The Keeper gathering took an unexpected turn when Beau Van Bastian arrived with a dusty box.

  Marcus was hunched over Victor Aguillon's digitized notes when the tall Dutchman knocked on the door frame. The ginger man looked uncomfortable. His usual confidence was replaced by something Marcus hadn't seen before. Hesitation.

  "Hello Marcus."

  "Hi Beau." Marcus set down his tablet. "I was reviewing old files but I am at a dead end. Victor's notes are incomplete. Key sections are missing or destroyed."

  "About that." Beau scratched the back of his head. The tall man was in distress and wasn't trying to hide it.

  "What is it Beau?"

  Beau stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He set the dusty box on the table.

  "You must have realized we are not the Illuminati or any other big organization."

  "Yeah, but it's much cozier here. We have excellent hosts." Marcus tried to lighten the mood.

  "Yeah." Beau laughed but the sound was hollow. "Anyway, even though we trust each other, sometimes we like to keep our ancestors' delicate notes to ourselves. We don't show them unless we trust completely."

  "It seems like you're trying to figure out if you can trust me?" Marcus asked with a puzzled face.

  "No, no, not that." Beau shook his head. "I just want you to understand. There are certain things we did, or in this case my father did, completely secret from the other Keepers."

  "Beau, you're a forty-year-old physicist. Please stop with the mysteries and tell me."

  Beau puffed out a breath. He walked to the window and pulled the curtain closed. Then he produced an old projector from his bag and began setting it up.

  "Not every Keeper had a chance to have a two-worlder in their family. And when the Aguillon family claimed their grandpa lived in 1900s Europe and was murdered, my father had a chance to visit him."

  "Victor?" Marcus asked, surprised.

  "No. Jean-Pierre."

  "The killer."

  Beau nodded grimly. "My father had connections in the European justice system. When he learned about Victor Aguillon's murder, he searched for records of the engineer who killed him."

  He produced an old VHS tape from the box. The plastic case was yellowed with age.

  "This was recorded in 1972. The killer, Jean-Pierre Bonnet, gave a final interview before his death. French authorities never took him seriously. They wrote off his words as the ravings of a madman."

  They found an ancient VCR in the estate's storage room. It took several attempts to get it working. Finally the tape crackled to life. The projector illuminated the wall with the grainy interior of a prison.

  An old man appeared on screen. Frail. Haunted. But his eyes were lucid. Sharp, even. He spoke French. Beau Van Bastian translated in real-time, his voice low and steady.

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  "Victor was a brilliant scientist but obsessed with magic. He kept saying humans had magic but it was lost as our blood changed. Now I understand he meant DNA."

  Marcus's skin prickled. He leaned forward.

  "We worked on a machine together. He said it would revolutionize our world. The machine was picking up a different field source from the ground. Not an electric field or magnetic. It was different."

  Jean-Pierre's face on the screen grew distant with memory.

  "When he brought it to the scientific world, he was ridiculed. Because he claimed it was a magic field. It started making him bitter. He kept insisting on finding a way to shrink distances to nothing. For the benefit of the world, he said."

  The old man's expression darkened.

  "But I found his true plans. The machine wasn't for earthly travel. It was for reaching other worlds."

  A voice came from behind the camera. Probably Beau's father. "And what happened then?"

  Jean-Pierre coughed. Continued. "When I understood what he intended, to bring power from elsewhere, to rule, I had no choice. I killed him. Destroyed his body. Burned his notes."

  Marcus's heart was pounding. This was the other side of the story. The man who had tried to stop Malachar before he became what he was.

  The voice from behind the camera spoke again. "Can you take a look at this?"

  A hand appeared on screen, holding a piece of paper toward the old man.

  Jean-Pierre studied it. His face shifted from confusion to shock.

  "These numbers aren't..." He was puzzled. "No way it is possible..." He raised his head. "Where did you get this? Is the Earth changing?"

  "No. This was taken from an ancient site recently discovered. The grandson of Victor still has the field checker you two built. The site seems to be the source of this other field Victor claimed."

  Jean-Pierre leaned toward the camera, puzzled but fascinated. "This might power our designs. I burned the notes but not all the notes. Some I kept. Proof, in case anyone needed to understand."

  His voice grew stronger.

  "The machine worked. I built the prototype with him. It worked. We just didn't have the field with full power."

  The old man looked down at his weathered hands.

  "After I killed him and burnt what was left, I took the necessary things and gave them to my daughter. Made her promise to keep them until I said otherwise. This might help our world in the future. If I die, trust your instincts, I told her."

  The voice behind the camera spoke carefully. "Could you give them to me? I give my word not to give them to the Aguillon family."

  Jean-Pierre looked into the camera again. Then at his hands. Then back at Beau's father.

  "Marie," he called out. "Please give him the boxes."

  The tape ended.

  Silence filled the room.

  Beau produced old blueprints from the dusty box. Yellowed paper covered in precise engineering drawings. Notes in French. Calculations that made Marcus's head spin.

  "These were what my father secured. If Bonnet was telling the truth..."

  Marcus studied the designs carefully. They were incomplete, clearly missing pieces that would have been in Malachar's head. But the principles were there. The same principles that created the portal in Ephus.

  "We need to build this." Marcus said. His voice was steady despite the excitement coursing through him. "With the Earth seed's power and these designs, we can create a portal."

  He turned to Beau. The Dutchman's face was a mixture of relief and anticipation.

  "Thank you. And thank your father."

  Beau nodded. "He always said these would be important someday. I just never thought I'd see it happen."

  Marcus looked at the blueprints again. Jean-Pierre Bonnet had tried to stop Malachar. Had killed him on Earth. Had burned his work.

  But he had kept the most important pieces. Hidden them away. Passed them down through generations.

  Now they had found their way to the one person who could use them.

  The pieces were finally coming together.