As they approached the Ita-Hu, they felt it—in their legs. It was like walking with weights strapped to their shoes.

  They exchanged a look.

  “Uh-huh,” Adam confirmed. “In my legs…”

  “You’ll feel a bit heavy when you move,” Anderson informed them, as if that weren’t obvious.

  “Intensified gravity,” Vicky noted.

  “Yes, you’ll get used to it soon enough.”

  The two split up, circling the rock, examining it from top to bottom.

  Adam extended his hand, tempted to touch it, but stopped himself. The images Halstein had shown them of destroyed tools flashed in his mind like a flashing warning sign. The radioactive force field surrounding the rock’s surface was too significant a detail to ignore.

  “Go ahead, you can touch it,” Anderson whispered in his ear like a devil on his shoulder.

  “No, thanks. I’d like to keep all my fingers intact.”

  “Unless you hit it with full force, nothing will happen to you. Trust me.”

  Adam hesitated for a moment, then gave in. He pressed his open palm forward and confirmed the truth of the force field. His hand couldn’t make contact with the Ita-Hu; something invisible stopped him. He could even see the shadow his hand cast on the rock. He pushed harder, but nothing happened. It was impenetrable.

  “Please, proceed with the task you came to accomplish,” Halstein ordered.

  Damn it! Lost in thought, Adam jolted as Halstein’s voice sent a chill down his spine.

  Suddenly, a loud crackling sound, like a pile of glassware smashing onto the floor, broke the silence.

  Outside the dome, birds flapped their wings in panic. But with the added gravitational weight, only the smallest ones managed to take flight.

  Shaking off the shock, Adam turned to his partner and saw what had happened.

  Vicky had hurled one of her Fotias at the Ita-Hu, and now she watched as its energy mass disintegrated against the invisible barrier. She had just confirmed that her powers were as useless here as they’d been warned.

  “Miss Viveka, I thought I made it clear that your Enhanced Fluctuating Discharges have no effect here,” the Division Chief remarked, his voice grating on her nerves.

  Holding back the urge to curse him out, Vicky turned to Adam and gestured for him to proceed.

  “Mr. White, if you’d be so kind…” Halstein sounded impatient.

  Adam took a deep breath and stepped toward the Ita-Hu.

  Assuming Adam’s flames could counteract the invisible force, Vicky stepped back as a precaution. She prepared herself in case of an unexpected explosion or stray sparks that might jump toward her—or worse, the dome’s plastic cover, which could ignite. A red alert flashed in her mind, telling her to stay sharp.

  Ready to collect the sample and get back to camp quickly, she searched her tool belt and found a small plastic vial and a pair of tongs.

  ‘How hard can it be to chip off a piece of rock and stick it in a container?’ she’d told Anderson earlier. Now she could only hope she’d been right.

  Adam examined the massive black egg the way a martial artist sizing up a stack of bricks they were about to break with their bare hands. He took a deep breath, raised his fist, and charged it with crackling threads of electricity.

  “Remember to hold back, Mr. White. We don’t want you punching through the field and turning the Ita-Hu to dust,” Halstein warned.

  “Gabor’s studies say a small jolt should be enough to make the force field give,” Anderson added.

  “A small fracture, Mr. White. That’s all we need,” the Director echoed.

  Adam reduced the energy mass burning in his hand to the size of a baseball and, assessing the distance to the rock, took a step back. He released his Fotia—not with a reverse strike as he had initially intended, but with the casual precision of tossing a paper ball into a trash can.

  The white-hot sphere struck the invisible barrier, emitting a prolonged fwoooosh akin to the sound of a blowtorch.

  With that sizzling noise in his ears, Adam bit his lip, hoping Gabor’s research had been accurate. It all happened so fast that no one had time to doubt the biophysicist’s theory.

  The small Fotia danced on a single point in midair for a few seconds before stretching like a rat squeezing through a narrow crevice. It slipped through the invisible wall and struck the Ita-Hu.

  As with Vicky’s earlier shot, there was a burst of sparks, but this time, instead of an electric snap, there came a cracking sound—a crack, crack, like an eggshell shattering.

