He’d completely lost his sense of direction. There was only going down, deeper. Escape would have been easy. He could run back, tell Justus he’d changed his mind, and they’d be off. Every step he took further into the dark made the pressure in his chest increase. Why had he agreed to do this?

  Simon pressed on, trying to focus on something else. It didn’t work. He checked the pocket of his pants. The key was still there. Part of him had hoped to find it missing, lost in the chaos, an excuse to run back up and give up. No luck.

  He counted each floor in his head, even though the metal plaques on the walls by each door told him which floor he was on. For once he was glad to live on one of the upper floors. All those times he’d gone down a dozen flights of stairs each day, complaining under his breath, were worth it to spare him the long trek this day. Four stories from the top. That was all.

  It felt much longer. He kept imagining the monster appearing sooner than expected. It would smash into the building, and he’d be buried in the rubble, barely alive and left to die slowly, painfully, and completely alone.

  The visions of death were so vivid and distracting that he hadn’t even realized he was at his apartment until his hand reached into his pocket for his keys. For how little he remembered getting here, he might as well have just appeared at the foot of the door.

  He looked both ways down the hall. It seemed to stretch on longer than it ever had, even in his earliest memories, when the world had felt so much larger. The lock resisted the key, as if it were trying to push him away. He jabbed at the lock until it finally gave up and let him in.

  When the door opened, it was exactly as he remembered leaving it that morning, only darker. There was a green light that cut through the air, coming from a gash in the old curtain that covered the window. Probably a flare from the heroes outside. The familiar smell of smoke still filled the apartment. A bottle of vodka sat on the coffee table, its lip just visible to him over the back of the couch. The apartment was quiet. It shouldn’t be so quiet. Not today. Not when monsters were roaming the streets. Not with one that threatened to kill thousands soon to appear.

  Simon took a small step, then another. His heart had gone quiet; its earlier pounding now felt deathly still. All his tension faded into a distant echo. Memories pushed onto him, vying for his focus. He pushed them all back, not giving them the attention they cried out for. Darkness seemed to bleed from the hall like a physical force, the dim light unable to pierce through. Simon glided across the living room, tiptoeing on the wooden floor, unwilling to break the eerie quiet.

  The old wood groaned in protest as he opened the door to his bedroom. Two fluffy and familiar sets of ears perked up. Belle hopped off his bed and ran over to him, jumping up on one of his legs. She clambered against him as he bent over to pick her up. He held her close, taking comfort in the feeling of her life in his arms.

  Simon turned back to leave.

  He kept his eyes fixed onto the wall straight ahead. The couch called to his gaze like a siren. His hands absentmindedly scratched Belle behind the ears, comforting her.

  A feeble noise sliced through the silence. It came from his right. Not the living room, but the kitchen. His eyes fell on the pool first, which coated the tile of the kitchen all the way to the edge of the living room carpet. The beige carpet soaked in the red. The clothes on the body were tattered and ripped at the chest and stomach.

  The man’s head turned towards Simon, staring daggers with a terribly familiar set of eyes.

  “Si…mon…”

  Simon jerked awake. He felt out of breath, and his heart was racing. He wiped at the sweat on his forehead as his brain adjusted to the jarring transition of sleep and wakefulness. A nightmare. Blood, and a body. And… more, but he couldn’t remember. The dream was already fading.

  “Simon? You up yet?”

  Kate’s voice came from outside. He was in a tent? Right, they’d set up camp outside the cave. Justus had bought extra tents during his private stint out on the town. They were the small, one-person kind meant only for sleeping. There wasn’t even enough room to sit up, so Simon unzipped the side and started to shimmy out.

  Justus was hunched over a boiling pot. Kate was standing close by Simon’s tent. She looked down at him as he crawled out from the tent and stood up.

  “Sleep well?”

  “Like a baby, one in a cramped tent with no cushioning.”

  Kate smiled, letting out a short amused laugh. It seemed like she was in a good mood.

  Unlike Justus, Kate wasn’t in her usual robes. She wore a thin ruffled blouse with long sleeves that clung to her wrists. The sleeves ended with a lacy patterned trim that matched the trim around the deep v-shaped neckline. Under the blouse she wore a slightly thicker, more plain undershirt. Her legs were covered by dark brown trousers tied with a leather belt, and she wore actual boots instead of the wrap-like footwear they’d been given by the swamp village. The new clothes, mixed with her hair being tied back in a ponytail, almost made her look like a different person.

  “I’m up,” he said. “What’s for breakfast?”

  Breakfast, it turned out, was a stew that Justus had made from whatever food he had in his inventory.

  “Can’t you store better food in your inventory, or just cook something before and take it out later?” Simon asked. The three of them were sat around the fire eating.

  “Inventories don’t preserve food like that. In fact, they’re not good at storing anything that wears out. Time passes faster in inventories. If you stuck a watch in there for a quarter, it’ll be around six hours ahead when you take it out.”

  “Why?”

  Justus shrugged. “Something about the way the inventories are made. The guidestones are linked with a higher dimensional space that’s held open with negative energy. I don’t know the science behind it exactly, but it’s similar to how gravity can slow subjective time. That’s all I can really say.”

  “Time dilation?” Kate asked.

  “Basically. Same principles.”

  “Can you go inside?” Simon asked.

  “What?”

  “Inside. Can you go into the inventory? Like crawl around in there?”

  “No. The inventory resists taking in anything with a Spirit. There are ways to get around that issue if the Spirit is severed from anything organic, but I don’t know the specifics. It’s not easy to learn about things like this.”

  “How come?” Kate asked. “Who even makes the guidestones?”

  “That simple question has a complicated answer and a lot of context I can’t get into. In short, no one knows. But there are theories. The most popular is that the gods made the guidestones. It makes sense, given how uniquely complex the stones are. It’s what the Theology Guild believes, too. I’m not sure I believe that.”

  “Why not?” Simon asked, “You think it was some lost civilization? Are you an Atlantis type of guy?”

  “I don’t know, but I also don’t know why the gods wouldn’t make more guidestones if they could. There’s a reason high-ranking guidestones are so expensive, and not everyone trains in Spirit Arts. It’s dangerous and lots of work, but there also aren’t enough guidestones to go around. Opals are easy to come by, sure, and even Jades aren’t uncommon. But Sapphires are much harder to come across, and by the time you’re ready for Emerald, you either need to start making connections or start saving up and getting cozy. As for Ruby, well, there are only one ninety Ruby Rankers on the planet, so that should tell you how rare Ruby guidestones are. If there was a way to make more, I don’t see why the gods wouldn’t.”

  “Artificial scarcity, maybe?” Kate said. “If they don’t make more, they can control how many people can advance. Maybe they’re afraid of too many people—”

  “They aren’t afraid,” Justus interrupted. “They have no reason to be. Don’t insult them, and never imply weakness to them. You’re wrong, and that can be a costly mistake.”

  His expression was so stern Simon could have mounted an outboard motor to it and gone wakeboarding.

  “Why, will they smite us?” Simon asked with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood.

  Justus glared at him. Simon’s smirk faltered. He glanced up at the orange sky.

  “Will they?” he asked again, no longer finding the thought amusing.

  “Not often. I’ve only heard of it happening to a handful of people, and while some might be urban legends, some definitely weren’t. I have an acquaintance who says it happens at least a few times every phase in Solidusk, but that’s all word of mouth. The takeaway is, they’re powerful. More powerful than you can imagine. The Apocalypse beast that destroyed your city just by existing? Killing it would be less effort for them than you stepping on an ant.

  “They aren’t omnipotent though, and they don’t claim to be. They could sense anything on the planet, technically, but they can’t focus on everything at once or be everywhere at once. That doesn’t mean it’s safe to say anything you want about them. Saying their names is considered a fast way to get their attention, for example.

  “If you read one of their names, don’t read it out loud. If you talk about them, call them by title. Even that will prick their attention, but probably not enough for them to focus on you. So to answer your question: no, I don’t think they’ll smite us, but it's best not to tempt fate.”

