The man sighed. He pulled out an old-fashioned plastic ID card and flashed it before her eyes. “We’re with the CIA,” he said blandly. “The President has ordered us to secure these facilities. We suspect that your operation has been compromised by foreign agents and are confiscating all physical and electronic property on the premises.”
“It’s bull,” interjected Fran. “We haven’t been compromised. The President is just using the ICCF as a scapegoat. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop it.” Fran looked worn. Jane wondered what would happen to her.
“So, hand over the backup,” the man repeated.
“I don’t have a backup here in my office,” Jane said. Meanwhile, she popped the HM Drive out of the port with her right hand and slipped it into her jacket pocket, making sure to keep her hand hidden from view. “We keep all of the data out in the main lab.”
The man sighed again. “Why is it that all you smart scientist types think that the rest of us are dumb?” he asked. Then he walked around the desk and stood inches away from Jane. He held out his right hand, palm facing upwards. “The backup. Please.”
“I told you, I don’t,” Jane started to say.
The man quickly grabbed her right arm with one hand. With the other, he reached into her jacket pocket and grabbed the HM drive. As he pulled it out, he knocked the ecosphere out of her left hand, sending it flying into the air. Jane watched helplessly as the glass globe fell towards the ground. The world seemed to slow as the sphere struck the concrete, shattering into a million tiny pieces.
Chapter 10: The Key
Flora’s legs burned, but she pressed on, unwilling to take a break. How did Master Sagerius manage it? He looked so frail, and yet he bounded up the stone steps like a teenager. Sagerius had brought a junior scholar, Beau, from his department, but instead of tending to the elder’s needs, Beau was currently at the back of their group, helping Mendel up the steps while carrying a large pack of supplies.
Sagerius and Beau had met them early in the morning. They immediately brought them to a staircase hidden along the northern section of the hallway that circled the Glasshouse. The staircase was cut out of solid rock and shaped with large stones. It wrapped along the inside of the mountain in a rough spiral that continued seemingly forever. They had already been climbing the staircase for two hours.
“Are we there yet?” Sagerius asked from the front of the pack.
“Sir?” Garland asked in confusion.
“How much further do you think we have to go?” continued Sagerius, stopping to look directly at Garland.
Garland shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably and then looked back at Flora pleadingly.
“We’ll be there soon,” Flora said, giving Garland’s shoulder a condescending pat as she passed him. “I’ll lead the way.” She walked past Sagerius and Garland confidently. There was really only one way to go, and that was up.
“Wonderful,” Sagerius responded. “I’m excited to see what’s at the top.” Then he turned and followed Flora up the stairs. The rest of the cohort followed as well though Garland continued to look very confused.
Sure enough, several minutes later, Flora felt a slight breeze that promised an end to their trek. Though tired, she quickened her pace, letting the adrenaline power her up the last flight. By the time she reached the open door, the others were well behind. She walked through the small stone archway and was immediately blinded by the brilliance of the morning sun and chilled by the freezing mountain winds.
Flora covered her face with her arm and attempted to get a view of her surroundings. She was on a stone platform carved into the side of the mountain. Around her, she could see tiny bits of snow in the mountainside, and yet disappointingly, none of it lay under her feet. Her hand instinctively went to her waist where she still carried the globe. How she longed to feel the snow that swirled in its depths on her own face. But it was still summer, and the platform itself remained bare. She walked out to the edge of the platform, leaned up against the railing, and looked out at the expansive view.
Flora wasn’t sure what she had expected to see. Maybe she had expected to see the vibrant green fields of Terrene. Or maybe she expected to see the vast blue ocean or the orderly landscape of fields and roads from her dreams. She certainly wasn’t expecting to see this. Flora stood at the top of the northern mountains and looked outside of Terrene for the first time in her life, and she saw nothing. There were no fields, no trees, no roads, no water, and no people. There was only yellow. Right after the mountains dropped off, the land turned into a yellowish-brown dirt that stretched in all directions out to the horizon.
“What the hell is this?” Crick demanded. “We walked all the way up here for this?”
“Yeah, there’s nothing out there,” Sagerius agreed, seemingly as surprised as they were.
The rest of the cohort rushed to the edge of the platform and stared out into the abyss. Beau walked around handing out the extra top-cloaks that he had kept in his pack. Flora thankfully took one and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Wait, how can this be the outside?” Flora asked. “How can this, this...”
“It’s called a desert,” Beau said quietly. “The climate is too hot and dry down there. Even if it does rain, the water evaporates soon afterwards. The high altitude in Terrene keeps the weather temperate, and the mountains attract the rain clouds. But outside of Terrene, nothing lives.”
“But there has to be something beyond the desert,” Flora insisted. “There’s a whole other world out there.”
“No, no, there was a world,” corrected Sagerius. “And perhaps later there might be a world. But there isn’t right now. Somebody has to bring it back.”
“Jane, where are you?” muttered Flora.
“What was that?” asked Sagerius.
“Nothing,” Flora said despondently. “What do you mean about bringing the world back?”
