Symbiosis, page 4
Said alarm seemed to trigger some sort of reaction for the intruder; one guard said that when he spotted him, it looked as though said intruder was “attempting to remove his own head from his shoulders with his hands.” (His reaction to K’Marah’s and my “teenybopper banshee screeches,” as T’Challa once put it, aligns with this.)
Another handful of eyewitnesses on the grounds—mostly palace staff—claim he was “possessed of speed and strength that rivals our own Black Panther’s.” (Not sure about THAT, but certainly not completely implausible.)
The guards and Dora Milaje have yet to figure out what he was looking for inside the palace (how bizarre that I know something they don’t), or where he went after he left …
And today, he entered the Golden City and stormed two locations: the observatory and the Sayansi Museum of Wakandan History; it is said that at the latter, he went straight to the Hall of Celestial Artifacts, and left from there through a window. (Certainly in line with the name of the thing he asked me for.)
He has again vanished without a trace. He was (allegedly) last spotted in the city by a night watchman at 01:31. (Approximately forty-six minutes before arriving at the Makao safe house, which is thirty-seven kilometers from the city center. If these times are correct, it would mean our strange humanoid pal can run 74.59 kilometers, or forty-six miles, per hour.)
(Perhaps he IS faster than T’Challa!)
While K’Marah and I haven’t figured out precisely what to DO yet, we both feel that taking the next twenty-four hours to see what we can find out about our visitor—and this “nebular gem” bounty he is after—would be a good idea. THEN we can tell the grown-ups about him AND give some useful information.
There were roughly thirty-nine hours between the intruder’s trip through the palace and his visits to the observatory and museum. Let’s hope he maintains a similar pattern.
That will give us the twenty-four hours we need.
They don’t get twenty-four hours.
In fact, when the palace alarm blares that evening at eleven p.m., Shuri is still awake, sifting through the Internet for information about this nebular gem.
When Ayo and Nakia burst into her room, Shuri is standing in her pajamas and bathrobe, ready to be whisked to the bunker. With slippers on this time, and her Kimoyo card in her pocket. (Sure hope there’s a decent Wi-Fi signal in that den of technological antiquity.)
For a moment, they both just stand there, clearly shocked that Shuri is so … up and at ’em. “You’re awake,” Nakia says.
Mastress of the obvious, that one.
“I don’t think anyone could sleep through that alarm,” Shuri says, hoping against hope that neither woman will remember that she did, in fact, sleep through this exact same alarm a mere three nights ago. Mother had shaken her awake. “Are we going?” Shuri continues before either of them can respond.
“Oh, yes, yes!” Ayo says, snapping back to attention. “We are. Let’s go.”
The senior Dora Milaje lead the princess on a different route to the bunker—this time through a passageway accessed by a secret door in the royal coat closet—and when they arrive, Shuri is shocked (if not slightly relieved) that the queen isn’t there.
“Ahh … where is Mother?” she asks. Which triggers a different question: Has her kingly brother returned? “And T’Challa?”
Nakia and Ayo look at each other, and then Nakia sighs. “T’Challa is still on his mission.”
“Wait. Are you kidding—”
Nakia puts a hand up. “We know nothing about it, Princess. Only that he spoke with your mother.”
“And speaking of the queen: She decided she’d be more useful down in the security center,” Ayo follows.
“So I am the only person who has to hole up in this Bast-awful bunker?”
Ayo shrugs. “We’re sorry, Your Majesty. Orders were given, and we took an oath to follow them.”
“On the bright side, though …” Nakia begins as she pulls the door shut and locks it tight. “We have entertainment!” She reaches beneath the central sash that reaches from her collarbone to her knees. (Shuri has always wondered why the thing is there. It seems so impractical for a group of warriors who have to shift and move quickly.) Then holds up a small red box.
“Uno?” Shuri says, reading the word printed on said box aloud. “Doesn’t that mean one in Spanish?”
