“Next time be more careful with these things,” Tadeo admonished him, “or I’ll ask your commander to remove you from my team!”
“I don’t think so,” replied the researcher arrogantly. “No one told you who gives orders around here?”
“You say you found the bracelet on his arm?” asked Gill, interrupting their bickering.
“Yes. Something like that,” exclaimed Tadeo abruptly, still angered by the other researcher. He carefully pulled the artifact onto his arm to show the position. “You’ll have plenty of time to look at it later, after you finish the skeleton in B8.”
Tadeo, still holding the bracelet on his forearm, waved Armond’s assistant to accompany him.
“Ernon, please lead Gill to B8. Ernon will assist you in examining the skeleton.”
They traveled a considerable distance through several dimly lit, winding corridors. In some places, the glass walls allowed them to peer inside other labs. He noticed only a handful of researchers working in them—and about as many soldiers.
“Why have you brought this skeleton so far from the others?” asked Gill.
“There are only two labs equipped to study them.”
“I’d like to be with the others.”
“Don’t worry. Tadeo told me to bring everything to his lab after we finish here.”
They finally arrived in front of an armored door, which Ernon opened with his hologram. They stepped inside an empty lab similar to the first one. It also had no windows.
Another skeleton—a bit taller and thinner than the first—lay on a table, waiting patiently to reveal its secrets, hidden for so many centuries. The creature still had a golden bracelet on the right forearm.
“The best preserved of all! Look, your tools are there,” said Ernon, pointing to a dark corner.
Indeed, the crates in which he packed his equipment were there. Although he was anxious to examine the bones, he felt a bit uneasy at the very thought of touching a god. He feverishly seized the microtomograph and unpacked it on another table near the wall to the left of the door. A clogged hum announced that the machine was ready.
Gill’s profession usually implied working with all sorts of relics, so in principle, he knew what to do. But nothing could be further from routine than today.
After a moment of hesitation, he reached out his gloved hand and touched the god’s bones, almost with awe. The contact felt cold to his fingertips. Once upon a time, the “thing” in front of him was alive, breathing, wanting, maybe even loving. He slowly touched the sternum and ribs, then stopped at the left forearm—the one without bracelet—aware that he had to keep his head cool. There’s nothing unusual here, he forced himself to reason. They feel like any other bones.
The arm bones weren’t completely detached from one another, held together by all sorts of debris—traces of clothing and even things that looked like tissues. Since Antyra II had few microorganisms capable of chewing on a corpse, it wasn’t such an unexpected finding. The fingers still held their grip.
Very slowly, Gill checked if the left forearm was still attached to the rest of the skeleton and managed to dislodge it easily. He raised it slowly from the table and laid it in the microtomograph. Only after setting the hologram resolution, he cast an eye on the display.
“Hey! What’s this?” he couldn’t stop an exclamation of surprise.
“What happened?” asked Ernon.
Ernon abandoned the skull he was measuring and came to watch the display.
“There’s something in his hand, see?” Gill said.
Indeed, a black metallic object was clearly visible inside the skeleton’s fist.
“We should call Tadeo!”
“The holophone is near the door,” Ernon said, pointing at it. “His lab code is A21.”
Gill keyed the code, and a small hologram of the first lab appeared nearby.
“Tadeo, we found—” he stopped midsentence, deafened by the high-pitch sound coming out of the holophone.
Tadeo didn’t notice him. He was surrounded by the other researchers in the room, still wearing the bracelet of the gods on his right forearm. All of the researchers were tensely looking at the artifact.
“Tadeo!” he shouted as loud as he could, hoping to overcome the maddening buzz. “I don’t think he can hear us! Is this thing broken? Ernon! What the heck are you doing?”
Ernon was busy trying to extract the metallic object from the skeleton’s hand by pulling brutally on its edge—wholly unconcerned that he could damage the bones.
“Stop right now!” Gill shouted, horrified. “Have you lost your kyi?”
“I pulled it out,” Ernon said with a grin, showing him a small oval object made from two different alloys, which had a black star with three curved rays painted on the golden side.
“Hand it over to me!” exclaimed Gill sternly, extending his hand to get the object.
“The same symbol as on the bracelet,” said Ernon, more to himself, ostensibly ignoring Gill’s hand. “The black edge looks like a sheath. Maybe it comes off?”
He pulled the black edge, with no results.
“Ernon! Give it to me at once!”
Ernon pressed on the black star, and with a click, the sheath went off. Four golden symbols, engraved on the object, became visible. As far as Gill could remember, all were among the buttons on the bracelet from the other lab. Ernon turned the object to the other side, but it was all black.
Suddenly, crying out in pain, he dropped it on the floor.
“Will you please take care?” Gill reproached him angrily. He then leaned to snag it.
“It burns!” Ernon exclaimed, checking his hand for blisters.
Gill touched the object, but he couldn’t take it; the metal was hot and began to smoke. He managed to turn it to memorize the signs, right before the artifact turned into ashes.
Hoping for better luck this time, he ran to the holophone to call Tadeo. However, his boss was still checking the bracelet on his forearm, and the deafening sound hadn’t disappeared. On the contrary, it had doubled in intensity.
“I hope it’s not jamming,” Gill mumbled, suddenly panicked.
Ernon looked at him, worried as well.
“If it’s jamming, it can only mean the temples are—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. Both of them ran out of the door, shoulder to shoulder, to reach Tadeo’s lab. As soon as they stepped into the corridor, time stopped. Gill couldn’t figure what happened, and yet he realized that the image in front of his eyes—the string of lights in the corridor—was the last thing that had reached his memory. The bulbs kept lighting; he didn’t feel any pain; everything was fine—the only problem was that no other image appeared… The corridor and the bulbs had become frozen inside his head.
Yet the more he looked at them, the more they changed. Reality began to distort around the periphery, and despite his best efforts to keep at least this image alive, the lights turned purple, became dimmer and dimmer. With his last shred of lucidity, he understood that he had witnessed a terrible explosion, which probably blew him to pieces. He couldn’t think of anything else than he didn’t want to die… but the time bubble around him—stopped for a split second by the blast—started to flow inexorably again.
Gill had no idea how long he had been unconscious. As soon as he opened his eyes, dazed and confused, the pain returned—an encouraging sign that he was still alive. The explosion had thrown him back into the lab, so now he was somewhere in the room, immersed in a pitch-darkness and an even deeper silence. Only a few random short circuits threw flashes of light while the thick smoke and dust slowly suffocated him.
The lab was utterly destroyed. The once-shiny room, full of scientific equipment, was now filled with piles of rubble, shards of metal, broken pipes, and severed cables. On top of that, a huge rock had fallen from the ceiling.