  The noise didn’t startle the birds outside, but it left Adam frozen, horrified to see his shot chip away a cloud of dark shards from the massive rock.

  Silence fell again, inside and outside the dome. Adam, Vicky, the scientists, and the Division Chief—watching the action from camp via holographic monitors—held their breath, waiting for the explosion’s glow to fade so they could assess the damage.

  When the dust and debris cleared, a hole roughly twenty inches in diameter marred the dark surface of the Ita-Hu.

  “Damn it…” Adam muttered. A tiny fracture in the rock would have sufficed, but a hole almost the size of a car tire? Overkill.

  He noticed through the perforation that the massive oval rock was hollow, its interior as dark as its black exterior. The comparison of the Ita-Hu to an egg had been more apt than anyone had realized.

  Vicky stepped closer, her attention caught by something shiny on the ground—a small fragment of the dark rock that had landed nearby.

  Not just one; there were several pieces scattered across the dry earth, glinting like precious gems under the sunlight. Any one of them could serve as the fragment they needed to complete the mission.

  Using the tongs, she picked up one of the pieces. Before sealing it in the plastic vial, she brought it closer to examine.

  The fragment had two distinct sides. One was the outer surface of the Ita-Hu, a rocky layer about one inch thick. The other was its interior: a crystalline, glossy violet mineral that resembled amethyst.

  The inside of the Ita-Hu was made of crystal. The rock embedded in the ground was a massive…

  “Geode!” In the main tent of the camp, Dr. Anderson jumped out of his chair and leaned toward the monitor to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was. “It’s a geode!”

  Luciano Green swiveled in his seat toward the next console, activated the electromagnetic scanners, and reviewed the data.

  “Mr. White’s three-point charge caused an imbalance in the rock’s level-two field…” he thought aloud and announced to the others. “The force shield has dissolved.”

  Anderson had to hold himself back from cheering out loud. After a modest gesture of triumph, he asked his assistant, “Radiation levels from the Ita-Hu?”

  Green checked his equipment. “Still the same,” he said. “The only thing that’s changed is that the invisible shell is gone.”

  Vicky placed the sample in the plastic vial and tucked it into a compartment on her belt. She felt an urge to peek inside the massive rock, but something told her it would be better to leave now and let curiosity wait.

  “Well, our job here is done,” she said.

  “One moment, please,” Anderson interjected. “I’d like you to approach the Ita-Hu. Let’s take a look inside.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Vicky and Adam exchanged glances; a request like that was to be expected.

  Back at camp, Luciano monitored the control panel indicators and grabbed the microphone.

  “If you’re worried about toxins being released when the Ita-Hu opened, rest assured,” he said. “Your suit sensors show no threats.”

  “Are you sure?” Vicky asked, looking at Adam, who waited for her approval before moving forward.

  “You can verify the data on your wrist displays,” Green replied.

  Their wrist monitors showed no danger among the listed numbers and parameters.

  “These detect known toxins,” Adam pointed out. “What about unknown ones?”

  “As long as you keep your suits on, there’s nothing to fear,” Green assured.

  If Halstein had said that, Vicky would have doubted him. But the young biologist seemed more trustworthy. Still, out of sheer stubbornness, she resisted the order without giving in completely.

  “If it’s a geode, what else could be inside besides crystals?” she questioned.

  “We need to confirm it’s a giant geode and nothing else,” Anderson replied.

  Then there was a clatter—someone had snatched the microphone from Anderson. Halstein, undoubtedly.

  “Do it,” the Division Chief commanded.

  Adam and Vicky exchanged one last look, then extended their palms to test the state of the force field.

  Nothing. Their hands touched the rock itself, and even through their gloves, they felt its warmth.

  “The electromagnetic shield is gone. Dr. Gabor was right,” Anderson announced, and Adam responded with a resigned grunt.

  Vicky ran her hands over several spots on the surface, confirming that the barrier was indeed gone. She then joined Adam, and together they peered into the hole in the Ita-Hu.

