The morning sun shone down upon a remote mountain valley. Deep within this valley stood three people. One was a slight man of moderate height. Neither his short dark hair nor his long gray coat moved in the fast blowing wind. The second, also a man, was massive. This giant was clad from neck to heel in armor made from gleaming white metal. The third was a short woman. Tools and gadgets rattled against one another on her heavy belt and web harness.
“I don’t know, Grey, this seems like a bad idea,” Valentine snatched the bandana off of her head and crammed it into a pocket before the wind could take it.
“You’ve had worse before, I don’t see why this would give you pause.”
“C’mon, Val, you know Grey doesn’t take risks unless he feels he has to.” Arsiel stepped beside her acting as a windbreak.
Valentine scooched in closer to him and frowned, “Well, I’d just like to go on the record saying that I’m not in favor of this.”
Arsiel patted her on the top of the head, “Noted. Now open her up.”
“I’m reserving a big bag of ‘I told you so’s just in case something goes wrong.” While she spoke, Valentine reached towards the nearby valley wall. Orange light formed at her fingertips and traveled up her arm in an intricate geometric pattern. She placed her palm flat against the wall and more light scribed its way across the surface. “Hey, in a minute two red circles are going to appear on the wall. When that happens you guys need to touch one and say your name.” Soon after she said that, the light around her palm turned red. She spoke in a level tone, “Valentine Reed” Two more circles of light emerged on either side of her. Grey and Arsiel stepped forward placing their hands as Valentine prompted.
“Elijah Talongrey”
“Arsiel Kilcanon”
A faint chime sounded and a portion of the wall slid away in twelve equal portions. The opening revealed a moderately sized room surfaced in smooth granite. A metal door was set into the far wall and the room was illuminated by a blue crystalline structure protruding from the ceiling. The three stepped inside and the wall sealed behind them. When Valentine approached the center of the room, a plinth grew from the floor. It stopped growing at waist height and a small glowing sphere detached itself to float just above it. She gathered it up in her hands and closed her eyes. The orange patterns spread to encompass the sphere, which remained floating once she let it go. She opened her eyes, now solid pools of orange light, and looked at her companions. “Alright, I’m logged in. According to the systems, no one has been in here since we sealed the place up. Nothing triggered, nothing breached, nothing detected. All defenses and defenders are undamaged and fully operational. Nothing looks disturbed in the crypt chamber either.” Valentine drew a rectangle in the air with her finger and an image formed within its confines. It showed another room with smooth stone walls. A metallic, coffin-like structure rested on a large slab in the center of the room. Eight-foot tall humanoid statues made from what appeared to be pitted iron stood in each corner.
Grey stepped closer and stared at the image. “Can you remotely access the Sarcophagus?”
“Nope. Decided it would be more secure if you could only interface with it directly. Why?”
“Because now we have to go down to the crypt and check for ourselves.”
Valentine let the image vanish and looked at Grey incredulously, “Are you kidding? There are no anomalies in the system. Everything checks out.”
“Everything seems to check out. I want to be sure. And to be sure we need to investigate the Sarcophagus.”
“Grey there are 27 separate security check points between here and the crypt that we’ll need to bypass. It’s going to take hours. And since we don’t have a majority of members here, we can’t even legitimately get through some of them. “
“It needs to be done.”
“Then why are we doing this half assed? Why not just gather everyone together and use the system the way it was designed?”
“Cassandra’s foresight, while accurate, can be difficult to interpret. If her reading of things is correct and Ansel is alive, checking the Tomb is the most definitive way of confirming it. However, let’s assume for a moment that this is a ruse by Ansel’s supporters designed to get us to act. Presently, only the three of us know the Tomb’s physical location. The more of us that know, the greater the chances are of someone else finding out. Furthermore, if a majority of us were to gather together, our energy signatures would be easy to detect. If that’s what they’re waiting for, we’d be leading them right here. This course is the lowest risk amongst a number of unsavory options.”
“I can play the let’s assume game too. If for some bizarre reason Ansel is in there and awake, what happens when we open the box to look inside and he jumps us?”
Arsiel grins, “That’s why I’m here, squirt.”
“Alright, so you and the boy genius here have everything planned out. That doesn’t change the fact that we have to break into our own goddamned secure facility.”
Grey employed a smirk he designed to convey an inflated sense of cleverness, “What about the failsafe backdoor access?”
“What?” she asked wide eyed. “That’s for super dire emergencies. The whole complex is going to go into alert mode! There is going to be unavoidable damage caused by the breach not to mention the whole place is going to be vulnerable.”
“Damage can be mended, and we can ameliorate the weakness presented by the breach personally.”
“Arsiel, talk some sense into him.”
“Sorry, Val. But he’s right, we need to know for sure, and this the best way to do it.”
“You guys are both mental.” She pouts. “Fine, I’ll do it, but I’m doubling the size of that ‘I told you so’ bag.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment