Chapter 15
They traveled most of the night without incident. That was the good thing about having a recording ball that could transform into a decked out, efficient security orb.
It wasn’t until dawn started to rise above the endless mountains of sand that they stopped. Suddenly, with no warning, Klutzo sped off to the side. Mimi wasn’t expecting it, and by the time she noticed, her speeding slider had already rounded another dune.
She came to a screeching stop. Setting the brakes to full, she held onto the rails for dear life. Thankfully the suspension and shielding didn’t fail, though they did groan in protest. The very last thing she wanted was to end up headfirst in a sand dune. By the time she managed to wriggle free, no doubt her shoes would have been stolen by a scavenger, and her feet eaten by a wolf.
She managed to pull the slider to a stop before jumping off. “Klutzo, Klutzo, what are you doing?” She waved at him, trying to get him to return to her.
He wasn’t paying any attention.
He was hovering a good 20 meters above the ground. She could barely make him out as the rays of dawn infiltrated the night.
“Klutzo?” She couldn’t keep the fear from shaking her voice. For all Klutzo’s eccentricities, when he was in security mode, he was reliable. He would not dart off without warning unless there was a problem.
She checked around her, drawing her shoulders in as she stared at the dark shadowy dunes to her left and right. Dawn was a slow, languid affair on this planet, and though the first rays of sunshine were peeking across the horizon, it would be another half hour before the shadows no longer scared her. There was something about how the darkness appeared to pool like water that made her shiver.
Finally, she got Klutzo’s attention. He flew toward her. As he did, he appeared to twist to the side, as if he was staring at something as he headed her way.
Nerves kicked through her gut, spiraling up her back and chilling the skin as they went. Swallowing and pressing a thin breath through her lips, she held her hand out to him. He did not come to rest in her grip.
“Danger,” he said.
Her nerves turned into fully fledged fear. Mimi turned around quickly, her eyes widening as she stared at the sand.
What was out there?
Not for the first time, she started to regret her decision. Leaving Josh Cook behind had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now she’d be lucky if that little fact didn’t kill her.
“There is an object…” Klutzo trailed off. He was a recording device, and never usually trailed off. Unlike a human, he didn’t have to search for his words, nor did his emotion ever overcome him.
Mimi would be a fool not to realize her recording ball was frightened.
She started to shiver, and she took several careful steps back toward her slider. “What is it?”
“I do not know.”
“What do you mean? What kind of object is out there?”
Klutzo took a long time to answer. Again, it appeared as if all his attention was centered back toward whatever mysterious object was out there. “It is a black spike, protruding from the sand, approximately 45 centimeters into the air.”
She shivered. But she also blinked. Black spike? By the way he was behaving, she’d expected a pack of sand wolves, or an angry platoon of scavengers, or a horde of barbarians out for a picnic.
She wasn’t dumb enough to brush off Klutzo’s comment. He was still the security drone. If he was scared, it wouldn’t be without reason.
She tried to swallow. Her mouth was so dry she gave up and coughed instead. “What do you mean?”
“Danger,” he repeated.
She shivered again. Though her instincts told her to get back on her slider and drive as far away from this spot as she could get, something held her back.
Curiosity.
Maybe whatever lessons they’d managed to instill in her at the Academy still remained, or maybe it was courage, or maybe it was plain stupidity. But Mimi, wiping the sweat from her brow with her thumb and wrist, took a step toward Klutzo, not away. “Where is it? What is it?”
“It is over there, approximately 15.5 meters to your left, right at the base of this sand dune.”
Mimi clutched a hand to her stomach in an effort to control her nerves. Before she took a step toward the object, she hesitated. She wasn’t an idiot. She might be curious, but she needed to find out more about this mysterious spike before she accidentally tripped over it in the waning dark. “Is it safe to approach? Are there any other enemies around?”
Klutzo didn’t answer.
“Klutzo?” Her voice wavered with fear.
“There are no other enemies around. There is only the spike.”
“Well… is it weaponized? Is it irradiated? Is it okay to approach?”
“I do not detect the presence of explosives or weapons of any kind. Radiation levels are normal.”
Mimi blinked hard. Then she narrowed her eyes against the dawn and bit her lip. Slowly, cautiously she started to walk toward it. When the world didn’t end and the sun didn’t fall from the sky, she sped up a little, but only a fraction.
Finally, she reached it. At first, it was hard to discern the spike in the dim light, but once her eyes spied it, it garnered her full attention.
Klutzo’s description had been correct: it was a thin black spike sticking about 45 centimeters out of the sand. What it was, however, was a mystery.
“Wh – what is that?” Mimi stuttered as she came to a wary stop about a meter from its side.
“I am unable to scan it.”
“What?” She half turned to Klutzo.
He appeared to hesitate a few meters away, as if, somehow, the electronic orb was scared. Klutzo was a lot of things, considering the number of times his memory banks had been wiped, but he never displayed fear. It wasn’t part of his programming.
Still, as she waved him forward and he reluctantly zoomed up to her, she couldn’t deny how hesitant he appeared.
“Try scanning it again,” she suggested.
“… I still cannot detect the object.”
“Wait, what? You can’t detect it – it’s right in front of us.”
“Of this I am aware. However, my sensors cannot penetrate the object. In many ways, it’s as if it’s not there.”
“Sorry? You mean something is shielding it from being scanned, right?”
“No. I mean though I register the same visual image as you, that is it. There is nothing to suggest it has mass, charge, weight, or any other standard properties of matter.”
Mimi curled her toes inside her shoes, letting the move distract her. “Ah, what does that mean?”
“It means we must proceed with extreme caution.”
“Oh.” She felt sick and immediately slapped a hand on her stomach.
“Perhaps we should turn back,” Klutzo suggested. There was a waver in his voice, something that sounded suspiciously like relief.
Mimi thought about it. She turned back to the black object. If it weren’t so small, she’d wonder whether this was the vaunted Black Mass. But surely something fitting of such a legend would be enormous?
The object in front of her was little more than a pole.
When she’d struck out into the desert, she’d told herself she would investigate the Black Mass legend. As well as finding a ticket off this planet, of course.
Now she wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. If a solitary black pole sticking out of the scorched sand was too much for her to handle, the real Black Mass would likely scare her to death.
With her hands sweaty and a lump forming in her throat, she nodded.
“Good idea, Klutzo. I think it’s time we get out of here.”
Klutzo didn’t wait – he zoomed back to the sand slider like a frightened dog.
Mimi followed. Yet she turned her head, half walking backward as her gaze was drawn once more toward the pole.
There was something… weird about it. The way it made her feel… she c
ouldn’t put her finger on it. She was merely aware of this unwanted presence in her mind.
Shaking her head and finally turning around, she clambered onto the sand slider.
Once she was seated, she turned one more time to look at it.
….
She shivered.
“Let’s get out of here,” she suggested quickly, turning around and starting the slider up.
Just as she started to maneuver it out of the dip she was in, she heard something. It sounded like a knife cutting over the desert. “Ah, what is that?”
Klutzo appeared to concentrate. Maybe the presence of the black pole was still affecting his scanners, because he had to launch into the sky to obtain a visual, rather than use his sensors.
She craned her neck to watch him hovering about 30 meters above her.
The sound got louder.
Something was coming. Friend or foe, she was soon to find out.