CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Most of the group was, for some reason, laughing about the stupidity of their competitors when the mood finally changed. I had more than partially disconnected so I don’t remember the exact details of what they were discussing but it had something to do with the safety measures inherent in teleportation devices—that teleportation should only be attempted in a professional and spacious setting such as ours.

Hearing that perked me up. Teleportation?!? Finally! Something interesting! Too bad they’d only glossed over it, as a sort of passing comment. I was just about to try and inject myself into the conversation, to ask about these devices, but, before I was able, Lulenne—full of sudden exuberance—suspended all other discussions and yelled out, “Got it!”

The golden analyzer box, on the table in front of her, had abruptly given one final declarative ping and, in doing so, flung itself open once more. At the bottom of the box, where Kidada had laid it, sat the same truncated crystal fragment. On the inside top of the box, where, before, there was nothing, there now existed a small screen displaying foreign characters I had never before seen.

These symbols, which appeared more hieroglyphic than phonetic, were slightly obscured by Lulenne’s arched body. From what I could tell, no one else in the room had a clear line of sight on them either. Even so, they all seemed just as thrilled as Lulenne. All at once, they cheered and congratulated her in their own individualistic ways.

I was feeling optimistic that I might finally have a means of bypassing the crystal that had displaced me—that I might consequently escape from the lunacy to which I was being subjected—and so I asked, “Does that writing in there mean you figured out how to help me?”

At first, I thought Lulenne had turned her face toward me to say something but I soon realized she did so, so that her eye, on the side of her head, had a better view of that exotic text, on the inside of the lid. “Oh!” she exclaimed, upon further examination. “Wow! This is pretty simple, actually.”

At this, I heard the group begin to passionately murmur to itself—everyone but Matt. He raised his eyebrows, in order to play along with everyone else’s enthusiasm, though, from what I could tell, he appeared to do so more out of a sense of obligation than wonderment. Witnessing his behavior caused me to question if his lack of conviction pointed to perfunctory indifference on his part, or exaggerated theatrics put on by everyone else.

Reading her findings aloud, Lulenne then addressed the group, thereby silencing their whispers. She then explained to all of us what she learned from the analyzer; more specifically, she told us that only a bloodstone, from the Parallel Embers dig site, in the Ariestian desert, to the south, would satiate the crystal that had disrupted my world. She furthermore told me, in particular, that Steel would show me how to retrieve it and that, for everyone else, it was business as usual.

After the group had finished congratulating her, she addressed her son: “It’s been a while since you’ve done anything like this, Steel!” And then, to Kidada, she turned and playfully teased, “You think he’s ready?”

“Yup!” Kidada cheerfully chirped back.

As soon as she did, Steel ordered her to go and get him some coffee. “The good stuff,” he then clarified. “The kind in the back—not that tar we have out here.”

“Yup!” she responded once more and flew out of the room, behind me.

“Everyone else good on everything?” Lulenne then asked, in a tone that suggested she was about to conclude our meeting. The group then chitchatted for several minutes about topics so foreign to me I couldn’t even begin to try and explain them.

Eventually, Kidada returned and presented Steel with another tiny cup, resting on its own saucer. “Your coffee, Your Majesty,” she said, as she handed it to him.

At this, Lulenne rose out of her seat, to her full standing height. I hadn’t noticed before but it was clear to me now, by the way she carefully avoided it, that she had banged her head on the light fixture above more than once. With the group’s attention focused on her, she began to explain, “I’m gonna go back to my office and stu… oohh!” She was interrupted, though, when Steel—coffee mug in hand—flew directly toward her marsupium and forced his way in, without a thought or a care. “Excuse me,” she then said, before resuming her speech. “I’ll be in my office, for a while, studying this nugget.”

From inside Lulenne’s shorts, I heard her son address me, in a muffled voice: “James, you can just hang out for a bit. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be with you shortly. Do you want some coffee?” he then asked, in a strangely amenable way.

I actually would have preferred to take him up on the offer, to perhaps ingratiate myself to him a bit more, but, alas, I had quite a disdain for the addictive brown liquid. “Oh, uh, thanks,” I started to tell him, “but I don’t dri—”

“Kidada!” he barked, before I could finish.

“On it!” she merrily retorted and then flew out of the room, as she had done so many times before.

