Eli’s heart sank at the sound of the Sentinel’s grim news. How did this happen? There’s no way… Rachel collapsed to her knees and buried her face in her hands. Victor simply stared at the ground, while Jack approached the body and knelt down beside it.
“Rest in peace, son,” he whispered. “You fought well.”
“He seems to have been dead for a little while now,” reported the female newcomer.
“There was nothing we could do,” added the other with a tinge of regret.
A gust of wind was sent whining across the plain, and Gerald’s body began to fade. It gradually grew more and more transparent until eventually, it could no longer be seen. He must’ve gone to the Void, never to return. I can’t believe this.
“I understand how hard this might be for you,” Phillip quickly piped up. “but we really need to move along. More of us will die if we stick around and let that Outlaw return with reinforcements.”
“Indeed,” said the female. “We need to hurry up and find the Saint. She could be anywhere, and I’m guessing we’ve lost several Sentinels during battles with Outlaws, meaning we have fewer eyes to search with.”
Jack rose from where Gerald’s body had been moments before and smiled coolly.
“That won’t be necessary,” Jack pointed out. “We have already found the Saint.”
“What?” Philip shouted in surprise. “Then why in the Devil are we still here? You should have notified the Judge so we could leave this barren rock through a soul-gate. What’s gotten into your head, mate?”
“Trust me – we’ve tried that,” Jack explained. “The Judge has been assassinated by Outlaws, therein preventing us from returning by any normal means.”
Philip’s eyes widened with shock.
“You’re kidding! So this was all one well-coordinated assault by the Outlaws? Where is the kid then?”
“We have her in a secure location,” Jack answered. “We had actually set out in search of you. Since we cannot contact the Judge, I figured we could attempt to open a soul-gate on our own, using a soul-key.” He reached into his pocket and revealed the gleaming crescent he had shown the others in the cabin: one half of a soul key. “I’ve got one half – I was hoping you
might happen to have another; you are the only one I could think of who would have been a Sentinel long enough. So, do you have the piece?”
Phillip smiled, then closed his eyes. He began to chuckle, shaking his head.
“I can’t believe you would devise a plan like this on such a wild guess. You honestly believed I would have the piece?”
“Well?” Jack prompted. “Do you, or do you not?”
All looked at Philip expectantly.
“You’re lucky - I have it,” Philip answered at last. “It isn’t with me now, though. I left it in the hands of our other teammate, who is currently north of here.”
Eli breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of the news. Perfect. So our mission is not in vain. We have hope.
“How far away is your crewmember?” asked Jack.
“Not too far,” Philip responded. “We left him back at the area we were assigned to explore – it’s a densely populated urban settlement. It won’t take very long to reach if we fly.
But…”
“But what?” Jack demanded.
“We’ll be safer if we go my way,” Philip explained. “I can still sense Outlaws nearby –
it’ll be best to go undetected.”
“You can just detect the presence of Outlaws?” Eli inquired. “How do you do that?”
“Oh, believe me, boy,” Philip said in his rough voice, reaching for the front pocket of his overalls. “There’s a lot I’ve learned in my years, and one thing I know for certain is that it ain’t good to hang around in the open when you know enemies are around. It’s time to get going – we can all get better acquainted once we’re inside.”
He retrieved a black, baseball-sized cube from his pocket and tossed it into the air; it expanded exponentially, growing to the size of a tiny cottage. As it remained suspended in the air, Eli, Victor, and Rachel gaped in awe.
Jack simply chuckled.
“Well, what do you know…” he mused. “I’ve never even seen one of these before, although I have heard about them.”
A circular hole appeared in the bottom of the floating cube, and it projected a beam of white light onto the ground.
“Yup, it’s a transport cube,” Philip explained. “They were used long ago to help Sentinels traverse long distances without being caught by Outlaws. Fortunately, one of my old friends had served long enough as a Sentinel to still possess one when I became a Sentinel, and he bestowed it unto me after I first escaped the Maw.”
“You mean we’re supposed to go inside that thing?” Rachel asked, still seeming very shaken by Gerald’s death.
“Oh yes,” Philip responded enthusiastically. “It’s a lot more spacious than it looks. You enter it by standing beneath that hole at the bottom, within the beam of light it produces. Once we’re inside, it will take us to wherever it was used last, which is the place where our associate his. However, it seems we may have a capacity issue.”
