Marcel formed several orbs from his morphacite and used them like mini battering rams on the bricks, creating an opening large enough to walk through.
“What on Earth are the two of you doing?” said John, resuming his communication with them.
“I made a hole and Marcel made it bigger,” said Jack.
“For what reason?”
“We haven’t had luck finding anything so far, and there could be something at the end of this tunnel. It looks like it was sealed up a long time ago,” said Marcel.
They began their trek down the tunnel. A long line of lights with filaments that burned out many decades before adorned the walls of the forgotten passage. After a few minutes’ walk, a wrought iron door blocked them from further exploring.
“What do you say we both use our morphacite at the same time to make quick work of this?” said Jack.
“Agreed.”
After breaking through the iron barrier, they soon came upon the beginning of a ghoulish arrangement of human skulls and bones.
“What is this awful place?” said Jack, never before seeing such a macabre sight.
“It looks like a mass grave of some sort,” said John, viewing the scene through the Searchers’ body cameras.
“I . . . I know where we are,” said Marcel, showing a look of disbelief. “I remember my grandmother telling me ghost stories of this place when I was a child. As she told it to me, when burial space for Paris’ dead became scarce and cemeteries began to overflow, ancient stone mines were used to hold the bones of the deceased. The underground tunnels and chambers became a sort of mausoleum for the bones of millions of Parisians. Honestly, I thought it was just a parable about the dangers of overpopulation.”
“I’ve never heard those stories,” said Jack.
“It’s likely you wouldn’t have,” said John. “I’ve just looked up the history of your location on one of my screens and it’s showing me that the knowledge and images of the mass burial were redacted from being online at the same time the entrance was sealed up. It seems to have been done in the hopes of preventing the bones from being taken or the property defaced in any way.”
“So this is the place—the place my grandmother called the Catacombs,” said Marcel.
“Yes. I believe that’s exactly where the two of you are,” said John.
Richard was surprised how fast he, Garnet, and Ferra were able to find morphacite at the cape they warped to. Buried behind a sign that read ‘Besparmak Trail’ in English was a small windfall of new morphacite.
“This is great!” said Garnet. “Didn’t I tell you the Searcher division wouldn’t find squat without me back in the field? And here we are, digging around and finding a nice cache of morphacite. I’m not saying I’m a lucky charm, but I mean . . .”
“Oh, hush,” said Ferra.
“Richard, what do you and your team have to report? It looks like I’m already seeing you’ve made a discovery,” said John.
“That’s right, sir,” he responded. “The girls and I were lucky enough to come across this lot of morphacite fairly fast, once we arrived.”
“See, even Rich thinks I’m a lucky charm,” said Garnet.
“Maybe you do bring luck,” said John. “I couldn’t be any more pleased with your results so far, team. Keep up the good work. You’re the first of all three groups to find something.”
As Bridgett and Alexie were close to cresting the hill, and Butch was out of earshot, Bridgett’s curiosity of Jack and Alexie’s relationship was getting the best of her. To prevent John from also overhearing, she switched her and Alexie’s outgoing telecom signals to mute.
“C’mon, Alexie, you gotta give me all the dirty details.”
“You don’t need any of the details.”
“Yeah, but I’d really like to know how things have been going between you and Jack. I’m your friend, aren’t I? Friends share this sort of thing with each other. Besides, Jack was being tight-lipped about it and, in addition, wouldn’t let me in his brain to have a look for myself.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Bri. I’m glad Jack and I have gained enough cognitive skill to keep eavesdroppers like you out of our minds!”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better about that sort of thing. Now, would you please fill me in a little about what was going on between the two of you? He seemed distressed about something, before we headed out on our missions.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible.”
Bridgett sported a sad face and knelt down on one knee in front of Alexie, putting her hands together, as if to pray and beg for more information.
“Okay, get up and stop groveling, you twit. Jack and I have been doing fine. It’s just that . . . recently he’s had concerns about that notebook Marcel found, as well as today’s missions. That’s all.”
“What kind of concerns?” said Bridgett.
“I don’t want to say too much, but, to get you off my back, I will tell you he and I may be questioning the true intent of the Searcher division and what the things we bring back from our missions are being used for. I mean, everything with Rakiten and the Archon is so steeped in mystery—it’s creepy.”
“I thought we were only supposed to refer to him as ‘the founder.’“
“Oh, to hell with that,” said Alexie. “I’ll say ‘the founder’ in front of John, but call him his real title when talking to my friends. The stakes are equal for all of the Searchers, but John may be held in high regard by the Archon. For all we know, in their eyes, we could be considered expendable.”
“Geez, I can’t say I’ve thought along those lines before. Well, not in such specific terms,” said Bridgett.
“Look, you’re my friend right? And friends can keep things between them,” said Alexie. “If you ever want to talk to me about how you truly feel, I’ll be there for you, Bri. And I know you don’t mean anything by asking how Jack and I are doing, so thanks for keeping tabs.”
“Anytime,” said Bridgett, giving Alexie a strong hug.