We were all standing now. As Lulenne turned and stooped under the door, I watched her furry back pass into the larger room. Out of politeness, I tried to hide my relief. Sitting in that room had drained me of what little energy I still possessed and I was desperate to escape.

Finally, Lulenne banked right and cleared an exit path for me but, before I could take it, Kidada quickly blocked it and greeted me with a smile. Hovering at chest level, she extended a human-sized coffee mug toward me with much gusto. “Here you go,” she happily said.

***

As I walked out of the meeting room and into the larger portion of The Hive’s ground floor, everyone scattered to their various corners.

Lulenne crouched down and, utilizing her powerful legs, catapulted herself upward, landing on a rickety wooden walkway two floors above us. With each of her monstrous steps, she freed large clumps of dust, dirt and other nameless crud that had been caked onto the wooden beams beneath her paws. Combined, it formed what looked like a giant brown cloud. Before gravity separated the cloud’s various components, making them all harder to see, I watched it lazily disappear, on its way toward the ground, where I stood, looking up at it.

From my new vantage point, I could see, more so than before, that the walls above us were in worse shape than I had previously assessed them to be; that is to say, from where I stood now, I could see the sections of missing wall were more numerous than I had once thought they were. Though I wondered, I had not the heart to ask whether they had naturally disintegrated through time’s cruel embrace, or if they had been purposefully removed, by roaming pilferers.

The sun was up now. Because of its presence, through the various voids in the edifice, snowy beams of light shone into the room, illuminating isolated sections of space. That dismal sight, along with the chill that accompanied it, worked in unison to emit an unmistakable sense of desolation from within this strange place.

From down below, I watched Lulenne saunter inside of the closest corner office. From my vantage point, it looked abandoned, though I can’t truly attest to the room’s furnishings beyond its somewhat misshapen doorway.

Joy scuttled off, toward one of the cubicles in front of me. I remarked, to Kidada, something about it looking tidy over there, as I watched Joy enter through the opening of a cheap, mismatched, three-walled partition.

Kidada smiled and agreed, all while leading me back to that isolated desk I had noticed earlier. It was in a large, open area, in the middle of the room. Before taking my seat, I watched as Mark annexed a station directly to my left, while Matt situated himself at the one to my right.

“I’ll be right behind you, if you need me,” Kidada explained, motioning toward the empty, Kidada-sized, reception-like desk behind me, close to the sliding glass doors through which I had originally entered the partially-organic building.

Somewhat overwhelmed, I thanked her, watched her departure, set the coffee I didn’t want on the desk in front of me and began sinking into the chair that was offered to me. No sooner did my backside come to rest in its pillowy embrace, though, did Kidada recapture my attention once more, zipping past me and snagging the name plaque that had been displayed, on my desk.

“Oops!” she abruptly exclaimed, before the gust of wind that her sudden appearance created had even finished running itself through the back of my hair and neck. “Lemme just get that out of the way for you.” I could tell she was hoping I hadn’t read the nameplate so, for her sake, I pretended I didn’t. Being only four letters, though, even I was able to decipher it before she snatched it away. Quite simply, it read: “Zeke.”

“Thanks,” I told Kidada confidently, though, in reality, I wasn’t sure for what exactly.

“No problem” she cheerfully retorted. She also told me, before darting away, back to the reception area behind me, to make myself comfortable and that Steel would be down soon. Then, some much-welcomed silence. I knew it was likely fleeting but I happily devoured it nonetheless.

Mildly relieved, if for only a moment, I took the short reprieve from strange questions and daunting arguments to survey my surroundings a little more closely. Right away, I began to dwell on the placement of my desk and how it was different from the others. It existed in the middle of the room, in a fully open space, without any physical barriers surrounding it. I appreciated the fact that I wasn’t walled in, as the others were, but, in truth, I might as well have been. I say that because the individual cubicle coverings encircling the others kept me from seeing any of their faces, effectively making even my own spatial freedom nothing more than a mirage.

In front of me, I could see the back of Joy. To the right of me, a velvet wall hid Matt and another one did the same to Mark, on my left. Behind me, I could see Kidada but only if I felt inclined to turn my chair completely around and, at the moment, I didn’t.

