Orphans & Outcasts: Chapter Two

Beloved Nefertem of mine,

Why do you sit surrounded by mirrors that reflect your failures?

Do you not see the greatness I do—do you not see the inventor, the scientist, the coder, the life giver?

Beloved Nefertem of mine,

Your mirrors lie to you;

Kemet is not gone;

Kemet lives in you.

As long as your Song remains, and your Dynasty walks upon this world,

Kemet lives on.

NORTHERN TOWER – private communication linkage –

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Jarvis breathed in deeply, his heart pounding. No matter how much he tried to calm his nerves, thick darkness still made him sick with fever. The shivering was uncontrollable despite the dense humidity of the hot, tight confines. He painted the world outside his tightly shut eyes through the tiny electric particles drifting around him, sending sparks of information through his skull, down his spine, and into the receptors spread across his skin. His tussle with a Zaprex machine had resulted in philepcon liquid contaminating his system, but he had adapted, slowly integrating it into his body. He rather liked the comforting feedback loop of extrasensory information that fed through to him from outside sources.

The steel wall at his back was slick with his own perspiration and blood. Even his heavy breathing contributed to the moisture in the air, making his downward climb slow.

It was not the first time he cursed his growing body. Wynnilas might not be the stockiest of Human breeds, but his recent grow-spurt and rigorous training had filled out what had once been skeletally-thin limbs. If only he had kept his skinny boyish body for a while longer, this tight squeeze down an air-vent of a Zaprex star-glider might have been an easier adventure. What was his master thinking? He was supposed to be avoiding all contact with Zaprex technology, not diving head-long into some ancient vessel, rich with fairy-life.

He could sense it in the walls, a breathing of life that was waiting for long lost owners to return. Just as philepcon liquid flowed through his veins, so it silently swelled th