Chapter 1

Anthony crept through the city gates of what used to be the great city of Sydney. He looked up at the monolithic arch, so huge and ancient it was daunting, and the remains of the titanium doors that used to stand so proud and elegant. He sighed. Another reminder of what the Inarin had forced upon them. Instead of living in these amazing cities, what humans had worked on and builded for centuries and centuries, they were forced to hide in the dirt, scrounging for scraps in the once magnificent cities that dotted the earth. Instead of peace, there was fear. Once he was through, he stood up, and looked around. It was a sight to make your eyes drop out.

Buildings stood everywhere, towering higher than everything for hundreds of miles. The gargantuan dome that used to shield the entire city was long rotted, but the skeleton of titanium and steel still remained, eerie as it creaked and groaned in the wind. The buildings themselves were also in a state of destruction, entire walls fallen, structures collapsed into themselves like dying stars. Soon, Anthony thought morosely, nothing would remain but a few pieces of iron, and then those would rot away. But while it still stood, it was time for scavenging. He hitched his backpack higher on his shoulders determinedly, and set off into the city.

Anthony walked until he found a suitable building, that looked decently in shape.
‘T6,’ he said. ‘Get out here.’ There was a whirring noise, and his backpack expanded into a smallish humanoid droid as big as a small child.

It’s body was made of some sort of dented metal. It’s head was plopped atop a thick cylindrical neck, and its arms were tightly corded steel of some kind, ending in three long pincerlike fingers on one hand, and a pulse cannon on the other. Where it’s legs should have been, there were millions of thin metal tentacles (courtesy of one of Anthony’s little improvements). And on its back, there was a dented little jetpack of sorts, that sputtered as T6 flew around.

‘Can you scan the building?’ Anthony asked. ‘Remember, we’re out for non-corroded metal, rubidium, and lead.’ T6 gave a whirry reply, and flew up and around the building. Anthony sat down, and waited. He knew it was no use pacing, or walking. T6 wouldn’t come faster if he willed him. But still, Anthony couldn’t keep himself from glancing at the sun. He had come out too late, and the sun was already arcing down towards the horizon. And when the sun came down, he knew, the Inarin would come. Finally, after an excruciatingly long time, T6 finally came flying back down.

‘Stable structure,’ T6 said, in his strangely metallic sounding voice, ‘Should stand for a couple more years. Lead found. Non-corroded metal found. Rubidium, not found.’
‘Excellent,’ Anthony sighed in relief. His last trip out had been a catastrophic failure. He hadn’t found any of the materials he was set to find by the high council of Vinglen, and he had been punished sorely for it. ‘Any entry ways?’
‘One on bottom floor,’ T6 answered. ‘Three landing pads on 5th, 8th, and 14th.’ Anthony nodded, and set off to look for this entry.

Once Anthony found his way into the building, it was time to start scavenging. Scavenging was his job. It was the job that most people had, but it was one of the most vital jobs you could have. You were set to find materials that the underground cities needed, and you had to find them. Scavengers had to be fast, because they went out on the surface. And on the surface, the Inarin warships still patrolled, flying high above the clouds, ready to descend and finish what they had started hundreds of years ago. Destroy humanity. Anthony was fast. He was also smart, and he knew that when the night fell, the Inarin warships would start flying below the clouds to hunt. And he didn’t want to be around then.

Anthony strode carefully through the bottom floor, as T6 scanned every surface for the metal and lead with 100 of his little tentacles. Anthony didn’t expect to find them immediately. There were at least 30 floors, and each one was as big as one of those soccer fields he had come across on one of his scavenging trips. They slowly progressed up the building, T6 scanning everything, puttering along on his little jetpack, Anthony carefully stepping where the floor seemed least destroyed.

Finally, T6 gave a robotic shout of triumph, and his scanners stopped on a section of wall that had collapsed over something. Anthony walked over, and carefully moved the wall. Underneath, was a stained, but not rusted piece of metal. Anthony allowed himself a little smile, picked it up, stuffed it in his backpack, and followed T6 further up. And the process continued like this.

Sometimes, the materials were under objects, sometimes they were in plain sight, and sometimes, they were nailed to the walls and Anthony had to pull hard to get them off. finally, they reached the top, with Anthony’s backpack satisfyingly clinking with metal and lead. Anthony surveyed the city. He could see the sea in the distance, and faintly see the structure of that famous bridge that the historians always talked about. What was it… oh yes. The Sydney harbour bridge.

