Roshma Book 1: The First Steps
Chapter 13: The Inner Room

All eyes were on me, everyone was curious what Mott’s uncle had just told me. Fear gripped me. I didn’t want to sound like a madman yet the words echoed in my head, “It may not be too late.” I was pretty sure it was too late, when his body took the full force of that cannon.

Something inside me wanted to believe Melvin’s words, but I was worried the others would think I had gone mad. Well here it goes swallowing fear, I opened my mouth and uttered these words, “He said, ‘“I have a plan, it may not be too late. When you arrive in Mako City, don’t go directly back to headquarters we will pick you up from the skyport and take you to the Hall of the Counsel.”’

Everyone stood there in silence not quite the reaction I expected. Then “it” happened. By “it” I mean Westcon he said, “Giaka, that old man is crazy, not too late, not too late for what? He’s already dead when you die that’s the end. I’m sorry if I offend some of you who believe in angels, miracles and fairy dust crap but that’s not for me. I may joke around a lot but I’m not a disillusioned fool. Nothing this man can do will bring Mott back to life.”

A.J. replied, “Don’t you think you are being a little too hard on the old man? We have no idea what he even has in mind, but you’re not even giving him a chance.”

Westcon flew into a fit of rage, “I don’t even know this man’s name of course I’m not giving him a chance. Where was he when Mott was growing up on the street?”

A.J. Shot back, “He probably thought he was dead along with the rest of his family.”

Westcon didn’t seem to care, “You’re always making excuses for people. Sometimes life sucks, but I face it head on every day no matter what it throws at me. I don’t want to go on a wild goose-chase with some grieving old man.”

I had to speak up I felt like he was swaying everyone to his point of view, but that simply wouldn’t fly for me I had to know what the old man had planned. I spoke as boldly as I could up, “There is a 90% chance you are right because you have chosen the path of logic Westcon, but there’s a 10% chance your wrong. 90% are pretty good odds but in this case being correct doesn’t bring our best friend back to life and the 10% chance does.”

All eyes were on me now, I continued, “You may not think it now, but if we choose the logical choice we will be haunted by the question of what if for the rest of our lives. So, what do I propose? I propose we deviate from logic and pay the old man a visit, maybe he has some way to re-infuse Mott with life or some ancient antidote for death. He probably doesn’t but our curiosities will be put to rest and maybe, just maybe we will all be able to sleep at night.”

Westcon said, “Wise words, I can respect that but I say we put it to a vote, your idea vs my idea. All in favor of going to visit the crazy old koot aka Mott’s uncle raise your hand. (A.J., Katotta, Shodon, and I raised our hands) Looks like I surrounded by dreamers, we’ll pay a visit to see the old man.”

I called back Mott’s uncle back and told him we were making our descent into the city right now and to be ready to receive us at when we landed.

He informed me, “They were on their way right now.” Our ride home was nothing short of silent. Not only had we lost our leader, but we didn’t feel invincible anymore. Even on our very first mission, when we stormed the dam, I was scared at times but I somehow knew that everything was going to be alright. We were destined to win, the good guys always won somehow.

Personal, I felt so small. Even with our abilities it was hard to tell where we were on the galactic food chain. Take Admiral Karantis for instance, was obviously more powerful than all of us, including Mott Blixer. The world seemed to be ever-widening. There were pirates, spies, masked assassins and I couldn’t even imagine how powerful Yonda was. The weather was a motif for what was happening in our lives. The sky was dark and the cloud cover was thick; pellets of water fell from the sky. As we flew over Mako City I saw a giant cloud of steam and it turned out it was the rain which would immediately evaporate upon hitting the energy field that surrounded the city.

We landed in the hangar and there was smaller air cruiser waiting for us. Jin put down the ramp as we landed and two men in white suits boarded our ship and asked, “Where is Mott Blixer?” I pointed over to the floor where his body still lay. The men quickly walked over to the body; one man grabbed his two feet and the other men grabbed his two shoulders and they quickly carried him out of our ship and into the smaller one.

Westcon said, “What’s up with these clowns?” We were all baffled by this turn of events. I had to admit it was a bit strange. So we followed the two men outside the ship. It was at this moment we saw three important looking men. One of the men was a large bald man with flowing blue robes and bright blue eyes to match standing in front of the sky cruiser with two other men in white suits, one of each of his sides.

