Jealous discoveries

Yawning with boredom, Precis stopped monitoring Robbie directly and set her little mech to automated scouting. It quickly scurried away from her and into one of the crumbling buildings filling the town. Precis looked around to see where Celine had gotten off to. The older woman was far more interested in exploring the town than she was. The town seemed to be not much more than rubble. The closest thing they’d found to anything of interest or value was some broken pottery. Precis highly doubted that there was anything of worth to find. She was also beginning to wonder why they were even bothering. Claude seemed fine. More then fine actually. She smiled to herself as she wondered what he would do to her once they were alone again. Her desire to return to the ship was rapidly eclipsing the responsibility she felt for continuing the search.

“What’s got you all pleased with yourself?” Celine suddenly stepped from out of a building, catching Precis off guard.

She blushed and tried to think of an excuse. “I…uh…just found the perfect place to test Robbie’s new armament.” She quickly pulled out her controller and stabbed a button as Celine’s eyes widened with concern. A building down the street exploded in a fiery crescendo hurling flaming chunks of rubble into the air and forcing both Precis and Celine to jump out of the way to avoid them. Robbie scurried out of the remains, completely unscathed.

“PRECIS!” Celine admonished as she dusted off her skirt. “What if there was something important in that building?”

Precis rolled her eyes. “Please, this whole excursion is a waste of time. Anything important in this town crumbled to dust decades ago…probably even centuries.”

“All it takes is finding one single obscure record or artifact to make a treasure hunt worth it.” Celine tried to school her ire and adopted a more instructive tone.

“Yeah, well, treasure hunting is your thing.” Precis set Robbie’s patrol range to be smaller so that he’d stay in her eyesight and then let him continue to scurry about on autopilot. “I’m just here because you told me to come along.”

“Don’t you want to help Claude?” Celine’s control started to slip as her exasperation rose.

“Help him with what?” Precis was a little exasperated herself. All she knew about the temple incident was there was an explosion and Claude had been knocked out. “Other than the weird tattoo, he seems perfectly normal.” Maybe not entirely normal. But I’m certainly not complaining about the changes.

“That tattoo is a surprisingly complex symbological inscription.” Celine blew out an irritated sigh. “It could just be a simple tattoo, but it could also be doing any number of things to him.”

“Then why aren’t we back on the ship studying it?” Precis resisted the urge to stomp her foot like a petulant child.

“Well,” Celine calmed herself again. “As you pointed out, Claude seems fine for the moment. So it makes sense for us to do some investigating and see if these ruins have any information on what was in that temple. Otherwise, I will have to study the symbol directly, and that could take weeks or even longer to figure it out. I might not even be able to do it at all.” She took a long deep breath and resumed her usual controlled manner. “Besides, Rena and Claude needed some time to just the two of themselves. This might finally give them the push they need to do something.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Something roiled in Precis’s gut. Jealousy surged through her. Claude wouldn’t. Not after last night…and this morning. Her insecurities about her body began to resurface. Rena had a much better body than she did.

”Precis…” Celine now sounded amused. “You know as well as everyone else on the ship that Claude and Rena have feelings for each other. They just need a little push to get over their hangups.”

Precis tried not to seem bothered. She needed to get back to the ship and talk to Claude. “Yeah…well…maybe Claude is no longer interested in Rena.”

Celine’s amused smile grew a little predatory. “If that’s the case, then my study of Claude’s symbol will be even more interesting.”

Great. Precis fumed. Now I’m competing with Celine too. Rena’s body was difficult enough to compete with. Celine’s was in a completely different league.

“You’re awfully sulky,” Celine raised an eyebrow. “Has our young little Precis set her heart on more than just teasing Claude?”

“Noooo…” This time Precis did stomp her foot. “I just…” Something glimmered white in the ruins of the building Robbie had blown up. “Hey what’s that?”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Precis.” Celine sounded more amused than upset.

“No, seriously.” Precis began picking her way over to the ruins.