‘T6,’ Anthony ordered, ‘do a general scan of the entire city. We only need rubidium now.’ T6 nodded his little head, and his tentacle feet went to work. Shining blue light shone out all over the city. Anthony put his hand into his pants pocket, and pulled out his binospecs. He put his eyes through the lenses, and scanned the sky for anything. He swept the sky for any sign for the Inarin… and froze. Was that a shine of metal he had just seen through the clouds? It had been so brief he wasn’t sure, but then… Anthony gasped as the entire warship came into view, cruising at speed under the clouds.

A Inarin warship was a sight to behold. Sleek black sides shone in the sunlight. It looked like a giant zeppelin, but no zeppelin could look so destructive, and he was sure that no zeppelin was so big. The warship was wider than that bridge he’d seen, and twice as long. Cannons and other more advanced machinery stuck out of the sides of the ship, and at the top, there was a giant destructive laser beam launcher, that Anthony knew could destroy anything, and would destroy everything one day.

‘T6!’ Anthony shouted in alarm. ‘Change of plans! We’re jumping RIGHT NOW!’ T6 flew over to Anthony, and Anthony ran to the edge of the building and jumped. They fell for a few terrifying seconds, and just 10 meters above the ground, T6 activated his extra boosters. They slowly came to a stop a few centimetres above the ground, and Anthony ran for the city gates.
‘We have to move, T6,’ Anthony shouted. ‘It’s a Inarin warship!’ T6 flew obediently beside him, as Anthony crouched by the gates, and looked up at the sky. It seemed clear.
‘T6,’ he whispered. ‘Backpack.’ T6 folded up until he was an eighth of his size, and disappeared among the materials. Anthony dashed for a small piece of shrubbery that still stood in the breeze. Then, after looking around carefully, Anthony made a run for a dejected looking gum tree that stood almost parallel to the ground. He continued like this for half an hour. Then, finally, he saw the discreet entrance to the underground city of Vinglen. He was so close… Anthony started moving faster, becoming more careless. And that was when the warship showed itself again.

It shot out of the clouds at a speed that make a supersonic jet look like a slug moving against a prevailing wind. Anthony looked despairingly at the entrance, just a few hundred meters away, and then made up his mind. If he revealed the underground hideouts that the humans had made, then they were completely doomed. He ran in a completely different direction, even as his instincts screamed at him to run for safety, to hide, to stay safe. At least he wouldn’t die knowing he’d betrayed human civilisation to the Inarin. He’d run 10 meters before lasers rained from the sky. They exploded into the ground all around him, spraying up dirt, and sending pebbles up his nose, and into his eyes.

‘T6!!’ Anthony shrieked. ‘GET OUT OF THERE AND ACTIVATE YOUR FORCE FIELD!’ T6 zipped out like an oversized fly, and put its cannon arm forwards. A shimmering blue shield materialised out of his arm, and surrounded T6 and Anthony. Anthony kept running, knowing that T6 would keep up. BOOOOOOMMMMM!! A laser slammed into T6’s force field, and exploded. The shield flickered, but stayed. BOOOOOOOMMMM!! Another one came, and BOOOOOOMMMM!! Another. The Inarin seemed to have finally located where Anthony was. And then… BOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!! The final laser smashed into the shield, and the shield flickered… and died.

Anthony groaned in despair, as he kept running. His legs, arms, and chest burned from running, and his face started stinging again from all the pebbles flying up from the ground. He could feel his body tiring, his feet slowing. Finally, a laser slammed into the ground right behind him, and Anthony when flying up, up, up into the air, arms and legs flailing, screaming in anguish. For a second, he seemed frozen in the air. And then, down, down, down, Anthony came crashing back to the earth.

Anthony landed, CRACK, on his leg, and it crumpled beneath him. He felt the pain shooting up his leg, and he knew it was broken. He knew this was the end. He looked up at the hulking black mass in the air, and crawled backwards in a futile attempt to escape the horror. He scrabbled behind him for another handhold to pull himself desperately, and felt the ground crumbling beneath his fingers. Anthony had one split second to yell in horror, before he fell backwards into the black.

Chapter 2

The first thing Anthony noticed when he woke up was the pain. His head throbbed, his leg was shrieking in agony, and his whole body was generally feeling not the best. He opened his eyes slowly, and saw nothing but black.