“A thousand years ago, the ancients did live outside Terrene,” Beau explained. “But then they did something to cause the world to change, and these vast deserts were created. The Department of History studies what historical documents we have in order to understand what happened and figure out how to fix it. The Institute’s true purpose is to reverse those effects and make the rest of the world habitable.”
Flora stared out at the barren landscape, unable to peel her eyes away. Her dreams were not visions of a wonderful new world. They were the memories of a dead one. In her mind, she pictured a globe of glass shattering into a million pieces. Garland must have seen the light die from her eyes. Or maybe he just thought she was cold. Either way, when he put his arm around her shoulders, she grabbed it and held on tight. She didn’t want to be alone anymore.
************
Flora walked through the hallways, blindly stumbling along. She carried a stack of boxes in her arms that towered over her head, threatening to come crashing down on her at any moment. “Out of my way,” she cried. “Blind girl walking.” She wondered what it would really be like to be blind. She imagined herself walking the halls, tripping people with her walking stick that she used to feel out the corridor in front of her. Would she still be able to dream if she was blind? Maybe she’d actually be a better scholar.
Suddenly the top half of her stack lifted up, revealing the smiling face of Beau Champ. Though Beau was only a junior scholar, he was one of Grandmaster Sagerius’ closest companions. Without Beau, the Grandmaster would probably get himself lost and not find his way back to his quarters for weeks. Beau didn’t talk much, but he was always around other people, listening earnestly as if trying to absorb all the knowledge in the world.
“Let me help you with that,” he said and started walking with her, carrying most of the boxes for her.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Flora sighed. “I was bound to go crashing into some senior scholar eventually and get myself in some serious trouble.”
“Uh,” Beau said awkwardly and then fell back into silence
.
“Scholar Franklin sent me over to Tools to grab these boxes for him,” she continued, unbothered by his silence. “That’s clear on the other side of the Institute! I can’t wait until we get new apprentices next year. Then someone else will get the crap jobs. I’ve been counting the days.”
And there were just 209 days left. Their cohort had been at the Institute for four months now. After their introductory period, they had been sorted into the different departments. Flora had no idea how the masters had made the decision. It made sense that Mendel had been placed in the Department of Mathematics and that Bunsen had found a spot in Agriculture. Aster was also thrilled to be in the Department of Tools. But somehow Flora had been placed in the History while Garland, Kava, Stalk, and even Crick got to be in Governance with Romulus. Flora sighed.
Meanwhile, she had become better at remembering her dreams. Jane’s memories had become her own. They filled her head with incredible knowledge, experience, but also sadness. In her mind she carried around the ghost of not just Jane but her entire world. She wanted nothing more than to resurrect that world, but she was just a simple apprentice. She had no idea where to start.
Once a week, she spent a day with one of the senior scholars who taught her some basics about environmental control. But most of her education came from preservation work. In order to preserve old texts, she would be sent to copy them by hand onto new parchment. Through this, she learned about greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that trapped heat from the sun, making the temperature warmer. Her teachers alluded to the work they were doing to create organisms that would automatically sequester carbon to help regulate the ambient temperature. But she was too junior to be directly involved. Instead, she spent most of her time doing menial labor and running errands.
“Oh hey Beau?” Flora asked as they walked. “Do you know anyone by the name of Samuel?”
“Sorry, no,” Beau responded. It figured. No one else she had asked had seemed to know either. Maybe the man her mother mentioned had disappeared along with her father. “But I haven’t been here very long,” he continued. “Grandmaster Sagerius might know.”
“Hmmm, he doesn’t seem like he’s all there, if you know what I mean.”
“The Grandmaster is a great man,” Beau insisted. “But yes, I know what you mean. They say he used to be a powerful and wise man, surprisingly intuitive and intelligent. Then something changed, and he became a bit...different.”
“That’s a polite way to put it,” Flora said. “He’s totally off his rocker, and he’s in charge of the whole Institute!”
“He is the Grandmaster,” Beau said. “And many still hold a deep respect for him.”
“But not everyone,” Flora continued. “Couldn’t someone else run things?” Her mind’s eye turned towards Romulus. Now there was a leader.
“Sure, other people can administrate,” he said. “But only the holder of the Portkey is the Keeper of the Faith.”
“The Portkey?” she asked, trying to shuffle her boxes around to get a look at Beau’s face.
“It’s the crystal that Sagerius wears around his neck,” he clarified.
“Yeah, but why is it so important?” asked Flora.
“It’s the Institute’s most sacred artifact from the ancients,” explained Beau. He really seemed to liven up when he had something to explain. “It’s been passed down from Grandmaster to Grandmaster through the ages. Only the Grandmaster really knows what it’s for, but it’s mentioned in some of the surviving documents.”
“What do these documents say?” asked Flora.
“They talk about the Port. It’s a place somewhere. And when the time is right, the key needs to be taken to the Port, presumably to unlock something. But no one really knows.”
“How do we know when the time is right?” Flora asked.
“Scholars have been debating that question for centuries,” responded Beau.
“And where is this Port?” continued Flora.