Jack looked around at the six other Sentinels who had gathered together.
“That’s right,” he noted. “I recall hearing that these cubes can only allow a moderate number of Sentinels to enter at a given time.”
“Bingo,” Philip confirmed. “This puppy can only hold six Sentinels at once; as soon as the sixth one enters, that light will disappear, and the hole will close up. We’ll actually only be able to take five with us, since we need to save a spot for our friend when we pick him up. That means we will have to leave two behind for now…”
“That doesn’t seem necessary,” Jack reasoned. “We can just have the other two fly with us. You said our destination isn’t far off.”
Philip made a series of clicking noises with his tongue, shaking his head again.
“That would defeat the entire purpose, Jack,” he pointed out. “We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves and have a gaggle of Outlaws on our hands. I’d say whoever stays behind should make their way to the place where we’ll open the soul-gate. I think we should be able to have it ready by noon, assuming the place where the Saint is isn’t terribly far away.”
“So who will stay behind?” Eli questioned, looking around at the other Sentinels.
“I’d be willing to,” volunteered the long-haired Sentinel.
“Ah, Jacob,” Philip responded. “That’s good, but you’ll have to go with someone from Jack’s group to guide you.”
“I’ll go as well,” Victor announced. “We’ll try to lay low, which may slow our journey, but we should still arrive by noon tomorrow easily.”
“Very well,” Philip said briskly. “Then the rest of us will be off – be sure to stay safe.”
With that, the female Sentinel leaped into path of the light emanating from the cube; her form seemed to become liquefied, and she was drawn into the cube. That reminds me of when I first tried to transition through a solid substance in Johnson. Rachel approached the beam of light and paused in front of it, hesitant. Eli could see that her eyes were wet with tears. Gerald’s death completely devastated her. Nobody expected it, and I guess we all feel as if there’s something we could have done to prevent it.
“Go ahead,” Jack encouraged Rachel. “It might feel a little funny, but it won’t hurt.”
Rachel nodded and proceeded to step into the beam of light to become drawn into the cube; Jack followed her immediately. Eli approached the light next.
“Go on,” Philip encouraged. “It’s nice inside – just see for yourself.”
Trusting the old Sentinel’s words, Eli stepped into the beam of light and felt his body being jerked vigorously upwards. He was propelled through the hole in the cube and thrust into the space beyond. While in mid-air, he noticed he had entered a room with white walls and a white ceiling. It’s just like the passage Jack and I travelled through to reach the Chamber of the Judge.
He fell to the floor beside the hole in the cube, which closed again after Philip had entered. Eli was amazed as to how large the room was: The ceiling was about seven meters high, and the square floor was easily ten meters across. There was a row of cushioned seats lining one of the walls, where the female Sentinel was now settling.
“I told you there was plenty of room in here,” Philip stated proudly. “There’s more than one room in here too – it isn’t anything like how it appears from the outside.”
Eli became unbalanced and teetered about as the floor seemed to move beneath him.
“And we’re off,” Philip announced. “We won’t be able to travel quite as fast as we would if we were flying, but we’ll still be arriving there shortly.” As Eli regained his balance, Jack and Philip sat down by the wall. “Come sit down, young ones,” Philip invited. “There’s no reason to be standing around.”
Eli quickly snatched a seat beside Jack, and Rachel sluggishly walked over to sit on the other side of Eli.
“I guess I never properly introduced myself,” began Philip. “My name is Philip, an old friend of Jack’s. The two of us go way back. In fact, we’re probably two of the oldest Sentinels around.”
Jack laughed.
“Yeah, when you get to be Sentinels for as long as we have, you usually end up in Paradise. What’s taking us so long?”
Philip chuckled along with Jack, gesturing to his female cohort.
“And this is Ruby. She and I had actually known each other fairly well prior to this whole fiasco. Before the Judge sent us all on this new mission, we would often patrol together and share stories about our past lives. Our other groupmate is Jacob - we just met the fellow yesterday, so we don’t know much about him.”
Eli noticed that there was a smooth wooden door built into the wall opposite the Sentinels; the illustration featured on it was similar to those in the soul-gate he had been through yesterday. It depicted a heavily armored Angel staring down upon a vast globe, and there was a small group of people standing on the globe’s surface. The angel also seemed to be holding a marionette, with strings attached to the people below. What a strange image…
“This is a bit off-topic,” Eli broke in, pointing to the picture on the door. “but what does that illustration mean?”
