J. Mitchell - Midnight City

The four stepped out of the cramped tunnel and into a small round room lit with two Illuminators that hummed on the ceiling just ten feet above their heads.

The walls all around them were brimming with objects, glued or somehow else attached permanently in place, and they filled the room with all kinds of colors and shapes. Postcards, Polaroid pictures, drawings, notes, from what Holt could see. Some were worn and wrinkled and faded; others looked like they’d been placed in the room just recently.

“Where are we?” Zoey asked, standing in the center of the room, spinning to look at all of it at once. Max watched her spin and cocked his head to the side as he studied her.

“The Shrine,” Mira said. “These are mementos for Freebooters who’ve died or gone missing in the Strange Lands.” Mira gazed at the walls silently, and Holt could tell the chaotic conglomeration of things and images had deep meaning for her.

“Did you know a lot of them?” Holt asked.

“Yeah,” Mira answered. “I did.”

Holt moved around the room, looking at everything that was revealed under the dim lights of the Illuminators. Hundreds of photographs of kids, some in Midnight City, but most were standing in a strange, almost alien landscape, where the backgrounds were blurred or flashing colors or contorted like the air had somehow been bent. There were drawings, too, of Strange Lands landmarks, some better than others, labeled things like POLESTAR, KALEIDOSCOPE, AXIS, TORNADO ALLEY, or COMPRESSOR. Next to the drawings were notes, sometimes several pages thick, that seemed to describe the adventures of the lost ones, their journeys, the obstacles they overcame, the artifacts they brought back.

The name was well earned. It really was a shrine, Holt thought.

Mira looked away from all the history and moved toward something set into the far wall. A heavy steel door that looked like something from an old castle. It had been permanently affixed in front of the next tunnel, blocking the path past the room, and next to a large handle near one of its edges was an ornate keyhole. The words FREEBOOTERS AND ACOLYTES ONLY were stenciled across the door in faded red paint.

Holt eyed the wall and the writing hesitantly. “Is this—?” he started to ask.

“An artifact,” Mira finished for him. “A really dangerous one.” From a pocket she pulled out a large key inscribed with the δ symbol, and Holt saw a length of chain attached to it that ran back to her belt. “I’d move back if I were you—it can malfunction,” she said as she stepped toward the metallic gate.

She didn’t need to tell him twice. Max whined as Holt pulled Zoey a few steps away, watching Mira hold the key in front of the keyhole.

She stayed like that, hesitantly studying the door. “You may want to move back more. It’s not pretty when it backfires,” Mira said.

Holt stepped backwards again without hesitation, keeping his eyes on the door. What the hell did this thing do ?

“A little farther,” Mira said again. Holt backed up, eyeing her. “A little more,” she said again, and Holt took another step back. “Seriously, you want to be really far back for this.”

Holt frowned and dragged Zoey and Max with him. He was starting to wonder just what—

He flinched as he hit his head on a low-hanging part of the ceiling. “Ouch,” he said painfully, rubbing the back of his skull. Below him, Zoey looked up and stared at him in exasperation, shaking her head.

Mira laughed out loud. “Sometimes it’s just too easy,” she said as she shoved the big key into the gate and turned it. Holt watched as the door groaned and slowly cranked open, revealing more dark tunnel beyond… and nothing else. No flash of light, no killer emission of energy, nothing remotely dangerous. “It’s just a big metal gate with a lock,” Mira said. “All Freebooters get a key. Come on, tough guy.”

Holt glared after her, felt his ears start to redden. “Oh, that was supposed to be funny, I guess?”

“It was funny,” Mira clarified, pushing past the gate and stuffing the key back in her pocket. “Lock it behind you.”

Holt watched her disappear on the other side of the door, then felt Zoey take his hand and pull him forward. “Holt, try not to be so gullible, okay?” the little girl encouraged as he followed after her.

“Well, isn’t your vocabulary growing?” he said as he shut the gate behind Max. The dog barked and ran after the little girl, just as excited. Holt rolled his eyes and followed after them, without the same enthusiasm.

WHEN THEY ENTERED THE CAVERN that made up the Vault, they emerged into its topmost level, the stalactites that spanned its ceilings right in everyone’s eye-line, and the vastness of it was staggering. It was by far the largest cavern in the whole system, and it stretched downward out of sight into a massive pit. The walls below them were lined with row after row of shelves and cabinets, sitting on ledges that had been carved into the rock face. Even from the top of the Vault, it was apparent what they held: Thousands of artifacts flashed, glowed, pulsed, wavered, hummed, floated, disintegrated and reappeared on those shelves, filling the pit with a kaleidoscopic sea of flickering, colorful lights that spiraled down brightly into the darkness.

In all the times that Mira had come here, the Artifact Vault had never failed to take her breath away. Long ago, when she was young, it was here she’d first learned about the Strange Lands and the artifacts that came from them, and the magnificence of the Vault had played a sizable role in putting her on the path she’d eventually taken, for better or worse.

At first, there was no discernible way to get to the artifacts in the huge pit. There were no stairs or ladders, no poles to slide, or handholds in the rock to climb. The answer was on the ceiling.

A large grid-work of metal had been bolted into the rock there, circling the entire cavern. Hanging from the grid by thick ropes and chains were two large boxes made of ornately polished wood, each bearing a δ symbol inlaid in brilliant gold and resting on a platform at the edge of the pit. The boxes were large enough to hold two people, and it was fairly clear what they were. Elevators.

The ropes and chains passed through pulleys in the grid-work, and traveled to a bank of switches and cranks on the landing platform. There were other things there as well—more cabinets and shelves, work spaces—and flickering candles and lanterns illuminated it all. But if there was anyone there, Mira saw no sign.

She stared at all of it, enraptured once again, and didn’t even notice that the others had stepped up beside her. Even Max was still as he gazed at the Vault.

“Wow…,” Zoey said, her voice an awed whisper. “It’s so big.”

Mira smiled and looked at Holt, curious to see his reaction. He looked down at the expansive view with a gaze that held only amazement. In a room crammed to the gills with thousands of powerful Strange Lands artifacts, he wasn’t slowly backing toward the exit, and that spoke volumes.

When she slipped her hand into his, he turned and looked at her. There was something about the fact that her touch was enough to tear him away from the sight of the Vault that Mira liked. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Beautiful,” he answered, and there was a tone in his voice that implied he was talking about more than just the Vault. Mira smiled.

“Are we going down to the bottom?” Zoey asked.

Mira pulled her gaze from Holt’s. “I don’t know yet, honey,” Mira answered. “We have to find the thing we’re looking for first.”

“Can I ride the Max down to the bottom if we do?” Zoey asked hopefully.