Due to its unique layout, I presumed this area was intended for some sort of training purposes. It was in the clear center of the room, which was devoid of almost any furnishings—save for my chair, my desk and some odd-looking, metallic contraption that I hadn’t noticed before, situated directly in front of me. It was egg-shaped, about three feet tall, with a multitude of vents protruding out from virtually every inch of it. Only in the center was there a smooth, vent-less area. There, multiple blue wires extended out the front, falling to the floor and meandering off in various directions.

Leaning forward in my chair, I focused on one particular wire and followed it back to something that vaguely resembled a phone, prominently displayed right in the middle of my desk. It was rectangular in shape and it sat upright, in a vertical fashion. On the left-hand side, there was a panel of buttons with symbols I had never seen before; on the right, simply a blank screen of some sort. Other than a stack of papers and an empty paper tray, in the corner, this device was the only object occupying space, on my desk.

Listening to everyone go about their routines, as if I wasn’t there, made me feel like I was in a waiting room somewhere… perhaps the waiting room of an auto repair shop, or maybe a dentist’s office. In either case, as with this one, I was an outsider—an observer only—and I was waiting helplessly for someone on the inside of the organization to resolve my situation. Paradoxically, I always loved and, at the same time, hated being in such positions. I loved that someone was helping to solve my problems but hated the fact that I had no control over their level of concern, engagement, time management or empathy.

Under normal circumstances, I would turn to my cellphone, in order to attempt to disengage from odd and uncomfortable dynamics such as this but, in its absence, I was afforded no such escape here. Instead, I was forced to listen to the constant clicking caused by the incessant pushing of little plastic buttons snapped into the frames of what I had assumed were cheap, commonplace, plastic desk phones, like the one anchored to my own desk.

Hearing just one person repeat that less than euphonious sound would have been demoralizing enough but each of the occupied cubicles had its own passive-aggressive clicker, pounding away at his or her own machine—all but Kidada’s that is. Not to be outdone by her comrades, though, she kept busy pecking away at her own, different-sounding plastic keys. Her tapping resembled the sounds dual keyboards would make. God only knew what she was inputting into them.

The clicking all around me was relentless, although no one ever seemed to answer any of it. Click-click-click. Pause. Click-click-click. Pause. Click-click-click-click… Then about sixty seconds of quiet. Finally, a frustrated sigh, a single click and then the cycle repeated again.

Searching for something with which to distract myself, as I waited on Steel, I began rooting through the drawers of my new desk. All of the drawers, however, were empty, save for the top one, which contained several blue ink pens. On the desk itself was an aforementioned stack of papers, all containing three columns of repeated characters, followed by blank spaces.

I was bored so I uncapped my pen and held it a few inches above the paper, awaiting inspiration of some kind. None seemed forthcoming however. Ultimately, I decided to sketch something.

As a former artist, I thought it prudent to try and capture Lulenne’s visage so that I might better remember it later. I was, therefore, quickly dismayed when I discovered that the pen betwixt my fingers held no ink. Still, I was mildly determined to sketch because I felt it would help to pass the time. There were two more blue pens in the drawer and, in attempting to carry out my design with each of them, I soon learned that they were both dry as well. I scribbled violently, attempting, in vain, to loosen the flow of ink but it was not to be.

Just then, quite unexpectedly, I heard a loud popping sound, accompanied by a bright flash that had emanated from Joy’s area. Naturally, my eyes were drawn to her corner of the room to investigate. To my surprise, however, she was nowhere to be found. I hadn’t seen her get up and leave and I couldn’t imagine a giant spider-woman, scurrying across the floor, would have been hard to miss. Had that flash and popping noise injured her in some way?

As I pondered these questions, the strange, metallic egg in front of me hissed loudly and emitted a puff of smoke, which shot out from its numerous ventilation ducts and quickly dissipated into the air around it. Concerned for Joy’s safety, I spun around and addressed Kidada: “What was that? Where’s Joy?”

“Looks like she connected somewhere,” she cheerfully responded.

“What do you mean? Connected how?” Just as I finished my question, I heard another pop and saw another flash that both came from Matt’s area, to my right. A few seconds later, the machine in front of me vented itself once more.

“Oh!” Kidada exclaimed. “Looks like Matt got one too!”

