Chapter 14 - Subterfuge

A plume of dark smoke billowed out from the front of the spire’s foundation, followed by horrendous screeching sound. The entire structure lurched and shuddered, slowing to a halt.

“You think they know?” Jerro asked in the mind space. “Let’s not wait around to find out” Mari said and led the way through the large dark metallic doorway.

The interior was dark, like the cave, unnaturally dark with some gentle red lighting marking doorways and other key facilities, but even still they could not make out any detail.

“I wish we still had those drones the Guardians were using” Greg said telepathically as they slowly crept through the darkness towards the next dimly lit doorway.

“What if… what if we can?” Mari responded, “What if we can see like that, all of these new abilities, we’ve been doing things we never imagined we could. What if we are the only limit to what we can do?”

She focused her mind, letting it extend beyond her body, reaching outward like the tendrils from the jelly. She could feel Greg and Jerro were there too, a shared experience, a self taught lesson, innate knowledge being unlocked.

Suddenly, the scene became clear, not just clear but intuitively understood. The detail of objects, the material, their vibrational frequencies, the fabric of the universe reaching through all things became their new normal. This wasn’t a heads up display or a feed from a drone, this was them embracing the universe in its true form for the first time.

They could see, no they could feel, a contingent of eight hyrax approaching from the adjoining hall. This room was a sort of mechanical or maintenance bay, a hatch was open across the space with a pile of flesh monster parts stacked next to it. This hatch attached to a chute, presumably this was where the flesh chunks were going.

“I’m not getting in there” Greg said telepathically, reading the motive of his friends.

“No, I have another plan, I had been taking an elective on illusory psionics at the Academy before all this started. Follow my lead.”

The hyrax contingent burst into the room making a direct path towards the group.

A series of squeaks and guttural sounds were produced by what appeared to be the leader of the heavily armored force. Emblazoned on the front breast of their armor in bold white lettering read ‘I-R-S’. On their backs, they each carried a long polearm weapon but were currently carrying rugged blasters with elongated rigid geometry, but not pointing them at the friends.

Mari looked over her shoulder and winked, turning back toward the hyrax and producing her own series of guttural squeaks and screams. Jerro and Greg looked at eachother then at Phlip who was chewing on some exposed wires.

The lead hyrax responded and turned to the others giving a series of commands, the heavily armed group relaxed their posture a bit, making it clear they felt any threat was gone. Half of them filed out of the room and Mari looked over her shoulder shooting a quick glance at her friends and pulled Phlip in behind her.

They started down the hall and Jerro and Greg followed, with the remaining hyrax contingent taking up the rear.

“When did you learn to speak hyrax and what did you say to them?” Jerro asked telepathically

“I’m full of surprises it would seem, I told them we caught this creature in the tar track. I think they bought it… but now we’ve gotta go take Phlip down to some containment area. Jerro, if you get a chance to break away, see what that magic map you have is showing us in here. I’ll tell them you have to go to the bathroom or something…” Mari explained in the telepathic mind space.

“I don’t have to, I’m okay.” Jerro responded.

“No… I know that’s just for you to look at the map” Mari said with a hint of frustration. “Ohhhhhh right…” Jerro communicated back with a physical nod.

The halls were tight, and took strange organic paths, like they were grown rather than built. They wove their way up the spire, making it maybe halfway up the entire height. As the marched along, they passed by barracks, mechanical rooms, storage areas, kitchens, open spaces full of hyrax doing physical training and hangers packed with large birds nesting in stalls, while hyrax tended to them. This must have been where they saw the flying creatures land earlier. Now up close, they were clearly birds and they looked like Pelicans, a bird that the friends were familiar with from back home, but much larger.

Adjacent to this hangar was a long hall, lined with half a dozen cells on each side. Some had energized barriers up, enclosing the cell. As they passed by the first, a small mushroom with a swirling purple cap and white spots sat idly in the middle of the room.

The cell next to this one was where the hyrax leader guided Mari and Phlip. As Mari was settling Phlip into the cell pretending he was an aggressive monster, Greg was drawn to the mushroom. He took a step towards the yellow sheet of translucent energy that closed the cell.

Suddenly the mushroom opened one singular eye piercing an intense stare through Greg. A white cloud of spores rushed out from under the cap and when it cleared, the mushroom was gone.

“Uh… Jerro did you see that?” Greg asked telepathically while Mari was continuing her wrangling act with Phlip.

“See what dude” Jerro responded. “In the cell, there was a little purple and white mushroom” Greg shot back.

“That mushroom?” Jerro pointed back at the cell where Greg had looked away. “Yeah, what in The Burrow…”

“YAAA YAAA” Mari yelled, as if she was herding wild critters, while she danced around Phlip, pretending to avoid his ferocious attacks.

Then she wrestled him down to the ground and while it wasn’t obvious to the hyrax, Greg and Jerro could tell, she whispered something in his ear which made him calm down.

Mari stepped out of the cell confidently and gave a quick “Awawa!” and salute to the hyrax leader, she had been studying their behavior while moving through the halls and it was becoming quite convincing.

He slapped the control panel next to the cell and the sheet of yellow energy enclosed Phlip. Philip gave Mari the saddest rabbit face he could muster, trying to get himself out of the situation, he didn’t understand why she was leaving him.

Mari fought back her emotions and regained her composure, she had a job to do.

