The boy stood, waiting for the portal to finish its activation sequence atop the industrial metal pyramid. On the other side of the dimensional plane were the ancient Aztec ruins of Teotihuacán, where he'd begin his trek towards the Sahara and intercept the rogue group of Aurrians. The alchemagist and soldier stepped up to him, but he raised his hand.
"You two stay here," he ordered.
"What? We're supposed to come with you," the soldier replied.
"No. You stand guard here. Make sure no one follows me. After a day, take the airship and return home."
The two turned to look at the small airship, docked on the empty plaza below. The chancellor was still inside, waiting for the signal to lift off.
"Delqua will not be pleased…" the alchemagist noted.
"I don't care much for politicians, especially that one. His feelings don't matter, nope. I'm a freelancer, and I can do whatever I please."
"But…"
The boy cut the soldier off and handed him his sun lamp, "Here, you'll be needing this, so you don't dissolve and stuff."
He dove through the open portal, and it then shut itself down. The soldier and alchemagist looked at one another and remained close to the sunlamp for protection from the amber haze surrounding them.
The boy found himself on top of the Earthen version of the pyramid, the sun beginning to set in the distance. He took a moment to get used to the new environment, and then darted down the steps, animal-like on all fours before anyone else showed up to bother him.
Garder awoke to the sound of Jeryn packing. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Milla and Lechi were already up as well, their suitcases at their sides and emptied styrofoam breakfast containers on the bed. Lechi was looking into the room's mirror and trying to brush her hair with one hand, as Xavier slept soundly nearby.
Garder raised his hand and quickly noticed the dripping icicles at his fingertips. He must have continued the attempts to summon ice while he slept—and it was finally beginning to work. He produced a small burst of energy, making the ice melt and evaporate into the air.
"Hurry up and get packed, Garder," Milla said as she adjusted her collar. "We've got a plane to catch."
"Mmm… the sun's barely up… just a few more minutes…"
"We're supposed to arrive at Gatwick at least three hours early. It's the busy season."
Garder mumbled something incoherent, flipped over, and started to fall asleep again.
"Get up, or I'll burn your eyelids off," Jeryn threatened.
"Okay, okay! Geez…" Garder sprang up and stretched.
Jeryn fastened his goggles and other equipment inside his suitcase near his old robes, closed it, and threw on his sunglasses.
"Are you sure we'll make it past security and everything?" Garder wondered. "We're kind of, you know, foreigners."
"I set up a bank account just fine," Milla replied. "We shouldn't have trouble getting on the plane with our passports."
"I dunno," Lechi said, "Garder looks pretty unstable."
Garder looked at himself in the mirror and flattened his hair. He then hurriedly tossed all of his things messily into his duffel bag, changed his shirt, and splashed some water on his face. He noticed the stubble on his chin—he'd have to shave more often while on Earth. The physical shift meant that the body would lose perfection and change far more quickly.
"See you, Xavier," Milla said as they left the room.
"Right. I'll keep in touch…" he mumbled before going back to sleep.
Garder filled himself up on the free breakfast in the lobby, while Milla and Jeryn were fine with just some coffee. They hopped onto the next shuttle out to Gatwick, further observing the other passengers along the way to try and absorb their general appearance, behavior, and how they spoke to adapt to the current trends.
The airport was packed with holiday vacationers, each trying to leave the country before the colder parts of winter came down on them. The four checked in after making the proper inquiries about their swords and headed towards their terminal to wait for their plane to arrive.
The twins both grabbed a paperback at a nearby store for the trip, each choosing one based mostly on its cover alone. Garder noticed three teenagers about his age, instantly summing up that they were "punks" just like he had been in his previous life. He then looked across at the pay-phone kiosks and let a thought pass through his mind.
"My mom would be sixty-two… My younger brother, twenty-eight, I think…" he murmured while he paid for his book.
"Hmm?" Milla replied.
"My previous family. I'm pretty sure that those would be their ages. I wonder what'd happen if I called them… They're all the way in Jersey."
"Garder, you couldn't do that. It'd be unfair to most everyone else in Aurra, and… well, you know, you were killed in a motorcycle accident eighteen years ago. You want to give your mother a heart attack?"
"Yeah, yeah…" he sighed. "I was just using them as an example. There's actually someone I wanted to kind of, you know, apologize to."
"Who'd that be?"
"N-never mind, Milla. You're right—the people we were before are gone. It'd be wrong to pretend otherwise."
"Hm. You're troubled. Not often that I've seen you like this."
"Forget it. Come on, we'd better get back to Jeryn and Lechi—it looks like she's bothering people."
The two rejoined their friends at the gate's waiting area. Lechi was standing up in her seat, chattering away with the elderly couple behind her.
"I'm sorry… is she pestering you?" Milla asked with a small smile.