“It was weird for me at first too,” Mark then injected. “Basically, we’re teleporting into various dig sites.”

“These are… teleportation devices?” I then asked.

But Mark didn’t answer. His gloved hands were already clicking away, while he concentrated on trying to find a connection of his own. He had no marsupium to keep him warm, nor did he have feathers or fur of any kind. As I suddenly came to realize this, I began to consider offering him my coat, when Kidada interrupted my thoughts and picked up where the young frog had abandoned the conversation.

Kidada explained how I should think of Lulenne and her team as “archeologists of sorts.” She told me how they “visit” dig sites in order to acquire various materials within the Earth. Her explanation sounded rehearsed so I decided not to press her any further.

As the morning dragged on and I waited in vain for Steel, Mark eventually began teleporting as well. From what I could tell, Joy seemed to flash and pop the most often and was gone (presumably on those aforementioned sites), for the longest stints of time. Matt wasn’t far behind, traveling almost as frequently and staying gone for almost as long. Mark, however, connected much less often and, when he did zap away, he usually popped back after only a couple minutes. Still, all three of them seemed relaxed and confident in their daily routines.

Hoping to echo that sentiment, I finally removed my coat and slung it onto the back of my chair. I was still cold but, over the last few hours, I had warmed up enough that I could stand separating it from my body and, in doing so, I hoped to squash any musings that I might appear rude or ungrateful.

Before too long, the venting egg, flashing lights and popping sounds lost some of their luster and became almost commonplace, which left me bored with the whole ordeal. Through violent scribbling, I tried several times (all unsuccessfully) to coax some ink out of my three defunct pens; Kidada pecked away at her keyboard; Lulenne and Steel were absent and the rest of the team continued to use those curious devices on their desks to whisk themselves off to places unknown.

It wasn’t long before my head was down in my arms, which I used to form a circular pillow, on the top of my desk. I used to sit that way in high school too, as my teachers droned on about various propagandist and overall useless trash, but there, at least, I was able to sleep.

It was then that I first noticed I had been absent-mindedly scratching at my right forearm for some time now. Upon further inspection, I learned it was slightly discolored, as though something had bitten me. I hadn’t, however, felt anything to that effect. Intrigued by the mystery, I was just about to ask Kidada her thoughts on the matter, when a certain buzzing above my head caused me to stir and abandon my inquiry.

***

Sitting up and looking toward the noise revealed that Steel was hovering above me. As I assumed a proper sitting position, he landed on the empty, broken and dusty letter tray, at the back corner of my desk, about three feet in front of me. “Sorry about the wait, James,” he offered. “You doing okay there?”

“Yeah… Thanks,” I politely lied. “I was jus—”

“That pen not working?” he scoffed. It would have been clear to anyone who gazed down on those copies in front of me that I had been scribbling on them with an inkless pen. Though there was no trace of the intended stain, the impressions the dry tip carved into the paper were unmistakable.

“Apparently not,” I stoically admitted.

“Well, there’s more in the drawer, I think.”

“Actually, none of them seem to be working.”

“Really?” he asked, as though he was more than a little surprised. “I think Mark has some,” he then told me, as he flew off towards Mark’s cubicle, before disappearing behind its cheaply constructed walls. I could hear him opening drawers and rooting around his desk. Luckily, Mark was off to wherever his teleporter had taken him.

“I can’t find any,” Steel shouted back, over the wall. After that, in an openly frustrated tone, he let loose a particularly nasty string of expletives.

“It’s fine, Steel. Not a big deal.”

That didn’t deter him though. He explained to me that he was going to teleport himself to wherever Mark was and ask where he kept his extra pens. On Mark’s behalf, I quickly interjected, disclosing that I really didn’t need any and that I would prefer if he didn’t go after Mark to ask.

“Really?” he questioned. “Okay, well, let me know if you change your mind.” He then emerged once more, rising above Mark’s cubicle walls and hovering somewhere in the space between our desks. He was holding a bright yellow stone of some sort. I was surprised too, for it was nearly as big as he was. He must have been very strong for his size.

“Kidada!” he then called out, under labored breath he had failed to disguise. The helpful bird-girl flew over and, as she did so, Steel groaned a bit and passed the stone over to one of her outstretched hands. “Put this on the mineral furnace,” he then commanded. “I want to keep it warm. It’s not what we want but it might be the best we can find.”

