Nothing… nothing happened at all, leaving Robin standing in front of the monolith with an awkward smile on his face.

He had been so sure that something would happen as soon as he touched the object, that he was a little lost now. It didn’t make matters any better that his friends all around him were staring expectantly as they secured the area.

“Ahem…” Robin fake coughed. If he didn’t get anything out of this monolith, it would be the ultimate humiliation.

He calmed his racing heart and closed his eyes. Slowly his breath became more even and his tensed nerves relaxed a little.

Robin activated his G-Anomaly and concentrated it on the artifact he was touching. At first, everything remained black as if he was trying to sense the energy in a dead rock. However soon, a nagging feeling rose in him, a feeling he had twice before. Once when he checked the pyramid back in the museum and once at the Keeper-compatibility test from the UAS. There was Æther in this artifact, he was sure of that. Unfortunately his probing didn’t trigger any reaction from it and like last time, the energy lines that formed in his mind were black and couldn’t be differentiated from the surrounding dark void.

“Okay, that is step one. Let’s hope step two works out or this will have been a really long journey for a really short inspection!” He muttered.

Robin had worked on a plan. On the long days traveling between the systems he realized that he may have a problem, if it turns out that the monolith is not just simply reacting to him like the pyramid did. He wouldn’t be of any help other than confirming that it really was Keeper tech and Æther was moving in it.

“If this fails, they will probably sue me down to my last penny…” He put down his backpack and rummaged through it until he found an aerosol can. After shaking it a bit, Robin began to spray the monolith’s surface from the ground all the way up as far as he could reach. Soon, one side of the valuable, ancient artifact was completely smeared with white paint. He tried a quick Echo Pulse and fear crept up his spine as no black lines formed on the white surface.

Getting his shit together, Robin once more used his main skill but kept his eyes open. Hopefully there was just too little Æther for the Pulse to sense.

The universe seemed to have pity on him, slowly thin black lines formed in his vision. Soon, a dense network of black connections and hotspots was created. Absentmindedly, Robin scratched his beard as he tried to understand what he saw.

“Timothy!” He called his friend, “Come here, we need to figure this out together. I hope you learned something from the pyramid I gave you before!”

“No promises, that artifact was like nothing I’ve seen before…” Timothy said and took a big tablet out of his own backpack, “What do you see?”

“Lines, a huge network of Æther with many connections between different hotspots.”

“We need to sketch the schematics from at least three sides to make sure we got the dimensions of the network right.” Timothy explained and Robin could only sigh. This would take a ton of time.

“This will take a bit, make yourself comfortable.” He informed the others and began to copy the lines in his vision to the tablet. Meanwhile Timothy sprayed the other sites of the monolith, cursing the whole time about him defiling a piece of history.

***

Robin knew they were on a soft timer. Someone was watching them, waiting for him to finish what he was doing. It was only a matter of time before they lost their patience and struck and Robin would really prefer to have learned everything about this monolith before that happened. Also, Sevastian needed proper medical attention sooner rather than later.

What surprised him however was that after about one hour in, just before he finished the first copy, he was reminded that it wasn’t a soft timer but quite the hard one.

* Neuro-Chip State Of Charge (SOC): 8%

* 02:23:19 remaining

“Oh shit…” He muttered, having completely forgotten about his need to recharge regularly. By now it was a ritual for him - he went to bed and plugged in his fucking head. He didn’t even need to think about it anymore. Last night however, he didn’t go to bed. He slept on a camping mat in the middle of the jungle.

“What is it?” Timothy asked when he heard him cursing.

“Nah, nothing, just my head that starts to hurt. I’m not sure if I can keep up the connection to ROMAS for much longer.” Robin quickly made up a lie and sorted his options.

“Can you turn on something like an energy-saving mode?” Robin hissed while Timothy turned his attention back at the display with the schematic.

* No sleep-mode available

* System can be turned off

* Automated wake-up on timer

“I can’t wake you up manually? What kind of bullshit is that?”