"Oh, no, not at all, dear! Your daughter is really intelligent. You must be proud," the old woman with the cane smiled back.
"And next time you go to Singapore, you really have to go to this one restaurant…" Lechi told the woman's husband. "Ugh… what's its name?"
"Oh, well, she isn't actually my—"
"We're her foster parents, actually," Garder interrupted. "My wife here can't have children, and she just has her heart out for all those poor Chinese girls that get abandoned. We're going to get another one, soon."
Lechi and Milla both fell quiet and stared at Garder.
"Oh, my. That is such a compassionate thing to do."
"Yes, she's just a ball of fire, isn't she?"
Milla tugged heavily at Garder's shoulder. "Ha… Nice to meet you two. Come on… dear, let's return to our seats."
"What?" he whispered. "People are going to get suspicious if the lot of us are hauling around a little girl. So, we'll act as her really young parents while on Earth, and Jeryn can be the unemployed uncle figure."
"Garder…" Milla shook her head. "Do you take anything seriously?"
He snickered and patted Lechi on the head. She winced back and faked a smile.
"Yeah…" she mumbled. "You're just the greatest dad ever."
"Thanks. You should get me one of those mugs from a gift store."
An hour later, the British Airways 767 pulled into the terminal. The Aurrians were among the last to board, and Garder was dismayed that they got stuck in the middle seats, right in the center of the economy section.
"Don't complain," Milla said as she put her bag in the overhead bin. "It was the best I could do. We were lucky to get tickets this late."
"Yeah, but couldn't you have gotten us in business class, at least?"
"We need to be frugal—you know that. At least we're together."
"Yeah…" Garder moaned, noticing that Lechi had already taken one of the aisle seats. "Tell me we at least get food."
Milla took the right aisle seat, and Jeryn sat across from them in the other row and kept his bag under his seat. He had told everyone earlier that they had important things to go over before they arrived in Africa, and immediately began sorting through some papers.
"Lechi… wanna trade seats?" Garder mumbled from the middle as the plane started pushing back from the gate.
"Yeah, right."
"Oh, come on. You're a kid—you naturally have extra room. I hate being squeezed between two people."
"Forget it. Jeryn takes up much more space than your puny body does, and he looks just fine over there."
Garder scowled and fumbled about with the small television on the seat in front of him.
After being stuck on the ground for another half hour, the large plane finally took to the air. Everyone had soon ordered a midday meal, and Lechi acquired a pair of headphones so she could listen to the built-in TV.
Once everyone was settled and the cabin's atmosphere calmed a bit, Jeryn pulled out a manilla envelope and took out several items of paper, photographs, and maps before leaning over and clearing his throat.
"Right, I think we should discuss what we know about City C and just what this mission might involve. Lechi, can you hear me?"
"Yeah—sound's really low."
The twins scooted in closer to look at the small packet of information Jeryn had brought with him.
"So, obviously, City C is very high up in the Aurrian tier system. It won its title back in 1900 during the last bicentennial re-ranking ceremony. It bumped the former holder, the old capital, down to F, and rose from G itself—quite the leap. Ranks are based on a variety of things, but the three major categories are transferring efficiency, functionality, and aesthetics. C isn't much to look at; it's little more than a compacted, utilitarian megapolis with over fifty million inhabitants, making it the second largest City."
"Mm… City J is the most populated, I believe," Garder replied.
"Yes, at seventy million. But City C is ace when it comes to the other two categories. It's high-tech and has over 5,000 transfers a day. As Garder said, C is where most people who are just below saintly go to from Earth. Those who have saved lives, given much of what they earned to those in need… And yet, it's also a City of vice, and a lot of those people screw it up in Aurra, get downgraded, and have to work themselves up once more. Still, for it to be cut off and no longer taking transfers at all… It could soon be disastrous for Aurra and cause major snarls in Hold."
"Well, that's all the important stuff, but do you know anything else?" Garder asked. "Maybe about its past? Rumors of any kind?"
"The place has always been scientifically advanced. From what I've heard—or remember hearing, at least—its science wing has conducted bioengineering experiments for a long time. But it's all top secret, and its entire research sector is controlled solely by the upper echelons of the Guard. It's only a matter of time before some council-appointed scouting brigade is sent out there to investigate, but it's never a good idea to try and navigate the southern wastes. It's just about the worst place in Aurra, even though the City itself is in an expansive oasis."
"Bioengineering? Kind of an odd thing to be doing on Aurra, don't you think? What good would it do trying to send some sort of living weapon out in the haze?"
"He has a good point," Milla replied.
