365-Day Novel Writing Project

Writing Day 11

2012-01-11T22:29:00.000-08:00

Preliminary research book: This is Burning Man (Brian Doherty).

No writing today. I'm in the midst of a Java programming class (nothing big; it's a fundamentals class and I'm a tech writer, fer God's sake). But I did find of copy of this book that at least for the moment ties in with some of the ideas I have for the novel.

Writing Day 10

2012-01-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

No progress on reading.

I did some mind mapping to get my ideas down on paper. I imagine I'll be doing that for at least a week. If it start to become a slog at this point in the process, I'll probably move on.

I'm also doing some reading as preliminary research. Nothing heavy duty yet. Just jotting things down as they come to me. Suddenly the idea of an iPad doesn't sound so bad. Smart phones are just too small for taking notes.

Writing Day 9

2012-01-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Progress: 100% (Review)

Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence Progress: 17%

Task 1: Shaping Your Inspiration

Today I started my extremely preliminary gathering of ideas. I'll be using the techniques for outlining from K. M. Weiland's book and Roz Morris' plans from her book. I think they are complimentary as they both espouse the idea of taking time to plan. Spend the biggest amount of time in up-front planning. As with software production, the cost of making changes at the beginning of the project lifecycle is much less than if changes need to be made later in the project.

It's time to make the extravagant steps--think big, act big--because it's cheap to do so now. Once I settle on a direction and put scene together, it will be a tougher decision and cost much more.

I've done some mind mapping to start off with, putting together some of the components that I'd like to see in a story, something I'd like to read. I don't know how much writing will be involved at this point. I don't know how much I want to share. I'll work through that as I go.

Writing Day 8

2012-01-08T22:23:00.000-08:00

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Progress: 89%

“What do you mean you lost it?” said Mark.

“How many ways can I say it? Did you not understand me the first time?” said Jane.

“I guess it’s just so unbelievable that I can’t… wrap my mind around it.”

“You better find a way to wrap your mind around it, because it is all well and good gone.”

“Why do you use that saying so much? ‘Well and good’; what is that supposed to mean? You never ever use it when things are really well and good.”

“I think it’s sarcasm.”

“Brilliant. I know it’s sarcasm. And do you really need to be sarcastic at a time like this? It doesn’t exactly help us with the problem you’ve introduced.”

“Right. It’s all my fault. If you hadn’t pulled me out of bed at the butt crack of dawn, I might have been a little more lucid. You know I’m not a morning person. You know I can’t think straight first thing in the morning.”

“I didn’t have any other choice. Do you really think I want to bring anyone else into this? We really are out in front on this. The more people involved, the greater chance it’s all going to go south.”

“Considering your friends, the first thing they’d do is post it to YouTube!”

“Don’t even start on my friends! When it comes right down to it, if it wasn’t for your parents, none of this would have happened in the first place!”

“There you go again! Why can’t you take some personal responsibility for a change? I may have lost it, but I didn’t decide to take it in the first place.”

Word Count: 278

Writing Day 7

2012-01-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Progress: 80%

Eric made a wide arc around the group of Goth kids with their assortment of Amstaffs and Labradors, and crossed the street just as the crosswalk sign changed to Walk. He entered the plaza with the leather briefcase just as he’d been ordered. The late autumn sunshine still had summertime weight behind it, while Eric could sense a chill to the breeze that occasionally found its way between the buildings and down into the concrete clearing among all the high-rises.

The fountain cascaded and in the air, Eric heard the sound of street musicians: the sharp bite of pipes from the Andean band, the sneer of a violin playing, and the croaking voice of the resident street preacher. Eric found an empty bench and sat down, placing the briefcase next to him, wrapping his arm around it protectively. The usual cast of characters surrounded him in the plaza. A few panhandlers called out from their place of business to each passerby. Two black men played chess with enormous pieces, one man standing with hands on hips watching as his opponent lifted his knight and placed it carefully on the carpet game board.

Eric checked his watch: 2:45. He was 15 minutes early. Was it too early? Should he have come a little later? He didn’t want to mess this up. He wouldn’t get any more chances, that was clear enough. He scanned the faces of the plaza occupants. Everyone seemed to belong here, even if they were a drunk passed out on one of the sculpted boxes that were strategically placed around the plaza, or a police officer watching the Goth kids making raucous, crude remarks to each other.

Word Count: 279

Writing Day 6

2012-01-06T23:24:00.000-08:00

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Progress: 68%

Aaron followed the dirt trail that snaked up through the stands of Douglas fir, a finger drawn across the think undergrowth of blackberry, fern, and bramble. He had been walking for three days and the pack on his back was considerably lighter than when he had set out. The sun was blocked by the think canopy above him, but he expected to break free and into the sunlight within the next hour.

Then he could set about his task. It would require as much light as possible. He couldn’t afford to mess this one up.

It hadn’t been an easy decision to take these days off, put his gear together, drive the three hours to the trail head and then begin his trek. Aaron never considered himself an adventurer. He was just a man who appreciated the outdoors. His life was made up mostly of cubes and unnatural lighting, going to work and coming home in the dark during the winter months. After while, something inside him screamed for the light of the sun, to take time away from all these pursuits that really amounted to nothing more than endless tinkering with things that no one really needed but had convinced themselves that without them they would be behind their competitors.

“No babies died,” was a saying one of his past co-workers had said to him when it was clear Aaron was taking himself much too seriously. “You need to take a time-out, man. You aren’t curing cancer, for God’s sake!”

It had shaken Aaron up. It had made him rise up inside, angered him. How dare he talk to me like that? he thought. Of course what I’m doing is important… isn’t it?

Word Count: 284

Writing Day 5

2012-01-05T20:51:00.000-08:00

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Progress: 64%

Eldon found a place on the long line of tall-backed, pew-like train station chairs and dropped his bags on the floor. He plopped into the hard seat, feeling his hip bones crack against the wood, and leaned back, still feeling the tense muscles in his neck. He concentrated on them a moment, realizing his shoulders were up around his ears. It took all his effort to force them down to a normal location. The headache plaguing him all day eased a bit but still gave him a shot to let Eldon know that it would be a long time before it left.

Once Eldon had a time to relax, he began looking around at the other travelers around him. Everyone had the same general appearance: disheveled, Wal-Mart denizens. It struck him that if he was here, there was a good chance he gave off the same impression. But I’m not, he thought. I’m not a trailer-trash redneck. He sat up a little straighter and straightened his suit coat. Certainly this wasn’t an Armani suit. Okay, it wasn’t even a Macy’s suit… Maybe he was more of a Men’s Warehouse or an K&G guy. But that was because he didn’t want to be pretentious, didn’t want to come across as some kind of an elitist. Eldon was at a train station, wasn’t he? He wasn’t at the airport climbing aboard his private jet.

He was one of the people. Eldon prided himself on being approachable. It was probably the biggest reason why he was sitting at the train station to begin with, after all.

Word Count: 263

Writing Day 4

2012-01-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Progress: 57%

“You can’t just walk in here and take that,” said Jeanette.

The young man slid another record album into his coat and casually turned to face her as if she’d asked him the time.

“Did you hear what I said?”

He smirked. “Of course I heard you.” Turning back to the albums, arranged in wooden bins, the young man continued to flip through the albums.

“You put the record into your coat,” said Jeanette.

“No kidding.” This time, the young man didn’t take the time to look at her.

“You’re just asking for me to call the cops.”

The young man stopped his activities, gave a big sigh, and turned to face Jeanette. She expected any minute for him to launch himself in an attack; her finger was on the button of her pepper mace container in her apron. In one way, Jeanette was looking forward to the confrontation. What use was it to buy one of these little cans of noxious spray and not have a chance to shoot some criminal in the face with it?

But he didn’t launch himself at her, unfortunately.

“Lady, just to let you know, I haven’t left the store yet, so the whole idea that I’m shoplifting is ludicrous. And even if I were to steal from this place, what difference would it make? If you look around, you’ll notice that I’m the only person in here. When was the last time you had a customer?”

Jeanette’s face burned. “How dare you speak to me like that!” She pulled the can of pepper spray from her pocket and pointed it squarely at the young man’s face. “You can’t just come into somebody’s place of business and insult them like that!”

Word Count: 287

Writing Day 3

2012-01-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success Progress: 41%

Charlie dropped the brick from the overpass and watched it as it from his perspective floated down to the freeway lanes below. With a crack like fireworks, the brick exploded on the hood of a beige Toyota and shot pieces of debris into the windshield. The windshield fanned out as the glass was shot through with cracks, sending out a mist of glass particles into the air.

The car swung madly to the left, vainly trying to avoid something that had clearly already happened, sideswiping a pickup filled with lawn care equipment: lawn mowers, weed whackers, shovels, rakes, yard waste totes, and chain saws. The pickup pushed to the left as well but stayed in the lane.

Charlie rested his arms on the edge of the overpass railing and regarded the show like a movie critique reviewing special effects. His eyes lost their focus as he considered the act he’d just witnessed, the one he’d just instigated. A smile curled the corners of his mouth. His head tilted slightly to the side, his left leg bent and his hip tilted as if this was something he was watching on television.

The police car pulled up in the lane next to Charlie on the overpass, its lights playing across Charlie’s jacket, the siren eliciting not even the slightest reaction from the boy. As the first officer approached, he waited for the boy to run, to exhibit some kind of action to avoid capture. But Charlie remained still, his eyes unfocused now, staring down the freeway.

“Get down on the ground!” the officer yelled. Charlie remained in place. A second police car pulled up, blocking traffic.

Word Count: 274

Writing Day 2

2012-01-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

With this new series of project writings, I'll be working in two directions initially. I will add the third direction once I have the second item completed:

I will post daily writing work. In most cases, this work will not have anything to do with my novel, at least in the beginning.
I will be reading the book, Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K. M. Weiland. I have it on my Kindle.
I will outline my novel. I'm convinced just from my experience with the National Novel Writing Month novels that this may very well be the solution to my problems with finishing my novels. Normally around the halfway point, I lose any sense of where I am.

There it is. I'll record my progress through the book and then my progress through the outlining process. Because of the nature of outlining, it may be difficult to put a percentage complete to the work. I'll do my best to at least describe where I am in the process. I've done a little outlining in the past but nothing extensive. It makes sense though; you don't go out one day and run a marathon. It takes planning, as does the writing of a novel.

