Noia follows behind Crevan, but her head swivels back and forth constantly taking in all the equipment and plant specimens in the lab. Tubes and mist and chemicals spread across tables where staff wearing long coats and safety goggles took samples and made notes. It was a clean space with sparling beakers and beeping lights containing the smell of clean leaves and plant sugar.

“Ah, here we are. Noia, meet our head of environmental sciences, Rowan Landell. Mr. Landell, this is the consultant who has intimate information on the artifact we announced in the news.”

Noia comes to a stop beside Crevan at a computer desk. The man in a long coat examines surveillance footage of different environments. His dark hair is pulled back in a short ponytail and his safety goggles are on his head. He snorts and spins around in his chair, arms folded, and looking skeptically over the rims of his glasses.

“Oh yeah? How is this one person going to give us more information than your research tea–”

Rowan cuts himself off when he sees Noia and jerks to a stop in his chair. “Uh, h-hi.”

Noia presses her lips together to contain her smile. “Hello.” Admittedly she already knew they would be meeting today as Crevan had spoken of him that weekend.

Crevan looks between them. “I’m sorry, have you two met?”

With a cautious glance at Rowan Noia clears her throat. “Ah, I may have bumped into Ro- Mr. Landell when I was exploring that club in the lower levels of the residency building.”

Crevan raises his eyebrows. “In Six Feet Underground? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. After all that club is exclusive to ETHR employees and select clientele.” He clears his throat. “Well, as you’ve already been introduced I’m happy to leave you to it. Noia, please call me when you are done here so we can get you moving forward. I should hear about your zone access later this afternoon.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

“My pleasure. Mr. Landell.”

They watch Crevan leave then exchange a look before Rowan crosses his arms again.

“Well, shall we get started, Miss…?”

“You know my name.”

“Are you sure? In a work situation I’m sure Mr. Almira would appreciate the professionalism of–”

“Please call me Noia, Mr. Landell.”

Rowan scrunches his nose in distaste. “You know, I’m sure I could have had worse names but sometimes I wonder. Very well, formalities dropped. I didn’t know you had a streak of mischievousness to you.”

“Sorry, too much?”

Rowan chuckles and shakes his head. “No, it’s alright. I mean, you told me you were a consultant for Crevan, I just figured you transferred in from the GA or knew one of the patrons.”

“My situation is…complicated.”

“I see.”

For a moment they stare at each other awkwardly then Rowan clears his throat and gestures to the computer. “So, ah, Crevan’s email this morning said you wanted to scout some locations?”

“Yes.”

“Is it for the artifact?”

Noia sighs. “Yes. I’m hoping looking through some pictures will help.”

“That doesn’t sound very scientific, miss consultant.”

Noia puts her hands on her hips and returns Rowan’s smile. “Trust me, I know what to look for. I’m just hoping an omniscient worldwide surveillance organization will have enough landscape shots for what I need.”

Rowan scratched the back of his head and laughed nervously. “You don’t say. Alright. Where should we start?”

“Is there a way to have a few of them up on the screen at a time?”

“Like a multi-shot slide show? I can do that. Here, grab that seat.”

Noia rolls over a tall chair while Rowan rearranges the large screen. Soon he has it in an automated slideshow setting with four photographs paused on screen at a time.

“So, ah, do you need silence or did you want to be alone?”

Noia notes the tapping of his fingers on his knee and chuckles to herself. “Stay right where you are. Besides, if I see what I need I’m not sure I’ll crash your system trying to save the file.”

“Psh, no one is that bad with a computer.”

“Are you sure? If you bet that and I turn out to be right, what’s your CEO going to say?”

Rowan sucks air between his teeth. “Oooo, pulling that are ya? Alright, let me know which ones you want tagged.”

Some of the pictures are distance shots of wildlife and flora but Noia focuses more on the landscape images and skylines. Most of them were of devastated areas and of teams of scientists in safety suits navigating burned fields of ash or overgrown spore-filled spaces. At first she only focuses on the former images for hours but as more of the scored areas popped up she frowns.

“What caused these?” Noia asks pointing to the photos of damaged areas.

“All of that is from The End Wars. The plant death ranges across the planet. See this one?” he points to one with a suited scientist holding what looked like an old antenna. “They’re measuring how much the atmosphere has degraded and that one is our team planting sensors in radiation zones. There is still tremendous fallout from the biological weapons employed.”

“Eugh. Is this terrible.”

Rowan responds with a noncommittal sound but incorporating her previous conversations with him Noia picks up on his tone.

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

Noia raises her eyebrows but stays quiet, waiting while Rowan taps his fingers. Almost an hour ticks by.

“Those…are only a few of the pictures, there is, of course, a much larger library of images. Frankly, if we keep going like this I’m not sure how helpful your search is going to be. Do you have a specific type of land formation in mind – or country?”

Noia frowns and looks at him from the corners of her eyes. “A formation…?” She inhales sharply and grabs the edge of the desk to steady herself from the wave of anger that overcomes her.

Rowan twitches towards her but holds himself back. “Noia? What’s wrong?”

“It’s…nothing.” She grits her teeth and tries to steady her breathing but the memory rising from the back of her mind is powerful.

“Bullshit. What’s going on?” He looks around but most of the staff has left for lunch and the only one at the far end is closed in a sound-proofed office to take more data. “What do you need?”

“This is nothing you can help with. Just…make sure I don’t fall.”

“I’m getting Crevan.”

Noia seizes his arm and tries to meet his eyes but even with the glasses guarding them she is losing focus. “No.”

“But if your nanotech isn’t kicking in you could need serious medical attention–”

“It’s not the nano-tech and medical attention won’t help me. Rowan, please.” Her vision blurs completely then and his voice is fading already as the memory pulls her in.

