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Devika and Nico emerged from the thorneway into the middle of a jungle on Havendesh. Hot, humid air blasted them. After only a few seconds, Devika fingered her silver explorer suit, expecting it to be soaked. It was still dry to the touch.
A path wound through towering, vine-covered trees. Shifting statues—holograms or videos—lined the path, evenly spaced every half-dozen meters. The statues of creatures resembling a shark, a snail, snakes, a fox, and a bear acted out real life actions atop pedestals. Meanwhile a pyramid, a cube, and other geometric-shaped statues rotated on their bases. What powered them?
“Think there’s AC in the temple?” Nico asked, brow already covered with sweat.
“I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.” She had grown up in this kind of heat and humidity in Kolkata, India. But seven years living with regulated temperatures onboard Space City had dulled her tolerance.
She wished Anand were there, so she could bring up the little house in Kolkata where they’d run around playing Chhupam Chhupai or Gilli Danda. Anand had always filled whatever they played with little pranks. Mischievousness had come naturally to him, while it had been a learned skill for her, thanks to his antics.
The memories threatened to make her cry, so she concentrated on the people studying the statues: A family of five with young children taking pictures around a bear statue; a handful of teens her own age joshing around a fish; a group of Azzaro and Macab taking notes as they examined a complex, multi-sided geometric shape; and a group Devika guessed were veterans preparing for another stab at the Evanesco with plenty of gear in tow.
Mosquitoes buzzed all around their heads, drawn by the sweat of everyone out here. Good thing she’d gotten an anti-malaria shot before coming.
Other than the mosquitoes, birdsong in the canopy overhead offered the only other sign of life in the jungle, though that was to be expected with so much traffic on the path.
They passed around a bend in the path to discover an enormous pyramid made from greenish stone poking up above the canopy. Devika halted, breath catching in her throat as she took it in. Blinking once to activate her eye contacts, she did a quick check of the Space City database. Black text appeared in the air, providing general information about the pyramid, including that it stood one hundred and fifty meters tall. It also housed the Evanesco trial.
She marveled at not only its size but its perfect sloping lines. She had no doubt the pyramid’s geometric structure was precisely aligned.
“I should build one of those in a sim,” Nico commented. “The perfect place for a trial.”
“Why do you need a sim trial when you have a real one right here?” she asked.
He grimaced as he focused on the pyramid.
She groaned to herself, wondering why she hadn’t thought that comment through before speaking. They proceeded for a few minutes in an uncomfortable silence.
Over fifty people milled about outside the pyramid’s entrance studying pillars covered with the language of the Evanesco, the vanished. She accessed the Space City database and looked up the Evanesco on her wrist-comp. That is so strange. The database has their complete alphabet but doesn’t include their name.
“Oh man!” Nico exclaimed. “My candy melted.” He held a couple of candy constellation wrappers in one hand, chocolate oozing out of them. Peeling a wrapper open, he dumped the goo into his mouth, then he offered her a bag of rainbow licorice, also covered with melted chocolate. She declined.
“Well, let’s get inside before the rest gets ruined,” he suggested.
“I think it’s already ruined.”
He sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I can’t sell any of it to anyone here. I’ll just have to eat it. Can’t let it go to waste.”
To the left of the entrance, a mini replica of the pyramid rested on a gray-green pedestal. Six people surrounded it. The data from her eye contacts indicated that the replica displayed the first riddle—two lines in an alien language finely cut into the stone.
Devika scanned them with her wrist-comp, before backing out of the way while her wrist-comp translated the text.
“What does it say?” Nico asked, popping another chocolate constellation into his mouth.
The translated riddle appeared on her wrist-comp.
What belongs to you but is used by everyone else?
“My candy before I sell it,” Nico ventured.
“I’m betting these aliens didn’t design a trial based upon your candy business,” Devika deadpanned.
A logical answer didn’t immediately come to mind.
“What belongs to me, but everyone else uses?” she mumbled. She glanced at her gray t-shirt, purple shorts, and tennis shoes. Nothing on or about herself would be used by others. She supposed she could share them, but that didn’t seem right.
Something that belonged to her, but others used it. If Anand were here, he’d fire off ideas. Toss out all kinds of random options just for fun, or to distract people. Eliminating all his wild ideas made it easier for her to hone in on a correct answer. Or else she’d just learned to focus through his chaos. Either way, she missed it.
She tried to imitate his rapid fire guesswork. Her dorm room held her bed, the clothes in her closet, a dresser, pictures; these things belonged to her, but she used them. What would she own for the purpose of others? More specifically, what would she have in common with this lost alien civilization?
“If you think about it from the perspective of the Evanesco, this pyramid belonged to them, but they left it behind for us to use,” Nico said.
Devika shook her head. It was a literal answer, but didn’t fit in her mind. Too easy.
Again, it struck her as odd to have a pyramid with a trial, statues, and tools from a lost alien civilization, but not have their identities.
“Oh!” Devika grabbed Nico’s arms, her eyes widening. “Name.”
“What?” Nico asked, cocking his head a little.
“Name!” Devika repeated. “The riddle asked what belongs to you, but everyone else uses it. The answer is your name.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Nico agreed.
“Congratulations on solving the first riddle,” a bald man with eyeglasses said, giving them both a smile. He gestured to three pedestals off to the side. “You’ll find your reward for solving it over there.”
Devika and Nico hustled over to the pedestals. One word adorned a simple, handled box on each one. Devika scanned the words with her wrist-comp.
The first one translated as ‘Pyramid.’
“I told you it was a plausible answer,” Nico said.
Devika rolled her eyes. “Still the wrong one.” She scanned the middle word, which translated as ‘Air.’
What was life like for these aliens that air was one of three possible answers?
But that was a question she couldn’t answer, so she turned to the third word, which her translator revealed as ‘Name.’
A group of teens she’d seen earlier strolled up to the boxes. A freckle-faced boy walked up to the box with ‘Pyramid’ on it and lifted the handle, revealing another word on a marble surface, which he scanned.
“Serpent twins,” he read from his wrist-comp.
“What’s that?” a brunette girl with blonde highlights asked.
The freckle-faced boy pointed back up the path into the jungle. “One statue we passed was of a pair of snakes. I bet there’s a clue.”
He took off, the rest of the group in tow.
Devika snorted, before raising the handle on the box with the word ‘Name’ adorning it. Inside the box, Devika found another marble surface with three words etched into it. She scanned it and got back:
We are the Etaem.
She frowned, showing the results on her wrist-comp to Nico. “We are the Etaem. Why did everyone refer to this alien civilization as Evanesco if their name was given here?”
“To preserve the trial,” the bald man with glasses said, approaching. “We’ve known their name since the first visit to this temple, but we want to preserve the mystery of the trial for anyone who comes to attempt it. The name is not recorded in the Space City database, nor shared with anyone from Space City who hasn’t solved it themselves. Congratulations on joining our cadre. I promise it only gets more intriguing from here.”
“Thank you!” she told him, feeling the smile spread across her face. She couldn’t wait to get inside and learn what came next. There would be no waiting to try later. No returning to Space City without at least exploring the pyramid and testing herself.
Granted, the first riddle hadn’t been difficult. But the moving statues, giant pyramid, and number of people here taking the trial spoke to its promise.
Time to test herself.