Hunt for the Pyxis

by Zoë Ferraris

  “And what’s the second thing?”

  “You have to say”—he pointed to the Almagest—“that this is a massive role-playing game, and that’s all that it is.”

  She clenched her jaw. “Before I do that,” she said, “I need the hammer and chisel.”

  “Why?” he asked. She stood and went to the sofa nook. From beneath the pillows she removed the smaller box she’d found, and brought it to the table.

  “I just want it to go on record that I think this is the worst idea in the universe,” Herbie said.

  “Okay,” Emma grunted, positioning the chisel at the edge of the wood.

  “If it doesn’t have a latch, then you shouldn’t open it,” Herbie said. “What if it’s—” Emma brought down the hammer, and the wood split with a satisfying crack. Herbie cringed. Slowly he opened one eye. “Booby-trapped?”

  “Clear!” she said, peeling away the wood as delicately as if it were an eggshell.

  Herbie leaned forward. On the table was an amulet.

  “The Pyxis,” she said triumphantly.

  “Okay.” Herbie looked a little less skeptical. “It looks like the one the kidnappers stole.”

  “It’s the real one,” Emma said. “It has to be.”

  “It could be some thrift store astrolabe for all you know.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Why else would my parents keep it hidden like this?”

  “Because they were taking the game seriously,” Herbie said, but he didn’t sound so certain anymore.

  Emma held the Pyxis closer to the light. It was a silver object that looked very much like an astrolabe: a single flat disk with ornate wheel plates fastened on top. The disk and the plates were carved with strange symbols that Emma might have guessed were Arabic inscriptions, just like those on the astrolabes she’d seen in the maritime museum. The only difference was that this astrolabe had a pair of blue-white stones fastened to the center of the disk. The stones glimmered like twin stars.

  “Remember what the kidnappers said about it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that it could send a signal all over the world in an instant,” Herbie said. “But technically, that’s not possible. I’m assuming it works with satellite positioning, but because of the shape of Earth, there will always be some kind of—”

  “What I meant was that someone would be listening for it,” she said. “That’s why the kidnappers were afraid to activate it. They were afraid that everyone else would come after them. But my mom told them how to do it.”

  “Yeah,” Herbie smirked, “but you’re probably not going to be able to activate it with your mind.”

  Emma clenched the Pyxis in her palm and shut her eyes.

  “Wait!” Herbie said. “If there’s one thing we know, it’s that these role-playing people take this stuff very seriously.”

  “So you think it might activate?”

  “Noooo,” he said. “It’s just—you never know what it will do.”

  She shut her eyes again.

  “Wait!” he cried. “Let’s just pretend that it’s possible, okay? If you activate it, then anyone could detect the signal, right?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “And actually…Herbie! This is how I can get my parents back! The kidnappers must have a way to detect the signal. If I switch it on, the kidnappers will come looking for it.”

  “Yeah, but they had guns?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “According to you, this is not going to work.”

  She laid the Pyxis in her palm. Herbie sucked in his breath and shook his head. “Emma, I don’t think this is a good…”

  She stopped listening. She was hoping that what Mom had said was true: you only had to wish it to start it. Did you have to say it out loud, or did you just have to feel it? And what would it feel like—a curious wishing? Or, like now, a desperate wishing—

  The Pyxis jumped. Emma’s heart leapt violently into her throat. Herbie nearly fell down in his scramble to get away. The Pyxis was jerking as if there were an animal inside kicking to be born. The blue-white stones at the center began to glow like lightbulbs. Emma and Herbie watched in amazement as the stones’ glow grew brighter—first shining on the silver disk, then lighting their faces, then pouring into the room.

  Emma dropped the Pyxis on the table, and the shaking stopped.

  Her chest was clunking, her whole body vibrating. She and Herbie stared at each other in shocked silence.

  “I was wrong,” he squeaked. “That was the worst idea in the universe!”

