Apocalypse Before Finals by Julie Steimle (electric book reader txt) 📕

"So be it," a solid voice replied from the side of them.

Both Alea Salvar and the curator turned and looked at a green uniformed P.M. with blazing red hair. The man smiled with folded arms.

Zormna pulled back, surprised at how quietly this People's Military officer had approached. He was older, yet armed. He had been in the building.

"You can let one of your officers in," the People's Military officer said.

Alea Salvar tromped over to the PM. "Six!"

The Dural smirked. "Two."

The young alea would not be outdone. "Five!"

The Dural glared now. "Three and no more."

Alea Salvar gritted his teeth. "I hate you."

"Likewise, and I get to pick who gets sent in," the Dural said.

All the Surface Patrol officers glared at him under their helmets. The Dural peered at them, pointing at the two Avers and one Anzer.

"They can go," he said.

Alea Salvar glared at him. Zormna was one of the Avers in suits. She and the other two hopped off their flight scooters and walked to the front of the museum and to the doors, awaiting orders.

"Go in," Alea Salvar said, masking how pleased he was that Jafarr's plan was working. Then he turned back to the Dural. "You picked the least on purpose."

The Dural smiled. "And they only have ten minutes. Any longer, and we go in after them."

Alea Salvar growled again. "I want my father."

The Dural laughed in his face.

As much as the Dural thought he had the upper hand, Alea Salvar had all his best aleas in uniform as avers and anzers. They split up immediately and went to their chosen destinations. Zormna marched swiftly toward the arboretum.

Along the way to the arboretum was a corridor filled with artifacts from the earliest eras of their world. One of the last halls near the entrance to the arboretum contained a hall dedicated to the last royalty of Arras. On that wall hung two portraits: one of the ancient Queen Zormna Tarrn and the other of her husband, King Alzdov Durrn. In between those portraits hung the seven medallions of each of the seven families of 'Tarrn' that came from their posterity: Melzdar, Astrov, Effron, Lazdel, Bentley, Zebba, and Clendar. Never mind the fact that all of them should have taken on the name of Durrn, which was how Zormna had always understood the history of her people. The king had taken his wife's family name to preserve the Tarrn legacy. And here the seers had gathered to mourn the loss of the Tarrns.

This was the wall Jafarr had seen in his visions. On this wall, every peg was filled, holding a medallion for each Tarrn family that was slaughtered -  including the fake he had gotten made. Jafarr had been kneeling at the base of this wall on the floor, waiting for Zormna to walk by so they could go into the arboretum to get the Kevin as planned - but it seemed an eternity before he actually saw her. He had been listening to the wailing and moaning of the crowd of seers. Men and women alike mourned at the wall, with long red stripes painted down faces of some. The young man who had guided Jafarr to the wall stayed silent at his side, kneeling and praying - and waiting, it seemed. Jafarr attempted to copy him, keeping his hood down while holding an eye open for Zormna. However, as he listened to the moaning, a tremendous guilt rushed through him, especially when he set his eyes on the fake Clendar medallion which hung on the wall.

"I'm sorry," he muttered under his breath.

The seer next to turned his head with a wide-eyed stare. He almost said something but thought better of it and closed his eyes again.

At the front of the mourning wall, Jafarr recognized a young seer about twenty-one years old whom he had bumped into when they were both 'kids'. The seer was still wearing long scarves of red covered in winding colored embroidery as when Jafarr had last seen him. The man's black hair was cut much like Alea Salvar's, short and bristly on top and long in the back. Thing was, when the boy had seen him back then, he had stared so intensely at Jafarr that it had unnerved him and Jafarr had hurried off. Since then, that man's face had indelibly been etched in Jafarr's memory. But now Jafarr knew this one seer back then had recognized him as the Leader-of-Many, even though Jafarr himself had not known at the time.

Tugging his hood over his face, Jafarr watched this seer. The man appeared to be the most distressed out of all of those mourning at the wall, his dark fathomless eyes searching for the truth. However, as Jafarr listened, he realized that this man was mourning for a different reason than the others.

"Impossible!" that seer burst out in a frustrated shout. "I know what I saw!"

One of the older seers rose to his full height, blustering. "You are a fool! You have only seen dreams. The Tarrns are gone. Gone! The prophecy was false!"

Another rush of guilt swept over Jafarr. He pulled his hood lower over his face. The young man at his side noticed. He didn't speak, however.

"I do not have false visions. I know her face. The last Tarrn is not dead. I am positive of this," the young record keeper, Sir Banden, as they called him, retorted.

This declaration caused such a commotion among the seers, especially the old ones.

"The last Tarrn? You have seen him?" one exclaimed.

"Her, he said. He said the Tarrn was a she. A girl," another rudely snapped.

"No girl can survive the People's Military!" a third argued.

Sir Banden remained flushed, argumentatively pointing to the portrait behind him. "Are you fools? The One will do, male or female! And she is alive. I have seen her!"

