"I'm going to guess not." Basiluzzo sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thanks anyway, guys." He set about the edges of the wall that the light stubbornly continued to lead him to. Even though he knew the others had already also tried this, he hoped maybe he would see something they hadn't. But the seams of the wall seemed tight for the most part. There was only one part of the wall that had a gap. It was a gap about a fingernail's width on the left side, he could feel a breeze through it... and there was no way he could find anything that would give him purchase, much less enough for him to pry the door open. Which meant that couldn't be right.
So he kept looking. Around, down, to the other side, around again, across the top, back around...
Nothing.
"Well, s**t," he breathed, taking a step or five back. Now what? Then there was a glint that threw light across the wall. Surprised, Basiluzzo looked back over his shoulder to see Abzu leaned against another wall. When he'd leaned on it, though, the vibrations had bumped something, something glass. Nothing fell or broke, but whatever it was--a broken mirror, maybe, unless it was supposed to look like that--now reflected the ambient light in the room into a shower of little rainbows. It was really quite pretty, but Basiluzzo didn't stop to admire it. Something else had glinted high up on the wall that the path of light insisted he had to pass through.
He couldn't quite see it up close, though, so he was forced to take a step back again. Problem was, the mirror had stopped moving. It was hard to see what he had spotted-- "Hey, can someone make that mirror do the sparkly thing again?"
"The spark-- sure, I'm on it." Stromboli patted the mirror, causing it to resume moving and casting light around. He would have left it for Abzu, who was closest, but he was also the shortest by a wide margin. The mirror was high up on the wall, and likely out of Abzu's reach. Even still, Stromboli offered Abzu an apologetic smile for reaching nearly over his head. "Fancy meeting you here?"
"Gross, dad." Basiluzzo threw his father a reproachful look over his shoulder, but then went back to inspecting the wall in front of him. Stromboli just chuckled and left him to it, throwing a wink to Abzu once Basiluzzo's back was turned. Basiluzzo could see that shiny spot, but it was
very high up on the wall. Even as tall as Basiluzzo was, he couldn't quite reach it, even on the tips of his toes. Slapping uselessly at the rock, he let out a sigh of frustration and settled back onto the flats of his feet. "Alright, I need a chair or something to stand on."
There were no chairs.
There were no boxes, rocks, or anything of the sort up here. Not even a single dilapidated crate on the edge of collapse from a thousand years of dry rot.
Well,
now what? Basiluzzo grumbled, "if our weapons weren't on the fritz, I could probably just poke it with my staff from here, you know?" Stromboli was quiet for a moment, then pushed off of the wall that he'd been leaning on with Michelangelo. He strode over, standing next to Basiluzzo to inspect it himself, hands on his hips and teeth worrying his lower lip thoughtfully. Basiluzzo stared up at Stromboli with a quizzical look, but he didn't get a chance to ask before Stromboli spoke, his tone casual and genial.
"You know, I bet I could reach that."
"Great." Basiluzzo pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting his eyes tightly. He was getting a headache. "Do you mind giving it a shot?"
"I don't know. Am I too gross?" Mischief sparkled in Stromboli's eyes and in the quirk of his lips as he looked down his nose at his son.
"
Dad--"
Stromboli laughed, a booming laugh from his stomach, and took the steps forward to put himself at the wall in front of them. He reached up, fingers grazing the surprisingly smooth surface of the stone wall. He moved his hand back and forth, searching for anything that felt different from the surrounding rock surface. "I don't feel it. How close am I?"
"If you reach just a bit more, you've got it," Basiluzzo replied promptly, squinting. "You're honestly almost right there as it is." Which told Basiluzzo how close he'd been when on his tiptoes. How infuriatingly, maddeningly close. It was almost just as maddening watching Stromboli get up on his tiptoes and slap his hand around, missing the spot by
millimeters once, twice, three times. "You're going to give me an aneurysm if you miss it one more time."
"Now now," replied Stromboli, cheek pressed against the stone, "no aneurysms. Your mother would kill me." He held his hand still, as far up as it would stretch. "Where do I go from here?"
"Uh... two inches to the right," Stromboli's hand moved accordingly, "no no, that was a bit too far. Move back just a bit, then down." Stromboli obliged, shifting his hand back the way it'd come just a hair, then dragging his hand slowly, oh so slowly, down the rock face until the fingertip of his ring finger brushed something that felt glassy and smooth.