  They looked down at the Pyxis. It was quiet and still, but the lights hadn’t gone out. Now a faint blue sheen surrounded the amulet, and the light was pulsing like a heartbeat.

  “That is totally radioactive,” Herbie said.

  “It’s just a thrift store astrolabe, remember?” she whispered.

  “Put it back in the box.”

  But the box was lying in six pieces on the floor.

  “Okay,” Herbie said, his voice shaking. “Okay, we are totally overreacting. All that happened is a little light went on. And I know what it was.”

  “What?”

  “Those stones must be filled with a thermotropic liquid crystal. Their colors respond to changes in temperature. All you have to do is get them warm enough and they’ll switch on. It’s basically an advanced type of mood ring.”

  Emma still couldn’t catch her breath. “I don’t think it’s a mood ring,” she said numbly. “I think this is real, and that’s why my parents didn’t want anyone to find it.” Carefully, she hung the amulet around her neck and tucked it into her shirt.

  “You really shouldn’t do that,” Herbie said.

  She went to the table and flipped the map open again, replacing three of the meteorites. The fourth one she kept in her fist.

  Herbie sat down at the table beside her. “Look, I’m sorry about your parents,” he said, casting her a worried look. “I know the police are going to find them.”

  She squeezed the stone. “My dad could be dead by then.”

  “He won’t be,” he said. “But I think this might help the police. We should tell them about the game.”

  “It’s not a game.”

  “Okay,” he said carefully. “But we should tell them about it anyway.”

  “Do you smell that?” She tilted her head. “Something smells like chocolate. I think it’s”—she opened her palm—“the stone.”

  Herbie frowned.

  “Smell it.”

  He leaned forward and his expression changed. “Yeah, I think I’ve sort of smelled it before.”

  She lifted the stone to her mouth, sticking out her tongue for a probing taste.

  “No! No, wait!” Herbie cried, leaping up. “What if it’s toxic? You don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s not going to kill me. Why would it smell like chocolate if you’re not supposed to eat it?”

  “Look.” Herbie was getting frantic, his cheeks reddening. “I believe you,” he said. “You’re right. There’s probably something else going on with the Pyxis and this book and…I don’t know what, but it’s totally possible. One thing we do know is that these gaming dudes have some serious tech. And you don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s chocolate.” Emma, still frowning, opened her mouth and lifted the rock, but Herbie leapt forward and grabbed her hand. For a moment their hands were locked in a tussle as each one struggled to gain control of the rock, but Herbie’s hands were bigger and stronger. He managed to pry it out of her clenched fist. She shrieked and grabbed his wrist, determined to get it back. He very unfairly used his strength. Emma countered by raising her foot to the bench behind him. Herbie, realizing that he was about to lose the tug-of-war, could only manage to strain his head down and reach for the rock with his teeth. Emma shrieked. It startled him so much that the rock popped free and flew straight into his mouth—perhaps with a bit too much force. It seemed to hit the back of his throat and gag him. A look of surprise came over his face. Emma released him an
d fell back.

  Spitting brown drool, Herbie gave a wincing, revulsed swallow. He finished by executing his notorious “lizard hiss,” which involved an open mouth, bared teeth, Jurassic-era sound effects, and a blitzkrieg of spittle.

  Emma was flabbergasted.

  “OH EM GEE GNARLY!” he spat. “It totally melted in my mouth!”

  “It melted?”

  “It wasn’t a rock!”

  “It was chocolate!”

  “No! I mean, it tasted like chocolate, but it was texturally ewwww.”

  “Uhhh, Herbie…” Emma fell back, feeling woozy, and pointed to his stomach, where a large, transparent blob was emerging from his shirt.

  Frantically, Herbie pulled up his shirt. A jellylike coating was pouring through the skin of his stomach, spreading up his chest and down his legs. Squealing, he stuck out his arms and backed up, knocking into the wall. He could hear Emma shouting, but muffled by the jelly skin, it sounded far away and added to the horrifying sense of being cocooned in sludge.

