the library.
“We’ve got to figure out where the Book of Wisdom is,” I whispered.
“I think they put it in a glass case in the front entrance of the library.”
“Let’s go.”
We crept through shelf after shelf and finally just about ten feet ahead of us was a sort of podium that emitted a blue light from the top. The Book of Wisdom would be underneath the glass of that podium.
“What should we do now? The thief hasn’t even shown up yet. We could just take the book now and get out of here,” I said.
“No, we need to wait. If there’s anything I’ve learned about time travel it’s that you never under any circumstances interrupt a course of events that have already transpired. It’ll destroy the world.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t ya think?”
Right then there was a sound coming from the ceiling to the left of our line of sight. I immediately put out my finger light and we hid in the shadows with our eyes peeled.
A panel from the ceiling fell to the ground and a human leg jutted out from the opening. Then another human leg. Suddenly a limber boy dropped from the ceiling in stealth-like fashion looking around him for any sign of danger.
I had never seen anything like it. This boy was nearly naked. If it weren’t for his scant cloth draw-string trousers he’d be the first naked person, besides me, that I’d ever seen. That thought gave me a chill. Who is this guy?
I looked over at Chad and he seemed just as perplexed as I was.
I didn’t believe in aliens, but if they were real, they’d look like this kid.
The savage boy made his way to the podium without making any pit stops. He knew exactly what he came there for.
We watched as the boy bend over the podium. The light from it was shining on his face exposing his strong features. His skin was very tan and he appeared to be of an Indian descent. He had a strong nose and high cheek bones. He looked to be post pubescent with the faint appearance of a mustache coming through. He had a strong jaw line and a square chin. He had dark hair and his brow line was prominent enough to create a shadow over his eyes. His hair was dark and his bangs swept across his brow.
Suddenly, the savage boy tore a piece of cloth from the bottom of his pants leg and tied it around his hand. He made a fist around it causing the muscles in his forearm to flex. He took a few practice jabs at the air, and with one fierce blow, he shattered the glass on the podium and took the Book of Wisdom.
Surprisingly, no alarm went off, but I figured there was a silent alarm for this type of thing.
He grabbed a chair from one of the tables at the opposite end of the library and dragged it over to the hole in the ceiling.
We watched in silent disbelief as he stood on the chair, placed the book inside the hole and lifted himself up.
All of a sudden, I felt a sense of urgency come over me.
“Shouldn’t we stop him or follow him?” I said.
Chad put his finger over his lips to silence me.
We looked up to where the boy was and he was still standing on the chair, but was looking in our direction. He heard me.
He slowly stepped down off the chair and walked toward us.
We began to panic.
Even though I know he was being overly dramatic, Chad’s words about interrupting the past were ringing in my ear.
We didn’t know what to do so we just knelt there hoping to evaporate into the floor.
The boy was standing only a few feet away from us when he bent down to get a closer look at who was about to ruin his mission.
That’s when I decided to use my finger light hex to confuse him.
The light was just a few inches from his face giving me a better look at his eyes. They were a piercing dark green and seemed to look straight into my soul. I could tell that my alien finger trick scared him because he jumped back in disbelief. What’s wrong? They don’t have creators on your planet? I thought.
“Sage, what the heck are you doing?” Chad asked.
I stood up and walked toward him with my finger pointed outward. He was backing up with an incredulous look on his face.
I couldn’t help but smile at that look.
Suddenly, there was a sound at the front doors. The security guards were probably coming to scope out the place.
The savage boy immediately snapped out of the stupor that I had put him in and ran to his chair. He climbed up and started pulling himself up into the ceiling. Chad and I watched as the boy vanished into the hole.
“Can the portal take us to where he’s going?” I asked with urgency.
“Since we have no idea where this place is, I don’t think it can. It only works if we have some sort of frame of reference to go by. Something tangible.”
