Creative Challenge Treasure Hunt

Jamie lay on her side in her small hole and traced the edges of the ancient transportation device in the picture plastered to the wall, as if petting it. The picture was old, ancient. If not for the sealant coating it, it would have turned to dust ages ago. The colors were faded and distorted. What she thought may have been images of trees, once green and lush, were now brownish orange. The discoloration was made worse by the dim glow light she kept beside the image. At the center of the brow- orange trees was the transport sitting on top of a cliff, maybe a waterfall. Parts of the transport look broken but it may have just the paper.

It reminded her of the small toy Hill had had when they were little. She had bent one of the little triangles that stuck out from the side. He had broken all the fingers on one of her hands for that and then had thrown the toy away.

The implant in her wrist buzzed. She still wasn’t used to the sensation and her skin crawled in reaction. She shimmied forward in her hole until she could grip the wheel that closed the door. She switched off the light and pushed the door open just enough to let sound and any light, if present, in. There was no light and the only sound was the drip and soft murmur of water. She flicked the light back on as the implant buzzed impatiently at her.

“I’m coming. I’m coming,” she muttered as she pulled herself the rest of the way out of her hole and then closed and locked the hatch. The light stretched down the tunnel in both directions, illuminating the vivid colors. The once blood-red brick was now discolored by the minerals and chemicals of the water that dripped down the sides to the floor where it collected into a lazy, dirt filled stream. She would sometimes leave the hatch cracked just enough to let the gentle sounds in while she fell asleep.

The hole that she called home had once been a pipe of some kind that had emptied into the tunnel but she had sealed off one end, built in an air filter into the metal hatch, and had coated the walls with sealant and pictures. It was stuffy and damp, but it was safe, and hers.



By the time she reached the shop front to which she had been summoned her arm was going numb from the constant buzzing sensation. She flexed her hand, spreading her twisted fingers as far out as they would go and then into as tight a fist as she could get while rubbing the wrist with her other hand. She hated this store.

The whole front of the store was an upturned eye with a drop of colored water above it as if something had been dropped into the eye and then had splashed out. BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER proclaimed words that shimmered across the image. An optical nano shop. One of the few still operating. Probably because the owner had enough blackmail material to destroy anyone who was even a passing threat.

Jamie stepped through the eye and looked around the oval office as the buzzing stopped. The walls were decorated by the most attractive people, past and present, and beautiful, exotic landscapes. The promise of the OptNanos. Don’t like what your spouse looks like? Change how you see her. Change what he looks like to anyone you want. Don’t like the slum you live in? Then how about living in some exotic land where the sun always shines and the earth is scattered with balls of stone. Only the image was changed. If you wanted the sounds you had to go three stores down. They still didn’t have something that could change what things felt like when you touched them and the images and sounds tended to have a bit of delay. Not a good idea if you needed to be fast on your feet.

On the far side of the office was a desk and just behind that a hall blocked by a glow bead curtain. A grey man with grey skin and grey hair and grey eyes looked up at her from behind the desk.

“You’re late. Room 3.” Even his voice seemed grey. She slipped around him and through the curtain. The rest of the shop looked sterile, clean. Like you could cut someone open and pull out all their secrets and smile all the while kind of clean.

The entire facility was automated. The room she walked into had a chair at the center with a head rest that looked like it would rip her head off to keep it in place if need be while a complex machine tapered down from the ceiling to end in a point a hands length above the head rest. Her stomach twisted into a knot as she leaned back and she jumped as the head rest clamped around her skull and flat metal tongs forced her eyes open.

Her rapid, ragged breath echoed back to her off the walls as a drop fell from the machine into her eyes blurring and then blinding her for an instant. Slowly the room came back into blurry focus only now instead of blank white the walls looked like cracked paint and Murshi was there looking at her. Drool dripped down his jaw onto his furry chest while one of his wings flicked his cigarette.

“You’re late.” Murshi’s voice had a heavy accent that just did not work with the bear’s mouth it was coming out of. Too much lip movement in the voice for a fuzzy muzzle.

“So I have been told. Will you get this thing off of me?” She pawed at the head rest, feeling vulnerable and claustrophobic. Murshi smiled; at least she thought it was supposed to be a smile.

“It improves your looks.”

“I am not here to play your games with you. Do you have something for Hill or not?” She tried to lace the threat of failing Hill into her words while glaring at Murshi’s fur covered digital projection.

He rolled his eyes and his paw waved about in front of him and the clamping force on her head relaxed until she could pull her head free.

“You are no fun and Hill is obsessed.” His paw moved again and her vision wavered as streaks of orange and black swirled and streaked across it, like the pulsating surface of the sun. It made her dizzy and sick and closing her eyes did nothing to shut off the image. The swirls and lines formed into fleeting images, people, places, some words. As the colors spun once more she leaned forward and vomited on to the floor she couldn’t see and was satisfied by a stream of curses from Murshi.

The spirals settled in to a moving image. Jamie turned her head and shifted her eyes but the image stayed the same. Stupid, she thought, she was not really seeing this. This is what someone else was seeing. It was some place outside the cities. Low buildings sit under the chemical sky. People moved about in the orange light of the sun. The target was looking at a tree-shaped sculpture and Jamie worked to fix it in her mind. She would have to find out where this sculpture was. She was surprised when one of the figures in the image walked out of view and again tried to turn her head to watch.

“Is this real time?” she asked, noting the position of the sun and the shapes of the buildings.

“Almost. There is a four-minute lag due to the upload.” Murshi wouldn’t risk recording the POV stream. Stealing what people’s POVs was a major crime. The kind that made you disappear if you were caught. So here she was, seeing what the target was seeing and noting anything and everything that could tell Hill where the target was hiding. The image started to streak and blur, returning to the pulsating swirls that made her head spin and her stomach lurch.

“That’s it. The transmitting nanos are burning out. Tell Hill my debt is paid.”

Her vision returned slowly. Her hands were outlined with fire that streaked as she moved her fingers. As soon as she could see well enough to stand she did so and moved to the door, stopping just long enough to look over her shoulder at the smoking bearadactal on the wall. “Our debts are never paid.”