Engineered Magic

2 AL: Irene

Darien disappeared three days ago. He took with him two others from engineering. Dennis, the day shift supervisor, fell ill last week. Irene suspected it was his absence that pushed Darien into leaving.

Irene continued to sporadically attend the stick fighting classes in the evenings. As the groups coalesced it became obvious that they were forming up to go into the ruins. Irene was never added permanently to any group. She was passed around like a stray. When she turned up for the class last evening, she found the exercise room on level eighteen empty. There wasn’t even a notice canceling the class.

Darien and Michael shuttled the groups out to the ruins all during the spring and summer. Irene overheard him explaining to Michael how every group they helped would feel grateful to them and how they could build on that.

The early groups were grateful enough to send text updates on what they found and how things were going. They found a living area they called a square where animals didn’t attack. They claimed you could buy anything you wanted from vending machines using some kind of credit you earned while adventuring. The wildest news was that Dr. Whitman learned how to heal with magic. She could heal both fresh wounds and old scars.

Irene was ecstatic to hear that her mother was still alive but even more worried about her brother. Three more of her siblings went silent. Mary was the only one she heard from anymore. Irene mostly got ‘busy right now’ and ‘got to go’ messages from her.

After the empty exercise room, Irene made a special trip to see Agatha. Irene found Agatha sorting through priority lists.

“Dennis was assigning tasks in the order the requests came in. We really don’t have the manpower to do them all,” Agatha explained. “I have put a request to Command to get a couple people transferred over from construction but I haven’t heard back from them.”

“Won’t taking people from construction impact the schedule?” Irene asked.

“The fact is we don’t have the numbers to execute the plan as it was written. We are going to have to scale back. Most of the agricultural core is complete and it takes very little manpower to keep those fields productive. We need to concentrate on finishing the food processing automation. After that what I am most worried about is power production.”

“Power? We have the solar panels and the ship's power. Won’t that hold us?”

“We jettisoned the reactors on final approach. They were out of fuel and highly radioactive after the long run. The ship’s power we are running on now is just fuel cell technology. We use solar power during the day but there is not enough extra to recycle the fuel we consume at night. Manufacturing has been producing blades and generators for windmills. Our next priority will have to be getting them in place. Their downside is that they take considerable maintenance to keep them running.” Agatha sighed. “We will just have to worry about that later.”

Agatha went on to point out specific problems. Problematic fields and installations would be abandoned. An example of these was the irrigation pump on the western field. Since Irene was out there she explained the situation to Agatha. The poor installation led to repeated problems with the pump sucking in debris and clogging the strainer. Irene went back to flush it multiple times over the summer to keep it working. Agatha instructed Irene to go out and clean it out one more time. She hoped that would hold until the harvest. They would take the field out of production next year.

Which is why Irene was here now. She flushed the strainer on the irrigation pump in under fifteen minutes. Afterwards she drove over the ridge to where the trees ended. It occurred to her that if the last of Darien’s people went into the ruins there would be no one left to bring back their cart. She stopped her cart and pulled out her trusty binoculars. She used them to record the scene.

The large construction cart Irene last saw Michael driving in the spring was front and center. That confirmed where Darien and his group went. She looked for the original exploration vehicles and could find no sign of them. There was a stand alone repeater mounted on the stone above the ruin entrance. That explained how Darien remained in communication with the groups he sent out during the summer. It was in poor condition and wouldn’t last much longer.

Irene’s eyes went back to the construction cart. The large vehicles were capable of towing equipment behind them. She could see that it did have the towing package on the back of it. It looked like it was in the stowed position and was never used.

She put the binoculars down and headed around to the front of the small maintenance cart she was driving. The tow point was standard to the cart design. She was never really conscious of it before but it was right there when she looked for it. She thought she could drive the construction cart back and tow her own maintenance cart behind it.

She got back into her vehicle and drove the last few miles across the meadow. The creek in the center contained barely enough water in it to notice. Her maintenance cart navigated it without difficulty. She turned her cart around and parked it looking away from the entrance.

