Chapter 65—Cave Room

Chaz sat back from the fire holding his throbbing wrist. It bothered him that Jesse and Nikki didn't know he and his team had found the crystals. Thinking about it made his head pound too. Why couldn't he call them on the DSC sitting in his pack? He snuck a look at the others sitting close by. He was pledged to secrecy. He growled silently.

Nikki's final words during their last communiqué repeated in his head like a broken record. "You have to find them, Chaz. It's on you now...on you now...on you now."

Jesse had gone over the full moon times again. "I'll be at the crystal mine Friday night at nine-twelve p.m. no matter what. Nikki, you have to be back at twelve-twelve p.m. And Chaz, your time is Saturday at seven-twelve a.m. got it?"

"Got it. But first I have to find my crystals." No one had spoken. Chaz could still picture Nikki's look. And he remembered the rest of their conversation.

"What if we can't get close enough?" she asked. "You know, with Devin's injury."

"A few hundred feet plus or minus on longitude and latitude lines shouldn't make a huge difference to the orbit points. I hope," Jesse said.

"How does this orbital-point thing work anyway?" Chaz asked.

"Here's what I see," Jesse said. "As we stand together at our three locations on the planet and touch the crystals together, each grouping will shoot up a beam through the atmosphere to a point on an invisible orbit around the planet. Each point will illuminate and energize the entire orbit-circle. Not sure exactly how it will go from there."

"We're speaking hypothetically here," Nikki said. "A reaction of this type would be metaphysical, not following any known laws of physics. And we have no idea whether the beams will stop at Jesse's predetermined points. Or whether or not the light will extend enough to interconnect and form a complete circle."

"Right," Jesse said. "But remember, the angel said it would work on the exact full moon."

Now Chaz soaked in the fire's heat as he played this last conversation over again in his mind. Would Nikki and Jesse go ahead without knowing if he'd found his crystals? Was this important enough to break a promise and pull out the DSC right now? Chaz stood up and Jojo watched him pace around the inside of the cave while Tip and Taylor slept. Chaz had a feeling he wouldn't sleep at all.