The Golem Conspiracy - Chapter 4

Hours after the skirmish, Jac was finally at home with Nel as his guest. And with the mystery of the Golems and their unknown manipulator fresh in his memory, he was already at work to find some answers.

“Where did it go?” he asked aloud in his apartment, flicking through some online articles on his phone’s screen. “It was there one minute ago, I swear!”

As he did, Nel was curiously looking at a map of the city’s entire dominion. “So, we’re up here, right?” she pointed to the east side of the map, to Greenborough. “There’s lots of trees around here after all.” She read the text on the map, or at least tried to. “…Guhreyen…Boro-hooguh?”

“It’s pronounced ‘Green-buruh’.”

“Then why’s there a ‘guh’ in this part?” Nel asked as she pointed at the second G.

Jac, however, took little notice as he was engrossed in his task. “I must have seen it somewhere,” he insisted.

“What are you talking about?” Nel asked.

Jac explained, “It’s about the Golems. You and I, those two other Judges; we can’t be the only ones who saw them.”

“Especially given the mess they leave behind,” said Nel.

“And not just them; I saw another the day before somewhere else. Someone must have posted online about them, so I’m searching,” he flicked through the articles again, more desperate for a result. “In a world where anyone would brag or whine about anything online, I seriously doubt mysterious walking statues would be something they’d remain quiet about.” Soon something caught his eye. “Ah-ha!”

He opened the webpage. “It’s not the same one as before,” he quickly explained. “But it’s something.” There was an image on the page of an odd figure. Given the few similarities it had with the others, the stone and clay body and the glowing circular eyes, the ragged clothes and the crystal in its chest, it was certainly a Golem. Jac couldn’t quite tell from the photo. “Mystery sculpture,” Jac read the headline, “appears near Clarence Avenue! Gotcha!” He put his phone in his pocket.

“What’re you doing?” Nel asked.

“It’s nearby. Let’s go to Clarence Avenue, see if it’s still there.” He was eager, but then a though popped into his mind. “Actually,” he looked at Nel, “maybe you should stay here.”

“What!?” Nel felt disheartened.

“Nel, I don’t know if anyone saw you last night,” Jac explained, “but it’s probably best that you remain hidden.”

“Oh,” she immediately understood, but whatever offence she felt was gone as the smile returned to her face. “If that’s the case, can you get that coin out again?” Jac complied, retrieving the six-sided coin from his pocket. Nel’s entire body glowed as she morphed and shrunk into a tiny sparkle that flew right into the coin. “There, that should do it,” said her voice. She was nowhere to be found, but Jac could hear her just fine.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m inside the…coin?” she answered but sounded uncertain. “Or it’s somewhere on the other side of the coin, maybe? Am I making sense?”

“I think so,” said Jac. “Well, whatever it is, if it means you can stay hidden and still come along then who am I to argue?”

“Let’s go then!” Nel exclaimed eagerly. “Adventure!”

#

It took them a few minutes, but they soon reached Clarence Avenue; a road of old but well-maintained houses on one side and a series of playing fields on the other with a stone path winding through them.

“The photo in the article showed it standing near the grass,” said Jac as he headed for the fields. Walking down the path, he made note of a few families spending time, including young children playing without a care in the world. “That Golem could attack at any moment,” he said, audibly worried. “Yet as far as these people are concerned, they’re in no danger at all.”

“Good thing we’re here then,” Nel responded all upbeat. “We’ll deal with that thing with all our Wonders if needs be.”

“Wonders?” Jac was curious about the choice of words.

“That’s what Malakim call their powers. And since you’re my Judge, you can use them too.”

“Is Wonders really the ideal word? Especially for the more destructive stuff?”

“What else should we call them? Sparkle-sparkle-boom-magic?” Nel joked.

“…Wonders it is then,” Jac relented.

The young man continued down the path which eventually split and wrapped around a large spruce tree in the field. And standing completely stationary on the verge of that path was the Golem. Jac quickly approached it.

“There’s our friend,” said Nel.

“Yeah,” said Jac. He analysed the static construct. It was much smaller than the other two Golems he had seen, only about as tall as he was. Up close to it, he noted that the eyes had a faint glow of amber yellow, not nearly as bright as its kin. Jac walked around the automation and analysed the object on its back; a pair of thick shafts, pointed on the top and hollow on the bottom. Looking inside, Jac could see some propeller-like objects within; it looked like this Golem could be able to fly.