  “HELP ME!” he shrieked.

  She couldn’t seem to hear him. He moved toward her, but she leapt desperately behind a chair to avoid touching him.

  The sludge kept spreading, stopping only once it had covered every inch of his body. He was panting, squeaking, staring down at himself in horror.

  All of a sudden the sounds around him grew a little louder. Almost normal. It occurred to him that nothing hurt. In fact, his nose and mouth were filled with the flavor of chocolate. And it seemed that he could breathe, and the wacky goo wasn’t spreading onto the rest of the boat. He tentatively lifted a shoe off the floor and noticed it wasn’t sticky on the outside. It had only encased him.

  COOL!

  Emma looked stricken. He raised his arms, rolled back his eyes, gave a deep groan—MAAAAAAAAH! —and began lumbering toward her, just to see her completely freak out, her face an explosion of terror, her body a tangle of confused limbs as she launched herself, tripping, over the kitchen table and into the booth behind it with a thunk.

  He broke into wicked laughter.

  She was on her feet in an instant, heading for the hatch, when she saw him laughing. Her shoulders fell.

  “Oh, seriously?” she cried.

  He ran a hand over the skin of his jellylike coat. It was ever so slightly bouncy. In fact, he felt as if he could float.

  She exhaled and made an effort to smooth her shirt.

  “Emma,” he said, looking a little surprised. “This is a serious game.”

  Emma watched Herbie carefully for a while. He didn’t seem to be in pain.

  “I’m going to try it too,” she said. She leapt up and took one of the stones from the shelf. Surprisingly, Herbie didn’t protest.

  The stone was a deep, rich black, and she pressed it gently with her fingertip. It was hard at first, like a regular stone, but as she kept pressing, it began to feel softer, smoother. Finally her finger sank in with a squish like a spoon into a glob of jelly. The stone was oily and cold, and she jerked away.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  She lifted the stone tentatively to her mouth. It smelled cold and clean and vaguely metallic, but when it touched her tongue, a delicious flavor exploded—chocolate and raspberry and coconut cream.

  She slid the stone gingerly onto her tongue. It dissolved at once into a hot, sugary substance as it slid down her throat, spreading its warmth through her chest and arms. When it reached her stomach, an intense flash of heat burst through her body. She felt tingly and numb, and, looking down, she saw the same jelly growing over her skin and clothing. Within seconds it had covered her completely. She touched it with her finger. No amount of poking was going to break it. Smooth and impenetrable, it was just like a second skin.

  “Wow,” she whispered. Thoughts were popping into her mind too fast for her to keep up, but one emerged quite suddenly: Dad would have known what this was. He’d probably used it before. In her mind’s eye she saw both of her parents coated in this jelly skin just like she was now, and she felt a stab of betrayal.

  She slumped onto the sofa. “They never told me any of this.”

  “Maybe it’s an adults-only game,” Herbie said.

  “I can’t believe you still think this is a game. My parents were kidnapped because of this thing.” She held up the Pyxis. “My dad was shot.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We have to assume it’s real enough for some people and that we just activated the Pyxis too.”

  “And the kidnappers are going to come back for it,” she put in.

  “We can’t be here when they come,” he said.

  “They could be here in, like, ten minutes or something.” She stood up. “We should assume they’ll come soon. But we just want to talk to them, right? I’ll tell them we’ll give them the Pyxis in exchange for my parents.”

  “They have guns,” he said. “Remember?”

  “Fine. So we’ll hide the Pyxis somewhere else, in case they try to take it.”

  “We can’t do that,” he said. “If they’re following the Pyxis’s signal, then wherever we move it, that’s where they’re going to go. We don’t know how specific their sensing devices are.”

  Emma exhaled. “Right. Okay, so we’ve got to rig up some way to trap them.”

  “I think we should call the police.”

  “No! They’re not going to believe us.”

  Herbie raised his arms, motioning to the skin. “They’re not going to believe this?”

