The Relics- The Keystone Trilogy - Part 1

by Michael K. Damron

  “Okay, people, the coast is clear on the second site and it’s time to move out!” said John, yelling loud enough for all to hear.

  Marcel had the appropriate warp crystal ready in his hand. He held it aloft and opened a rift as the rest of the team grabbed their equipment scattered about the room and made a hasty dash for the second site.

  They were transported to the base of a large structure of runes at the foot of a mountain, surrounded by a thick jungle of vegetation.

  “We need to survey the outside perimeter first, before entering the temple together,” said Richard. “Garnet and Ferra, keep your eyes between the entryway and our surroundings so we’re not susceptible to an ambush.”

  The girls kept watch while everyone else inspected the surrounding area, observing the same kind of digging that was at the previous site they visited. This included many holes in which the earth surrounding them rippled outward. As nothing was found at the foot of the ancient temple, the Searchers proceeded to enter the dark runes. The lights attached to their suits automatically turned on to illuminate the narrow corridors. They split into two teams of three while the twins remained a team of two. The winding passageways eventually led Jack, Alexie, and Bridgett to a single, large room.

  “It looks like there’s some sort of ancient pedestal for worship at the back of the room,” said Bridgett, directing more light on where her gaze was focused.

  “That’s exactly what it looks like,” said Alexie.

  Jack was already walking toward the stone platform in question. On a small podium, there sat another note with a morphacite seal to weigh it down.

  “John, are you seeing this?” said Jack.

  Alexie and Bridgett gasped in sync as they saw what he picked up.

  “The video feed’s gotten worse as you’ve gone farther inside the temple. I can’t see you, but I can still hear you. What is it you’re looking at?”

  “I think it’s another one of Mark’s notes,” said Jack.

  “Dammit . . . Read what it says to me,” said John.

  “All right, sir, if you insist.”

  Jack removed the morphacite and spread out the paper, reading its contents aloud.

  Bamboozled once more, I’m afraid. Sad to say, John, but you and your Searchers will need to start getting used to it. We’ll always be a step ahead. As much as I would like to go on delighting in my success, I must offer the Searchers who entered this ancient space a warning: Under no circumstance should you touch any of the morphacite along some of the passages. There are dangerous electrical traps set by this temple’s guardians a very long time ago. We’ve ran into this sort of thing only once before and it proved to be nearly fatal. We would have disarmed it, but we had no idea how the shock wave’s blast would affect the temple’s crumbling structure.

  Good luck, Mark

  “We shouldn’t trust him,” said John. “His warning could be a misdirection.”

  “Yeah, but what if he’s telling the truth,” said Alexie. “I think we need to make sure everyone heard about the traps, just in case they’re in real danger.”

  “I’ll tell them to proceed with caution,” said John. “All Searchers, do not touch any morphacite you may come across. It could be part of a trap and will need to be recovered by another method. Sound off with your name to signify you heard my command.”

  “Butch, loud and clear.”

  “Marcel, got it.”

  “Richard, loud and clear.”

  “Garnet, Ferra, do you copy? . . . Garnet, Ferra, respond promptly . . .”

  “Why aren’t they answering?” said Bridgett, worried.

  “Richard, do you know the whereabouts of the twins? Are they anywhere near your group?” said John.

  “No, they went down a different passage than us,” said Richard. “Didn’t Mark’s note mention the trap to be electrical? It’s possible it could be emanating a field strong enough to disrupt what they’re hearing.”

  “But that would mean they’re close to the trap!” said Jack.

  Without a second thought, he ran through the leftmost passage and began calling out for Garnet and Ferra. Alexie and Bridgett followed close behind and added their voices to the hunt. As the serpentine path split in two different directions, Alexie followed Jack right while Bridgett went left. Jack continued calling out, “Garnet! Ferra!”

  “Relax, we’re over here,” said Garnet, her voice reverberating through the chamber as Jack turned the corner and saw them from a distance. “We just found the mother lode!”

  She already had her hands on either side of a morphacite container and began to lift it off the ground.

  “DON’T!” yelled Jack, thinking fast and forming his morphacite staff into a large flat sheet.

  He hurled it in front of Garnet and Ferra as the electrical blast began to detonate. Alexie turned the corner just in time to see the scene. Visible shock waves erupted from a device on the ground, sending a discharge of bolts through the passage where they were standing. Garnet, who was closest to the blast radius, was hit by the greatest amount of electricity, burning through some of her clothes and immediately knocking her unconscious. Ferra, close behind, took some shocks to her right side as she tried to reach for her sister and pull her out of the way. Although Jack was several meters away from the blast, a bolt shot through his clothes and made contact with his left forearm, searing its lightning form onto his skin. Alexie ran to make sure he was all right as he fell down in pain.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said, holding his arm. “Go help them!”

  Alexie rushed over to where Garnet’s body was lying. Ferra kept trying to talk to her sister and nudge her out of unconsciousness.

  “Wake up! Wake up, Sis!”

  “What’s happening over there!” said John, his question reverberating loudly in everyone’s in-ear telecom.