Progress through book: 23%

Manda enjoyed taking Rocky out for his training when the air was as cold as ice water and the trees ghostly in the fog.

She’d hidden the scent bag the night before and made sure she’d showered to remove any essence of the sent from her skin, even though she’d worn latex gloves when she’d hidden the bag. Pulling her iPhone from her pocket, Manda checked again to show her own position and the location of the scent bag. With the right amount of training, Rocky, her coal-black Labrador, could be a first class cadaver dog. She’d planned to use her police training in conjunction with Rocky’s skills to end up helping during disasters.

It hadn’t been easy to get the permission to acquire the scent bags that contained the smell of dead bodies. It wasn’t something you could walk off the street and buy; it required a pile of forms and the right connections. It had taken her an entire year to jump through all the requirements. But here she was.

Rocky had the general idea of what he was supposed to do. She had given the dog the initial scent to follow and then let him go. Manda followed along at a distance, close enough so that she could monitor Rocky’s progress, but far enough back so that he didn’t get any signals from her accidently. She could see him in the mist, his dark shape weaving among the trees, nose close to the earth as he sifted through the multitude of smells that assaulted a dog’s nose.

Then he stopped.

Manda checked her iPhone again. Silly dog wasn’t even close, she thought. She fought back a tinge of disappointment. When working with a service dog, you had to put those feelings behind you, the idea that the kid was maybe not catching on as quickly as he should.

“What’s up, boy?” she said as she walked up next to Rocky. Rocky sat, his tongue lolling to one side, a look of satisfaction on his face. “You have to find the bag before you can get your treat…”

Manda looked at the forest floor next to where Rocky sat. Staring back at her from empty sockets was the upper half of a human skull.

Word count: 376

Writing Day 1

2012-01-01T23:57:00.000-08:00

I said I'd start another 365-day writing marathon, this time with the completion of a novel ready for first readers to cut into. It's now 11:43 PM on January 1^st. After a day filled with activities, I was about to head for bed until I realized I needed to complete Day One. I've learned that if you cut yourself slack on your commitments, it's that much easier to do it in the future. I don't plan on doing that now.

I'll go into more detail as to what I plan on doing over the next 365 days with tomorrow's entry.

Without further ado, here's my writing for today. It may or may not have anything to do with what my novel ends up being. I just need to make sure I write at least 250 words per day.

He didn't know why but he knew he needed to run. There was nothing he could actually see. Nothing loomed behind him. No shadows fell around him or images flickered at the edges of his vision. But he knew he needed to run. So he ran.

The terrain was uneven. He was unable to maintain a rhythm to his run. It frustrated him to realize he couldn't set a pace, get his mind in a pattern so that he could just let his body take over and leave his mind to contemplate the madness of what he was doing.

It all became the run. His mind had to concentrate on keeping his feet planted firmly on the ground, avoiding any ruts that would turn an ankle or break a bone. He avoided roots and stumps, low limbs and bushes in his mad run.

And then he broke through the undergrowth—there was no way around it; he must go through it—and found a river stretching before him. It was a great muddy river filled with debris, branches and tree trunks bobbing to the surface and then diving under the foaming waters like smaller versions of the great mammals that glide through the seas.

Now what could he do? He took a moment to stop and survey the shore up and down the river to see if there was by chance a way to cross the river, perhaps a foot bridge. But there was nothing within his sight. But the need to run was still there. Should that need be translated into a need to swim? To brave the current that would certainly drag him under or tangle him up with the debris that swirled out there?

Word Count: 287

Cleaning Up

2011-12-28T16:44:00.000-08:00

I removed all the links to my PDF versions of my stories in preparation to writing my novel this year. I'm taking the perspective that the old stuff is, well, old. I need to move off into new stuff even if some of the new stuff may be related to old stuff... if that makes sense.

I plan on leaving the daily blog posts in place. They're too tedious for me to look through, but someday, some archeologist may want to sift through them.

Planning phase starts on January 1st. Hopefully by December 31st of 2012 I'll have a novel to start sending around to first readers (maybe before that).

I'd say wish me luck, but I don't believe in luck anymore than I believe the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012.

Shard: Day 30

2011-11-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

God awful ending, but I'm done. Only with the help of my writing buddy and my darling wife who allowed me to write while we were on our vacation in Maui was I able to finish.

Okay, now I'm going back to my vacation.

See you all next year, NaNites.

Shard: Day 22

2011-11-22T21:04:00.000-08:00

Definitely burning out this year. I'm not sure how much farther I'll get before Hawaii on Sunday, but I'll try. I'm almost at 34K, which is about 2/3 of the way there. We'll see. I did some writing on one vacation I remember. I'll bring along a laptop for the trip. I'll need it to monitor stuff at home. Maybe Skype Aimee and Scarlet.

But I'll do my best. Can't always win. I still want to get back into my daily writing. It think it's really the only way I'll be able to finally get published (even if it involves hiring an editor and then self-publishing).

Considering the whole concept of NaNoWriMo, it is about, despite what Yoda says, trying. Forging ahead. Setting a goal and then working toward it. It is the striving, after all. There are some goals I will never achieve. But if I set my goals too low and achieve them every time, then where's the stretch?

We shall see, as I said. Kane is kind of a cool character, or at least he could become a cool one some day if I work at it.

I'll try the idea about getting more into non-fiction and see if that pays off.

Good night, Neverland!

Shard: Day 21

2011-11-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

Did some general plot work; again, nothing interesting to read yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Shard: Day 20

2011-11-20T23:09:00.001-08:00

Once back in my cabin, I assessed where I was and reviewed my inventory like a gamer in an RPG. Everything in my pockets was now out on the small table.

The most impressive of everything I had was the leather box that had held the second shard hidden. I pressed the switch at the bottom of the impression again as I had just before finding the second shard. The secret door popped open. I pulled up on the door again, checking to see if there could be yet another compartment, perhaps smaller, along the inside of the larger chamber. I found nothing.

However, as I manipulated the box, I noticed that the stitching had an unusual texture to it. I placed it on the table and ran my fingers over the stitching. It was a pattern of bumps and ridges running along each seam: along the top, along the sides and along the bottom. A code?

I took out a piece of paper and pen and began writing down the pattern. There was no real sense of where the pattern started, so at random, I chose one corner of the top. Considering the pattern resembled Morse code, I wrote the bumps as dots and the ridges as dashes.

After I was done, my page was filled with one long string of dots and dashes. All I knew about Morse code was that three dots were the letter “S” and three dashes were “O.” That wasn't much to go on. I placed all the S's and O's where I could. With one long string, how would I know where a letter started and where it stopped. And if I started at the wrong part of the box, I could end up with an entirely different set of letters.

This was useless. I'd taken a step forward, understanding that the box still had tricks up its sleeve, but how could I determine what the meaning was.

There was a bump at the cabin door. I stood, went over and opened it. Sitting like the epitome of every good dog, was Rio.

“You want in?”

YES, flashed his forehead screen.

“Then come in, I guess.”

Rio hesitated.

“Come in.”

The robot trotted into the cabin.

I sat back down at the table. Then I had a thought.

“Rio, can you analyze information and come up with conclusions?”

YES

I held up the piece of paper I had used to write out the dots and dashes.

“Can you decipher this information and turn it into intelligible English letters?”

YES WORKING

Within a few moments, letters began to appear on his comm screen.

“Slow down. I can't write that quickly. And start from the beginning again.”

The letter display stopped and then re-started again. I wrote down each letter as it appeared in Rio's comm screen.

Once the last letter appeared on the screen, it went blank. Rio waited.

I took a few moments to read through the letters, forming the words from them. As I had suspected, I had started from the wrong starting point, so the message was in a loop. Once decoded, it was simple to identify the starting point.

Shard: Day 19

2011-11-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

I did some writing, put in some word count, but it's not really worth reading. So, let's just skip today's entry. Tomorrow will be another day, and maybe I can get out of the Week 3 doldrums and rev up this plot a bit; maybe even get to a conclusion of some kind.

Shard: Day 18

2011-11-18T16:59:00.000-08:00

So it went. I spent the next six months taking the few jobs that were out there. They ended up being short-term contracts, but you do what you gotta do. If it hadn’t been so horrible on the job market, I probably would have just ignored the package that came from the law office.

At first, I thought it might be some settlement of payments I had with some of my customers. Independent contracting can be a pain; some customers think that because you don’t work for a company that you’ll be easy prey for some of the stall tactics they use. I learned a long time ago to lawyer-up, and let customers know that a contract is a contract. It’s not something either of us should take lightly or back out of without a good reason.

But it wasn’t. I pulled out the ream of paper and began leafing through it.

My father had died.

Someone might as well have said, “I think it might rain.”

I skim-read through the pages as if I did this every day. But then that old nagging voice made its presence know. This was my father. I knew that. On a purely intellectual level I understood the consequences of that. It was strange to imagine that even as an adult I thought about the concept of being an orphan. There it was, though; both my parents were dead now. I was an orphan.

The two deaths and my reactions to them couldn’t have been more different. The long lingering dying of my mother with all the emotional turmoil it dredged up for a 14-year-old, as opposed to the cold detached analysis of court papers tied to a man I hadn’t seen or spoken to in nearly 20 years.

What to do? At the moment, I had nothing going on. My last job was over. Nothing new was even vaguely on the horizon. Most of the pages of legalese I just glossed over. Amongst the top layer of pages were instructions on recovering a safe deposit box my father had willed me. There was a check for a few hundred dollars, and the promise of chartered jet passage back to my boyhood home. I didn’t want to go back. I couldn’t really see any reason why I could possibly want anything from my father, even the money. I could give it away, I guessed. Maybe I would.

But still… It was a puzzle, after all. I found it impossible to pass up a good puzzle… or even a bad puzzle when it came right down to it.

I guess it was settled.

However, there hadn’t been a deadline for traveling. In the end, it took me months to finally get around to going. A few more jobs came through, so I justified not going. It was during the next lull that I had an experience so strange that I was pushed back into the game.