‘T6,’ Anthony called out, ignoring the pain that exploded in his head as his voice rang out through the cave. There was no answer. Anthony looked around. T6 was nowhere to be seen. Anthony sighed, and painstakingly sat up. Then he rummaged through his backpack, which he found after groping in the darkness around him, feeling for the item he was searching for. Finally, he found it. He pressed the button on one end of the torch, and light exploded out of the other end, dazzling him for a few seconds. Anthony looked behind him. There was a staircase winding up from the ground. He must have thudded down the stairs and landed in a heap at the end. Then, Anthony looked around. And his jaw dropped.

the room in and of itself, wasn’t very impressive. It was small, and made of granite stone, Anthony could tell, after having to find multiple different types of rock in his scavenging. It was what was on the other side of the room that was amazing. Huge stone pillars stood, ancient, and magnificent. They looked like those models of the Parthenon that the archaeologists made and put on display. Above the pillars, was a giant inscription, with the huge words, THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA displayed in a curve. Underneath the curve, was a stone carving of an open book. In the centre of the book, was a grinning skull. Anthony gasped. He had to explore this place. With any luck, he could find something of use to bring back to the council.

Anthony felt behind him, and pulled his backpack from his back. He swung it in front of him, and emptied the contents on the ground. he rummaged through the pieces of metal and lead, until he found a straight piece of metal. He tore pieces off his overcoat, wincing at the rips and tears. Then, he tied the metal straight on his broken leg. The makeshift splint was done. Then, he set off between the two pillars, and underneath the grinning skull. He had a strange impression it was looking at him.

As he stepped into the room beyond, the first thing Anthony noticed was the cavernous enormity of the room. His torch beam shone bright, but even it couldn’t penetrate to the ceiling. The second thing he noticed, was the rows of books. Rows upon rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of bookshelves stood, stretching as far as he could see. They stood, silent and massive, giant monuments of wood and paper. And none of them had decayed. The bookshelves stood, pristine and polished, as if they had been taken care of yesterday. The books were all stacked in an orderly fashion, and there was no dust on the ground. After 500 years, there had to have been some sort of dust. It was eerie, to say the least.

Anthony hobbled through the bookshelves, shining his torch around in every direction. The only noise was his footsteps, echoing in the huge enclosed space. He soon found that there was a second floor, although it was quite high up. There had to be more floors after that, also full of books. And there were SO MANY BOOKS! Anthony couldn’t fathom the amount of paper that was in this room. He pulled out one of the books, and read the cover. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, BY CRESSIDA COWELL was stamped in bold letters on the cover. Anthony’s eyes widened. If they had information about how to train dragons, then they had to know about how to defeat the Inarin! But to search through the entire collection of books would take at least 100 lifetimes. Anthony’s face fell as he realized this. But no matter. This was a magnificent feat of architecture, and with so many books, probably containing so much powerful information, there had to be at least some kind of metal. After at least 45 minutes, of just looking at the shelves, he came to a staircase that led higher up, probably to the second floor. Anthony climbed it, grunting with every second step. Up, and up, and up he went, higher, higher, higher, until he finally reached the second floor. he shone his torch into it…and nearly dropped the torch in astonishment.

This floor was nothing like the floor below it. It was full of ancient artefacts. Anthony could see old clay pots, paintings, brushes, and all sorts of other things. And there was row upon row upon ROW of weapons. Shining swords, heavy looking axes, thick metal maces, huge wood long bows and deadly crossbows, spiked balls on chains, flamethrowers, medieval looking guns from the 21st century, and armour. So much armour. In so many sizes. And if this floor was as big as the one underneath, there had got to be a ridiculous amount of everything. And maybe… Anthony rounded a corner, and let out a whoop of joy, attempting to run towards what he seemed to have been looking for the entire time, and toppling as he put pressure on his broken leg. Gold, silver, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, topazes, opals, and other shining gemstones winked and flashed in his wildly shaking torchlight. Gold coins, gold bars, and other ornaments made of more than just gold stood on podiums. There was steel and other kinds of metals too, but Anthony ignored it all. He could see the precious materials, and that was all he could see. He got up, moved towards them, and then stopped.

Anthony frowned, and then pushed forward once more. He couldn’t move closer. There was some sort of invisible force field blocking him. Anthony grimaced. If T6 had been here, then it might have been able to deactivate whatever was making this blockage, but Anthony didn’t have the faintest idea. No matter. He could bring reinforcements back, and they could have droids. They could figure out what was blocking. Then, as he turned to go back to the entrance of the building, a glint of metal caught his eye.

