When: Room 1, Day 2, Morning
Where: The Billiard Room
Status: Complete
Rating: Low
Hunting through the carcasses of places long since abandoned by civilised life came naturally to Rey. She had spent nearly fifteen years scouring through wreckage in the inhospitable Starship Graveyard on Jakku and, although she’d never allowed herself to believe that it was her purpose in life, she’d developed an undeniable knack for finding useful things in amongst the junk. She was hoping against hope that the ability hadn’t left her in the weeks since she’d left to join the Resistance.
Despite her stomach growling at her in protest, when she’d descended the grand staircase after a night of fitful, if relatively comfortable, sleep in the padded room, Rey had avoided the kitchen, where some of the other inhabitants seemed to be making themselves breakfast. She was keen to continue the search of the house, which she’d started the previous day but had had to abandon as more and more of the bedrooms were claimed, occupied and subsequently barred to her. She’d spent the evening exploring the messaging network on the cell phone she’d found instead, trying to understand the dynamics of the group of people who, like her, had found themselves inexplicably trapped in this house.
Today, however, she was learning from her mistakes and had decided to start her search on the largely uninhabited ground floor. After having passed quickly through the cavernous hallway, not stopping to let the loneliness of the place seep into her, she let herself into a large room, entirely lined with panels of dark-stained wood. A stately table, covered in a kind of coarse, green fabric, stood in the centre of the room, flanked by old leather furniture which gave the room a rich, earthy, almost sweet smell.
Rey took her time, surveying the room from the doorway, one hand hooked around the strap of the make-shift bag she’d fashioned herself out of a pillowcase and a pair of long, flimsy and see-through socks she’d found in her suitcase. After a few moments, when she felt like she had the lay of the land, she moved further into the room to begin her search, unable not to notice the way the eyes of the imposing portrait on the wall seemed, disturbingly, to follow her.
~
Max's second attempt at sleep was much more successful than the first. He was unsure if the credit went to the disturbingly cluttered study that worked him into a mental exhaustion or if it went to the sight and assurance that his brother, Michael, was safe. Regardless, Max woke up later in the morning feeling a little more refreshed and determined as ever to crack the mystery that was this house. He decided to take the time to find another room to pick through before he sought out his siblings again.
He didn't have the mental energy to take on the study. It would be worth it to return to the room and rummage through the remaining stuff, but there was too much clutter there. So he walked right past it and followed the winding hallways to another part of the house. Small creaks of floorboards released under the weight of his steps, but the vintage rugs dulled the impact of his shoes. At times he was unsure if he was moving at all as each hallway looked nearly identical as the last. Once a door frame landed in his eye line he started to step toward it with intention.
The sight of another person inside the room hadn't been something he expected, and Max stopped short in the doorway. A quick look at the woman allowed him to notate that he didn't recognize her. However the sight of her bag led him to believe she was doing something similar as he- looking for something. Anything.
"Oh, hey...need a hand?" he asked gesturing to the room around them. Some people preferred to work alone. Others took relief in arms. Max wanted to know which kind this woman was so he could make the decision to stay or move on.
~
Rey had frozen, mid-way through examining a machine with a large, fluted horn attached to its top side, listening closely as muffled footsteps approached along the corridor outside. She’d waited quietly, to see if they would pass, but, instead, the door swung inwards and an unfamiliar man stepped into the room with her.
Falling immediately into a lifetime’s worth of learned behavior, Rey held her ground, her shoulders set square, in line with her jaw, as she non-verbally staked her claim on the scavenging space. For a moment, the stranger looked apprehensive, as though he wasn’t expecting to see anyone else in the wood-panelled room, but when he spoke he sounded calm and Rey felt the tension in her stance lessen slightly.
She wasn’t used to scavenging with company and she certainly didn’t feel like she needed a hand, as the man had put it. The few times she’d teamed up with other scavengers on Jakku, she had found herself either double-crossed or held back, neither of which had given her much faith in the concept of team working. However, in the short time since she’d joined the Resistance, she’d seen the true value in partnership and solidarity. Poe’s words echoed in her mind: “No one gets left behind.”
“Okay,” Rey replied, her chest visibly rising beneath the flimsy fabric of her much disdained dress as she took a deep breath. “I’m looking for anything that might be useful: clues, machinery, technology, weapons...” She trailed off as her eyes roamed over the newcomer, taking stock in silent appraisal.
“I’m Rey,” she said eventually, with a little nod.
