43. Akavel

 
She said she would only be a minute. It had been almost an hour.
 
Though they’d planned this day for more than a week, Jaden was still being pulled away to advise on one project or another. No one mentioned the widening gap between the three and Jaden, but all felt its impact. Each filled in the silent waiting time in their own way. Marius was going over the dodecahedron, ensuring it was ready for the trip. Nox was waiting inside the transport, contemplating knowledge she had recently gained from her move into the single women’s hut. Fureva-Yung was literally bouncing off the walls.
 
It was her favourite pastime now her armour was fully upgraded. She’d find a hard surface to throw herself against and let the armour bounce her back to her feet. Usually, it was just the ground, but the twelve-sided vehicle gave many new bouncing opportunities. She could bounce off several walls, to the floor and back to her feet with only one jump.
Jump! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!
“I still don’t understand why Binna asked Cyanna if she was serious about Alton. I thought she liked him,” Nox mused out loud, gaining a confused look from Marius.
Jump! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Crack!......Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
 
Fureva-Yung had landed on a floor panel that had given way. A shrill beeping that gained in frequency caught all their attention.
“Everybody?!” Fureva-Yung rolled away from the buckled panel, and the other two gathered to see the damage.
“Maybe we can just straighten out the panel, and it will be fine,” Marius suggested as Nox went to the central control column to check diagnostics. Fureva-Yung pried up the panel, and a column of light rose from under their feet..
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
“Maybe not,” Marius soon qualified as the column produced three blue-white orbs of light. The orbs bounced off the walls of the dodecahedron much as Fureva-Yung had before honing in on the three offenders.
 
Marius ducked the ball that came for him and turned on his armoured light gloves. Fureva-Yung swung her chain through hers, only to have a jolt of energy return up the chain. Nox alone was distracted at the control column. She didn’t see the ball until it was too late. Zapped by the ball engulfing her, it began floating towards the ceiling. Nox tried blinking out into the transport station, only to discover she’d somehow brought the ball with her. The ball sailed towards the wall as if to go straight through just as Jaden walked down the stairs to the station.
 
“I leave you alone for…for goodness sake…” She complained, jumping in front of the ball to push it back into the centre of the room. Instead, the malleable surface of the bubble deformed and started encasing her arms and head. Quickly, she wrapped her legs around the handrail of the stairs, holding the bubble in place for the time being.
 
Inside the dodecahedron, Marius watched his bubble bounce off a wall and back in his direction. His hands glowing, he caught the ball. Now he engaged another of his cyphers, absorbing the ball's energy. It shrank and eventually disappeared with a tiny pop.
Nox! Where are you? He now called, unsure how far the girl had gone but aware the ball had gone with her.
Here! She replied unhelpfully.
Fureva-Yung lined up her next attack on her ball, this time bunting it back towards the glowing column. The ball was absorbed back into the column when the energy shell hit the light.
 
Two down, one to go.
 
Where is here?
With Jaden.
Outside, Nox grabbed Jaden’s shoulders and tried putting a hole in the bubble with reshape. Unlike a physical shell, however, the energy could heal any hole she made before Nox and Jaden could use it. The ball started rolling over Jaden, the handrail and part of the wall. Marius stuck his head out of the dodecahedron to see Jaden slow the ball’s progress, locking herself into the handrail. With an outstretched hand, he drew away the energy of the ball. It disappeared with a plop, Jaden and Nox landing in an awkward pile on the floor.
 
“What was that?” Jaden asked, quickly releasing herself from the handrail and Nox’s death grip before standing.
“Some sort of defence. Furry found a column…moving around the transport,” Marius explained as they all entered the transport to see Fureva-Yung pushing the column down and replacing the bent panel.
“If you’re all finished with your fun and games, maybe we can get this thing on the road?” Jaden barked, and Nox quickly complied, closing the door and setting the dodecahedron on its way.
“How long will this trip take?”
 
Nox brought up a visual representation of the route on the central column. It showed two stations along the path with their destination right at the end. The Ferrian numbers beside the map read, ‘Travel time approximately ten hours.”
“Well then, we might as well get comfortable,” Jaden found a comfortable corner and sat down. Fureva-Yung took a position near the front of the transport, listening ahead for any sign of trouble. A stray memory from her past popped into her mind. The memory was a distracting by pleasurable experience that Fureva-Yung was still getting used to. A proud engineer had explained how this transport worked. Even now, she could hear the transport’s engine winding up as it got up to cruising speed.
 
Having assured herself the transport was working as it should after the bubble affair, Nox turned to sit with Jaden. Life with the young women of the community had given her a lot of questions she’d saved up to share with Jaden on the long trip ahead. Jaden was turned away from the group, and leaned against a wall scribbling furiously in her notebook. Her demeanour reminded Nox of the bad times after her Marick died.
She looks busy, Nox thought to herself, Maybe I should leave her alone. She picked a corner on the other side of the transport, made herself comfortable sitting on her small satchel, and started reading through her botany book.
 