Philip followed his pointed finger to the door and shrugged.
“I’d be bluffing if I said I knew,” he admitted. “This transport cube is extremely old, meaning that illustration could essentially be ancient. I’ve seen a lot of angelic artwork in my day, but nothing like that one – what it means is anyone’s guess.”
“I think I’ve actually seen a similar depiction in a soul-gate I used to frequent,” Ruby added. “For some reason, it was removed by the Angels, though they didn’t touch any of the other pictures.”
“You don’t say…” Philip responded. “That’s pretty weird. I can’t believe Angels would ever concern themselves with such a trivial matter.”
Eli continued to stare at the image. It’s so bizarre.
“Won’t Outlaws still be able to attack us like this?” Rachel asked nervously. “A large, floating cube should be easy to locate, even in the night.”
“No way,” Philip answered. “This cube uses the Void as a medium to travel through, very much like soul-gates do. In other words, the Outlaws cannot actually see us – no one in the Living World can.”
“If that’s so, then why can’t we just use it to head to the Chamber of the Judge?” Rachel inquired.
“The cube doesn’t quite work like that,” Philip explained. “It can only allow us to travel to locations along the Earth’s surface; we can’t go very far beneath, so we’d never make it to the chamber. We need a more potent soul-gate for that.”
“Hmmm…” Jack pondered, scratching his chin. “The Outlaws managed to infiltrate the Chamber of the Judge – that means they might have found a way to bypass the Void. If they can do that, then surely breaching this vehicle would be a simple task? I don’t think we are actually safe here.”
“You misunderstand,” Philip told him. “It doesn’t matter if the Outlaws have the capabilities to access the cube: Their issue is locating it. While the chamber is a well-known location amongst Sentinels, which the Outlaws could have discovered easily, they probably don’t know about the cube. Chances that we’ll get attacked are slim-to-none, so don’t worry.”
Eli was rocked sideways in his seat as the vehicle began to gain speed.
“Ah, here we go,” Philip observed. “It seems we’re picking up the pace. We’ll be there before you know it.”
“Is it okay if I look around this place while we wait?” Jack requested. “I’ve never been in one of these things before, and I’m pretty curious to see what the layout is like.”
“Go ahead,” Philip answered. “Ruby, why don’t you show him around?”
Ruby stood and walked toward the wooden door.
“Very well,” she said. “Come along, Jack. There are more rooms beyond this door.”
Jack followed her merrily, proceeding through the door with Ruby.
“Don’t you two want to go?” Philip prompted with a look toward Eli and Rachel.
Eli noticed that Rachel appeared to be a bit dazed and listless; she simply stared at the floor with a blank expression. She’s still not managing well. It’s not really surprising, since she was the one who had to watch him die.
After seeing Rachel’s forlorn demeanor, Philip turned to Eli.
“Maybe I can just show you a few things,” he whispered. “Come with me.” He lifted the seat that Jack had occupied moments earlier and leaned it against the wall, revealing a cavity in the floor. Philip hopped straight into the opening. “Jump right on down,” he said from below.
“It’s a short drop.”
Eli peered down into the hole and saw nothing but darkness. Nonetheless, he descended downward, and his feet immediately collided with solid ground. He heard a creaking sound behind him, and dim lights above were activated, casting a purplish glow into the space he now resided in.
“Check this place out,” said Philip, who was standing by a large power switch behind Eli.
“It’s like a storage chamber. We keep all sorts of things in here – I’m not even sure what all of them do.”
In the light, Eli could see that a tunnel lay before him, with shelves lining both walls.
There were several different objects packed on the shelves: blades, cannisters, firearms, tools, pieces of armor, and irregular objects that Eli could not identify. Philip began to proceed through the tunnel.
“This place was probably very important back when Sentinels were commonly attacked by Outlaws. It stores a wide variety of tools and weapons; there’s something here for just about everything.”
Eli followed Philip slowly, thinking about Gerald’s death.
“But no medical supplies, huh?”
“Well,” said Philip, rummaging through a pile of tools on one of the shelves. “There is a remainder of a medical kit in here, but it’s just an empty case. Everything is used up.”
