Anxious Gretchen: Space Archaeologist Part 4
“Keep up, Gretchen Myaxi,” Azo’lah called from the far end of the atrium.
“Did you not—was that—” I stammered, jogging to match her long-legged strides. The doors to the first Auhtula’s burial chamber creaked slowly, sinisterly closed behind me. I staggered to a halt. “What the hell?”
Azo’lah gripped my bicep and dragged me forward. “Do not get distracted. We must execute our task and return to the Killer Qu’een immediately.”
“Don’t get distracted?” I repeated as we hastened back toward the central staircase. “The temple is alive and just projected a message onto your back like it’s trying to communicate with you specifically. How are you not distracted?”
Azo’lah sighed the sigh of the fed-up, holding out a hand to help boost me up the stupidly tall steps. “If, as you say, the temple is alive, then is it not likely that it is attempting to protect its contents from us?”
“Perhaps,” I conceded, as I plodded up the helix-spiral staircase in deep lunging steps. “It could also be trying to tell us something.”
“Yes. Get out before I kill you all,” Azo’lah deadpanned.
“Or something about the first Auhtula,” I suggested, “and her Mya—” My words devolved into a screech as the stairs spun, literally, beneath me. I crashed to my knees, my fingers vainly scrabbling for purchase on the smooth stone. “Azo’lah, what—”
Azo’lah’s strong arms curled around my waist as she hunched over me. “Calm, calm, Myaxi.”
“What’s happening?” Chester demanded over our comms. “I heard Gretchen scream.”
“Gretchen is always screaming,” returned Azo’lah.
I pinched her elbow in retaliation. “Sorry for having completely reasonable responses to terrifying situations!”
Stone ground against stone above us, and I ducked out from beneath Azo’lah’s protective embrace to watch the ceiling fold into itself as it lowered, ever closer, to our heads.
“Azo’lah, the ceiling!”
“I am aware, Myaxi,” Azo’lah grunted through clenched teeth. She placed her hands on the wall and closed her eyes.
“Gretchen, you guys need to get out of there!” Chester yelled. I could barely hear him over the sound of stone grinding its way down to crush us.
“There’s nowhere to go,” I returned, frantic. “The ceiling’s coming down, the stairs are spinning like a fucking carousel, and Azo’lah’s zenned out. I don’t...” My heart stuttered. My cat, my parents, flashed across my mind like film fed too quickly through an antique projector. “Chester, I think we’re going to—”
Abruptly, everything stilled. Then, like lungs expanding with a too large inhale, the temple shifted. The ceiling rose. Beneath us, the stairs lazily returned to their original position.
Relief jump-started my nervous system, and Chester’s voice registered with me again. “Gretchen! Azo’lah! Someone answer me, goddamnit, or I’m coming in there—”
“We’re okay,” I said, pressing a hand against my chest in an attempt to regulate my breathing. Azo’lah opened her eyes and met my gaze as I slowly said, “We’re okay. The temple just…stopped.”
“That makes no damn sense, but I will take every break we can get,” Chester replied. “You both alright?”
“We are well, Chester,” Azo’lah said. She released her bruising grip on my waist and rose to her full height in one fluid motion. She held a hand out to help me up, which I gratefully accepted. I wasn’t sure my shaking limbs would’ve managed it otherwise.
“Then haul those fabulous asses to the third floor. That last partial temple shift doesn’t seem to have moved any rooms, but I’m not counting on that holding for very long.”
Azo’lah took the lead, her lengthy strides carrying us to the third floor in half the time it would’ve taken had I set the pace. As we approached the Relics Room's alleged location, I found the courage to ask, “What was that, Azo’lah?”
Azo’lah eyed her Ran’dyl’s readout. “What was what?”
“Back there on the stairs. We were seconds away from being pulverized, but then you touched the wall.”
“I prayed to the first Auhtula for her intercession and guidance,” Azo’lah lied smoothly.
I knew bullshit when I heard it, but calling out Azo’lah in the middle of an urgent mission this soon after a near-death experience felt like a fool’s errand. When we got out of this temple, I would get my answers.
“We are here, Myaxi,” Azo’lah announced when we reached the end of a corridor.
The hallway diverged, wrapping around all four sides of a cubic room. I walked around the structure, squinting at the glyphs on the walls. “There’s no door,” I remarked. “Or at least not an obvious one.”
Azo’lah grinned. “That has not stopped us yet.” She trailed her hands along the wall, head cocked slightly like the stones would whisper secrets to her if she listened carefully enough. After a few moments, she flattened both palms against a large, cyclical glyph. She murmured something too low for me to hear. Crackling light sparkled from the glyph. It slithered out, carving the seam of the door into the stone which slid open as Azo’lah removed her hand.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
Azo’lah said nothing, her shoulders tensing as I followed her inside.
Our lights dyed the shadows in the room indigo. This room was much less elaborate and devoid of any type of shelving. Upon the far wall was a jewel-flecked relief of the first Auhtula wearing a crimson cloak and her starry crystal crown. She held a scepter in one hand, the other intimately entwined with her First Myax’s. The First Myax’s opal eyes judged me unworthy to even be in the temple, let alone in this room. Some of the glyphs struck me as familiar, and I pulled out my notebook. There, woven into the painting, were the characters for “Rightful One.”
I turned to where Azo’lah stood in the center of the room, a few yards from the central plinth. Upon it stood a statue of the first Auhtula at the height of her reign, her bearing proud but still welcoming. Across her elegant shoulders rested the cloak, not hewn from stone, but a real, blood red, finely-woven garment. And resting across her forehead was the coronet, the jagged jewels sparkling even in the dark. Like the painting, the scepter was in her left hand. The coronet and scepter were covered in a heavy coating of dust, dulling color, and luster, respectively, but the cloak was still pristinely preserved. It was strange that out of everything that had happened today, the artifacts’ lack of proper decay unnerved me the most.
Azo’lah walked forward. I stammered, “There’s—there’s no way it’s this easy.”
Azo’lah paused, her brow furrowed. “You would call today easy?”
“Hell no, but this,” I flapped my hand at the statue, “doesn’t feel right. Just walking in and divesting a statue of what we came for. It doesn’t feel…earned.”
“Trust me, Myaxi, we have earned this,” Azo’lah retorted, reaching for the plinth.
I grabbed her elbow, and she stilled. “Are we sure this is right? Just taking them?”
“The relics are going to Auhtula Ty’uria and will be cherished and protected,” Azo’lah promised. “The first Auhtula would want her most sacred possessions passed on to help preserve the reign of one of her chosen descendants.”
“How can you be sure?”
Azo’lah craned her neck to gaze into the face of the first Auhtula. “Because she was committed to peace and the prosperous growth of her people. She would want her memory disturbed if it meant stopping a meaningless war.”
