Prologue

DIAMOND COAST, IMPERIAL ISLES; ARAE ORBIS

2624 AD 

            The beach was completely deserted, and everything was gray. Yellow-pink sunlight just barely laced the dark horizon far to the west as freezing black waves gently lapped the shore.

            Two teenagers sat on the coarse sand, shivering in the cold morning air. Finally, one stood up, a 15 year old girl with long black hair and an unusually slim figure. She rubbed her arms and looked around. “Kaito.”

            Her older brother said nothing, and continued to squint out at the waves. “Kaito. I want to go back.”

            Kaito nodded slowly, finally standing up, glancing back at the sand dunes behind them. “I hoped you would like it here. They hardly have any places like this anymore.”

            “I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s just sand and water.”

            He sighed. “Okay.” He wasn’t really surprised by his sister’s reaction; he’d found that most people didn’t take to such things. In the last century, Arae O. had gone from a hardly populated colony planet to a bustling center of trade. Kaito, according to his mother, was one of few people that still had respect for the quiet, unscathed patches of nature that still existed.

            They walked along the shore, toward the city, for a while, each lost in their own thoughts.

            They had almost reached the end of the sand and the start of the concrete strip when Kaito’s foot hit something.

            He looked down to see an ancient recording device, half covered in sand. He called after his sister. “Monika, wait. Look at this.” Kaito rubbed the sand off of the small, dense piece of metal. “Think of how old this must be,” he said as Monika reached his side.

            “Couple hundred years?” she guessed as he turned it over in his hands. “One of those old fashioned disposable ones.”

            They stared at the relic for a few seconds before Kaito found the screen, scratched up by years of being buried in sand. “I think it still works,” he said with some surprise. “At least the sound. I don’t…” He scrubbed at the damaged screen to no avail. “The screen won’t work.”

            “Turn it on anyway,” encouraged his sister, uncharacteristically interested. “I want to hear it.”

            Kaito found the button on the back and pressed it cautiously. “It’s probably nothing.”

            They listened, waiting for something, for some noise to fill the silent air other than the rushing of water. Finally, it clicked and a woman’s voice started speaking.

            “I’m not sure how to say this,” it said. “Or where to start.” There was a pause, and Kaito exchanged a glance with Monika, suddenly getting the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be hearing what he was hearing.

            The voice in the recording sighed, and began again. “This may take a while.”

            Faint rays of sunlight stretched across the sky, blurring the line between the ocean and the sky. A breeze fluttered by them, blowing bits of sand down the beach as they listened.

 

COLCHESTER, GREAT BRITAIN; EARTH

1245 AD 

            A single candle flickered in its tarnished silver holder, casting a dim glow over the otherwise dark cellar of the old house. A thick layer of greasy dust coated nearly all of the contents of the room, making the once-mahogany colored walls appear dismally gray. An old man rustled through stacks of torn, stained papers on one end of the long room. The whole cellar was a mess; filled to the brim with odds and ends, random objects that appeared to have no use. The only part of the dark room that was empty was the ancient oaken table in the center. On the rickety surface sat a smudged, grimy glass container, a purplish stone�"a meteorite, actually, though nobody at the time really knew what meteorites were, a small lump of gold, and an enormous, roughly cut ruby.

            The man turned around and limped toward the table, rheumy eyes glued on the stone. As he made his slow way to the table before him, he thought back to the day he had stumbled upon it. It had been one of those rare days when the sun was visible through the desolate British clouds. He had stepped outside for a few minutes, willing, for once, to take a break from his endless work. A red squirrel had been sitting placidly under the ash tree a few meters from the ramshackle home. The rough gravel drive had been empty, as usual, and as far as the man could see, there hadn’t been another soul in sight, save the squirrel. The man remembered the sudden cracking noise of something falling through tree branches, the sight of the little red squirrel dashing away in panic. In the squirrel’s old place there had been a purple-gray colored rock. The old man had thought about it for hours, but had only come to one conclusion: the rock had fallen from the sky, a gift from God. Now here it was, sitting on the table like so many failed experiments preceding it.

            The old alchemist smiled slightly to himself, displaying a mouth nearly devoid of teeth. He placed a metal rack and kindling on the table, and started a fire. The light from the flames danced on the walls, painting patterns of red and orange light, and creating an eerie glow throughout the room. The alchemist put the gold, the stone and the ruby in the glass gingerly and placed them all on top of the rack. This time he would succeed. He could feel it, the hope almost radiating out from the contents of the glass and penetrating the room.

            He stared, transfixed, as the container began to heat. Seconds, then minutes passed. Nothing happened. The alchemist leaned against the wall behind him as the room filled with bluish smoke and the contents of the jar remained unchanged. He was tired all of the sudden, his old bones aching more intensely than usual. He had been so sure that the stone would turn to gold for some reason. He had spent his entire life waiting for a miracle to occur, and had always gotten nothing. Perhaps it was impossible after all.

            The glass cracked, and the alchemist looked back through the smoke, surprised, and then astounded as he saw a red glow starting to surround the container. He noticed, just before the glow blocked his view, the ruby drawing the gold and the rock into itself. His weathered face puckered in confusion and amazement. The old man knew that he was witnessing something that had never been seen before. He waited for a long time, nearly half-an-hour.

When the red light still did not subside, impatience finally took over and he put out the fire. Slowly the haze cleared. The alchemist watched through widened eyes, his hands gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white. Then the awe slowly faded from his face. In the container was not, as he had hoped and expected, a larger lump of gold, but simply the ruby, glowing like a hot ember. He didn’t know where the stone and the lump of gold had gone, but it didn’t matter.

            The alchemist, disappointed once again, slowly limped up his stairs toward the rest of his house. He had not wanted the largely flawed ruby. He had wanted gold. And now he knew, deep inside, as he did after every such failure, that he would never succeed in creating it.

            The ruby was left in the dusty cellar to sit. For centuries.

 

KREINE ESTATE, IMPERIAL ISLES; ARAE ORBIS

2531 AD 

            “It’s been a while since I’ve just let loose like that,” laughed Emperor Akio Kreine as he set the shot glass down on the glossy black table. “Of course, this,” he tapped the glass with one slightly shaky finger, “might have had something to do with it.”

            “Well, one thing’s for sure,” said one of the men on the other side of the table. “You have good taste.”

            “Glad you approve,” replied Akio, looking back at his friends and confidantes, the only people that he felt comfortable behaving normal with.

            One of them pushed his chair back. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m exhausted. Hate to ruin this, but I have an interview tomorrow that I can’t miss.” He paused. “We’re meeting again for New Year’s, right?”

            “One more before you go home,” announced Akio, in an unusually jolly mood. “Only four more days before we meet again for New Year’s.” He raised his glass, forgetting momentarily that there wasn’t anything in it.

            His friend paused, and grinned. “How can I resist?”

            Everyone laughed as the android brought in another tray of half-full shot glasses, and the chatter started again.

            Even in his half-drunken state, Akio realized that something was wrong before the android got to his end of the long table. “You’re missing one,” he called out to the ‘droid. It didn’t strike him as strange that the perfectly tailored human replica had made a mistake.

            The thing paused as it got to him, the tray empty. “I’m sorry, sir,” it buzzed, before turning around to retrieve a final drink, disappearing into the kitchen area.

            “Fancy that,” muttered Akio. The rest of the men didn’t seem to have noticed the problem.

            The android emerged seconds later, carrying the missing drink. “Thanks,” said Akio jovially, not really aware that he was talking to a machine.

            Nobody noticed the dark figure slip out the back of the kitchen, carrying an empty vial.