Chapter 23: The Lost Kingdom
Blissfully unaware of what was happening in the Capital City, Jenna and Demadrian were continuing to explore the caves. They had uncovered a vast network of underground tunnels as well as several secret chambers and rooms.
‘These tunnels have taken us almost all the way back to Carrington,’ said James as he studied the small device in his hand.
‘I must admit your tech has been incredibly handy,’ said Jenna as she smiled at Demadrian. ‘I feel bad about criticising you.’
‘I’m glad you admit that you are nothing without me,’ chuckled Demadrian.
Jenna sighed and shook her head.
‘I think this is a perfect place to extend this tunnel so it takes us right under Carrington City,’ said Demadrian confidently as he held up his device.
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ asked Jenna.
‘Absolutely,’ said Demadrian. ‘It’s what Locum wanted us to do.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Jenna, pulling a perplexed face. ‘I don’t recall him saying that.’
‘He actually didn’t say it,’ said Demadrian. ‘He implied it.’
Jenna bit her lip. She looked at Demadrian. Then she became slightly startled. She held the light to his face.
‘Your eyes look blue,’ she said angrily. ‘How much juice have you had? You cannot go beyond the safe upper limit.’
Demadrian began to laugh.
‘This is no laughing matter,’ said Jenna angrily. ‘If you overdose, you will be permanently damaged. You know that very well.’
‘I’m wearing blue contact lenses,’ said Demadrian as he carefully removed one of them. ‘They help me read the devices in these poorly lit environments.’
Jenna shone the light at his face again.
‘Oh, sorry, I was unaware of such a thing,’ said Jenna, sounding quite embarrassed.
Jenna felt a tap on her shoulder. It was a technician. He had a terrified look on his face.
‘I’ve had about four of these today,’ he said as he held up a fruit juice packet. ‘Am I going to die?’
‘Oh no, you’ll be perfectly fine,’ she said as she held his hand. ‘Just take a short break and maybe not drink any more of these for at least a few hours.’
‘Scaring the staff now,’ laughed Demadrian. ‘You must curb that temper of yours.’
Jenna turned and frowned at Demadrian as she held the hand of the quivering technician as he sat down on a box.
An hour passed. Demadrian had gathered a group of technicians, and he had prepared the drilling equipment.
Jenna came speeding down a tunnel towards Demadrian on a small portal scooter.
‘You need to see this! You need to see this!’ she exclaimed excitedly.
‘Any excuse not to part ways,’ said Demadrian as he grinned.
‘Hop on,’ said Jenna as she spun the scooter around.
Demadrian jumped on the scooter, and they sped off down the tunnel.
Around ten minutes later, they stopped. Jenna pulled out a device. She scanned the ground.
‘There is an enormous pocket of air below us,’ she said, pressing her finger on the device. ‘This could be a giant chamber or even a hidden city.’
‘Check the walls,’ said Demadrian as he walked over to one side of the tunnel.
Jenna walked over to the other side. She scanned the walls as Demadrian felt the wall with his hands.
Ten minutes later, Demadrian called out, ‘I found something.’
Jenna scanned the wall section. ‘I’m not picking up anything,’ she said. ‘Hold on, it’s here. You were almost right. Just a few metres further on.’
‘Feel this,’ said Demadrian as he pointed to a small section at the bottom of the wall.
Jenna felt it. ‘Feels loose,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t lead anywhere.’
Demadrian knocked the loose pieces away, revealing what looked like a handle.
He pulled on the handle, but he couldn’t move it.
‘Let’s hook it up to the scooter,’ said Jenna. ‘Maybe that’ll work.’
‘If this is what I think it is,’ said Demadrian. ‘We’ll need a lot more power than your scooter.’
‘No harm in trying, right?’ she said as she went to bring over the scooter.
‘No, wait,’ said Demadrian. ‘I think I know how it works.’
Jenna paused as she watched Demadrian.
‘I think we push in before we can pull out,’ he said as he started to push in as hard as he could.