“We have the book. We know the Book of Wisdom exists and we know where it was before it was taken. Our frame of reference can be the route of the Book of Wisdom. Tell the portal to take us where the book has traveled. I honestly believe the portal will fill in the missing pieces,” I said.
“I guess it’s worth a try. Take us to the Book of Wisdom.”
Suddenly the beam of light shot from the portal through the ceiling of the library like it did in my house. While we were holding on to the portal, the security guard entered the library.
He looked up at the beam in utter disbelief and then looked at us like we were going to be in big trouble.
I decided to have a little fun and so I pointed my finger toward him.
“E.T. phone home.”
We were immediately transported into another land. It was like nothing we’d ever seen. We were standing at the peak of some hill and below us was a village of some sort with huts and mud houses. There were people wearing the same type of clothing that the savage boy was wearing and they were working with their hands. There weren’t any machines and the trees were like they were in the old days. There were no flying cars. In fact, there weren’t any cars at all. Instead of creating buildings using architecture hexes, the men were building structures with their own hands.
Had the portal taken us way too far back in time?
“Let me see that portal,” I said.
I opened it and looked inside. It looked like a simple wooden box without the ultra-bright beam coming from it. I shook it around a little.
“I think your Portal of Antiquity took us a few hundred thousand years into the past. If I get accused of being a witch and burned at the stake, I’m going to kill you,” I said.
“Hey, look!” Chad was pointing down at the village.
“It’s savage boy! And he’s holding the Book of Wisdom.”
Where on earth are we?
We made our way off the hill to get a closer look at the village. We hid behind some bushes in the parameter of the savage town.
Their clothing was different. Mostly everyone was wearing white linen with the exception of savage boy who wore brown pants. The majority of the men were shirtless and the women wore white dresses while they mothered infants or carried buckets of water to their huts. In the Equinox, our clothes fit tightly around our bodies for better movement. With the exception of Chad on some occasions everyone wore spandex-like body suits that were long-sleeved. They were mainly made to keep us from freezing to death living so close to space.
The men in the village were building various constructions around the village. There was one building toward the center of the town that looked to be almost complete. It looked like it could be used for a clinic or hospital. They used their hands to smear a copper colored paste on the outer walls of the building. The few buildings that were complete were all of this copper color, but they each had a symbol on the outside to distinguish them from the rest. For instance, one building had an apple over the door. I assumed that building was a school. There was one building with a large cross symbol at the very top. I wasn’t sure what that building was for.
It seemed as though this village was new to industrialization. They had no proper homes; only mud huts with straw roofs. There wasn’t a hint of technology and no proper mode of transportation other than some sort of wagon that was being built. The Equinox was always brimming with the sound of hover cars zooming every which way. It was a place illuminated with the light from the stars and distant galaxies of our solar system. Our buildings were unique and didn’t have to be built on solid land. Some hovered in the sky suspended in midair. Thanks to the talent of the creator architects, no two buildings were ever the same.
Suddenly, I saw the savage boy walking with the Book of Wisdom in his hands toward the one building that I wasn’t sure sure about. Everyone followed him in excitement.
“What do you think they want with the book?” I whispered to Chad.
“I don’t know, but they’re obviously pretty excited about it.”
“I wonder how they even knew we had the book in the first place. I mean look at this place. We must be light-years away from these people. Don’t ya think?”
“Well, sometimes you don’t have to travel too far to find someone different than you. We’re different to our own people, remember?” Chad said.
“I guess you’re right. It’s still a little strange though. Hey, do you think we could get a closer look into that building?”
“We have to be very careful. Remember if we do anything to change what has already happened in the past, we’ll be doomed,” Chad said.
“Okay. Teleport us to that bush right near the entrance.”
I grabbed onto Chad’s hand.
A second later we were looking inside the building with the cross. There were dozens of people gathered around a stage like area. The boy climbed the steps to the stage and put the book on a podium in the center. He said a few words to the audience that I couldn’t make out. Whatever he said made them very happy because they started to cheer and embrace each other. Some were even crying.