"Is this it?"
"I think so--your hand's in the way. Give it a press and see what happens?"
"If it's booby-trapped, kid, I swear to god--"
"It's not gonna be booby-trapped!"
Stromboli pressed it, reservations aside, and Basiluzzo wasn't the only one gratified when the button moved without issue. Not even an ounce of stiffness, which Stromboli thought was pretty impressive given the age and amount of grit in the place. But as soon as he pressed it, Stromboli stepped away from it. He rejoined Basiluzzo and the others, looking at the wall expectantly.
At first, nothing. Basiluzzo grumbled in frustration, dragging a hand down his face, and Stromboli offered a conciliatory pat to his shoulder. Then, there was a faint click and a whirring noise.
A disembodied voice rang through the room. "Identify yourself."
"Uh," Basiluzzo cleared his throat, shooting the others an alarmed look, before he spoke. "Basiluzzo. Of Uranus." There was a long pause full of more clicking and whirring.
"Identify companions, Basiluzzo. Of Uranus."
"Oh. Uh." Basiluzzo gave them another look of concern, but obliged. "Pendour of Neptune. Abzu of Neptune. Stromboli of Uranus."
Even more clicking and whirring. "Stromboli of Uranus. State your name and purpose."
"Stromboli of Uranus." Hadn't Basiluzzo literally just given his name? Why'd he have to repeat it? Isn't that how the disembodied voice knew he was even there-- What was he supposed to say was his purpose, anyway? "Helping Basiluzzo find his Code piece." Maybe if he said it with confidence, it would work out. More clicking. More whirring. A high-pitched whine. Where was the voice even coming from? Stromboli didn't see any speakers or anything of the sort in the room.
"Access restricted. Entry requested by Stromboli of Uranus. Access denied. Voice mismatch."
"Oh for ********-- Is it because you pressed the button for me?" Basiluzzo rubbed his temples, giving an aggravated grumble. Of course the voices didn't match! It was probably keyed to some guy hundreds of years ago! "Look, I can't reach that button. He just pushed it. It's Basiluzzo of Uranus requesting access. Please."
Yet more whirring. Then, silence.
The silence stretched on enough that Basiluzzo was starting to lose hope. Then, "access restricted. Entry requested by Basiluzzo of Uranus. Access granted. Voice match."
Wait--
But Basiluzzo didn't have much time to think about the fact that it recognized his voice before a horrible grinding noise filled the little room they were in. Basiluzzo and Stromboli hurried to cover their ears, and Stromboli looked quickly to Pendour and Abzu to make sure they were alright. Then, the grinding noise stopped.
"Motor error."
"s**t." Basiluzzo uncovered his ears. "What's the error?"
"Motor error."
"I bet it's all the sand." Stromboli winced, rubbing his own ears and again looking to Pendour and Abzu to check on them. "Now what do we do?"
"Motor error."
"Yes, you said that," Basiluzzo retorted, beginning to lose patience. "What do I do about it? I can't get to the motor to clean it. I don't even have anything to clean it with." He had yet to figure out how to get a vacuum cleaner to work on his wonder without electricity and without having to lug a heavy gas-powered generator with him to run it.
"Motor error."
"Is there an override or something?" Basiluzzo went over and inspected the gap he'd noticed before. Nothing. At least, nothing he could see that would be of any help. "Computer, manual override?"
"This isn't Star Tr--" Stromboli began, but he was cut off by more whirring and clicking, and then a new sound. This time it sounded like things were sliding across the rock inside the wall, followed by distinctly metallic pinging noises.
"Manual override activated. Emergency access protocol initiated. Locks disengaged." A pause. "Warning. Stand clear of the entry. Warning. Stand clear of the entry." Basiluzzo jumped back from the door in alarm, just in time for there to be the distinct sound of a pneumatic press degassing. The smell of old compressed air was next to fill the space they all stood in, and Stromboli coughed at the dust it stirred up.
Just then, the section of wall blocking their entry dropped about a hand's breadth with a boom loud enough to vibrate the walls and make the mirror shake in warning. However, it did also end up exposing a section of roughly equivalent size above it. But before anyone could start to celebrate, the section of stone wall started to tilt in toward them. Swearing profusely, Basiluzzo jumped forward to try to hold it up. It was no use, even as Stromboli moved to join him, and so Stromboli and Basiluzzo jumped clear with a, "watch out!" to the other two.