“Was that in Mark’s desk?” she asked.

“Yeah. Everything else in there is garbage. I can tell just by looking that it’s way too old. Either that or it’s not expensive enough. Let him know, will you?”

“Understood and yes,” she confirmed and flew back to her desk.

“Was the coffee good?” he then asked me, fluttering over to my area and buzzing softly above me. From his vantage point, he could have clearly seen, should he have cared to look, that my coffee cup was completely full; I had not taken even a single sip.

For a moment, I glanced at the cup and then back at him. I couldn’t see his eyes, behind those miniature sunglasses, but his head was tilted in a way that suggested they were focused elsewhere. “Yeah,” I told him, as I began scratching my arm once more.

“Yeah. That stuff’s great,” he attested, keeping his head turned toward Mark’s area, as he did so. He then began moving closer to Mark’s station until, he was hovering right over where I posited Mark’s head would have been, had he been sitting there. “I wonder if those pens fell behind his desk…” he then pondered aloud to himself.

“Steel!” Matt then yelled out, dragging the ape-armed insect out of his contemplative musings about the location of pens. Matt had recently popped back in and had apparently heard some of our exchange.

“Huh? What?” Steel answered back, as if he had just been pulled from a dream.

“James just wants to get out of here. Can you show him how to do that now, please?”

Steel then looked at me, to see if Matt’s statement had any truth behind it. I allowed my eyes to show that it did and so the little monkey-armed insect agreed to help and apologized, once more, for the delay. Upon hearing that, Matt began clicking away once more and, before I knew it, he was gone with a flash and a pop.

“Okay,” Steel began to lecture, “this is pretty easy, actually. I’m going to enter the coordinates to the dig site, in the Ariestian Desert. No one there will recognize you so I’m sure you’ll get through easily.”

I was going to experience teleportation! Trying to mask my excitement, for fear he would retract his offer, I fought back a smile and simply nodded my head.

“Okay, now listen up,” he said. “This is important. You’ll appear at the front gate. With this particular site, that’s as close as we can get you. Now, that could certainly change for us, if you’re able to get inside, so we’re rooting for you as much as you’re rooting for yourself!” I didn’t understand what he meant but I could see he was in no mood for questions so I remained silent. “When you get there,” he continued, “just walk in boldly, like you own the place. Don’t ask permission to be there. Demand it!” he shouted.

“I don’t know if I can—” I started to say, though I wasn’t able to finish.

“You have to demand it!” Steel interjected, with abounding conviction. With imposing irritation in his voice, he began roleplaying with himself and said, “As soon as someone asks you what you’re doing there, get curt and ask, ‘Where are the bloodstones buried?’” He sounded angry, as he spoke the words. “’Yeah? How do I find them?’” Then, in a tone I would have thought exclusive for reprimanding poorly-behaved dogs, he screamed, “‘Well, what else are you mining here?!? Really? Where’s that found?!?’” I could tell he was very pleased with himself, as he demonstrated this faux conversation aloud, for Kidada and myself to hear.

“It’s hard for me to treat peop—” I began to softly protest, before Steel cut me off once more.

“You’re too friggin’ nice!” he accused. “I can tell already! Cut it out. Be mean! Also, don’t give ’em your real name. Tell them you’re an expert digger and get offended if they ask any questions. Just say, ‘Just point me toward the bloodstones!’ If they still want to know who you are after that, give ’em a fake name. Tell ’em: ‘It’s Shawn; where are they?’ If they still want to know what you’re doing there, make something up and then immediately demand she point you in the right direction.”

“Really?” I asked incredulously. “Are you su—”

“I’m the friggin’ King of Bristles!” he screeched back. “Just do it. And make sure you find ones that are under fifty thousand years old.”

“How would I even begi—”

“Just bring back as many as you can. I’ll be able to tell, just by looking at them. The more you can bring me, the better our chances.” After affirming as much, Steel flew behind the metallic egg in front of me and began tinkering with something beyond my visual scope.

“Okaaay…” I projected toward the area where I believed him to be hovering but I was beginning to lose faith. My arm was itching again but I barely noticed. My thoughts were elsewhere. I was no expert and I didn’t want to allege to be one either—especially if I would be claiming it to someone who was likely to be one him or herself.