Fureva-Yung could hear the whine of the engine lower in pitch before anyone else inside knew the dodecahedron was slowing down. They did notice when the transport started to ascend as they felt the pressure difference in their ears. As soon as it stopped, Fureva-Yung stood in front of the door, listening. The engines wound down, the slow tick of metal expanded by heat, shrinking back into place, the mournful sound of the wind through a vast space. She nodded her head and showed her arm to the door. It opened with a swish onto a gangway leading to a closed door. Around them, a cylinder of empty air like the one they had first seen under the Endoval Towers. Overhead, a white dome pristine and intact. Nox still remembered seeing the giant robot's legs sticking down through the damaged dome, which in turn reminded her of Cerelon and the only other township she’d ever seen.
 
As Fureva-Yung led the way across the gangway, Nox wondered what this new town was like. Did it also have a Highside-Redoubt and a Buckles? Was it split between the commanders and the doers like old Celeron or more equal like Tiltspire? She wondered if they worshipped the Erinai. She didn’t think so. She felt that shard was trapped in Cerelon after the crystal blocked the passage. She wondered how many young people like herself lived there and wondered even more if she could make a friend while they were there.
All this within the few seconds it took to reach the door.
 
Fureva-Yung listened. Something was moving above, something she couldn’t explain. Things were moving through the ground around them, burrowing things, scuttling things. Nothing there to worry about. She opened the door.
 
 
 
The door opened into a small area surrounded by balconies accessed via a flight of steps ahead. Asking for a boost from Fureva-Yung, Nox hovered up to the ceiling. The higher area was narrower, and the curved wall and sliding door at the top suggested an elevator shaft. Both to the left and right closed doors hinted at other spaces beyond. Nothing else was in sight, so Nox let the others know, and they climbed the stairs and started checking the doors.
 
 
The left door opened onto a split-level space, once accessible via two curving flights of steps. The first was a tangled mess of metal and piping. The second floor was blocked by masonry fallen from above. Leaving this room for the present, they crossed the space to the door on the right. The door was slightly ajar, and with some persuasion from Fureva-Yung and a crowbar, it opened to reveal a room full of collapsed ceiling, earth and other junk. Marius rummaged through the space and came away victorious with armfuls of parts, azure steel and pliable metal.
 
Jaden looked to the elevator door next. With her experience, it took her no time to open the door. Unfortunately, the capsule was askew and without power. Besides straightening the capsule in the shaft, Jaden discovered the power was not getting through, and she needed thaum dust to make it work.
 
They went back to the first room, with Marius taking out a rope and tying it to a straight piece of pipe. He handed it to Nox, who levitated up to the upper floor to secure it to the upper level. The group worked smoothly together. There was little discussion, as everyone did their part to advance through the wreck of a past world.
 
When Nox was eight metres above the ground, a woman's scream rang out, echoing through the broken space. Nox clutched her ears as the sound reverberated through her mind. She turned to see flickering motes of light in the far corner of the upper level. The glowing shape of a woman full of rage slowly evolved from the lights. Multicoloured and bright, she advanced on Nox, who scanned the apparition in genuine curiosity. Whatever she was, she wasn’t corporeal. More out of phase, much like Milton and Resina had become.
Physical attacks won’t do, She thought, Maybe energy or sound attacks would work?
 
The lights made the shadows dance down on the lower level, and without a word, Jaden yanked on the rope and pulled Nox below the level of the upper-level flooring.
“Everything alright up there?” Marius called as Nox scowled.
“I’m down here now,” She said, floating like a balloon on a string.
“How about the woman screaming? Does she need help?”
 
Fureva-Yung pulled Nox in as Jaden continued with the diplomacy.
“I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to disturb you in your…living…space. Maybe we could trade, we need information about the surface.”
Silently, Marius pulled out an io and made one of his makeshift bombs in preparation.
Nox reached out and read the mind of the creature above them.
 
Incomprehensible language…a muddle of rage simmering down to a dull anger, The woman looked at Jaden and screamed. Jaden closed her eyes and let the force of the scream wash over her, rippling across the surface of her mind without reaching her.
 
Fureva-Yung had seen enough. She roared, a humming rose up from where the woman floated as the lights behind grew brighter.
“You don’t get to do that to my Jaden,” Nox mumbled, throwing out a psychic blast at the woman as Marius tossed his bomb into the space above. The whole structure shuddered under the impact as rocks and dust flew everywhere. Both Jaden and Marius found themselves under a rain of debris, Marius getting out of the way to dodge the larger pieces as he activated his light gloves.
 