  Justus’s eyes were shouting at Simon to take the hint. Simon was almost offended by that. Just because he wasn’t super serious and stoic all the time didn’t mean he couldn’t pick up on subtlety. Still, Simon understood why Justus had been so adamant about him and Kate being so careful about their words. He should have told them about this sooner. Maybe the thought simply hadn’t crossed his mind until now. Simon knew that some things were easy to take for granted. Habits built up over a lifetime. His fingers reached in his pants and felt the smooth silver coin inside. A fish in water and all.

  The rest of their meal was spent in silence. Simon was thinking back over his time on Varkalus. Had he made any jokes with Kate that might have attracted the attention of a god with a short temper? Being on a god’s shit list was a pretty terrifying thought. Worse, there was the possibility that the gods were already paying attention to them. Wouldn’t they have detected two aliens getting teleported onto the planet?

  Was there a reason Justus hadn’t mentioned it? Simon could think of one: he didn’t want the gods to know that he knew they were watching. If they were, wouldn’t the gods know that the three of them were about to go look for a relic that they weren’t supposed to?

  Maybe that was why Justus had been hesitant to take the quest. Except he couldn’t have known, given how little info there was. The fact was Simon simply didn’t know enough about this world. He decided he’d start paying more attention to Justus’s advice and lessons.

  The awkward conversation over breakfast had managed to make Simon forget the reason they were out camping in a cold mountain forest. He remembered very quickly when Justus told them it was time to head inside the cave.

  Simon could vividly remember the day. His mother had picked him up from school, and while taking the elevator to their apartment, there was a blackout.

  The blackout had affected multiple blocks, and emergency services must have been busy, since it had taken over two hours for them to be rescued. To make it worse, he had to pee before going in and ended up pissing in the corner after the first half hour. Two hours of hanging a hundred feet in the air in a pitch-black steel coffin that smelled like piss. Trapped. Entombed. It was, until recently, one of the worst memories of his life.

  Ever since that day, he’d refused to take the elevator. He took the stairs. Only the stairs. His mother had gotten sick of it, and after he turned fourteen, she stopped driving him to school. That hadn’t been enough to deter him, though. He’d never gotten into an elevator after that.

  Simon had thought his fears were just elevators, but apparently he’d been wrong about that. The mind was weird that way. He had a phobia he didn’t even know about. Those memories old man Goffner gave him made his skin go clammy and hands shake whenever he focused on them.

  And now he was going to have to go in there. No problem. He had fucking superpowers now. He could crawl around a bit in a cave. Like Justus said, there was no real danger to people like them. Unless the ceiling caved in above them, crushing them all before any of them could react.

  He shook himself. The chances of anything going wrong were so slim he might as well start worrying about lightning strikes. That thought brought to mind the recent revelation about the Monarchs. Hell, when did things get so crazy? He missed the swamp, with its humid air and days spent training and hanging out with friendly villagers.

  “Before we go in, put these on,” Justus said. He reached to the side, and two brown objects fell in his hand.

  “Are those bracelets?” Simon asked.

  “Cuffs,” Justus corrected. “They’re for your guidestones.”

  Simon examined the cuff when Justus handed it to him. Sure enough, there was a socket with a leather and aluminum harness. The opal guidestone fit perfectly, and Simon belted down the harness. It looked surprisingly stylish.

  “Thanks.”

  Justus nodded. “Come on, the sooner we get this over with, the better.”

  Simon was left alone as Justus and then Kate headed into the cave. He looked up at the sky one last time. He wished he had Belle with him. Petting her always helped calm him down when he was nervous. He'd left her at the inn. Even with powers, a dog wasn't well suited for spelunking. Before he could psyche himself out, Simon followed the two inside. Not twenty feet inside and the cave was almost pitch black.

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  A cool, faint green light filled the space, making Simon jump in surprise. The light came from the cuff on Justus’s wrist, from his guidestone. Justus turned back to face them.

  “Open up your system menu, then think, ‘System command: light.’”

