Gai Koukan paced back and forth within the viewing platform in the Gem Control Room. His eyes kept glancing back and forth between the two displays below him.
On his right was a massive sphere of light floating between the platform and the ground. The shell of the sphere was an exact replica of the world of Le'Tayah, down to the very last blade of grass. The topography of the sphere was amazing. It was only missing life. No animals or humans showed up on the sphere, and it annoyed Gai. It would have made things a whole lot easier for him.
Small lights played across the sphere, and men in white lab coats were bustling around pointing metal tubes at them.
The tubes had cables that ran over to Gai's left. More men in coats were sitting behind screens that showed a variety of images from graphs to simple numbers. The screens were constantly changing and the men were taking notes on clipboards in front of them.
One suddenly rose out of his seat and called up to Gai.
"There’s another one, Councillor. Two hundred and fifty thousand rays. On rod seventeen again."
Gai reached up and pushed his glasses back onto his nose, before turning to look at the sphere.
"Where is rod seventeen?" he bellowed down at the patrolling men, "Still in the same position?"
"I haven’t moved sir," the voice came back resolute.
"Councillor, the reading is registering different to the one from before," the first man called back up, "There seems to be some background noise in that causes variation in the two frequencies. While they are technically the same power level, I can assure you that these came from two different Gemz."
"How can that be? Such power has not been seen on these screens since their creation, and you’re telling me that we have two within an hour of each other?"
"The Gem Tracking Sphere has only been in working order the past ten years Sir. It’s to be expected, considering we have been utilising Gemz for countless generations now, that there are things even we don’t know."
"Well, what about the first energy reading? What happened to it?"
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"It’s, um," the man tapped a screen before turning to Gai, "It’s just vanished Sir. There’s no sign of it anymore."
"Ok, ok, let’s just calm down. Signals like that don’t just vanish."
"But the Tower Gem did sir. A whole half a sun of energy just went missing. We can’t find it anywhere."
"Are the Gemteks nearly there?"
The men around the sphere moved some rods around until a few small points of red light appeared on the surface, some of them moving quite rapidly.
"Councillor Gai, the three men sent to investigate the crash have reached the tower it seems..." the three lights winked out in front of him and he blinked, "And now they have vanished. It’s like the Gemz ran out of power."
"They vanished too? Are they anywhere near the second spike?"
"Right on top of it Sir. The other five men you sent to investigate the first spike will be arriving at that location soon. Should we advise the Gemteks that they need to send more Hunters out to recover these Gemz?"
Gai placed his hands on either side of his head. It would do no good to get flustered at a time like this. He just couldn’t believe that of all things, on the day that one of the tower Gemz goes missing, two of those other Gemz would appear. It was like his worst nightmare come true. He needed to relax and look at things in perspective.
"No. Go see them, tell them about their losses, all eight of them. Tell them they are not to send any more men to that location."
"Eight losses Sir?"
"Yes. There is no way that those other five can stand up to such a power. We need to regroup and discuss this in the Council Room. The others might be able to come up with something. I will be leaving now, have all the reports taken to my study. Let no one else read them. I need to show the Council first. We need to deal with this problem fast."
Gai turned on his heels and walked quickly out of the room, muttering to himself the whole way.