The first thing Ben noticed was the cold and thin air. Despite living in the mountains, this was a very different environment. The second thing was the enormous mountain that rose steeply behind the building.

  They stood on a courtyard, maybe 20 by 30 meters in front of the building they had seen through the gate. The main building was flanked by two humble buildings, both smaller and simpler than the one in front of them. Prayer flags striped the sky overhead. The final side of the courtyard, behind their back, held two even smaller buildings and a path between them that seemed to lead to a gate to the outside of the compound.

  Loud banging could be heard from that direction, and they saw a handful of monks, wearing a deep-maroon robe draped over one shoulder, a square saffron cloth folded across the other. They were seemingly pushing against the gate, that somebody—or something—was pushing against.

  As Ben stepped through the two buildings his breath was taken away by the beauty of the scenery; behind the wall lay a steep drop and the view looked into a deep, deep valley ahead, surrounded by towering mountains that dwarfed the Blue Mountains, his home, by an order of magnitude.

  Fortunately, not everyone on his team was as stunned as he was. Jamal pushed forward and, without much talking, added his considerable strength to the efforts of the monks to keep the gate closed.

  Ben turned to the monks and wanted to introduce himself, when he remembered that he had no clue what language they spoke. “Hello, I am Ben, do you understand me?”

  “Auspicious blessings to you, honored friends.” One of the monks said with a slight bow, his palms pressed together. “We do understand you well, I think we all should have received the [Multi-Lingual] perk, don’t we.”

  Ben felt slightly stupid. “Indeed, apologies, and best of wishes to you too.” He returned the gesture with a small bow.

  “What brings you to us, friend?” the monk asked.

  Before he could answer, from atop the monastery fence, Michael called down, eyeing the force battering the gate. “Goats. 11. Energy-born & enraged.”

  Ben looked at the monk, “Should we take care of this problem for you, first?”

  The monk looked at him. “There is no problem, these creatures are following their nature, we have no conflict with them.”

  Ben considered the monk’s words. “We are just guests here and will of course follow your guidance.” He turned to Anne and Jamal, “can you two continue to help keep the gate safe, please?” Both didn’t hesitate.

  “To answer your original question, we are on a mission issued by the system, Meta, regarding this monastery. Would it be possible to talk with your abbot?”

  “Certainly. The abbot should be in the central prayer room. Let me guide you there.”

  As they neared the main building the monk asked Ben, Michael, and Allison to take off their shoes before entering the temple, which they did, and then guided them inside. The room was relatively plain, but the small window frames were beautifully painted in saffron and indigo, and at the back wall was a beautiful, golden Buddha statue in the lotus position.

  The abbot looked ancient; he wore the same outfit as the monks they had seen outside, but the dominant color was maroon, and he shared the saffron shoulder patch. He was seated slightly to the side on a prayer mat and seemed to be in deep meditation.

  However, as they entered the hall, he slowly opened his eyes, barely visible between all the wrinkles, and smiled a toothless smile at them.

  The monk who had led them bowed slightly. “This is our abbot.”

  All three of them stopped with some distance and bowed to the old man and repeated the greeting that the first monk had used on them, “Auspicious blessings to you, abbot.”

  The monk’s smile turned even more radiant, “Auspicious blessings to you, honored friends. Welcome to our small monastery. Please sit.” He pointed to a couple of cushions that lay on the floor. “What can we do for you?”

  “Thank you very much for welcoming us. What would be the most appropriate address for you?” Allison asked.

  “Just call me Abbot is fine. But I am not easily offended.”

  “Thank you Abbot. My name is Ben, this is my mother Allison, and this is Michael. We were sent here by Meta. As you know, she governs the allocation of Energy across the planet, to protect humanity as much as possible. It is my understanding that it would be better, more efficient for her to allocate more Energy into this area, but that would make life even more difficult, if not impossible, for you. Therefore she has asked me to evacuate this monastery to a safer place. She mentioned that this will be her only attempt to intervene on your behalf. I am sorry for not having better news.”

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  The monk closed his eyes and thought in silence. Minutes passed. Surprisingly, Ben did not feel any impatience. Instead, he used the moment of peace to breathe deeply and let some of his anxieties go.

  “You have no reason to apologize. You came here with the intention of helping others, those you do not know; that is appreciated. I have no knowledge of this ‘systems’ place in the universe, but I have not felt any evil from it. If you are its agent, as you say, I welcome you again.

  “When you say that you want to evacuate us to a safer place, what did you have in mind? And how would you go about it, knowing that I and several of my brothers are no longer able to make the long trek into the valley?”

