Lidarion 45

The next morning Trent shared the letters with the others and explained the door knob.

Brooke took it and tried it immediately. They blocked the door as Trent had done the night before and went into the restaurant for breakfast. Trent Harruff and Obla'reth stayed behind. "So last night while I was wandering, I found this room." Trent started. "All the books, I totally understand those. But why do you have a room full of tree trunks?" He asked.

Harruff perked up. "Carved tree trunks?" He asked.

Trent nodded. "How did you guess that?" He asked.

Harruff shook his head. "Not a guess. Mine is back in the port city." He explained.

Trent cocked his head to the side. "Why do you have one?" He asked.

Harruff smiled. "They are how my people tell their stories. We carry them with us almost everywhere. We carve the events of our lives into them, when we die they return to the cliff cities and are hung from the Wall of Songs." Harruff explained.

Obla'reth nodded. "There are very few places I regret never having seen before I became a Librarian. That place is that the top of my list." He offered.

"Why do they call it the wall of songs?" Trent asked.

"They hollow out each log and hang them from the cliff high above the city. The wind blows them into each other, creating a wind chime more than a mile long." Harruff looked like he might cry.

Trent was in awe of his description. "That sounds incredible." He offered.

Harruff nodded. "It really, really does." he agreed.

Trent turned to Obla'reth. "So how come you have a room full of them? He asked.

Obla'reth realized that Harruff was now even more interested in the answer than Trent was. "They are very old. And many of their original owners were not the most honored dead by your races standards of purity." Obla'reth explained.

Harruff nodded. "It has always been a strong belief among my people that the purest and most honorable souls made the best music for the wall." he admitted. "When my people reject my story, may they send it here?" He asked.

Obla'reth nodded.

"Why would they reject your story?" Trent asked as the others came back through the door.

Harruff smiled sadly. "A story for another time perhaps." He dismissed the conversation and walked back to his things as Trent closed the door and dropped the knob back into it's belt pouch.

Melody and Harmony page 18

The others stared at him patiently. And he stared right back at them in total silence.

"Well?" Callopie asked.

Foster shrugged. "It just occurred to me I haven't actually listened to the song in a long time." He admitted.

Vince sat forward "I thought you were a Jolly Rodger?" He complained.

"NO!" Foster exploded. "I'm not! I said I wasn't!" He picked up his bag and board. "This is my dad's old stuff! He wanted me to be one but after three years as a pledge I quit!" He grabbed a chair and sat down hard. "I don't even really like Pirate Rock all that much, the seas dried up hundreds of years ago and anyone living in this city sure as hell isn't beyond the wall solar sailing on the desert sands! So really how 'Piratey' " He air quoted for his own amusement and started pacing. "Can I really be?" He asked rhetorically. "And the pirate queen! Oh my god the pirate queen! You'd think they all knew her personally! 'may she bless you and lead you unto good fortune!'" He stuck his tongue out and made a face. "It's just an old song! So she supposedly loved sailing so much that she left her body to sail the skies for eternity, big whoop! That doesn't sound like ascension to me." He stopped and waved a finger at his audience. "That sounds like death! The big, boring, eternal snooze fest! And there's no proof she created UV absorbent fabric for solar sails so WHO CARES!" He exploded and then sat back in his chair in a huff. "It's just one more dumb religion with made-up symbols -" He pointed at the little girl "No offense, that people use to feel better about their shitty lives! It's all crap." He slumped slightly in the chair. "There is no true pirate bloodline, there is no ancient treasure, and there is definitely no such thing as reincarnation." He pointed to the airlock door. "Because who really wants to get thrown back out into that, shit, over and over, and over again?" He sighed heavily having run out of steam. "It's all just garbage, and I am sick of it." He finished.

There was silence in the room. Vince mindlessly fidgeted with the frilly edge of Callopie's skirt and she slapped his hand.