The woman, now filling the lower level of the room with her multicoloured light, descends, attacking Nox with her scream. Ready for the attack, Nox stiffened her resolve and allowed the attack's energy to flow over her, just as Jaden had. Behind her, another light was in the shape of a man. It saw Marius and attacked. Marius dodged as usual and moved to give a punch his own, but he was out of range. Seeing his frustration, Nox pulled out a cypher nullifying gravity and uses it on Marius. His feet began to leave the ground as he suddenly realised he could fly.
 
Fureva-Yung’s shattering shout erupts, and the woman cries out as the vibrations send ripples through her being. As she tries to reform, Marius sails up to her and clapped his light-armoured hands. A wave of sound ripples through her, disrupting her ability to reform. Enraged, she directed her next attack on him. Below, the man yelled at Fureva-Yung. She clutched her head as the sound shivered through her mind. When she looked up, blood was streaming from her nose and ears, her vision was fuzzy, and she looked stunned.
 
Another of Fureva-Yung’s shattering shouts rattles through the image of the man. His form dissipated for a moment, blurring into a cloud of light before reforming again. Marius repeats his clap on the woman, and she can no longer hold her form. Her scream was cut short as her light dissipated into a cloud, dissolving into nothing before them.
 
“Whose the Boss!” Marius crows, spinning in the air, before seeing his bleeding friend below, “..of course, you helped.”
Fureva-Yung nodded, refocusing her vision as a third glow started across the floor above. Nox forms a ball with her hands and waits until she sees the being before sending out a stasis field. Still battling the man, Jaden focuses an io attack and hits, dissipating his cloud of light across the room. With a thought, Marius flew up as another woman of light appeared. Nox was ready, though, and she was quickly frozen in a stasis field.
 
The battle was theirs though it wasn’t quite over. Fureva-Yung’s vision returned, and the group climbed up the rope ladder, surrounding the last energy people. When they were ready, Nox dismissed the stasis, and their attacks went off together. The woman shouted at Marius, but it had no effect as Fureva-Yung’s shout tore the woman apart. The shockwave of the shout sent loose debris flying back at Fureva-Yung, who took it all on her rubber armour. She brushed away a little dust and smiled.
 
The upper floor of the room consisted of a machine connected to large cylinders. Nothing seemed working so Marius set to work scrounging what he could. From it, he found the sought-for Thaum dust and a few more io that were promptly dropped into Bellyache. As Jaden returned to the ground floor to fix the elevator, Marius and Fureva-Yung continued exploring the upper rooms. Nox hovered between them, keeping a telepathic connection.
 
 
 
 
 
Clearing debris, they made enough space to break through a small hallway. To their left, a control panel ran the width of the hall. A window above looked out over the dodecahedron station. Two doors off the corridor lead to fan-like contraptions that neither Fureva-Yung nor Marius could understand. Fureva-Yung swapped with Nox, keeping watch over Jaden as Nox identified the machinery.
 
“They’re energy storage devices, but they’re not working right now,” She said simply as she always did when talking about old tech.
“Anything shiny?” Marius asked, his eyes twinkling at the thought.
“Hmm, may-be,” Nox grinned, and they started searching the machine for parts.
 
With Fureva-Yung’s help aligning the capsule, Jaden had the elevator fixed and ready in an hour. The ride was silent and smooth, with Fureva-Yung a spotting commentary on what she could hear as they travelled up.
“A level, it echoes. Another level, but I think that has collapsed…” Suddenly she stopped and tilted her head up just as the elevator slowed its speed.
“I can hear people. Lots, all talking. A level above.” The door rolled open onto a storeroom full of barrels. A view very much like the one from the images. Nox raced away, looking for the camera and waving up to her future self.
 
“I want to know the mix of people upstairs. There may be no need for this,” Fureva-Yung said, pulling out a disguise cypher.
“I’ll go,” Nox volunteered, making her skin a blotching black and grey that fitted the dull lighting of the storeroom. She silently tip-toed up the stairs before reaching a plain wooden door at the top. With practice honed, sneaking out of the family home every morning, she opened the door and peered out.
 
Outside a bar was buzzing with activity. The primarily human clientele mingled with a small group of bipedal fish-folk who all seemed to speak the common language, though Nox could hear none of it from her hiding spot. Picking a mixed group of individuals in lively conversation, Nox eavesdropped into the mind of the most boisterous. He was a small, well-dressed man currently with a red face. As he spoke, his listeners nodded and sipped their drinks attentively.
 
How dare they dispute my running of things. The Armourer’s Guild should be happy with the trade and do their jobs. Is it my fault that deliveries are being delayed? They don’t know how good they’ve got it. If the Imperium wants it, they get it and they should just take what they’re give and be thankful….
 
Curious for more but aware the others were waiting, Nox closed the door and slipped back down the stairs to inform the others.