“Ugh, okay, okay!” she said through labored breathing. “If you hugged any tighter, I think I’d implode.”
“Ha, sorry about that,” said Bridgett. “Let’s catch up with Butch and see what this old place has hidden inside.”
More than an hour had gone by as Jack and Marcel walked through the serpentine tunnels of the Catacombs. Each wall they passed was comprised of ancient stone, but hidden by a ghastly arrangement of human bones and skulls from floor to low ceiling, all with a heavy brown patina on their surface. Among the remains and subterranean passages, there had yet to be a sign of any relics or artifacts they hoped to discover.
“Anything of interest yet?” John asked.
“No, we haven’t found squat,” said Jack.
“Those tunnels the two of you are in stretch and intertwine for many miles, so don’t give up hope. Keep searching and you just might stumble on something.”
“Very well, sir,” said Marcel.
As they spent more time looking for anything of value among the macabre display, a beam of light from Jack’s suit briefly illuminated something that differed from the monotonous piles of ossified wall decor.
“Hey, did you see this?”
“What is it?” said Marcel.
“There’s a circular stone up there, placed high up among the bones.”
Marcel took out a holstered flashlight and shined it to where Jack was pointing his. Upon closer inspection, they both realized there were deep markings carved into its surface that resembled an exo.
“It looks like you may have found a clue,” said John, excited.
“Yeah, it seems like there’s something here, but what?” said Jack.
“It could be behind the stack of bones,” said John.
“Seems likely, but are you saying you want us to pull the skulls away from the wall?” said Marcel.
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting you do.”
Although they had reservations about going through with such an
act, Jack and Marcel got to work removing the stacked remains from underneath the carved stone disc.
A while after first discovering a trove of morphacite, Richard’s team wasn’t finding anything else in the mission area.
“This is a bust. Can we go home now?” said Garnet, stomping her feet in an infantile fashion as she walked.
“Would you cool it,” said Richard. “We’ve only thoroughly excavated one area and there’s still plenty more around us to survey.”
“But I don’t want to,” she said with a furrowed brow.
“Look, you and your sister walk to those trees in the distance and start digging underneath the most conspicuous one. I’ll stay here and excavate more around these large rocks. Just tell me if you find anything.”
Garnet rolled her eyes as Ferra started walking toward the outlying greenery. Frustrated with Richard, she placed her telecom on mute so he couldn’t hear any of the mean things she wanted to say about him as she followed her sister. After a short hike, they arrived at the place Richard wanted them to search.
“Which one?” said Ferra, motioning to the first trees they came across.
Without speaking, Garnet simply grabbed one of her throwing knives and lobbed it at the largest tree of the bunch. A thud reverberated through the salty air when the knife pierced the bark and embedded itself deep in the sapwood. As the sisters were about to start digging at the tree’s base, Garnet noticed a knot with a recessed hole high up on the other side of its wide trunk. Curious to see if anything was placed inside, she ran a short distance away and implanted three more throwing knives into the trunk to act as steps for her to ascend. After some light-footed jumps, she was able to peer inside the hole.
“You’re not going to believe this, Ferra, but I think I found something!”
Garnet reached in and pulled out what looked to be an old leather satchel, weathered and shrunken from the untold years it spent within the tree. She tossed the item to Ferra and collected her knives from the trunk after jumping back on the ground.
“Well, go on, let’s open the thing,” said Garnet.
Ferra began to open the satchel’s main flap, causing the leather to tear apart and crumble like old bread. Inside the defunct bag was a collection of six warp crystals.
“Would you look at that,” said Garnet. “Told you I’m a lucky charm!”
After gloating, she sent a telecom link to Richard and told him of the discovery, which he was elated to hear about. He made haste to contact John and tell him the good news.
“That’s wonderful,” said John. “I’ll be mostly talking to Jack and Marcel from this point on as they make headway with a recent development on their mission, but continue to keep me updated on anything else you and the twins are able to find.”
“Will do,” said Richard.
After Butch unceremoniously leveled the door to the storehouse over the hilltop, he, Bridgett, and Alexie entered the structure to find a mass of scrolls and books stacked every which way throughout the interior space.
“Looks like we have a good bit to look through,” said Bridgett, excited. “I think I’ll begin with some of the scrolls.”
“Sounds good,” said Alexie. “I’m going to clear a spot in the center of the floor for us to place the things we’ve already looked at, so we don’t accidentally look through something someone else already examined.”
The three Searchers began to read over the papers and tomes stored around the room, discarding anything unimportant in the center. There were many hand-written notes on the scrolls Bridgett inspected and several books containing contemporary stories. One after another, reference books of a nonfiction variety were being found by Alexie and Butch. After a sizable mound of undesired writings collected at the room’s center, Bridgett found something that elicited her to emit an audible gasp.
“I think I’ve got something here!”
Alexie and Butch added what was in their hands to the discard pile and walked over to see what Bridgett had found. The scroll she unrolled was similar to what had been previously discovered: Ancient Greek writing and sketches of exos with a variety of other sketched artifacts adorning the surface.