“Precisely!” Nakia replies. Shuri’s not sure she’s ever seen her so outwardly excited. “It’s an American card game where you match colors and/or numbers, and once you have only one card left, you shout ‘UNO!’”
Neither Shuri nor Ayo says anything.
“I will teach you both how to play,” Nakia continues, striding across the room to take a seat at the far end of the long table. Shuri’s guessing she’ll be required to sit at the head again.
She sighs.
“Come, come, come,” Nakia says. “There is no telling how long we will be in here, so we might as well make the most of it, yes?”
Shuri hates to be the bubble burster, but she has work to do. “Ah … not to steal your sunshine, Nakia, but I have some tasks I need to complete on my—”
“Kimoyo card,” Ayo says, rolling her eyes. “Fine, fine,” and she waves Shuri off. (Not that there’s anywhere for the princess to go.) “Young people,” she says to Nakia as she takes the seat across from her. “So addicted to their technology and devices. Teach me to play, Nakia.”
And just like that, Shuri is free to … well, sit and look at her Kimoyo card. Though she won’t be on PantherTube—which she’s sure the Dora women are assuming. Because as soon as she was back in her quarters post-encounter with the nameless intruder—whom she’s guessing has already left the palace like he did last time—she wiped a bunch of unnecessary stuff from the Kimoyo card’s memory and pulled together an “app,” as she’s heard T’Challa say, that gives her full access to the palace’s security camera network.
She removes her specially designed earbuds from the pocket of her robe and holds them up so Ayo and Nakia can see them. “Okay?” she asks the two women.
“Fine by us,” Nakia says. Then she turns back to Ayo. “Now, this is a draw-four wild card, and the most powerful card in the deck—”
Shuri pops the small hearing device into her ears, and the world goes silent.
She smiles. A short time ago, she upgraded the noise-cancellation mechanism in the admittedly store-bought earbuds by adding a tiny ring of Vibranium to the interior. So now nothing at all can get into her ears unless she wants it there.
And she wants nothing distracting her from the security footage.
As Shuri suspects, there’s very little to actually see. Five images come up this time, three of them with his full body in the frame for at least one full second. (Getting sloppy, are we? the princess thinks but doesn’t say.) She knows he’s gone again because the last clip—which is 1.3 seconds long—is from the camera at the loading dock. He appears, looks around, and then runs off into the night.
Also of note: He does not go to the hallway where the entrance to the vault of relics is hidden within the wall. Which the princess finds very interesting. What was the purpose of entering the palace this time if it wasn’t to try and get in there?
The irony hits her then: She is sitting in a maximum-security, atomic bomb–proof bunker to keep her “safe” from a being she’s not only seen up close but has conversed with. And she knows precisely what he’s looking for.
When the security footage proves useless, Shuri taps over to her web browser to look up this nebular gem the intruder is after. While there isn’t much public on the gem itself, she does come across a password-protected and encrypted website that is intensely sketchy but may be her only chance at a true lead.
Within three seconds, she’s managed to hack into it. “Flimsy American cybersecurity,” she whispers under her breath.
Her breath that catches once she sees what’s on the site. It appears to belong to a group of people who call themselves The Collectors, who buy, sell, and trade objects like nothing Shuri has ever seen. There’s a stone that’s said to give the possessor power over all space, near and far. There’s a golden horn shaped like an elephant’s tusk that was allegedly used by a god-king who reigned over what is now the American state of Georgia; he left behind chunks of the glistening metal when he vanished from Earth, never to be seen again. A rusted bronze spear that is said to have been used to slay a literal Titan (definitely the ugliest offering there … but oddly not the tallest tale). And a prismatic carved swan that was said to have its origins in something called the Bifrost on a planet called Asgard.
Shuri doesn’t find anything about a nebular gem on the “For Sale or Comparable Trade” page, but she does find something she’s not expecting: an image of a small glass case housing a dice-size block of an odd-looking metal. Antarctic Vibranium, according to the person who made the listing. Its description contains a warning: Keep away from all other metals, as proximity to Antarctic Vibranium will liquefy them instantly. Wakandan Vibranium included.