A few seconds later, he heard a faint click and a slight jerk. Then he began to pull. The handle jerked forward. There was a rumbling sound as a section of the wall began to descend into the ground. The section dropped. This created a platform leading into the space Jenna had detected on her machine.
‘Wow, that is something!’ gasped Jenna. ‘They had fairly sophisticated science.’
‘It’s quite impressive considering they didn’t have electricity,’ said Demadrian. ‘Then again, there is a lot you can do with pulleys, levers, gears, etc.’
The two of them entered through the opening and walked behind the wall. A few steps in, they encountered a staircase. They walked down the stairs; it went down to the equivalent of about two floors. At the bottom was a short passage that led them into a huge open area.
‘Oh my gosh!’ gasped Jenna. ‘This place is huge.’
They took a few steps in. They both shone their lights directly ahead. Jenna gasped again.
‘These are buildings!’ she exclaimed as she turned to Demadrian. ‘We have found a lost civilisation.’
‘Look over there,’ said Demadrian as he pointed towards his observation. ’There’s a light source.’
‘Surely, this place can’t still be inhabited,’ said Jenna as she gazed across at the light.
‘Highly unlikely,’ replied Demadrian. ‘I think I know what it is. Let’s go down and investigate.’
The two of them made their way through what appeared to be streets between buildings. Eventually they reached a large pool of water. They could see it quite clearly, as the light was now quite bright.
‘This water is so clear,’ said Jenna as she bent down to touch it.
‘We should probably test it,’ said Demadrian. ‘Who knows what minerals have dissolved in it?’
The two continued walking. Soon they reached a small bridge crossing the pool of water at its narrowest point. On the other side, there were plants growing out of the ground.
‘This place has food and water,’ said Jenna as she reached down and touched the ground. ‘They could have survived here for a while.’
They continued walking towards the light. It now illuminated everything around them.
‘That’s amazing,’ said Demadrian as he looked up at the large section of glowing rocks. ‘These are glow rocks. They are very rare. It’s so strange to see such a large section of them.’
‘How’s this possible?’ asked Jenna as she turned to Demadrian.
‘The rocks are charged in the sunlight,’ said Demadrian. ‘When it’s dark, they are dark. The only way this could be possible would be if there were a long column of glow rocks reaching all the way to the surface. Seems an unlikely natural phenomenon. I’m guessing they mined the glow rock and built the column themselves.’
‘We could say that this is proof that they were surface dwellers before they moved underground,’ said Jenna excitedly. ‘This adds more credence to the messages we have found on the walls.’
‘It also means we might be able to find every city hidden in Sapey,’ said Demadrian as he grinned widely. ‘To generate this much light, there must be a large glow rock surface area above us. These surface areas would like markers at night.’
‘And just how are we going to see these markers?’ asked Jenna as she tilted her head to the right.
‘I have a few prototype flying vehicles currently being tested in my facility in Carrington,’ said Demadrian. ‘Looks like you have given me a reason to give them a solid test run.’
‘Of course,’ said Jenna, grinning. ‘I wouldn’t expect anything less from my genius cousin.’
The two of them walked back to the large pool of water. To their surprise, the technicians were there. They had decided to take a dip.
Jenna and Demadrian looked at each other and smiled. They both ran towards the water and jumped in. They splashed and played around like children for more than an hour. After that, Jenna and Demadrian pulled themselves out of the pool. They sat on the bank with their feet dangling in the water.
‘This place is quite something,’ said Jenna as she watched the technicians continue to play around. She turned to Demadrian. ‘You don’t seem so eager to continue tunnelling. I’m guessing you’re desperate to continue building more of your inventions. I have seen all those plans you have been secretly scribbling at night.’
‘You noticed,’ said Demadrian as he smiled at Jenna. ‘I can’t help it. I feel so compelled to just keep inventing. It’s like an addiction.’
‘It’s the blue juice,’ said Jenna. ‘Grandfather invented it to stimulate intelligence. It appears it also amplifies other traits. For you, it’s the desire to invent. For me, it is the desire to explore and study other social behaviours. Altogether, it is very taxing on our bodies. Take too much, and you could end up like grandfather.’