  Simon did so, and the guidestone on his cuff lit up. It seemed only half as bright as Justus’s. Simon mentally commanded the stone to glow brighter, but the stone remained at a fixed brightness.

  “Does this use Spirit?” Kate asked.

  “Not enough to worry about. It uses a fixed amount, about a percent of your Spirit per hour. The more Spirit, the more light. To a point.”

  Simon looked closer at Kate’s light. Despite his recent rank up, he could have sworn her light was brighter than his. He didn’t point out his observation.

  It wasn’t so bad at first. Most of the passages were large enough that they could walk through without needing to duck or squeeze. As long as Simon didn’t focus on where he was or how many tons of rock surrounded him, he could almost relax. The smell was a bit dank but otherwise pleasantly earthy. The quiet was a bit unsettling, though. The earth muffled every noise and snuffed out any echoes.

  The worst thing was the darkness. It pushed in on them like a physical presence, held at bay only by the dim light of their guidestones.

  For the first ten minutes, they made smooth progress. Simon had almost gotten used to the oppressive silence and dark when they reached the first narrow path.

  The entrance to the path was only a few feet wide. Jutting rocks created a menacing, mouth-like tunnel that stretched as deep as their lights could shine. Not even the light from a lantern Justus pulled out was enough to see very far.

  “Alright, looks like this is the first hard part. Seems like it angles down most of the way, but the memory says it should level out near the end. Might be pretty cramped for the next half hour. Simon, send out your clone. We’ll send it through first. Katherine, you’ll go next, and I’ll be behind you. Simon, you’ll go last.”

  “Why am I in the back?”

  “Because it puts me between you and her. If anything goes wrong with either of you, I’ll be in a better position to help. It also lets my Absolute Awareness cover all of us.”

  “Oh. Sounds good, then, yeah.”

  Simon still didn’t like the arrangement, even if it made sense. He’d already felt nervous and constantly checked behind his back. Having a maze of darkness stretching behind him made it feel like he might get snatched by some unseen creature hiding in the dark just out of sight. Even though he knew that was silly, he couldn’t help feeling exposed.

  “Simon? The clone?” Justus prompted.

  “Oh, right. Sorry. Was just making sure I didn’t forget anything. One clone, coming right up.”

  To give credence to his lie, Simon looked down and patted down his clothes.

  The air shimmered ahead of them. Wisps of Spirit, like threads of light, rose out from his body and rushed towards the shimmering space, curling into the clone’s shape.

  “Alright, clone, you know why you’re here.”

  The clone saluted. To Simon’s surprise, the clone turned towards the cave and went inside without any complaints. That pissed him off. Here he was doing his best not to freak out, and his clone acted like this was nothing. Kate and Justus followed close behind Simon’s pale simulacrum.

  Simon walked up to the edge of the opening, laying his hands to either side. His fingers were shaking slightly, and his head felt light. He closed his eyes, which only helped make the sense of everything spinning get worse. He opened his eyes and instead focused on the rocks, rough and tan.

  A vision appeared in his mind, not of some unseen cave monster or the ceiling crumbling down on top of him, but of a floor. A carpet, the same color as the rocks surrounding him. Not all the same. Red at the edge.

  “Simon! Are you coming, or not?”

  Justus’s voice, muffled from how far he was, pulled Simon back to himself. He let out a breath and pulled himself into the crevice.

  It took about two hours before they reached the final part of the cave in the memory. The memory cut off in a small passage, and there turned out to be a hole near the end. The hole was easily seven feet across and dropped into pure black, their stones unable to shine through to the bottom.

  “Damn. How deep do you think that goes?” Simon asked.

  “Maybe your clone can jump in and tell us,” Kate suggested.

  Simon’s clone flipped her off. Simon looked at her, unsure if it was a joke or not.

  “You think now, a mile underground, is a good place to find a sense of humor?”

  “I have a sense of humor," she said defensively.

  “Really, when’s the last time you made a joke?”

  Kate paused, frowning. Before she could answer, the sound of a metallic bang pulled both their attentions. They looked back to see Justus hitting a long spike between the rocks. Simon recognized it as a piton and felt his stomach curl in on itself.