I have only a few photographs in my apartment. At the time, I still had a few of my ex-girlfriend. I should have realized it was a relationship that would never work out. She was way too young and interested in partying all the time. I spend too much time reading and thinking to make that fun. Nothing like having a stirring intellectual discussion with a bunch of drunk 28-year-olds. It had been physical; I admit that. What can I say? Once her new boyfriend came on the scene, I think I was relieved.

I must have had a nesting urge or something. Every so often, I just want order in my chaos. It was one reason why Amby had never wanted to move in. As much as I wanted control in my professional life, my personal life was fraught with chaos. Not dirt, you understand. Just clutter. Boxes, and piles of clean clothes… Okay, some dirty clothes sprinkled around on the floor as well.

After Amby removed what few things she had in my apartment, assisted by her new project, I decided to complete a symbolic cleansing, to rid my hovel of all the evil spirits, curses, and charms that might have been left behind by a vengeful witch.

Every framed picture I found was one that had my father in it. There were absolutely none of the pictures I knew I had of Amby. Initially I thought maybe Amby was behind it, her way of grinding me up with ghosts from the past. She could be vindictive, I admit, but most of her passion had been directed at other targets during our short time together. She just didn’t seem the type to direct her energies at me when she could vent about the newest indiscretion by some multi-national conglomerate. It was the passion that drew me to her to begin with. And I’d certainly been on the receiving end of the more amorous aspects of those passions. But again, I was small fry. It just wasn’t in her to do it.

After the third or fourth picture, I started thinking about the papers from the lawyers again.

I sat down amongst all the unfolded laundry and tried to work through my conundrum. As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t find any feelings inside of me for my father. I had my reasons. I listed them out. All of them were reasonable. Yet I was a human being, after all. Even in the midst of my unconcern, I still had certain duties as the remaining part of the Denton family. I had responsibilities that no one else would shoulder. It certainly wasn’t the job of the lawyers to handle this.

I decided from a purely subjective perspective that I would handle my father’s final affairs. I would try not to ascribe any significance to what my father had done. Who else would he have given the job to? There wasn’t anyone else to do it.

I found the pile of papers where I had left them months before, as if I couldn’t move them and they had adhered to the tabletop. I found the instructions on getting the plane ticket and made preparations to return to my hometown, despite my misgivings.

Shard: Day 17

2011-11-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

I called it a feynman.

I stood around a table with a group of engineers as they reviewed the engine from all angles. It was supposed to be a hybrid for the new fuel efficient car they were building, that they had building for the past five years, a car that was way past time being done.

And it all came down to this engine.

They speak a lot of jargon for a while. They discuss different ideas as to why the engine isn’t matching to the specifications they had set out for it. The talking goes on for a while. I don’t understand most of it. I’m not a mechanic or an engineer or anything even slightly resembling someone who should be included with this team.

I just know things. I understand systems. When things aren’t write, if they disturb the balance of The Force, then I know about it. I feel it deep down inside myself, as if I am sharing this body with someone else, someone who knows quite about bit more about automobile engines and software and hydroelectric dams and water cooling systems and waste treatment plants than I ever could. But because we share the same body and my roommate has the same voice as I do, I get all the credit. And all the money. He doesn’t appear to mind that part. It seems good enough for him to be the smart one, to be right about nearly everything he points at.

“What about right here?” I said. The engineers all stopped talking at once. Some were fascinated; many were skeptical that someone could come in with little or no knowledge about what they were working on and within a few minutes (or an hour or two in this case), point at the problem.

The stepped around to my side of the engine and looked at where I was pointing.

“Right there?” said one of the engineers. They all looked alike to me after a while, considering all the companies I’ve visited.

The problem I was having, though, was that my jobs were coming fewer and farther between. Mainly it was based on the economy. If a company could deal with issues with their own people, that would keep costs down (or so it seemed). This meant that normally the amount of time dealing with the problems went up and in the long term, they ended up blowing my paycheck on the extra it cost them in time and resources.

“That’s…” another engineer said.

“Very intriguing, yes,” said someone else. I really needed to remember names. But it’s not easy. I can almost miraculously identify problems in a company, but I can’t remember names worth a damn.

“Yeah, Lewis, come here and look at this, and don’t be such a grump. I think Mr. Denton is on to something.”

The engineers all clustered around the engine. I really didn’t know what they were looking at or how it had affected the viability of the engine. But it appeared to be generating some buzz.

One engineer was making a sketch while the others discussed the piece I had pointed out. Chalk another one up for me.

The development manager, Russell, walked over to me and took me aside.

“I was pretty sure you’d come up with something, Kane, so I made out the check ahead of time.” Russell took the check out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was slightly higher than I had expected, but I wasn’t complaining. “I’m also sorry that we’re going to have to cancel the rest of the contract. I think the amount should make up for the cancellation per our agreement.”

“Yes, yes, it’s fine,” I said. “Very generous. So why?”

“You know how it is, Kane. We just don’t have the money for contractors. We’re on a freeze for all firing. On top of that, the board of directors voted to eliminate all contractor positions for the next six months.”

Shard: Day 16

2011-11-16T22:12:00.000-08:00

Rio escorted me the rest of the way to my cabin. I could tell by the way he was moving, sluggishly, lacking the quick movements I had seen earlier in the fight with the Barrowyk, that he had reached the point where proper repairs were in order.

At the door to my cabin, which opened automatically as I approached, I turned to face the robot. Rio sat on his haunches and looked up at me with eyes that did not glow as strongly red as before.

“You need to head somewhere to be repaired by some proper engineers,” I said. “Do you know where to go for that?”

I didn’t really know how he would be able to communicate with me. I assumed that he had some sort of wireless communication method with the rest of the inhabitants of the airship, but I had no such capacity. The one thing I didn’t want was for him to be unable to make the trip to a repair station and end up powered down in a passageway somewhere in the ship.

A small panel in Rio’s forehead slid aside revealing a view screen. The word YES appeared in block letters. I smiled.

“And you have enough energy to get to the repair station?”

YES

It surprised me that just because he was a robot dog, why should that make a difference in terms of his abilities. All the other robots could speak. Why not Rio?

“Alright then. You should go now.”

YES

“When you are repaired, will you come back here?”

YES

“Go then. And I will see you later.”

Rio stood and headed down the passageway. I was concerned for the robot. I would have followed him if it weren’t for a couple of robots who had positioned themselves in such a way that I knew I needed to just retreat to my cabin.

The cabin was small but clean. There was a bunk, a table and chairs, a wash basin (which seemed like a wasted piece of furniture considering that no robot would ever need one), commode, and small dresser. The dresser had clean clothes that appeared to be my size.

I emptied out my pockets and lay down on the bunk. I was soon asleep.

I was awakened by a loud knock at my door. Groggily, I got off the bunk and made my way to the door. I opened it and was met by a robot, but not one I’d recognized before in terms of shape. This one was more human shaped, its limbs more flexible. The face plate cleared, and it was the face of Ozzy, the Captain.

“May I come in?” she said.

“Certainly.” I moved back into the room to allow the Captain to enter. She sat at the table, arranging her arms and strange three-fingered hands in front of her. I took a seat across from her.

“I apologize for the methods we used to bring you here. It was of the greatest importance that you not fall into the hands of the Barrowyk. The shard’s powers are only vaguely understood. The Barrowyk may know more about it. We didn’t want to give them a chance to find out.”

“Completely understood, Captain. Considering the weapon the Barrowyk used on your ship, it’s clear that they don’t need more power.”

“True.”

“So, what now?”

“We are a warship, Denton. It is our duty, our mission, to defeat the Barrowyk.”

“Are there other ships then?”

“There were at one time. Perhaps there are some in more remote locations, but we have not encountered any in the five years I have been aboard this ship.”

“And before that?”

“I was the child of a merchant airship. Our entire clan lived on the airship. It was very rare for any of us to venture on the ground. But circumstances change the situation. Our ship was attacked and destroyed. I hid in a secret compartment as the Barrowyk raided our ship.

“Unfortunately, they torched the ship, no survivors except for me, and I was trapped in my secret hiding spot. The ship crashed, and I was nearly killed by the crash.

“The mechanicals aboard this ship found me. They had no human captain and were doing the best they could, searching for a replacement. There are limits to what mechanicals can do on their own. They possess a certain amount of autonomy, but they seem to need human contact.

“They could not save my body, which was broken beyond repair by their skills. They were able to recover my head and keep my brain living long enough for them to create the body you saw on the bridge. I wear it during battles. Since then, my crew has created a number of bodies for me to use, depending on my needs. I have ceased to need to look like a human being anymore. Considering that I have lost much of that humanity anyway, I decided to go with more practicality.”

“Amazing,” I said, watching the Captain’s face behind the clear view plate. “So should I consider myself a prisoner now?”

“It is much more complicated than that.”

Shard: Day 15

2011-11-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

“Captain,” said the robot acting as first mate. “The watch is reporting that the enemy has picked up speed. We will be engaging in approximately five minutes.”

“Keep her on a straight course, Mr. Balzac. Prepare the cannons and expect a possible boarding… but we will do our best to avoid that.”

“Aye. Weapons are ready.”

“Good… Well, Denton, as you hear, we do not have much time.”

I pulled the leather box out of my pocket and opened the lid. The cyborg captain leaned in close. The shard let off a faint glow, something I hadn’t seen before. Something on the bridge was causing the crystal to emit energy. Her mechanical hands were had surprising dexterity. She plucked the shard from the box and handed it off to another robot.

“Mr. Marat, install the shard, if you would.”

The robot walked to a panel and inserted the glowing shard into a slot that fit it perfectly.

“How many of these shards are there?” I said.

“Unknown,” said Marat.

“The enemy is approaching.”

“Standby,” said the Captain. “Mr. Marat, are we ready.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Ready port cannons.”

I walked to the windows to watch what would happen. I could see that there was another airship approaching directly ahead. This airship appeared to not be made of natural materials, but rather from some black, tarry material, so dark that it was hard to make out the details. It was at least as large as the ship I now stood on.

“They are the Barrowyk, at least that’s what we call them,” said the Captain for my enlightenment. “Enemies of anything with a grain of self-awareness in the universes.”

“One minute.”

“Hold onto something, Denton.”

I looked around and found a strap conveniently attached to the bulkhead.

