Mindstone
A Gift for Ficlit78 with hopes that it will inspire the continuation of quick up dates.
By Moo Chapman
Artie Nielsen had seen a great deal of life, and thirty years in the warehouse was bond to make what you see of the world just a little bit strange.
In the years since Mrs. Frederic had brought him to the Warehouse what he had seen had at times filled him with wonder, or fear, and even betrayal. But what he felt as he watched one of his agents, dive for the falling 'Mindstone' was resignation. It was a dull black, uncut and unpolished ugly stone
Myka Bering, who had to be the first agent to serve under him that actually read the manual, knew that if the stone broke it would kill them all, she also knew, that if she touched it with out the protection of the purple gloves, designed specifically for the handling of artifacts, it would drive her mad.
She said a quick and silent goodbye in her mind as the stone landed in her naked hands. Myka wasn't really completely sure what it was that she was saying good bye to.
Was it Pete, her partner, who always managed to make her laugh despite how dire the situation? Was it Claudia and her youthful exuberance? Artie, who somehow managed to pull off scatter brained and steady at the same time? Was it her parent who she had just so recently come to truly understand? The love of the written word that her father had instilled in her? The feel of cold wind on her checks, and fresh ice under her skates? Perhaps the smell of dust and books, which to her said home more then anything else in the world?
As Myka closed her hand around the cold stone, just before she hit the ground, she knew she was saying goodbye to it all. But most of all to part of herself that she valued and trusted above all things. Her mind, the wonderful and insightful intellect that had carried her so far.
Myka's sense of self had been shaken when she first came to the Warehouse, not because she was taken off the fast track, but because the warehouse it's self and the artifacts within it defied reason. Myka had taken it as a personal insult that she didn't understand.
To mangle a Shakespearian quote 'The warehouse and reason keep little company'
Myka cried out as the dull black stone in her hands activated. The growing golden glow of the stone seeped through her fingers, then seemed to kind of flow along her hands, up her arms and then through out her body.
She still managed, in spite of the pain she was in, to roll on to her back and bring the stone to her chest. Protecting the hateful little stone, so that it had no chance to hit the hard concrete floor and endanger her friends. It was the Warehouse agent that stretched out her hands to catch the falling 'Mindstone'; it was the secret service agent, the part trained to sacrifice her life for that of another. She was taking the bullet for her team.