  “We’re gonna climb down?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “What about your teleport thing?”

  “That would work going down, but it might not work going up. The destination has to be within my field of view.”

  “What about that disintegration skill you mentioned? Maybe you could use it to carve some stairs going down.”

  Justus met Simon with a flat stare. Yeah, that idea seemed pretty weak even to himself.

  “Simon, if you’re too scared, you can stay up here.”

  “I’m not—I’m just exploring all our options, that’s all.”

  Justus grunted as he continued working on the piton. Simon and Kate waited, and after a few minutes Justus had the rope set up. He took about ten minutes explaining to them how to use the equipment. There was only one set of rappelling gear, so they’d have to tie it off and pull it up after each person descended.

  Justus volunteered to go first, since he was the most experienced. Simon watched as Justus lowered into the darkness. Twenty feet, fifty, a hundred, and more. Just as Simon began to wonder just how long the rope was, Justus’s light blinked off and then back on three times: the signal to pull up the rope.

  The rope was light, but given the length and equipment tied to it, it didn’t feel light as Simon pulled it up. The rope kept going and going until finally he heard the clink of equipment. When the gear spilled over the top and onto the rocky ground, Simon and Kate looked at one another.

  “You should go first,” Kate said. “If I mess up and fall, I’d like to know you’re down there and could patch me up.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Simon lied.

  He wasn’t sure, but he had the feeling she was just trying to get him to go first because she thought he’d chicken out if he was alone. Which he might have. Part of him was grateful. Simon wasn’t much of a macho man type, but even he bristled at the thought of being shown up by a girl. He knew it was stupid to think that way, considering the girl in question could control fire and literally take a punch that would kill him, but his monkey brain didn’t really care about all that nuanced stuff.

  Before he prepared to go, he brought his clone back out.

  “In case you need to get a message to us or need help,” Simon explained.

  “Good idea.”

  He nodded, then strapped on the harness and clipped himself onto the little metal piece the rope was fed through. The rope had proven its strength by holding Justus, who easily had forty pounds on Simon, but Simon still yanked and pulled on it a few times before he trusted it enough to lean over the pit.

  Blood rushed through his body, and his hands shook as they gripped onto the rope for dear life. Below him was over a hundred feet of darkness, and most of his weight was being supported by the rope now. A shaky breath escaped his lips. Kate gave him a thumbs up and sympathetic smile. He returned the smile. It helped to know that she seemed nervous about this too.

  Simon let out another breath, slow and forcibly steady. He pushed off the rock and fed the rope through. A primal fear caused his stomach to lurch. With a quick motion he gripped the rope tight, and immediately he stopped falling. He swung in the air, his feet striking the wall. It took him a moment to find his balance and stop swinging from foot to foot. Simon took a moment to settle his nerves. The worst part was over now. He was dangling a lethal distance from the floor, and the only way to go was down.

  Going about a yard per hop, he got into a rhythm. He didn’t look up. He didn’t look down. He focused entirely on hopping, feeding the rope a bit, and then breaking. It felt like it took him much longer than it had for Justus, and he wasn’t sure if that was his anxiety messing with his subjective feeling of time or not.

  After one hop, Simon slowed his descent and braked. He prepared to plant his feet against the wall, but his feet met open air. With a yelp of shock, his upper body smacked into the wall. Something in his wrist flared with pain as it twisted under his weight. Simon curled up, clutching the brake mechanism like a lifeline. He ignored Justus’s voice from below and the echoing sound of Kate from above.

  When he relaxed his grip, the pain in his wrist flared again. It wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the injuries he’d gotten while training, so he was able to suppress his reaction and focus on healing it. Once it was back to normal, he pushed himself off the remainder of the wall and dropped a few more yards. He chanced a look down and saw Justus on the ground about fifty feet below.

  For some reason, most of the fear was gone. Some was still there, but most of the fear had remained back in the cave. The relief of finally being in an open space was beating out the fear of being up so high.

