Re-probus: A Story of Ferals.

Chapter 2: The Coming Storm

A few months before that day…

Light streamed from a lone desk lamp onto a pile of half-finished homework on one side of the table, and a stack of documents of all the artifacts for the Westfair exhibit compiled on a folder on the other side. Marie dropped her head onto the middle of the table and let out a long groan. Every one of them had to be finished in half a week's time. She took the small picture frame of her stepfather at the corner of her table. "Why the heck did you let me deal with this mess?"

The past few weeks had been nothing short of chaos for Marie, in between juggling chemistry classes at college, acting as a substitute history teacher at Westfair High, and managing the exhibit her stepfather, Professor Aspen, had left halfway finished to answer a call from a colleague examining the Temple of Fulmina out in the Suurmi Badlands. He left the country with her sister, Amber, leaving her to manage everything else.

"Yes, I'll definitely be okay!" she said. "Yes, I can do it all just fine!" she insisted. "Uugh, why did I say yes?" she moaned. Then again, she was never the type to say no when asked politely. She knew that she shouldn't, but she felt guilty every time she tried to.

She pushed herself off the table and resolved to finish her assignment by tonight when her cell phone began to ring. She took the call. "Hey Marie, it's Amber, how are you holding up?"

"Splendidly!" It was anything but. "How about you? Are you doing alright?"

"Same old, same old. Some of the Therans still don't approve us treading on their sacred ground even though we've already made a deal with their elders. Seriously, there's no pleasing these people. Dad says hi by the way."

"Mhm, so what did you call me for?"

"Switch to video call, we gotta show you something." Marie quickly brushed her hair before pressing the small videocam button. On the other side of the screen was a dizzying maze of shelves filled with a variety of crystals, each of which are stored in small glass cups that would normally be seen holding candles. Amber brought the phone closer to the shelves to give Marie a better look, and each colored crystal polished seemed to move and flicker with images of the lives and memories of ancient Therans.

An old man with a scruffy, graying beard and wearing a button-down vest showed up on the screen. "Hello my darling, it's good to see you."

"Good to see you too dad, what are these things?"

"They're the recorded memories of people from before the Dissonance! Crystallized and preserved for record keeping. We have found the temple's memory archives! Marie, do you know what this means?"

"I'm guessing you're saying if we're able to extract these memories somehow, we'll be able to understand the lives of those who lived in that time, along with the events that led to the Dissonance."

"Exactly! With these aetherlite crystals we are able to shed some light into our world!"

"Don't you mean, 'We'll be rebuilding history!!'" Amber asked in a haughty voice, stretching out her hand as if gripping the air. A small black-feathered Korven passed into the frame, looked up at Amber and shook her head before waddling away.

"Well, of course," the professor said, adjusting his glasses. "But let the old man make the dramatic gestures, please?"

"This is wonderful!" Marie replied. "The other temples didn't seem to have such an extensive collection like this."

"Ah, that's because the Temple is dedicated to Fulmina the Herald--goddess of curiosity, communication, delivery, and in some sects, retribution. Like all other temples, they intended to portray their deity through the functions and services they provide. The temple is situated in the middle of what was a gigantic crater that had been entirely smoothed out. At first we thought it would some sort of amphitheater, but then we realized the whole structure was part of the temple itself."

"In other words, the crater was a receiving dish, and the temple acted as a giant antenna," Amber chimed. "Especially when you consider how the temple's Mothercrystal juts out from the temple like one."

"Yes, now we don't know why the need for such a large structure, but what we do know is that they have also served as a sort of center of communication and information, relaying information across the planet while simultaneously keeping an archive of the then-current events. But now, we have an opportunity to understand the histories and the cultures of these people! This is groundbreaking research! Oh, I have to show one of these to you."

The professor was about to reach for a crystal when Marie yelped. "Wait, don't touch that!"

"Hm? Why do you suppose should I not?" The professor gave Marie such a coy smile that she felt as if she was studying in his class this time.

"W-well, they're aetherlite! Shouldn't you know what it can do to you if you're exposed to that?"

The professor chuckled. "Don't you still carry with you your mother's locket around?"

She produced the small locket hanging on her neck. Silver and tear-shaped, it had an intricate pattern of water lilies surrounding it and a brilliant blue gem inlaid in the center. "I've always kept it with me."

"That gem in the locket is also made out of aetherlite."

