18: Ryan

Ryan

          "Michael!" Ryan called out, his voice carrying over the still waters. "Michael, hurry!" He could hear the splashing as his best friend began to swim toward him. Diving back under with a slightly fogged mask, Ryan slowly removed the cheap water shoe from his right foot. Cushiony sand billowed between his toes as he stepped into the kelp forest below. A blue crap sidestepped in front of him, its claws opened and raised. Ryan prodded at it with the nose of his shoe and the crab latched onto the thin mesh. The pair squared off in a circular dance. The crab flexed its pincers as Ryan swam closer.

          Michael dropped below the surface which was only a few feet deep to watch the battle. The crab was so focused on Ryan, it didn't notice Michael sneaking up behind it with his spare mesh bag. He grabbed the crustacean on the midsection from behind. It flailed its chunky claws and skinny limps uselessly as it floated to the bottom of the bright yellow bag to join  a pile of chattering scallops.

          The two young teens rose from the water, their snorkels dangling clumsily from the straps of their goggles. Both wore white t-shirts to protect against rogue jellyfish tentacles and sea lice, but somehow the sea lice always managed to find a way in to sting.

          Michael moved the snorkel's pronged mouthpiece from his lips and spit. "Where did you find that?"

          Ryan shrugged. "I just saw him. So I figured we could add him to our menu tonight."

          "Sounds great to me, man. I love crab." Michael lifted the bag from the water which sagged from the weight of the cargo. Once out of the water, the vibrant colors of the bag and creatures within dulled to darker, earthier tones. Everything glistened in the bright morning light. The scallops began to make a wet, suction-cup noise as they slowly opened their shells. Like a bag of popcorn, after the first pop they all began to pop. Their calcified shells clattered against one another and rows of blue "eyes" appeared. Michael dropped the bag back beneath the surface.

          "Let's name him," Ryan said.

          "The crab?"

          "Yeah, let's name him something awesome." Ryan pondered a moment. "Scuttles."

          "Scuttles?" Michael asked incredulously.

          "Scuttles. I can't think of a more fitting name, can you?" Ryan and Michael replaced their snorkels and glided just under the water's surface toward their anchored kayaks with Scuttles in tow. The low constant drone of cicadas emanated from the north Florida woods that surrounded the bay. The growing August heat made even the mosquitoes lazy as they stalked their next victim.

          The waters of the bay near Apalachicola were only inches deep for nearly half a mile. The two boys trudged through the squishy sands. Their kayaks moaned and listed as they were pulled by rope across the shallow water. Purple-green streaks of upset sediment trailed where horseshoe crabs had hastily scurried away from the splashing feet. A lonely canted wood pylon rose from near the shoreline. The air was thick and had a swampy tang to the scent. Michael and Ryan tied their kayaks to the pylon. Scallops chirped noisily from within the mesh bags on the molded plastic seats. Ryan hoisted his bag up sending all the mollusks tumbling down to the bottom in a chorus of clacks.

          Tiny pinfish nipped at their leg hair as they covered the last hundred yards to the stairs of the rickety dock. The moist swamp stench was more powerful as they reached the mud banks. Thousands of hermit crabs fled towards the saw grass as the two scallopers' footfalls echoed on the aged wood. The dock led to a dirt trail that was slowly being reclaimed by sawgrass. Orange pine needles that had fallen from the impressive pines littered the ground. They past several cabins as they made their way to the one Ryan's father had rented for the week. On the screened porch on the second floor of one, a family was grilling. Ryan and Michael hurried up the steps to their own cabin, batting away horse flies impatiently.

          After grabbing a few bottles of water and the cleaning knives, the two hurried back out to the water. They went out a few feet, far enough that the water came to their knees and began cleaning. The method was meticulous. Pry open the scallop, use the knife if necessary, scrape the thick cylindrical muscle off both shells without rupturing the liver and making a mess, then discard the offal. As their flat knives separated more shells and the guts grew more plentiful, schools of pinfish arrived for the scraps.

          "You know what, man," Ryan said, rinsing off scallop organs from his fingers.

          "What's up?"

          "I think I'm going to go for Britney."

          Michael stopped midway through a cut and the scallop clamped down on his knife. "Britney? Don't you think that's a little, uh, ambitious?"

          Ryan had a stupid grin on his face. At fourteen, he was a little chubby and round. "You know, I thought so at first, too. But do you know what happened in food prep the day before the exam?"

