Bones and Stones

“Today we’ll be visiting the Sol Archaeological Museum for a guided tour.” Mizlin announced to the group.

While Lena was curious about what ‘archaeological’ and ‘museum’ meant, she was more curious about Hamish’s absence.

“Um, are we not going to wait for Hamish?” She asked Mizlin.

“No.” Mizlin replied, “He’s joined Tiny Monkey to do more game testing. They were eager to have him after his performance.”

“Oh.”

“For what it’s worth,” Exer inserted themselves into the conversation from the back of the room, “I was also asked to partake in more testing, but I declined.”

“Really?” Zan jumped in to question them, “Why?”

Mizlin cleared her throat. “Perhaps you could discuss this on our way to SAM, we wouldn’t want to be late.”

Zan nodded and Exer used the interruption to hurry away from Zan’s curiosity. Meanwhile, Lena wondered who Sam was, before realising it was an acronym for the Sol Archaeological Museum and not the name of a person.

Unfortunately for Exer, they weren’t able to stay clear of Zan for very long; there was a long tram journey between them and their destination. The tram itself was relatively busy, but they managed to find three seats in a row. Mizlin took a random seat off to the side, while Lena somehow ended up sandwiched between Zan and Exer.

Exer’s posture was rigid, trying to prepare themselves for an onslaught of questions from Zan. But Zan’s mediocre attention span had moved elsewhere.

“So, uh…”

It was Lena who broke the silence.

“Why didn’t you want to do the gaming thing?” She asked.

Exer hadn’t expected Lena to be the one to ask, and took a moment to recalculate their responses accordingly.

“It wasn’t something I was passionate about.” Exer responded as flatly as they could, but their voice was shaken by the tremoring tram.

“But, uh, you were really good it at, right?”

“Yes?” Exer wondered where she was going with this.

“And I though you enjoyed yourself too?”

“Indeed, I did.”

“So, like, why wouldn’t you want that to be your, uh, Thing?” Lena asked, genuinely confused.

Exer grew confused at her confusion. “I suppose I just wasn’t feeling it?”

“Oh…” Lena fell silent.

She spent the remainder of the tram journey staring at her shoes, and thinking about Exer’s answer. How was she supposed to ‘feel’ her own purpose? What kind of feeling would that even be? Unfortunately, the 30 minute trip wasn’t long enough for her to figure out the meaning of her existence, and her mind was left spinning as she stepped off the tram.

The museum was on the outskirts of the city, though Lena hadn’t been in New Sol long enough to recognise this fact. All of the streets looked the same to her: airy, tall and full of plant life. However, the exterior of the museum was unique enough to catch Lena’s attention.

With just a glance, Lena could somehow sense the age of the stone slabs used to construct the building. Even the large staircase and pillars framing the entrance looked warn down, insubstantial cracks and blemishes covering every surface. The markings were superficial, so Lena held only the smallest anxiety that the building would collapse on top of her, and followed her group inside.

Mizlin did her usual thing, and slipped away to organise something. She returned shortly with a man in tow. His hair was cut so short it was practically non-existent, and his arms were covered in black markings like Hamish’s. Lena had recently learnt these were called ‘tattoos’.

As the stranger stepped closer, Lena was hit by a wave of deja vu. She brushed it off.

“This is Joe.” Mizlin gestured to the man, who gave a small wave to the group. “He’ll be giving you a tour of the museum. Don’t be a nuisance.”

And with that she wandered off and left them in Joe’s care.

“Alright.” Joe clasped his hands together with a clap. “Anyone have any questions before we get started?”

Lena had many, and didn’t ask any of them. Zan raised her hand.

“Archaeology is where you dig stuff up, right?” Zan asked.

Joe nodded at her oversimplification, answering one of Lena’s silent questions.

“But where do you dig? I’ve never seen anyone digging big holes in the city.”

Joe laughed lightly. “No, we don’t tend to dig in the city. But we’ll go most places, pretty much anywhere our sensors tell us there may be something interesting.”

Zan nodded, satisfied by his answer.

“Do you ever run into people from the Fringes?” Exer asked, hand on chin and looking contemplative.

Joe shrugged. “We avoid them most of the time, but there’s been an occasional run in. But I’m actually originally from the Fringes myself, so personally I don’t find it that strange.”

“Oh!” Zan exclaimed, then pointed to Lena. “She’s from the Fringes too!”