She stepped into the construction cart. The interior was empty and surprisingly clean. There wasn’t even a boot mark to show that anyone had rode in it. She checked its gauges and saw that it was holding a three quarters charge. She turned the big vehicle in a tight u-turn. She pulled it alongside her maintenance cart then out in front of it before backing up to close the gap. It took her an embarrassing long time to get the two vehicles lined up close enough to make the connection. She didn’t think she could have done it without being able to move both vehicles.

Irene knew she should get into the construction vehicle and head back, instead she turned to survey the ruins. With the workload that Agatha laid out last night, Irene knew this was her last chance to see them for a long time.

The only recording device she carried with her was the binoculars. She slung them around her neck even though everything was likely too close to properly focus on. She strolled forward to look at the stone construction.

Just inside the broken outer wall was a large stone paved area. The stones were octagonal shaped. Some of them were out of place revealing pockets of soil that sprouted vines and tufts of grass. The vines grew up over the displaced stones and fragmented walls. There was a section in the center that was lower. It looked like a ruined pond or fountain.

Irene leaned down to clean some of the soil off of the tiles that lined the former water feature. They were the same octagonal shape as the paving stones, only smaller. They were slick to the touch and a pure white color. A large artistically placed crack crossed the bottom pool, giving a clear indication of why there was no water.

She straightened back up and continued her tour. There were large objects within the vines that might be benches or tables. Tall columns rose up to the sky in a regular pattern. The bottoms were all encased in stone. Using her binoculars she studied the top of the one that was the farthest from her. The last few feet were narrower. It appeared to be a steel core with a broken top. A light dusting of rust decorated the break. There was less rust on the column than on the tripod holding the repeater Darien’s team left behind.

The inner wall of the area was the same type of construction as the outer wall, only more intact. The top edge was above Irene’s line of sight. Random bits of steel reinforcing sticking up out of it. There were a few loose blocks laying on the floor in front of the wall. Like the stone in the outer wall that Agatha pointed out to her, these blocks bore holes where the reinforcing should run through. The holes were perfect with no sign of damage.

Irene could see where a cable ran down from the repeater into the opening that led north. The insulation on the cable was cracked and broken. The milky green color of oxidized copper coated it. It reminded Irene of how the projectile weapons the exploration teams carried corroded and failed at an accelerated rate. It seemed to Irene that outside communication was another targeted technology.

The second opening in the inner wall stretched almost directly west. It was still morning and the light of the rising sun illuminated more of this passage. Irene peered down the hallway. A debris layer of dead vines and leaves stretched across the floor. A green living vine crawled up one wall. Just past the vine Irene could see something rough on the wall. It was a short enough distance that she couldn’t get lost.

She stepped carefully over the debris and studied the wall. She realized with some surprise that it was Agatha’s first inscription. Irene recognized the hash marks and crosses that made it up. The marks were much smaller than she visualized. Agatha said it was close to the entrance, Irene did not realize it was this close.

Irene stretched her right hand out and rolled her fingers around left wise into a fist. Then she made a throwing gesture keeping her first two fingers together. Nothing happened. Irene laughed out loud at herself.

Her laugh echoed down the corridor. Something was disturbed by the sound and moved in the darkness. She heard the scratching of claws on stone. The sound was getting closer. She stumbled backward over the dead vines on the floor, searching for something to defend herself with. All she could come up with was the binoculars that were hanging around her neck. She took them off and wrapped the strap around her left hand and grasped one of the barrels.

She steadied herself. The first rats the explorers found were easily scared off. She could do this.

The animal came out of the dark. It was a lot larger than a rat. It was at least two feet long. It came up about halfway to her knee. Its claws looked impossibly sharp. It was armed with a very impressive set of fangs. She yelled at it and lunged forward. The animal hissed back at her and charged. She jumped out of the way, swinging the binoculars as it passed. She got in a glancing blow but so did it. Its claws scraped across the high top of her work boot, scoring the surface. Luckily the material held.

She turned to face it. She stretched her hand, rolled her fingers into a fist and made the throwing gesture again. She didn’t know quite why she did. The animal was shaking off the blow. It didn’t seem to like the light spilling in from outside. It danced around with a snort. She made the gesture again. She didn’t see how it could hurt. Maybe waving her hand around would scare it off.