Marie cupped her hands over her mouth when she realized what that meant. Both Amber and the professor laughed.

"Relax, Marie," Amber said. "You won't get turned into some Feral unless you've been exposed to excessive amounts of it."

"And aetherlite are supposed to be inert forms of aether. It shouldn't affect you unless it's crushed into fine powder or sublimated through conducting more aether than it can handle," the professor added. "So my dear, am I in the clear?"

Marie rolled her eyes, but she was smiling nonetheless. "Alright, Dad. You may."

The professor bowed and took a violet block of crystal from the middle shelf. He urged Amber to come forwards. They made their way forwards to what looked like a screen and some sort of console. He placed the crystal on a small platform on the console, and pressed a few of the symbols on it. The platform began to glow and flicker. The screen began flashing several images of what seemed to be some kind of gathering interspersed with broken audio. The machine began to shudder, then it shut itself down immediately. Professor Aspen took the crystal and sighed. "Well, we'll eventually find a way to make it work... somehow."

"It's still good progress though!" Amber said.

"So, what are you going to do with those crystals?" Marie asked.

"We'll try to get this thing up and running," Amber said, facing the phone. "We've already asked around for a way to fix it, hopefully we'll get it running by tomorrow, otherwise we'll have to take a few samples back to Westfair for analysis."

"Alright, I'll be waiting for them!"

"Make sure you do!"

"Oh, Marie, there's one other thing--how's the exhibit coming along?" the professor asked. "Are you doing alright working on it on your own?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. The showpieces are set, the documentation's ready, I've written the opening script and," she paused. "Do you think I missed anything?"

"Have you prepared food for the guests?"

"Wait, we're supposed to prepare food for guests?"

"Of course! It wouldn't be proper at all if we don't entertain our guests on the opening."

Alarm bells rang in Marie's mind, she took out her laptop and typed furiously for the nearest catering service in Westfair. She clicked the first link she found and listed every order she wanted on a separate file. "Ah, I guess you're working on it right now?"

"Y-yeah! I'm sorry I have to drop the call, goodbye Dad, be safe!"

He waved to her. "Goodbye darling, you too."

"Don't be a stranger!" Amber added. "Really, you've been so busy we never hear anything from you."

"I promise I'll call back, see you!" With that, Marie closed her phone and let her head fall on the keyboard. She was way too tired for this.

She picked herself back up and took a good look at the site she entered. "…the Starry Plough Bistro? That's just along the corner of Ganymede and Callisto." She had never been there before, but she heard that it was quite a popular restaurant for the students.

She browsed the menu filled with enticing images of food so beautiful it suddenly made her stomach growl in envy. After boiling some instant noodles and finished listing her orders, she picked up the phone and called the number. "Hello, is this the Starry Plough Bistro?"

---

"…So that covers your lesson on the ancient Theran civilizations before the Dissonance." Marie told her first period class. "Now, before you leave for your next class, Professor Aspen asked me to give you a homework to be due this Monday." The whole class groaned and Marie had to shush the entire room.

"Wait, before you start complaining." She took out a plastic box filled with tickets. "Part one of your assignment is to attend the exhibit at the Westfair Archaeological Museum this coming Saturday." She handed the tickets to each of the students who then passed it backwards to the next one in line. The student on the last row, a lone Feral wearing a cloth muzzle was about to get his ticket when the boy in front snatched it before he even got the chance to lift his hand.

"Marcus, give the ticket to Keith," she ordered. Marcus glared at her before slamming the ticket on Keith's desk, leaving it crumpled. Some students whispered how much of a "teacher's pet" Keith was and started howling like dogs, but Keith tried not to pay it much mind. Marie had to shush the rowdy teens before they do something worse.

After the class had become quiet enough to be heard, Marie continued. "Good, now after visiting the exhibit, I want you to each present a report discussing one of the displays. At least one thousand words. Again, on Monday." The bell rang. And by ones and twos, the students left the room. "Class dismissed."

"Keith can I talk to you for a moment?"

Keith made his way to her. "Is there something wrong, Ms. Willow?" his voice was barely audible with the muzzle on his snout. At closer inspection, the fabric seemed tightly wound around it, just barely giving him enough space to slightly open his mouth.

"No, not really." She organized her papers, and snapped the lid of the plastic box shut. "Tell me, are you often being bullied by those kids?"

"Yeah, but so do a lot of other people." Keith readjusted the straps on his muzzle, as if he's done it a million times. "I'm used to it."

