“Do we have a location?” he asked.
“It is not as simple as that,” Taylor said. “The palace is never at a single place for more than a few hours. So it is very difficult to locate.”
“What?”
“It’s strange, I know,” Carlos said, “Think of different times as different levels. There’s a level for 10:05 another for 10:06 and so on. The Palace of Being stays fixed to a certain level for a limited amount of time. In addition, it changes its position in space as well.”
“That is so cool,” Q said. “How does it even do something like that?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Carlos said. “All I can think of is that the Palace of Being holds so much energy that it can cement itself in one frame of time and not leave it.”
“Wait,” Q said. “Why did you tell us about the place if we can’t find it?”
“I said difficult, not impossible,” he said. “In a certain temple there lies a map to the Palace of Being. It gives you the next position of the Palace along with the exact time frame.”
“But if it’s stuck in only a single frame of time wouldn’t it be impossible for us to get into it?”
“The palace freezes a region of space in time, so as long as you get close enough, the palace will freeze you in the same frame too, and that means you’ll be able to get in.”
“What about the location of this temple?” Taylor asked.
“If anyone knew its location they’d have tried to get the map already. I do know the planet it’s on, and I think very few people know that piece of information. But the Temple of Time, as far as I know, has never been found. Many people went on expeditions but I’ve never heard of one of them finding the map.”
“So we just try and see if we can find it by luck?”
“It’ll be by luck, but you’ll have a better chance than everyone else.”
“Why?”
“Him,” Carlos looked at Q.
“What? Me?” Q asked. “I didn’t even know about the Palace of Being. How am I supposed to find an undiscovered temple?”
“Listen to me now. Close your eyes first. Everything in existence emits waves. You’re a sorcerer. Your brain processes the worlds in waves. Feel every single wave passing through you. Use it. Visualize the universe.”
“Are you sure this is supposed to work?”
“Less talking. Now visualize,” Carlos’ voice was a little more forceful this time. “An image is the most powerful stimulant. Try to imagine what you’re trying to do.”
Q closed his eyes. He imagined loopy strings of waves coming towards him and getting absorbed into his brain. A few more tries later, a dull image formed in his mind.
More, he thought. Stronger.
The image got brighter and clearer. In seconds he had a whole 3D model of his surroundings in his mind. He willed the image to zoom out and it did. He could see himself as a dot moving through hyperspace, he could see the different branch tunnels connected to this one.
He saw the glowing galaxies, millions and billions of stars, red giants, white dwarfs, the whole works. The image became duller and blurry the farther the object was but he could still see outlines and shapes. His mind focused on Earth and a blue-green planet came into view and if he zoomed about just enough, he could actually calculate a proper path from the Earth to the Orion.
Amazing, he thought.
“I see you’ve got it,” Carlos said.
He opened his eyes, “That was the best thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.”
Carlos laughed, “You’ll get better chances, don’t worry. Now once you reach the planet you can use this technique and attempt to find the Temple of Time.”
“Oh, and we were also attacked by space pirates,” Taylor mentioned.
“Fine time to tell me about it,” he rolled his eyes. “Is everyone okay?”
“No casualties. Q used electric and fire Elementa wave skills. Knocked everyone out in seconds.”
“See?” Carlos said. “I told you your strength would only grow. A few more battles and your skills will grow again. Anyway, the temple is on Eonia. You can easily set the system to take you there. Or ask Kai.”
“You know, I was wondering,” Q said. ”Couldn’t we have waited a little longer before starting the mission. Maybe my powers would have grown much more if I’d actually practiced.”
“That’s a good plan,” he said. “In our case, we don't know how long we have until the black holes destabilize and activate the inter-dimensional gates. Sure, we have an estimate, but that can change in seconds. We need to cut out as much time as we can.”
“Commander?” A voice came from behind Carlos.
And the feed cut off.
Q fidgeted a bit, “Let’s hope he didn’t get caught.”
“I don’t think he’d get caught that easily,” she said as she walked to the holographic positioning system, or as Q called it, the HPS.
Her hands moved around as she tried to locate Eonia’s coordinates. He figured it would take her quite a while, but she came back in minutes and entered the coordinates into the system.
The ship’s computer worked out the math and smoothly shifted course, until it was in another hyperspace tunnel.
“How did you find it so quickly?”
“I already sort of knew where it was. Just had to double check.”
“Why would you know something like that?”
“The planet has a cool name,” she laughed.
“That sounds about right,” he smiled.
They watched as the ship steadied its course in the new tunnel. So far no one had come to the deck, which meant the course shift hadn’t been abrupt enough to wake them.
Q grasped for something to talk about. He didn’t want to let the conversation die down. It felt nice talking to Taylor after two days of absolute confusion.
“Is the Dark Knight home base awesome?”
“NO!” she yelled out so loud that he thought she might wake them after all. “I’m sorry,” she paused. “I don’t have fond memories of the place.”