“Activate the shard, Mr. Marat. Mr. Jung, position us for a shot on their deck.”

The shard exploded with light and the view through the main windows went completely blank, as if I was looking at a blank piece of paper. As quickly as the view disappeared, it reappeared, this time with up hanging above the Barrowyk vessel, the ship turned so its guns pointed directly at the deck of the enemy ship. They had no chance.

Because of the tilt of the ship, I was now almost laying flat against the bulkhead, hanging onto the restraint in case the ship should make anymore twists. All the robots and the Captain stood as if glued to the ground. Clearly they were prepared for maneuvering in a more three-dimensional space than the simple two-dimensional one most water-borne vessels were limited to.

“Fire!” said the Captain.

The ship lurched upward as the full force of the cannons let loose on the enemy. I inched sideways so that I could catch at least a fleeting glimpse of the activities. I didn’t see what type of projectiles were fired at the enemy, but whatever they were, they sliced the ship up into chunks that quickly began to lose altitude, crashing to the desert below.

I could also see what looked like black shreds of cloth or material that feel away from the ship and also fell, like a lead ball covered in black, tattered silk cloth.

There would be no responding fire from this ship. It crashed to earth, its weight pressing it deep into the ground. It appeared as if its structure turned to liquid as the ship spread out in a puddle of debris.

“Level off,” said the Captain. “Well done.”

The ship tilted back to level, and I swung back down until my feet regained the deck. I was shaken by the speed and ferocity of the attack, and the calm with which these robots went about their jobs.

The ship made a pass over the enemy vessel, now just a black pool in the empty desert. As I watched, the pool began to bubble.

“Something is happening down there,” I said.

“Evasive action!” said the Captain. The ship tilted as it made a tight turn away from the enemy’s position.

The wreckage of the enemy vessel was now producing a single black bubble that grew, absorbing some of the debris of the crash site. Then it burst, sending a line of black ooze directly at the ship. The ooze struck the ship underneath toward the bow. The ship rocked as a result of the hit.

“Reports, Mr. Marat,” said the Captain.

“Hull breach forward. Enemy combatants have entered the ship.”

“Get us away from that ship as fast as you can. I don’t want another hit from it. And send battle teams forward. I want the ship secured and those Barrowyks who have made it aboard dispatched.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Denton, I will be keeping the shard for now. I will have someone escort you to your quarters. Rio will act as your guardian.”

Two robots broke away from their tasks and joined me. They led me off the bridge and once again down the long walkway that ran the length of the vessel.

I felt Rio push me aside and stop me. The robot escorts continued to walk ahead, not noticing that we had stopped. When they were about twenty feet ahead, I saw two black shapes swing out from underneath the walkway and pound against the two robots. The two robots had no time to raise their weapons and were flung from the walkway into the bowels of the ship.

Rio took a few steps ahead of me. The robot moved similarly to a dog as it analyzed the foe before it. It crouched down. I could see its legs tense. Then it sprung at the two creatures, black forms with no definite shape. As it closed on the Barrowys, two-foot-long spikes emerged from its whole body, so many that the robot looked almost like a porcupine. It struck directly into the two Barrowyks, tearing a jagged hole through each creature. Rio began to whip itself around like a dog chasing its tail. The creatures attempted to get away or at least to come at me, but the speed and ferocity of the attack from the blade wielding robot dog was too much. Within seconds, the Barrowyks were completely shredded. The pieces of the creatures seemed to dry into flakes or like paper burned to feather-light pieces of ash.

Once the creatures were dispatched, Rio retracted the blades and returned to me. He (I was now thinking of the robot as a him rather than just a piece of machinery) sat on his haunches like a dog would.

“I take it you want me to follow you now,” I said.

Rio turned and led me down the walkway, ever vigilant in the event we encountered more of the creatures. I noticed more robot battle teams now. They continued to scour the area looking for those creatures that had made it into the ship. They were efficient; it would be difficult to avoid their thorough search.

Shard: Day 14

2011-11-14T21:57:00.001-08:00

A street stretches away from me in a single, bullet-straight line in both directions, before me and behind. Hyphens of painted lane dividers make up two lanes, either permitting traffic both ways or in one way. I wouldn’t know, because there has been no traffic on this street. Only me.

The buildings standing like battlements, identical, like dragon teeth, are gone now. But the road remains. Now it is a desert that falls away from the street on both sides. In the far distance on both sides as well are hazy blue mountains in an unbroken range as far as I can see. Everything is still repeated, like a cartoon chase scene with the same window, chair, and table passing by over and over as the characters race along. There are no hints of human habitation anymore. Not that the buildings were all that comforting with no people in them. There is no wind, and the sun continues to remain in the same spot in the sky.

One thing has changed, though. There now is sound: the sound of this mechanical creature walking along the road with my wrist in its mouth. Its mouth didn’t appear to have teeth, so the canid aspects of the creation was not perfect. It had clearly been built to look like a dog, but where its teeth should have been were more like handcuff restraints in its jaws.

“Where do you think I can go?” I said. The robot made no hint that it had heard my words. “None of these buildings have doors that open. No side streets, no fire escapes, not even a dumpster that I could jump into. All that and you probably could just run me down in a matter of seconds.” The robot continued to hold me captive.

We were moving at a steady pace. Clearly my repair job had restored the robot to full capabilities, unfortunately for me. “No good turn goes unpunished,” I said. It turned its head slightly to view me, I assumed, with one of its steady red eyes. It had extended its neck somehow so that I could walk upright. I just couldn’t swing my right arm, but that was only a mild inconvenience.

The robot said nothing. But I had to admit, considering that so far there hadn’t been any pain involved with this particular kidnapping, I was glad there was something else out here other than just me. Its presence meant that there were probably others out here somewhere, even though there were no indications of that.

In the timeless, repetitive land, we just walked, the robot trotting along on four feet, me on my two. Then it stopped and sat.

This was significant. “What’s going on?” I said. “If you can talk, tell me what’s going on.”

The robot remained silent.

There was a bang, like a jet breaking the sound barrier, and an enormous airship appeared in the sky above us. Eight enormous propeller engines powered the craft, filling the silence with the exact opposite of what I’d endured in the timeless street. The roar of the engines pulsed through the air, drumming in my chest. I tried to cover my ears but was only half effective considering that the robot dog still had a secure grip on my wrist.

The ship was a conglomeration of wood and metal of all kinds. The wood I didn’t recognize except to say that there were a number of colors and that there was no pattern to how it was arranged. The metal ranged from copper to tin to steel. Again, it was a patchwork, as if it had been assembled over a great span of time (or maybe un-time). How it stayed aloft I couldn’t tell. It was not traveling forward, so wings would have been of no use. I didn’t see that it was a balloon, zeppelin, or dirigible either. Its method then was beyond my understanding.

The engines wound down to the point where I could recover a bit of my senses. It hovered at least 200 feet above the ground. I couldn’t see a control cabin or bridge anywhere. Other than the fact that the airship had made such a racket, I could believe that there were no living things aboard it.

Hatchways flipped down and open in the belly of the airship. I counted ten of them, five per side. Ten lines played out of the hatches and ten mechanical men slid down the lines, each packing a particularly nasty rifle. The men were of polished silver and bronze, with their sidearms likewise. When they hit the ground, they formed a circle around me. Rather than pointing the weapons at me, they were pointed out. They seemed to be protecting me from something or someone. Only then did the robot dog let me free. I rubbed my wrist. The robot dog continued to look at me.

One of the robot men grabbed me around the waist, then grabbed its line. We were hoisted immediately into the air, twisting around in the air, higher and higher, until we slipped into the darkness of the airship. The hatches closed once all the robot men were aboard, throwing the large room into complete darkness. Then red lights blinked on.

“Prepare for departure,” said a crackling female voice over an intercom system. “Combat teams are reminded we are at highest alert level.”

“Come this way,” said the robot man who had conveyed me to the ship. “The captain wishes to speak with you… You may call me Kant. Your mobile retrieval unit goes by the name of Rio.”

Rio, the robot dog, stayed by my side as the other robot, Kant, escorted me through the interior of the ship. It was clearly a working ship. No area went to waste, no extras were added for atmosphere or aesthetics. But everything was in its place. We climbed one flight of stairs and entered a cage elevator. I supposed that weight might play a factor in why the ship tended towards an open architecture. The elevator climbed through the center of the ship. I caught glimpses of what looked like engineering sections as well as armories and rows of cannons.

I appeared to be in some sort of steampunk dimension.

The elevator stopped at the top of its shaft. Kant, Rio, and I exited the elevator. We followed a long passageway just barely wide enough for two robots to pass each other.

“I apologize for the amount of effort you are expending,” said Kant. “As you would expect, we mechanicals are not concerned with effort. But we should be at the bridge soon. We took another set of metal stairs leading to a large door. The robot rapped once at the door.

“Come,” said a voice from the other side of the door. Kant grabbed the handle and opened the door. Through the door, I could see several robots moving about, carrying out their duties. A set of large windows were set in a semi-circle, giving an excellent view of the sky. I wanted very much to go to those windows to finally get a better perspective on this place where I had been swept away to.

In the center of the room was a robot much larger than the others. Its metal was red. I had seen no other robot in my trip to the bridge who had a carapace that color.

The robot turned, but instead of the usual aspects of a robot, this machine had what I thought was a view screen where a face would be. But as I studied it, I realized it was not a view screen; it was a plate, and behind the plate, bathed in a light blue liquid, was the face of a woman… The face of Ozzy!

“Kant,” said the woman in a voice that appeared to be synthesized through a speaker. Her lips had moved; I’d seen that happen. Somehow she was able to use some sort of device to capture her lip movements or sounds in the liquid and convert it to something we could hear. “This is the man we are supposed to pick up?”

“Yes, Captain. Rio is never wrong. However, he sustained an injury. Permission to send him for repairs.”

“Granted… Your name?” the Captain said to me.

“You don’t know who I am?”

“Why should I?”

“I suppose you may not. This is a very different place from where I came from… I am Kane Denton. I know your counterpart on my earth.”

“Then you understand a bit about the Confluence.”

“I’m not familiar with the term.”

“Captain?” said another of the bridge crew robots.

“We can speak later, Denton,” said the Captain. “At the moment, we have visitors.”

