Chapter 15.1: Smoke and Sparks

For several moments, the two asura held their embrace, seeming to contend with each other for the tighter grip. It was enough time for Penny, Ventyr, and Skixx to catch up before Minkus released his sister back down to the ground. She slid half a step back to get another wondering look at him, her hands still on his arms.

“Big Brother, it’s really you!” she gawked. “Your hair is so long, and poofy. And what are you wearing? No, no, not important—curious, but not immediately important. Who are these people, and what in the Alchemy are you doing here?”

He grinned the width of his wide face. It had been three years, but this was still his sister, thinking faster than she could speak and speaking faster than he could think. “Um— I’m traveling with my friends.” He gestured over his shoulders to the others. “We’re on a mission. Why are you—” he paused, looking around confusedly at the landscape they’d been traversing all day. It suddenly seemed to make a great deal less sense. “Why are you here?”

“You’re on a mission?” she replied skeptically. “With your friends?” She peered around him to get a better look at the human, the sylvari, and the other asura. “I’m here on transmat maintenance,” she said absently, still eyeing the others with a clear and growing distaste. “What kind of mission is this, Minkus? And what kind of friends would dress you like a peacemaker and—” She coughed, breaking up her words. “—and march you around the Shiverpeaks?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Penny broke in, waving her hands as she approached the pair of them. “You mean to tell us this is your sister? Way the hell out here?”

Minkus’ smile returned as he spun around to address Penny. “Yes. This is—”

“Jinkke,” the other broke in, crossing her arms over her thick, gray coat. “And you are?”

Addressing his sister again, Minkus stepped back a bit to get everyone in view as he pointed to each member of the party. “Jinkke, this is Penny and Ventyr and Skixx. We’ve been traveling together for some time now— well, except for Skixx. He joined us when we found him on the road.”

Jinkke grabbed her older, larger brother by the arm and pulled him a few steps away from the others, lowering her voice and pulling her fur-lined hood up around her ears and over her head. “Are you in trouble, Big Brother? Have these ruffians hurt you or drawn you into questionable activities?”

Minkus drew back. “Questionable act— no. No, Jinkke. These are my friends.”

“You trust them?” Jinkke asked with a scowl. She coughed again, covering her mouth.

“Yes,” he said. “They’ve been good friends to me, and it’s more fun to travel with them than to travel alone.”

“Ah yes,” Jinkke replied, her voice suddenly going flat. “Your travel.” She tried noticeably to perk up her demeanor, curling the edges of her mouth into a half smile. “How is it progressing? Have you taken in all the sights you wished to?”

“Not yet,” he began, awkwardly gripping the end of his ear between forefinger and thumb.

Jinkke reached up and pulled his hand from his ear. “Stop that. I’m just asking a— yes? What can we do for you?” Her attention had shifted to Penny, who was suddenly looming over Minkus and peering down inquisitively.

“You two are siblings?”

Minkus perked. “Yes, Penny. Yes we are.”

Still scowling in thought, Penny didn’t seem satisfied. “You look about as similar as Carrot-stick and I do.”

At first glance, she was right; Minkus knew this from years of experience. One was oversized for his race, stocky from head to toe and colored like he’d spent his life in a cave. The other was slight and short and colored like a chocolate mousse. Her features were elegant and smooth, while everything about her brother seemed comically exaggerated. Many had at first told the two they looked almost as different as two asura could be.

Minkus sidled up to his sister and leaned his head to give a closer comparison. “It’s in the nose,” he remarked.

“And the eyes,” Jinkke added, suddenly smiling. The two of them fell into a well rehearsed script, and Penny’s gaze softened, as though she found something valid in what they were saying. They’d seen the same realization in someone’s expression dozens of times before. The siblings were all too aware how the lilac of his eyes was matched perfectly in hers, and their noses, though far different sizes, had similarly rounded tips and sharp, vertical creases behind the nostrils. It was dopey on his face but added a sort of feline grace to hers.

Penny stood upright once more. “And the same ridiculous grin,” she said dryly. “Yeah, I see it now.”

Jinkke nodded proudly, leaning into Minkus. She opened her mouth as if to respond but was quickly cut off by a coughing fit. It lasted several seconds before she collected herself, clearing her throat.

“Jinkke,” Minkus said, frowning slightly. “Are you sick?”