My gaze strayed to the relief, to the first Auhtula’s proud bearing, to the strength and unwavering loyalty the artist captured in the First Myax’s countenance. “To stop a war,” I agreed, nodding.
Azo’lah climbed onto the plinth and, with a gracefulness I would never attain, gently removed the cloak from the Auhtula’s shoulders. Next came the coronet, then the scepter. There was a moment when it looked as though Azo’lah would need to break the statue's fingers to obtain it, but after a bit of carefully aggressive prying, the scepter slid free.
She leaped back to the floor, her arms full, and bowed reverently to the statue. She whispered something in ancient Destyrian. I did not need to hear it to recognize it for what it was: gratitude.
Up close, the details of the simple crimson cloak became clear. Silver thread embroidered the hem and golden fabric, inlaid with Destyrian glyphs, lined the inside. The coronet was a masterpiece of engineering: a thin, elegant silver band held together seven amber-blue jewels, each larger than my eyes. The scepter was the simplest of the Auhtula’s relics, taller than me, and made of metal, it was clean-edged and lacked all ornamentation.
I was excited to study all of them more closely.
Azo’lah turned to the still open door, and said, “Myaxi, come. Chester, we have obtained the artifacts, ready the Qu’een. Fulyiti?”
“How’s it hanging, party people?” Fleetwood huffed.
“Lose Nyc’arra and meet us at the top of the temple, it is time for us to go. Chester will guide you if the temple moves.”
Chester’s voice crackled over the comms as he said, “Everything appears to be stationary, but you should hustle.”
“Oh, we will,” I said. “See you soon.”
I brushed one of the many strands of hair that had escaped my hair tie behind one ear with trembling fingers. It took me longer than I was proud of to realize the minute tremors weren’t due to my nerves but to the quivering floor. Despite what Azo’lah had inferred about the First Auhtula’s wishes, it appeared the temple was displeased with our plundering.
The quivering rapidly escalated into a quake. Losing our balance on the unstable floor, Azho’lah and I careened into the wall. I pressed my back against the stone and looked up into Azo’lah’s eyes, where she was braced on one arm above me.
“Lie to me later and use whatever weird wall powers you have now.” I tried to sound confident and not terrified that I was spending my last moments, not on Earth, about to get buried beneath an eons-old Destyrian temple.
The floor gave another violent rumble. “Promise me, you will not tell another soul. Please. Swear upon your honor as Myaxi” Azo’lah begged. Weirdly, I found Azo’lah begging more jarring than a wrathful temple.
“I swear,” I said, the solemness of it ruined as the trembling increased, causing my voice to follow suit. My words placated Azo’lah, though. She transferred the artifacts into my waiting arms and turned, pressing both hands firmly against the wall.
This time, she shouted something in ancient Destyrian, the syllables twining and curling like the glyphs that were currently illuminating under her fingers. The light spread, like food coloring dropped in water, dribbling along the edges of the temple, bathing the corridor in blue. Azo’lah stood, eyes closed, a cerulean garland of light reflecting on her silver hair. She looked even more otherworldly than usual.
The floor shuddered, then stopped.
“What the fuck?” I muttered awed. What exactly was Azo’lah?
Azo’lah’s six fingers curled around mine insistently. “We must go. The protocols are new to me, and I do not know if my override will hold.” She took off at a sprint, the jolt to my arm kick-starting my legs into working.
“I promised to keep your secret, but it comes with a catch,” I said, my lungs burning. “An explanation.”
Azo’lah did not answer, just ran for the staircase, her free hand trailing along the wall.
When I returned to Earth, I needed to do some serious cardio. My legs burned with the weight of the lactic acid filling my muscles, despite the advantage of the lower gravity. Azo’lah practically carried me up the last few steps. I blinked against the burnt-orange shock of sunlight that acted as nature’s roof to the temple’s top floor. It was much too potent after the dimness of the temple.
As soon as Azo’lah’s hand left the staircase wall, the temple gave an indignant wobble, like it was demanding the return of her touch.
“Bright out here, isn’t it?”
Maximilian Danger Shockley stood atop the central plinth, wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses. He was posed nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets, looking like a complete tool.
I asked the only fully formed question my mind could articulate. “How did your sunglasses survive in there?”
“Why did the temple let you out?” Azo’lah, clearly asking the better questions, edged in front of me. She glared at Shockley.
Keeping his shoulders loose, he gave a lopsided grin. The way he was acting like he had already won, even though we were in possession of the relics, somehow felt more threatening than if he was leveling a weapon at our faces. He said, “It took me a while, but I just followed what your Myaxi did earlier. Worked like a charm.”
“No, it didn’t,” Azo’lah spat.
“No, it didn’t,” Shockley agreed, his smile curving like Fleetwood’s dagger. “But how would you know that?”
Azo’lah ignored his question. “How did you get out of the Healing Chamber?”
“I’m not sure,” Shockley shrugged. “I was about to blast a hole through the wall,” I could feel his eyes crinkling in amusement behind his shaded lens at my indignant growl. “When the floor and ceiling started closing in. I thought I was going to become a human ketchup bottle. Without warning, everything stopped and went back to normal. Then the door Name Police got through just opened.” I bit down my frustration. Why couldn’t the temple have released Shockley after we had safely soared away to Destyr? Shockley continued, “At that point, I figured you were so far ahead in retrieving the artifacts that I’d come up here and wait while you did the hard work.”
Azo’lah looked ready to throttle him. “Get out of our way.”
“Look, Azo’lah—”
“I never gave you my name!” Azo’lah ground out. The temple jerked violently beneath us. I caught onto Azo’lah’s elbow for stability.
“Azo’lah,” Shockley emphasized, “Bautista’s in the Zone, your ex is on her way up, and you look like you’re as close to collapsing as this temple is. Just hand over the artifacts, and I won’t have to punch your new pet in her annoying, but adorable face.”
For once, Shockley was right.
Azo’lah’s hands were unsteady as she shifted the artifacts in her arms so that she could unloop the delicate crown that was dangling from her wrist. Shockley looked flabbergasted like he hadn’t expected his stupid speech to work. Neither did I, honestly.
Azo’lah turned to me and murmured, “Chester. Status?”
Shockley’s face contorted with rage. “What are you—”
Chester’s voice took on a sportscasters' bravado as he announced, “T-minus 3,2,1…”
“ZERO, YOU WHORES!” Fleetwood gleefully announced her own emergence through the Myax door. “LET’S BOOGIE ON DOWN!”
As though we had planned it, we all began moving.
“Fulyiti, catch!” Azo’lah tossed the opulently embroidered cloak at Fleetwood, who caught it. She spun and, with a flourish, whipped it at Shockley when he lunged for her. He howled his anger as the bejeweled embroidery scratched his face, and his curling fingers just missed the edges of the material. He pursued Fleetwood as she flitted backward, doing a sort of modified two-step.