Jac even felt brave enough to poke it, and it still wouldn’t budge. “Seems fine at the moment,” he said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s see if...huh?” He looked at the site online that reported on the Golem only to find it wasn’t there anymore, only the words ‘webpage not found’. “What do you mean, ‘webpage not found’!?”

“What’s happening?” Nel’s voice asked.

“The Golem article’s gone,” Jac explained. “That’s the second one now.” He put his phone away. “What gives?”

“Are you alright, sir?” a woman’s voice asked. A startled Jac spun around to see a formally dressed woman with a blue scarf and her hair tied back into a long ponytail. It was Sana, though she was a stranger to Jac of course. “You sound like you’re talking to yourself.”

“I, uh…” Jac’s cheeks were red with awkwardness. “Sorry, I’m terrible at internalising my thoughts,” he said as his excuse before chuckling with embarrassment.

Sana laughed herself. “First sign of madness,” she joked.

“So, I hear,” said Jac. ‘Little does she know’, he thought.

Sana walked closer to Jac and the Golem. “That sculpture,” she said, “did you call it a Golem? That’s what I heard you say, right?”

“I did, yeah,” Jac confirmed.

Sana analysed the construct herself. “Interesting choice of word,” she commented. “You mentioned something about an article too?”

“It’s kind of dumb,” Jac tried to dismiss the whole ruckus.

Sana scoffed. “Sounds like it would suit me just fine then,” she smiled at Jac.

“Well,” he explained, “I just found this webpage that spoke about this sculpture right here, so I came to look at it. But that same webpage is just gone now.”

“And it’s not the only one?” Sana inquired further as she stepped around the stationary stone-automaton. “You said it’s the second one that disappeared, right?”

“Yeah,” Jac confirmed. “There was another one that disappeared too. It’s almost like they never existed.”

“Or maybe,” Sana suggested, resting her hand on her chin in thought, “there’s someone or something that doesn’t want people to know about it.”

Jac raised an eyebrow. “You mean it’s being redacted or something like that?”

“Maybe,” Sana finished observing the Golem and stood up next to Jac. “It could be a computer-hacker, a corporate or political group. You called it a Golem,” she said before humorously making eerie gestures with her hands, “so it could be an evil wizard.” She laughed.

“I mean, it only called it that on the article.” He lied; the article only referred to it as a sculpture. He was trying to keep himself from seeming to be a mad fantasist.

“I’ve seen plenty of those sorts of stories on the web,” Sana explained; “stories of people having some close encounters with something strange, horrifying or legendary. And yet despite their claims, there’s little evidence, if any, to support said claims. They all get written off as the ravings of a lunatic, and yet so deep in our psyche remains the inkling that it just might be true. Be it fairies, extraterrestrials, bogeymen. Tell me, Red,” she gave Jac a nickname, more than likely influenced by the red zigzags on his scarf, “are you familiar with the legend of the Golem?”

“It’s a creature in fantasy stories,” he answered. “Constructs animated by magic. Usually made of clay or stone, but not necessarily limited to those.”

“So those pen-and-paper RPGs will tell you,” Sana said. “I mean the original legend.” She explained, “It’s from Jewish folklore. Clay sculptures brought to life by mystical means, the most famous tale of which being the Golem of Prague. A rabbi crafted one to protect his people, but one day, due to an error of his, his creation went on a rampage and attacked the very same people it was meant to protect. Now that I think about it, it doesn’t sound too dissimilar from those sci-fi stories about robots turning against their human creators.”

“A fantasy alternative then,” Jac commented.

“Other stories about Golems go back so far in history that we don’t know exactly when they started. We may never know how someone imagined it out of the blue.”

“Maybe something strange inspired it,” Jac suggested without thinking, realising there and then that what he experienced that day and the night before more than likely wasn’t Mortalkind’s first interaction with Golems and even the Malakim, and who knows what else.

“Maybe,” Sana could see his point, but she giggled. “Let’s be honest, what’re the odds of that?”

Jac chuckled too, leading on as much as he could to keep this stranger from thinking he was as insane as she thought he was.

Sana laughed along. “I’m sorry; I’ve been wasting your time, haven’t I? So I’d best be on my way,” Sana turned and started walking down the path. “Look after yourself, Red,” she told Jac before she walked further and further away.

“…Who was that?” Nel’s voice asked.

“I don’t know,” said Jac. “I’ve never met her before. She seemed a little odd, though.”