We stood there in the rain for what felt like an hour. Finally, the robbed man spoke, “Hello my name is Charles Blixer Mott’s great uncle. I have so much to tell you, but first, enter my ship.” That is what we did we got inside the ship and took off. Also worth mentioning is that the men in white put Mott inside some sort of cryogenic preservation box. It was silver and had a bunch of blinking lights; the men laid his body down inside of the box typed something in to a keypad on the box. The box came to life and made strange sounds as it sealed itself shut.

Westcon shouted, “What was that all about? I want some answers, what are you doing to my friend?”

Charles calmly replied to Westcon’s inquisition, “Well we are trying to preserve the body as much as possible, because it may take a while to bring him back. I will tell you more lately but you have to be patient with me I can’t talk about it here. I’m glad you all trusted me enough to agree to this.”

Westcon laughed, “I still don’t trust you.”

Jin scolded, “That’s enough Westcon.” We descended on a giant dome like building with a flat top. The whole building was quite the spectacle; it was surrounded by a giant man-made like mote and there was a giant statue out in front of the building it was one of Zatara’s old chancellors although I couldn’t tell who it was. Coming out of the top of the building was a giant tower stretching out of the center of the building and reaching towards the shield.

Turns out the tower was one of the energy towers that fed the shield around the city. There were many landing pads surrounding it and we descended onto one of them. There was an opening in the energy field big enough for the ship to fit through. We descended onto a landing pad. As soon as the wheels touched the ground, it swallowed us up and we were on a platform that was descending through the Hall of the Counsel. I wish I could have visited on another day under different circumstances. The size and scale of this building were truly breathtaking, but I was in no mood to appreciate it.

When the platform finally stopped we were way below ground and in this way it reminded me a lot of headquarters. The four men in white suits took the giant mechanical box with Mott in it away and now we were alone with Charles. On the subject of Charles there was one thing I was confused about. Why did he dress this way? All the other workers here were dressed normal.

Jon impatiently asked, “So what’s this plan to bring back Mott from the dead?”

Charles got a worried look on his face and drew closer to us as if he was about to tell a secret, “You must not say such things. Only a handful of people, know about things like that. One doesn’t know who to trust these days, too many spies. At this point, he lowered his voice to almost a whisper. I’ll tell you as soon as we get in the inner room.

With this one statement all our curiosities were peaked, we had to know what secret lie in the inner room. Even the most skeptics of us were hooked waiting upon his next words. We eagerly followed Charles through many winding corridors all going deeper and deeper underground our hearts pounded faster with every step.

Finally, we arrived at what seemed to be dead-end, but then our guide rubbed his hand against the wall and a door opened. We all boarded a platform which descending even deeper into the ground. I swore we would reach the center of the planet if we went any lower. We finally got to what seemed to be a massive cavern. There was a giant marble table with many seats around it and a statue of a woman in the back of the cavern. Her hands what clenched by her chest and it appeared that she was holding a large stone that looked like a diamond with a strange symbol at its center. This was the inner room.

Charles took his seat at the head of a giant stone table. He said, “Come all of you and set down, and I’ll tell you everything. You have lived most of your life in normalcy; that is until the war with the Raikai began. Even now there are many things that remain unknown to you and most everyone else that inhabits this planet. For example, most people think we have only been at war for a couple of years, but actually we have been at war for thousands of years. Many esoteric wars over the deepest secrets of the universe, secrets that I’m about to reveal to you. Secrets that I probably shouldn’t but fate has played out in such a way that I believe you must be told.”

He paused letting it sink in for a second before continuing, “The Council is just a front our real mission is to protect people from the stranger truths of our world. The Blixer family was one of the families entrusted to protect these secrets hundreds of years ago. Some have fallen off the path and been overcome by greed and betrayed us trying use these secrets for their own nefarious gain but us Blixer’s have been here through and through.”

Then Westcon did something that lacked any taste at all, he attacked Charles, “I guess that is why most of the Blixer family is dead?”

At that moment Jin slugged Westcon in the arm. Westcon looked over to A.J. for some sympathy but A.J. offered this, “You had that one coming.”