Jafarr followed the man's finger to the painting. His eyes widened on the portrait.  His heart beat heavily in his chest. Though he had seen this picture recreated in a computer text ages ago and only remembered that ancient queen was a breathtaking beauty, this woman whose face stared back at him under thick fiery curls of golds and reds was none other than Zormna Clendar. Admittedly this woman was smiling without a concern or worry in her eyes. And she was about as feminine and gracious as a queen ought to be. But if Zormna had grown her hair out and submitted to wearing a dress, this was Zormna in her best mood. The image struck him so much as a perfect likeness that if he had any doubts at all about the prophecy, they would have been obliterated.

But Jafarr had never had any doubts. His life had been so turned upside down and entangled with Zormna's, there was no way he could mentally ally himself with any notion that he had been mistaken. This proof was only cream on the top.

He eyed the ancient queen critically. The woman in the painting wore heaps of jewelry that Zormna would have rejected, considering them frivolous. And this queen wore a dress that had flounces and tucks and frills that Zormna would never have put on - even for Prom. The ancient queen's hair hung down in long curls, with a delicate crown of diamonds nestled among them. And though this was the most famously beautiful woman he ever saw, something inside him said that Zormna Clendar, the soldier he had struggled with for so long, was much more beautiful.  

Jafarr heard footsteps stop behind him, and he heard an audible gasp. He turned around.

A healthy feminine figure dressed in an Aver's uniform and helmet had lurched to a halt and stared at the picture too, as if transfixed.

Hardly anyone noticed her. The seers around Sir Banden continued to bicker. Yet, the seer at Jafarr's side lifted his eyes to her because Jafarr had. And Jafarr noticed Sir Banden stop his verbal defense as if he felt some kind of wave passed through him, and his eyes turned toward her.

Quickly, yet with quiet seer manner, Jafarr rose from his watch and approached her side.

"Where are you going, my child?" Jafarr asked the Aver whom he knew was Zormna.

It seemed to wake her to her senses and she continued on.

"Cute," Zormna whispered back, continuing her march to the arboretum.

Jafarr followed her.

Sir Banden narrowed his eyes, then looked quickly to the seer who had been kneeling next to Jafarr. Their eyes exchanged a look.  

When both of Zormna and Jafarr cleared the hall and entered the plant-filled cavern, Jafarr dropped the act. "Where is this transport thing you and Alea Arden set up?"

Zormna shook her head and pointed to the shed. "We can do that after we get him out."

Jafarr frowned, lowering his hood so he could see better. "Zormna, the alarms will probably go off before we are even out of the shed. We won't have time."

Her could hear her smirk inside her helmet as she briskly replied, "We will. It takes only a few seconds to set up."

He shrugged and followed her.

The arboretum was elegantly large, filled with all sorts of exotic plants which had once covered the surface of the planet, its ceiling having the appearance of a glass house with blue skies above it. In the main center was a small lawn of rich green grass. The 'sky' above had fake moving clouds, which after living on Earth Jafarr could see they were unnatural repeating digital patterns. It would have fooled the unfamiliar eye. The shape of the room with the arching ceilings gave the impression of a palace with many corridors and chambers. Different kinds of flowers and trees with grasses grew alongside 'cobble stone' paths. If it had been another time, Jafarr might have lingered there.

"Scrapes, you'd never know how oppressive the tunnels are until you come in here," Jafarr murmured as he followed Zormna across the stones and past the palm trees near the walkway.

Zormna nodded, but rushed faster. "It makes you miss Partha."

Jafarr chuckled, having missed 'Partha' the second they had left Pennington. But his mind also turned toward their task. He hoped she still knew where the shed was as they wandered in the hall.

"There," she said, pointing.

He saw it standing against a rock-carved wall covered in lichen, easy to miss if one didn't know it was there. It was a small shed as big as a wardrobe closet. Zormna tromped right over rough pea-gravel to it and pressed the door button to open it. The door slid open with ease. She stepped inside, and Jafarr followed. Both faced the narrow space full of tools. The only thing missing was the secret door.  

"Are you sure this shed is a door to someplace?" he asked again, fingering the pruning sheers and the soil claws, and this other thing he had no clue what it was. They didn't look like the yard tools at his house in Pennington, but they had soil on them.

Zormna glared at him, which he couldn't see because of the helmet, and nodded. "Yes, we just have to find the door pad."

He sighed then looked through his half of the tools for the mechanism on the right. Zormna looked on the left.

"Found it," Jafarr said, moving a bucket that was hanging on the wall. He put the bucket on the floor.

"Nice hiding spot." Zormna chuckled.

Without even trying the keys, Jafarr pulled out one of his electronic hacking gizmos and pried off the front panel, pulling out the wires. He immediately connected the card to the machine network and punched in a code, which took on the whole five seconds. The door popped open with a gasp of air.

"That did it," Zormna remarked with a smirk in her voice.

Jafarr nodded.

They pushed the door open, and both of them stepped inside the lit inner chamber. Jafarr looked around the entryway and peered at the bright empty space. "No guards.