Fortunately the door was short enough and the room large enough that there was clearance enough to prevent anyone from being crushed as it fell in. Even still, Basiluzzo turned the air black as the dust settled, coughing and pulling the side of his hood over his mouth to try to breathe. "That is the worst ******** manual override I have ever," he was interrupted by more coughing, "ever seen."
"Yeah, but at least it's open now," Stromboli's voice was muffled behind the collar of his shirt. "You two okay?" That was directed toward Abzu and Pendour, Stromboli turning to where he'd last seen them before the door had tried to crush them all. He was certain they'd gotten out of the way, but still--
Basiluzzo trusted his father to look after them and moved back for the wall-turned-door that now lay on the ground. It was a stone slab over a foot thick by his estimation. No wonder it had made so much noise. He looked toward the side where the gap had been, inspecting it closely. There was machinery there with a Mercurian symbol etched onto it, including seven contacts that, if he looked back to the slab, lined up with seven grooves.
So that was how it'd been holding the door in place. The precision required to make the wall look solid must have been insane--
He'd admire the architecture later. The disembodied voice saying, "security room open for ninety seconds," reminded him what they were there for. Basiluzzo stepped into the doorway, craning his neck to check that it was not, in fact, booby-trapped. But nothing came out to get him, so that was a plus. So he kept going, stepping through the entryway entirely until he stood in the room.
There was no furniture of any kind in it. No adornments on the walls. In fact, the walls--and the floor--were all made of thick glass. Realizing this, he almost jumped back into the hallway and counted them all lucky that the door-wall hadn't fallen the other way. It would have been a disaster if the door had fallen into all the glass and shattered it. Not only would that have ruined a part of his Wonder that Basiluzzo had only just learned existed, his attention was taken by the sight of what they were all there for.
In the center of a room made of glass except for a ceiling made of mirrors, on a thin glass pedestal, sat his Wonder's piece of the Code. It spun gently under a shield of matte metal, glowing brightly but not so brightly that he had trouble approaching it. No, what gave him trouble approaching it was realising he was standing in a giant glass ball. Through the waviness of the ancient glass, he could tell that there was nothing under it. At least, for enough distance that the light petered out into the abyss. Basiluzzo took a deep breath, finding a new fear of heights he had not previously possessed. It was rational, he told himself. He had no idea how thick the glass was, really. How much weight it could support.
So he moved slowly, carefully, toward the pedestal in the middle of the room where the Code piece sat. He reached for it, only to realize the shield quite effectively kept his hand away, too. The gap between the pedestal and the shield was only enough for his fingers to reach in, but the Code piece was too big to fit back out. He tried to pry at the shield, but it wouldn't budge. What was its purpose, anyway? What could possibly get at it in here?
But when he was feeling around, his fingers found another button.
"It is not yet night. Engage anyway?" Ah, the disembodied voice was back. Again, from nowhere, no speakers that he could see.
"Uh, sure."
"Error. Input not recognized." A pause. "It is not yet night. Engage anyway?"
"Sure." Wait. "Yes." It did not occur to him until then to ask what, exactly, he was engaging, but it was too late.
That question was answered anyway as the shield popped back from the Code piece, letting its light unfettered into the room. Its very bright light. Its very bright light now reflected off of a ceiling full of mirrors into a room of glass walls and a glass floor. Basiluzzo shouted, throwing his arms up to shield his watering, burning eyes. Then he jumped forward, one of his arms outstretched and hand grasping for the piece of the Code. First one hand covered it, then the second, and that blocked enough of the light that he was able to open his eyes.
"Jesus Christ." He swallowed, throwing a, "sorry about that!" back to the others, as they had probably also been blinded. Okay, now what? He needed to get this over with as soon as possible so he could tell his Wonder to put the shield back over the code piece. Taking a deep, shaky breath, he closed his smarting eyes and tried to focus past the spots in his vision.
--------------------------------------------------
"Sir! The people are all evacuated! It's time for us to go! The last ship is waiting!"