Through the windows, in the far distance, I could see a smudge. Another ship like this one? Considering the sudden activity on the bridge, it appeared to be a hostile party.

“Kant, belay taking Rio for repairs. We may need him here for Denton’s sake.”

“What is going on?”

“The Somber have been able to find us despite our measures to avoid them. We are capable of dealing with them, but you are vulnerable to them, unlike us who have metal between us and the foe. You may still provide us with the means to deal with this treat. Do you have the shard?”

Shard: Day 13

2011-11-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

I turned around quickly, expecting to see Ozzy and E behind me. Actually I wasn’t sure what to expect behind me, but I had hoped it would be the workroom at the museum. The same scene played out before me that way as well: the same buildings stretching off into the distance.

I stood in the middle of the street. There was no sound; no cars, no sirens, no human sounds whatsoever. The only sounds I could hear above the deafening silence was the sounds of my own steps as I walked out of the road and onto the sidewalk. I still wore the clothes I wore into the museum, but my pockets were empty, except for the glasses containing the shard.

I went to the first building and tried to push through the glass windows. They were closed and locked. The interior was dark, empty. I pressed my face against the glass to see if I could see farther into the building; perhaps someone was there but unable to reach me. Nothing. I stepped back into the street. There would be no cars on this street. Certainly none would surprise me considering the straightness of the road and the distance I could see down it.

The sun was positioned at the end of the street in the distance at about 45 degrees, just above the tops of the buildings.

“Hello!” I shouted. It was as if my words, my voice, were held around me; there was no echo. The words were stuck to me. I put the glasses back on to see if somehow I could reverse the effects, but no matter how long I wore them, nothing changed. The street was all I could see, all I had.

I started walking.

I don’t know how long I walked. The sun never changed its position in the sky. I never found one building that didn’t look exactly like all the others. No doors opened for me. I ceased trying the doors to see if they would open. I had no frame of reference. I did not get hungry or thirsty or tired no matter how long I walked. It was as if I didn’t really exist here. Yet I was here. I spoke to myself as I walked along, trying not to let the silence get to me. I related every story I ever heard, every experience I ever had, as much of the conversations with co-workers, friends, and relatives as I could remember. I particularly tried to remember everything I could about my mother and father. I walked and talked, even shouted sometimes. I was completely alone, at least for a while. I tried to count the buildings as I walked along. I needed some reference point, something to remind me that somewhere time was moving, even if it didn’t seem it was for me. But after a while in this place without time, I stopped counting. My mind was mesmerized by the place. I tried to figure out a way to make sense of it, but the monotony of the place dragged at me. While my body was not starving, my brain was.

The constant pace of my walking, the continuous stream for exact duplicates of the buildings, the street and sidewalk with the same guideposts along the way. I couldn’t even imagine what to do. But I still trudged on. At one point, I thought maybe I had gone the wrong way, that I should have gone the other direction entirely. I started to panic, but I held on, talking to myself, telling myself that there was no difference. For all I knew, this street completely encircled the entire planet like a belt. If I had gone the wrong way, I eventually will walk to the places that were behind me. That helped to calm me, but it didn’t help with the increasing hopelessness that was scratching at my mind.

I don’t know how long I walked, but finally I noticed something ahead of me, something that flashed at me. The windows in the buildings had never done that, as if they absorbed the light of the sun rather than reflecting it. I also was beginning to doubt that it was my sun I was looking at. Was I on another planet? Had the connection between the two shards somehow boosted me to another planet entirely? A different dimension?

I increased my pace to a trot rather than the simple walk I had been doing up until then. There was the glint again. It was just beyond my vision. I could almost pick out a shape, something in the street ahead of me. As I drew closer, the shape became a lump of some kind of metallic material, then it turned into something lying on its side, like some sort of metallic animal.

I approached cautiously. The machine, as I came to realize that it was, gave feeble movements with its four legs, only enough to roll its body slightly. That was the reason for the flashes of light, I determined. Yet if none of the windows in the buildings failed to reflect the sunlight, why would this machine reflect?

As I drew close enough now to get a clear view of what this machine was, I realized that it was in the shape of a dog or wolf. The head was bullet-shaped with two large triangular ears. The machine had four legs and four pads for feet. The torso was deep while the rear was trim, tapered into small hips. The power of the machine was clearly in its front section. I could only see half of the machine, as it lay on its side. A red light where its eyes would be on a dog pulsed weakly with a long frequency.

I knelt down to it, convinced that it was not able to do anything to me. I glanced around me again to see if maybe its master, owner, controller, whatever it would be, was somewhere close by.

The machine moved its legs again in a weak attempt to right itself. There was little chance that would happen. Along its chest, I noticed a spot of marring, a blackened place where something had hit it or like a spot where an electrical arc had occurred. I noticed a panel underneath its chest that appeared to be open, though I had never noticed it being open before. Could the machine have opened the panel itself?

Despite its size, about that of a medium sized dog, the machine was not light. It took care to turn the machine so that I could see what was revealed under the panel. The circuitry under the panel was beyond me, yet I relaxed my mind as I normally did while analyzing puzzles I didn’t understand. I reached inside to find that little voice that normally would show me the problem area, even if I didn’t understand how I could know.

There was still some power to this machine or robot as I’d decided it was. I noticed that the circuitry was made up mainly of thin tubes. I followed the tubes along until I noticed one that was slightly off-kilter. It didn’t fit with the flow of the other tubes; that was all I could determine. I didn’t want to ruin the robot by adjusting something even more out of whack than it was, but there really was no other choice. I had found no other inhabitants. This was the only incongruity I had discovered in this world that had no time.

I pressed the tube carefully back into place. When I did, the robots head turned quicker than a striking snake and its metal jaws caught my wrist in a grip I could not get out of. The panel clicked back into place and the robot turned onto it chest, its legs adjusting in length to turn it upright. Then it extended its legs to stand until its shoulders were about two feet high. My wrist was still securely held by its jaws but only tight enough to restrain and not to inflict pain or injury.

Shard: Day 12

2011-11-12T23:02:00.000-08:00

The first thing I considered was whether or not this was the reason why my kidnappers could track me so easily. They had one prism. What was to say that having that prism couldn’t direct them to the person who had the other prism? That was if they even knew a second prism existed.

Now Ozzy had the first prism, presumably. She and her monstrous associate could then track me down. I still had way too many questions to answer. The coffin in the museum had a slot for the second prism. What was that about? If somehow I was able to convince Ozzy to hand over the second prism and I was able to get into the museum and… I was overwhelmed. The skill set I would need to do all that—the least of it being my powers of persuasion—was just not in my pocket at the moment, if it ever would be.

I closed up the box after refitting the prism back into it and snapping down the false chamber. I dropped my father’s notebook in my pocket, left the stall and exited the restaurant.

On the street again, I tried to stay with crowds of people, trying to avoid being by myself to discourage the next encounter. I was confused. Maybe I needed to provoke contact. This was going nowhere with me on my own.

The daylight was waning. The crowds were dying down; people were going home. I still didn’t have direction. I found a sidewalk-side table at a bistro, ordered an appetizer and coffee, and waited. I kept up a steady reconnaissance of my surroundings, but I was still not able to notice when Ozzy sat across from me.

“What kind of special powers do you have?” I said.

She ruffled up, which surprised me. “What does that mean?”

“It was a joke. I’m thinking that I’m ready for our relationship to go to the next level.”

Her eyes went blank.

“Another joke.”

“Oh.”

I was beginning to see myself as some kind of secret agent. So far, Ozzy had not hinted at any violence toward me, unlike the other team. I had to trust someone, at least tentatively.

“You have the prism?”

“Yes.”

“On you?”

“Not at the moment. I thought it best for my associate to hold onto it for now.”

“I saw him at the house. Makes sense to me… Does he have a name?”

“E.”

“Like the letter?”

“Yes.”

I raised my brow. “Interesting. You can probably refer to him as that from now on. The whole ‘associate’ thing was a bit stilted… I take it you know I have the second prism.”

Again, she was physically shocked.

“I was just taking a chance,” I said. “I do my best thinking on the toilet.”

“I don’t…”

“Never mind.”

“Another joke?”

I shrugged.

“As you’ve guessed correctly,” she said, “I do know you have the second prism. Unfortunately, the other group, because they had the first shard in their hands for a brief time, now know that there is a second shard. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to let that information out so soon.”

“I suppose you’ll be wanting the second shard then?”

Ozzy paused. I could see she was trying to work some things out in her head.

“If it helps any,” I said, “I think I know where the second shard goes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I noticed an old Etruscan coffin at the museum had a slot that should perfectly fit the shard. One shard in the coffin; one shard in the glasses frames I found at my father’s house.” So much for playing my cards close to the vest. “I’m thinking you may have some break-in skills we could use to get inside the museum.”

“Perhaps.”

“You could take the shard and everything else from me. Why don’t you?”

“I can’t divulge that.”

“I’ve been honest with you. The least you can do is try to give me a reason for all of this. Why is all this so important? And why was my father involved in it?”

She was silent for a moment. “I honestly don’t know how your father was involved. He had information that should never have fallen into anyone’s hands. There are very few who even know about the shards. As far as what it’s all about… it’s about war, Kane. War that goes beyond anything that you and your planet have ever experienced.”

“Your planet? You’re saying that this isn’t your planet?”

“It’s… not easy to explain. It is and it isn’t. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“Okay, then why don’t you just take the shard and fight your war?”

“Because here it isn’t our war. I can’t tell you anymore. At this point, you are in enough danger as it is… But your plan to get into the museum might be something to consider. Your father’s work has already proven to be more advanced than anyone else’s I’ve met here… Until tonight, you can stay at our safe house. As much as E will complain about it, I don’t see any other choice.”

We left the restaurant and wound around the streets and alleys of the city. Dusk turned into night. My energy was quickly draining, and Ozzy noticed.

“We only have a bit farther to go. I apologize that we had to follow this path. There are still many dangers here, many agents who could prove to be the doom for this mission.”

Finally, Ozzy directed us to an apartment building we had passed close by in our attempt to keep anyone at bay who was trying to discover Ozzy’s safe house. She produced a keycard and ushered me into the lobby. In the elevator, we headed for the 15^th floor. Once on the 15^th, after a few turns, she used the keycard to open the door to one of the apartment.

