Orb arrived behind Jazelle. She appeared before Jazelle like a vision of the past, solidified, with blonde hair flaring around her like a halo. Her eyes had a blank look, similar to a white, glaring light that streamed and gleamed in all directions. If Lior were a mirror, she would be glass. Opaque, upfront, but daring in presence. She was short in stature, but knowing what she did, Jazelle saw her differently. A minion, a relic in the making.  Glass sculpture on top of a frozen lake. She was dangerous, Jazelle knew it. What was scariest was knowing about the destructive force that was potentially present within that body. She was a ShArD..and she was only nine. However, although her face looked still and vibrant, her legs told a different story. Her legs remained plastered to the metallic surface of the chair. The coat on the wheels of the chair was rough, damp, and weathered. Rust covered the wheel like a disease.

Jazelle looked intently at her. One of Jazelle’s interests was looking through old archaic books. In the past, in old, haunted, abandoned churches, there used to be statues of the Madonna and Child. There was a Madonna and a Child in front of her, but it was almost as if the Child was the Madonna. All attention was drawn to Orb, who was small, unlike her mother. Orb’s mother, beside her, merely looked like a glimpse of a forgotten smile.

“Was looking forward to seeing you,” Orb said, with a smile.

Her tone was measured, as if she had repeated those words several times. Jazelle's back was open and exposed to the wall. She felt the cool air brushing against the tops of her arms, and a vehement sensation of the ground rumbling on her feet. Underneath the steel fortress, Jazelle felt the possibility of concrete crumbling to rock and dust; she felt the earth was going to open up with its void and chasm and swallow her now. At night, the monsters came. Those monsters were creeping in the dark, and whether real or imaginary, they were there.

What am I thinking! Jazelle thought.

The energy surged through her veins. Jazelle’s lips curled into a smile. Her head felt faint, disconnected. Pulsing seared through her head like burning fire on edge. Jazelle’s heart was beating fast, and her blood was raging forth like the relentless tide of waves surging from deep within.

She pointed to the wall without much thought.

“It’s here,” Jazelle said. “I sense it.”

She tapped on the wall.

“You’ll need to unlock it,” Orb said.

She scooched her wheelchair over.

“Speak to it,” Orb said.

Jazelle looked over at Orb.

“What are you talking about?”

Orb looked at Jazelle, like eyes looking through glass, omniscient.

“Your ShArD marks…They’re showing.”

Orb arched her neck, her head jittering back and forth with great dynamism.

“You should know how to use your abilities now.”

Jazelle looked back at Orb as if she were a supernatural concoction.

“What do you mean?” Jazelle asked.

She felt her body shrinking, and the room expanding. The quiet expanse of the night seemed boundless compared to the trickling of memories that were passing by in Jazelle’s thoughts.

Orb lifted her head and stared right at Jazelle.

“The Machines. You can talk to them.”

Orb extended her arm and pointed to the wall. “Do it.” 

Do it.

The words sounded so simple. But she didn’t even know what Orb was asking her to do.

“So…” Jazelle stammered. “You expect me to just talk to the wall and get it to open up to me?”

Orb looked at Jazelle and nodded. “Yes. You can.”

Jazelle curled her lip.

What is this…telepathy?

What’s odd is that Jazelle didn’t refuse. She executed Orb’s action as if it were an order. Orb’s presence had that ethereal quality to it. Her movements were certain, her gaze absolute. Jazelle turned around, faced the wall, and in an attempt to understand it, placed her hands along the wall’s surface.

Jazelle pressed her hands close to the cold wall, hands scattering close, scanning to hear anything that would activate her senses. She heard a pulsing, and then the sound of gears turning in her head. Each notch twisting and turning, gravitating towards her centre. She closed her eyes; the expanse seemed endless. In her mind’s eye, she saw flickering green neon lights, and wires all clustered, and de-tangled together in an endless mass, all swimming past her. Some parts intersected, and some didn’t. They scattered about her, wired nodes.

Jazelle breathed in and out, steadying herself. In her mind’s eye, she traced each of the lines. She imagined herself pointing out her index finger, tracing along each of the lines. Tracing along each line as she reached towards her final destination. She heard glitching in her ears. They sounded like digital sparks appearing and disappearing — it almost sounded like they were computational. Jazelle listened to the sound and its varying frequencies, tuning her ears into the frequency of every single one. The frequency sounded like burning. There was a jumbled set of sounds, and slowly, by focusing, she heard voices.

Interceptor connecting to conductor.

Conductor 2. Online!

The electricity valve opened.

Reactor on Standby.

The voices didn’t sound like voices at all; they were all commands intercepted one after another, a fluid stream of consciousness, almost.

Like they’re inhuman, Jazelle thought.

She heard them all giving sets of instructions to each other, and soon enough, she realized what was happening.

This is an ecosystem. 

They were all talking about the System of Parts, and as they all talked, each of the wire frequencies that she saw in her head all lit up as each talked to one another.

Conductor. Electricity Valve. Reactor. Transmitter.

She memorized each of the parts, saw how they interconnected, then began speaking. As she spoke, she spoke within the vortex of her mind.

Interceptor, twist and turn and connect with Gear Gadget One.

Interlocker open up Gate 3, and access Electricity Valve Two.

Jazelle did this all within the interlockings of her mind, with Orb watching. No one would’ve imagined that such a conversation was taking place within the depths of her mind.