Eli paused to inspect a row of cannisters on his right; a couple of them looked like the mystical shroud Victor had used.
“So, your name is Eli, right?” asked Philip.
“Yes, that’s right,” Eli responded as he continued to move along.
“I see,” Philip muttered. “Jack has told me so much about you.”
Eli stopped in confusion.
“What? When did he do that? We just met you.”
“No,” Philip laughed. “Jack and I have known each other for quite some time, remember? He used to tell me all about you when we worked with each other as Sentinels.”
Eli stared at Philip in confusion.
“You must be mistaken,” Eli explained. “Jack and I just became acquainted recently. He hasn’t known me for very long – I just barely became a Sentinel.”
“You sure about that?” Philip pressed. The older Sentinel looked up thoughtfully. “Meh, maybe I am mistaken. No matter – what I really want to show you is up ahead.”
Philip pressed on towards the end of the tunnel, and Eli followed. That was odd.
At the tunnel’s end, Eli thought he could make out a workbench, with rows of vials enclosed in glass containers hanging above it. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the vials contained a dark fluid.
“Here it is,” Philip announced. “Perhaps the most interesting thing on this cube. Not many Sentinels know about these.”
Eli stopped in front of the workbench, and he almost believed he detected movement in some of the vials.
“What is that liquid?” he asked curiously.
“That’s what’s so interesting,” Philip replied in an awe-struck tone. “There’s an old legend that says the Angels keep human souls in vials, but there are different tales regarding how they use them. Some say that the souls in these vials are the source of every human’s spirit.
That is, the angels use the souls they keep to instill life into humans when they are born into the world. But…” Philip broke off as he placed his hand upon one of the glass containers and stared at the vials, mesmerized. “There’s also a rumor that the Angels just use them to create false humans - impostors, you might say. These false humans intersperse with real humans and do the Angels’ bidding, whatever that may be.”
Eli’s skin crawled at the thought of the vials containing human souls.
“Why would the Angels need to create false humans?” Eli wondered aloud.
“Who knows…” said Philip with a shrug. “Like I said, those are nothing but rumors and old stories. I doubt any of them involve a kernel of truth, though that won’t prevent me from being a tad unsettled by these vials. I don’t dare mess around with them.”
The glass containing the vials was heavily coated with dust, serving as an indicator of its old age.
“These have clearly been here for a long time,” Eli observed.
“Yeah, this transport cube is a lot older than I am,” Philip admitted. “Honestly, I have no idea what the liquid inside is used for, which may be for the best.”
Something in one of the vials seemed to move yet again, and Eli withdrew a couple of paces in discomfort.
“Eli, do you ever think about what Paradise is like?” Philip asked.
“I haven’t received much of a chance to think about it thoroughly,” Eli told him. “Ever since I escaped the Maw, I’ve been thrown into this whole ordeal with finding the Saint.
Dreaming of Paradise has not exactly been one of my top priorities.”
Eli heard footsteps overhead; it seemed that Jack and Ruby had finished up their brief tour.
“You know…” Philip began again. “There’s a reason why many of us older Sentinels have not yet entered Paradise: It’s because we’re suspicious. I mean, nobody really even knows what it is like. We hear vague descriptions – that it is a desirable place – but no details. And what’s the point of all of it? We are supposed to relish in luxury, knowing that most human souls have been obliterated in the Void? I’m just a bit too suspicious of the system.”
Listening keenly to Philip’s words, Eli was taken aback. Intentionally avoiding Paradise? Why would someone do that?
“I can see that you aren’t quite following me,” Philip said, seemingly reading Eli’s thoughts. “but I think you’ll discover the truth soon. Protect yourself, Eli.”
The lights in the tunnel began to flicker briefly, while Eli stood in befuddlement. What is he talking about? Eli opened his mouth to respond, but he was distracted by the sound of footsteps approaching from behind.
“What are you two discussing?” Jack demanded as he came to stand by the other two Sentinels. He looked toward the vials of purple liquid, narrowing his eyes. “What are these?”
“Nobody knows,” Philip muttered. “They’re extremely old, as they were here long before I gained possession of the cube. I’ve never seen them anywhere else before.”
Silence befell the threesome, causing Eli significant discomfort.
“I’d better head back up,” Philip announced finally. “This rig actually has a special type of engine and cooling system that have to be maintained. It’s about time I give ‘em a check.”
