Atalon’s Villa stood proud on the hillside at the tip of Main St. overlooking the majestic city of Atlan, now bustling with preparations for the upcoming Farewell Celebration. The balcony overlooking the city doubled as an Executive Meeting Room, second only to the Observatory. From a silk cushioned bamboo chaise imported from Ebar, Mel studied her
future husband, the king no less, standing proudly overlooking the hustle in the
Grand Courtyard below. His confidence was contagious, everything was falling into
place like he said it would, it was hard to believe it was really happening, that
she was merely a few weeks away from being crowned Queen...
Her thoughts were interrupted as Hedena
burst through the patio doors, Medena in tow, clutching a
scroll. Dressed in their finest satin gowns and glowing with celebration, the
sisters looked radiant. "Almost all of them had a perfect
match" Medena handed the scroll to the king.
"I don't expect more than a 25% failure rate."
"You expect up to a 25% failure rate?" Unimpressed, Atalon snatched
the scroll and untied the red ribbon, unfurling it to reveal the final
selections. "Mel!" He rolled
it up and held it out for her. "Go over it. Use the nit comb!"
Mel hurried over to take the scroll, it
was happening already, her opinion
was surpassing that of his sisters.
"The Book of Life, Your Honor."
The next presentation arrived with Halki, carried proudly by a Scribe. Atalon leafed
through the latest revision for a moment, inspecting the revised craftsmanship,
examining every line. He ran his finger along the stitching inside, turned the
crisp new pages to the opening title, turning one by one, looking for
a certain chapter...
A painstaking silence held the audience
captive as he scanned the text, before reading the prophecy out loud; "...and the Golden Phoenix rose
to reignite the fires of Elon, to bring Him back from the Outer Limits of
Darkness, to rule the Universe with His Love and Light, once more…"
For a moment no one knew which way the
wind was going to blow.
"What the hell is this?" Angry, he slammed the
book shut.
The renovations to the Moha Lab had
come at a bad time. Processing space was already limited before the Culloom
Disaster, facility reorganization had added so much extra stress, Adon was in
need of a break. He finally had a chance to wade through
his inbox once the aribu had left for the day, there was a tablet from
Accounting... Another audit was being conducted on his department? He
scanned the document, it was the Pineal Inventory again… Why? This all
couldn't be happening at a worse time. His department had never made
these sorts of mistakes before, and certainly never more than once like this.
Doctor
Seton couldn't have appeared at a worse time. "Your Honor!" Immediately
crippled by feelings of guilt, Adon was caught with incriminating reports,
files in disarray after-hours; it didn't look good.
"You are working late for some reason?" Seton walked up to his desk and picked
up the audit notice as if it had a homing beacon blinking on it.
"There's a missing batch or two"
Adon explained, "I'm sure they've just been filed in the wrong place...
I'm afraid the lab help hasn't been keeping up very well since... The extra workload."
"The extra workload sorts out the
strong from the weak" Seton reminded with a smile. "Come, there's no
time to worry about missing inventory tonight." He put the audit notice
down, picked his coat up from the hook and handed it to him.
Adon took his coat with great
curiosity, the Doctor was unusually upbeat. "Are we going out for a
drink?"
"In a manner of speaking" he
winked. "I have an important Assignment that I need your help with."
"An Assignment?"
Adon felt a wave of relief, it was a good sign, a potential opportunity to
advance. "What is the Assignment?"
"It’s a Classified
Assignment" he briefed as Adon shuffled the boxes back into the storage
cabinet and stacked the tablets before turning out the lights.
Adon knew what
‘Classified’ meant. It meant he was told all that he needed to know on a need
to know basis. They rode the train to Fina in silence and arrived at the station
beneath the Merchant's Building, but instead of taking the steps up to street
level, Seton led the way through a gated alley that led to an adjoining tunnel,
leading beneath the great walls of Fina into the wild lands outside.
Adon
had never left the city walls before, under the moonlight the wild lands were very
scary. High on adrenaline, he followed Seton up the trail to the reservoir,
listening for any threatening sounds that could warn of the dangerous dogons
that roamed these wild lands. He knew they existed, he knew they
were real, he too had to feed the dogons once upon a time.
The moon was bright illuminating their
way as they headed into the dark forest. The lightly worn path led them through
the wild lands to the island reservoir, he could hear it as they approached, the
rush of water coming from the dam was like a roll of thunder.
Behind the thundering dam, the
reservoir was nestled beneath the moonlight in peaceful tranquility, glistening
like a sheet of glass, breathtakingly beautiful, it was all Adon could do not
to gasp at the hidden sight of the duplicated moon shimmering on the water.
"I think we’ll install the medification here" Dr Seton pointed to where the flow was being
channeled into the waterworks system and handed him a small package.
Adon didn't dare ask. Inside the package
were two glass vials, one with a red liquid, one with black. Adon knew now why
he had been chosen for the task, he had administered two-component
medifications before, he was familiar with the procedure in the lab, this was a field assignment, meaning the scale of the administration would not be controlled, there was no way of knowing realistic results unless they actually ran a field experiment. He opened the vials with care, pouring them together into
the water with timed precision where it was being channeled into the
waterworks.
Satisfied, Seton
headed for the trail. "If everyone drinks their tea and coffee in the morning,
the virus should be under control within twenty four hours. It's very
effective."
"Fina has a virus?"
"It’s
Classified" Seton reminded.
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