It locked its beady eyes on her and hissed. She waved her hand at it again as it charged. This time she anticipated the action. As it got near she stepped to the side and kicked it as hard as she could. The animal grunted and slid down the corridor and into the wall.

Irene backed up. She didn’t like the feeling of having the dark at her back. She wanted to get back out into the daylight. Although she wanted to run she forced herself to move carefully. She didn’t want to fall over the dead vines. She could see a cut on the top of her boot all the way down to the material that reinforced the toe. She didn’t want to end up on the floor with those claws.

She rolled her fingers again as she studied the beast. It was taking a long time getting back up. Irene saw that she made a mistake. Instead of backing away she should have hit it again. Now she was too far away. The animal snorted and turned to face her. It hissed.

Irene braced herself, knowing it was going to charge again. Her hand went through the motions almost without thought. The animal closed half the distance. She put all her desperation into the throw. The beast collapsed and shook like it was hit with a stun gun.

Irene jumped forward and bashed it over the head two or three times with the binoculars. The animal went still. Irene stood over it breathing hard. She nudged it with the toe of her boot. It didn’t move.

She swiftly backed out of the corridor and into the full sun. She headed toward the carts fully intent on getting out of there.

As she passed a section of broken outer wall, the light fell on the stone in just the right way to reveal a pattern of horizontal lines across it. The bottom most line ended in a curl downward. Irene did not stop her progress toward the carts but the image was seared in her brain.

She jumped into the maintenance cart and firmly closed the door. She threw her binoculars down and grabbed her knife. Her heart was still pounding and she was breathing heavily. She forced herself to slow her breath as she told herself over and over that she was alright. Her hands started shaking as the adrenaline wore off but her thoughts were clearer.

That was a stupid thing to do, Irene thought to herself. She knew there were animals in the ruins that could injure a person but she was wandering around like a tourist. She didn’t even take her knife with her. Although looking at the gouges on her work boots didn’t want to get that close to an animal like that again. She needed a gun. There weren’t any left in the colony. They were specially produced for the exploration teams. One of the theories on why they failed so fast in the ruins was an unknown fault in the manufacturing. There was no need for them on a ship in flight. The stun devices used for civil control were all hand held. She would have to get just as close to an animal to use one as she did to use a knife.

She needed a long staff or spear. She looked around the cart’s cabin and spotted the length of threaded pipe with the hose connector on the end of it. It was nowhere near the length of a spear but it was the longest item in the cart. She reached back into the cargo area and picked it up. She shifted it in her hand a few times, judging its weight.

It was heavier than the binoculars but it was much too short to be a staff or spear. With the additional weight of the hose connection threaded on the end it was more like a mace. It was light enough that she could carry and swing it. All her work on irrigation piping gave her a bit of muscle. The threaded end was rough on her hands. She dug through her tool bucket and found a pair of gloves.

There was a large dent in one of the barrels of the binoculars and they were smeared with blood and fur. She doubted they would work. She removed the strap from them and used it to secure her knife to her belt loops. She kept putting off getting a belt. When she got back to the ship she would do that first thing. She thought this jerry rigged version would work for now.

She was going back in. That glimpse of lines on the stone reminded Irene of the fragments of inscriptions that Agatha decoded. Only it was not encoded at all. Irene couldn’t shake the feeling that it could be important. It took a lot out of Irene to get out of the cart. In the end it was only the fact that she got into her maintenance cart automatically on her return and needed to switch over to the construction vehicle before she could leave that gave her the motivation to do it. She stood out under the summer sun and carefully inspected every shadow around her. Everything seemed normal. She could hear the water in the stream and the faint buzz of insects.

She edged her way in the direction of the stone walls. A small bird flew up out of the grass. Heart pounding, Irene froze. Another bird flew from the tumbled stones and the two of them began to chase each other across the sky. She shifted the pipe in her hand. It was already feeling heavy.