“Now that’s a subject of even greater debate,” Beau said conspiratorially. “A lot of people don’t believe it actually exists and that it’s a metaphor or something like that. But most people think it’s somewhere beyond the Barren Lands. In fact, in the ancient world, ports were typically cities along the ocean. They built giant ships that crossed the vast seas.” For the first time, Flora saw real passion in Beau’s eyes. “Can you imagine? A lake miles deep and stretching out as far as the eye can see. Someday I want to see the ocean.”
In Flora’s mind, she saw a sandy beach, children playing, and then a giant wave. She shuddered. “Yeah, I can imagine,” she said hollowly.
By that time, they had reached Scholar Franklin’s small office where they found him bent over, intensely studying an old book. Scholar Franklin was a short, wiry man with large spectacles and mouse-like features. He spent most of his time in his office, scurrying about frantically from text to text, searching for the answers to questions that he kept to himself. He was also one of Flora’s most infuriating taskmasters. He would send her off on tasks without even bothering to look at her or address her as anything more specific than “you there” or “girl.”
“Here are the boxes you wanted,” Flora announced.
Franklin waved vaguely at a table in the corner, his nose still buried in his book.
Flora and Beau placed the boxes carefully on the table and then waited.
After a few awkward moments, Beau whispered to Flora, “Okay, let’s go.”
“Wait,” Franklin commanded. “Is that Beau?” Franklin’s eyes never left the parchment he studied. “I need you to do something for me.” He wiggled his nose like a hamster about to sneeze. “I can’t decipher the terrible penmanship of whatever idiotic apprentice copied this book. Take this, bring it down to the records vault, find the original, and fix the text on this page.” Franklin dug into his robe and pulled out a large wooden key. He held this out along with the book. “Here’s the key. Off with you.”
Flora sighed. Was she invisible?
Beau carefully took the book and the key and then glanced at Flora. “Can I bring Flora with me sir?” he asked.
“Sure, sure,” Franklin muttered waving his hand dismissively.
Flora mouthed “Thank you” to Beau and then continued to celebrate silently, excitedly hopping out the door. Finally she would get to see something interesting.
************
The records vault was located down a deep tunnel that went beneath the central Glasshouse. To get there they had to pass two security checkpoints, each of which required them to detail out their assignment which was then recorded in a log book. Flora thought the guards looked very professional and intimidating, until she glanced around their backs and saw the game of cards that they had just interrupted.
The vault was sealed by a huge metal door. A mechanism similar to the one they had encountered in the garden of tools stood in front of this door. But this time they had the key, which Beau proceeded to insert into the lock and turn. Then he lifted the bar off the door and pushed. “Come help me with this,” he said.
Flora joined in, surprised that the door was so heavy. “A little overkill for a records room, don’t you think?” she said.
“The room is sealed off, almost airtight,” explained Beau. “The dry, cool, air helps preserve all the artifacts in the room. Many of these items are a thousand years old. So be careful okay?” Flora wondered why he looked worried all of a sudden. She was always careful.
The room was airtight. When they entered the vault, Flora was hit by a dry, musty smell. She now knew what “old” smelled like. Beau hit a switch, and the room was filled with a dim light that emanated from white bars that hung from the ceiling.
“Where’s that light coming from?” she asked, surprised.
“Plants aren’t allowed in here, so we can’t use light sticks or light vines,” he explained. “But the ancients had some fascinating technology, like these artific
ial lights. No one really knows how they work, but they do.”
The vault was a medium-sized room about twelve feet wide by twenty feet deep. Along the far wall, a large metal bookshelf held rows and rows of old books. There was a single desk and chair next to the bookshelf. But Flora barely glanced at those. Her attention was drawn to the rack of strange objects along the wall to her left. She immediately walked over and began examining the objects.
“Careful with those,” cautioned Beau. “We don’t know what a lot of those do. They could be dangerous.”
“Sure, sure,” responded Flora. She brushed her hand over one of the objects. It looked like a blob of ordinary clay about the size of a mug. She lifted it carefully. It was heavy. Next to the clay blob, she found a box. Inside were several metal rods, each about the size of her finger with colorful wires sprouting out of them. She had never seen anything like them before. Next she started examining a large gray block, about the size of her head. There were a bunch of odd buttons on the device, none of which made any sense to Flora. On one end there was an opening which was colored red. Flora stuck her eye up to the hole and looked inside.
“Over here,” Beau said, gesturing her over to the bookshelves. “Come help me look for this book. It’s called The Carbon Cycle, by Augustus Mancker.”
Flora glanced at the books on the bookshelf closest to her. “How are these books organized?” she asked.
“They’re not,” he replied. “Just start at that end and check each book.” He began to read the spines of the books starting at the right end of the bookshelves. “And don’t touch them,” he added.
Flora scanned the titles of the first few books. No, no, no. After a few minutes, she started getting tired. She took a step back and surveyed the collection. There must have been over three hundred books here. How could anyone read all of these? Then a certain book on the bottom shelf of the next bookcase caught her eye. She looked at it more closely. The distinctive light blue cover somehow looked familiar. She brushed some dust off the spine to get a better look at the title and jerked back suddenly in surprise.