The first thing I noticed was the earthy smell of the place, not dirty, just lived in, especially by a big somebody. I assumed this was E.

The apartment was tidy but lived in. The furnishings were cheap, throwaway, yet maintained. These two had been here for the long haul.

“You’ve stayed here for how long?” I said.

Ozzy shrugged. “Time doesn’t mean the same for us as it does for you. From your perspective, probably years. But I have no real way of knowing.”

One of the doors to a bedroom, I assumed, opened and someone filled the entire doorway.

“Why’d you bring him here?” E’s voice said. I could feel the rumble deep in my chest.

“You seem to forget how this is to play out,” said Ozzy.

E walked by me, settling himself in a chair that seemed specially built for him. He sat back in the chair, his arms resting on the chair arms. I could see him now for the first time without coat and hat. Everything about the man was massive. I was right in thinking he was big but not fat. His shoulders were broad, his neck thick. His head was a block with unruly, thick brown hair shot through with black streaks. E’s eyes were so black I couldn’t see the pupils. He sat with his legs open, his feet, shod in massive shoes, flat on the floor. It was clearly a challenge to Ozzy but also to me.

“And you forget who is in charge,” she said.

E rumbled in his throat and turned his head away. Ozzy had made her point.

“It was my idea to bring him in. Considering what he’s been through, I don’t see any other way. And besides, he was able to discover the second shard.”

This got his attention, and he sat up.

“Where?”

“In a box that my father left to me in the bank safety deposit box. I wondered why the shard was in a separate bag when it came to me. I know now that once the shard is placed in the box, it opens a secret compartment in the box that holds the second shard.”

E turned to Ozzy. “Then we can…”

Ozzy glared at E, and he was silent.

“We can what?” I said.

Ozzy waved me away. “There is a chance that your plan to enter the museum may help to answer some of your questions… if it’s successful. To let you know, gaining access to the museum will be the easy part. After that, I can’t promise you anything.”

I was finally able to rest. I sat in one of the chairs and quickly fell asleep. Once I awoke, Ozzy provided me with something to eat. At midnight, the three of us walked to the museum. Within a block of leaving the apartment, E disappeared.

“He travels better alone. He can also provide us with any information we might need if we’re being followed. We can also take a taxi. E tends to draw attention to himself, if you can imagine.”

Ozzy hailed a taxi and directed the driver to let us off two blocks away from the museum. The air was cold and the sidewalks empty of all but a few people. Ozzy’s cell phone rang. She listened for a few moments, making quick one-word responses, then hung up.

“We should have everything clear,” she said. “E has done the initial work of getting us in. We shouldn’t have any problems with cameras or guards.”

“He didn’t hurt anyone, did he?”

“Despite his size, he prefers to use physical methods as a last resort. He’s more subtle than that. It’s best to not leave any evidence of an incursion. It draws the wrong kind of attention… We have been doing this sort of thing for a while.”

The museum was long past closed. Only security lighting was apparent through the windows on the ground floor. We walked openly across the sidewalk in front of the museum and up the front steps. At the top of the stairs, Ozzy grabbed the door handle, and the door opened for her. She pushed me through and followed me in. Once inside, my eyes grew accustomed to the dimmer light. E was waiting for us.

“We have probably a half hour,” he said. “We’ll need to be out of here by then or we could have company.”

I directed the team to the door to the work room. E scanned the keypad, punched in a few selections and the door gave a satisfying snick as the locks pulled back. We entered the workroom. I could see from across the room that the coffin was still open as the curators had left it earlier that day.

“I thought I noticed Egyptian hieroglyphs inside the coffin when I was hear,” I said as we stood around the coffin. E pulled out a small flashlight and played the beam around in the inside of the coffin. The flaked silver and gold sparkled under the light. “But I’m not an expert.”

“No,” said Ozzy. “You’re right.” She turned to E. “That confirms some other things… I wish I’d been able to know more from your father before he died. He tended to be more secretive than we are. And much more paranoid.”

I reached into the coffin, placing my fingers into the slot that I thought would allow for one of the shards. “This is what I was telling you about.”

Ozzy’s brow furrowed as she looked at the hieroglyphs around the slot. Her lips were moving slightly, possibly reading what was written in the hieroglyphs running around the outside of the slot.

“It doesn’t mention anything about the shard in any of the writings I see here. But it could be coded.”

“Do you have the other shard?” I said.

“E?”

The big man reached into a pocket and pulled out the silk bag that held the shard I picked up from the bank and then lost to the kidnappers. Reluctantly, he handed it to me.

“There’s nothing we can do at this point, E,” Ozzy said. “You know that. We’re going to have to trust that this is the right thing to do.”

“So what’s the procedure here?” I said.

Ozzy shrugged and looked to E.

“How should I know?” he said.

I opened the leather box and once again accessed the secret compartment and the second shard. I handed the now-empty box to Ozzy. What should I do now? I pulled the glasses frame from my pocket. As I predicted, the shard clicked into place. It reminded me of a steampunk version of Cyclops’, the X-men’s, visor. Which went first: the glasses or the putting the shard in the slot? I assumed it would be difficult to see once the glasses were on, so I took the shard from its bag and pressed it into the slot at the back of the coffin.

“You may want to stand back,” I said. “I have no idea what’s going to happen.” Both Ozzy and E stood where they were.

I put on the glasses. Though heavy, they weren’t uncomfortable. However, I couldn’t see a thing. At least that proved one thing: I had been delusional when I’d seen the street scene the first time I’d looked into the prism at the bank. I turned to the coffin, trying to approximate the location of the shard as if I could see it.

“Now what?” I said.

“What do you see?” said Ozzy.

“Not a thing… Wait a minute…” Even though I still couldn’t see, the shard at the back of the coffin was beginning to send out flashes of light as if it were an arcing wire. In my peripheral vision, I could see the room getting lighter as the shard began to steadily glow brighter.

As if someone had flipped a switch, my vision cleared and I once again was viewing the empty street with its buildings going off into the distance.

“What’s going on?” I said. Neither Ozzy or E responded. I removed the glasses and I was standing not in the museum workroom but on that empty street.

Shard: Day 11

2011-11-11T23:01:00.000-08:00

I didn’t realize how stressful my day had been until I laid down on one of the sofas, push myself down into the cushions, and crossed my arms. Probably within a few minutes, I was asleep, lulled by the white noise of voices and sounds echoing through the large lobby.

Then I dreamed.

I’m floating in water. Sea water. I just know it’s sea water as I don’t have any sense of tasting the water. I just know. The water is warm, as warm as the ocean on a Hawaiian beach, bath water warm, warm enough to float without feeling it, like a sensory deprivation chamber.

I’ve been swimming for a long time. My arms and legs move without me thinking about it, reflexively, mindlessly. Then I feel the sand under my feet. Rather than swimming, I am now walking that strange hunched-over walk, my upper torso way out ahead of my feet, something I could never do on land, but is normal in the water. My body emerges slowly from the water. The water gurgles out of my ears and the sounds sizzle back into my brain. The wind dries my skin as I emerge, as my body adjusts to losing that support from the brine. I finally stand with the water dripping off of my hair and into my eyes, but I am used to the sea water now from being in it for so long. I don’t know whether I am clothed or not. At this point, it doesn’t concern me.

I stand in shallow water up to my ankles. I am waiting. Waiting for someone, someone to meet me, someone who has waited a very long time for me.

The beach ends at a line of tall grasses. When the wind lessens, the sturdy blades stand tall, concealing anything farther up away from the shoreline. Maybe houses are beyond the grass line, but again, I don’t worry about that. I am waiting. When the wind picks up, the grass blades bow, giving homage to the power of the air, the wind queen. And when they bow down, I see a form standing motionless, waiting as well.

At first I am not sure I see the figure, but as the wind picks up, I am certain. The figure appears made of mud or clay or maybe some sedimentary stone. It is in the form of a dog or wolf: four legs, athletic legs, curved neck, bullet-shaped head, a thick whip-tail. It has been here for a very long time, centuries. The weather has covered it with this film of dust and debris. This covering has probably helped to protect it over the years.

The remarkable thing is that it has never been disturbed. It has stood there waiting. Patiently would be the word I would give a true flesh-and-blood dog, waiting for its master to return, that single image locked into its brain: the picture of its master trudging towards it.

I give a single, quick, high-pitched whistle.

The stone dog begins to vibrate until the casing explodes, leaving behind a real dog, triangular ears, deep chest, small hips, and feathery tail. The dog’s head turns as it focuses on the direction of the whistle. It crouches and then launches itself out of the grass, its powerful legs propelling it along the ground, its body low, legs flying, straight toward me.

Despite the power of the animal, the speed at which it is approaching, I feel no fear. I stand in the water waiting for the animal to come, my expectations as great as those of the creature that is flashing toward me in a black and tan blur.

“Mr. Denton?”

The voice reaches down in the well of my dream and pulls me out.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have dozed off. It’s been a rather stressful day.”

The guard smirks. “Don’t I know it… Ms. Phillips from HR will be down in a minute. I just wanted to let you know.”

“Thanks.” The guard returned to his post. I stood and tried to smooth out my clothing to avoid looking like a vagrant.

Ms. Phillips turned out to be an attractive young woman who just might barely be out of her 20’s. I had expected someone more matronly, I suppose. As she approached, she put on a dazzling smile and extended her hand. I shook it. Her grip was strong, expressing her confidence.

“I’m Rhonda Phillips, Mr. Denton. You’re interested in information on your father, Malcolm?”

“Yes. He passed away, and I’m here to try and visit some of the last places he spent time at… We weren’t terribly close, but I suppose I’m trying to make myself feel better.”

Rhonda Phillips gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry to hear about your loss, Mr. Denton. I’ll do what I can, but you do realize we have certain privacy policies in place. There are some things I can’t really divulge.”

“I understand.” I followed Rhonda through security where I was issued a visitor’s badge. We took an elevator in the bank of ten elevators. She pressed 35. The elevator smoothly ascended into the building. When the doors opened, we walked into a posh set of executive offices. HR, while they say they represent the employees, certainly lived the lifestyle of the executives.