          "You made food?" Michael responded, twisting his knife sideways to reopen the defiant scallop.

          "Even better. I fingered her under the table."

          At that Michael laughed. "Ryan, you had me thinking you were serious there for a second. I thought you were actually going to try for her. I'd hate to see you go down like that."

          Ryan looked down with a little self-consciousness at his rotund belly. Then he looked back at Michael. "No, dude, I'm serious. I really did." It was true he had. The pretty cheerleader had sat next to Ryan in at least one class for the entirety of middle school. She always laughed as his jokes and sometimes even joined him at the lunch table. As the eight-grade drew to a close, he found himself sitting next to her at one of the long lab-type tables with no one else. They were at the back of the class, and the teacher had given them time to practice a recipe that would be their final exam. It had started as an accident, he had accidentally brushed his hand against her bare thigh. He flushed and quickly retracted his hand, blubbering several apologies, but Britney gave him a look that was equal parts reproach and seduction. "Better be careful," she had said, "that's dangerous territory." But the way she said it made Ryan's heart skip a beat and his muscles tense. She gave him a wicked grin then continued work on the food. No longer able to focus, Ryan botched several tasks of prep work.

          "Is something wrong, Ryan?" she asked sweetly, pouting her lower lip and turning her blue eyes up at him. He had never had a girl look at him that way before. It terrified him as much as it aroused him. She grabbed for his hands and he forgot to breathe. "Oh, that's why you're so clumsy. Your hands are so cold. Here, let's warm them up." Gently she guided his hand back onto her mid thigh, just below her skirt line. The warmth of her body was intoxicating. "Better?"

          He had wanted to say something clever or witty, and he had wanted it to come out smooth like a James Bond line. Instead, a choked, "Oh yeah," came out. Britney giggled nonetheless. As the class continued, his hand inched slowly upwards until his fingers touched the fabric of her underwear.

          "Michael," Ryan said with exasperation, tossing another scallop to the pinfish, "I promise you I did."

          His friend still looked unconvinced. "Then why did you wait all summer to tell me this?"

          Ryan thought back to that moment when the bell rang. Two of his fingers were still slick and his heart hammered in his chest. Britney ran a finger across the side of his ear down across his jawline. "Our little secret, okay?" she said before disappearing with the rest of the class.

          "She told me not to say anything."

          "And you kept the secret of how you fingered a girl at the same place where several people prepare food. How chivalrous."

          Ryan shook his head and laughed. "That's not the point. I think I'm really starting to like this girl. I think I might ask her to go see Transformers or something since Spider-man Three sucked."

          Ryan tossed a pair of shells into the water when he caught a glimpse of someone on the dock. It was a little girl in a white dress who just stood there. "Michael," he said. "Someone's just watching us."

          Michael only grunted in response, not taking his eyes from the muscle he was scraping out. "Probably just someone from the cabins."

          Ryan nodded. He put the tiny off-white cylinder of thick muscle into the zip-loc bag with the rest of them and let his mind drift back to Britney.

          But something felt off.

          He looked back at the dock and the little girl was still there staring. Her dress hung still in the windless air.

          "You're like the others," a child's voice said, but it came from within his head. Ryan was working on a scallop when he heard it and he jumped, cutting the tip of his finger and dropping his knife. Ignoring the swelling blood that eased into the canyons of his fingerprint, he stared at the little girl.

          "Ryan," Michael said loudly. Ryan blinked a few times then turned to his buddy. Michael held the wet knife hilt-first toward him.

          "You got a little handsy with a middle school cheerleader, which isn't quite sleeping with Ms. Universe. Try to focus, we have to get all these clean, man, and it's hot as hell."

          Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Right." He took the knife and fished in his bag for another scallop, careful not to venture too close to Scuttles. When he looked back at the dock, the girl was gone.

          Slowly Ryan opened his eyes. The bay along the panhandle's Gulf coast was gone. Instead, he was in the crew compartment of a military helicopter. His vision was blurry and swimmy. He adjusted himself in the seat and shifted the seatbelt to more comfortable position. To his left, Sarah was still asleep. The aircraft vibrated subtly, but with both sliding doors on either side of the fuselage shut, the noise was minimal.

          Ryan was twenty. Not fourteen. He had long since grown taller and replaced his pudge with muscle. The incident with Britney was nothing compared to the women he had been with now. Even so, that had been an oddly accurate dream. Everything was spot on.