Azo’lah pulled me to her side, and blissfully cool metal was jammed onto my sweaty forehead. I realized belatedly, as Azo’lah’s hand touched my temple that it was the coronet. I flinched as something like static electricity zipped along the band until it constricted around my forehead, a perfect, immovable fit. “Take the coronet and run for the ship,” Azo’lah instructed, shoving me toward the only exit.
The temple gave another displeased groan. The floor tilted. I stumbled sideways, past where Fleetwood was baiting Shockley like a giddy matador. I screamed as a small explosion at my back sent me to my knees. I instinctively threw both arms up to cover my head.
“Azo’lah!” I yelled. I turned, ears ringing. Azo’lah had been knocked down as well. She was covered in glistening dust and chunks of rock that had once been the Myax door. The scepter, dislodged from her grip by the blast, now laid several yards away.
Nyc’arra emerged from the still raining debris. She was sweat-drenched and distinctly pissed off after her prolonged fight with Fleetwood, her face set in a menacing scowl. Her gaze zeroed in on the scepter.
Azo’lah struggled to her hands and knees, dust cartwheeling off her as the temple shuddered violently. The scepter rolled toward the central plinth, dangerously close to disappearing into the mouth of the central staircase.
Shockley dove for it but fell short when Fleetwood pounced on his back, pinning him to the floor. Taking advantage of Fleetwood’s distraction, Shockley reached back and entangled his fingers in the cloak. Rolling over and carrying Shockley with her, Fleetwood shouted, “Gret’chen!” but I was already sprinting, ignoring my cramping, throbbing legs as Nyc’arra mirrored my path from the opposite end of the plinth. The floor lurched downward, and I tripped into a sloppy, diagonal somersault that carried me, spectacularly, to the scepter.
Amazed with my luck, I snatched it from the floor. Spiderweb cracks were already scuttling across the stone. We needed to get out of here immediately.
“Myaxi!” Azo’lah coughed.
I stood, wheeling around, staff in hand—just in time to meet Nyc’arra’s stomach with the blunt-ended instrument. “You can’t blow this up, too, you desecrater!” I yelled. I swung the scepter, thwacking her again as hard as I could. She sagged to the floor on a pained exhale of air.
Scepter in hand, coronet still miraculously on my head, I darted for Azo’lah.
“No,” Azo’lah rasped, regaining her feet.
I held the scepter out to her. “I can’t be responsible for all of this!”
“You must,” Azo’lah brushed aside the proffered scepter. “Fulyiti! Take Gretchen!”
Fleetwood kicked Shockley square in the groin, tore the cloak from his grasp, and plucked the sunglasses from his nose as he collapsed to his knees. “Thank you,” she sang, spinning on her heel and rushing to us, cloak clutched in her hands. Donning her new accessory, she said, “Reporting for duty!”
“GO!” Azo’lah roared over the quaking temple.
I protested weakly, “Azo’lah—”
But she ignored me, shoving me into Fleewood’s arms. “Fulyiti, take the artifacts and go!”
Fleetwood palmed the scepter, pushed Shockley’s sunglasses up her nose, and nodded.
“Start your engines!” Fleetwood snatched my wrist, jerking me into a run.
“But Azo’lah,” I panted, as we raced across the cracking temple floor. I heard Shockley shouting indiscriminately at our backs.
“Is doing her duty,” Fleetwood replied, uncharacteristically serious. We ran through the antechamber and onto the wide, jutting landing that led to the crumbling, exterior stairs.
“We can’t leave Azo’lah!” The temple shuddered. The scepter sparked. Fleetwood hissed as a crackling current ran up her arm.
“Get down, get funky!” Fleetwood ordered. She passed me the scepter, clasped the cloak around her neck, and began climbing down the stairs. “I will show you the way! I have your ass!”
“No fucking way!” I squawked.
“No fucking way is right!” Shockley bellowed as he caught up to us, a hitch in his step from Fleetwood’s recent hit below the belt. I suddenly found myself very motivated to move. I placed the scepter on the edge of the landing as I shimmed backward down the first few decaying stairs, trying to breathe through my fear. I had no idea how I was supposed to hold the staff and climb down the stairs.
“Heads up, seven up!” Fleetwood yelled as the staff rolled off the landing. I wailed as it rocketed toward my upturned face, stopping only inches from breaking my nose.
“Hah!” Nyc’arra glared down at me, her torso hanging over the landing’s edge, the scepter secured in one scraped and bloodied hand. “I will rip your head off along with that coronet!”
“I will remove yours first!” Azo’lah’s disembodied voice declared, and Nyc’arra was jerked backward. The temple convulsed violently. Large pebbles pinged off of my shoulder. In horror, I looked up as a fissure formed in the landing, right above my head. I cringed, blinking furiously as dust got in my eyes. Another shake deepened the crack. It spread, splintering the landing into a dozen separate, unstable pieces. The entire left side teetered for a moment, then broke off, crashing down the temple’s outer wall. Shockley, the farthest left of us all, cried out as he dropped to his stomach, struggling to hold on. I scrambled back onto the platform as the step beneath my foot collapsed into nothingness.
“Fleetwood!” I yelled horrified.
“LANDSLIDE!” she crowed as she swung herself gracefully up and over, the cloak billowing like a sail as it caught the wind around her. She alighted onto the smooth outer wall of the temple. She slid down it, reclining like a tourist on a beach, the sunlight glinting off her new sunglasses.
Across the platform, Azo’lah and Nyc’arra expertly navigated the continually widening cracks. Both had their hands locked around the scepter and were struggling to gain the upper hand. Along the crumbling side of the platform, Shockley slipped.
I grabbed the closest thing at hand, one of the larger brushes from my utility belt and flung it at Nyc’arra’s face. My terrible aim was aided by another shift of the temple, which pinged my makeshift projectile off of Nyc’arra’s collarbone. It distracted her long enough that Azo’lah’s elbow could temporarily bury itself in her throat. Azo’lah wrenched the scepter away from Nyc’arra, kicking her backward.
When I reached Shockley, skidding on my knees to the landing’s edge, he was hanging from his fingertips. “Give me your hand,” I ordered. I wrapped my hand around his wrist, our sweaty skin threatening my already weak grip. I threw my weight backward and upward, giving Shockley enough leverage to find a foothold and push himself up. I grabbed him around the shoulders and tugged until we rolled over, flopping onto the fracturing stone.
“Why?” He panted into my hair.
“Because I’m not a mercenary,” I gasped.
“Bautista,” he said as I crawled out from under him. “Come get us.”
From the ground below, I could hear the roaring of a ship’s engines. The extra vibration from the ship would exacerbate the tremors already threatening to level the temple. We’d all be buried alive.