I followed Rhonda to her office, a smaller room yet sumptuously furnished. She offered me a chair, and she slid around behind her desk, setting the basic tone for the relationship. She immediately accessed her computer system, her brow furrowing as she pulled up information, deciding what she could and couldn’t say.

“It might be best to have you just ask me questions, and I’ll answer the ones I can,” said Rhonda.

“Fair enough… I found some basic information on my father’s employment at Longspire on Workways, so I really don’t need that sort of information.”

“I see.”

“What I’d like to know is what kind of work did he do here? I only barely understood what he did for a living, and after I left home, there wasn’t much contact.”

“He was employed as a chemical engineer. As far as the specific projects he worked on, I’m afraid that is proprietary information.”

“Can you tell me if he did any work with crystalline structures or optics or anything like that? I’m not too concerned about his specific projects.”

Rhonda’s eyes turned back to her monitor. After a few minutes, she turned to me again.

“I don’t see anything in particular in that area… Are there any other questions you have?”

I let out a breath. I had to admit I didn’t really know what kind of information I needed. How do you ask questions about things you have no ideas about? And clearly little Ms. HR wasn’t going to just blurt out information. She was an alligator and wouldn’t part with her meal easily.

“I’m afraid I wasted your time, Ms. Phillips.” I stood up. Rhonda did likewise.

“Not at all, Mr. Denton. Here’s my card. Feel free to call me if come up with any more questions. I’ll do my best to help.”

“I’m sure you will.”

We retraced our steps back to the lobby and through security where I relinquished my badge. We shook hands and Rhonda Phillips returned to her penthouse in the clouds. I wandered back to the sofas and sat down.

A man probably in his mid-50’s sat next to me on the sofa. “Wait a few minutes and then follow me down to the parking garage.”

I turned to face him. He avoided my eyes.

“And why would I want to do that?”

“You want to know some things about your father, that’s why.”

I had to admit he had me there. Without another word, the strange man left and walked to the elevators under which was a sign that read, “Parking.” I let him enter the elevator car. Once the doors closed, I followed, waiting for the car to return to pick me up.

I rode the elevator down to garage. Once there, I walked out among the parked cars. Somewhere in the garage, car tires were screeching. I felt a little like Bernstein… or was it Woodward?

The strange man came around the elevator room.

“So why the secrecy?” I said.

“Your father was working on some important government projects before he quit. I’m not totally convinced that his death was natural.”

“You’re not going to drag me into some conspiracy, are you, Mister..?

“No names. I can’t be connected to any of this.”

“Why are you doing this if you’re so afraid of being discovered?”

“Your father was a good man. He talked about you a lot. He followed you on the internet as much as he could. You didn’t leave a very big footprint.”

“He left me some things. Do you know anything about them?”

The man shook his head. “I did bring you one thing. I snagged it before the cleaners destroyed it… It’s your father’s notebook.”

He pulled the small, leather-covered notebook out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“I’ve gotta go. I suggest you don’t come back here. Something big is going on around here. Watch yourself.”

He disappeared down into the garage. I found the way out of the garage without going back up the elevator. My hand was in my pocket, and the leather of my father’s notebook was warming to my touch. I had to find a fairly safe place. But where? I could be followed right now either by Ozzy and her associate or my kidnappers. My pockets were filled with treasure; in the garage, I felt like I was playing real-life Dungeons & Dragons.

More puzzle pieces but no clear vision of what the completed puzzle should look like. Somehow I needed to make sense of it all. There had to be someone out there who could explain it all to me. I was growing increasingly more paranoid as I walked the streets trying to find a place where I could have some semblance of privacy and safety. I ended up in a restaurant restroom stall. I took out the notebook.

It was quarter-sheet sized with a stitched leather cover. There were probably close to 400 pages in all. I flipped to the first page. My father had very tiny, precise printed lettering. No cursive. There were lines of formulas and exact drawings of what I assumed were compounds from my brief stint in high school chemistry. At least it looked like that. As I flipped through the pages, the drawings changed. They became more engineering drawings of mechanical objects. None of them made any sense to me, nor did the explanations. Once again, I was confronted by puzzle pieces with no clue as to what the final product would look like once all this machinery was packed into its case.

I paused at the last couple of pages. There on the page was an exact drawing of the case that had once, I assumed, held the prism. There was no mistaking it. This drawing had one difference from the others: it was a complete picture of the object and it included abbreviated instructions.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the leather covered box. I turned the clasp and opened the lid. By the instructions in my father’s notebook, I placed my fingers into the depression that could hold the prism that Ozzy now had, that for some reasons my potential kidnappers were not satisfied with. I applied pressure to the bottom of the depression and there was a distinct click.

The entire bottom insides of the leather box popped open. I pulled at the edges of the hinged door. Inside, against the side of the leather box, in a secret black silk lined compartment, was a second prism!

Shard: Day 10

2011-11-10T21:56:00.000-08:00

For the first time in a while, I had no more directions, no more ideas to follow. And I discovered I was hungry. Around the museum were a number of small restaurants. I found a sandwich shop and ordered. I was halfway through the sandwich when someone sat across from me at the table… Ozzy!

I nearly flipped backward out of the chair! I caught myself and faced the woman.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” I said.

“We’ve been following you,” she said. “Good thing, too. There’s a good chance you would have had another encounter with your kidnappers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? They have what they were looking for.”

“You know you don’t believe that.”

She was right. There had to be some reason why they were still after me, why they had traced me to my old house.

“Okay, so I assume you intervened somehow.”

“Yes. We also recovered the shard.”

That surprised me. “The big guy I saw at my house..?”

“My associate.”

“I guess I owe you some thanks then.”

Ozzy shrugged. “Part of the job.”

“What is your job, by the way?”

“For now, it’s probably best we keep the relationship as surface as possible for your sake as well as mine.”

“Fine. I have to tell you I still don’t completely trust you.”

“That would be mutual.”

“What are the next steps then?”

She went silent, her eyes unfocused, probably in thought. If I were her, I would probably be wondering why I would divulge. Ozzy was a secretive one, that was for sure. There was probably a good reason, whether or not her motives were honorable.

“We could have made a blunder in showing up the way we did. Our opponents now know you have allies. They may not know who, but they will know there is someone out there aiding you. I can’t afford to stay too close to you in the open. I am taking a chance just to show up here.”

She gave me some directions, making sure I memorized them and didn’t write anything down. I repeated the directions to her.

“Follow those directions once you finish here,” Ozzy said. “Give me at least a half hour before you leave. Longer would be better. You’ll be watched, just discreetly.”

Without any further words, she got up and melted again into the crowd in the sandwich shop and then out onto the street.

I finished my meal, but I’d lost most of my appetite. I’d thought this was all over, that my trail was cold and I’d be able to go on my way, return home, regain my life, even if I didn’t have a job. At least I wasn’t dodging kidnappers. But if they could have traced me to my house, what was to say they couldn’t just trace me anywhere? How did they find me? But the bigger questions was why were they still after me. Was something missing? I answered my own question as I thought about the items I’d found in my father’s empty house. He was responsible for some of this, maybe even all of it.

If he was responsible, rather than following a strange young woman to a rendezvous point, I should see what I could find out about my father. I had no idea what he’d been doing since I left home. Did he retire? I calculated his age. It was possible that he had left the workforce. But even if that were true, he still had a past employer, someone who might be able to give me some clues into what he had been doing during the last years of his life.

The choice: follow my father’s trail or follow Ozzy’s. I pulled out my cell phone and logged into the internet. I opened the WorkWays site, one that provided space for professionals, especially technology specialists, to network with others. I had no idea if my father even had a profile on the site, but it was worth the shot… And he did. His last place of employment was Longspire Corporation. It showed he’d left the company three months earlier. I suddenly realized I didn’t even know when my father had died! At least now I had a next step.

I went to the Longspire website and found the address. I tossed my garbage away and left the shop. On the street, rather than take the right Ozzy lined out for me, I hailed a taxi and headed for my father’s last employer.

The taxi ride gave me a chance to do some thinking about my father. It was never enjoyable to return to those days leading up to my final departure from life with him. But the intervening years between my leaving and now had given me a little distance, enough to realize I might have been hasty in judging him.

When I was 13, my mother had started feeling ill. Initially it was thought to be something simple: a flu or pneumonia. But as time went on and she didn’t get any better, we knew something serious was up. She lasted three years. Doctors were never able to determine what it was that was killing her. They considered allergies, cancer, and a host of other ideas, but none gave them the direction they needed to save her.

At the same time, my father became more and more absent. Rather than being there for my mother, he would work longer hours. It got to the point where I finally went to his work and confronted him about it. I was only 16 at the time. It was the boldest thing I ever remember doing, entering his office building, being escorted to his work area, and ranting for at least ten minutes about his lack of presence, his lack of commitment to my mother. I remember he gave no sign of even acknowledging what I said. No emotions appeared on his face. I could feel the anger build inside of me, feel the pressure as blood flooded to my face. The need to hurt him, to even kill him. I wasn’t proud of it, but then these were extraordinary circumstances. The eyes of his co-workers bored into me. I was ignorant of how they felt about me, about what I was saying; it was probably a blessing or else I might not have continued as long as I did.

After I was done, tear streaming down my face, all I could do was pant, my shoulders heaving. Without a word, my father packed his briefcase and left the office, returning home with me. He stayed with my mother and me until she died a year later. I would hear him working late into the night while my mother had her few hours of fitful sleep. I don’t know how he did it. How could someone function at all on the few hours of sleep he had a night, some nights with no sleep at all. He had a multinational work group, so it wasn’t hard to work at strange hours and still get things done. He could very well have been more involved just for that fact, that most team members weren’t on the same schedule as people on the other side of the planet.

In the end, she still died. No one could help; no one knew the cause. She was just gone. I couldn’t handle it, still angry and looking for someone to take it out on. My father served in that capacity. The series of skirmishes over the next three years finally escalated to the point where I left.

Once I was old enough to realize what I had done, how I had cut off all communication with my father for years, I believed it was too late to do anything about it. Then it was easy to ignore. More pressing issues were at hand. The few relationships I had all ended, usually not amicably. It was easier to just forget and try to move on.