          Everything but that little girl.

          Ryan pulled the glove from his left hand and looked at the small white crescent scar on his index finger. He had simply cut it by being careless that day while scalloping. Even so, it chilled him.

          "Everything alright?" Arianna asked from her seat near the front of the aircraft.

          Ryan nodded and slipped his glove back on. He turned to look out the window. The snowy mountains had given way to a dry steppe. It was a blurred mix of drab sienna and dark brown. "Where are we?"

          Arianna glanced outside the window immediately to her right. "Somewhere over the northern tundra." She scrunched her face. "Probably just south of Ithaca, our biggest port city in the north."

          "You guys really like your Ancient Greece and Rome stuff here, don't you?"

          Arianna smiled. "I didn't name these places. Most of them were named by the Roman settlers who loved Ancient Greece. But you really only find that on our side of Divide. But it's not like you can say much. Tell me one state in the U.S. that doesn't have a million cities named after famous cities around the world."

          Ryan grinned at her. "Fair enough. So I asked Captain Richmond how you got a Blackhawk in Aurora and he just laughed at me."

          "Aren't you a jarhead yourself? You should know how he is, once a Marine, always a Marine, right?"

          Ryan shook his head, laughing. "More like, once a Marine, never again."

          "Cute," she said. "This is Aurora's one and only aircraft. We managed to convince two pilots from the U.S. Army to join our forces here. So they flew off on a routine flight, I met them on the ground, and brought it all here. Aircraft, personnel and all. It's mostly used to transport emergency goods or personnel from major cities to outposts along the Divide or in secluded sections along our coasts. Thankfully, as a Gatekeeper, I can supercede all current missions and take priority. I need to go to the capital to report on everything that happened, seeing as how my mission fell through."

          "Wait, you're going too fast again. You can transport entire things here? How does that work?"

          She laughed, a genuine and beautiful sound that lit up her eyes. For a moment it almost looked as though they were glowing. "It's not easy, I'll tell you that much. There's a reason there are so few Gatekeepers. The academic process of it alone is enough to melt someone's mind. But the real challenge is once you advance in training to the actual relic. It's not large, not as large as you would think for such a powerful object, but there's something ethereal about it. You can feel its energy just by being near it. Kind of like being next to a huge amount of electricity, but not quite. All prospective Gatekeepers are given the option to walk away at that point, because the first thing we are required to do is touch the artifact. Many don't survive. It's almost instantaneous death."

          Ryan frowned. "So why do it at all?"

          "The power," Arianna said. "The slim potential to travel between worlds unhindered. To be the rockstars of the Auroran empire. To go to the place that nearly everyone only gets to dream about."

          "Earth?" Ryan said with incredulity.

          "Ryan, you don't understand. Those on Earth don't even know Aurora exists. But everyone here knows of Earth. There are religions based around it. Some think of it as heaven, others as paradise, and some, like myself, just think it's beautiful."

          "So what is this artifact? The Gate?"

          She shrugged. "I've spent almost half my life around it and studying it, and to be honest, your guess would be as good as mine. The only thing really concrete is that it is unimaginably old. Older than anything known on this planet. Its energy has never waned so long as we've studied it. The most troubling thing about it is that after the first time it was opened, the twin has been lost."

          "Twin?"

          "The Gate in earnest can only be opened when one is present on Aurora and one on Earth and they are both activated. The one on Aurora is in the capital where all ranges of scholars and Keepers study it. The other artifact, the one on Earth, has never been found."

          "When was it last activated?" Ryan adjusted himself in the seat again as his legs grew numb.

          Arianna laughed again. "I should just enroll you in a history course. Legionnaires of Rome found the twin artifact and brought it back to the Emperor around one-eighty-five A.D. Commodus was so frightened of this object that he had it locked away. I mean, I can't say I blame him. The gates look like elongated diamonds made out of a black metal with luminescent blue engravings. Romans would have certainly have believed it was some item of the gods. It remained locked up until a man named Publius Helvius Partinax succeeded Commodus and was crowned Emperor. He heard whispers of an artifact of the gods and demanded it be found and brought to him. Upon seeing it, he was entranced. It possessed him. He put every scholar, magician, and priest he could on the task of uncovering its secrets. Those who made direct contact with it were killed. No object could leave so much as a mark on it, and they tried. Swords, hammers, arrows, boulders, they even tried to submerge it to drown it. Nothing worked.