Aaron got up from the bean bag chair. "Man, if there was ever a poster child for needing to get high, you would be it. And while we share more than a few opinions on the weight of literal truth in our histories, someone believes in the fantasy world you've grown to hate, enough to tattoo that symbol onto this little girl." He pointed at Mary.

"It's not a tattoo." Mary interrupted. Everyone else turned to look at her

"Of course it is." Vince denied.

Mary shook her head. "It's a birthmark. She pulled a small wallet out of her pants pocket and pulled a tiny worn picture of out the wallet. She handed it to Aaron. "That's my mom holding me about two minutes after I was born."

Aaron nodded. "And there it is, on your arm." He confirmed. Mary nodded.

Foster got up and snatched the picture from Aaron's hand. "That's bull, prolly just a photoshop job to sucker you into taking her where they're waiting to pull the drugs out -" He looked at the picture finally. "This is an Instapic." Mary nodded. He stared deeply at the photo. Then back at her arm where the birthmark was peeking out from under her shirt sleeve. "Do you know who you are?" He asked in disbelief.

Mary shook her head. "Not really, I was found just outside the city walls before my first birthday. Other than that photo, the only life I've ever know is the orphanages I've been moved between." She offered.

Foster handed the photo back to her. Shaking his head. "I already told you I don't believe any of this crap, but, let's just assume for a minute that you are telling the truth and that photo is real. You would be something like the 11th granddaughter of the pirate queen. and if the songs are anywhere close to accurate, someone with your birthmark will be responsible for jump starting the world again." He sat back in his chair.

Mary put her picture away. "And how am I supposed to do all that if  I don't even know who I am, what I'm supposed to do, or even why I'm supposed to do it?" She asked.

Foster shrugged. "Dunno kid, like I said before, I don't believe a word of it."

Spoonerville Page 17

Rodney walked into his grandmothers house and literally felt the fear and dread practically fall off his  body as he passed through the front door. He closed the door behind him and realized he could barely remember why he'd been so afraid in the first place.

He dropped his backpack at the foot of the stairs and kicked his shoes off into the pile. The kitchen smelled very much like childhood memories he had been trying to forget. He found his grandmother sitting next to the oven reading Blood Night: Lust. His entrance caused her to look up from her book. "Well how was your first day? I want to hear all about it." She said with a smile as she set her book down and moved her chair over to the small dining room table. Rodney sat across from her and told her everything. It all came out like water freed from a dam.

He told her about his meeting with the vice principal, his history teacher, the T.A. assignment, the fact that he had a crush on his only friend's sister. He wanted to continue but his stomach tightened, like it was fighting revealing the experience by the woods, but, why would he not share that? His grandmother might be able to explain it away, make him feel better about it.

Or she might not believe him. Most people didn't believe in 'intuition', or a 'sixth sense'.

But she had asked, and he had already told her everything else.

His grandmother tried to catch his gaze which had drifted in his silence. "Is there something else?" She asked with genuine concern.

It took all his will power and then some, but he nodded.

Her concern became significantly more intense. :"Do you want to tell me about it?" She asked very seriously.

"I -" He could feel the room closing in on him. He was torn between sharing and running out of the house screaming.

She reached for his hand, and he let her hold it in both of hers. He could feel something gritty on the table, she must has spilled some salt before he had come home.  She stared at him with such intensity he felt exposed. "You can tell me, anything." she emphasized the last word, and he felt more now than ever that he wanted to tell her. He could feel her fingers wiggling slightly as she held his hand. "I will never judge you, or punish you, for talking to me." She rubbed the top of his hand counter clockwise and the pressure in his stomach slowly released. He told her about the parking lot, the walk home, the forest, the rage, the darkness, the cold, and the feeling in his stomach until just now.

By the time he ran out of words she had severed both of their plates and sat down again. Before they started eating she complimented his decision to avoid the tree line and the woods all together.