I wanted them to shut-up; so I could hear the “Secret of the universe.” Charles was quite irritated that his grand speech was interrupted by their bickering. When they stopped he continued, “Have you ever heard of the Marahaja? We council members call it the Master Stone. Few among the stars know about the stones and we want to keep it that way. I really hope the Yonda doesn’t know about them but we would be foolish to make that kind of assumption. They are so valuable because they are filled with the purest energy, life force energy. As the name life force implies this stone can bring people back form the dead!”

He paused for effect. “Before you doubt me, my great grandfather used the stone to bring someone back from the dead. Just press the stone up against the body of the dead and the life force energy infuses with their body returning them to the world of the living. I swear it. We don’t understand what it is or where it came from or how it works but we saw its potential danger.”

He started to cough and pulled a flask from underneath his robe. He took as lo ng drink as if he had been famished before continuing. “Many years ago, in the early days of the counsel, its members would frequently use the stone. The stone has a mind of its own and travels around the galaxy. However, they came up with a device to track the stones energy signature and every time it would show up on Zatara they would use it. There always seemed to be a close friend or family member who needed to be revived. Of course, they drugged said person so they would forget the stone and just remember what ever happened right before they died. I imagine it must have given them a rush to restore life to something that was dead to play at God if you will.”

Charles was overcome with emotion and it was hard for him to keep talking. The weight of the secrets he had kept was almost too much to bear, “However, we all knew in the back of our heads that this couldn’t last forever. This fear was confirmed when one of our own betrayed us and the knowledge of the stone almost got out to the public. We didn’t necessarily want to do it but we had him assassinated. A collective decision was made to never use the stone again. We would be guardians of the stone to make sure no one else used it, but that’s as far as we would go. However, none of us believed this knowledge would be kept secret forever. Knowledge wants to be free, not locked up. When we figure or learn something amazing, we feel as if we are going to burst because we want to share it with the world.”

He was crying at this point, but continued through tears, “One may think having such knowledge is a gift, but I’ve come to think of it as a curse. This supreme knowledge can never be shared; not with your wife or children. You cannot, tell anyone the knowledge you acquired today. At the same time, I can’t guarantee that you will never tell anyone; the only way to do that we be to kill you all but our planet needs you more than you realize. This war will be won by paper thin margins and you all plus Mott may just be the edge we need.”

By this point he was crying so hard he had to collect himself before he continued, “ I owe Mott a debt. Mott and his family have lived near Mako City his whole life. When he became an orphan, I should have searched harder. I could of found him a provided him with a home, but I was to wrapped up with this life and all of these secrets to give him a proper home and a good life.” Family drama was always rough.

We all stood there for a couple of minutes; hardly believing what we had heard. I mean what choice did we have? The golden goose had laid her golden eggs in our lap we had no choice but to seize this opportunity, but we were still all paralyzed by the magnitude of it all. Of course we were going after the stone, but where did we start?

There is a skeptic in every group, a doubting Thomas, a negative Nancy if you will. Jon McElroy was our doubting Thomas. We had just been given some amazing knowledge but Mr. McElroy seemed not the least bit impressed. He said, “There is an inconsistency in your story, you claim you couldn’t tell your wife or kid because it is such a “secret” but someone has to know. I mean who were the people that killed off all the rest of the Blixer family, they obviously know. Also, how can wars go on for thousands of over something only like 10 people know about?”

Charles looked angry at this; I had a feeling that he was a very knowledgeable man and hated being upstaged by someone so young. He answered, “My family doesn’t know about the stone nor do any of the assassins that have killed off most of the Blixer family. The only Blixer’s who would have known about it would be my children if they chose to enter the counsel one day. My wife and I tried to have children but never could. My brother and sister, Mott’s father Aaron and Aunt Christine decided that they didn’t want to be part of this life, though they were given the opportunity. To learn the secrets of the universe.”

Jon replied, “Well isn’t it convenient that such a stone would show up right after Mott dies.”

Charles stared Jon dead in the eyes and answered him straight, “This answer will not be enough to satisfy you, but it’s all I have. Lately, the stones having been visiting our world quite frequently. I believe the stones are appearing more frequently because we are at war. The stone seems to be attracted to mass death since its purpose is to restore life.”

