The Lost Metal Library (An Ancient Quest Mystery Book 2)

it mattered to him, how it had finally lifted his spirits after losing his mom and suffering through a deep depression for months. But his father dismissed his ideas and his feelings and told him he needed to let go for his own sake, and start acting like a responsible young adult. He argued that there was no money in what he was proposing. No viable career path that would lead to a financially and materially secure future. He painted a picture of Rick struggling for twenty years only to realize that his father had been right all along.

Rick had sulked for weeks after that conversation. He’d considered moving out, moving to another town, but found that he was too demoralized and lacked the drive to even take that first step. Eventually, his father wore him down. Slowly, he’d even begun to believe that he had been foolish for entertaining such fanciful notions.

For the next few years, he merely went through the motions of life. He let his father dictate things to him, because he didn’t feel strong or centered enough to chart his own path forward. His father eventually remarried, but Rick never felt close to his stepmom. Deep down, he just could not accept any kind of replacement for his mom. It wasn’t fair, he knew that.

After persistent pressure from his father, he’d finally enrolled in a local college and completed a business diploma. Somehow, he managed to get good enough grades to graduate, though it was close. He'd probably ended up at the bottom of his class, but he didn’t want to know.

The only bright spots in his post-secondary experience were the archaeology and anthropology classes he’d taken for his options. There, he felt engaged and energized. It opened up his curiosity about the world and got his imagination firing along. But they were too few and far between. The business classes for his major were the dominant force in his academic experience. It was all he could do to pull off passing grades in those classes, though he’d excelled in his options. This was another source of disappointment for his father, who’d repeatedly reminded Rick of his own stellar academic performance at a top university. It was a badge of honor that his father wore proudly. That and being a business owner. The respect and prestige it afforded him in the community and amongst his peers was something he regularly told Rick could be his one day, if only he would focus his efforts, apply himself properly, and work hard.

But hard work and dedication to something, at what felt like the cost of his soul, left a deficit that was palpable and too painful to bear for Rick. Try as he might, Rick could not twist himself into enough of a pretzel to please his father.

The whole academic experience had slowly crushed Rick’s spirits. Then, his time working in his father’s company had squashed them even more. He’d never felt more hollow, more false, more inauthentic in his life. He’d tried to hide it for a long time, tried faking interest and enthusiasm as he got assigned to project after project. There were times when he’d wake up in a panic at night, filled with dread for the workday ahead. Meetings, business jargon, “deliverables”, spreadsheets, soul-draining, anxiety-producing performance reviews, and a life amongst grey cubicles. It all felt like a living death to someone geared to the outdoors, adventure, and scouring ancient ruins—someone who dreamt endlessly of finding lost treasure and getting their name written into the history books.

Eventually, Rick had left the business world behind for good, which was a bitter disappointment for his father. In spite of that and in defiance of his father’s wishes, Rick swore to never put himself back in a position where he was that deeply unhappy and ill-suited. He turned to going on amateur expeditions with some friends, which was great fun for a time, until one by one they all chose to get regular jobs, get married and start families.

Then, his father died. Edward Braeden had been a deeply unhappy man, despite the strong, in-control façade he put on. That unhappiness manifested itself in a number of ways. He kept up his workaholic ways, got divorced, the estrangement from Rick grew, and along the way Edward developed an unfortunate smoking and drinking habit as a way to cope with the pain he’d never found a way to face. The combination of those two habits took his life in his mid-sixties. A life cut short. He and Rick had never managed to reconcile their differences. That left Rick wrestling with a deep sorrow and longing that he could never fix and never escape.

Rick had been devastated. He’d lost his only remaining parent. Though they’d been estranged for years, it didn’t stop the sense of loneliness and isolation he now felt in the world. It was as though he was now going through life untethered. A small boat that had lost its last connection to its mothership, now lost, alone, and adrift in rough, dark seas, that threatened to mercilessly tear his small craft apart. He felt very alone. The world felt different to him now, emptier.

So, Rick had carried on searching for lost treasures. Traipsing through some of the world’s remotest places, seeking what was lost, seemed fitting for him somehow. He just needed to prove himself once and for all—prove his worth, prove he wasn’t wrong to want that life, and that he could make a difference in the world in some way. Then, maybe he could finally find a way to heal and become whole again...

* * *

Rick got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. He didn’t want to think about the past any more right now. He wanted to look forward. He re-read the article about the suspicious activity related to the Tayos Caves system. Things were converging. He could feel it.

“I need to have a little chat with Sofia Torres,” he said aloud.