“Azo’lah!” I cried as The Danger Zone lifted into the air, kicking up a swell of sand that ballooned toward us.
The staff sang in Azo’lah’s grip, glowing the same sun-kissed amber as the first Auhtula’s crown of stars. Azo’lah knelt, one hand on the stone platform and the other holding the scepter high. The singing reached a fever pitch. The crown on my head sizzled and seared. An unbearable wave of heat flared up my arm from my wristband to my implant. I fell to my knees and elbows, clutching my head in my palms.
I screamed into sudden darkness.
And the darkness, impossibly, replied.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Azo’lah’s voice chanted from inside my head.
“Azo’lah?” Fleetwood murmured from the front of my skull.
“What’s—what is happening?” Chester’s flabbergasted voice joined Fleetwood’s.
Their voices twined together to form a churning river of noise inside my head.
I dropped to my side, curled in on myself, yelling inarticulately as the pain crested…
The temple pitched beneath me. The coronet’s band loosened, and it slipped from my head. I grabbed it, dazed. I rubbed at my temple, and my implant sparked, an electric kiss against my sweat and dirt-streaked skin.
I opened my eyes—seconds, moments, years later—to find Azo’lah collapsed on the platform, unconscious, but scepter still firmly in hand. Nearby, Shockley, stunned and frazzle-haired, crawled his way to a moaning Nyc’arra.
But most importantly, the voices of my friends were no longer in my brain.
“Ch-Chester?” I whispered. “Fleetwood? Are you there?”
No one replied. I sighed, simultaneously relieved and achingly lonely.
I scuttled to Azo’lah on my hands and knees. She blinked groggily at me when I touched her forehead. She pushed my hand away and murmured something in Destyrian. At my confused look, she repeated herself, trying to pass me the scepter. I realized that, whatever had happened, whatever she had done to stabilize the temple, had somehow shorted out or deactivated my implant.
“I don’t understand,” I told her, gesturing to my temple. Her forehead scrunched in confusion.
Deactivated all of our implants, then.
We had to get out of there, and with Azo’lah disoriented and weak, it was up to me to get us to the Killer Qu’een. I grabbed hold of her under the arms and much too slowly dragged her to the short side of the landing that led, not to the crumbling stairs, but to the smooth side of the temple that Fleetwood had used as a slide. Azo’lah’s untranslatable words rose in volume the closer to the edge we got. I ignored whatever insults she was probably throwing at me and jimmied her around until her front was to my back, wrapping her arms around the staff and me, making sure the coronet was still slung around my wrist. And, as the winds of The Danger Zone’s engines sliced through my hair, I pushed off.
We slid down the side of the temple; Azo’lah, barely aware, and me, laugh-screaming as the ground raced toward us. We tumbled onto the sand, rolling over one another in a too-many-limbed tumbleweed until we finally stopped. I laid in a heap, water streaming from my eyes.
“Gret’chen!” I turned to see Fleetwood’s glittery boots. She said something else in Destyrian and I blinked. She bent down and hoisted me to my feet, where I swayed before she hefted Azo’lah over her shoulder.
“Shake your hindquarters!” she urged, in her accented English as she ran toward the ramp of the Killer Qu’een. Barely able to breathe, I followed her on legs that were suddenly numb. Fleetwood dropped Azo’lah unceremoniously in the entrance to the ship, before wrapping an arm around my waist and throwing me in too. Hitting the control to raise the ramp, she ran toward the cockpit, the cloak of the first Auhtula streaming behind her as she screamed, “HOME, JAMES!” at Chester.
Beneath my cheek, the ship hummed its soothing lullaby of safe escape. Unable to make myself move further, I flopped onto my back, my shoulder bumping Azo’lah’s bicep. Azo’lah blinked blearily at me, and I smiled. She grinned back, still somehow regal despite our undignified position in a heap on the floor. I breathed deeply, as the adrenaline burnt its way out of my system like the fuel through the ship.
I closed my eyes as Azo’lah’s long-fingered hand wrapped around mine and squeezed. I smiled and allowed the Killer Qu’een to sing me to sleep.
Once we confirmed that Shockley and his team were inexplicably not pursuing us, our return trip to Destyr was mercifully uneventful. Chester navigated us through the darkness to our refuel on Golyn with ease. After visiting the med bay for a hasty patch up and a reboot of my implant, I spent the trip back to Destyr in my bunk. I told myself it was because I was exhausted, but I was really avoiding the looming awkwardness of the conversation we were all skirting.
I stared out my porthole and waffled between vehemently denying our momentary telepathic connection on Vas Roya and reaching out with my mind to speak to Azo’lah, Fleetwood, and Chester.
No one heard me. Or, if they did, they chose not to reply.
Upon our return to Destyr, Auhtula Ty’uria and her advisors met us on the landing dock. Two Destyrian males in robes of palest pink reverently accepted the artifacts, while the Auhtula looked over every square inch of Fleetwood.
“You are well, Kezira?” Ty’uria asked, cupping Fleetwood’s cheeks as she checked over her daughter.
“I am better than well!” Fleetwood replied, pressing their foreheads together in greeting. “The seven stars illuminated our path to the can of whoop-ass.”
“It certainly looks that way.” The Auhtula surveyed our raggedy appearance. Though we had all bathed and changed into clean clothes aboard the Killer Qu’een, we still looked wrecked. “Please, come,” the Auhtula waved us inside, “rest for the evening while the Stewards inspect the artifacts. We will discuss your mission in the morning.”
“And then I can go home?” I asked. I ignored the heartbroken expression on Fleetwood Mercury’s face.
The Auhtula smiled warmly. “Of course, Gretchen of Earth. You will be returned to your home.”
The next day I woke to find Azo’lah standing at my window, her gaze on the city below. The room the Destyrians provided for me was ostentatiously large, with an attached washroom and a spectacular view of Thal that reached all the way to the emerald sea. The floor was a breath-taking mosaic depiction of, what I assumed was, the Destyrian countryside and a tapestry woven from rich golds and bronzes hung over my bed. I had spent most of the previous night studying them to distract myself from the events of Vas Roya.
“May your darkness have fled with the night, Myaxi,” Azo’lah greeted me. A shock fizzled through me like I had stuck my finger into an electrical socket. Azo’lah’s back was to me, which is why it took me a moment to realize that her voice came from not just her mouth, but also inside my head.
“Holy shit! Boundaries, Azo’lah,” I shrieked, fully alert now. I bunched the sheets around me, feeling suddenly exposed, though my borrowed sleep shirt and pants more than covered me. I scrubbed at my sleep-crusted eyes and asked, “How in the…?”
“Settle, Myaxi,” she said, turning to me. I pressed a palm to my forehead as my brain processed her voice through my ears but also from within the confines of my skull. Azo’lah tossed a pouch of milky-orange liquid onto my bed. “Breakfast. While we talk.”
