“I can’t believe this place is still here,” he said softly.
Moonlight filtered through the pines surrounding the abandoned mine. Beyond the vine-encrusted fence, hidden beneath decades of weeds and brush, stood the collapsed remains of the old Alienn Mining Company auxiliary shaft.
The lopsided, chipped and fading red paint rendering of a skull and crossbones above a message spouting “Danger: Do Not Enter” was still affixed to the fence beside a gaping hole that allowed entrance, if one knew where to look.
Despite everything—the weeks of searching, the danger, the truth she’d been forced to keep—being back here somehow made it feel simple again. Just Jack and Madelaine back at home, where they’d been the happiest.
The cardboard box that used to contain the housing Winslow had given them remained in Diesel’s underground hiding place.
Her new oversized backpack now held the assembled Device, waiting to be deployed. The blue stone from Malvoraxis Veil, the petrified wood from Verdara, the clear thick circuit board from the locker on Keirios, the uniquely carved housing from Winslow at XkR-9 and, finally, the silver bauxite nugget from the Fearless Leader on Earth.
Seventeen years of Alpha-Prime and Paladin Cabal planning after a greedy thief threatened to destroy everything. A century of preparation in total. Almost two months since the star Dravo had exploded and begun theprocess of poisoning two galaxies. All of it had come down to this lonely hillside outside Alienn, Arkansas.
Madelaine looked toward the mine entrance. “Do you really remember?”
Jack nodded. “I do. It’s just that the symbols didn’t have as much of my attention as you did.”
“Still a charmer, I see,” Madelaine said.
“Thanks.” He turned toward the cave entrance. “As I recall, they were in several places, leading further into the cave, and evenweweren’t daring enough to find out where they led.”
“Yes. Weren’t we were worried about scary aliens from somewhere we’d never heard of, lingering like a nightmare if we tried to find where the symbols ended?” She smiled. “Turns out we were right. Alpha aliens had created them all along.”
“Tonight, we’ll throw our fear aside and follow the symbol breadcrumbs. I truly hope we find the Mechanism.”
“So do I,” Madelaine said. “Since we can’t make it to any of the other places by the three in the morning deadline. This is currently our best and only option.”
“I agree.”
He clicked on his mini Maglite. They squeezed through the broken fence and followed the old path.
Nothing had changed. The same weathered trees. The same rocks. The same cave entrance. Even the initials they’d carved into a cedar tree remained.
J ♥ M
Jack stopped. “Well, look at that.”
She touched the carving. “We really thought we’d be together forever.”
“I never stopped thinking we would.”
Her eyes filled. She wanted to have that forever with Jack but had not figured out a way to make it happen. Once this errand was complete, there would be another and more after that one. She was the Paladin Courier for life.
Together, they stepped into the mine and started walking as best as they remembered to where they’d seen the symbols on the walls.
The tunnel descended farther than she remembered. Their lights swept over old tracks and crumbling support beams.
Then Madelaine stopped. “There. We sat there, just a few paces from where the symbols started.”
The markings. The same strange symbol that appeared on every package and the rendering of the Mechanism. A spatial spiral inside a triangle inside an oval where Madelaine’s thumbprint always went.
The symbol repeated lots of times along the walls, guiding them deeper and deeper into the abandoned auxiliary bauxite mine shaft.
“Honestly, I’m surprised they are here at all, since this wasn’t the first location the Mechanism resided.” Madelaine sent a beam from her flashlight to a hand-sized symbol on the wall.
“Maybe Tando Elroy wanted to make sure the galaxies were saved…after he milked them for as much money as he could and went scot-free before telling the powers in charge where he’d left it after he stole it from Alpha-Prime.”
“Probably. For all the good it did him.”