The rest of dinner was wonderful, afterward he did the dishes and cleaned the table, wiping the salt she had spilled earlier into the kitchen trashcan. He put the hand towel back on the oven handle and went back out to the stairs to grab his back pack and head up stairs to start his homework. The closer he got to the front door the more tension he felt return. He approached his back pack carefully, feeling the darkness and tension creep further and further with each step.

He grabbed his bag and decided that for tonight at least he would do his homework in the kitchen.

Shades of Justice Page 49

It took some convincing but Dante was able to get Sonya into a hover chair and take her into the kitchen area.

Kelly had made tea, coffee, and cocoa. Warren was working on eggs and toast when Dante moved Sonya into the room.

Gordon pulled a soda from the fridge and opened it. "Warren what were you saying about drones earlier?" he asked.

Warren swapped toast for bread in the toaster and pressed the lever down. "Ever since Kyle cut that doorway into the command center storage, I've been going through it to see what all there is." He flipped the eggs in the pan. "And there's a lot. I asked Technarious about it all and apparently while Blinding Light is rebuilt every few years, there is a huge arsenal of weapons and technology that just sit in storage until they are needed again." he plated the first two eggs next to his toast and cracked two more eggs into the pan. "The drones look like they're at least a decade old but if there are any issues the system can repair them just like the system repairs Blinding Light." Warren finished.

Sonya nodded. "We understand that the drones exist, what did you want to do with them?" She asked.

Warren handed the spatula to Kelly grabbed the plate of eggs and toast and brought it over to Sonya. "I think we could use them to scout the mood base. We can map the entire place out including population movement before we ever step foot on the moon." He smiled proudly.

Sonya was halfway into a slice of toast. "When can they be ready to go? What happens if they are detected or destroyed? How long will it take to get the information we need, assuming they aren't detected or destroyed?" She asked each question between bites of toast.

Warren walked back to the toaster and pulled fresh toast from it. "The drones have cloaking technology. It should keep them almost completely invisible." he said putting the fresh toast in front of Sonya.

"Almost completely?"Gordon asked.

Warren nodded. "Nothing is ever 100% guaranteed. There are thirty two of the drones. So we can lose a few before we're in real trouble." Kelly waved him away from the stove, so he sat down at the table.

"How many is 'a few'?" Dante asked.

Warren shrugged. "Ten? Maybe half? The fewer we have the longer it will take to complete the survey." He explained.

Sonya nodded. "And we can't go and defend them because the reason we're sending them in the first place is so we know what were walking into down there." Warren nodded. "Well then." Sonya sighed. "Only one question remains." Everyone looked at her. "Do we have any sriracha for the eggs?" She asked with a smile.

Blood and Profit page 71

Kepi couldn't sleep. She, Eamon, Mew, and the rest of the senate were aboard the lead cruiser. Ship one of five hundred in pod one of one hundred, in group one of one hundred and twenty-seven.

She had helped design every step of the planned exodus. Each group of five hundred ships was broken down into pods of five ships. There were one hundred pods per group and one hundred and twenty-seven groups. The staging area for entrance into the slip was over fifteen miles long. They had worked out a staggered pod spacing to give each ship as much space as possible. With an estimated launch cycle of seven minutes per five hundred ships it would take just shy of seventeen hours to get every ship into the stream. And that was if everything went perfectly.

It was going to be a long day and Kepi couldn't sleep. It bothered her that she had seen every phase of this plan through from the beginning but now she would at the last and most important minute, when everything could go wrong, be on the first ship out.

She couldn't shake the feeling that she was running away from her responsibilities.

The logical part of her mind reminded her that her next responsibility was on the other end of the slip. Some unknowable time and distance away and into the future. She was among those who would be expected to pave the way for the colony's arrival, if they even lived long enough to get there, if there was even a 'there' to get to.

Fear gripped her stomach by the throat and flipped it violently. She shot out of her bunk and into the bathroom.

Lidarion Page 44

They had only been at the library two, maybe three weeks and so very little of their time had been free for them to explore. So the night before they departed, Trent found himself aimlessly exploring the massive building.

