The wind grew stronger and icier as the night progressed until it was almost unbearable.
"What now?" Max grumbled. Hours had passed since they showed up at the ancient industrial building but Luke had only been pacing around the wrecked building, not doing anything. Max soon got comfortable on a rock.
"Huh?" Luke turned to him as if he had just pulled him out of a daze. He probably did.
"What now? Are you just going to stare at it? Am I just supposed to watch as you look at it?"
"Oh, this?" He glimpsed back at it. "Sorry, Max. It's just... I've always seen it either in books or from afar. I've never been this close to it."
"So?"
Luke ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
"It's different, scarier. The longer I look, the more problems I see."
He was right. Max had seen it too.
At first, the building was just a tower of rusty steel sheets split by the middle but then slowly, he noticed how it had neon green splotches, there was no visible entrance and just behind, the air was yellowish-green. Like a mist that never left it.
"So are you going in? Or was this just a waste of time?"
"Not a waste of time," he quickly interjected. "Just by looking at it, I've got a lot of information. And going in, well... That will be difficult. The doorway is blocked."
"Well, that's great."
"No, it's mysterious. These rocks... They aren't from our age. They are centuries old."
"Are you just trying to get questions out of me, Luke? If not, could you possibly be less vague? Explain it all in one go, don't leave me hanging. I'm cold, tired and this wind will blow me away at any given moment."
Luke pursed his lips.
"I'm not quite sure."
"Not quite sure of what? You see, my point exactly!"
"I don't know everything. I'm just predicting as we go along. All of this is... Strange. If these rocks are centuries old, it means someone blocked the industry off centuries ago..."
"No kidding, Sherlock. Obviously. Now what does that have to do with anything?"
"I don't know yet. Pass me my bag."
"What? Do I look like your slave? I'm just here to keep you from killing yourself."
"Bag please, Max. The quicker I figure this out, the sooner we go back."
Max groaned and mutter a few curses under his breath before finally following his orders.
It wasn't anything fancy: a dirty, ragged shoulder bag which was once beige but was now a mix of brownish-red colour from the Fernian sand.
He never liked to open it when there was company. He worried that if they ever saw his apparatus, they'd immediately tell on him.
"Turn around and close your eyes. Do not under any circumstances turn until I tell you too," he commanded.
"Yes, master," Max grumbled sarcastically. "Want me to wash your feet while I'm at it? Or wipe your bottom?"
"Just do it."
The other boy mumbled another set of curses before following the order.
"But if something weird happens or I see the police, I'm out of here. With or without you."
Luke brushed off the comment and pulled out a device he assumed was called a A3S. It had the same dimensions as an iPhone X only it was thin as paper and delicate as glass.
It was an ancient device that had obviously not been used in centuries and the screen was cracked here and there but it still worked. Barely. It often malfunctioned and once when he searched up the industrial building before him, it shut down and wouldn't turn on for a whole three weeks.
An A3S was basically the equivalent of a GPS and map from the older days of Ferne. Despite being that old, the technology and graphics were phenomenal. The type of thing you'd expect to find in the twenty-second century. Everything was so detailed that if you zoomed in close enough, you'd be able to see an ant crawling through terrain or even a crack in a wall. And from an advertisement he had got on it once, he heard that the A4S could even show bacteria.
But he didn't have the A4S. Most of the ones he found were hopelessly broken.
An orange light exploded into the night once it successfully switched on.
The device became like Luke's best friend (sorry Max). Wherever he went, he took it too. Whatever he did, he had it by his side. Not only was it a map, it also gave information about any place you zoom into. For example, if you zoomed into a house it will tell you every person that had lived there, when it was built, the number of days and people it took to build it and much more.
The system hadn't been updated since the downfall of Ferne and so a it's pictures were of the country then. And Luke admitted it seemed much better then.
The country was full of rivers, waterfalls, forests, fields of crops and flowers, animals ran around freely and were even taken to schools.
Towns were carefully built by the rivers and enclosed by forests or mountains to avoid further expansion. Some towns were built on the inside or outside of a meander, others were built on each side of the river bank with a bridge connecting them, and a few number were built on top of a river.
But despite all this information, the A3S still wouldn't show the industrial building. It crashed every time it got near it. However, now that he was at it, the device flashed with colour and showed what it looked like before.
"That's odd..."
"What is?" Max's voice cut through the night. "What's odd?"
"Nothing, nothing... Just keep a lookout, got it?"
Max grumbled while nodding. If you didn't guess already, Max grumbled a lot. Not that I blame him or anything. Luke barely told him about any of these places he dragged him to.
Luke gazed down at the A3S in utter confusion. The building. It wasn't made up of metal, instead it was a strong brick building. No splotches of neon, no cut down the middle, no yellowish-green mist. Nothing peculiar. It was just your average industrial building with many smoke chimneys and a large doorway, a large parking lot for trucks that transport their goods, tough and reliable security. Everything was ordinary.
He glimpsed back up at the building before him and was convinced he got the wrong place. It was less than an eighth of the original size and metal. There was no parking lot, no trucks, no large doorway, no chimneys, no brick.
He tapped on it, hoping for one of those information slides and to his delight, it came up.
The Animal Brain Industry
Founded by Kingston Blue, a Fernian-Nigerian man currently of age 45 (born 17 June 1827).
The building was built 21 August 1857 as a gift from the government following his animal cruelty speech at the annual Problems Of Living (or POL) stage in June that year.
Click here for his speech
Click here for more about POL
The main aim of the industry is to make technology that animals will be able to use and understand.
The iWoof was his first phone made for dog brains. It was a huge success. He also made phones for apes, piranhas, cats and grasshoppers.
Click here for more about The iWoof and his other animal phones
On January the 17th this year at a press conference, he claimed that he is going to try something different this year. He called it the Siren. He described it as a beautiful lady with amazing singing skills although he didn't explain much about what he plans to do with it or why he is making her.
Click here for more about the press conference
Luke furrowed his eyebrows.
"Hey, Max. Did our history teacher ever talk about Sirens?"
"Sirens? What does this have to do with sirens?"
"Just answer."
"Well, it wasn't our history teacher. It was our homeroom teacher. She said if the school sirens go off for longer than thirty seconds, evacute-"
"Not those sirens, idiot."
"Then which sirens? And you should have specified."
"Some beautiful lady with amazing singing abilities," he read out.
Max considered it a second before remembering.
"Right. She said once you see or hear it, run."
"Why?"
"She didn't say anything. Why?"
Luke grinned.
"I'll finish this off tomorrow. I think I have an idea of what happened."
With that, he stuffed the A3S in his bag and started climbing up the wall enclosing the building.
"Where do you think you're going?" Max asked in surprise.
"Come on, let's get home. Don't want your parents to freak, now do we?"
Sorry for the late update. School had really been hectic recently and I'm still trying to get everything together. Soon my school will be closed for a mid-term break so hopefully I'll be able to update more then. Thank you so much for reading this though.
~SpicyThaiChicken