* Energy consumption is mostly used for the chip, not for me

* If chip is offline, so am I

* I can’t listen to external inputs

* Chip can be programmed t..-

“Yeah, I get it…” Robin growled, “Sleep for two hours, I need the chip as soon as the monolith is unlocked. We’ll only have a small window of opportunity then. Can’t risk being unable to interact with it before whoever is here with us strikes."

Moments later the drone landed on the stony ground and Robin turned his attention back to the artifact.

An hour later his head began to pulse with waves of pain and fatigue and when he finished the second side of the schematics, he finally had to take a break. He sent ROMAS to sleep for another two hours and used a Mind Refresh to quickly get back in shape.

“Did you learn anything already?” He asked his friend.

“No, look here, right now they are just two separate pictures. I need a third perspective, then my tool can combine those together and create a 3D-version of this schematics. Before that it’s just random gibberish.” Timothy explained and handed him the water bottle, “You are doing great. Keep it up, you are nearly done, okay?”

* Neuro-Chip State Of Charge (SOC): 6%

* 01:48:39 remaining

When Robin finally completed the third picture, he was completely exhausted. Never before had he used his mutation for such a long duration. ROMAS was back online, as was the drone that returned to its spot in the security parameter.

“How is it?” Robin asked but was ignored by Timothy who was glued to his tablet.

“Amazing!” The researcher finally shouted, “Never would I have imagined that this technology was so simple in its core.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“That is good?” Robin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, no.” Timothy shook his head, “You see these anomalies here, here, here and there?”

“Uhm, yeah, I noticed them before. What are these blank spots?” Robin asked wearily.

“They are just that: blank spots. The circuit is straight forward, no complicated trickery or anything.”

“Yeah, the Keeper normally don’t have to be afraid of anyone ‘hacking’ them.” Robin nodded.

“Exactly. However, they still want to make sure that no one without their permission is able to activate the monolith.”

“You don’t wanna tell me…” Robin groaned.

“Yes, we need a key!”

“That’s bullshit. We aren’t on a fantasy treasure hunt and need four keys before we can proceed!”

“No, I think it’s more likely a single authentication token that has to be put on specific places of the monolith to gain access.”

“Burn in plasma…”

When he was finally back on his feet, Robin stood in front of the huge artifact once more. Lost in thoughts he began to scratch his beard again.

“These blank spots aren’t too big… maybe I can ‘shortcut’ them with my latest ability? But how should I explain that to the others?”

* Neuro-Chip State Of Charge (SOC): 4%

* 01:12:07 remaining

“Ah fuck this…” He scowled and called out for his friend “Timothy! Do you know the right order to unlock if one had the key?”

“Well, no. But it shouldn’t be too hard to find out. If we had the authentication token, you could just put in a random order and tell me what happens inside. I should be able to deduct the right order after a few tries. You don’t happen to have the token?”

“No, Timothy, I don’t have the token. Damn, what do you think? That I walked to a shop earlier and asked for ‘one authentication token for secret Keeper technology’ or what? I’ll try something else, just… never ask me how it works if it works, okay?”

“Fiiiine” Timothy said and raised his hands in defense, “I’ll just put it on the list with the crazy sense of directions you showed in the Mystic Sea…”

“Huh… totally forgot about that one. Yeah, leave it on that list.”

Once more Robin visualized the dense Æther network within the artifact. Then he selected the topmost blank spot and focused his whole mind on it with just one burning intent: reduce.

He learned from his testing so far that he didn’t increase or slow down the flow of energy - that would have been implausible anyway. No, Robin’s mutated G-Anomaly could increase or reduce the resistance of specific parts in a circuit. The most simple example would be a circuit with a resistor to regulate the energy and Robin could manipulate the resistor to let through more or less energy. The results would completely depend on the consumer that was in the circuit. If it is a lightbulb, it may dim the light or make it brighter until the bulb explodes.

So much for the theory. In praxis, Robin had no idea where any resistors were located or how he needed to manipulate them for a specific result. However, he understood enough to realize that the blank spots in the Æther circuit were not ‘cut off’ from the rest but only had a really high resistance until someone with the right key came along and activated them, which would then lower their resistance and let the Æther flow through.

That was why he now wanted to test if he could force them to reduce the resistance without having the token.

