Suma walked over to him, sorting the tools on the table, not saying anything. I smiled and headed for a doorway that would lead us further inside.
“Are you ready?” I asked, more for the sake of saying it than needing to.
Slate was always ready. He nodded, raising his gun as I turned the handle, feeling the years of neglect fight me as I pressed the lever. It eventually moved, and I pulled, opening us up into the next room. It was the right door, which was good, because it was the only door.
“This is it,” Slate whispered as we walked inside the large open bay room. Machinery sat in clumps along the edges of the room, but the center was what drew our eyes. A massive clear crystal the size of a dump truck sat glimmering as our lights reflected off it. The thousands of edges on it each angled the light out in a beautiful pattern around the room’s wall and ceiling. “Isn’t that something.”
It was. Where the crystals in the “boiler room” we’d seen up top had been glowing a tiny bit, this one was dead. It was just a crystal down here. The largest single crystal I’d ever seen, but it was here.
“Does the rock power things, or does it just act as a transmitter?” Slate asked, and I shrugged, having no idea.
Suma came behind us, her black eyes even wider than normal. She walked around the room, and just as I was about to tell her to be careful, I noticed she wasn’t just out for a stroll; she was figuring it out. She found an input into the crystal and traced it back to the machines sitting idly around the edges of the room.
Five minutes later, she was standing at a large machine that looked like a combination of a commercial furnace, an icemaker, and an oil derrick. It was just ten feet wide and twelve or so high, but she stood at the hunk of junk like it was going to be our savior.
“What do you have there, Suma?” I asked, breaking her from her analysis.
“This is the start. We fire this up, the rest will follow. In ideal scenarios.” The small alien continued to astound me. Clare would love this one. Mary would too. I’d been trying to forget about my friends and loved ones since we’d traveled, just wanting to focus on the task at hand. Thinking about Mary and getting back to her gave me a well-needed boost of energy.
“What do we do?” Slate asked, hands ready to work.
“We have to get each operational again. Mostly cleaning and lubricating.”
A few minutes later, we started moving from machine to machine, of which there were about seven, leading up to the initial power generator. Slate held the ten-headed lubricator tool and stuck it out, trying to get me to take it.
“No way. You made the joke earlier, you deal with it. It’s only fair.” I spoke too soon, because that meant I was crawling under the machines to make sure the wiring was in place and intact. They looked different than the cables I was used to, but I imagined the principle held the same. They were thick, round, and clear. Instead of metal as the conductor, it looked like a fiber-optic material, possibly the same as the crystal. I wasn’t sure.
An hour later, we were covered in dirt, grease, and sweat, but Suma thought they just might be operational.
“Let’s move back, just in case something goes terribly wrong,” I suggested, moving from the center of the room to the side, beside the first machine, from where we could also make a quick exit.
“It has a hard start,” Suma said, moving to a panel on the machine. It had a touchscreen on the outside, but it was dark.
“How do you know all this?” I asked her.
“My father is the Gatekeeper, and my mother studies how other races tick. She’s a technology expert of many solar systems. She wants me to take after her, so I’ve learned how to understand machines.”
“Is that what you want to do?” I asked.
Her lower arms raised up into her version of a shrug. “I suppose. I really want to take after my father, but after today, I suspect I’ll never be allowed in the Shandra again.”
Her honesty was refreshing, and I hoped we could get her home to hash it all out. Whatever she did, she’d do it well. Her hands found what looked like a large primer and pushed it, while turning a knob to the left and holding it. Soon my feet vibrated, along with the floor.
“You did it!” Slate exclaimed. Suma beamed, her snout twitching inside her filter mask.
Lights appeared on the first machine’s touchscreen, and symbols I didn’t recognize glowed on a white background. Suma peered at them thoughtfully before hitting a series of icons. The vibrations increased as each machine began to spring to life, one at a time, ten or so seconds between them.
Recessed wall lighting glowed white as the power made its way around the room, and soon our suit lights were unnecessary. Mine turned off automatically, and I saw Slate’s do the same. My friend was grinning ear to ear, and he stuck his fist out for a bump. I happily obliged.
“You’re amazing, Suma. How long before…” I stopped asking the question as the huge crystal began to glow from the center out. It was like watching the sunrise from a high vantage point. One moment it’s dark, the next a soft glow, and in a while, you’re covered in all the sun’s glory. We stared at the stone for five minutes, feeling the energy vibrate off of it. A series of cords glowed from underneath it, snaking out toward the city, the clear fiber optics blue with energy. It was a brilliant sight. Eventually, we had to avert our eyes to avoid damaging them.
“Time to see if our building is up,” I said, making for the exit. “Great work, Suma. Your parents will be proud of you.” Her pace slowed at this, and I put an arm around her short shoulders.
“Thank you, Dean,” her translator said after a small squawk.
We headed outside and could already see the effect of the power being on. Buildings started to light up floor by floor, until we were covered in the soft glow of a long-dead city block. Street lights I hadn’t even seen before were on, lighting our way back to the tower.
“That’s better,” Slate said, casually walking with his rifle slung over his shoulder. “We should be able to get back up and to the room in twenty minutes.”
I was happy with that timeline. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been gone, but it hadn’t been more than a couple of hours yet. Given the circumstances, that was a win.
The sounds of the city had changed when the power turned on. There was a constant hum as things turned on for the first time in centuries. In a few lower buildings, which appeared to be stores of some sort, I spotted screens playing advertisements.
“Hold on,” I said, walking over to one. A thin alien, with a tail as large as its legs, talked to the audience, his language silent through the glass window. His face was long, with no visible nose and a slit of a mouth. His eyes were deep-set and marble-sized, black as the night was now. He pointed up, long arms extended to a sky that was still partly blue but in the middle of a lightning storm. “I think this was before they left. Before things got too bad here.” The video was short, ending and repeating on a loop.
The constant hum we’d been hearing accelerated, and the ground shook violently, almost enough to send us sprawling. I grabbed the wall, and Slate caught Suma, steadying her.
“That can’t be good,” Slate said, looking around for a sign of trouble.
“Who knows what happened when we fired it up? Maybe we caused an explosion in a building’s power system.” I was going to say more, but a loud screech cried through the air, causing us all to cover our ears.
When I looked up, five small drone-like ships were hovering near us. They were each only about a foot across, but the red lights flashing on them made me think they weren’t there to guide us home.
A series of robotic commands came through the front one’s speakers, and Suma’s translator automatically relayed the message. “You are trespassing. Drop any weapons. Place hands on your heads.”