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Devika held her breath, trying not to panic and failing as she lost her sense of Nico. Before she had time to so much as reach for him, the darkness dissipated, leaving her back pressed against him again.
Sunshine blinded her. She shielded her eyes with one hand. With the other, she reached behind her, latching onto Nico’s arm.
“What was that?” she asked.
“A thorneway,” he replied, his expression delighted. “The doorway between the Zethlir and fish rooms was a thorneway in disguise.”
She exhaled, letting go of his arm. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness of midday. They stood at the top of a ridge, with no thorneway frame in sight.
“How did we travel here?”
Nico whistled, eyes widening. “A mobile thorneway.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“We don’t have the ability,” Nico corrected. “Seems the Etaem did.”
She rechecked her surroundings for something obscure that could serve as a thorneway frame, but there was nothing but the ground beneath their feet for thirty meters in any direction. Down the right slope, the crumbling remains of an Etaem village lined a beach head. The structures, those standing, were pyramid-shaped. She recognized it as the beach city from the mural back in the temple. So those structures were actual octahedrons, with the bottom half underground.
Alarms on their wrist-comps made Devika yelp.
Warning! Warning!
Toxins detected
Distance: 5+ kilometers to the west
Levels: Undetermined
Summary: Western zone should not be explored without Level 4 safety measures
Warning! Warning!
Gloves emerged out of her sleeves, to cover her hands. Her helmet rose over her head to seal her into the suit. It was a safety feature built into the explorer suits to protect anyone who unknowingly entered a hazardous location.
Devika silenced her alarm. Down the ridge on their left, a blasted wasteland awaited where nothing grew. Dead tree stumps reached for the sky as if begging for rescue. Cracks cut through the ground in millions of places. The wrist-comp warnings exacerbated the ghastly sight.
“What was the shape of the missing constellation?” Nico grimaced at the wasteland.
“Icosahedron.” She wanted to get off the ridge and away from the danger zone. But how did they reactivate the thorneway to return to the temple?
“It’s tied to water, right?”
“Yes.”
He took a couple of steps backward. “I vote we head to the Etaem ruins on the beach.”
Since there was no obvious way to return to the temple right now, she nodded. “Agreed.”
As they walked down the gentle slope toward the beach, Devika sensed the wasteland looming behind them. The warning rang in her head, not easy to dismiss even though it didn’t apply to their present direction.
People appeared on the ridge behind them. Devika saw, or thought she saw, a dark black circle form for a fraction of a second, before each new person appeared. It happened so quickly, like the reverse of a flash of light, that she couldn’t be sure what she observed. Perhaps sensed was a better term?
Participants flooded through the thorneway behind them. Shouts of triumph reverberated through the new arrivals.
Four Azzaro women approached Devika and Nico.
“Are you the ones who figured out the thorneway?” one asked, a hint of astonishment on her face.
“We did,” Devika confirmed, bristling at the astonishment.
“She did.” Nico patted her on the back. “I’d have never figured it out.”
The woman’s expression transformed from surprise to respect. “After years without progress, we finally have a lead! Thank you!”
The other Azzaro offered their compliments and thanks. Devika wished Adrian and his group were there. She’d love to see their faces.
Their head start had evaporated. “Come on, Nico. We’ve got to pick up the pace. Soon this area will be swarming with participants.”
The contamination appeared confined to the wasteland, so Devika lowered her helmet, but kept her gloves in place. Broken glass from a shattered door littered the entrance of the first structure they encountered. As they stepped inside, a couple of lights turned on and a humming noise filled the room.
“This place still has electricity?” Nico arched both eyebrows.
Impressed, she nodded. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised with the temple still in working order, but these ruins were in much worse shape.
She approached a neat pile of tiny metallic blocks in the corner. Resting against the stack was a wand of similar material with a powered-on light. Nico picked up the wand, flipping it over as he studied it. The stack of blocks leapt in rhythm.
“What...?” She wished she’d grabbed the wand first.
He pointed the wand at the blocks, then at another spot in the room. The entire stack slid along the wall to the new spot where he had pointed.
“What are they?”
“I’ve got an idea.” He grinned and flourished the wand. The stack reformed in the shape of a bench.
“How did you do that?” She wondered if he’d interacted with this Etaem tech elsewhere.
“It’s thought-controlled, like our eye contacts. Or dictating messages on our wrist-comps with our thoughts,” he explained. “The wand is the interface. The Etaem used these blocks to form what they needed at any one moment, then transformed it to something else as desired.”
He waved the wand again, and the blocks transformed into a table. He twirled it and the table became a bed.
“That’s convenient,” she said in wonder, “though not necessarily super comfortable.”
“Try it out.” He gestured at the bed.
She backed away. “No way!”
“It’s not going to hurt you. Here, I’ll turn it back.” He brandished the wand again, turning the stack back into a bench.
She wanted to tell him to try it out himself, but that would be a childish response. Approaching slowly, she eased onto the bench. It had a rubbery feel to it.
“So? What do you think?”
“It’s okay.” She placed her palms down on it. There was a little give, but the bench was sturdy.
He waved the wand again. A couple of armrests rose, and the bench narrowed around her to a chair.
She yelped in surprise and jumped to her feet. “Not while I’m sitting there!”
“Sorry.” He laughed, clearly not the least bit apologetic. “I just wanted to test whether it would still respond to commands while you were sitting in it. Or if there was any sort of lock from contact.”
“At least you didn’t make it slip out from under me,” she said. If Anand were here, he would’ve done dropped me on my butt. The thought filled her with anger and sadness at the same time.