Clad in a blinding white linen tunic and fitted pants, hair tied back in a neat braid, and face carefully arranged to convey no emotion, she said, “I assumed you would like your questions about my...abilities answered. It would be best if that discussion happened before you met with Auhtula Ty’uria and the All-Councilor.”
I tore the drink pouch open and only slopped a bit onto my sheets. “Yes!”
Azo’lah inclined her head to me. “I will answer what I can.”
“What is it that you can do? Were you actually speaking to the temple, making it move? How are you able to speak inside my brain? Can all Myax do—”
“In the language of the Ancients, I am called an Iz’waij,” Azo’lah interrupted. “I am able to communicate with and control technology with my mind. And no, it is a very rare gift.”
My jaw dropped, liquid from my pouch dribbling down my chin and splattering my sleep top. “You can control technology with your mind? You’re a... technopath?”
“Yes,” she said, like it cost her everything to admit. “It is why your and Chester’s implants are so advanced. I...adjusted them before they were put in. They have my signature, my technological fingerprint.”
“Is that why we can...” I gestured wildly at my head.
“I’m not sure,” Azo’lah said slowly. “To protect you—Chester, Fulyiti Fleetwood, and you—from harm, I attempted to use the scepter to override the temple’s self-destruct program. I have never used my ability under such duress, or on such a large scale with a conduit like the scepter. I believe that when I thought of you, the scepter misinterpreted it as a command and...reached out to all of your implants and wristbands, fusing our comms to our translators in some way.” She gently caressed her temple gem. “I do not fully understand what happened.”
“I guess Fleetwood was right.” With a chuckle, I set my drink pouch on the bedside table. “It was the power of the Ancients.”
That earned a small smile that transformed Azo’lah’s contrite concern into something much more enjoyable to look at. “I have examined my implant interface. Our new internal comms work much the same as our external and appear to be limited to the four of us. I temporarily deactivated them for our return trip.” That explained why no one could hear me when I reached out to them. “You must open the comms in order to hear us. I tested them this morning upon reactivation, it only works for spoken communication.”
“So, no one’s going to be stuck listening to me inside their heads all day?” I joked, masking the genuine fear I had felt at the possibility of multiple people having access to my internal monologue. I had enough trouble speaking with people, it’d be a veritable disaster if my unfiltered thoughts invaded their brains.
“No, Myaxi,” Azo’lah said. “Just say ‘Internal comms off,’ and I will—”
“Internal comms off,” I yelled.
“While the volume was unnecessary, you did well,” Azo’lah commended, her voice only external now.
I scooped up my drink pouch and tweaked the flimsy edge between my thumb and forefinger. “Your technopathy…you were born with it?”
“Yes, I was born an Iz’waij.”
“And, is it just Destyrian tech you can communicate with?”
She shook her head. “All technology, no matter its origin. But Destyrian technology responds to me best. All I have to do is touch it to forge the initial bond. Most pieces of technology acknowledge my commands after a few moments of connection—”
“My implant is under your control?” I asked, terrifying comprehension dawning rapidly. “You touched it and can communicate with it. So now you have the power to ask it to translate everything I hear into Italian or an alien language I’ve never heard of, or you can ask it to download the entire archive or—or you can ask it to short out and fry my brain.”
“I would never,” Azo’lah promised in a fervent rush. “Never, Myaxi.”
“No, I know, that’s just…” I trailed off as my hands became unbearably clammy. “That’s just a lot of power.”
Azo’lah nodded, her usually straight shoulders sagging. Leave it to me to poke a raw nerve. “It is. The first Auhtula and many of the Ancients were like me. The Temple of Aluthua was specifically programmed to recognize and respond to those who carry the genetic code of the first Auhtula. My family—Fulyiti Fleetwood’s family—is directly descended from her daughter. It is why the temple’s protocols responded to my words and my touch, why it responded to yours as well.”
I quirked my head to the side questioningly. I certainly wasn’t related to any long-dead alien queens.
“As I said before, your implant carries my unique signature. The temple recognized the piece of me inside of you.”
I bit my tongue against the inappropriate high school humor raised by her choice of words and instead asked, “The artifacts too? That’s why the coronet was so—” I shuddered, remembering the electrical surges that rocked me as we were escaping the temple.
Azo’lah nodded.
I sighed, harnessed my racing thoughts, and tried to pick one of the thousands of questions I still had. “So you’re a technopath, and it’s a big secret, yes? If it’s the power of the Ancients, the power of the first Auhtula, why would you need to keep something like that secret?”
Azo’lah leaned against my window and gazed wistfully at Thal, the early morning light of the twin suns catching on windows and reflective glass roofs, bathing the city in a gentle glow. “When destruction came to Vas Roya, a great many Iz’waij died. As the number of Iz’waij dwindled, so did Destyrian technology. It is the downside of having a civilization built on this ability—very few Ancients born without the ability were ever taught the skills to create and program without it. Therefore the more intricate technologies couldn’t be replicated, such as that which relocated the rooms.”
I blinked at Azo’lah. “Wait, you’re telling me that the rooms were being, like, what? Transported?”
Azo’lah turned more fully towards me. “Essentially. The mechanisms were built into the structure. It is partially why the walls were so thick.”
“If you have that kind of technology, then why did you green beam me up here?” I tucked my knees up, bunching the blankets around me.
“I assume its creators died on Vas Roya, and the dwindling number of Iz’waij meant the knowledge for replication was lost. The reigning Auhtula wisely chose to move towards education instead of relying on the Iz’waij. I might also remark that what we have accomplished since appears to be much safer.”
I ducked my head under the blanket, groaning. “Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know that I could’ve been killed by an old computer.”
Azo’lah laughed, and I pulled my blanket shroud down, surprised. Had I heard her laugh at all before now? Backlit by the sun, she looked almost ethereal, softer than I had seen her since my arrival. It was strange how someone so fierce could look so soft, and a little disturbing how much I liked the contrast.
“Over the years, the Iz’waij grew rarer and rarer amongst my people that by the time we reached Destyr, the ability had fallen into myth,” Azo’lah continued, more soberly. “But members of the Ancient line—mostly the Auhtulas—will produce one every so often. The previous Auhtula of the western continent was one. It is said to be a marker of a true Auhtula. If anyone knew what I could do...”
My mouth gaped unattractively. “Holy fucksticks, you’re supposed to be the Auhtula!”
Azo’lah held up a silencing hand. “Auhtula Ty’uria is supposed to be the Auhtula and her daughters after her. I was born to be a Myax. That is who I am.”
“But Azo’lah, if what you said is true, that your abilities are a marker of a true Auhtula then—”
Gone was the soft woman of moments prior. Azo’lah’s back was a rigid, unyielding line as she said, “A true Auhtula knows when she is not the ruler her people need.”