“Oh,” he said awkwardly. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“It isn’t your fault,” she said.
They sat in silence, staring at the view screen.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Wonder what that was all about, Q thought. He’d never seen her that agitated before.
Five minutes.
“My mom was a Dark Knight,” she finally said.
Q looked at her for a few seconds, “Again, I really don’t know how to react to any of that.”
Taylor smiled a bit, “She joined up when she was around fourteen. I really don’t know why she started up so early in life. Around the time she turned seventeen she was their strongest trainee and became everyone’s pride and joy,” her voice slowed down. “This one time, she’d come back to Earth on an assignment. The case was apparently an Area 51 thing, so there was this one secret service guy working on the same assignment and the two of them hit it off pretty well. Once they finished their case my mom told the Dark Knights she was quitting and settled down with the secret service guy, my dad.”
Her eyes started to tear up but she kept going, “My mom had a lot of enemies, and right after I was born both of them were killed. Children’s Services took me in and I was adopted but the Dark Knights never left me alone. When I was five they kidnapped me and trained me day after day. I was locked up there for another five years before I ran away.”
She wiped her eyes, and smiled, “And that’s when your parents found me and brought me to Aliea. They found another family to adopt me and they even moved houses to be close to my new family and keep a watch on me.”
Q hugged Taylor. She was an idiot, she was rugged, she threw people around like it was nothing, but for the first time in the countless years he’d known her, she’d opened up to him, she’d made herself vulnerable.
“I’m there for you Taylor,” he hugged her tighter.
The deck was quiet, and the sound of her muffled sobbing filled the silent room.
***
4-2
Elizabeth walked towards the deck. How much sleep could a person get around here? She’d already been unconscious and then she had been ushered to sleep. Again.
Ugh, she thought. She entered the deck and her eyes immediately popped open. Standing there in the middle of the deck, Q and Taylor were hugging each other.
Passionately, her head added.
“Shut up,” she chuckled to herself.
She skipped toward them, “Hey guys,” she said.
They immediately pushed each other away and stood awkwardly.
“Hey Elizabeth,” they said in sync.
And then they looked embarrassed about doing that.
So adorable, she thought.
Q kept looking at the floor, and Taylor rubbed her eyes a bit.
“I couldn’t get any sleep,” Elizabeth said. “So I came here to see if I could help out.”
“Well, we just shifted course so there’s nothing left to do except monitor the deck,” Taylor said. ”If you want you could keep watch. The alarm system works anyway so it’ll be fine even if you doze off.”
“I guess I’ll keep watch then,” she smiled. “You guys go get some sleep.”
“Thanks,” Q smiled as he and Taylor walked off the deck.
Big ship, she thought. And silence followed.
After a while she lost track of how long it had been since those two left, and watching numbers and letters on screens started to become boring.
“HELLO” she yelled out and her voice echoed through the empty deck.
“I AM AMAZING.”
“SUPER SONIC BLAST.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
“Would you shut up?” a differently voiced echo came back with a completely different sentence.
And then she realized that was actually someone else speaking.
She turned around to see Kai yawning as he walked to her.
“Taylor and Q told me they changed course,” she told him.
“Why did they do that?”
“They didn’t tell me that part.”
“I guess they talked to Carlos or something,” he said, his eyes still half open.
“You don’t have to stay awake. I’ll keep watch.”
“Well, that’s sweet of you but the thing that woke me up was a loud, annoying voice from a brown-eyed girl.”
“She must be so irritating,” Elizabeth laughed.
Kai stared at her for a second and broke into laughter as well.
“I was worried you didn’t talk much, but this is a pleasant surprise.”
“I was just nervous. Chris though, she’s actually someone who doesn’t like to talk at all.”
“Really? Maybe she’s still feeling nervous?”
“Maybe.”
“You know, I’ve been wondering why you transferred into Aliea?”
“Best teen training center. Need I say more?”
“Well where were you before that?”
“Gosh aren’t you filled with suspicions?” she laughed.
Kai got closer, his eyes going cold, his voice turning deep, “Listen to me, girl. A brown haired intruder comes into Aliea, and the next day we find out you’ve transferred in. A little too coincidental don’t you think?”
Elizabeth felt her face contort into a look of pure disgust, “My parents died. I transferred because Aliea is the only good place with proper boarding. Are you happy?”
“Whoa,” Kai jumped back, his face morphing through a plethora of emotions, regret the king of them all.
“They died,” she mumbled. Her heart clenched up, and tears fell down her face. Her head ached terribly, as though someone were piercing her with a hammer and nail.
“Mom...”
***
“Guys, we have a problem.”
Taylor opened her eyes and saw Kai running around waking everyone up.
“Chris you need to come with me,” he shook her awake.
“What’s going on?” Taylor asked.
“Elizabeth’s in a coma.”