The house, or whatever it had been, was literally nothing more than piles of rubble now. But peeking out from one of the piles of rubble was a white panel or slate. Precis called Robbie over and then pressed a different button on her controller. A beam of energy fired from the mech’s chest and began to slowly disintegrate the rubble pile. After a few seconds she shut the beam off. Robbie’s power supply had dropped to only a quarter left and the pile was still largely covering whatever the white object was.

“Out of the way, darling.” Celine stepped up next to Precis and began drawing symbols in the air. A few seconds later, the rubble pile began to shudder and then the stones flew away a few feet.

Precis wrinkled her nose at Celine and waved Robbie’s controller at her. “You could have done that BEFORE I wasted over half of Robbie’s power supply.”

Celine ignored her and instead studied their discovery. The white object appeared to be some sort of completely smooth surface save for a few seems that formed two slightly rounded rectangles that touched each other in the center of the panel. “Does that look like a door to you?” She leaned down and carefully touched one of the rectangles. A hiss of air sounded as the two rectangles receded slightly into the panel and then slid away from each other, revealing steps leading down. Celine looked up at Precis, her eyes glimmering with intrigue and excitement. “Shall we see what’s inside?”

Precis nodded. Worries about Claude were pushed to the back of her mind as her own interest piqued. What little she could see of the stairway and beyond suggested this was a completely different and probably more advanced ruin than the town above it.

The two ladies descended the stairs and found themselves in a short corridor of the same white material as the door above, with a few hints of grey here and there, presumably to split up the monotony of the color. It reminded both Celine and Precis of the more advanced technological construction they’d seen on Nede and Opera’s starship. Celine immediately noted a few more spots along the hallway wall that looked similar to the door above. She stepped up to the first one, tapped it, and was unsurprised when it receded and then opened onto another room. Celine stepped inside while Precis opened the door opposite.

In Celine’s room, she found a surprisingly intact sleeping quarters. A large bed took up the central part of the far wall, the frame appearing to be made of the same white material as everything else. Though the fabric of the sheets showed some wear, compared to the state of everything in the ruins above, it was in remarkable condition. Celine pressed down on the mattress and thought it still felt pretty firm. In one corner of the room was a rather luxurious vanity, though there were no vials or powders anywhere that she could see, just a single brush. The only other things in the room were a few dressers also made out of the same white material as the rest of the complex. Though the excess of white gave everything a slight clinical feel, something about the room still felt peaceful and safe.

When she stepped back out into the hallway, Celine saw that the room across from her was some sort of bathroom. Precis was nowhere to be seen so she assumed the young girl had moved further into the complex. Her prediction proved true when she made her way to the only other door she could see and found it opened into some sort of lab or research station. Precis was tapping at a control panel built into a small, rounded table in the center of the room.

“I think this is some sort of log left by whoever’s place this was.” Precis did not look up at Celine’s entrance and kept her focus on the panel. “Can’t get the stupid thing to play though.” She pointed at a crystal in the center of the table. “It initially started to project an image, but after only a couple seconds it flickered and the whole table dimmed.”

Celine noted that while she couldn’t see where the light source in the room was, the complex did seem to be growing darker. “Whatever power was supplying this place must be almost used up.” She pointed to the crystal. “Can we play that if we take it back to the ship?”

Precis shrugged and glanced around the room. It was definitely getting darker and they would likely need flashlights or torches to see if they didn’t leave soon. “Even if we can’t, it’s not going to play here unless we figure out how to power it.” She grabbed the crystal out of the indent it rested in and quickly put it in her pack, making sure Celine didn’t see the other items she’d found and placed there. She’d been very surprised and intrigued by them but was embarrassed by their erotic nature.

“I guess that means we can head back.” Celine gave the room one last look. “I doubt we’ll find anything more interesting than this in the town, but maybe Opera can do some sort of deeper scan or something to see if there are any other underground facilities.” She gave Precis a curious look as they began to head out. “I hope Rena and Claude made use of the time we gave them.” Ahead of Celine, Precis flinched at the comment but kept her back to the older woman and kept walking. Celine tapped her chin for a second before following. She wondered if Claude knew he had more than one woman pining after him.