About forty minutes into his wandering the found an unmarked door. He placed his hand on the knob and a realization hit him like lightening.

He had not spoken with Alex since the day they set sail. He opened the door and slipped inside to find that the room was full of carved tree trunks. Dozens of them lined the walls of the room. Dozens more hung from the ceiling. His entrance caused the closet few to sway slightly.

He found an empty patch of wall and pulled the door knob from his belt pouch. Alex had said to just touch it to a wall and while he trusted her he still felt stupid doing it for the first time. A thin electric silver line emerged from above and below the door knob and traced out the shape of a door into the wall. When the line was complete he knob turned naturally as if it had always been where Trent had just placed it. The door opened a crack and Trent peaked through the gap.

He saw the darkened central area of Alex's bar. It was the middle of the night and the place wad dark but a quick reach through to touch the wood slatted floor confirmed that it was really there on the other side of the doorway.

He dragged a log over and used it to wedge the door open so there was no change it could close on him accidentally. Once he was absolutely sure the log would stop the door he stepped through into the restaurant.

He was sure the building was deserted and yet he realized he was tiptoeing as if was expecting to get caught. He reached the bar and saw a fairly large rock holding a stack of papers down. He moved the rock and discovered the papers were letters that Alex had been writing them. She had started the day they had left, which is when she realized that something like this late night arrival might occur. Each letter was dated a little later into their journey, she had kept detailed notes as to the state of Lidarion and the status of the captives and the king. He had glanced at less than half the letters when he felt the beginning pangs of homesickness.

He took the letters and found a scrap of paper and pencil behind the bar. He left a simple note, apologizing for such a long absence and promised to return again tomorrow during the day.

With his note finished he gathered the letters and went back through the door, closing it behind him.

Spoonerville: Page 16

Between the two, both Derek and Vivian would say that she was the more attentive. Always had one eye on the perimeter, always tracking the exits. Derek had learned at a young age that his sister was the perfect yin to his yang. Where she had natural paranoia and innate awareness of potential danger, Derek was curious to a fault and automatically assumed that everything would work out for the best. It rarely occurred to him that often his sister was the only reason anything ever worked out in his favor at all.

If they hadn't been arguing with each other on the drive home, maybe she would have noticed the SUV behind them, but they were arguing and she didn't notice it.

She did notice the midnight green Rolls-Royce Phantom perfectly parked in their driveway. The playfully sour attitude she had been giving her brother became deadly seriously in a flash. "Behave yourself" She pointed the car as they cleared the tree line.

Derek saw the car and his smile melted into an emotionless mask. "We've got nothing to worry about." He reassured himself.

Vivian snorted and looked in the rearview mirror. "There's always something worry about Derek."
She parked the car on the empty half of the driveway and the SUV rode to a stop directly behind the Volvo.

Vivian and Derek got out of the Volvo as the professional leg breakers got out of the SUV. Derek flipped them the bird on both hands and got no response. Vivian casually dug the Volvo's key across the pristine paint job of the Phantom.

The Phantom's passenger door opened and an older man with chalk white hair braided in cornrows that fed into a mohawk that trailed down his back. He glared at Vivian though custom sunglasses. "Must you?" He sighed with heavy annoyance.

She raised her hand with the Volvo key taking the place of her middle finger. "Paint for peace of mind Triton, If I don't get mine, you don't get yours." She didn't even look back as she stepped onto the porch.

"Bitch" Triton hissed. Derek stopped admired the damage his sister had done. "Oof, this one is gonna be expensive Toni." He smiled at Triton.

Triton glared at Derek. "Bite me pizza boy."

Derek smiled ear to ear. "That's "Prince Pizza Boy" Thank you very much." He gave an exaggerated curtsey.

"DEREK!" His sister shouted from the porch. "Quit screwing around let's get this over with." She growled and walked into the house.

Derek laughed and followed his sister.