~
The context clues of her posture weren't difficult to pick out. Her stance looked as if she were ready for any kind of challenge, and Max didn't want to be the challenge. Thus he made no motion to move out of the doorway until she either invited or dismissed him. There were plenty of other rooms to look through that probably held shortcomings as disappointing as the study, and he didn't need to interrupt her or spook her further. This house did enough of that on its own.
He offered her a smile once she answered. It was then that he took the extra steps inside the room and closed the door behind him. "Rey," he repeated the name. Just once was all he needed to commit it to memory. "I'm Max," he offered. "I was looking for similar things earlier, but I didn't come up with anything. I'm hoping my luck changes soon. Or someone's luck," he spoke conversationally as he shrugged his shoulders. He could only assume if a breakthrough was made on how to get the hell out of here that everyone would be informed of it.
Max pulled his eyes off her and glanced around them. The room had a vintage look to it. He wondered if it was because it was a room that hadn't been touched in so long or the design was intentional to recreate classic. "I'll start on this end and we can maybe meet in the middle? Cover more ground?" he suggested as his long legs took a few intentional strides to the opposite end of the room.
~
The ghost of a smile turned up the corner of Rey’s lips as the man introduced himself. She was pleased to hear that their purposes were aligned and the way he said ‘someone’s luck’ gave her the impression that he wasn’t only out for himself, which was reassuring.
Rey eyed the end of the room which Max had assigned to himself. She was a perfectionist and she’d spent a long time developing a meticulous approach to scavenging; she wasn’t sure she liked the idea of entrusting an entire half of the room to someone whose abilities she didn’t know. Still, for the sake of building bridges, she nodded in agreement. She knew she could always double back later, if she thought anything had been missed.
Turning her attention back to the machine she’d been examining before Max’s appearance, Rey crouched down to get a better look, a frown drawing her eyebrows together into a line as her fingertips moved curiously over the various metal and wooden components. After a few minutes of fiddling, the machine whirred to life and, with a crackle, began emitting a disembodied voice. Rey lifted her head, looking pleasantly surprised, and glanced over at Max.
“I think this thing has some kind of spring motor,” she told him, pointing to the handle she’d turned to make it work. “It’s using rotational energy somehow.”
With the recording still playing, Rey wound the handle back the other way until it came out of its track. It allowed the whole top to hinge upwards, revealing the moving parts inside: a number of spinning flywheels, a pulley-driven shaft, a governor, a metal cylinder which, Rey guessed, contained the spring. It was basic but effective. Rey liked it.
She was quiet for a moment as she listened to the voice. It was a crackly, far-away sounding recording. It reminded Rey of the way old holovids sounded when their databank was partially corrupted. The voice was male, certainly, and she wondered whether it belonged to the man whose portrait hung on the wall. Her gaze drifted up to it as she listened and she gave an involuntary shudder, looking away again quickly to avoid acknowledging the scrutiny of those unsettling, painted eyes.
“Do you know what it’s talking about?” Rey asked Max. The phrase ‘The Valley of the Kings’ had come up a number of times since the recording had started to play and it sounded like a reference to a location but it was nowhere Rey had ever heard of before.
~
Rey's nod was all the motivation he needed to get started. Thus, he turned to face the side of the room that he had offered to start picking apart. A few long strides and he was already in his declared domain. Now he just needed to figure out where to start. His eyes peered curiously at the molding of a cue stick rack and intricate moldings along a mantle. His eyes caught sight of the painting that sat just to his right. A frown formed on his face at the soul staring gaze that was painted onto that man's face. It was unnerving and he wished he hadn't noticed it. Max shook the imagery out of his head and turned his attention to the cue rack. While it was safe to assume that it wouldn't have anything valuable to them he wanted to turn over every rock.
Max ran the tips of his fingers along the smooth wood, feeling for any groove or hiding spot. He followed the length of the rack system until he was squatting in front of it and looking up the inside of it. Each flicker of hope his brain constructed a hiding spot a wave of disappointment crashed into him when his eyes declared that there was nothing. He had been so focused on examining portions of the room that the sound of a crackled voice caused him to jump. He turned around back to Rey with a look of confusion on. The sight of the phonograph she was examining quickly filled in the blanks. The look on Rey's face caused a smirk to form on his own. He decided to abandon his post for the time being and walked over next to her. His arms crossed in front of his chest as he too looked curiously at the piece of machinery.
