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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2025 4:22 am
Khazran normally wouldn't have cared about a cash reward for doing something he would have done, anyway. It seemed like such a crass thing to do. However, he also needed equipment to set up a base camp on an uninhabited asteroid, and he also didn't want to have to explain this to his mother.
So he'd taken the money and gone on a shopping spree at the nearest outdoor goods store, passing it off as being new to camping and a little bit of backpacking, purchasing as much as he could for $500.
And here he was, in the middle of the night, once again, with a depot of camping supplies and stores of dried food. He was still feeling a little drained after having donated his energy at the Chamber of Prayer on the Moon more than a week ago, but he still Powered up fine. Pulling out his senshi phone, holding tight to the bungie cords he'd looped around his camping gear, he flipped the phone open and tapped the button for home, thinking of the asteroid and his need to explore and understand it. Light suffused him and his gear, depositing everything with a gentle CLUNK on a smooth, polished floor. It was also pretty dark, faintly illuminated by grilled windows set higher up in the thick walls.
Powering down and digging his regular cell phone out of his pocket, he turned on the flashlight app, lifting it so he could see where he'd been deposited this time. It appeared to be an office of some kind, or maybe a scriptorium. Or, rather, it would, if it weren't for the fact that most of the furniture consisted of lap desks, and the fact that there was a thoroughly rusted 1920's style care visible through a doorway.
What...?
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2025 4:30 am
Letting go of his camping gear, Khazran made his way through the doorway, passively noting small, ornately crafted desk lamps on each lap desk, accompanied by abaci. He peered around the new room, noting an elegant space, well-illuminated by massive grilled windows that threw geometric shadows on the tiled mosaic floor. A warm breeze whistled through the grilles, and more lap desks with abaci covered the floor.
Khazran walked up to the windows, peering outward onto a small lot filled with rusting cars. Was this...a car dealership of some kind? Had Aberdonia been more technologically advanced than he'd thought?
Turning around, the teenager began to circle the vehicle curiously. It looked like a classic 1920s model, sleek and elegant. He knew without touching that it would be hot from sitting in even partial shade for the full day, and he'd be a fool to touch it barehanded. Khazran looked around again.
This was Aberdonia, right? He hadn't just zapped himself to Egypt instead? Had he?
Unhooking a pair of sunglasses from his shirt, he popped them on, and made his way outside, turning around to look at the car dealership critically. The architecture looked ancient Egyptian...but...no...it couldn't be...
Resting on the roof were an array of badly worn and damaged solar panels. On ancient Egyptian architecture. With a lot filled with 1920s style cars.
Khazran spun around, scanning the rooftops of any neighboring buildings.
Sure enough, many of them sported old solar panels.
No. Way.
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2025 4:37 am
Khazran dashed back inside, ripping off his sunglasses, and, pausing just long enough to use his shirt tail to protect his hand, prised the fuel cap off.
What sat underneath was not a space for a gas nozzle, but spaces for the prongs of an electrical plug. The elegant, old-fashioned rustbucket in front of him was an electric car. Aberdonia had had electricity, and clean electricity, at that. Nothing probably worked anymore, but if he could turn things around, maybe he could get the power grid functioning enough to be able to rely on that.
As the teenager returned in a thoughtful daze to the room he'd arrived in, he noticed that the back wall was full of shelves with battered papyrus records, interspersed with clay tablets. A few desks near the back looked like they might hold the remains of typewriters. An office space, relatively cool, despite the grates of what was probably a mostly dead air conditioning system. Aberdonia had been more technologically advanced than he'd guessed, more like the 1920s, but with clean, renewable energy.
Snagging the tent bag, he began to set up a base camp in the one corner of the room without shelves or desks. It seemed ridiculous to set up camp in the remains of a car dealership, but deserts were supposed to get cold at night, and the thick walls had to count for something on that front. Plus, if he ever managed to get one of these heaps of junk charged and moving again, he could probably just pack his gear inside and glamp his way around the asteroid.
Honestly, knowing as much as he now knew about Aberdonia opened up a lot of opportunities, as well as giving him an awfully long To-Do List.
Including studying the writing system.
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2025 4:42 am
Khazran frowned as he finished pitching the tent and tossed his new sleeping bag and spare pillow inside.
The writing system. Huh. He'd have to piece that together, sooner or later. He had a guess the cartouches he'd seen in the Archives referred to royalty, and maybe other Powered individuals, but that wasn't much to go on.
Digging out his notebook and regular phone, he retrieved a stack of clay tablets from the shelves, figuring they'd be less likely to fall apart if touched wrong. Activating the flashlight, he settled in to start creating a list of every hieroglyph in the tablets as the sky began to darken outside.
A flash of purple lightning flashed outside, followed by the distant rumble of thunder. Rain began to pound on the flat roof. He lifted his head a moment before returning to his list. The Calamitous Hollow was continuing to close in on Earth. He shivered.
Khazran had a long and stormy evening ahead.
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