The statement immediately registered and she snapped awake. In seconds they were at the infirmary.
“I put her on the table before I came to fetch you guys,” Kai said.
“Move back,” Chris pushed them aside and got to work.
She attached a few sensors to Elizabeth’s arms and legs. A few screens came to life and displayed some readings Taylor couldn’t make head or tail of.
Chris, though, looked concerned, “She’s stable.”
“What’s wrong?” Taylor asked. “Isn’t that supposed to be good?”
“It’s like there’s nothing wrong with her. But she’s asleep.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Even with a coma there’s lowered brain activity. But she’s just showing that she’s asleep.”
“Maybe she really did fall asleep?”
Chris looked at Kai, “You said she fainted right?”
“Right before my eyes.”
“You don’t faint into this kind of deep sleep,” Chris said. “What happened before she fainted?”
“Umm…”
“What?”
“I prodded into her personal life and she got mad at me.”
Chris looked at Elizabeth again, “Doesn’t help out with the diagnosis. It isn’t emotional trauma either. Her brain waves are normal.”
“What do we do then?” Taylor asked.
“Well, the readings say she’s asleep,” Chris turned to everyone. “So we just wait for her to wake up.”
***
Q was completely mystified.
He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, but all of a sudden he was back at his favorite run down building, sitting next to broken wall, looking out at an ocean of stars.
“Nice to be back huh?” a voice came from the darkness behind him.
He squinted hard, but there wasn’t enough light for him to make out a thing.
“Doesn’t it feel good to run away from all those things?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ahh, denial,” the voice cackled. “Such a useless emotion isn’t it? All it can do is delay the inevitable.”
“Who are you?” he walked towards the darkness.
Something small rammed into his chest and he fell towards the edge of the floor.
A man appeared out of the darkness, dressed in a black suit. His gloved hands wielding a wooden cane, and his masked face void of all emotion.
“The question is not ‘who are you’,” he leaned closer to Q. “It’s ‘who do you want to be’.”
“Q?” he heard Taylor’s voice nearby.
“Taylor don’t-”
The man shifted into the shadows, and when he came back out he had his hands around Taylor’s neck.
“Let her go!” he threw his hands into the air, desperately trying to summon some sort of attack.
“Yes. YES,” The man’s voice filled itself with jubilation. “You can’t save her boy. You’re powerless. You’re weak. And yet, you think you can protect her. You think you can protect everyone,” he laughed.
All of a sudden, his face turned serious and his voice went deep, “Don’t get so full of yourself.”
Q’s breathing started to intensify. His head began to ache.
“How horrifying it must be for you, to watch your friends vanish,” he tightened his grip on Taylor’s neck and she disintegrated on the spot, “And by vanish, I mean permanently,” his laughter cackled through the empty room.
“What did you do to her?” Q yelled out, his body still frozen from shock.
“What I’ll do to you next. What I’ll do to every single one of you, but this time, it’ll be slow, painful, torturous,” he laughed madly, “When I’m done with you, your life will be so horrid that death will be but a sweet pleasure to escape into.”
Q felt himself fly past the line of
all rationality. He charged at the masked man.
“My, what an enthusiastic crowd we have,” he looked at Q dead in the eye.
A block of solid air charged into Q and he flew back to the broken section of the wall.
He caught the side of his ribs. He’d definitely broken a few.
The man whistled gleefully as he walked towards him, “Youth these days, thinking they can do anything they want,” he stopped next to him. “I think you need to chill. Go take a dip.”
He held his cane and made a golf swing. Q flew through the broken wall and out into the night.
The masked face peered down on him as he dropped towards the ground.
He didn’t think. He didn’t wonder.
He gave in.
He gave up.
***
Taylor was walking back to her bunk when wild screaming came from the bunkroom
She charged in to find Q lying in bed, asleep and flailing about.
“Q!” she shook him awake, almost throwing him to the ground before he snapped out of it.
He hugged her, his eyes filled with tears.
“Everything is fine,” she said.
After a minute or so, he finally let go of her and sat down on his bunk, hands over his eyes.
“Did you have a bad dream?” she asked.
He nodded his head.
“It’ll all be okay,” she ran her fingers through his hair. “Don’t worry about it. Get some more rest for now. You’ll need it. We’re about an hour away from Eonia.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice almost inaudible.
“I’ll be right here if you need me,” she said and walked out.
“What happened?” An alarmed Chris ran towards her. “I heard screams.”
“Screams?” Taylor asked. “Must have been your imagination. The Elizabeth thing probably got to you.”
“Oh,” Chris looked confused. “I guess that must be it.”
I’m sorry, Taylor thought.
She didn’t want anyone knowing that Q had a nightmare, especially one that was making him scream like that. It wasn’t necessary that she hid it, but she knew he’d rather keep it quiet than tell everyone about what happened.
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 17
