The End is Near

Chapter 27

18 July 2045 – Council of War – Banff

Shio thought it would be safe, but very unscientific, to say that his mind was blown. In one day he had gotten married, listened to visions of the future that were supposed to help them save the world and been handed a magickal sceptre. That was without going into what had happened in the four days before that.

He looked down at it in awe and wondered how she could have stood to let it out of her hands. He had no magickal talent, that he knew of, but felt warmth and a subtle vibration in the sceptre like it was alive. The Lord of the Rings fan in him wanted to plant the sceptre firmly in the ground and shout "You Shall Not Pass!" The scientist who had volunteered to solve a problem, and who had been warned not to break it, stood firm. But it was a close thing.

Laila shook her head at him, like she knew what he was thinking. Which she probably did, even without her psychic abilities.

He cleared his throat. "Hmmm...it would be nice if we had a table to work on." He glanced over at the one laden with food meaningfully.

The Seventh gestured and a table appeared in the middle of all of them. Shio took a quick step back and his legs hit the back of the sofa. "Well, alright then."

He laid the sceptre down on the table, which he noted in passing was made of a finely grained wood that shone.

"Is that the table from...?" Keira returned, munching on something crunchy. Now that she'd given over the sceptre, she looked relaxed. Just a normal teenager, snacking and watching the entertainment.

"Never mind about that. He has plenty...." The Seventh said, with a warning look that clearly said not to pursue that line of discussion.

Shio examined the top of the sceptre first. It did not seem to have been made to hold anything. The top of it was narrower than the base and gradually flattened before diverging into two. It looked a bit like a 'u'.

ʊ

"Do you have it?" he asked Mickael. Up to this point he had assumed that somehow Mickael knew what to bring and had brought it. He had not asked about his invention, partly because he did not want to see it and partly because he felt like it belonged to their cause and therefore to Mickael and Kiera.

Mickael pulled a small box out of his pocket at handed it over.

"Wow! No way he fit something into a pocket in that get-up!" Athena muttered. All eyes turned to her and she flushed red. "Sorry! Not having a very professional reaction here. Must be this warrior princess outfit. Or the wine. Definitely could be the wine before eating lunch. But how and when did you retrieve it?"

Shio noticed that Mickael's face turned a little red as he answered. "I pulled it from wherever they had it when we left. It's a lot simpler to move inanimate objects through space than it is to move animate ones. Plus this one was already attuned to Shio and Laila."

Shio opened the box and took out the device that had caused him sleepless nights and which was apparently going to help save the world. He put it down on the table, roughly in the centre of the space created in the "u".

Nothing happened.

"It really looks nothing like a crystal, does it?" Athena murmured, coming closer. They all crowded around the table. Even the Seventh.

The little device was shaped like a box, belying the complexity of its internal circuitry and its destiny in the universe. It sat there, unassumingly, in the space between the prongs of the sceptre and did absolutely nothing.

"I can't begin to think of how to connect it," Shio admitted, staring down at it.

"Wires of some sort?" Laila asked tentatively.