  Allison responded this time: “We would evacuate you through a portal that the system has created for us. It is right outside the door, and with one step you would be at our home. My son received a great gift and great responsibility from the systems on the day they arrived on Earth. He is the leader of what is called the Protectorate, a small, yet hopefully growing community enabled by the magic the system offers. We welcome anyone who subscribes to our values of Community, Growth, and Safety. But if you or your brothers wanted to, you would of course be free to go anywhere you like from there. The only caveat being that we are also located in a mountain range, and it takes a few days to get anywhere.”

  Again the abbot thought in silence for several minutes. “These values you mention are very interesting; it is worth discussing them at some point. But not now. Now I think it is time to pack.” He made a small gesture toward the monk who had brought them here, who got up and left the room.

  Ben was flabbergasted. “Just like this?” he blurted out, blushing.

  The monk laughed silently, “Yes, just like this. Clinging to this place will not spare us suffering. We have barely any food left, we are besieged by beasts full of fury, and we cannot reach the villages downhill anymore. There is no future here. I see no value in having my brothers die. We should not be attached to any one place or building, no matter how long we have been here.”

  “I can’t express how happy it makes me that we can offer you a home. I am afraid it is quite different from this place, but we will do our best to make you feel welcome. May I ask how many of you live here?” Ben asked.

  “We are just twelve. We were more, once. But those times are long over.”

  Ben turned to Michael, “Would you mind hopping over to let Adam know to expect twelve newcomers?”

  He just nodded and left.

  “Is there something that we can help you pack up or carry?”

  “No need, my friend. I think it is fitting to start this new life without the things that tie us to the past. We will leave carrying only what we need.”

  “Very well.” Ben stood up and offered the abbot a hand to help him up.

  “Thank you, but this is not necessary.” The monk said as he got up quickly, without even using his hands. He was incredibly thin, looked very fragile, but was apparently still quite agile. “It is endurance that I lack these days, but I guess it is inevitable,” he said with a smile.

  Allison and Ben followed the monk out of the prayer hall and donned their shoes while the abbot studied the portal intensely. “The world is full of wonders, isn’t it?”

  Ben also looked at the portal and some of the buildings he could see on the other side. One of those was the library, and he suddenly had an idea.

  “Abbot, do you have by chance a library?”

  “Library might be too generous a term, my young friend. We are a tiny monastery and have just a few scriptures, histories, and teachings here.” He waved in the direction of one of the buildings.

  “Hmm, Abbot, we have another mission from the systems that I just remembered. We have a magical device which allows us to scan books. They will then be recreated in our library. The purpose is to retain humanity’s knowledge, our civilization. Would it be alright—and please say no if this is rude—for me to scan your library?”

  The radiant smile of the abbot returned. “It would not be rude at all. It would give me, and all of my brothers, great pleasure to see our heritage retained in this way. Quick, let us go there!”

  Ben fortunately remembered that he didn’t have one of these scanners with him, so he quickly crossed the portal, raced toward his apartment where he had stored it—resolving to always carry one in the future—and then returned to the Himalayas with just a single step.

  His mother and the abbot were waiting patiently at the door to one of the buildings. Michael had also returned and joined Anne and Jamal at the gate, where they had replaced the monks now collecting their few belongings.

  The abbot led them to a small chamber. Inside, narrow shelves held long, cloth-wrapped bundles of yellowed pages—ancient scriptures stacked like oversized matchboxes. A low altar with lamps stood to one side. Ben did not know how old the monastery and this library was, but it felt ancient, and he felt reverence as he stood in the small room.

  He pulled out the golden cube and the blue surface started to gleam more intensely as it was brought closer to the shelves. After less than a second, it briefly flashed, which Ben took as a signal to move on, and indeed, he could almost continuously keep moving and the range of the scanned areas seemed to be easily two by two meters. So within less than a minute the whole library was scanned, and Ben could not wait to see how the representation in their library looked.

  In truth, for a library of that size, and with the help of the portal, they could probably also have carried the books over, but he was happy about this proof of concept.

  As they left the building, eleven other monks were waiting for them on the courtyard. Three others in the group looked only marginally younger than the abbot; the others ranged from late twenties to middle-aged. The abbot rang a small brass bell and his brothers gathered around him, murmuring a low chant that Ben couldn’t follow, but felt like a blessing or maybe just a farewell.

  Ben was just about to ask the abbot and his brothers to enter the portal when he heard a loud commotion from the gate. Seconds later, Jamal, Michael, and Anne came sprinting back the short path that led to the courtyard.

  “Time to go, boss. Something just attacked the goats, and it didn’t sound like it would take them long to slaughter them all,” Jamal exclaimed.

  Ben nodded toward the abbot. “If you don’t mind, please step through. Our friend Adam will welcome you.”

  The abbot moved forward without hesitation. Ben drew his weapon. “Standard formation—we’ll hold if necessary.”

  The commotion at the gate ended. Six monks had passed through the portal.

  “Eyes up, top right,” Michael said, pointing to the top of one of the smaller buildings.

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