  “They’ll probably accuse us of making things up. Besides, I don’t want them to know where the boat is, in case they confiscate it or something.”

  “Emma, we have to call them.” He reached for his phone. “At the very least we should go somewhere safer. A public place. Preferably the closest police station. I don’t know where that is…. ”

  “This is the safest place,” Emma said, heading for the ladder. “We can make a quick getaway if we need to.”

  “Wait—where are you going?”

  “To get the harpoon gun.”

  Herbie’s phone would not stop ringing.

  “Emma,” he moaned. “It’s my mom again.”

  “DO NOT ANSWER IT.”

  “We are in so much trouble.”

  They couldn’t leave the boat looking like this. The skin had not worn off—they didn’t know if it ever would. They had waited for over an hour. Emma figured it was only a matter of time before Herbie’s mom realized he was still there and came looking for him. She hoped that the jelly skin would be gone by then.

  Anxiously, they stood side by side on the ladder, peering out the hatch and watching the marina. It was dark, and the air was bracingly cold. Emma could feel it through her jelly skin. Even though sounds were slightly muffled, she could hear the familiar clanking of metal rings against the ship’s masts as they bobbed in the water. She scanned the marina, her breathing louder now, amplified within the gooey coat.

  “If the kidnappers get here before my parents do,” Herbie said, “I think we should just start the boat and get away.”

  “But I have to talk to them.”

  “The harpoon gun isn’t going to scare them,” he said. “They’ll shoot us both.”

  The clatter of wood sounded near the harbormaster’s office. Emma and Herbie craned their necks to see. Gradually, they made out the silhouette of two men on a pier to the right. They seemed to be climbing to their feet.

  “Is that them?” Emma whispered.

  “No. Those guys are bigger,” Herbie whispered back.

  The men began moving silently down the pier, heading in their direction. As they came closer they passed beneath a streetlight, and Emma and Herbie saw their clothing. They wore long wool coats and dark-blue breeches with scuffed white boots. On each man’s head was a tricornered hat plumed with feathers that resembled ears of wheat.

  “Okay, what’s with the Revolutionary War costumes…?” Herbie said.

  But Emma c
ould just make out a logo on their chest pockets. It looked like stars in the pattern of a constellation. The stars were outlined to show the shape of a woman with wings. Virgo.

  “I don’t think those are Revolutionary War…Oh no,” she whispered, gripping the harpoon gun in her hands. “They have guns.”

  They could see them now—long rifles with white bayonets at the end.

  One of the men stopped and fished a small trinket from his collar. When he turned in their direction, the trinket began glowing blue.

  “It looks like they’re tracking a signal,” Herbie said.

  “Shhhhh!”

  The men looked up. They motioned to the Markab. “Pyxis,” one of them whispered. “It’s over here.”

  Emma figured that the men were part of the…game? She didn’t know what to call it. But she did know that they were coming straight for the Markab, and that they had guns, and that if she didn’t do something—anything—they’d both be in more serious danger than they’d been in all night. Making up her mind, she scrambled onto the deck. Herbie looked surprised and leapt up behind her. She raised the harpoon gun, but her hands were shaking.

  “Stop where you are!” she cried.

  The men stopped. One of them held up the blue amulet, realized that she was the source of the transmission, and motioned to his partner. They started running toward her.

  “Don’t come any closer!” she shouted. “I’m warning you!”

  Herbie rushed to the wheel and started the engine.

  Emma dropped the gun and made a leap for the pier. She tore the rope free, releasing the boat, and leapt back onto deck just as Herbie put the engine in gear, jerking forward so hard that she fell on her rear.

  Behind them, the men dove for the boat but missed, splashing into the water. Herbie gunned the engine and headed straight for the marina gates.

  “Who were those guys?” he shouted.

  “I don’t know!” Emma shrieked.

  The men scrambled back onto the pier and went racing down the walkway. They were tall and fast and managed to catch up, running alongside the boat.