Standing in front of the monolith, Robin put all his mind into ordering the blank spots to let energy pass through. He needed a few tries as he still wasn’t used to this skill and already having a throbbing head also didn’t help. However, after a few tries, he finally achieved some success. He saw the blank spot suddenly lit up in black light and two new lines formed. They connected to a big dense cluster in the center of the circuit and shortly afterwards, one of the lines vanished again.

Elated, Robin explained his findings to Timothy and highlighted the relevant parts in the schematics he had copied before.

“How…???” Timothy gaped at him but stopped himself from asking, “Can you try the rest?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you afraid that we have only so many tries before the system gets permanently locked or something?” Robin asked as he prepared to unlock the second ‘keyhole’.

“As far as I can see, nothing points in that direction yet. We’ll know more after the first try though.”

Now that he knew what to do, Robin quickly continued with the other spots. After each successful unlocking, he gave Timothy an update about what changes did happen. Mostly it was the same as with the first one with two lines forming and one of them disappearing afterwards.

When the last spot was bypassed, the monolith suddenly gave a low hum and Robin’s senses told him that immense amounts of energy were building up within.

“GET AWAY!” He shouted and ran towards the jungle, Landom and Alena tensed up while Timothy followed behind him.

An invisible shockwave shot out from the foot of the monolith, throwing dust into the air everywhere. It was quick, quicker than Robin and Timothy but just as they reached the edge of the formation, it winked out as fast as it had appeared.

“Uaghhh!” Timothy screamed and fell to the ground. When Robin turned around he saw him lying on the ground and ripping off his left shoe. When his foot was freed, it was giving off clouds of smoke, the flesh was burned away.

“Holy shit!” He yelped while Alena quickly rushed over and injected a recovery stim into his leg.

It took them a moment to calm down. Timothy took it like a champ and since it was ‘only’ strong burns, the stim worked wonders. After 20 minutes he had mostly recovered and fresh, white skin had grown over his wound.

“At least we now know why you have as many tries to unlock the artifact as you want. You just need to survive the penalty each time.” Timothy joked and wiggled with his naked toes.

“That was a close call…” Robin muttered.

“Yes, but really interesting. Did you see? Our stuff back at the center was not damaged in the slightest, even my tablet is still online and shows the schematics.”

“So it only reacts to biomatter?” Robin guessed.

“Maybe. We still know too little about Æther yet. I didn’t even know you could use it as a weapon…”

* Neuro-Chip State Of Charge (SOC): 2%

* 00:31:44 remaining

“Shit, mate, I’d love to give you more time, but we are running out. Can you get back up?”

“We are running out of time?” Timothy asked, confused.

“Yeah, just put it on the ‘no questions asked’-list, okay?”

“The list gets longer quite rapidly…”

“Come one, 30 minutes left.” Robin hurried him.

“Okay, let me check the latest results. What have you seen after the last unlock and before the explosion?”

For the next few minutes Robin explained everything and Timothy ran a few simulations. Soon he came up with an order to test.

While Timothy left the formation platform and waited next to Landom, Robin hesitantly stepped back to the monolith.

* Neuro-Chip State Of Charge (SOC): 2%

* 00:23:09 remaining

“I get it… I get it…” He grumbled and quickly activated the four spots again. The result of bypassing the spots was a bit different for the first two, but for the third it was the same as with his last try.

“It’ll blow off again. But I now know the order. Next time should do the trick!” He shouted and bypassed the last spot. Without waiting for anything he started running like the wind, which proved to be a wise decision as a moment later another shockwave was sent out.

After calming his racing heart and double checking his findings with Timothy, he was back in the center of the formation once more.

* Neuro-Chip State Of Charge (SOC): 1%

* 00:17:29 remaining

“Wish me luck!” He muttered and began to activate the first spot.

When only the last spot was to unlock, Robin stopped and took a deep breath.

“If this isn’t the right order, turn off the chip for 3 hours. Also, maybe we’ll take a break and I’ll try to connect you to the Melody to get some power, okay?”

With that, he bypassed the last spot and clenched his hands. Nothing had reacted as if it was wrong, so hopefully he wouldn’t be grilled in a second.