  It was impossible to see what lay inside. The morning light, diffused through the dome’s fabric, grazed the outer edge of the rock and part of the crystals lining its inner surface. But deeper inside, everything dissolved into darkness.

  They stepped aside to avoid casting shadows, but even then, it made no difference.

  “Press the button on the side of your wristbands; it’ll activate the mask lights,” Anderson instructed with an exasperated sigh, one that Vicky instinctively knew was directed at her, as if to say, ‘See? This is why I should’ve gone with Mr. White.’

  Adam and Vicky pressed the buttons, but the lights embedded in their masks didn’t flood the shadows with illumination as promised. The sharp crackle of a short circuit, and that was it.

  At the console, Luciano Green checked the suit lighting systems.

  “What happened?” Anderson asked, frustrated—the excitement had drained from his face.

  “The lamp filaments…” his assistant replied. “They burned out when the switches were activated. Probably a static overload.”

  “No. That’s impossible…”

  “Told you,” Adam’s voice crackled through the comms. “I said my energy would be too much for this kind of gear.”

  Anderson shook his head, as if Adam could see him.

  “The suit transistors are still working,” he said. “Same with the oxygen recycler…”

  “No, no,” Adam shot back, his voice practically oozing with satisfaction. “Thing is, the fuses in those lamps are garbage—way weaker than the ones in the recycler. Trust me, I work with this stuff.”

  Green turned to his boss. “Maybe Mr. White’s fluctuations weren’t the cause,” he suggested. “Could’ve been residual energy from the force field collapse—like a tiny electromagnetic pulse.”

  They heard Adam clear his throat.

  “Not to brag,” he said, “but at Homam Enterprises, we make reinforced lamps. Real quality. I could get you a discount if you’re interested.”

  Vicky knew a technical failure wouldn’t stop the scientists’ curiosity—they’d keep pushing until one of them stuck their nose into the Ita-Hu’s guts. That’s when she had an idea to light up the darkness. She flexed her fingers twice, letting a surge of electricity spark in her palm, and shaped it into a Fotia.

  “What are you doing?” Adam asked.

  “An E.F.D. might not have any destructive power in here,” she said, “but it’ll be enough to sniff around the mouth of this lovely rock.”

  Using the energy orb like a torch, Vicky pushed back the shadows. When nothing bad happened, she dared to reach in with the Fotia—and then her whole arm. She leaned her head into the opening, and the majesty inside took her breath away.

  There was no doubt now: the stone egg was a geode. Its interior was lined with thousands of twinned crystals: A lattice of dark, violet rhomboidal shapes with sharp edges that gleamed, lustrous, like black mirrors within that gaping mouth.

  “Amethysts,” Anderson named them.

  “The teeth of the Ita-Hu…” she whispered, though the comparison cheapened the wonder she’d just felt.

  As her light reached farther, curiosity gave way to unease. The energy lamp had just revealed that, at the center of the stone, the crystals clustered into what looked like a massive seed.

  The Ita-Hu wasn’t just a hollow shell; beyond the empty space, it held a huge heart. And it was cracked. A fracture ran through the crystalline knot, oozing a thin, oily residue—some kind of viscous substance leaking out.

  Vicky looked down, and a little lower, nestled among the dense mineral mass, she saw…

  “Do you see that?” she asked.

  In the camp’s main tent, the Division Chief, Anderson, and Green all leaned closer to their monitors, focusing on the feed from Vicky’s camera. The other scientists paused their tasks and crowded around to watch.

  Anderson’s bushy gray eyebrows arched into perfect curves, and his already wide eyes opened even further in astonishment.

  “That looks like… tar?” he said, his statement trailing off into a question.

  “If tar were purple, then sure,” Vicky replied.

  A viscous, opaque substance had seeped from the cracked heart, pooling at the geode’s base. The thick liquid reflected hues of violet, blue, and purple depending on how the light from Vicky’s Fotia struck it.

  She regretted that the mask protecting her from potential toxins also dulled her sense of smell; otherwise, she might have been able to glean more about the substance, assuming it had a scent.

