Codex Deiectus
"Do you recognize this?" she asked, pointing at the item sitting between them. It was a flat slab of white metal, with an inscription in a dead language etched plainly into it. On a closer look, it was made of millimeter-thick plates, about twenty-five of them, held together by solid clamps.
"It's the Codex Deiectus!" he exclaimed, eyes threatening to pop out of his head. "But... nobody's been allowed to touch it since its discovery."
"Oh? But surely nowadays you can tell what used to make it so toxic?"
Sylvain nodded. "It was just covered in uranium dust. But for some reason we've been repeatedly denied permission to try and clean it up."
"Well, it's safe to handle now. Think you can read it?"
"Can I...?" he reached over with a trembling hand and removed the clamps one by one. The first slate was clearly for protection, but subsequent ones were covered in a grid of rectangles, each about the size of his thumbnail and divided by an even smaller grid. The woman quietly slid him a jeweler's loupe.
"These are pages from a book!" he exclaimed, and did a quick count. "An entire book on each side of a slate!" He took one at random and skimmed its contents. "It's a treatise... a treatise on electricity and magnetism... and instructions on how to build a primitive radio." He chocked. "We... we could have called for help three hundred years ago. You could have been here for a century by now!"
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