“No. No, Big Brother.” It took her a second to meet his eyes. “Well, yes, I mean. I have a little—”

“Is she sick?” one of the asura behind her called out. “She’s always sick. Even I know that.”

Minkus looked past her at the male he’d hardly noticed prior, then back at his sister standing before him, concern in every inch of his face. “Always sick?” he asked. “What is he talking about, Jinkke? You never get sick.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Jinkke said. She waved her hand as if to brush his concern away. “I’ve just had— allergies off and on.”

Her associate piped up again. “Off and on, my ears. You cough more than my anemic antique of a grandmother.”

She turned around. “Onn, if you don’t mind, this is my brother, my only brother, who I haven’t set eyes on in three years. I do not intend to spend our first minutes together burdening him with—” Her words were broken by another cough.

Minkus laid a hand on her shoulder. “Burdening me with what? Are you alright?”

“Oh, she’s fine,” Onn interrupted again dismissively. “Nothing ever stops that one, even when I’d like it to. Hence the reason we’re here.”

“Onn, would you just—” Jinkke attempted to break in, but the other just kept going.

“Speaking of the reason we’re here,” he said with a crotchety scowl, “let’s not forget the matter of this faulty transmat. Something appears to have been forcefully wedged between the segments, and I’d like to resolve the matter so we can return to our previous endeavors at the college.”

“Yes, I know,” Jinkke called back, nearly growling. Minkus hadn’t heard that in some time. “Just give me a minute with my—”

“Would both of you shut your theory-holes and look?” the third engineer called as she slid down the ladder they’d set up beneath the waypoint. “It’s engaging.”

Everyone’s attention shifted to the waypoint, that stone diamond afloat some ten feet above the ground. Its upper and lower segments were separating as it started to rotate. Faster and faster it gained speed, starting to glow through the gaps in its segments. Then, pop! Everyone jumped. It came to a violent halt, throwing sparks in all directions, and went dark. The device and everyone around it stayed there, perfectly still.

As wide-eyed as the rest, Penny ended the lingering silence. “I think you broke it.”

“It was already broken,” Onn burst, flailing his arms. “That’s why we’re here! Besides, we couldn’t possibly have caused a malfunction of this magnitude when all we did was run the preliminary diagnostics!”

“Tell that to the smoking hover-cube,” Penny said with a hand on her hip.

“See here, bookah,” Onn rebutted, stepping closer to the human, “when I need the technical opinion of a—”

His words were cut short by a flash of light that burst into the sky from far in the distance, miles beyond the rock face just south of the road. All eyes turned in its direction as it faded from view and a tremor radiated through the earth, rattling them all where they stood as it passed.

“That can’t be good,” the other member of Jinkke’s team commented.

“Also probably not unrelated,” Jinkke said, taking a step in the direction of the flash before turning back to her team and the waypoint. “What did you say about something being wedged into the transmat, Onn?”

“Oh yes, now you’re listening to me,” Onn harrumphed. He turned toward the floating object. “Between segments two and three. It looks like a stick.”

“A stick?” Jinkke asked, suppressing another cough. She righted the ladder, which had fallen in the tremor, and climbed up to investigate. Even from where he stood, Minkus could see it: just as Onn had said, there was the end of a small wooden limb just visible between the center and bottom segments of the stone cube. Fortunately, with the device almost entirely powered down, Jinkke was able to pull the two segments just far enough apart to remove the object.

“Ow,” Jinkke yipped, dropping the object to the ground as quickly as she’d grabbed it. “What manner of—” She stopped, suddenly aware of the dim glow emanating once more from the waypoint.

“See?” Onn crossed his arms. “A stick. And the transmat is working again. Only a temporary setback.”

“That’s not just a stick,” Jinkke replied, now on the ground again and wiping her hand on a nearby rag. “Most sticks don’t sting when you touch them.” She stood over it, along with everyone else now, forming a circle around the strange object. It was a stick, albeit a thick one, about a foot long, piercing a series of small-animal skulls and feathered haphazardly at the top.

“And normally sticks don’t have skulls on them,” Penny added.

“What’s that sludge?” Onn asked.

“Smoke and sparks if I know, but it hurt. It felt almost draining to make physical contact with it,” Jinkke replied. She erected herself. “Never mind. Let’s just get the transmat functional again. We do that, and we can be on our way. It seems to me there’s more to this situation than a maintenance team is intended to address.”