  He descended quicker the remainder of the way, the tension in him fading with each controlled fall. By the time his feet hit the ground, he was grinning. He gave a whoop of celebration as he landed next to Justus. Simon unstrapped the harness and clipped it back to the rope. Both of them covered their stones, blocking out the light, then flashed them three times to signal Kate to pull the rope up.

  “What’s all this?” Simon asked.

  There was a black mat on the ground in front of Justus, with multiple small tools and devices laid out. He was currently taking apart and cleaning what looked like a flare gun. Simon leaned over and studied the objects on the mat. Some were obvious: files, lockpicks, scissors, pliers, weird screwdriver-looking things, and a chisel and hammer. Others weren’t so obvious in their design. One was a smooth piece of metal with four grooves on it, like a rounded square squished in on the faces. It was around the size of a walnut, with a thin seam down the middle and grooves. Another item was a glove with dozens of tiny suction cups on the inside. There was also a smooth metal rod that looked a bit like a Neuralyzer from Men in Black. Simon reached out to touch that one, but Justus slapped his hand away.

  “Don’t touch that. These are tools you don’t know how to use.”

  “Jeez, fine. What about the pliers? I know how to use those. Everyone does.”

  “Not in as many ways as I do.”

  Simon stood up, huffing. “Easy, John Wick. Not tryna step on your toes.”

  “Yes you are.” Justus replied, not looking up from the weird gun.

  “Maybe I’m just a natural. What are you working on?”

  “It’s a multi-launcher that can shoot nets, irritants, acids, corrosives, electrical disruptors, and flares.”

  Simon whistled. “Is that it?”

  “It can shoot small explosives, but I’d rather not use those underground. Shockwaves could cause a cave-in.”

  “Good thinking. Where are we anyway? Is the relic nearby?”

  Simon looked around. He could only see about fifteen feet in any direction thanks to Justus’s light, but everywhere he looked it was just the ground and darkness.

  “This is the relic.”

  Simon frowned and looked back at Justus. For a moment he thought Justus meant the little launcher he was fiddling with. Then Simon realized how flat the ground was. He looked down and wiped the ground with his shoe. The dust and pebbles scraped across the solid material beneath. Simon bent over and shone his light on the floor.

  “Metal? Are we standing on the fucking thing?”

  “Almost certainly. And it’s hollow. I can sense it. Some kind of giant machine-building,” Justus said as he screwed a small piece onto the launcher. He gave it a look-over, then nodded to himself and set it on the mat. With a shimmer, the items popped into his inventory, then Justus grabbed the empty mat and shook the dust off before doing the same to it.

  “Hard to say what’s inside, but there must have been a reason it was built underground. Or moved here. It could be dangerous.”

  “Inside? Why go inside? We can just leave the ashes and get out, can’t we?”

  “And miss the chance to explore this place? No way. Too valuable. There could be ten thousand speers worth of loot in there. If we manage to take and sell even a fraction of that, we could not only make it back to Talon but also get you and Kate Sapphire guidestones.”

  “Weren’t you saying that doing exactly that was forbidden?”

  “It is. I’m doing it anyway. It’s simple risk rewards. The reward of selling any items of interest we find outweighs the risks of stealing them.”

  “But what about the… little g’s?”

  “The what?” Justus asked, looking up at Simon with confusion.

  “You know… the ones who smite.”

  “Oh, them. What about them?”

  “Won’t they notice or something? They have to know about this place, right? I mean, you said they can sense everything.”

  “Anything, not everything. That’s very different,” Justus said. He began walking in an expanding spiral from where he’d been sitting. “I also told you they aren’t omnipotent. Could they know about this place? Yes. Do they constantly monitor it? Almost certainly no.”

  “That ‘almost’ is pretty scary when you’re talking about gods, dude.”

  “Risks and reward. Think about it. Goffner has known about this place for hundreds of cycles. He’s still alive to tell us about it. That means it’s not that high of a priority to keep secret.”

  “But if we start grabbing shit and selling it, won’t someone notice or put things together and realize what we did?”