  Don’t let your curiosity get the better of you, dear, she warned herself. Don’t even think about taking off the mask or touching that.

  But as she withdrew her hand, a sharp jolt shot through her wrist, making her yelp in pain and clench her fist, snuffing out the Fotia.

  “What happened?” Adam asked, concerned.

  “Nothing, nothing…” Vicky rubbed her wrist. “I felt a shock in the trigger implant, that’s all.” She flexed her fingers twice, and a faint electric hum vibrated through her wrist tendons. The implant reactivated, and energy flickered back into her palm.

  “The static charge inside the rock must be extremely high,” Green deduced.

  “Let me try.” Adam gestured for Vicky to step aside and repeated the process, summoning his fiery sphere to get a better look inside. The twinned crystals shimmered violet beneath the white glow of his Fotia. “Hey, they really do look like teeth,” he said to her. “First time your analogies actually make sense.”

  He shifted his gaze back to the inside of the rock, drawn to the enormous crystal heart within, though it was the dark viscous mass pooled at the base that really caught his attention.

  “What the hell is that? The Ita-Hu’s saliva?” he joked.

  “Its blood?” she suggested, though that analogy clearly didn’t sit well with her partner.

  “Liquid amethyst, maybe,” Anderson chimed in over the comms. “Some sort of mineral sap reservoir.”

  “Is that a real thing, or are you just making it up as you go?” Adam asked, squinting at the substance, trying to make sense of it.

  “We won’t know until we study it, Mr. White. Can you bring the light closer, please?”

  Adam leaned in, bringing his Fotia closer to the substance. But as the tendrils of energy from his flaming orb licked the surface of the thick liquid…

  The scientists at the camp were struck with surprise as they now watched the transmission through Adam’s camera.

  Some went silent, while others gasped in disbelief.

  Standing behind Adam, Vicky couldn’t see what was happening or why they were murmuring in shock over the comms.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It moved,” Adam replied, still peering into the hole.

  “What moved?”

  Adam repeated his earlier action to confirm if the reaction had been a fluke. He lowered his hand, letting the tendrils of his Fotia touch the purple tar-like substance again. The liquid responded, rising toward his orb in the same spot.

  Wherever the white flame hovered, the volume of the mysterious liquid increased, as though the energy attracted it—like a magnet drawing iron… or meat summoning a frenzy of piranhas.

  Until the substance stopped following the energy orb. Its surface began to ripple and bubble, releasing gases and emitting a grotesque sound, like something boiling over an open flame.

  Adam’s curiosity curdled into fear. What the hell was happening? This time, he’d really blown it! The potentially toxic broth was boiling so violently it was on the verge of overflowing from the pot. There was no way he was leaving his hand anywhere near it to get burned. He stepped back, moving away from the Ita-Hu.

  Vicky heard the hiss of steam escaping from the boiling substance and immediately understood why Adam had backed away.

  The open mouth of the Ita-Hu started spewing its dark saliva. The purplish substance oozed out from the opening, slipping past those crystalline teeth, and dripped onto the rocky surface like the putrid lava of a volcano, spreading across the ground in a slick, slimy flow.

  Neither Adam nor Vicky heard Halstein, Anderson, or Green say a word—the shock seemed to have silenced them. They didn’t need anyone to tell them to back away from the Ita-Hu either; doing so was pure self-preservation. Saliva or blood, liquid amethyst or sap—it didn’t matter. The substance was revolting, and they knew better than to touch it.

  Finally, one last drop clung to the edge of the hole, like the viscous remnant of a nose after a sneeze, signaling that the black egg had finished expelling its contents.

  Vicky turned to her partner. “What the hell just happened?”

  Disgusted and feeling a bit guilty for causing the grotesque scene, Adam shrugged. “I… I don’t know. Geological gingivitis?” he quipped nervously, then motioned toward the dome’s exit. “Look, we’ve got what we came for. How about we just…?”

  But before he could say ‘go,’ he cast one last glance at the amethyst puddle—and froze. It had moved again.