She was standing on the first stretch of paving. The broken wall seemed like an ominous barrier. She tried to figure out how to look at the inside of it while staying outside its embrace and not turning her back to the dark openings into the hill beyond. It was an impossible task. In the end she stepped onto the stones of the inner courtyard and half turned to give the inside of the wall fragment a side glance.

There it was. Four horizontal lines with the bottom one turning downward where it ended in a curl. A glance to the next section of broken wall showed her six lines with the top one curling away. There was still no sign of danger. Irene remembered how the beast didn’t like the bright sunlight. She hoped that meant they stayed deeper in the ruins where it was dark.

She turned to look at the next fragment of wall in the other direction. There the last two lines ended in curls. Irene could easily put the fragments together in her head and see they were the wind symbol Agatha revealed in some of the inscriptions. She walked over to that last piece. A closer look at it showed her the lines were made up smooth sections of stone surrounded by a pattern of hash marks shallowly engraved in the stone. In the morning light the back of this wall was illuminated only with reflected light. The poor lighting was making the texture more apparent. Irene suspected that under direct light it would be easy to miss.

The next section of the broken wall was evenly engraved with hash marks, making it essentially blank. The section after that disappeared into the soil of the hill. It was covered in vines that were rooted in the soil. The area was more heavily in shadow. It wasn’t dark in any way, just not as bright. It made her nervous. She moved around trying to get a different angle on the wall so she could get a glimpse of what was under the vines. She couldn’t make anything out.

Admitting defeat, Irene approached the wall itself. She tried to push the vines to the side with her pipe but they resisted. She did get a glimpse of something underneath. There was a circular area that seemed to be constructed of a different material. She scrambled up onto the fallen stones in front of the wall and set down her pipe within reach. She pulled her knife to cut and scrape the vines off the wall.

A circular section of the wall was made of dark glass. Fine lines of hash marks were engraved across the wall, with blank sections around and across the dark glass. The vines' rootlets clung to the hash marks. Irene went back over the wall again and again to scrape them off with her knife. What she revealed looked like the outline of a closed fist with the thumb tucked in. The fingers ended in short sharp talons. The more alarming part was that there were five fingers wrapped over the thumb making six digits in total.

Irene climbed back down from the rubble and looked at the drawing. There were short arcs of smooth stone around the closed fist or circle of dark material. Or both, Irene supposed. It made it look like the dark circle was emitting some kind of energy. Irene remembered Agatha saying something about the explorers thinking that panels of glass were the lights in the ruin.

She rolled her fingers into a fist and made a short throwing gesture with it. Nothing happened but she didn’t expect anything to happen. Not on the first try. She did it again.

On the seventh try the circle of dark glass flashed with light. That was a lot quicker than Agatha’s fifteen to twenty tries. Irene watched as the light faded from the panel. Was it faster because she was standing in front of this instruction panel?

It took two more tries to get the panel to light up again. Irene noticed this time that the light started in a smaller circle about the size of her fist before spreading to the rest of the glass. As she watched the light fade she thought about how this was not very different from the motion and sound sensitive lights they used on the ship to conserve power.

When the panel was dark she lit it up again on the first try. She thought about that first bright circle. It looked like the impact point of a ball of light. She could visualize how that would be the endpoint of an animation she wasn’t seeing. Without the animation it didn’t feel like the light was coming from her. It felt like she was just flipping a switch. With an animation she could understand how you might start to feel like it did come from you. You saw the ball of light emerge from your fist and fly to glass, only then did the glass light.

She thought about the animal. It spasmed suddenly right before she hit it. In the rush of adrenaline and fear she didn’t consider what caused it. She rushed forward to finish it off because she was just thinking she should have done that earlier. Had she successfully thrown the lightning spell? How many times did she try it? Four? Five? Six? She wasn’t certain but the number was close to this light spell and she was standing in front of the lightning inscription.

She felt a strange compulsion to go find another animal and try it again. This thought was followed by the memory of a forest clearing covered in broken bits of fruit and Agatha’s dismissive description of them victory dancing. She put her knife back in its sheath and picked up her pipe. She walked calmly and alertly to the construction vehicle. She pulled the cart away heading back to the colony. She was not going to get caught up in it. She didn’t want to disappear into the ruins.