"Yes, but what if you could create organic matter that could survive the haze?" Jeryn continued. "We're far too accepting of Aurra's condition because we know that the system has worked for thousands of years. It's okay that its environment destroys organic matter, because we have the artificial suns. And everything works as it should; we have little fear of death on Aurra. Technology and science have always played second place to things like tolerance, philosophy, and acquisition of wisdom. But imagine if science could do something those couldn't, like change Aurra forever. To live outside the Cities and without judgment that decides where you live."
"So, you think they were trying to make organic material that could survive in the haze?" Garder questioned.
"And that maybe they discovered something they had to hide, or suffered a cataclysm of some sort?" Milla added.
Jeryn raised his sunglasses. "Everything is only theory for now."
"What kind of place is C, anyway, outside of just being urban?"
"Well, Garder, it has no cultural 'theme,' maybe because its lofty position demands impartiality. It leans a bit towards a pseudo-Chinese-American atmosphere, but it's really just a completely mixed place. It's one of the original nine Cities, as well, so it's ancient, built on layers."
"And City A is supposed to 'transcend time,'" Garder said passively.
"Yeah, and it's the 'center of the universe,' too," Milla added. "What would be your best guess about what's happened there, Jeryn?"
"My theory is as good as yours. I think they made something they had to keep a secret, or that it instead partially destroyed them first."
"So, if nothing is apparent right away when we get there, I guess we should just try and question people?"
"Yes. But we should hide the fact that a member of the Guard sent us, at least on the outset. They may not want the Guard about right now."
"What if their portal isn't even functioning?"
"Then there's nothing we can really do from this world. We'll just have to return home."
"The Guard will keep trying to get in no matter what. If they were trying to keep them out, they would've already shut down their portal."
"Perhaps, but we still have to follow orders as much as possible."
"If the portal is still open, then…" Garder thought, "then maybe Rivia had some contact with City C beforehand…"
"I've wondered that myself. But until we get to the portal ourselves, there's no way of telling which way this assignment will go."
With nothing further to discuss, Jeryn put the papers and photos away and returned to his oversized book. Milla soon began reading, as well, but Garder found himself to anxious to concentrate on his novel. He noticed that Lechi had fallen asleep with her headphones on. He took a breath, carefully removed them, and plugged them into his own audio jack.
He went through every available channel several times before stopping on something possibly interesting. It was some kind of bizarre science show, and it looked like it featured stories about urban legends and unknown phenomenon. Having some fascination for such things in his previous life, he settled in and turned the volume up.
The current segment was showing images of a twirling, serpent-like object high up in the air against a bright blue sky, along with eyewitnesses that gave their accounts of the mysterious occurrence.
"First spotted nearly a year ago, this unidentified flying object has been sighted across the globe. What sets this particular UFO apart from others, is that it has been seen all over the world with the same description: a flowing snake-like creature, flying at a very high altitude. Once it goes into a cloud, it isn't seen again—until it shows up perhaps just days later.
"Sightings have been reported in India, America, Australia, and across Europe and Brazil. It has had the most sightings in North Africa. Because of its worldwide appearance, it is highly unlikely that any military could be involved, and thus far, no one has any explanations."
Upon hearing something about North Africa, Garder listened more intently and thought about telling Jeryn—but he seemed to be too buried in his book to be bothered.
"Now, for the first time, we have actual video evidence of this mysterious flying leviathan that has been making weird science news headlines across the world. Just two days ago, it was caught by amateur photographers in the skies above Osaka, Japan."
The screen switched over to video feed of what must've been a Japanese student film project. Four people were talking into the camera with the city's business district behind them, when suddenly one of them noticed something in the sky and pointed up towards it. A few seconds later, they were commenting on it and the person holding the camera was zooming in and trying to follow the fast-moving being. Several others from the street soon joined in, but Garder couldn't tell what everyone was saying with the subtitles being so small on his screen.
The video lasted for about a minute before the being darted behind some gray rain clouds. The camera scanned the clouds for a few more seconds, but the snake creature didn't come out again. Shortly after, the video replayed, but this time with a narrator voiceover.
"As of yet, no one has been able to see this sky serpent up close, and no government officials have come forward with any statements. Certainly, this is a mystery that will haunt and intrigue a generation. Coming up, an update on the ghost horse that has been roaming Paris streets…"
His interest always piqued by UFO tales, Garder found the story quite interesting, but decided that no one else would really appreciate it as he had. Not caring for something about a ghost horse, he flipped through the channels again until Lechi began to stir—at which point he put the headphones back into her lap to avoid any possible ire.
After a brief spot of turbulence, the large aircraft landed at its destination just some fifteen minutes behind schedule. They disembarked, passed through customs, and grabbed their checked baggage.
Once they were outside under the warm Mediterranean sun, Garder soon found himself gazing up in the blue sky to keep on the lookout for the mysterious "sky snake" himself. He was no stranger to being a believer in the paranormal, but this time, something whispered in the back of his mind: somehow, this particular mystery had a connection with City C.