          "This went on for several years, but the Emperor slowly lost interest in what became little more than a fancy rock to him. The priests and magicians did not grow bored with it, though. They came from all over the Roman empire and from far beyond its borders. Word of this 'relic of the gods' traveled even so far as the far east where it became a myth in itself. In Aurora, the Gate relic was being used in a religious ceremony by the Heart of the Serpent, a small community of worshipers who had discovered and held secret the relic's existence. The Heart of the Serpent was making a sacrifice to the relic and sprinkled blood upon it, and simultaneously on Earth a magician from the Orient did the same to appease his gods. The simultaneous touch to both relics opened the Gate. In the first day of its opening, Roman Emperor Partinax ordered a perimeter of security around the strange object and Senators, common folk, and soldiers alike all argued over what it was or what its purpose was. Eventually the Emperor commanded a common citizen to touch the relic, to see what the result would be. The citizen never made it. As they came within a few feet of it, the artifact let out a blinding flash of light and the civilian was gone. This was repeated several times before a scholar volunteered himself to go. The Emperor granted permission, and the scholar disappeared in the flash of light as expected. Several minutes later, however, he returned back in another flash and went directly to the Emperor to proclaim he had been to the home of the gods.

          Arianna shook her head and let out a small laugh. "The crowd had become near riotous at the man's sudden vanishing and reappearance followed by words of divinity. Soldiers were so distracted they almost lost control of the mob. A few unlucky citizens were cut down in the abrupt flare of energy, but when order was restored, the Emperor held a brief private conversation with several of the city's most prominent priests. It was decided unanimously that the object was a gift from the gods, an invitation to see into their divine world. Security around the Gate increased exponentially, but several fervent citizens made futile attempts to get past the concentric circles of outward facing legionnaires.

          Over the next few hours, a garrisoned legion was assigned with the "honor" of going in through the Gate to establish security for scholars and priests and those of prominent influence. In Aurora, the Heart of the Serpent followers scattered at the spectacle, leaving none to pass through to Earth and giving the Romans a much greater advantage. A legion of soldiers passed to Aurora, followed in turn by both intellectuals and the simply curious. At first, Auroran humans avoided those from Earth, but as the Romans spread in their exploration, they came upon established and organized civilization. The two groups of man were curious about one another, and while there was heavy tension, there was little violence.

          "Within the first few days, Auroran native creatures began to grow curious with the newcomers, and dared closer. Predators picked off the fringe elements of soldiers and civilians. This was of little concern to Emperor Partinax until creatures began coming through the Gate and into Rome. They were deemed monsters or demons, and a few managed to cause great damage and mayhem before being slain. More creatures, lured by the easy meal of unarmed or poorly armed Roman civilians flocked to the Gate.

          "There was public outcry and riots. Many attempted to destroy the relic but did not succeed. Several senators were murdered and thousands fled the city. At night, every soldier and a hastily assembled militia kept guard against the otherworldly creatures that managed to slip into the city. Debates raged on how to deactivate the Gate, as simply setting foot anywhere close would cause one to be transported to Aurora; no one could get close enough to even touch it. Arrows, spears, and rocks were all attempted but none could budge the artifact. Somehow they did manage to close the Gate, but we aren't really sure how. All records were destroyed.

          "The public was so outraged with the events that they stormed the Emperor's home and cut his head from his neck, parading it through the streets on a pike. His successor Emperor Marcus Julianus could not win the favor of the people in his lack of action to clean up the mess the Gate had caused. He reigned just over two months before he was stripped of position and put to death.

          "Now Emperor Lucius Septimus Severus, a general and hard man, had taken control of the Empire in the chaos. He demanded every scrap of evidence about the Gate and its consequences be burned. There was to be no written record, no visual representation, no oral stories about what had happened. He ordered the relic itself to be destroyed, and when it proved impervious to their attempts, he wanted it hidden. The Roman populous, who had suffered riots, murders, looting, and unprecedented fear with monsters roaming their city by night, were more than happy to oblige. Emperor Severus and scholars adopted a new 'reality' which would be put into the written record, mentioning none of the events. A few creatures escaped the city and would become legend."

          Arianna looked at Ryan with a mixture of amusement and thoughtfulness. "You ever wonder why so many unrelated cultures have stories of the same mythical monsters?"