And though seeing the name of her country on this strange site gives Shuri a chill, she forges ahead and taps the link that will take her to the “Recently Sold and/or Comparably Traded” page.
“HA!” she shouts as she locates the listing for a nebular gem halfway down.
She happens to look up then and sees both Ayo and Nakia staring at her in alarm. “Is … everything okay?” Shuri asks, removing one of her earbuds.
“You tell us, Princess,” Ayo remarks. “You’re the one shouting.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Whoops! “Just watching this video about a … kid on laughing gas after leaving the dentist. It’s quite funny!”
“Yeah, okay,” Nakia says. (Clearly still peeved about Shuri not wanting to play Uno.) She turns back to Ayo. “Your turn, sis.”
The princess exhales and returns to her sleuthing. According to the listing, the nebular gem is “a celestial artifact, forged during the creation of a planet known only as Battleworld; it gives whoever wields it the ability to move through space-time by means of molecular disintegration and regeneration.”
Shuri shakes her head and rereads.
Disintegration and regeneration? So, like … the wielder of the gem would come apart and then re-form somewhere else?
Sounds like absolute upuuzi.
(Nonsense.)
She continues reading.
The gem was allegedly acquired by some American arms dealer (though how it wound up on Earth is missing from the description) who, after accidentally sending himself to “a planet full of rock giants,” returned home and sold it on the “Black Market.” Whatever that is.
It then passed through five or six other pairs of hands before one of the collectors got hold of it. He then traded it to a different collector …
Named Zanda. The princess of Narobia.
“No way,” Shuri whispers.
She lowers her Kimoyo card then.
Her sole encounter with Zanda involved the near annihilation of the heart-shaped herb and almost invasion of Wakanda—on a Challenge Day, no less. Shuri’s fists clench at the audacity of the Narobian woman. She and K’Marah stopped the multi-point assault and saved the herb almost single-handedly. (They’d had some help from Shuri’s surrogate big sis, Queen Ororo of Kenya—or Ms. X-Woman Lady Storm, as K’Marah refers to her. But still.)
What’s occurring to Shuri now, though: She doesn’t actually know what happened to Princess Zanda. Shuri was told that Zanda was returned to her home country within a tube that contained a tornado whipping around her inside it, but whether or not she ever got out, the Wakandan princess isn’t sure.
Something else Shuri doesn’t know but would like to: If Zanda is the last-known person in possession of this nebular gem, why is the intruder poking around in Wakanda instead of Narobia? Does he somehow know that Zanda was here?
Which begs a different question: Who/what is this intruder, and how does he know of Wakanda’s existence?
Shuri raises her Kimoyo card again and begins a new virtual hunt, tapping “black-suited creature with razor-sharp teeth” into the search bar. (Why people her age prefer this thumb tap-tap-tapping at letters on a screen as their primary form of communication is beyond the princess. The tedium would drive her mad.)
To her utter shock, that precise phrase returns 217,000 results (in 0.21 seconds, no less).
The first page is useless—filled with bizarre Halloween costumes and talk of extraterrestrials. But at the top of page two? She finds all she needs to see. Because she recognizes the organization mentioned in the article (which admittedly is housed on a website very clearly dedicated to conspiracy theorizing).
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Time to make a call to U.S. Colonel Nicholas Joseph Fury.
The moment Shuri steps back into her quarters some three hours later, she knows something’s off. (Though, fine: Playing Uno did make the time pass more quickly.)
She also knows that Ayo and Nakia are going to sweep the room before allowing her to enter … But she hopes to Bast that they don’t find anything—or anyone. Shuri would like to examine the area for herself.
As the Dora move through Shuri’s space, their spears at the ready, the princess makes a big show of being extra exhausted. “I mean you lovely ladies no disrespect”—big yawn and stretch for effect—“but if we could speed things up just a smidge … I am quite tired and would like to go to bed now. It is almost three a.m. after all.”