Jon fixed his eyes on the ground and responded, “Well it seems we know just as much as you do about the secrets of the universe. They might as well make us members of the council as well.”

A sly smile creped across Charles’s face. It was the first smile I had seen from him since we had met. “If you think these stone are the only secrets of the universe you are dead wrong. There are many other items of power that we have failed to protect that have gotten out to the public and have been abused. There is still only a small amount of people that know about them. But there are warring factions of treasure hunters and assassins all trying to get their hands on one of these items. Just being a Blixer or knowing about these things is enough to get one killed even if you are just a bystander in this secret war.”

Jon had nothing to say, there were things in this life that he couldn’t explain scientifically. He was a man of science and reason, struggling with concepts reaching beyond the realm of human understanding. Maybe all these stones and items were some science of an ancient now extinct race or maybe Elohim made them I would never know, but it didn’t bother me like it bothered him. Such was the life of a skeptic.

Charles let out a sigh before continuing, “Well, I’ve told you everything now I might as well show you the vault. He walked over to a part of the cave area we were in a pressed a rock the wall opened up. This is where we keep these mysterious items. Of course, this isn’t all of them; there are probably many we don’t even know about but for the one’s we do know about we try to keep them safe. Many of the items are from legends or bedtime stories you may have been told as children.”

The room was full of bright lights but it was much smaller than I expected and there wasn’t much inside. He didn’t allow us to look in there for very long, but I did happen to see a couple of things, there was a rod, a giant slab of stone with strange symbols carved on it, and a sword.

At this point, the room started spinning, this was all too much. I had always loved stories about adventure and James and I even had some adventures of our own growing up. However, the task force was getting too much; my original plan was to try to become an author but as I’ve have said and I will say many more times, war has a way of screwing things up.

I’ll admit after the first mission, I felt like a champion. Our assignments were dangerous, but we were unstoppable, it was a rush to say the least. Fighting the clones in Maldeves was weird and we got in a little over our heads with the pirates. However, this took the cake. It was ridiculous, now we had to replace a stone to bring our best buddy back from the dead.

Let’s say for the sake of argument, we do bring Mott back from the dead. Even if we’re successful it’s too late we know too much. I was scared for my life; I may go to sleep and get gutted by some assassin and never wake up again. I needed to build a bunker under my house or sleep in some kind of armored sarcophagus. It became hard to breathe; in that moment I wanted to blow up the outside world, shed all my responsibilities, and return to my childhood, or there very least, the pre-war era.

I started crying again this was rare for me. I hardly ever cried growing up because my father trained me to be a warrior and looked down on crying. I knew for a fact that I had only cried a handful of times my life. These being when James died, when Marco died and one time because I all alone in Mako City and no one could see me, and of course now at the passing of one of my closest friends. Maybe now I was feeling the psychological ramifications of that suppression.

Luckily, not everybody on the task force was Tyerow Nathaniel Hawkins; they seemed to have it together. At that moment Katotta spoke up here is what she said, “Mr. Blixer, all of this you told us is amazing almost unbelievable but I still don’t see how we are going to pull this off. If someone replaces out Mott is dead then he comes back to life there is going to be a lot of questions and the secret of the stone might get out. Secondly, Polanski expects us to be back at headquarters soon, and we are going to have to give our ship back. I don’t see how we are going to be able to go about getting this stone without a ship?”

Charles looked at her for a moment and then replied, “Katotta, those are tough questions but this isn’t my first cover- up and you will be surprised what people will believe. We’ve already talked to a med center near the town of Apollo where your last mission took place. The hospital called and told Polanski that Mott is staying in the Westpalm Medical Center until his wounds are stabilized and then he will be sent home, he seemed to buy it. For your second question we are going to tell Polanski that we require the task force to help us obtain a stone of great value; of course we won’t tell him what it does.” Was Charles crazy? That was way too close to the truth.

Charles continued, “He won’t like the idea that we are using you guys for our own purposes but we have authority over him so he has to follow our orders. Still, time is of the essence, I will give you a couple of days to heal up a little bit and then you will go after the stone. A wise man once said, ‘“You can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all of the people every time.”’