I picked up my drink pouch, mostly, to give my hands something to do. “Who all knows? Does Fleetwood?”
“No one but my mothers know,” Azo’lah confessed quietly.
“No one?” I repeated, baffled. It seemed like a hell of a secret to keep one’s whole life.
Azo’lah’s nostrils flared. “Anyone else who knew is gone.”
“So it’s just me?”
“Yes. And it must stay that way, Myaxi,” Azo’lah crossed the room, kneeling on the floor in front of me. “If they knew, my aunt would instantly give up the throne, Fulyiti Fleetwood and her sisters would step aside.” Azo’lah shook her head firmly. “That is the last thing I want.”
“But if no one else knows about your—” I wiggled my fingers mystically. Azo’lah rolled her eyes. “If no one else knows, then how did you explain our...upgrades to Fleetwood and Chester?”
Azo’lah’s stoney eyes eased with mirth. “Fulyiiti Fleetwood was happy enough to claim the power of the Ancients as an explanation.” I snorted. “Chester has already downloaded three dozen documents from the Royal Archives about the Ancients and is running them through a translating program. I expect an annotated treatise on the topic, exploring all possible explanations within the star-cycle. Regardless of their beliefs about what caused it, they have both agreed it is important to keep our newly discovered ability to ourselves. Neither wish to call unnecessary attention to it before we understand it.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “but maybe you should consider telling Fleetwood and Chester the truth. They love you, they’d—”
“No one else can know, Gretchen,” Azo’lah said, her tone hollow and sad. “There is too much at risk.”
So many secrets from the people she loved most had to be taking its toll. But it wasn’t my place to tell her how to live her life. Our eyes locked, and I saw the truth in her gaze. She was not being humble or modest or scared; she knew herself and knew the throne was not her calling. Protecting those who sat upon it was.
“Your secret is safe with me,” I vowed. Unthinkingly, I reached out and patted her head. Quickly, to cover my embarrassment, I held up my juice pouch and obnoxiously slurped the last of its contents. “But only if you promise we can get real food before this meeting.”
Azo’lah smirked as she stood. “That can be arranged. But first, bathe and dress. Chester informs me humans have a lower standard of presentation than Destyrians, but this,” Azo’lah gestured at me, “will not do for a meeting with the Auhtula. I will wait outside your door. Be quick, Myaxi.”
I threw one of my overstuffed pillows at her retreating back.
We entered the conference room to find Chester and Fleetwood sitting opposite each other at the long table. He was tossing Froot Loops into her open mouth.
Like Azo’lah, they were dressed similarly to the day I met them. Fleetwood, in billowing pants and a bedazzled Fleetwood Mac t-shirt and Chester in jeans, a graphic tee, and a flannel that matched his charcoal beanie.
Noticing us, Fleetwood leaped from her seat and rushed me. I was hefted into a suffocating hug. “Gret’chen!”
“How are you feeling?” Chester asked once Fleetwood released me, patting the seat to his left.
“You look terrible,” Fleetwood noted. “But, your outfit is chill.”
“Thanks, Fleetwood,” I grimaced at my new adventure archaeologist ensemble as I took the seat beside Chester. “And considering we almost died, multiple times, I feel alright. I could sleep for the next eighty-seven years, and every muscle in my body hates me, but other than that…” I shrugged, realizing that I hadn’t had to take my pills once since Vas Roya and taking into account all that had happened, this could be considered a minor miracle. “How are you guys feeling?”
“Right as rain,” Fleetwood replied, returning to her seat and opening her mouth for Chester to resume his food deposits.
He complied, tossing three pieces of cereal onto Fleetwood’s waiting tongue. “I’m good. Ready to get this debrief over with so I can get back to my research on…” he trailed off and scratched at his beanie where his implant was covered. “Well, you know.”
I knocked our elbows together. “Your subtlety is commendable.”
“Fleetwood’s rubbing off on me,” Chester defended weakly.
I laughed as the door dissolved, and Auhtula Ty’uria, the All-Councilor, and the other councilors entered, all of their expressions concerningly distressed. The pink robed Destyrians from the day before—the Stewards—followed them, artifacts in hand.
Azo’lah and Chester both bowed to the Auhtula. I did as well, though I tripped over my feet as I attempted to stand and ended up in more of a half-assed yoga pose than a bow.
Noticing her mother’s disquiet immediately, Fleetwood asked, “What is wrong?”
Auhtula Ty’uria patted Fleetwood’s shoulder. “The artifacts—”
My heart clenched. “There’s something wrong with the artifacts?”
I would never forgive myself if we damaged them while trying to keep them out of Shockley’s greedy hands.
Auhtula Ty’uria gestured for the Stewards to step forward and lay them on the table. The gems that composed the front of the coronet shimmered in the morning light, refracting a honeyed-prism over our heads. “The scepter and the coronet are exactly as they should be,” Auhtula Ty’uria said. “They matched the specifications of the records we have and responded to my touch as I am of the bloodline. But the cloak…the cloak did not.”
That explained the long faces of the councillors then.
“What does that mean?” Chester asked. “Has the artifact lost its—its abilities?”
“We believe,” the All-Councilor said, “that the true cloak of the first Auhtula has been stolen and replaced with this forgery.”
Fleetwood swore in so many languages my implant could not keep up.
My breakfast threatened to work its way back up my throat.
“But how?” I wondered aloud. “The room didn’t even have a door when Azo’lah and I got there.” Azo’lah’s eyes widened in reminder of my recent promise. “It was a fluke that we were able to get in,” I lied on the fly, hoping that Destyrians did not recognize copious blushing as a sign of dishonesty. “The temple shifted, and an archway just—just appeared. The likelihood of someone else having gotten into that room before us...”
“It is highly unlikely,” the All-Councilor agreed, her steely gaze full of accusation.
“I didn’t take it!” I sputtered. I did not do well when authority figures expressed any form of displeasure with me. “Where would I have put it?”
“Myaxi has honor. Archaeology is her vocation as much as being Myax is mine,” Azo’lah said, slowly as though she was making every syllable count. “She would not steal anything of such importance to our Auhtula or our people.”
Something warm bubbled up in my stomach at her words.
“As the daughter of the Auhtula, Fulyiti Kezira has no reason to steal the cloak, nor does Chester, her Favored,” Azo’lah continued. “As Myax, sworn to protect all Destyrians, I would never act in such a dishonorable way as to—”
Auhtula Ty’uria held up a silencing hand. “No one is accusing you, Azo’lah Myax, or any member of this crew. And if you and Myaxi say there was no way for any other being to enter the room before you, I believe you are speaking the truth. But that leaves us to wonder: where did the cloak go?”
Azo’lah, Fleetwood, Chester, and I said automatically, “Shockley.”