“Duly noted, Your Majesty,” Ayo replies with a reverent bow of her head. Shuri still hasn’t gotten used to that. “We will check your dressing chambers, and then I will post just outside the door. Nakia will stay in here with—”
“NO!” Shuri shouts before she can catch herself.
Ayo pulls back in alarm.
“Sorry, sorry,” Shuri says. “It’s just that … I don’t know that I’d be able to sleep with someone inside my quarters. Well … besides K’Marah.” She’s on the verge of rambling now. “But I’ve been sharing sleeping spaces with K’Marah for years, you see, so it’s very different—”
“All right, all right,” Nakia says, lifting hands in surrender. “We will both stay outside. But if you change your mind once you shut off the light and the dark settles, just shout and one of us will come in. Yes, we received the all clear from palace security, but I know how jolting these situations can be.”
“Correct,” Ayo chimes in. “So we are here for you. Another Dora will relieve me in one hour, but Nakia will be here until morning. Okay?”
Shuri nods. “Okay!” Yikes, too exuberant … “Umm … thank you both very much. For … protecting me and all that. Good night!”
She gives a little wave and turns to walk to her bed. Within a few seconds, she hears the door click shut behind her.
Which is when she jumps into her own high alert.
Someone was inside her quarters while she was not. She knows this to be fact as certainly as she knows every property of Wakandan Vibranium. She can feel it.
She hasn’t shut off the light, so she’s able to see the entire space clearly. Nothing looks out of place. But there’s something almost tangible in the air. The … ghost, for lack of a better term, of someone’s (or something’s?) presence.
She turns in a circle, taking the room in. Everything is precisely the way she left it and completely undisturbed—which, believe it or not, is easier for her to see when there’s a bit of a mess—but it clicks: The curtain that typically covers the entrance to her dressing chamber was open even before Nakia stepped a foot toward it.
Shuri always leaves it closed.
Her eyes go wide then. Because if someone was in there, it could spell Very Bad News. Especially if that someone was a black-suited, human-shaped, spider-ish creature person: She keeps a stash of Vibranium and weapons hidden inside.
No, none of the weapons are lethal: a few updated kitty cannon blasters that shoot electromagnetic energy, a pair of light gauntlets, a long-range stun gun … But in the wrong hands, they could certainly all render palace guards and/or Dora Milaje unconscious long enough to get past them. In fact, the stun gun shock is so intense that for a few minutes after coming to, the victim of one of those discharges is so disoriented, an enemy could get them to divulge just about any bit of information said enemy was after.
And there’s no telling what a non-Wakandan would do with the stash of Vibranium.
Shuri carefully approaches, her Kimoyo card in hand. If nothing else, she’ll be able to temporarily blind any intruder with the flashlight long enough to knock him (or her … or them …) to the floor. She thinks.
She sloooooowly peeks around the curtained side of the doorway … and finds her stash-away lab center partially pulled out. Shuri certainly didn’t leave it that way—she always makes sure to slide everything back in place and seal it up tight. Yes, Mother knows there’s a miniature laboratory in Shuri’s closet, but she doesn’t know how to get into it if it’s shut.
The closer Shuri gets to the scene of who-knows-what-she’ll-find, the louder her heartbeat thrums in her ears. (Too bad noise-canceling earbuds can’t cancel that.) And once she has the station completely pulled out, she stumbles backward in surprise. And not because anything’s missing …
All the things she keeps hidden—from the jars of various chemical concoctions, to the hunks of raw Vibranium, to the weapons—are knocked over and moved around.
Shuri begins to go through every jar and container she had stashed. Someone—nameless, black-clad, smile-of-death being, if she had to guess—went through them.
All of them, Shuri realizes. Every single last one.
But it doesn’t look like anything was taken.
We just want gem rings that croaky voice in her head.
He was clearly telling the truth …
But why is he so convinced that Shuri has it?
* * *
The next day, Shuri is permitted to go to her lab.
Surrounded by more guards than she’s ever seen in one place at one time.