“Noia? Noia, can you hear me? Noia…”

“Noia?”

San’azi’s voice fills her with anger tonight. She knows he is keeping something important from her and she is suspicious that it has to do with their delicate plan. If what he was withholding were to tear the very thin fabric that was holding their scheme together she would murder him.

Before her was a map as tall as she with all they knew of the world. The edges had been weighed down by Morphia’s lanterns and candles. Noia, San’azi, and Morphia each stood at one side of the table and a sack with more rolled maps sat between her and the trickster. Thunder from the storm beat across the entrance to the cavern and a gust seeped past the vines covering the entrance and danced with the candle flames.

“Are you ready to make a choice, Noia?” San’azi asks.

She sniffs. “You are certain this is the most accurate map? It shows little in detail.”

San’azi rolled his eyes. “We have others in the sack but first you need to pick a land formation or at least one of the existing countries. Throwing darts at the map is the equivalent of what you were doing and we can’t just leave The Jar lying in a field if that’s where your dart landed.”

“That is not what I was doing at all.”

Morphia giggled softly under her veil but San’azi laughed loud and throaty. “Yes it was! Now pick a place or give me a formation and I’ll pick one for you.”

“Fine. A mountain.”

“You’re going to sleep in the western mountains. Pick something else.”

“The desert.”

“No. He’ll find you too quickly. Zuiter knows you have the most fun with storms in the desert – and just off the shore so no marine caves. Ah – no, not the Trench either. In fact let me just…” San’azi digs a pencil of charcoal from his pack against the cave wall and starts drawing an X over the areas he mentioned.

Noia threw up her arms. That is almost half the map! I have a better idea, trickster-that-plagues-Zuiter: you pick.”

San’azi sighed and leveled a look at Noia from under his brows. “I can’t pick. It would be too easy for him to pluck the location from me. We have been at this game of push and pull for far too long and he has leverage now.”

“He already took revenge from your game with the sacrifice from the mortals–”

“Yes, by taking fire and the means for mortals to make a living and reproduce.”

“–and when you returned the fire and the livestock and the harvest he sent that wreched jar!”

“He sent the jar with you–”

“To punish me! Don’t leave out the part where he put a trap on my mind and made me a fertility icon. Do you know how long it took for met to gain back my previous status?”

“I had to crawl back up too, Noia!”

Noia slams her hands down on the table so hard Morphia scrambles to catch the candles that tottered at the edge. “Your climb up the mountain was not soaked with the disadvantage of your gender!”

San’azi looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “You want to know if I pulled another trick.”

Noia wrestled her anger down so she could form coherent words – no easy feat when all she wanted to do was scream. “I want to know if you did anything to endanger this endeavor.”

San’azi turned away from the table. He rubbed the back of his hair. He kicked dust towards the wall. “No.”

“Do not lie to me,  friend.”

He whirled and marched around the table to seize her arms. The trickster was larger than her and could have bullied her with his frame but Noia leaned forward, unwilling to give ground. She felt another hand on her shoulder followed by a calming sensation. Morphia had trailed after San’azi and, from his expression, had worked her emotional influence on both of them.

San’azi took a breath. “I am not lying to you. I promise.”

There was pleading in his gaze. She wanted to fight him but she knew him as well as she recognized the truth of his words. “What are you leaving out?”

“Nothing that concerns our efforts.”

“You mean it is none of my business.”

“It is not.”

“San’azi, are we not close? Have we not been through much together? What can we not share at this point?”

He stared at her and just when she thought he would relent he released her with such force that she stumbled. Morphia caught her and San’azi glowered at them, opening and closing his hands several times as though undecided.

Finally, he stalked deeper into the caves and growled over his shoulder. “Pick a location, Levanoia.”

Morphia rubbed Noia’s back and she smiled at the goddess of dreams. “I’ll be alright.” She turned to the map and took in all the X marks. San’azi had excluded most of the places directly associated with either of them. It was probably a good idea as they were the first places Zuiter and his own would search. It would be better to proverbially throw a dart at the remaining places – but what if she were to use a tactic of her trickster friend and hide The Jar under Zuiter’s nose?

Noia turned to Morphia. “I know where to hide The Jar. Will you stay here with San’azi? I think it’s best if only I know where it is.”

Morphia searched Noia’s eyes, leaning so close Noia could see the starlight-white flecks in the shifting-blue orbs of the dreamweaver’s eyes. The other goddess had no pupils and no irises, something as eerie as it was beautiful. Then she blinked. Then she nodded.

Noia comes back to herself with a jerk and a gasp. Rowan is keeping her steady by his grip on her shoulders.

“Noia?”

Her first attempt comes out as a croak. He offers her a bottle of water and after a gulp she tries again. “I’m fine.”

“Where did you go?”

“Go?”

“Your eyes were open but you did not see me.”

“It’s…hard to explain. How long was I out?”

“Forty-two seconds.”

Noia opens her mouth to start her next question but pauses and lowers one eyebrow at him. “What?”

Rowan shrugs. “There’s a seconds clock on the desktop.”

“Oh. Look,” she straightens in her seat and gently pushes him back towards him, “thank you, Rowan, really, but it’s really hard to explain.”

He opens and closes his mouth several times, undecided. Finally he exhales, leaning close and lowering his voice to say, “After what you just pulled I think you owe me an explanation.”

Noia presses her lips together. She still wants his help as he would be able to guide her through the files faster – plus it seems he had more information to offer than the plain information on the files.

“Come on, don’t make me pull the my-job-is-on-the-line-if-this-gets-back-to-Mr.-Almira card.”

Well? What do you do?

Do you have an idea where The Jar is?