romaine lettuce hearts as well as the blood pumping organs of a couple of the native animal species on Xinji. Not a big surprise as the Q-net had ripped apart hundreds of files and reorganized them into smaller groupings.
I scan the text until my gaze snags on a reference to the alien symbols. My friend Lan sent her mother, Dr. Mindy Maddrey, who had retired to Planet Rho, a couple personal messages about her research.
2520:072: It’s so frustrating! I’ve deciphered enough of the alien symbols to translate their language, but full understanding of what it all means just slips through my fingers. Here’s an example, I discovered there are eight symbols that are needed for the “heart” of the Warriors. Does that mean a literal heart or a symbolic one? And then once these hearts are woken—whatever that means—the Warrior then serves as a sentinel. This implies the aliens also believed the Warriors will guard them in the afterlife. But it made me think, do the Warriors have hearts? We’ve X-rayed the Warriors and examined broken ones, but what if the hearts are very fragile or dissolve when exposed to air—like the paint that had all flaked away as soon as the air hit the original Warriors on Earth. I know Havier will refuse—how dare I suggest we drill a hole into one of his precious Warriors!—but I’m still going to try to convince him to let me look inside—in a vacuum chamber of course. In other news, Kate is doing well at university and I think she’s fallen in love. Of course she won’t admit it to her mom—I’ve gotten the text version of an eye roll—but the way she goes on and on about Maddie has me convinced.
Seems Lan was on the right track.
Acts as a sentinel, Morgan says. Do you think that could be a reference to your Warrior ghosts, Ara?
The desire to correct her—they’re not mine—pulses. But because I saw ghostly versions of the Warriors near the hearts when the lights went out, they will be mine until someone else confirms they exist. Along with being able to see the shadow-blobs, seeing the ghosts, I believe, is another side effect of picking up one of those hearts—sorry again, Mom. It’s possible, I reply to Morgan.
I keep reading and after a few irrelevant passages and a recipe using chicken hearts—yuck—there’s another message from Lan to Dr. Maddrey.
2520:104: Good news, Mom! I pestered Havier until he agreed to let me peek inside a Warrior with a camera. We found a black heart with silver symbols etched on it! The heart appeared to match a human heart in size and shape and was attached to the Warrior in the proper position. It proved to everyone I’ve correctly translated some of the symbols. And, all the archeologists are beyond excited. Havier picked me up and twirled me around. Then his team did open heart surgery on the Warrior to remove it, but as soon as Havier touched it, the heart disintegrated so fast no one was able to get a sample! Still, it’s a great discovery and I have more clout with Havier. Now to figure out why the Warriors have hearts! Also I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying retirement. Did Daddy really catch a fish that’s a hundred and twenty-five centimeters long?
I wonder if Xinji’s reports about the hearts reached DES or if Jarren intercepted them. Are they important to what he’s planning? I remember the care his thugs took when they stole certain Warriors, yet they destroyed all the remaining ones. Was it to break the hearts? Hard to tell.
There’s one last message from Lan to her mom.
2520:147: I still can’t believe it! Yes, I know you verified my results and Havier is convinced (his archeologists practically carried me around on their shoulders as they opened the champagne), but it’s mind-blowing to finally understand why. The aliens believed there were demons that threatened our Galaxy—not ones that haunted an afterlife, but real ones. Believed it enough to build over two million Warriors with special hearts to act as sentinels and keep the demons from crossing into our dimension. And that’s mind-blowing as well. None of our astrophysicists have been able to prove there are other dimensions even with the help of the Q-net. Did the aliens discover an alternate dimension? Or did these demons arrive, surprising the aliens and they had to figure out a way to protect themselves? Yet more questions! Like are these demons real