Fleetwood growled, “That dastardly, no good, dirty, rotten—”
“The Dangerous Ones were after the artifacts as well,” Chester cut off Fleetwood’s tirade before she could truly gain steam. “Azo’lah and Gretchen beat them to the artifacts, but there was a confrontation before we left Vas Roya.”
“One of them must have switched out the cloak,” Azo’lah reasoned, her eyes distant as she replayed the scene in her mind. “In all of the chaos, it would have been easy.”
She was right. I thought it was miraculous in all the pandemonium that we had held onto all of the artifacts. Well, two of the artifacts, now…
“But how?” Chester asked. “How did they know what it looked like? How did they have a counterfeit cloak ready to go?”
“Our histories and poems are universally accessible,” the All-Councilor said. “All they needed to do was study them to learn what the relics supposedly looked like.”
“And I’m sure The Dangerous Ones know enough criminals across the universe willing to make the necessary forgeries,” the Auhtula added darkly.
I had to actively stop myself from attempting to gnaw my thumb nail off as I asked, “Will this be enough to prove your claim? You said you only needed one before you sent us, but if you need—”
“This will be enough, Myaxi,” the Auhtula reassured me. “But the thought of something so precious in the hands of The Dangerous Ones is unsettling indeed.”
Azo’lah cleared her throat and said, “Shockley said they were working for Auhtula Pola.”
Every councilor snarled. Even Auhtula Ty’uria’s composed expression was briefly marred by disdain. She dismissed the pink robed Stewards and pointed regally at the seats around the table, “I think it is time that you gave us a detailed account of your mission.”
“Do you have everything?” Chester asked.
“I didn’t exactly bring much.” I swept my hand down my body showcasing my clothes from when I first beamed up to Destyr. Ripped in places, my pants and shirt were clean. Though they were otherwise the same as they had been when I donned them all those days ago, they felt wrong, different. Or maybe it was me who felt different in them.
We stood at the center of the same empty room upon the same ship that had I been beamed up to originally. I was finally going home—or I was returning to Earth, at least.
Out the window, Mars passed by in a brilliant red blur.
Chester grabbed me by the shoulders. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
I hung my hands at his elbows and nodded. “I want to go back and graduate, actually finish my Ph.D. And I have to go back to Sebastian, I can’t just abandon my fur child.”
At Chester’s back, the lone door dematerialized admitting Fleetwood and Azo’lah. I felt my resolve waver. But no matter my affection for these three strange beings, my life was not with them on Destyr, it was back on Earth with my undergrads, my cat, and my family.
I got beamed up to space against my will, performed a mission beyond my capabilities, half-destroyed an ancient temple, ferried alien artifacts to a queen, debriefed, and now it was time for me to leave.
“There has been no sign of Shockley or The Danger Zone in Destyrian airspace,” Azo’lah announced. Auhtula Ty’uria’s people had been monitoring the skies since our meeting, and everyone was on the lookout for Shockley, his crew, and the stolen cloak.
I groaned, “Damn it, I was hoping you’d have gotten him before I left.”
Fleetwood broke down, her big dark eyes leaking tears at an alarming rate. “Gret’chen, do not leave me!” She drew Chester and me into a bone-crushing hug. “I shall surely perish from longing if you go!”
“You’ll be fine,” I assured her, my voice muffled against her side.
“Easy, FleetMerc,” Chester gasped, slapping a palm against her elbow. “Fragile humans need to breathe.”
She released us but kept me close. “What are we going to do without you having our asses, Gret’chen?”
I rubbed her back. “You’ll figure something out. You guys didn’t even really need me for the Vas Roya mission anyway.”
Chester grabbed Fleetwood and directed her into an embrace before she could recommence weeping on me.
“Myaxi, your communication device.” Azo’lah held out my cell phone.
I snatched it from her palm. “Hey! I thought it fell out of my pocket before Fleetwood smuggled me up here.”
“It was… Chester called it water-logged, but I…” Azo’lah trailed off and cleared her throat meaningfully.
She had fixed my drowned phone with her abilities.
I pocketed it and said, “Thank you, Azo’lah Myax.”
“You are most welcome, Myaxi.” Azo’lah shuffled her feet uncertainly like there was more she wished to say, but she didn’t know how.
“I’ll miss you,” I said, “all of you. This has been—well, it’s been freaking insane, but you guys kept me alive, and it was...kinda fun.”
“You will be missed as well, Gretchen Myaxi,” Azo’lah replied. She smiled as she teased, “Though you are shorter than most Destyrian children, you were useful. We would never have retrieved the artifacts for the Auhtula without you.”
“Thank you, I think?”
Chester hugged me once more. “Eat a burrito for me once you get back. God, I miss burritos.”
“Gladly.” I held onto him longer than was strictly necessary. It was a strategic error as we were roped into another communal smothering administered by Fleetwood’s strong arms.
Upon seeing my face redden from lack of oxygen, Azo’lah gently broke up the hug. “That is enough, Fulyiti. If you do not release her, she may never leave.”
“Do not ruin my plans!” Fleetwood wailed.
“She must return to Earth,” Azo’lah said. She guided me to the amber platform with its delicate archway. “Goodbye, Myaxi. May the seven stars always light your path.”
“Goodbye, Azo’lah,” I whispered back, not trusting myself to say anything more without embarrassing myself.
I took my place on the platform. Chester thumbed his wristband. “One last thing: deactivating your implant.”
I caressed the tiny jewel. I had forgotten it was there. “Oh, right.” There was a jolt across my forehead and down my spine and then nothing. “Is it—did it work?”
Azo’lah bobbed her head and spoke. I understood none of it.
My chest ached for some reason.
Chester tapped away at his Ran’dyl, and the platform crackled to life. A blinding viridescence radiated from the archway’s edges.
I stole one last look at my friends and did my best to imprint them in my mind. Chester and his beanie and his smile. Fleetwood’s bedazzled t-shirt and watery, glitter-lined eyes. Azo’lah, tall and strong and beautiful.
I waved as the light swelled.
Fleetwood burst into song, “AND IIIIII-EEE-IIIII—”
“Oh, girl, now is not the time,” Chester sighed.
And I was gone, falling upwards into another stomach-flipping green kaleidoscope.
I landed on my bed in my room ten miles from the Avalon dig-site. Everything was in shadows, my furniture barely visible in the smoky light cast by the setting sun. I recognized my thread-bare comforter and my paper-thin pillow. Most of all—
“Bash!” I sat up too quickly, desperate to grab the fluffy black ball at the foot of my bed that was hissing at my abrupt appearance. The world spun—intergalactic travel was a nauseating process—and I settled back against the mattress. Sebastian meowed questioningly.