“I thought she was nice,” Nel commented.

“Even so…” Jac looked at the Golem again. “But she may be right about what she said. Someone or something must be taking those articles about the Golems down to keep people from learning about them.”

“But we can still see it for ourselves,” said Nel. “I mean, look! It’s just standing there. And all these kids running around this lawn, they’re bound to have seen this. Whoever’s trying to keep this a secret isn’t doing so good there.”

“They’re at least slowing the spread of information, even if they can’t stop it entirely.” Jac took some steps back and forth in thought. “I wonder,” he reached for his phone again and dialled into it, and after a couple of rings...

“Hey, Jac,” Lili’s voice answered. “What’s up?”

“Hi,” Jac greeted. “How’re you this morning?”

“A little challenged. My mum was on the phone earlier and she reminded me about the whole ‘pick a business to run’ thing, so I’ve been looking at what’s trending.”

“And what is trending?” Jac asked, making conversation.

“Video-game stuff by the looks of it,” she answered. “But there a few irksome stories about the industry.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” Jac rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“There’s this one company whose only tactic is buy out all of the exclusivity rights to games thus forcing people to buy only from them. But the rest of their business model is kind of shoddy.”

“I think I know who you’re talking about. It’s been two years since they launched their site and, last I checked, it still didn’t have a shopping cart.”

“I was about to say!” Lili was glad she and Jac understood each other. “So, every item bought is a separate transaction; very likely to set off the fraud alert whenever they decide to have a sale.”

Jac could hear Seth bark on the phone too. Like he was saying, ‘How unprofessional’, assuming a dog would know anything about marketing profession.

“Yeah,” Lili spoke to her pet. “You tell ‘em, Seth.”

“Anyway,” Jac got back to the point of his call, “Lili, this might sound a little strange, but have you seen any weird sculptures around town lately?”

“Sculptures?” Lili was curious. “Not personally. Why?”

“I just saw one a few blocks over from my place. It was there one day and gone the next. Then I saw a different one somewhere else.”

Lili recalled something. “Did it have, like, perfectly-circular, glassy eyes?” she asked, describing the figure.

“Yeah!” Jac was pleasantly surprised to hear that specific detail.

“Because I think I saw a news article about it. One moment, I’ll see if I can find it…”

“She’s looking,” Jac whispered to Nel, all he could hear on Lili’s side of the phone was rustling and cluttering in the distance as she searched.

“Hey, Jac,” said Nel. “I had an idea, if you’d like to hear it.”

“Yeah?”

“I figured, given that scroll’s message mentioned things other than Golems, like the Massiark or Samael, whatever they may be. Wouldn’t it be ideal if we’re prepared for them?”

“What’re you suggesting?”

“I thought maybe we could do some training with your new powers. Get accustomed to them, you know?”

“It’s not a bad idea, actually.” He looked at the Golem again, still as motionless as ever. “I can’t say I’m fond of just leaving this be, but what else can we do?”

“It seems harmless, this one,” Nel commented. “I think it’ll be alright.”

“If you say so.”

“As for the training, we’ll need somewhere where we won’t get anyone hurt and somewhere I won’t be seen; any ideas?”

“I think I know just the place; Gold Forest. It’s in the northern part of Greenborough. There’s a clearing in there we can make use of. We can head there now.”

“Let’s go then!”

“Jac,” Lili’s voice spoke on the phone again, “I’m sorry. I’ve really scrounged for this on my computer and the article’s just gone.”

“Oh, that’s a pity,” said Jac as he walked on his way to Gold Forest. “Well, it’s probably nothing to worry about.”

“Wait, hold up!” Lili realised something. “Is this something to do with your strange encounter yesterday?”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Jac. “Why don’t you come around to my place later? I’ve got something to show you that you will not believe. I’ll see if I can get Karl and Amy to come along too.”

“Oh!” Lili was intrigued. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you later then. Oh!” she then realised, “I don’t really wanna leave Seth alone. Are dogs allowed in your apartment building?”

“Last I checked, it was fine,” Jac answered.

“Alright. Hear that, pupper?” she spoke to her pet. “You’re coming along too.”

“Bark!” Seth sounded excited.

“Sounds good. See ya then,” said Lili.

“See ya!” Jac gave his farewell too as the phone call ended.

“What are you planning to show her?” Nel asked, completely clueless.

“You’ll see…” was all Jac said as he started dialling another number.