Katotta nodded her head; I guess she was satisfied with the answer he had given her. I personally wanted to go after the stone right now, the faster we got Mott back to life the better. At the same time, we had just got done battling and what if we ran into a treasure hunter or an assassin who also somehow knew the location of the stone; we would have to be ready to fight. This was hard for me, I hated waiting and right now, uncertainty was looming over my head like a thick black cloud.

Westcon was not a man of patience and certainly not one to wait around, “I don’t care if we’re injured, I say we go after this stone as soon as possible.”

A.J. spoke up, “I want to save Mott as much as anyone, but we are in no condition to fight. What if we run into the enemy? We are going to be in trouble.”

Westcon angrily retorted, “Oh come on now is no time to be afraid. We just took on a bunch of space pirates and now you’re backing out? Man I can’t believe you guys I thought you were his friends?”

A.J. couldn’t contain his rage at this point. He went off on Westcon, “I’ve had it up to here with you today. Just look at all of us, look at Katotta, her arm is still bleeding. I’m as dedicated as anyone but I know my limits.”

Ever one seemed to have an opinion on the matter and Katotta didn’t want to be left out. She joined in the fray adding her two cents. “I know I can’t shoot energy from my body like all of the rest of you, but I assure you I am the best shot this side of the planet. There’s no way I’m going to set in a hospital bed while Mott’s dead. I’ve stood by helpless while so many people I loved died and I wasn’t able to save them. Now we can do something. We have to act.”

At that moment, I saw drops of blood drip jump off Katotta’s arm and onto the cave floor. I tore into her, “No Katotta, you aren’t going. Your arm is bummed and you will be a sitting duck out there.”

She was trying to hold back tears, “There you go trying to protect me again, I’m not a delicate little girl anymore, and I’m a grown woman.”

Charles let out a mighty below, “Giaka, I can’t believe you guys are the task force. I believed in you, but I feel let down. You have the power to change the world but you choose to bicker like fools. The children of Zatara idolize you, when they grow up they want to Mott Blixer, Jin-Sou Gillespie, Tyerow Hawkins someone may even want to be Westcon. Every little girl wants to be Katotta and every boy is spellbound by her beauty. You may not know it but you’re these people’s hope, a beacon of light.”

Sometimes there was nothing to say and you know you have been beat; this was one of those times. I wanted to be the hero these people believed me to be, but that’s no easy feat. It was never fair, our situation almost always sucked. He was right; you got to walk through the darkness to get to the light. A new day will dawn for those that stand long. If we did this now and go through all this suffering maybe one day life would be good again on planet Zatara.

We had to try and bring Mott back even if we died doing it because we were the only people who could and even if the whole planet gets taken over by Yonda we would go out fighting. I responded, “I’m sorry you caught us at bad time but we’re ready now to do our job, if we run into trouble then we’ll deal with it. If Katotta feels like she can shoot, she’s welcome to join us.”

With that we all left the cave and got back on the elevator to take us the surface. Needless the say the elevator ride was silent, no one felt much like talking I felt more like a child that had just been punished.

After another impossibly long elevator ride we reached the surface again. Charles said, “I almost forgot, the tracking device mentioned earlier, if you are going after the stone you going to need the tracking device come up to my office.”

We walked through the magnificent building taking many twist and turns. At this point I was utterly lost all I could do was just follow Charles. Finally, we arrived at the door of his office and I had to say I was shocked. I expected it to have a secret entrance or have a door that had to be open with a retinal scanner like Polanski’s office. However, it just a regular door the kind with handles and as for the office; it was pretty standard too. There was a desk, a couple of chairs and a hologram projector.

Charles quickly walked behind the desk and pulled out a rod like instrument with a keypad and screen and an antenna coming out of the top. It was one of the strangest devices I had ever seen; it looked straight-up fiction. Charles turned on the device and it made a faint beeping sound. The simple beeping sound captivated us all because hopefully that faint signal would be the key to bringing Mott back to life.

With that we left out the Hall of Council and went our separate ways. I remember the feeling I had, a feeling of total paranoia. Everyone’s eyes were watching me. Who was friend, who was foe, and how was I supposed to know? I desperately wanted to get in my house as quickly as possible. It was late so I tried to get to sleep but this night was different.