The lead hyrax took them out of the containment area and exchanged some grunts and screeches with Mari.

“Alright guys, I think he’s gonna leave us to ‘get back on our own’” She giggled in the mind space, excited that her first time subterfuge was working so well.

“Whew, I’m just glad we don’t have to do that whole thing where you were going to pretend I had to go to the bathroom, I don’t think I could have done it. I get super bladder shy and I still don’t have to even go, I think The Glorp is dehydrating me. I should probably drink some water.” Jerro explained in the mind space.

“Uhhh okay, yeah, can you see if the map is working while you do that?” Mari reminded him.

The armored hyrax contingent had moved off down the hall now and were out of sight. Greg moved up to the next bend to keep a lookout while Jerro and Mari consulted the map.

It was updating, the ink swirled and reformed, showing their current location, zoomed to scale and detailing out the chambers and passages. Mari noted the ones they had passed, building reference to their current location. Across the top, the name changed, from ‘The Glorp’ to ‘The Citadel’.

“Can we see the other levels or zoom out on this?” Mari asked Jerro, “I think so, let me try something” Jerro responded, spreading his paws on the map which was sprawled out on the ground with the two rodents on all fours carefully examining it.

“Okay here” Jerro said, sliding the view from a bird's eye plan view to a side profile and flipping through the levels. “Lets go towards the top maybe?” he suggested. “Yeah, I’m thinking the same thing, if I were a big bad hyrax, I would want to do my evil activities from the top.” Mari explained.

“This is the spot,” Mari pointed confidently on a large chamber, one level from the top.

“Guys, someone is coming, wrap it up and do that thing you were doing Mari!” Greg communicated back to them telepathically.

Jerro rolled up the map and slid it back into his pack and they hustled down the hall to catch up with Greg.

A single small hyrax approached, looking rather sad. It glanced at the friends and then at Mari and its expression shifted slightly to a small smile.

Mari and the small hyrax exchanged a few squeaks, kinder and gentler than it had been with the other armed contingent. The hyrax continued squeaking.

“What’s going on…” Greg asked telepathically, growing a bit impatient with the drawn out conversation.

“I guess there aren’t a lot of female hyrax around here and she thought she recognized me at first. She was telling me that her brother didn’t come back from his mission and she is getting worried. She said he was on an important mission and when the group returned, he was no where to be seen and that large hyrax, The Overlord, she called him, was back.” Mari explained quickly to the group.

“He was totally that hyrax that I got disintegrated… isn’t he” Jerro said, brimming with regret.

“I don’t know, maybe, but here’s the thing. She said that there are some hyrax here who don’t support The Overlord, that he rules with fear and cruelty and reports to some higher authority, something called the ‘I-R-S’” Mari continued to explain.

“She seems like a bit of an oversharer, but that works for me.” Greg interjected.

The hyrax and Mari exchanged a few more words and she continued down the hall.

“So I told her we would keep an eye out for her brother.” Mari communicated telepathically while giving a shrug.

“Come on, let's get moving” Mari said, continuing down the hall.

The remainder of the journey to the chamber Mari and Jerro identified was rather uneventful. As they continued, the passages became narrower still, winding tighter and tighter as the floor area of each ascending level was reduced due to the structure of the spire.

Finally, they were in a dark stairway that spiraled along the exterior of the spire, enclosed by columns of metal and yellow sheets of energy, like those on the cell where they left Phlip.

As they rounded a bend, the edge of a large door came into view. Before they even approached, they could sense two powerful psionic entities guarding the door and beyond the door emanated a power that rivaled anything they had experienced since activating this new level of perception.

“Your return has been anticipated…” a deeply disturbing voice penetrated into their mind space. Causing the friends to shudder slightly and stop in their tracks.

The two armored guards wielding polearms which were outstretched, crossing in front of the door, raised their weapons to a vertical position and the door jarred, sliding upwards into a pocket above.

The friends approached with trepidation, passing the guards and entering into the large chamber.

The ceiling was translucent, glass or energy shielding perhaps. This lit the room more than the rest of The Citadel from the dark blood red sky, three moons appeared in series one yellow and two smaller ones more green in hue.

A cylindrical tube filled with a translucent orange liquid bubbled, containing The Prince, who was tethered within the fluid column, a mask placed over his face. His body was now withered and his eyes closed. Mari reached out telepathically, but there was nothing.

“You won't have any luck with that one, I’ve separated his psionic essence from his corporeal being.” the deep voice said, permeating their minds, causing a wave of unease to sweep through them.

Standing in the middle of the room towards the back was the large hyrax, The Overlord. Outstretched and upturned paws revealed a cube floating in his right paw, glowing hot white, brimming with energy. Now that they were in the room, they could delineate the energies. With The Overlords' energy overwhelming even that of the Prince’s now removed essence.

“Powerful that one was, this bounty will serve its purpose” The Overlord’s voice said, penetrating their minds without consent.

The door dropped shut, slamming into the floor with such a force it caused Jerro to fall off balance and drop to a knee. 

As The Overlord turned around with a flourish of his cape, an altar was briefly revealed, with the hairless creature lying flat upon it. As Jerro recovered, he pulled his monocular down in front of his eye to confirm his suspicion. This hairless creature was the source of the unique signature he had seen earlier when tracking through The Glorp.

“Now, my fragmented kin, we find out how much you have remembered!” The Overlords voice blasted through their minds, bringing them to their knees.