Orb watched Jazelle with eyes closed, ran her hands along the walls, and traced certain shapes along the door of the wall, and Orb watched as it lit up with green light and separated into openings. Jazelle continued pushing down on some stone-walled parts, and as she did, the wall revealed more and more layers of doors, showing the contained machinations that are within. The door was divided into circular and unevenly shaped parts, and Jazelle manipulated all of it, with her eyes closed. She touched each of the parts with her hands, feeling each of the textures, and pushed each of them inward. There was a blueprint in her mind, and she was merely following it. Jazelle followed it with fitness and precision, and similar to the Orb-Flower, the entire picture soon revealed itself before her eyes.

Orb and her mother looked at Jazelle as the wall opened, slashed open with organic patterns, and green light emanated beyond the wall itself. The marble gates opened, revealing another dome-arch-shaped ruin, made out of cobblestone and weathered stones.

The ground rumbled, as if it were collapsing all sense of prior civilization underneath. Orb looked intently at that Arch and the space. It was darkness, but that darkness led somewhere.

–

Detective Tru and his subordinates questioned Lior at their makeshift headquarters all afternoon. They even showed her the glitch they found in her arrival two days prior. When Lior looked at it, she was amazed, even astounded. She leaned over, arm on the desk, turned around to the detective, and said,

“Amazing masquerading work.”

Detective Tru hadn’t expected such a situation. He and his subordinates questioned Lior about her occupation, her whereabouts and where she had been.

Lior answered. “I work in the Capital. I investigate lots of things…”

She smoothed over her long leather coat, tossing the long end of her coat behind her.

“My girlfriend said I could use a break,..So I decided to return here.”

When they asked her what she worked on, she mentioned.

“I do reports. Analyze data analytics. The supervisor likes my work — says I’m a good employee.”

She clearly worked at The Capital; she even gave her identification, which solidified everything. After hours of questioning, she walked out with the detective. The first thing he noticed was her stride. It was poised and elegant. Her coat fluttered in the wind as she walked — direct, and unfettered, as if she knew the final state of her destination. But Detective Tru looked at her. A strand of hair waved and parted down her face as she walked. It made her face look divided, a crack and fissure amongst her perfectly poised nature.

Detective Tru even showed Lior his security footage, and she appeared impressed.

Even at my work, they wouldn’t give me access to such machines, she said.

Lior walked beside Detective Tru, passing by him. She turned around to take a glimpse of him.

“If anything is found about Jazelle. Contact me.”

Lior was about to head back home when Detective Tru’s Digi-Tele-Communication device lit up. It flashed blue, and a holographic image of a woman shot through his device.

“Detective Tru, you might want to check this.” The woman said.

The blue screen was reflected in Detective Tru’s eyes.

“Send the footage over,” Detective Tru said.

There in the footage, he saw masses of dunes and sand, all piled up, and a structure appearing in the distance, and from that structure, a beacon shone. It looked unnatural amongst everything in its path. It shone bright green. He had never seen a flare of such intensity before.

“Where’s the source?”

“Right around the Ruins on the edge of town.”

Detective Tru was in a hurry, trying to head to his next destination. Just as this happened, he felt a pale hand grab him by the shoulder.

“Let me come with you too,” Lior said.

–

Jazelle, Orb, and Orb’s mother looked open as the stone wall split open, revealing a deep chasm underneath. It was lined with arched cobblestones and an intricate string of lasers, joined together like a web.

Orb’s mother took the handles of Orb’s wheelchair and pushed her forth.

Orb’s mother spoke, “It’s finally here, the prophecy that you spoke of…With this, we’ll finally be free.”

Her mother almost looked ecstatic, the most alive she had ever been. Orb reached into her pocket, and as her mother rolled her over, they stopped before Jazelle, and Orb passed Jazelle the cash. It was three hundred and fifty in total.

Jazelle looked at the cash in her hand, then turned to face the looming portal door. It oozed energy, a secluded world that she wasn’t aware of…and it was underground.

The portal door beckoned forth, something in which Jazelle hadn’t signed up for.

She watched Orb’s mother and Orb going through the portal. The lasers, which appeared like barriers about to sear through someone’s skin, wrapped around Orb and her mother, and they walked through the tunnel, and Jazelle stood there, frozen in time.

She looked at the coins in her hand. She was already paid, but what now, what for?

Jazelle kept on looking at that tunnel. Its vastness called out to her.

She knew what she was, but what she did when she touched that wall was unimaginable to her. The ringing cogs still sang in her ear, twisting and turning in her head. She felt the static of inter-technological communication as she traced the path in her mind’s eye.

It was all there.

And now…she didn't know how to detach from it.

She fell to the ground. Hands on both sides of her head, ringing. The ringing was in her head; it hurt. It buzzed with the weight and intensity of both of her identities. That of being a human…and that of being a ShArD.

Jazelle looked at the big empty portal. She looked at the green dancing lasers, dancing all about in bright cosmic patterns. The laser was sharp, it was angular, and it looked as if she was trespassing into unknown territory, but still, the glistening of those edges, the way in which the strings bound, tied, and pulled themselves around her — she couldn’t resist. Jazelle wanted to reach out and pull those strings towards her to feel the energy within these vines. But instead, she leapt forward. She ran towards the portal. 

–

By the time Lior and the Detective arrived. All they saw was emptiness and the glow of the giant looming portal. The Orb and the Compass were left on sight. They came with a dispatch team. The Detective was going to leap forward, but Lior stopped him.

“I’ll go with you,” Lior said. “But we need to understand what is beyond that Portal.”