“It’s me, bubs,” I affirmed, reaching out a hand for him to sniff. Upon confirming my identity through scent, he cautiously plodded up the bed, allowing me to run my fingers through his luscious, long fur. “I’m home,” I whispered.
I rotated until I was lying with a direct view of the sky out my window. Sebastian nudged his way beneath my arm, purring.
As the first stars began to light the darkening sky, I pulled Sebastian close and pressed my cheek to his head. “I missed you too, Bash. I missed you too.”
I absentmindedly scritched behind Sebastian’s ears with my free hand, smiling when he burrowed further into my side, designing new nebulae on my galaxy-print leggings with his fluffy mane. The leggings had been an impulse buy several months back, along with a few space-related t-shirts.
Sebastian harmonized his pleasured purr to the soundtrack of the nature documentary I had on in the background. My hand skimmed across the page of my sketchbook as I pointedly ignored my phone and the three emails from jobs I’d interviewed at the past two weeks.
Nine months ago, before my space adventure, my reluctance to read the emails would have stemmed from the fear that the responses were a resounding, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Now, I realized that I feared that one of them would be an offer. And while I gleefully (and gratefully) would have accepted the curation job at a mid-sized museum, or that of a research assistant for an ongoing dig before—now, they were, somehow, less.
I stared at the page. Underneath a sketch of the first Auhtula, her arms spread wide, Fleetwood, Chester, and Azo’lah stared back at me amid swirls of Destyrian glyphs. I knew, deep down, that no matter what on Earth I did—literally—nothing would ever come close to the wonder of the Temple of Aluthua on Vas Roya. Or, the feeling, maybe for the first time ever, that awkward, anxious me, was truly wanted. It figured the first place I felt real belonging was with beings from some unknown distance of lightyears away, and I had foolishly decided I wanted to come home. Well, I had to anyway. I couldn’t abandon my cat, and I refused to spend the rest of my life as an unofficial archaeologist. Maximillian Danger Shockley, I was not.
Still, I wished that I had asked for a way to stay in contact with Destyr. If they had doors that could dematerialize, I’m sure they had a way to communicate with me on Earth.
I craned my neck towards the sky outside the small window above my lumpy armchair. The light pollution of the city blotted out the stars. I sighed and threw my pencil down, where it clattered to the floor and rolled under my chair for me to worry about stepping on later.
“Bash-bash,” I crooned, moving my sketchbook aside, “Do you think if I just think Azo’lah’s name repeatedly, I could go back to space?” Sebastian’s only response was to pad over to occupy the newly freed real estate on my lap, pressing his face insistently into my palm.
“You’re no help, sir,” I informed him before acquiescing to his request for further pets.
Beside me, my cell phone buzzed. I turned it over, expecting it to be my mom inviting me for Sunday dinner. I blinked at the screen. On the text message, Destyrian glyphs spelled out a notification. Beneath, a text message in English read: Myaxi, are you well?
If it hadn’t been for the greeting, I would’ve thought someone was playing an elaborate joke. I typed out Azola? and hit send before I could think better of it.
Yes, came the reply. Who else would it be? This method of communicating is very slow, and the novelty has already worn off. I am reactivating your implant. Also, Chester approximates that my name in your characters would be Azo’lah for more correct pronunciation.
I just barely wondered how far Azo’lah’s powers extended when there was a brief shock, like static electricity near my temple.
Comms on, I thought frantically. Comms on, comms on, comms—
Then, there was Azo’lah’s voice inside my head, saying, “Do you require assistance, Gretchen?”
“How did you text me?” I asked, tugging Sebastian closer to me as joy billowed up, threatening to explode in an undoubtedly embarrassing way.
“I...examined your communication device when I fixed it,” she explained. “I wanted to make sure you could contact us, should you require us. I also may have reprogrammed your implant to send a signal should your thought patterns repeatedly call for us. They’ve done so several times, but you did not send me a message, so I assumed you did not wish for us to come.”
“Boundaries,” I squeaked, mortified that Azo’lah knew how often I’d thought of my bygone friends over the past few months. “I thought you deactivated my implant!”
“Deactivated is a strong term,” Azo’lah said. “It was more like putting it in hibernation.”
I snorted. “And you didn’t think to tell me? Also: how was I supposed to text you?”
“I logged myself in your name database,” Azo’lah said.
“No one on Earth actually opens their contacts,” I chuckled.
“Then what is its function?” Azo’lah sounded genuinely confused. There was a brief pause before Fleetwood’s voice joined Azo’lah’s. “Do you have her, Azo’lah?” and then, much louder, “GRET’CHEN!”
I jumped, dislodging Sebastian, who emitted a disgruntled mewl.
“You don’t have to shout, FleetMerc, your voice is in her head,” Chester corrected gently.
“Hey, guys,” I grinned as I leaned over to mollify Sebastian with a few quick strokes. “How are you?”
“The beacons are lit, girl. Destyr calls for aid,” Chester replied.
“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately. “Auhtula Ty’uria said two artifacts would be enough, did Pola—”
“We believe we have located the cloak,” Azo’lah interrupted.
“We thought you might be interested in completing the set now that you’re a full-fledged archaeologist,” Chester added. “You also never took your payment from the first mission.”
“Payment?” I began, but Fleetwood interrupted, clearly having no concern for minute details like money.
“Do you have our asses?” she asked solemnly.
I looked around my tiny apartment, at Azo’lah’s name still illuminated on my cell’s screen, at their faces, smiling up at me from my sketch.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t agonize over a major decision.
“Yeah. Yeah, I have your asses,” I confirmed as Fleetwood and Chester whooped their glee.
“Excellent. We will bring you aboard,” Azo’lah said.
“Wait, where the hell are you guys?” I demanded, scurrying into my bedroom and pulling my beat-up suitcase from under the bed.
“In atmo over Toronto,” Chester said. “Um, we might’ve been taking a joyride through the sector just in case you said yes.”
“I need time to pack,” I said. “Can cats survive on Destyr?”
“I will outfit your wardrobe,” Fleetwood dismissed petulantly. “I have already waited much too long to see you.”
“Hell no, I’m bringing my own clothes,” I protested, thinking of my jodhpur breeches, button-up, and leather jacket.
“Hell yes!” Fleetwood sang. “You have half of your hours.” I started emptying the contents of my underwear drawer into the suitcase.
“I suggest you obey the Fulyiti,” Azo’lah said, her dry tone not quite able to hide her amusement. “Or she will come down there, scare your species, and drag you home to us herself.”
I tossed my pill bottles on top of my underwear and hurried to the closet to find Sebastian’s cat carrier. I looked at the apartment building across from mine, its windows reflecting an abnormal, green light.
I smiled. “Come on, Bash. We’re going to space.”
Acknowledgements: To Carmen, Liz, Elliot, and Britney, our own crew of test readers for this first story, a galaxy of gratitude.