“Seems like this mission won’t be for nothing after all,” said Bridgett.
As skulls continued to be pulled away from the wall, an ancient arched door of stone began to reveal itself. Below the medallion with the etched image of an exo was a collection of eccentric circles carved into the surface that overlapped in various places. Lodged into some of the circles’ channels were different-sized fragments of morphacite.
“What we’re looking for could be directly behind that door,” said John. “Marcel, Jack, let’s see what’s on the other side.”
Marcel approached the door and tried first to push it open. When that didn’t work, he placed his hand on the embedded morphacite and attempted to remove it from the stone. Instead of levitating outward toward him, the fragments began to change position and move around the circular tracks they were placed in.
“What is this about?”
“I think I may know,” said Jack, assuming the morphacite could be part of a saved secondary state. “Let me give it a shot.”
After placing his hand on the door, the primary positions of the implanted morphacite shifted around the circles’ circumferences at different speeds until they reached their final position. The earth began to shake as the heavy door shifted down until it was standing no more than a couple feet off the ground, revealing a new opening for Jack and Marcel to venture into.
“It looks like you’ve cracked the code, boys,” said John. “Proceed through, but still take caution.”
Keeping their wits about them, they stepped over the arched top of the sunken stone door and began walking down the dark passage. Like the tunnels that came before, the walls on either side were covered from floor to ceiling with an untold number of neatly arranged skulls and bones. Instead of level ground beneath their feet, a steady decline led the two deeper below ground.
“I can’t see what we’re heading toward at all. It’s nothing but pitch dark beyond what my flashlight is illuminating,” said Jack.
“I’m seeing the same thing you are,” said Marcel. “This isn’t the time or place to be scared of the darkness. Pull yourself together. We don’t know what may be ahead of us.”
“John, do you copy?” said Richard. “. . . I repeat, this is Richard. Do you copy?”
“Yes, yes, I read you. What is it, Rich?”
“The girls and I have been at this location for several hours now and I believe we’ve found everything it has to offer.”
“And you’re sure you’ve searched the area thoroughly?” said John.
“Yes, sir. We have a lot of morphacite and several warp crystals to bring back. It was a successful hunt for relics, I would say.”
John thought for a moment, shifting his gaze from the collection of feeds on his screen of each team’s body cams.
“Okay, if you think there’s nothing more to find, you and the twins make your way back to the facility at your convenience. I’ll continue to keep a close watch on the other teams we have out there.”
“We’ll be seeing you shortly,” said Richard.
While continuing to keep his eyes transfixed on what Jack and Marcel were seeing in the Catacombs, John checked in on Alexie’s team.
“What’s the situation in the storehouse?”
“We’ve found at least five different scrolls so far that’s just like the one we discovered in that cellar in Russia,” said Alexie.
“That’s great news!” said John.
“There’s still plenty of writings to sift through, though,” said Bridgett.
“Heh, you could say that again,” said Butch.
“You’re all doing a great job. It’s wonderful to hear you’ve been finding what our founder has been asking for the most. Keep searching the building and bring back as many pertinent writings as you can find.”
Alexie had a feel
ing of satisfaction as John praised them for their discoveries and encouraged them to continue analyzing all the written materials left in the room. However, the blissful sensation soon turned sour when she was overcome with a feeling that something would soon go wrong.
What’s the matter? said Bridgett, forming a cognitive link with Alexie after noticing a concerned expression on her face.
Nothing. I’m fine. Just had a strange feeling.
It looks like you’re worried about something.
As crazy as it sounds, I have a strong suspicion that something bad is about to happen, said Alexie.
Like what? Do you think the rogues are going to come here? said Bridgett, nervous.
I don’t know. Just . . . let’s keep our eyes and ears open for anything that may be coming—anything that looks or sounds suspicious.
No worries, I’ll stay alert, said Bridgett.
An ebony door began to appear from the darkness as the slope Jack and Marcel walked on began to level out while approaching the passage’s terminal end. Across each of the sections comprising the door were intricate carvings, baroque in the nature of their design.
“This may be it, boys,” said John. “There’s no telling what’s on the other side of that door. Be sure to proceed with caution.”
Jack and Marcel looked at each other, wondering which one would reach for the onyx doorknob first.
“After you, Jack,” said Marcel.
“Oh, what a gentleman you are,” he said, grasping the cold handle and turning it counterclockwise until the resistance keeping the door shut disappeared. Jack slowly pushed it open while he and Marcel held up their flashlights to see what contents were on the other side. As a precaution, Marcel also kept a group of morphacite spikes aloft in case of a run-in with something or someone unexpected. They entered into a small, standalone room filled with shelves of manuscripts, tall closed-door cabinets, a menagerie of loose morphacite and warp crystals, and a morphacite container holding unknown treasures within. The video feed John received from them was fuzzy, but he could still make out the kinds of things Jack and Marcel were seeing.
The Relics- The Keystone Trilogy - Part 1 Page 24