As people started to leave the building I began to get a little nervous. We were very close to the door and the bush that was hiding us wasn’t as big as it looked from afar. Several people exited without noticing us, but then it was savage boy’s turn. As I leaned forward to get a better look, the twig underneath my shoe snapped and caused him to look over at our spot.
He looked at me with eyes to kill. I mouthed I’m sorry to him, but it was too late the boy was coming our way. He cannot, under any circumstances, see us!
Chad quickly grabbed my hand and we were back on top of the hill.
“Woo, that was close!” I said.
“Are you insane! How could you make noise like that? I told you to stay perfectly still! If he would’ve seen us –“
“He didn’t see us, Chad. Just relax okay?”
“I just don’t want anything bad to happen. The thought of ruining our future makes me a little nervous okay?” Chad gave me a look. “Glad to see you’re taking all of this time travel business so well.”
“I’m just staying focused. So, we know where the Book of Wisdom is. Somehow we’ll have to figure out how to get back here once we make it to the present. I doubt teleporting here will work. It’s too risky,” I said.
“So now we need to focus on getting back to the present.”
Chad grabbed the Portal of Antiquity from his pocket.
“Take us to the present!” Chad commanded the wooden box. Nothing happened.
“I knew that wouldn’t work. I was just testing to make sure,” Chad lied.
“There’s got to be some sort of key to unlocking the future that is inscribed on this thing,” I said.
“And there was that thing your dad said about knowing your future or something.”
I traced my fingers along the carvings of the portal. The symbols looked ancient, and they very well could’ve been replicas of ancient hieroglyphs. I wouldn’t have known, because I never studied hieroglyphics in school. However, I did remember Mia telling me something about how the ancients believed in using stargates to unlock different dimensions. Of course, in this situation we weren’t trying to travel through dimensions, but through time. Nevertheless, we were all out of ideas on how to get back, so I searched my mind for information on stargates.
According to Mia, the ancients used objects from
nature to summon a stargate that would take them through worlds. Objects from nature.
I grabbed the portal from Chad’s hand and walked over to the nearest tree.
“Maybe this thing is made from wood for a reason.”
“What are you going to do?” Chad said.
“There’s this thing called a stargate that the ancients used to travel through dimensions. They needed an object from nature to make that happen.”
“So do we just stand here by the tree? Or do we have to touch it or something?”
“I don’t know. Let’s try touching it,” I said.
We both stood facing the tree with our hands touching the bark.
Nothing happened.
“Maybe we have to use the portal,” Chad said.
I stood thinking for a while about how the portal could be used as a stargate. Since it was wooden that means it came from a tree. Maybe the carvings were a type of dedication for the specific tree that was used to create the portal.
Suddenly, I got an idea.
I bent down and lifted up Chad’s pant leg.
“What’s going on, Sage?”
“I know you keep a spare knife in your sock. Here it is!”
“Hey, no one’s supposed to know about that!”
“Aw, what’s wrong? Did I ruin your plans to rob a bank with a single knife?”
“Whatever.”
“Keep dreamin,’ space cowboy.”
I started to cut out chunks of tree bark. I was carving a square hole into the tree to place the Portal of Antiquity.
“Finally. Okay, hand me the portal,” I said.
Chad gave me the portal and I placed it inside the tree trunk. There was a sudden quake that shook the ground. Chad and I braced ourselves on the tree. The carvings on the portal began to emit the brightest blue light.
“Why does it have to be so hard to travel to the present? We got here in less than a second!” Chad yelled over the roar of the earthquake.
“We’re actually travelling to the future since this is the past. According to now, our definition of present hasn’t happened yet.”
Chad paused and looked at me perplexed.
“Can we just go home already?”
I placed my hand on the portal and then Chad. Suddenly, the beam from the portal shot through the top of the tree. I looked over my shoulder down at the village. There I saw savage boy looking up at the beam with his mouth agape.
Lovers of Babel Page 16