‘He didn’t have a choice,’ sighed Demadrian. ‘He was born with too much of it in his body. He brilliantly created a serum that, if we took it in moderation, could give us his intelligence without the illness.’
‘It was easy to tell if we took too much because our eyes would change colour,’ said Jenna. ‘A little too much; they went green. Dangerously too much; they went blue just like grandfather’s eyes.’
Demadrian sighed as he lay down on his back.
‘That’s your “I’m feeling troubled and conflicted” sigh,’ said Jenna.
‘I want to get back,’ said Demadrian. ‘I want to continue my amazing ground-breaking work.’
Jenna looked at Demadrian and frowned. ‘Let me guess? “Girlfriend” problems.’
‘Yeah,’ replied Demadrian as he slowly nodded.
‘Care to share?’ asked Jenna as she placed her hand on his knee.
‘She’s never the same girl,’ said Demadrian. ‘Every time I see her, she has shapeshifted into someone else.’
‘Woah, you’re with just one girl,’ said Jenna, looking wide-eyed. ‘You mean she changes her skin like most girls change their clothes.’
‘I don’t even know what she really looks like,’ said Demadrian, sounding frustrated. ‘It’s just so incredibly odd. I have broached the topic twice. Both times she became very angry.’
‘Not to sound rude,’ said Jenna, biting her lip. ‘Are you definitely sure you are dating just one girl?’
‘Her mannerisms are unmistakable,’ said Demadrian. ‘If I’m to meet her in public, I just approach whoever is wearing the biggest hat.’
‘That’s all very strange,’ said Jenna. ‘Anything else troubling you about her?’
‘This is more my fault than hers,’ said Demadrian as he looked down towards the ground.
‘Ohh, you gotta tell me,’ said Jenna excitedly. ‘You rarely admit wrongdoing, even though that is typically your thing.’
‘Okay, but you must promise not to tell anyone,’ said Demadrian firmly.
‘I pinky swear,’ said Jenna as she held out her pinky finger, pointing upward.
‘I do too,’ said the technician who overheard their early conversation in the tunnel. He had stealthily made his way to the edge of the pool without Jenna or Demadrian noticing.
Demadrian frowned sternly at the technician.
‘His name is Benny,’ said Jenna. ‘He’s very trustworthy. I’ve been working with him for six months.’
Benny nodded his head enthusiastically.
‘Okay, fine,’ said Demadrian. ‘I told her about the blue juice. I even gave her some.’
Both Jenna and Benny shook their heads disapprovingly.
‘Please don’t judge me,’ said Demadrian. ‘I really liked her. I thought if I raised her IQ, we would form a stronger bond. And we could invent together. The great inventor couple.’
‘Somehow that didn’t quite work out, did it?’ pressed Jenna.
‘She’s definitely smarter,’ said Demadrian. ‘She made some good contributions.’
‘But?’ interrupted Jenna.
‘She has become more aggressive and obsessive,’ sighed Demadrian.
‘Take her off the juice,’ said Jenna.
‘I wish I could, but I can’t,’ said Demadrian. ‘She would give me hell.’
‘Running away and hiding in tunnels isn’t going to solve your problem, Mr. Alset,’ said Benny firmly. ‘You need to be there for her. Show that you care and love her.’
Demadrian sat back up. He nodded. He pointed his finger at Benny, and then he nodded again.
‘You’re right,’ said Demadrian. ‘I need to fix my relationship. First thing tomorrow, we’re tunnelling our way to Carrington.’
Demadrian got off the ground and walked across the bridge into the city area.
‘Did I help him?’ asked Benny energetically as he turned towards Jenna.
‘Your observation was astute,’ said Jenna as she watched Demadrian walk away. ‘But offering advice might not be your thing.’
Sapien Loop: End of an Era
Sapien Loop: Frozen in Time is the sequel to the book Sapien Loop: End of an Era. Sapien Loop: End of an Era is available on Amazon, in collection series on my @spectrumecons account, and in individual chapters in my @captainhive account.
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