  “If we sold relics to any random vendor on the street, yes. But we’ll be selling what we find to someone who has been peddling forbidden items like this longer than both of us have been alive.”

  “Aren't you an adventurer for a guild that helps people? This seems like pretty criminal stuff.”

  Justus stopped. He tapped the ground beneath him, then banged on it with his foot.

  “This is it. There’s an opening hatch here.”

  When he realized Simon was still expecting a reply, Justus sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair.

  “I told you back in your city: I’m not some kind of hero. I’m not an adventurer so I can help people. It’s a way to make money and get stronger.”

  “Watch out!” A voice came from above.

  Simon looked up, then ducked out of the way. Kate landed a few seconds later, her movements arrested in an instant as the kinetic energy and momentum were absorbed by her skill.

  She let out a relieved breath and gave Simon an apologetic smile.

  “Sorry. I’ve been wanting to practice that again. I figured thirty feet wouldn’t be enough to kill me if it went wrong, but it would hurt enough to be good motivation not to mess up.”

  “Little risky, don’t you think?” Simon asked. He looked at Justus. “Aren’t you going to chew her out or something?”

  Justus glanced over and gave a small shrug. “It’s her risk to take, and Katherine knows her limits pretty well. If she was wrong you could have healed her, and she’d learn from the experience. But it worked, so there’s no point getting upset.”

  “What? You’d complain if I did something like that. When did you two start getting all buddy-buddy and teaming up against me?”

  “We’re not buddies,” Justus said.

  “We aren’t buddy-buddy,” Kate said at the same time.

  Kate and Justus shot each other annoyed looks, then Justus went back to studying the ground beneath him.

  “Sorry.” Kate said, looking back at Simon. “I just thought this was a good chance to build up a good stockpile of energy. And it was a good chance to practice using my skill for falling.”

  Simon waved her apology away. “I’m not worried about it. I'm just surprised. For someone usually so reserved, you do some pretty crazy shit for the sake of training.”

  “It wasn’t that crazy. I was pretty sure I’d manage it.”

  Before Simon could argue against the defense of being “pretty sure,” a hissing sound came from the ground around Justus.

  Justus reached down and pressed into the metal. The metal sunk and revealed a small handle. He twisted it counterclockwise. With a mighty breath of air, the hatch opened.

  Katherine’s eyes went wide, and she looked at the ground as she came to the same conclusion he had.

  After retreading some of the same thoughts and concerns Simon had raised, Katherine asked a question Simon hadn’t thought to, somehow.

  “It sounds like you’ve done this before,” she said. “Do you have any clue what this is?”

  “I’m not sure. It could be a facility, but the material and design are strange. There’s a ridiculous amount of insulation, over three dozen layers. It’s like this place was meant to be dunked in magma.”

  “Hmm. Did there used to be a volcano here?” Simon asked.

  “Do you have a stronger light?” Katherine asked Justus, completely ignoring Simon's question. It wasn't even that bad of a question this time either.

  “No, and yes.” Justus stared into space for a moment, then reached out and grabbed a red stick that appeared out of his inventory. “Do you need it? Flares aren’t cheap.”

  “I think I have an idea what this relic might be, but I’d like to see it first.”

  Justus reached out and pulled out the launcher he’d been working on. He placed something inside the thick barrel, then fit the flare into it. The flare gun pointed towards the ceiling as he pulled the trigger.

  A blinding red light shot into the air. Simon winced and covered his eyes, looking away. When he did, he saw just how massive the space they were in was. This wasn’t just a large open space; it was a massive cavern hundreds of feet across. It was around the size of a hangar bay.

  No, it was a hangar bay. Simon’s eyes traveled the smooth curves of the metal they were standing on. The reflective surface glowed in the red light. It was nothing he’d ever seen in person before, but the shape was reminiscent of ones he’d seen in movies. It was massive and roundish, slightly bulbous near the center while tapering at the sides. Unlike most in movies, this one was more ovular than round, but it was still unmistakable.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “It’s a UFO.”

  What should Belle be doing during this mission?