Joe and Lena made eye contact, then came to the same conclusion.

“Different Fringes, I think.” Joe said, and Lena nodded in eager agreement.

“Wait, there are different Fringes?” Zan asked, completely clueless.

“Well, people from the Fringes aren’t all in one big society,” Exer explained, “It makes sense that there’d be different, and distinct, cultures.”

Zan nodded along with their words. “Right, that does make sense.”

Lena and Joe shared another glance, as if to say ‘god, they have no clue’. She felt a silent solidarity with the man, which gave her a modicum of comfort.

Confirming there were no other questions, Joe took them through the double doors behind him and into the first large display hall.

A massive skull with razor sharp teeth peered down at Lena from above.

“The hell is that?!” Lena exclaimed, accidentally. She brought a hand up to her mouth and covered it from embarrassment.

Everyone turned to look at her, with varying levels of amusement evident on their faces.

Joe’s smile was gentle, as was his voice, “It’s a dinosaur skeleton.”

“Oh…”

Lena stared up at the collection of bones, starting at the skull and making her way down it’s spine until she’d seen as many bones as she could.

“So… This used to be alive?” She asked the man beside her

“Yep.” Joe nodded. “These are the bones of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, T-Rex for short.”

Lena assumed that was another turn of phrase she was unfamiliar with, because this skeleton wasn’t short at all.

Her attention returned to the sharp teeth sitting in its gaping maw.

“This thing must have killed a lot of people.” She murmured her thoughts out loud.

Joe shook his head. “Dinosaurs existed long before humans did. By the time we came about, they were already extinct.”

Lena struggled to process the information that had just forced itself into her brain. She trusted this guy Joe more than she trusted her old teachers, so she guessed she’d just have to adjust to the fact that humans weren’t the start of existence.

Joe took Lena around the side of the T-Rex skeleton, and rejoined with Exer and Zan who had wandered to look at a different large skeleton.

Lena looked at the new collection of bones, then let out a deep sigh. How many bones did they have in this place?

“This one is a Plesiosaurus.” Joe informed the group, pointing at the long necked dino. “These guys lived underwater, and used those little flippers to swim.”

Lena looked to the little flippers in awe, wondering how they could have any useful function.

“I wish I could swim…” Lena murmured to herself, imaging she could swim alongside one of these things.

“You don’t know how to swim?!” Zan asked, her loud voice carrying easily through the mostly empty room.

Lena rubbed the back of her neck. “No…”

She suddenly felt embarrassed. Exer didn’t dare judge her; they couldn’t swim either. But they certainly weren’t going to mention that to Zan.

“Let me teach you!” Zan offered with great enthusiasm, which is exactly why Exer didn’t speak up.

“Oh, no, it’s okay.” Lena politely refused, despite her interest in learning the new skill.

“Are you sure? We could make a day of it, and go to the beach!” She looked at Exer for backup, but they shifted their eyes away.

“The beach?” Lena wondered out loud. “I didn’t think we were anywhere near the sea.”

“We’re not. But we can teleport over pretty easily!”

“Teleport?” Lena questioned the word.

“It’s a quick way to get from one place to another.” Joe interjected, hoping to offer clarity. But it made Lena more confused.

“I thought that was called a tram?”

“No, no.” Zan shook her head. “Teleporting is way quicker.”

Lena thought of how sick she still felt on the trams, and shuddered at the thought of moving faster than that.

Exer finally inserted themselves into the conversation.

“Instead of moving quickly, it’s more accurate to say that your body vanishes from one place, then instantly reappears in another.”

“Wait, what?” Of all the things Lena had heard and seen, this sounded the most ridiculous, and impossible. “How?”

Exer shrugged. “I’m not sure how the technology works.”

Lena was beginning to understand that no one ever had an explanation.

“Anyway,” Zan moved the conversation on, “Let’s go, all three of us! It’d be fun to do something together that isn’t PFP related.”

Lena had enjoyed their last non-pfp meet up, so nodded her head rapidly. Admittedly, she was also curious about this teleportation thing, and what a beach was actually like.

Exer said nothing, causing both Zan and Lena to look towards them, pleading silently with their wide eyes.

“Fine.” They said curtly, secretly pleased they were invited, even if they hated the beach.

Joe, who was watching this interaction with amusement, eventually spurred the trio of idiots into movement, and led them through to the next room.