He looked down, and saw a little scrap of steel lying on the ground. Anthony knelt, and looked more closely at it. It was a steel badge, coloured gold, and with a blue outline. A little bit above the centre, it had the symbol he’d seen above the two pillars, the book and the grinning skull. underneath the inlayed picture, the words, LIBRARIAN were printed in bold blue letters. Anthony reached down, and picked the little thing up. Pain exploded through him, and everything went black, before coming back into focus again. He was in the same room… only, everything had changed.

Everything was brighter. Lamps were stuck every few meters on the walls, giving the place a creepy light. And everything looked slightly different than before. Before, everything had looked, not broken or rusted, exactly, but old. Now, everything was shiny, and all looked brand knew. Anthony looked round at his surroundings in awe. What had happened? What had changed? And then a man stepped out from one of the shelves, whistling a merry tune to himself, and pushing a blue and gold cart.

He looked relatively young, about 30 years of age, with a pair of blue glasses on his face. He was wearing a blue jacket with gold trimming, and a badge exactly like the one that Anthony was holding sat on the right side of his chest. His cart trundled along, as he walked. Anthony stared. Finally, the man turned, and looked around. His eyes passed over Anthony for a second, and then whipped back. The man stared. Anthony stared back. The man blinked. Then, the man yelled in fear, and jumped back.

‘What are you doing here?’ the man gasped. ‘How did you get past the traps? Were you invited?’
‘What traps?’ Anthony asked. ‘I just fell down here! The Inarin found me! Where did you come from?’
‘The… Inarin?’ the man asked. ‘Who?’ Anthony froze. He had been surreptitiously reaching into his pocket to grab a stunner bomb.
‘You don’t know what the Inarin are?’ Anthony said slowly. His mind was whirling. What had happened? He had heard about people being mysteriously transferred into different random places, but this didn’t seem like that. He was standing exactly where he had before. The other man was saying something.

‘Guards? Guards!’ He yelled. ‘Code 6 3 5! We have a intruder on the second floor! Repeat, an intruder on the second floor!’ A siren started wailing, Anthony could hear footsteps approaching. He backed away slowly.
‘You don’t want to do this,’ Anthony said. ‘I am a representative of the city of Vinglen (which wasn’t strictly true, but he had to say something) and if you injure me, their vengeance shall be swift and deadly (which definitely wasn’t true)’ The other man looked confused.
‘Vinglen?’ He asked. Anthony’s eyes widened. What was this place? Where people didn’t know about the underground cities or the Inarin who had invaded this world, where it seemed they had the answers to everything, and a ridiculous amount of weaponry, jewels, and other precious things that most people could dream of.

A dozen guards filed into the room, all carrying old tech guns, and wearing olden day bullet vests. Anthony scoffed. He could take them out in an instant. His weaponry was way more advanced than theirs. And then realisation dawned on him. They had olden day guns, and olden day vests. The weaponry was all ancient, but there was nothing from his era.
‘What year is this?’ Anthony asked, dreading the answer.
‘What are you talking about?’ said the man with the glasses. ‘It’s 2024, of course.’ Anthony nearly fell to his knees. He had somehow time travelled 500 years into the past. But how had he done it? He realised he was clutching something tightly in his hand. It was the blue and gold badge.

‘In the name of the Great Council of Alexandria,’ the man yelled, ‘I, Edward Berin, arrest you for trespass, and invasion of sacred ground!’ Anthony dropped the badge, pain exploded through his entire body, everything went black, and he was back in the library, and the library was dark. The torch was lying on the ground, shining light towards an armour set. Anthony looked down, and saw the badge lying on the ground. Anthony leant down to pick up his torch up, went to get up, and then hesitated. He looked at the badge. It obviously had some sort of power. He had to take it, if just to examine it. The scientists would know what to do with it. He went to pick it up, then stopped, remembering what happened when he touched it. Anthony tore a piece out of his already ruined jacket, and picked it up with that. He then stuffed it in a pocket, and headed out. He would be famous once he had told the council of Vinglen. Everyone would know Anthony as the one who had found a treasure trove of items so precious that no one could comprehend them. And with that comforting thought, he tripped, and fell sideways at the top of the stairs.