Meltdown Ophilion - Book One

09_KUMPLAN-4

"Here it is," Celli said, pointing to the right of the wall-screen, "M-57 -- The Belemer Lake area."

Orion looked carefully at the map display. "Can you find the craters around the lake?"

Celli tapped on the keypad. "Here's one: Raliog Crater Lake."

"No, no, it's much smaller, and it's not filled with water... at least in my dream it wasn't."

Celli scanned the info-line. "Oh, here's something... a list of the dry craters in the Belemer Lake area... visitors info... here's the Crystal Caves... Mushroom Gardens... what else?"

Orion twisted his lips to one side. "I don't think it was any of these commonly visited ones. It was surrounded by forest, and quite small; I'd say about thirty to thirty-five relons in diameter."

"Well... that is pretty small," Celli said looking back to the wall screen. "Any of these are many times that size."

"What about something from the geo-mapping link?" Fel offered.

Celli nodded, glad for this new direction. "Let's give it a try." She worked through the options. "Wow!" She exclaimed. "Look at this!" She punched in a command and over fifty purple dots became visible on the screen.

"Whoa," Fel exclaimed, "that's a lot of craters."

"Well, that's the whole of sector M-57," Celli explained. "We just need subsection SY-113." She hit a few more keys. "Here we are... seventeen craters in SY-113, that's the immediate area around the lake. These larger ones are the ones we already looked at, so that leaves fourteen."

"Is there a way to have their diameter displayed?" Orion asked.

"Let me see..." more tapping, "yeah, here it is... Okay," she sounded satisfied with her work, "that's pretty clear."

"You're amazing Celli," Orion complimented her. "That is very good."

Celli blushed. "Well," she deflected the compliment, turning to Fel, "that was a good call with the geo-mapping."

"Dunno where that came from," he said, "probably something I saw at work."

Orion was already busy studying the craters. South. His finger trailed to the bottom of the map. "I think it might be this one here," he said with his finger on the screen.

Celli came over to look.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

Celli looked up at him, then back to the map. "Then let's go find it," she said quietly.

Orion looked at her nervously.

"What?" she asked.

"Guys," Orion said as he made his way back to his seat on the couch, "do you remember the other dreams I told you about?" Fel and Celli nodded. "Do you remember the scary parts?" They nodded again. "Well... in the last two dreams I... I felt that there was something... bad... evil; something that was connected to the sphere – maybe protecting it; maybe it didn't want me to find out what was inside... if there is anything there at all," Orion chuckled nervously. "If the sphere is even real." Both boys laughed quietly.

Orion grew serious once again. "Look, I don't know what it is, but if the sphere is really out there, then maybe this scary thing is out there too." Orion paused for a moment and they sat in silence, trying to imagine what this could mean. Orion went on. "In the dream, when I found the sphere in the cave," his expression altered as he re-lived his dream, "when I tried to pick it up... this... this monster... like some deformed swamp reglar just... jumped out at me," he raised his hands for emphasis.