#

That morning at the orphanage, Amy was about to help the staff with some chores. As she descended the stairs into the hallway on the ground floor, she came across two young girls fighting. “Stop it!” one girl shouted. “It’s mine!” She was aggressively trying to grab a teddy-bear the other girl had in her grasp.

“So what?” the other responded. “I wanna have fun!”

“Yo!” Amy sternly called out to the two and walked over to them. “Just what are you two doing?”

The pair of girls froze in dread, shivering like they were caught in a bitter cold gust of wind.

“Abigail?” Amy first addressed the one holding the teddy. “Is that yours?”

Abigail was reluctant to answer. Soon enough, she nervously shook her head.

“Give it here,” Amy commanded, holding her hand out. “Come on.” Abigail complied and gave Amy the teddy. “And Yvonne?” She addressed the other. “Is this really worth getting violent over?”

“No, Miss Corson,” Yvonne softly answered.

“No, it’s not. So, apologise to each other.”

“Sorry,” Abigail and Yvonne meekly said to each other, feeling guilty.

“Good.” Amy handed the teddy to Yvonne. Off you go.” She dismissed the pair.

An older male co-worker of Amy walked into the hall having seen the whole dispute. “Hoo! I don’t know how you do it,” he said, “but you’re very good at being intimidating when the need arises. Like all the warmth of the room just disappears.”

Amy sighed. “I just want things to be fair for everyone,” she retorted.

“Don’t we all? If only Dobbs could see things that way,” he said sombrely, speaking of Dust-Haven’s mayor.

Amy became concerned. “Are you about to say what I think you are?”

“Yeah. We still haven’t been granted approval for the higher budget.”

Amy clenched her fists and growled in frustration. “I feel like he’s doing it on purpose sometimes.” She noticed the fading paint on the walls, the old, near-antiquated, cabinets and counters in the room, even glancing into the living room to see the television was still the middle of being repaired. “It’s hard enough that the kids don’t have families, now he wants to let the one home they have just rot?”

“There’s probably more to it than that. Either way; try not to lose heart. We’ll get by.”

“If you insist,” said the jaded Amy.

“By the way, you left your phone in the office. I heard it ring earlier.”

“I better see who, then,” said Amy. “Thanks.”

The co-worker walked over to a countertop and a cup of tea left upon it. “There’s where I left you,” he said upon picking it up and took a sip. “Hmm? Ice-cold already? I only just made this a minute ago.”

Amy went into another room, the office, to find her phone sitting on a bookshelf, next to a series of various documents. Upon inspecting it, she saw that she had a missed call from Jac, and was very eager to call him back as she dialled his number in.

It didn’t take many rings for Jac to answer, “Hey!” he enthusiastically greeted.

“Good morning, Jac,” Amy greeted back. “How are feeling?”

“Full of energy, if you can believe it.” Jac sounded surprised himself with that statement.

“That’s good to hear.”

“How about yourself?”

“Not bad. I just sorted a dispute among the kids a minute ago, helped out with some repairs earlier. I didn’t have my phone with me so I missed a call from you. Sorry about that. Was it something important?”

“Nothing urgent,” Jac answered. “I was just wondering what your plans were this afternoon. Lili and Karl are free, I thought maybe we’d try and meet up. I’ve got something huge to tell all of you.”

“Something huge?” Amy was curious, but then sounded a little defeated, “Sorry, Jac. I’m afraid I’m needed for something this afternoon.”

“That’s a shame, but don’t worry about it,” Jac forgave. “I just thought I’d ask. Maybe another time?”

“Yeah, I’m sure we can get that meet-up done in the end.” Amy could hear loud tweeting and chirping in the background of Jac’s end of the call. “Are those birds I can hear where you are?”

“Oh yeah, I’m in Gold Forest at the moment.”

“What are you doing there?” Amy thought it was a strange place for Jac to be.

“Umm,” Jac wondered what he should say. “Just curious really. In all my years in this city, I’ve never properly explored these woods even though they’ve been nearby.”

“You must be bored if you wanna explore there,” Amy wondered.

Jac laughed. “Perhaps.”

“Well, I’ll see you when I do, Jac.”

“Right. Bye, Amy.”

Outside, as Amy and Jac finished their phone call, the pale stranger was standing next to the road. A giddy and mischievous grin befell his visage as he turned to face north, and with a sense of conviction and a twisted enthusiasm in his stride, he headed to Gold Forest.

“You’d better be ready, Jac,” he said.