Marie decided it might be for the best to switch topics. "So, your mom owns the Starry Plow Bistro, right?"

Keith blinked. "Yeah... uh, did you want to order something?"

"Well actually, I already asked if she could cater for the exhibit. I've heard that she was the former head of the science department, and she's a big inspiration to me, and I wanted to meet her, so--" she opened the box and handed Keith three more tickets. "I want you to have these tickets. Tell your family that they're welcome to look around the exhibit for free."

Keith took the tickets and gingerly placed them in the front pocket of his messenger bag. "Um, thank you?"

"No problem!" They waved each other goodbye before heading to their respective classes. She thought about the cloth muzzle that Keith wore to school, it seemed quite uncomfortable. Yet if she recalled correctly, that was the compromise given by the school in exchange for letting him study here. She recalled similar measures were given to the Therans that studied here a few decades back before it had been lifted due to protests against it. Considering Keith seemed to be one of the very few Ferals allowed to study within the campus. She doubted that same mercy might be given to them.

After spending much of the morning teaching and the rest of the day on her studies, Marie rushed to the museum to meet with the curator, Mrs. Han, to coordinate on how to present each of the displays as well as to prepare for the opening ceremonies. But before Marie could practice her speech, Mrs. Han had called her over to her office. Two packages had arrived in the museum's mail that was for Marie.

"It's from Professor Aspen," said Mrs. Han, the old lady struggled to lift a pair of boxes plastered with stickers labeled fragile. Marie helped her bring them on top of the table. They opened the packages and underneath the mess of shredded newspapers and packing peanuts were a number of crystals--the same ones that were from the Temple of Fulmina. "I suppose those are the memory crystals the professor spoke of frequently?"

"Yeah…" she picked up one of the crystals. This one had a surface shaped like the dome of a crystal ball. She peered into the dome and could see faint shapes dancing inside. "I wonder why they would send these here?"

"Perhaps they wish to have them analyzed. It would certainly be easier to do it here than in that dry desert."

Marie wondered if that was really the case. Didn't the professor say that he would have them viewed with the Temple's console before sending them over? Why the sudden change of mind?

Unfortunately, when she called Amber's number that night, the line had gone dead. So too for the camp. She even tried calling the professor's number even though he forgot to carry it more often than not. But there wasn't even a tone at the end of the line. She looked through her network account but the last post from them was from Amber when she had taken a picture next to a couple of crow-like Korven Therans while they all stuck their tongues out at the camera.

"No, you're probably just overthinking this," Marie assured herself. "It's already quite late in the night where they are. So they're just asleep." She could only hope it were true. Just to make sure, Marie took out her phone and sent a text message to Amber.

"Please call me when you wake up."

She took out her mother's locket and brushed her fingers over its grooved cold surface. She held it up to the light of her lamp and gazed at the jewel's shine. The way the light would dance reminded her of a clear spring or the ripples cast by a stone on a calm pool. It calmed her to gaze into it when she felt lost and troubled.

Though she never truly met her parents, only hearing about the from the stories her stepparents would tell her, she still felt like a piece of them was preserved in it. They helped to soothe her troubles away, leaving her alone with thoughts of other things.

A thought flashed in her mind. She had recalled one of the things the professor would tell her on his studies. That aetherlite crystals have a strange quirk of being able to hold memories due to the very thing they're made of, even though Marie doubted that the substance can truly hold such things.

He also told her that her mother wore the locket on her as well. If she could somehow harness the crystal in some way, would it mean that she could find a way to will a memory of her mother from it? She had to find a way.

Her phone began to ring, it was Amber. She quickly picked it up. "Amber! I've been trying to contact you, what's going on?"

"…Marie," came Amber's voice. "The Alopex group demands for the return of the memory crystals that have been stolen from the sacred temple of Fulmina the Herald," her voice quivered as she was made to read the lines given to her. "We also demand for the Westfair exhibit to be cancelled, and for all artifacts to be returned, including the crystals sent that morning. F-Failure to comply before the exhibit's opening…" Amber began to choke on her words when a gunshot rang in the background. "Failure to comply would result in those involved in Suurmi expedition to be executed… sacrificed to the goddess."

Another voice, one deep and rumbling, took the phone. "Do not tell anyone. We have eyes everywhere. You have two days left. Decide."

"Wait!" Marie cried. "I'll comply… just don't kill them." But the call had hung up.