  “Garnet’s hurt bad!” said Alexie, unrolling the leather case holding the warp crystals. “Ferra and Jack are injured too, but conscious. It’s too dark to properly assess how bad their injuries are. I’m warping back with them to the facility right now, so have all medical staff ready to go. Marcel, Butch, and Richard need to find Bridgett before warping back. She split from us and went down a different passage.”

  Alexie held the appropriate warp crystal in the air and opened the portal. Jack stumbled over and assisted Ferra with bringing Garnet into the main area of the Searcher facility while Alexie held the rift open. Medical personnel began filing out of the stairwell to address the injured. Seeing the state Garnet was in, they began removing her outer layer of clothes and strapping her onto a scoop stretcher.

  “We need to take her upstairs immediately!” one of them yelled.

  Four of the personnel carried her on the stretcher to the elevator. Ferra tried to follow, but was held back by one of the other medical staff.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “They’ll get her treated right away. You can visit her when she stabilizes, but we need to treat the damage your body suffered too.”

  Ferra didn’t want to, but nodded her head in agreement.

  “Just take deep breaths and know that your sister’s in good hands. We’ve been trained to handle all kinds of trauma.”

  “Okay . . . please let me know the moment I can see her,” said Ferra.

  “I’ll make sure you’re the first to know. Now let’s get those injuries of yours taken care of.”

  Jack was also being tended to, having his left arm observed by another member of the medical team.

  “So you said electricity did this?”

  “Yeah, bolts shot in every direction and one clipped me,” said Jack.

  “It charred you pretty good, but the crazy thing is that it appears to already be scarring up.”

  “Hm, that is strange,” he said, not revealing his exo’s ability to rapidly heal him.

  “Let’s head upstairs to clean and dress this wound so there’s no worry of infection.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jac
k.

  Are you sure you’re all right? Alexie said telepathically.

  Yes, I’ll be fine. I’m thankful you didn’t get injured by the blast.

  Me too. Come and get me if you need anything. Okay?

  You got it, said Jack, waving bye and smiling as he walked into the elevator.

  Even as the night grew longer and the burning sensation had left his arm, Jack couldn’t find the peace of mind necessary for sleep. He reread much of the secret material in his father’s notebooks that involved Mark’s theories on the nefarious desires of Rakiten and his boss, the Archon. There was a certain way his dad described the premise that made it seem as though he may have even believed Mark’s line of thinking. As sleep continued to elude him, Jack began to wander around the halls and floors of the facility to collect his thoughts. In time, he found himself rummaging through the kitchen pantry. Trying his best to stay covert, so as to not be caught sneaking a late-night snack, he avoided flicking on the main lights and used only the ambient glow given off by the various appliances and electronics in the room. As Jack searched for the perfect food to graze on, he heard the familiar sound of a portal sizzling open and saw the flicker of blue light radiating from the common area. Succumbing to curiosity, he quietly kneeled down, peered through the open doorway, and spied John standing in front of the portal as a shadowy figure walked through, followed closely by what appeared to be a pitch-black leopard. Upon closer inspection, Jack saw that the leopard was actually a large mass of morphacite resembling the animal and controlled by the shadowy figure of a man.

  “You didn’t have to come here. It would have been easier to do this over screens,” said John.

  “I feel that a personal visit is more of a motivation for you to do as you’re ordered,” the man said.

  “I’ve already told you, we’re searching for the kind of artifacts the Archon is looking for like our lives depend on it.”

  “Your lives do depend on it, especially yours, John.”

  The man looked at his morphacite leopard, which shifted into the visage of a lion and assumed a menacing stance toward John.

  “Is that supposed to be a threat, Rakiten?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE TRUTH ABOUT SANCTUARY

  So that’s who this guy is, Jack thought.

  Rakiten’s face twisted into a grimace. “As the Archon’s patience grows thinner, you’ll find the threat on your life will evolve into a promise.”

  “Your familiar doesn’t frighten me. In fact, I grow fonder of its cat forms every time I see it. And have you realized it’s always ‘the Archon this’ and ‘the Archon that’ with you? You don’t have any real power. You’re just a glorified messenger boy, armed with an exo and a large hunk of morphacite. I’m the one putting in the legwork and making things happen around here. I’ve guided the Searchers in finding almost every artifact and relic that’s helped with the division’s growth and progress. The Archon should be grateful for what we’ve discovered thus far, not disappointed with what we haven’t.”

  “And yet you’re falling out of his favor. Mark and his rebels are beating your precious Searchers to the punch when it comes to finding what the Archon desires,” said Rakiten.

  “Hm, maybe you could also recruit them to do your bidding, then you’d have two teams’ asses to shove your arms into and play puppet master.”

  This comment led to the morphacite lion lunging at John, which liquefied as it struck his body and enveloped him from the floor to the base of his neck. As Rakiten walked closer, several spikes of morphacite were freed from the mass and levitated to surround John’s neck. Jack noticed small trickles of blood beginning to come from where the spikes contacted his skin and wondered if it would be worth trying to intervene in the situation, however futile his help might be.

  “Are you finally going to do me in? Send me to my maker?” John said through labored breathing, trying his best to keep his neck motionless while the spikes remained just below the surface of his skin.