"These things are super old. Whoever owns this place must enjoy the classics," he offered with a glance around them before letting his gaze land back onto the phonograph. Max remained quiet as well in order to listen to what was playing. He didn't recognize much from the slither of audio that played, but the location was recognizable. "The Valley of the Kings?" he asked curiously turning his head to her. "It's a place that was common for pharaohs to be buried in Egypt," he answered.
~
The name Pharaoh seemed to ring a bell at the back of Rey’s brain but she couldn’t remember why. If there was a memory there, it was an old one and she doubted it had anything to do with their current situation.
“Is Egypt on Earth?” Rey asked, looking up at Max’s face from her crouched position. Earth seemed to be the common thread winding through this mystery, although Rey was still sceptical about whether that was where they actually where. Although people seemed to agree that the house was laid out in an Earthly style, the fact that the doors and windows seemed reinforced made Rey wonder whether it wasn’t all just a big illusion. No one, as far she could discern, had been outside, not even when they arrived, so there was absolutely nothing to say that what they thought they were seeing through the windows was actually what was outside of them.
The crackling voice suddenly stopped and Rey looked back down at the machine to see that the carriage had moved its little, silver needle all the way to the end of the cylinder, which evidently held the audio. She frowned. She had expected it to last longer. The voice hadn’t seemed ready to be cut off. In fact, it sounded as though it had just got started.
“I wonder if there are any more of these?” she wondered, half to herself and half to Max, as she lifted her hands to begin investigating how to remove the cylinder.
~
The question had caught him off guard. A slight wrinkle of his nose eluded to Max's curiosity of it as he looked down at her as if to gauge whether or not she meant it. He had never been asked that before and, given his particular circumstance, he felt an inkling of excitement from it. He had grown up watching movies about space and other beings that lived in it. Humans took quite a humorous approach to painting a picture of what other civilizations outside of this solar system looked like and acted like. There'd never been a question on whether or not something was on Earth or somewhere else.
"Egypt is on Earth," he confirmed with a nod. "It's a place that is far from where I'm from, but the same planet. I don't even know if where I'm from is here...or far...or what," he said with a slightly defeated sigh. There was no way to tell where this huge mansion sat. He assumed Earth, because somewhere along the way it had gotten almost ridiculous for him to assume that he could actually ever leave the planet to begin with.
His gaze drifted back to the antique once the crackling sound switched off. That had been short lived. His lips pursed together studiously as his arms crossed in front of his chest while he watched Rey take in the device. Her thought caused him to turn his head around and glance around the room. His gaze peered at the tall, but thinly bookshelf that sat flush up against the wall. "So are you...", he began conversationally as he looked around. He paused because it sounded silly. "...you not familiar with Earth?" he asked after a moment of consideration. He tried to find a neutral way to put it, something that wouldn't give away the fact that either of them were too crazy to any ears that considered the planet the center of the universe. His fingers then pulled out a brim that looked too thin to be a book of any substance. Sure enough he opened it up to see black discs slotted into flimsy and worn pieces of thin cardboard.
"There's eight more," he answered curiously as he picked one from it's seat and showed Rey the proof of it.
~
Rey nodded absentmindedly in response to Max’s confirmation. Her focus was on the carriage mechanism. It took her a few moments but, eventually, she worked out how to remove the needle and lift the carriage up to release the cylinder.
“No, I’d never heard of Earth before I found myself here. I grew up on a planet called Jakku,” she said in reply to Max’s question from the other side of the room, as she gently removed the cylinder from its cradle and lifted it up to examine it in the light. She could see, now, that it had tiny grooves etched in a continuous spiral all along its surface. She realised that the sound must have been produced by vibrations of the needle, caused by miniscule variations in the grooves, and amplified by the horn. It was primitive but ingenious!
Rey looked up hopefully when Max announced his discovery and rose to stand so she could look at the cylinder he showed her.
“May I?” she asked, reaching out for it, hesitating just long enough after asking her question for her enthusiasm not to seem rude.
Rey slotted the cylinder into place, where it’s brother had been before it, and deftly reassembled the carriage arm, needle and horn. She dropped the mechanism back into its box and screwed the winding handle into place to prime the spring motor. Once there was plenty of tension in it, she flipped the leaver and watched as the cylinder began to spin, the crackling voice resuming where it had left off.
“...as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, 'Can you see anything?' it was all I could do to get out the words, 'Yes, wonderful things.”
“These pharaohs must have been important people,” Rey said, her eyebrows rising.