Chapter Twenty-One #3
“Yes. But that’s not a problem. We’ll grab the item from the locker and then, hopefully, the clue will give us the information we need to find the next piece of this mysterious puzzle.”
Jack nodded once.
“Good.”
He glanced around the marketplace, taking it all in—the color, the chaos, the impossible. Then he smiled.
“I want you to know that even though I’ve had to extend this bachelor auction date by an exponential amount of time, I gotta say, this is a whole lot more interesting than mowing someone’s lawn.”
Madelaine huffed out a quiet laugh.
And just like that, it felt like they were them again. The them before she left Alienn. Even if everything else in the universe had changed.
They left the marketplace as quickly as possible, stopping only at the ship long enough to ensure no one had breached the hatch. They locked everything back up and exited the ship.
Madelaine pressed her thumb into the oval on the back side of the flash drive. The other side swirled around into words.
She held up the drive to him. “What does it say?”
“Locker Delta Echo Seventeen,” he read. When she removed her thumb, the locker number disappeared in a swirl of light and unrecognizable symbols.
“Good. That’s also what I read upside down when I looked the last time. Let’s go.”
The locker field sat nearly a mile beyond their parked ship. The four-wheeler would have made their trip much speedier, but the microbial dirt wouldn’t have liked it.
They climbed a slight incline, then down the other side, losing sight of the marketplace behind them. Keirios became stranger the farther they walked. The landscape changed dramatically.
Massive stone spires rose from the living ground. Strange floating lights drifted over the path in front of them. The violet sky deepened toward evening and Jack hoped it didn’t get too dark.
They climbed another small knoll and down the other side until, finally, through what could only be described as a forest of tall stickery trees on both sides of the path.
Eventually, they reached a broad clearing.
Hundreds of lockers stood in neat rows along one side of the microbial pathway, like a communal package pickup area.
Some were built into stone. Others floated several feet above the ground.
A few appeared to be made entirely from crystal.
It was as wild and chaotic as the marketplace.
“What is this place?” Jack asked.
“It’s the Keirios Neutral Storage Grounds.”
“Okay. Glad to hear the word neutral in there.”
“You and me both.”
Jack shook his head. At this point, almost nothing surprised him anymore.
Almost.
Madelaine pressed her thumb into the flash drive to display the locker number.
“Delta Echo Seventeen,” Madelaine said. “It says the same thing it did before. Awesome.”
Jack found the designation etched into a tall metallic pillar. A narrow slot sat at chest height with an oval metal piece under it.
“Do you have to press a thumb into both ovals at the same time to open it?” Jack asked.
“Perhaps. Could you help me hold the flash drive while I put my other thumb on the locker?” She handed the crystal flash drive to Jack.
He steadied it while she put her thumb on the back of the flash drive. They carefully inserted the crystal key and she pressed her other thumb to the oval under the slot.
Finger acrobatics could now be added to their resumes.
Silver light flashed through the locker and the flash drive. A low hum filled the air. Jack hoped it was a good hum.
A compartment at the bottom of the locker slid open. Inside sat a simple dark metal box, about the size and shape of a shoebox. This time, there were no markings, no labels and no warnings. Centered on top was another oval waiting for Madelaine’s thumbprint.
Madelaine pulled her hands free while Jack held on to the flash drive. She carefully lifted the box out of the compartment.
The moment the box was out, the crystal key made a staticky noise and put on a mini lightshow for them. He was waiting for it to dissolve into sparks of light and disappear, but after a few seconds, it went inert.
“Well, that was briefly dramatic for no particular reason,” Jack said.
“Indeed. Which is odd, because typically the Paladin Cabal dislikes anything dramatic.”
“Given what we’ve been through on this errand of yours, I might dispute that.”
Madelaine narrowed her gaze, then shrugged like she agreed with him.
Jack looked up. “Let’s get back. I’m not sure how much light we have left.”
She followed his gaze to the darkening violet sky. “Yep. I’d guess about half an hour or so. But we certainly don’t need to linger.”
They started back toward the ship.
Jack eyed the sharp-looking stickery trees. He would not want to run through them. He and Madelaine might be cut to ribbons before making it three steps inside the forest.
Without meaning to, Jack noticed that his steps were hurried. Beside him, Madelaine seemed to be matching his rushed pace.
She didn’t look happy.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Unfortunately, we’re no longer alone.”