Ghost remained silent for a moment, before no longer being able to hold back his words.
“What are you getting ready to do?”
“I still believe there’s something here in this temple that might give us a clue to what’s happening. You and I can communicate through our enhancers, only because we both have one. For one way communication, there needs to be some kind of repeating hardware. Same for monitoring.”
“Your portable scanner isn’t going to pick up very far. Certainly not through all this stone.”
“Then we need to be very selective about where we scan. This is a big temple. It would take us months, maybe more, to scan every inch of it.”
I wandered around for a few minutes, eyeing the stone carvings again. Without a strategy, this simply wasn’t going to be feasible.
“I had another idea,” I said, breaking the silence.
“I’m hesitant to ask.”
“Most groups like this keep a written log or some kind of holy book. Everyone here thinks you’re just a simple bird. How about you go and check Lunaria’s quarters here and see if she has anything there? She’s out right now, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you. I’ll speak to someone here to see if there’s a holy book I can flip through.”
Ghost sighed, showing off his improvements at mimicking human behavior. Sighing appeared to be his favorite.
“I will check.”
Without waiting further instruction, Ghost flew off. I knew full well how silly he thought all this was… Thank goodness for Ghost.
I spotted a woman cleaning the halls and waved her down.
“Excuse me!”
She looked up at me with a broad smile. A fake one. She was clearly irritated with being interrupted during her duties.
“Yes?”
“I was wondering if this temple has any holy books I could read. Something on your history, or logging miracles.”
She tilted her head.
“No, we don’t have any such thing. Was there something else you needed?”
“No written log at all?”
“No…” she said, leaning on her broom.
“Thank you,” I said, stepping away and leaving her to her work.
Great, the one time a cult doesn’t have a book bragging about all the great things they did, and it had to be this one. All I could do was wander around the temple now, waiting for Ghost to return with news.
It seemed things were slowly returning to normal, or at least what would be their new normal from now on. Unlike the others I’d vaccinated previously, I wasn’t able to inform them of the side-effects and offer them a choice for the path they wanted to choose. Doing things this way was unfair to everyone, even those who had been vaccinated. It also meant that the entire island was going to die out sooner than others. In previous zones, some wanted to take the risk to have children first. Not here. The youngest child born before the vaccination could now well be the last living person on this island.
I found myself wandering the halls, running my scanning tool along random pillars and walls.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Nothing.
This was pointless.
Or was it? Maybe I’d been asking the wrong questions.
I turned around, running back toward the woman I’d spoken with before, who was less than enthusiastic about seeing my face again.
“Hey, sorry. I thought of another question.”
She didn’t even speak this time. Just leaned against her broom, resting her hand on her hip.
“Were there any major repairs done to this temple, let’s say in the last thirty years or so?”
“Sure. A chunk of the roof collapsed, near the big hole above.”
“Do you know who fixed it?”
“Who do I look like to you? How would I know that?”
“Thanks,” I said, running outside.
If Ghost were here, he’d be scolding me right now. Telling me what an idiot I was and how this was an unnecessary risk.
After walking outside, I removed my sword and leaned it against the temple. Finding purchase where I could, I wedged my fingers and toes anywhere the wall was willing to accept them. One step, one reach at a time. I’d done a lot of climbing as a young girl, though it had been a while. I’d never had the pleasure of climbing a tall stone temple before. I’d made it only a few feet off the ground before something hard hit me on the head. Then again. And again.
Ghost was knocking into me.
“Ghost, you’re going to make me fall.”
“Good,” he said. “Now, get down.”
“I can climb it fine,” I said.
Another flogging, slapping his big wings into my face.
“Sheesh. Fine!” I said, letting go and dropping to the ground. “What’s gotten into you?”
“What’s gotten into me? Why are you climbing the temple? And with no safety gear?”
“I need to check something on the roof. Do you mind?”
“If only you had a bird that could fly up there for you and scan the stone,” he said, tilting his head.
I had no retort.
“Fool! You’re not going to live long enough to finish your work.”
“I’ve made it this far, haven’t I, Ghost? Can’t win big if you’re not willing to risk it all once in a while.”
“Stop trying to live Frelya’s life through your own, doing things the way she would. Stop feeling guilty for her choice.”
I swung hard at him, making a grab that fell short as he hovered in the air.
“I can’t believe you’d say something like that! I don’t mind your jokes and jabs at me, Ghost. Call me a fool, or stupid, or an idiot, but don’t say things like that to me if you claim to be my friend. Do you know how much… how hard…”
I sucked in a deep breath, determined not to let my emotions get the better of me.
I collapsed to my knees, frustrated. I felt so helpless. Even here, I’d done nothing other than get my supplies stolen and watch Adversity Management misuse the vaccine. I couldn’t stop them, and I couldn’t fight them to get it back. I couldn’t blame these people for not being willing to join me. It was a suicide mission. I was just asking them to die for nothing.
“You want to pay them back for their sacrifices? Value your own life the way they valued it.”
“Agree to disagree. I’ll do things however I want.”
“Who is going to finish your mission if you fall off a temple wall and die, all because you couldn’t wait a few minutes for me to return? Am I supposed to finish it? I don’t even have thumbs.”
I stared at Ghost for a moment, and the seriousness of the argument melted away. I started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try to calculate my risks better from now on, now that I’ve realized you won’t be able to save the world in my place. You know, since you don’t have thumbs.”
“I’m glad you find it so funny,” he said, kicking sand at me. “I will hold you to your word. Try to remember I’m here, and my role is to aid you in any way I can. Ask me to do things that are better done by me, like scanning the roof of a giant structure. I may not have thumbs, but I have wings.”
I tossed my scanner on the ground at his talons.
“Think you can scan it without thumbs?” I asked.
He picked it up and flew away, toward the roof.
Having Ghost around was like having a very strict parent. I’m not sure I could call him my friend, so much as my nanny. But… it’s not like he was wrong. Not really. He’d caught me in the perfect example. I simply hadn’t thought about it at all. I wanted to scan the roof, so I started climbing. I hadn’t even considered alternative, safer ways. The thought was alarming. Really… why hadn’t it crossed my mind at all?
“Signal amplifier,” Ghost said, dropping the scanner in my palm. “It’s not even hidden. It’s just too small to see from below.”
“A signal amplifier… so there is some kind of communication going on here.”
“Yes, but to here? From here? Both? There’s no way to tell. I think we need to consider your commander theory could potentially hold more weight with the discovery of this. This is made for internal use by Adversity Management, and there are none stationed here.”
I pondered for a moment.
“It’s not enough. We need more.”
“Find somewhere private. I found her journal and hid it in a bush over there when I saw you climbing so I could stop you.”
“You stole her diary?” I whispered.
“You were going to read it anyway. What’s the difference? If you don’t want to get in trouble, stop wasting time and read it quickly so I can return it where I found it,” he scoffed.
“Good work.”