Now I had been drawn into something my father had been involved in, perhaps criminally. He certainly knew some rather unsavory people, secretive and possibly violent. The only thing I could think to do was unravel the puzzle of who my father was. I wanted to know what he was working on in the last years of his life. How had he gotten involved in a possible robbery of antiquities? How could he have put himself in a place where he could be involved in such things?

And perhaps I did owe my father an apology. It was too late, but at least I could find out for myself if he was owed scorn or my gratitude.

The taxi entered the large parking facility for the offices of Longspire. I’d done a little research on the company. It was a conglomerate of many different companies, each with their own unique direction, yet all dealing with the general area of chemistry, whether it was for pharmaceuticals or farming, medical breakthroughs or synthetic fuels.

I entered the lobby and went to the main admittance desk. Two uniformed security guards watched me as I walked up to them.

“How can we help you, sir?”

“My father, Malcolm Denton, was employed here until a few months before his death. I flew into town to try and put some final pieces together. I was hoping there might be someone to talk to about him.”

The guard went to his computer screen and did some typing for a while.

“I can’t personally give out any information about past employees, but I contacted the Human Resources rep to see if she can be of help.”

I told them I appreciated their help and found a place on one of the sofas arranged in groups around the lobby.

Shard: Day 9

2011-11-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

Each step I took up toward the museum entrance made me less confident in my plan. No one in the museum, certainly, could be involved in the matters I was dealing with. But the nagging feeling of paranoia would not let up. I entered through the large double doors. The museum was relatively quiet being as it was during the work week and later in the day. The lack of patronage would hopefully help me to avoid any unnecessary confrontations.

I went to the customer information desk. The attendant stood behind the raised desk, looking slightly down at me.

“Yes? Can I help you?” she said, stopping from her work at the computer terminal.

“I’m looking for some help with a translation of some text I believe to be Latin. I’m afraid my skills are not up to the challenge.”

“I see. We do have a couple of curators who are able to translate Latin. We have an extensive collection of medieval artifacts. However, I’m not sure of their availability. You can imagine that resources in any public museum can be stretched thin, especially in these trying times.”

“I fully understand. Is it possible to at least see whether or not someone is available?”

“Certainly.” The woman went back to her terminal. The screen light flickered across her face as she clearly was flipping through a number of pages in her review of museum information.

“Dr. Cersis is fluent in a number of ancient language, including Latin. I’ve sent him a message to contact me. I hope you realize I can’t promise anything, nor can I guarantee he will contact me. As I said, they are very busy.”

“I’m not in any particular rush. But could you tell him that the writing is on a large key? Maybe that will arouse his interest more than just deciphering some musty old piece of paper.”

The woman agreed and sent out another note to the doctor.

“Oh,” she said. “That certainly got a response.” I could see from the sparkle in her eyes that she found this particular use of a carrot to be quite amusing. “They do enjoy a good puzzle.”

I smiled back. “I can understand. I like solving puzzles, too. This has been one puzzle, however, that I’ve been stumped by.”

“The doctor will be available in about 20 minutes. Will that work?”

“That will be fine.”

She pulled out a tourist map of the museum and provided me with a direct route to the medieval art section. “Dr. Cersis said he’d be happy to meet you there.”

I thanked her and headed off in the direction she suggested. Along the way, I stopped to admire several of the dioramas constructed along my path. The displays were well done, depicting the various stages of human maturity as a species. I always wondered if it was just a matter of a good scrubbing and a new set of modern clothes and no one would recognize them for the Neanderthals that they were.

My meandering way finally brought me to the medieval section of the museum. The mood was definitely gothic, with an emphasis on balance, based on equilateral forms, and soaring, arched stained-glass windows. I felt the need to avoid any unnecessary noises, considering how much like a cathedral this large room felt like with its vaulted ceilings. They probably weren’t nearly as high as a real cathedral, but the impression was still amazing.

As I wandered about the room, mainly looking up at the artwork on the ceiling, I nearly ran into a rather distinguished older gentleman, dressed in a neat, but well-worn brown tweed suit.

“Dr. Cersis?”

The man blinked a few times rapidly. “Sorry, no.”

“Over here,” someone said from across the room. I was surprised to see a younger man, probably in his early 30’s, wave at me.

I walked over to meet him, and introduced myself, shaking his hand.

“I got you mixed up with the older guy over there.”

“Hard to believe a doctor can be this young, huh?” he said.

“I have to admit, Dr. Cersis, that I was a bit surprised.”

“Not a problem. Most of the folks around here are about Robert’s age,” gesturing to the older man. “And call me Carl… So what have you got for me?”

I took the key out of my pocket and handed it to him. His brow immediately furrowed. His jaw muscled tightened.

“Where did you get this?” Cersis said.

“My father died recently. It was among his possessions.”

“I see.” He looked me in the eyes for a moment, seemed satisfied with my answer for now, and went back to looking at the key.

“Is something wrong?”

“Could be. I’ll need to look the key over to make sure. I may need to confer with some of my colleagues if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind as long as you don’t mind if I keep the key in my sight.”

“Fair enough. Follow me, please.”

Carl Cersis walked across the room to a door marked Employees Only. He punched in his code in the door key pad. It gave a satisfying click. He opened the door and I followed him in.

Behind the door was a large work area filled with work tables holding exhibits of all kinds in various stages of presentation. There were half-finished skeletons, completed skeletons with partially fitted skin, pottery, coins, clothing, furnishings of all kinds.

“Looks like an antiquities Goodwill,” I said.

“It does kind of look like that. Kane, this is Angelique Brenner.”

I reached out and shook the hand of the distinguished looking woman, gray hair, shoulder length, shot through with black, work shirt, khaki pants, and hiking / walking shoes.

“Nice to meet you, Kane. Interesting name.”

“My father always went for the cheap joke,” I said.

“Oh, well, this generation wouldn’t get it, so you should be safe.” She smiled. Blue eyes, no make-up. She leaned over the table she was working at with a jumble of pottery. “Etruscan, I have it narrowed down to the 2^nd or 3^rd century B.C.E. I’ll have a better chance at dating it once I put it back together… So what’s the game this time, Carl?”

He handed her the key.

“Wow… Where did you get this?”

“Do you people have a limited repertoire of questions?” I said. “That’s what Carl asked me.”

“So you didn’t tell him?” said Brenner.

“I thought I’d wait until I had some backup.”

“Pummeled by museum curators,” I said. “Sounds terribly frightening.”

Brenner laughed. “I like him… I take it, Carl, that you didn’t think he was dangerous or else you wouldn’t have brought him back here.”

“I could tell he wasn’t a problem.”

“Can you please let me in on the joke?” I said.

Angelique looked at Carl, then sighed. “Carl, you are such a coward.”

“I’m actualized, so that remark doesn’t damage my self-concept.”

“I’ll damage your self-concept… What Carl failed to tell you—probably because he was afraid you’d bolt—is that this key was ‘misplaced’ when it was shipped to us about six months ago. It may or may not belong to a 14^th century Carmelite coffin that actually did make it to the museum.”

“Carmelite?” I said.

“The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel,” said Carl. “The order settled originally in Cyprus and Sicily, then moved into England and France.”

“I see. So this is old.”

“It hasn’t been authenticated yet,” said Angelique. “When we lost the key, we put the project on hold. We’ve been yelling at a lot of people over this. And here you come off the street with it… Where’d you say you got this?”

“I didn’t yet… Well, I told Carl… It was in my father’s stuff. I flew up here to handle his estate.”

“Sorry,” said Angelique.

“Don’t be… How my father came into possession of a purloined key, I have no idea.”

“What was his name?”

“Howard Denton.”

“Doesn’t ring any bells. Carl?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“What do you think, Carl?” said Angelique. “I’m not the Latin scholar here. You’ll need to be the translator. I’ll wade in if Mr. Denton gets surly.” She handed the key back to Carl.

[Carl rattles off a bunch of poetic verse as goes with the whole theme of finding clues to some hidden something. I have a few ideas, but I’ll need to come back and fill in Carl’s translation.]

I stood with my jaw opened, or at least I felt like I should have my jaw opened. “And what is all that supposed to mean?”

“No clue,” said Carl.

“Me neither,” said Angelique. “But there is something we can do that’s a bit more concrete…”

“Try the key,” said Carl.

“Excellent idea,” I said.

Carl and Angelique led me around the work tables to a coffin resting against a far wall. It was protected by bubble wrap to keep the wood from rubbing against the concrete floor or the wall that it was resting against. Even with the haziness of the bubble wrap obscuring it, I could still see the illuminations that had been etched into the wood. The colors were faded and the coffin would need extensive restoration, but the hints of its glory—the carved figures of saints and animals and creatures beyond human knowledge—were still there.

Carl pulled the protective covering aside, the bubble wrap making a swish and a single pop. Carl grinned. Guys do love bubble wrap.

“We were considering trying to pick the lock, but with all the other stuff we had to do, we just didn’t get around to it,” said Carl. “And anyway, we wanted someone to pay for taking it or losing it or whatever happened to it… which I guess we still don’t know… Just to let you know, this still might not be the right key. It hasn’t been authenticated. My skills don’t go in that direction. We’d need to bring in someone else to look it over.”

“Just try the damn key, Carl,” said Angelique.

“Right.”

Carl found the keyhole in the front of the coffin. The key fit perfectly. He took a breath and slowly, carefully, turned the key. It always amazed me when mechanisms centuries old still functioned. I couldn’t get any car I ever owned to last five years let alone centuries. The key continued to turn. Carl added additional pressure at times, but there was no need to manhandle the lock. Finally the bolt turned in the lock.

“Well, step one is completed. Whether or not the wood has expanded to the point where it won’t open is the next step.”

“I assume this coffin has never been opened,” I said.

“No, it hasn’t. We’ve done some x-rays on it, though. No body in this one. All spanking new and ready for a tenant.”

“You don’t need some sort of ceremony or something?”

“Where do you come up with stuff like that? Trust me; it’ll be fine. Either the coffin will open or it won’t. If it doesn’t, I’ll need to contact some experts on dealing with unsealing wood that fused itself together… Angelique, you want to give me a hand?”

Angelique stepped forward. The two curators felt along the seam of the coffin and began the slow process of trying to unseal the lid.