Sajani Tails

      The sparks of Terah are a rare group of people. No one knows what exactly happens to cause it, although it does seem to follow some patterns of heredity, but every now and again something inside a person just clicks into place. A terrifying type of madness overtakes them, and they instantly develop a deep and profound understanding of science and the world around them.

      Those who survive this initial breakthrough find themselves able to create amazing inventions and experiments the like of which defy the very laws they now seem to so deeply understand. There are quite a few theories of how this happens, but the easiest explanation is laid out in the old adage, “You have to know the rules to break them.”

      The sign outside read “M.V., Spark.”

      Sergeant Tess always found sparks’ shops to be very interesting. The one in her hometown was her first glorious exposure to such things and it was kept by a minor spark. This shop, she had no trouble realizing, had everything from the bizarre and educational to the somewhat dangerous to the better-not-even-look-at-it type lethal. The proprietor was a fellow vykati named Ginger, which made her business there a little easier. The two troops she’d brought with her had finished unlashing the chests with the elf weapons and set them down next to her.

      The young spark, his reddish-brown fur glistening in the sunlight that was beaming in through the open doorway, got very excited. “Oh,” he exclaimed. “It’s just like New Years!” He hopped up and down quickly, waiting for them to unlock the chests. A silver and gold automaton shaped like a cat circled around his feet making a sound that was a cross between a whir and purr. When the soldiers unlocked the boxes, he reached inside of one, pulled out a rifle, pulled and released a lever, aimed it quickly at an odd-looking machine in one corner, and pulled the trigger. It made a hollow click sound. “Ah,” he said with disappointment. “It wasn’t loaded.”

      The metallic cat let out a disappointed “meow.”

      “No, Mr. Ginger,” Tess managed with a straight face, “We shipped them not loaded.” One of the soldiers picked up a small case of ammunition and helpfully handed it to him. Tess glared at him.

      “Oh good!” came the response. The spark, as though he’d used a weapon just like it for his entire life, pulled off a part of the weapon and started pushing ammunition into it. “Fascinating!” He then snapped the part back into place, pulled back a lever, released it so that it snapped back and aimed the rifle at the same machine again.

      “You’re not going to fire that…” she started. The rifle fired. Herself, and the two soldiers with her instinctively ducked. “…indoors are you?”

      It looked like the machine he’d fired at was intended to stop the bullet, or at least that was what Sergeant Tess hoped, because just randomly firing a rifle indoors wasn’t something she associated with people she wanted to do business with, no matter how highly the elderly vykati ambassador recommended them.

      The machine didn’t stop the bullet but rather deflected it. She heard it bounce seven times before it stopped and heard at least three machines break in the process. She poked her head back up again after she was sure it stopped. The spark didn’t look as if he’d moved and neither had his cat. “How very odd. It’d have to have been going pretty fast for that to happen.”

      “Do you think so?” one of the other soldiers shouted. Sergeant Tess didn’t comment.

      “Hmmm. No way to cock it? Oh, that’s very odd…” he was poking around the inside of the rifle.

      “What can you tell us about it?” Tess asked.

      “Never seen anything like it,” the spark responded.

      “Can you make more like it?”

      “Sort of.”

      Sergeant Tess had spent plenty of time dealing with the likes of Colonel Lahnk. There was no way she was going to allow this little spark to get the best of her temper. “Sort of?”

      “It’d be a lot bigger than this. Not sure how they got things this small… Hey, what’s this switch do?” Sergeant Tess ducked and the two others leapt out the door. The gun fired 10 shots in quick succession, this time aimed at the ceiling. Without the aid of the machine he’d fired at the first time, they didn’t bounce.

      “How much bigger?”

      “Hard to guess right off,” he said as though he hadn’t almost shot them twice now. “But more than two times and less than four. So, this is the safety, single shot, lots of shots… I wonder what this does?” Tess quickly ducked outside the door and briefly caught the frightened looks on her companion’s faces. A set of three rounds of bullets went off.

      “Orders are orders.” She answered the unspoken question on his face. “I’ve only got two more things to ask him and then we’re going straight back to the inn. You can wait out here.” She returned into the shop and said calmly, “I’d rather you waited to test that somewhere safer.”

      “Perfectly safe here,” Ginger muttered to himself. His cat stared at her through narrowed eyes.

      “There’re some heavy transports we’d also like you to look at. They’re a little way from here.”

      “Fine, fine.” He said distractedly, still fidgeting with the rifle. The cat came over and took a sniff at Tess’s leg. “Let me know where. If they’re anything as unusual as these, I’d be happy to look at them. What spark did you say they came from? I’ve never seen work like this.”

      “Um, we’re hoping you could tell us more about it.”

      “Yes, yes. Probably some major non-disclosure going on…”

      “And Lady Sajani would like to meet with you personally this afternoon at the vykati embassy.”

      “Yes, sure. Sure. Mind if I hold onto these for a little while longer?”

      “You know where the embassy is?”

      “Yes. Yes. Fascinating.” He’d removed a piece from the barrel and was poking around at a metal tube that ran the length. “So that’s how…” he said to himself, as he shooed the cat away from his face.

            Sergeant Tess was done. Mission accomplished, she left quickly with only a slight curiosity nagging at the back of her mind as to how long it would take him to realize she was gone.