“I wonder if it can do anything more complex?” He swept the wand like an orchestra maestro, and the chair rose into a standing table. A couple of bowls then emerged from the top of the table, along with a pair of cups.
“Wow,” she said. Could it make anything she could think of? How would that work if she thought of distinctly human objects, such as the Statue of Liberty?
“Yeah, imagine the applications.”
“And it’s clearly very durable.”
“Think I could claim this one?” he asked with a mischievous grin. “Finders keepers?”
“Not a chance,” she said. “You’ll never sneak it out with so many people around. Besides, it needs to go to our science labs to study how it works. Like you said, there are widespread applications for such tech.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, but it would be cool to have the first one at the Academy.”
“Just think, you’ll always have bragging rights that you found it and brought it back to Space City.”
He brightened at this, his chest puffing out. “You’re right! That’s worth something.”
“The Etaem had mobile thorneways, these simple, customizable... what would they be called? Blocks? Tools?”
“Nanocubes,” Nico offered.
“Exactly! To make whatever you need. What other tech can we find lying around here?”
In a back corner of the structure, Devika found a door in the floor. When she approached it, the door slid open. Lights illuminated a room below. Wide slabs emerged from the wall below to create a staircase.
She peeked to gauge the condition of the space below, but Nico burst past her down the staircase.
“Are you crazy?” she called after him. “You didn’t even check for trouble.”
“It’s fine,” he shouted. “There’s plenty of people on the beach now, and we can call for help on our wrist-comps. Come on.”
She sighed, shaking her head at his impetuousness, before joining him.
An array of metallic tubes, covered in dust, hung on the walls. They reminded her of organ pipes and were connected to machines—the source of the humming she’d heard upstairs.
Nico tested out buttons on some of the machines.
“Stop,” she protested, appalled at his imprudence. “These need to be investigated before you destroy this stuff or blow us up.”
He ignored her, messing with the machines for several minutes before giving up.
“Hope these aren’t part of the trial.” He shook his head, scowling. “Who knows how long it’ll take to figure out how they work. Even longer to determine if they hold anything relevant or valuable.”
“There will be tons of people looking into them, though,” she said.
He nodded and took pictures. “I could try to hack into them with my wrist-comp, but better not. They might hold some sort of virus or something for anyone tampering with them.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said since we arrived,” she remarked, glad he wasn’t completely reckless.
He rolled his eyes.
They returned upstairs to find several new arrivals studying the table and bowls. None of them touched the wand.
“Anything of interest down there?” a woman asked.
“Machines of some sort,” Nico answered. “They appear to have power, but I can’t figure out their purpose.”
The woman nodded as if that was to be expected. She returned her attention to a design on the wall Devika had missed earlier. Something made from pieces of snail shells. The design could be Etaem abstract art, if they had such a thing.
Outside, people swarmed the beach, far more than had been back at the temple. Word had traveled fast.
Over the next few hours, Devika and Nico searched building after building, often crammed together with others, sometimes having to wait outside for people to leave. Many new Etaem tools and devices were discovered―Certainly things of interest to some―but nothing she thought would help them solve the Evanesco trial.
After leaving yet another building without a new riddle or clue, they found a dozen people standing at the water’s edge, scanning the ocean.
“I won’t say we’ve exhausted the options on the beach in just a few hours, but I think our best bet is to search underwater,” a man said, staring wistfully out at the ocean. He looked almost as if he wanted to dive right in now. “The murals in the temple showed a lot more of the Etaem city underwater than on shore.”
“Right.” A second man skipped a stone out across the water, getting three bounces before it sank. “These were private residences.”
“We’ll need ships,” a woman with glasses said.
“We can bring some droids from Space City tomorrow and put them to work harvesting materials and building ships. In a week we should have enough ships to explore the ocean.”
“A week?” The man who’d skipped the stone scowled and picked up another. “After all this time, we finally get a breakthrough. I hate to be stuck here another week.”
“We can get diving equipment.” The woman wrote in a notebook. “Start preliminary exploration. Locate structures of interest.”
“You newbs did not figure out the next clue.”
Devika tensed, turning at the familiar voice. Adrian, Vincent, and Falk approached.
“There’s no way you two figured out the way here on your first day.” Adrian sneered. “Who helped you?”
“The instructors,” Falk suggested.
“Of course.” Adrian nodded as if things made sense now. “They spoon fed you.”
“We studied all the clues, same as you, and figured it out,” Devika snapped.
“No way. The instructors figured it out. Then, like indulgent parents, they let you take credit.”
“Instructor Tereshkova indulgent?” Devika laughed. “You’ve got to be the first person to ever say that.”
Adrian’s nose wrinkled, but he didn’t argue.
“I heard they just backed into each other,” Vincent said. “Studying opposite rooms and bumped into each other. Boom. A thorneway lands them here.”
“See? That makes more sense,” Adrian chuckled. “Two bumbling newbs run into each other and stumble into the solution.”
“You’re just bitter we solved it,” Nico spat.
“Bitter?” Adrian arched an eyebrow. “Why should I be bitter? You accidentally solved the puzzle and landed us here. Now we have a lot more to study. Thank you.” He mock bowed.
Devika huffed and pivoted to leave them behind. She was not a stupid, know-nothing girl, nor a simple prankster as many of her classmates believed, though she and Anand loved a good practical joke. She was tired of always fighting others’ perceptions of her. When will they see and acknowledge my accomplishments?