He looked up from his desk. They weren't the type of people to keep a standing fighting force of any sort, having always been content to send their battle-minded off to Mars. Disputes on Uranus were better solved through less direct, less bloody means. And so when things first started going wrong, and they'd realised it wasn't just a rival trading clan, he'd decided to start scattering his people to the stars. Something else was at fault, something more insidious that he couldn't recognize, and he had known once the mysterious murders started that staying was a suicidal thing to do. So he'd begun to evacuate his people.
First, to other friendly clans who didn't report problems. Then, when they, too, began to fall, to allies elsewhere in the solar system. Then to allies elsewhere in the cosmos. Whoever would take them. Whoever would keep his people safe. Everyone who lived in his wonder was encouraged--nay, ordered--to take only what they could carry and get themselves out.
He'd been trying to reach the comet Encke for weeks, trying not only to arrange safe passage for some of his people, but to make sure that whatever was happening had not also befallen their leader. At first, he'd received reassurances that everything was fine. And then, that everything was not fine, but it was easy to handle. Then, not so easy to handle.
And that everything was far from fine.
And now he stared down at a letter, received just the previous day by way of the last cargo shipment they were going to permit to land while they tried to evacuate the stragglers and most stubborn.
Ignatius' hand was normally a steady one, and the letter started that way. It was full of soaring prose, lofty and grandiose promises of what Ignatius would show him next they met. But just as soon as the promises came, they were taken back. The letter had started upbeat. It did not finish that way, full of sorries and regret that became impossible to read, already blotchy by the time he had received it. But he was able to understand enough of it. Enough to understand the sense of futility in the words written there. The bleakness. The apology, an apology that he wished he could tell the sender to take back, that--even now--it wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault. None of it was his fault.
It was a goodbye letter. A final missive from someone who knew that they were never going to see what came of its receipt. And, at the end of it, a plea for him to run, to save himself. He stared at this part longest of all.
"Ariska? Sir?"
"Go on. I'm coming." Ariska tucked the letter into his vest and got to his feet as the messenger, relieved to be sent off, broke into a run in his haste to go find that last ship. Ariska, for his part, followed at a walk. There were things that needed to be done before he could leave. Security measures to be put in place. Most of them already had, but there were the last couple to be taken care of, and he activated these on his way out.
The last found him standing at a glass podium outside the entrance to the main hall. He took a ring off of one of his fingers, turning it around and letting the dying light of the sunset glint off of it. He kissed it, then slotted it into a groove on the podium. "Keep it all safe." With any luck, this would all be over soon, and they could all come back. He twisted the ring in its slot, and a bar slid in place to hold the ring where it was. Shields, thick ones, began to slide over the halls of Basiluzzo. At the same time, the shield that kept the sand at bay flickered out as the power shifted to emergency only, and already the winds were chasing sand where it had been previously disallowed.
That wind pulled and tugged at his hair as he turned for the ship waiting. Other last-minute evacuees were on that ship, some from their sister territory Stromboli, some from other neighboring areas.
Speaking of Stromboli, "is Thabet on board?" He frowned, not seeing the familiar shock of grey hair. Best to distract himself. Best not to think about the letter tucked next to his heart--
"No sir. We haven't been able to find her. We think she left on the last transport to Earth. Most of the people on it were from Stromboli." Ariska frowned, turning his head toward the door, but it was too late. It was already shutting. He would have to hope they were right. There was nothing else he could do.
With a deep sigh, he found a place to sit and did so. He had already sent his belongings with other members of his household, so there was nothing with him.
Nothing except the letter.
He pulled it from his vest, staring at it and then opening it to read it once again. Searching for any clue in it that there was hope. That maybe once they reached safe harbor, he could go looking for Ignatius. The letter said specifically not to go looking for him, but Ignatius should know that Ariska was bad at being ordered around. Of course he was going to go looking for him. And, he resolved as he put the letter back in his vest, he wouldn't stop until he found him. Even if Ignatius didn't have anything left, Ariska would find him and take him home.
Alive.
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With shaking fingers, Basiluzzo pulled his hands away from the piece of the Code and found again the button that had disengaged the shielding. With a whirr, the shield popped back into place, making the light level in the room tolerable again. He opened his eyes, staring for a moment into the near distance unseeingly. Then he shook himself out of it, swallowing hard and turning back to the others.
With a smile, he reported, "all done!" and headed toward the exit.
If asked, he'd blame the previous obscene light level for the moisture in his eyes and on his cheeks.