I hated deception; besides, I lacked the ability to determine the age of any rocks—bloodstone or other. Had Lulenne told me I needed those skills to succeed, I would have never agreed to follow her in the first place. True: Steel had offered to tell me which ones were too old but that just meant I would have to bring him multiple stones. Taking one was bad enough but he wanted as many as I could carry.

When he reappeared in front of me, holding a black, egg-shaped object not much bigger than a golf ball, he said, “Once you have them, all you need to do is hold this device and say the word ‘hornswoggle.’” Upon uttering this, he dropped the object into my hand and explained, “Once you do that, you’ll be teleported back here. You can say it at any time, actually, to return here. The machine’s been specifically calibrated to respond to that phrase.”

The miniature egg was heavier than it looked. It seemed solid and not easily breakable. Unlike the larger one across from me, this one was vent-less and smooth too. It was also cool to the touch. I studied it for a moment, before dropping it into my pocket—all while Steel was finishing his instructions. In a more somber voice, when he was done, he told me that he had something that required his attention but that Kidada knew the transmission code. She could punch it in, when I was ready.

With that, he used his wings to retreat toward the sliding glass doors behind us. He must have been too small to set them off on his own though. Without having to even request her assistance, Kidada immediately flew over and hovered in front of them, until they opened for him and he flew out into the sunlight.

Almost immediately, I felt a palpable levity in the room. I can’t well describe it but it was clear—almost like a drop in barometric pressure that sailors can feel in their bones. It felt as though the censorship of an authoritative regime had just crumbled and its people were suddenly allowed to speak freely, for the first time. Seizing that feeling, I addressed Mark, my froggy friend who had just popped back into the room. I had hoped he might be able to clear something up for me.

“Hey, Mark,” I called out, in the direction of his makeshift cell.

“Yeah?”

“He keeps saying he’s the King of Bristles. Does he mean ‘Brussels,’ like ‘Brussels, Belgium?’”

Before he could answer, though, Kidada flew in, between our two stations, and, hovering there, she asserted, “No; it’s Bristles.” At this, I furrowed my brow and Kidada said, “How do I explain this? Um, Okay! You remember how we’re sort of… archeologists, right?”

“Yeah; that’s what you said.”

“Welllll, Steel formed his archeological career around helping coprolite excavators. Coprolites, by the way, are ancient, fossilized poopies, heavy in calcium phosphate, silicates and other various minerals—in case you didn’t know.” I didn’t. “Anyway, that’s his specialty. Coprolite sites are obviously rich in coprolite but they’re deficient in most other areas, which means they need other commodities, like Tanzarillium and bloodstones, in order to keep the Earth’s defenses at bay. You with me so far?” Before I even finished nodding, she excitedly added, “Well, Steel has a knack for getting those coprolite excavators to purchase Tanzarillium, bloodstones and lots of other rare stones—so they can excavate their sites without having to worry about crystal barriers and other various defense mechanisms.”

Mark must have taken my silence as a cue that I wanted further clarification and so he began to give it to me, before I had the chance to verbally request it. “So,” he then began, “You know the bristles on those plastic toilet bowl scrubbers?” I responded that I did.

Unable to contain her excitement, Kidada then waved several of her arms about and exclaimed, before Matt could continue, “We call him The King of Bristles because he’s always digging out new opportunities in coprolites—the way the bristles on a brush dig out hardened excrement in a dirty toilet bowl.”

I was flabbergasted by all of this—to the point that I didn’t even know where to begin deconstructing it—and so, for a moment, I said nothing. Kidada then filled the silence, explaining, “It’s because he and the brush both dig out—”

“No; I get it,” I assured her, before she had a chance to finish her repugnant analogy. “What does—” But, my question, too, would face an interruption, for, at that moment, we all heard Lulenne call for Kidada, through her office door, two stories above us.

Without any hesitation, the nimble little bird-lady darted toward my teleporter, input a sequence of keys and then flew off toward Lulenne’s. Before I could even ask what she had done, the screen flashed a bright light that consumed everything else in the room. Seconds later, when it faded and I was finally able to see again, I found myself standing amidst a sandy desert, which I presumed to be the Ariestian dig site.