          "Wow," Ryan said after a time. He leaned back against his seat. It felt weird being told something so incredibly different from what he had believed. If the Roman Emperor had truly attempted to destroy all record of that incident, he certainly did a good job. There wasn't even a community of conspiracy theorists that boasted about Aurora. At least, none that he had ever heard of.

          "That's just the abridged version," Arianna said with a smirk. "You wouldn't believe how much more in depth we had to go during our studies. And I love history as much as the next girl, but damn, it got so tedious."

          The Blackhawk dropped suddenly, giving Ryan the startling sensation of freefall for a second.

          Sarah was wide awake now, hands gripping tightly onto the edge of her seat.

          "Little bit of turbulence," Arianna said cheerfully. "Sleep well?"

          "Better than I expected," Sarah admitted. "How close are we?"

          Arianna shrugged. "Probably not more than an hour until we have to refuel. Once we do that, it'll be at least another five hours before we reach the Fortuna."

          "And that's the capital of this Roman empire?" Sarah asked.

          "Not really Roman anymore. It's now Auroran. But yes, it's the capital of the Empire. It's truly a marvel of a city."

          Close to her approximation, the stolen helicopter touched down on a flat patch of ground that was bristling with brown grasses. A crew extended a hose from a large tank and connected it to the aircraft. Arianna dismounted and walked out a good distance to talk with a man who had been on the ground.

          Ryan gazed around the passenger compartment when he noticed Sarah was looking at him. He turned to her and she smiled softly. It was a sad expression, despite the curvature of her lips. "Do you think Michael and Sabrina are okay?"

          He hoped so. He truly hoped so. The thought of his best friend's frozen corpse out on that barren ice shelf being picked at by scavengers or just gathering ice crystals made a sour feeling taint him. He had done his best to just not think about it.

          "I'm sure they're fine," he said.

          She didn't buy it. "No, really, Ryan. Do you think they're still out there in the cold? I mean, Arianna doesn't even seem concerned at all. That captain said he found blood on the ice, but that was about all he had to say about it. Doesn't that bother you?"

          It did, but he knew better than to say so. Not here at least. "There's nothing we can do about that now. There's not a whole lot we can do about anything."

          Sarah eyed him with general concern and something that almost looked like the whispers of contempt. "Ryan, something's up."

          A prickle of annoyance prodded at him. He looked out open fuselage door to the left then to the right, then feigned sticking his head out to look at Nox. "What makes you say that?" he said as sarcastically and snidely as he could.

          She grabbed his sleeves and pulled him closer with no humor in her expression. "Listen to me," she whispered. "Something doesn't feel right. We aren't supposed to be here, if Arianna is to be believed, she compromised some mission to save us. So then why not just bring us back? If she can just travel from here to there like nothing, why keep us here at all?"

          "Maybe it's not that easy, Sarah. They said their astronomers haven't even found the Milky Way yet, so I doubt it's any easy task to move from point A to point B."

          "Ryan, there is a Blackhawk helicopter here. They managed to get that from Earth to Aurora. Plus, who knows what else they have been able to steal. We could be back in Florida where we belong, but for some reason we aren't. For some reason, we are being kept under their watch."

          Maybe they were, but for what it was worth, they were being treated well. They weren't bound or blindfolded. He in no way fell like the prisoner she was insinuating he was. "You're just being paranoid."

          Sarah's jaw dropped at his words, and she turned away with shoulders heaving in frustration.

          "Sarah," he said, but she gave no acknowledgement. Outside, the hose was detached and the engine began to whine and the routers chopped. Arianna hoisted herself back inside and pulled the sliding door shut with a loud clack. The other was slid closed and the engine revved. A sinking weight pulled on Ryan's stomach as the Blackhawk lifted and tilted slightly forward.

          Arianna glanced at Sarah who had closed her eyes. "Man, she's really tired, isn't she?"

          Ryan said nothing.

          The sun rose higher into the sky. Ryan squinted into the glaring light and idly wondered if Aion was brighter than Sol. The rhythmic thumping of the helicopter's routers threatened to lull him to sleep again, but he forced himself to stay awake. Several long hours passed before Arianna, too, had her head lolling about as she slept. Ryan found his eyelids shutting without him realizing until a bob of his head jolted him back awake.

          "Ryan, wake up."
          "I wasn't asleep," he murmured, despite his closed eyes and slacked position. He sat up slowly in his seat, feeling sore from the stiff support. Arianna nodded her head toward the window. "Fortuna," she said with a proud smile.