  “The day will come when I wipe your existence from this reality, but it will not be tonight. You obviously know nothing of my true power, thus you jest and believe you’re somehow important in the grand scheme of things—something more than just a pawn on life’s chessboard. I have weighed and measured the essence of your soul and know you’re not cut out for the position you occupy.” The morphacite spikes drifted away from John’s neck and reunited with the mass still entrapping him. “The Archon will extend his mercy, for the time being. If you continue your current spree of failures, the consequence will result in your final termination. And let me assure you, I will leave nothing of you behind—no flesh to putrefy and desiccate, no organs left for insects and vermin to feast on, not even your hair or bones. You will be missed by the Searchers for a brief moment in time, then your memory will be forever lost to history. That is your fate if the Archon doesn’t get what he desires. I don’t care if you discover ancient writings on scrolls, papyrus, clay tablets, or stone tablets. Just find them.”

  “We’ll find what the Archon is looking for,” said John, his voice showing noticeable trepidation.

  In an instant, the morphacite fell from John’s body and assembled into the original leopard shape it entered the room as. Rakiten then pulled a warp crystal from an inside pocket and opened a rift.

  “Au revoir, John,” he said, disappearing through the portal with his familiar.

  Jack watched as John rubbed his neck and looked at his hand to see how badly the punctures were bleeding. As he walked toward the elevator, his defeated posture made it seem as though he was carrying a tremendous weight on his shoulders. After the coast was clear, Jack stood up and paced around the kitchen for a time while contemplating the heated exchange between John and Rakiten. He had formed morphacite into animal shapes before—mostly birds—but had never seen anyone else with the ability to make something as lifelike as the leopard and lion he just witnessed. It seemed as though Rakiten could control the crystalline animal with little effort. In his experience, he always felt the need for total concentration when manipulating morphacite, while Rakiten’s skill made it seem as if it was second nature to him. When the finding of ancient writings was mentioned as being of dire importance, Jack wondered what information the Archon was hoping to uncover. To Jack’s recollection, there was no mention of ancient texts or writings of the sort in his father’s notebooks. The question of their importance would continue to linger in his brain. A slight stinging sensation in his injured forearm brought his mind back to the electrical explosion that happened earlier. Wondering how Garnet was recovering after receiving the brunt of the blast, he made his way to the medical ward area of the facility.

  As Jack drifted from window to window in search of where Garnet was being held, he turned the corner down another hallway and saw Ferra standing in front of a large pane of glass, transfixed. He guessed she was keeping an eye on her sister. While he approached, Jack heard a voice enter his head.

  I didn’t think anyone besides me would be up this late.

  Jack looked around to see if anyone else was nearby. It sounded like it could have been Ferra’s voice, but he wasn’t sure. She continued to peer through the window at her sister, seeming to not notice he was a short distance from her.

  Thank you for protecting Garnet and me from the explosion. She probably would have died without your quick thinking, said Ferra, turning her head toward Jack after surprising him with a second telepathic communication.

  “I had no idea you could form cognitive links,” said Jack.

  “Garnet and I both can. We chose to keep it to ourselves when it first started so we could talk to each other in secret.”

  “Ha, that was a clever thing to keep between the two of you . . . How’s Garnet doing, by the way? Has she woken up at all?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Ferra, looking stoically at her sister through the glass separating them. “I’ve tried to talk with her telepathically since the accident, but she won’t
respond.”

  “I know this is terrible for you,” said Jack, unsure of the best words to say in such a heavy situation. “What I mean is, it’s sickening for your sister to be in such a grave situation when you’ve only just started to get to know one another in the real world. How long ago was it since you came out of VR?”

  “A little more than a year,” said Ferra. “Look, I know that’s how it’s normally referred to out here—a virtual reality—but it was the only reality I knew for twenty-three years of my life in cryo-sleep. It became real to me from the moment I entered.”

  “Yes, of course. I didn’t mean anything by calling it a virtual reality. To be honest, I don’t know much about the digital worlds they put siblings into. It’s not discussed much on the news. The topic of siblings is considered faux pas to talk about anyway, although I’ve had a conversation with a friend about it before. It seems like the companies in control of the VR tech try to stay out of the limelight.”

  Ferra shifted her gaze from Garnet to Jack when he mentioned sibling facilities, but remained quiet.

  “Um, when you say you were in a digital reality for twenty-three years of cryo-sleep, did time seem to go by slower or faster for you than what you’re currently experiencing in the real world?”

  “Slower in some ways, faster in others.”

  “Which VR world did the AEB place you in as a baby?”

  “Sanctuary.”

  “Wow, you don’t say,” said Jack, scratching the back of his head. ”You know, this is going to sound like a crazy coincidence, but I went to school with someone named Hao Zhu. His grandfather was the guy who actually started Sanctuary. In fact, his dad wants him to be a high-level executive in the company, but all he’d like to do is escape into Sanctuary and do artistic things the rest of his life. Ha, mental, right?”

  “I don’t blame him for wanting that, especially if it makes him happy. I’d go back in if I could,” said Ferra.