With that, he scurried back through the tunnel and leaped up through the hole, while Jack shifted his gaze toward Eli.
“So, what was he telling you about?” Jack asked with a stern expression. “These vials?”
“Yes,” Eli replied nervously. “There are apparently a bunch of rumors and stories surrounding them, mostly involving Angels.”
“I see…” said Jack thoughtfully. “Well, just don’t listen to Philip too much. He isn’t mentally sound, and he often doesn’t know what he speaks of.”
Casting one final glance at the vials, Jack turned away and exited the tunnel; Eli followed suit with uncertainty plaguing his thoughts. I wonder what’s really in those vials. As he came beneath the hole and prepared to exit the tunnel, he thought he could feel something watching him from behind, like a malevolent gaze burning through his back and piercing his soul.
However, he dared not look back, as fear had gripped him completely, freezing his muscles. I hate this place. Something evil resides here.
Shaking his entire body to dispel the chilling sensation that gripped him, Eli finally flew up from the tunnel and returned to the main floor, where Jack, Rachel, and Ruby were gathered.
After Eli had emerged, Ruby lowered the seat that was above the hole, leaving the cavity exposed no longer; she stared at Eli with a concerned gaze.
“Is something the matter?” she wondered. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Yeah,” added Rachel, who now seemed slightly less depressed. “You aren’t looking well.”
Eli, not wanting the others to notice his unease, wiped off the beads of sweat that had accumulated on his brow.
“No, I’m fine,” Eli stated coolly. “I just get a bit claustrophobic sometimes. Maybe that’s what it is”
He darted his eyes toward Jack, who was standing at the far end of the room with his arms crossed; he said nothing, but his expression was hard. He didn’t want me to speak with Philip for some reason? But why? Does he just think Philip is insane?
Philip was the only one currently absent from the room, presumably because he had gone to tend to part of the cube as he said he would.
“I believe we’ll be arriving shortly,” Ruby announced enthusiastically. “Just sit tight –
you won’t need to wait much longer.”
Eli proceeded to sit beside Rachel, who had not moved from her seat since boarding the vehicle. While the young Sentinel still seemed a bit gloomy, she now appeared to be more alert and functional.
“Do you think the others are all right?” she asked as Eli sat down. “Ana and Jean, Victor and the other Sentinel: They’re left in pairs. The Outlaws will overcome them easily if they manage to track them down.”
“I don’t think that will happen,” Eli assured her. “The Outlaws are likely pursuing us instead– they know we’re heading north, and they don’t necessarily know where the others are.
Besides, we’ll all be meeting up soon, so they won’t be left by themselves for much longer.”
Rachel leaned forward and covered her face with her hands.
“I just can’t believe we lost Gerald. It feels so awful, like there was some way it could have been avoided.”
Eli wished he knew what to say, but because he had become used to seeing people who he knew die, he could not completely empathize with Rachel.
“It is awful,” he agreed. “Of course, he would want us to proceed with our mission and remain focused on the task at hand - he would not want his death to hinder us in any way.”
Rachel lifted her head, and her face brightened a little.
“Yeah, that’s true,” she said. “But he’s completely gone, never to return. Nobody ever gets a second chance after being sent to the Void.”
Rachel’s words resonated powerfully with Eli. She’s right. How could Angels even allow something like this to happen? Gerald had simply been striving to access Paradise; he had died in the Living World, survived the Maw, and even served as a Sentinel, yet it ultimately meant nothing. He was killed by an Outlaw: a degenerate that had never accomplished anything, except for committing acts of evil. One wound, left unattended, led to his demise and the permanent erasure of his very existence.
Philip made a good point. What is the point of Paradise? No matter how grand it is, it can’t be significant enough to outweigh the magnitude of billions and billions of souls being eliminated in the Void.
Upon further contemplation, the entire purpose of Sentinels seemed trivial as well.
Sentinels watch over humans in the Living World, hoping to prevent unnecessary deaths, even though the humans will inevitably perish. Then, all that will matter is their ability to surmount the woes of the Maw, but Sentinels cannot assist them there. Almost seems like a waste of time.
A sudden jolt to Eli’s body disrupted his thinking; the cube’s movement had ceased. The door across the room swung open, and Philip emerged.
“We’re here,” he announced.