Atelo [MXM] [BOOK 1] ✓

CHAPTER 45: ORIGINS

Getting out of the castle isn't any sort of problem, especially with Charlene's help. Rose arrives at her car not too long after Nero and Marley get there, and actually drives them back to the motel without complaint. They leave the guard uniforms with her (not before Marley relocates his Nero papers) and Marley makes sure to thank her many times.

Marley had made a point to grab his lap top and a few of his things from his room, mostly stuff that will aid in his new mission. Putting together a case. The last thing he wants is for people to not believe him on this. He needs to be careful with it all. No cheating. He has to be all in.

Nero and Marley haven't told the others what they know, and Marley has no intention of doing so anytime soon. As much as he hates to say it, he doesn't know these people very well. At least, not well enough to tell them such a massive government secret.

He's going to keep this under wraps for a while, and he's pretty sure that Nero agrees. Maybe they'll tell Eli at some point in the near future, but that's a big maybe.

When they all got back to the motel, Marley told them that they'd talk in the morning. Sure, maybe he's stalling, but he'd like to get started on this while the whole thing is fresh in his mind.

They reluctantly agreed, thank god, and Marley's pretty sure it's because they're all pretty tired from the adrenaline of today. Fine by Marley, of course.

Now the prince is in his room, sitting on his bed and plugging the flash drive into the USB port on his lap top. Nero is back to playing with Drey. It appears that they're deep in some sort of space-themed plot, since one of the dolls is wearing an astronaut suit.

A dialogue box pops up on the screen, and Marley uses the touch pad to click on the open folder button.

There are several files lined up, and Marley's happy that he was able to access them so easily. However, he doesn't think that he should go through them just yet. He feels as though, if he's going to put all this together, he should do it in order. He should start from the beginning.

Marley leaves the folder and goes to the internet. He types, Westhem history, and presses the little magnifying glass icon beside the search bar. Immediately, thousands of results come up. The one at the very top is an encyclopedia website, and Marley decides that's his best bet. He clicks the link, and finds several paragraphs on the screen. There is a map of the Westhem on the left side of the screen, but the rest is just text. Marley decides to read it.

The Westhem, name derived from location: Western Hemisphere, is a kingdom located on the continents North America and South America. It was formed after the war of Abnormal, which caused so many casualties that the remaining one billion people decided to combine under a monarchy, placing General Samuel Nocona in the position: King of the Westhem.

This is all not new information, and Marley realizes that he already knows most of the stuff on this page. It hits him, then, that this isn't the beginning. No. This isn't where it all started.

He needs to dive into abnormal history.

Abnormal history is something not taught in schools. Marley has never seeked it out, either, so he knows next to nothing about the topic. He knows that people got superpowers, abused said powers, and caused a catastrophically destructive war. That's it. No details.

1-A educated him on abnormalities, but not the history behind them. He realizes it now.

Suddenly, Marley finds his interest piqued. How has he never thought about this before? Hell, he barely knows the basics about this, and he finds himself wanting to find out more. He actually wants to learn this.