The administrative offices were located on the ground floor of the building, while the classrooms and labs occupied the floors above. An anxious knot built in my stomach as I crossed the sky bridge and headed down the stairs, past the Foucault pendulum and into the lobby of the administration department.
The receptionist looked up as I came in. “Hi, Isaak,” she said, her voice bored. I wasn’t exactly a stranger to the principal’s office these days. Too much time spent around Henry could do that to a person. “They’re waiting for you in the boardroom down the hall.”
I blinked at her. “Not Mr. Culver’s office?”
She merely shrugged. I glanced down the hall. Like the rest of Tyson, the administrative offices had been specially tailored to fit the Academy’s “image,” that pseudo-sci-fi look that all the GalaX trustees on Earth seem to associate with Mars. The last door on the right was slightly ajar; I could just see a large rectangular table at its center, with curved chrome legs and a smooth black Plexiglas top.
I knocked on the door hesitantly. Mr. Culver yanked it out from under my knuckles, his teeth clenched in a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Ah, Isaak,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”
He seemed even more uptight than usual. I realized why as soon as he stepped away from the door, giving me a full view of the boardroom. Three men sat at the table—and the man in the middle was Joseph Condor.
“Hello, Isaak,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”
This is just about the skeleton, I told myself as I shuffled over to the black chair across from him and sat. Mr. Culver sat beside me, like an attorney in a crime flick. They don’t know about anything else.
“So sorry to have to take you away from your studies, but GSAF matters do take some precedence,” he said.
“Of course,” I replied in what I hoped was a steady voice. “Is this about Saturday?”
“Indeed.”
“Have you identified the body yet?”
Mr. Culver glanced over at me, startled. Apparently Joseph Condor hadn’t filled him in on all the details.
Condor smiled and lifted his chin, assessing me. “I’m afraid that’s classified information, for the time being. I’m sure you have many questions, but for the time being, we need you to focus on answers. Can you give me an account of your movements leading up to the discovery of the body?”
I breathed in slowly, tracing my finger across the Plexiglas and keeping my eyes focused on the movement. Stay calm, Isaak.
“Not a whole lot to say. I was in Trench 17, like usual. We were just doing our dig work when we heard someone scream. Then there was a call over the radio, our TA went over to check it out, and the cops showed up a few minutes later.”
“That’s all?”
I nodded. “Like I said, I wasn’t in the trench where the discovery happened, so I don’t know what all went down.”
Condor glanced at one of his companions, who quickly made a few notes on his deskpad. It was one of the newer models, the folding kind. Mama D had helped AresTec develop the membrane used for the screen.
“And had you uncovered anything that day, before the discovery of the skeleton?”
I shrugged. “Nothing of interest. Some rocks, a few seashells. The usual.”
Another note on the deskpad.
Condor clucked his tongue. “Isaak, the grad student assigned to your trench—I believe his name is…” He glanced over at the man on his left. The man made a few quick swipes across the deskpad.
“Gilbert Saldaña.”
“That’s right, Gilbert. Gilbert informed us that you and one of the college students—one Priscilla Hwang—appeared to have unearthed a metallic object of some sort, just before the call came in on the radio. But when we went through the catalog of the day’s finds, there was no record of this. And we can find no sign of such an object at the site.”
“A metallic object?” I furrowed my brows and looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to remember. “I don’t think so, sir. We found a couple of big rocks that day, as usual. But nothing metal.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” I said. “If we’d found anything, we would have called you. That’s protocol, after all. And it’s so important for us to work with GSAF.”
If he caught my loaded tone, he didn’t react to it. “All right, then, Isaak,” Joseph Condor said smoothly. “Thank you for your time. We’ll call on you again if we have any further questions.”
My heart pounded as I moved toward the door, and I could only pray that Condor and his goons wouldn’t hear it. It seemed impossible, but I was off the hook—for now.
Then, as the door swung shut behind me, I heard: “Send in Tamara Randall-Torres.”
◦ • ◦
“Isaak? What are you doing out here?”
I’d been waiting on the sky bridge between Tamara’s classroom and Tyson, hoping to intercept her. There was no point in going back to class now. I had to talk to Tamara before Joseph Condor did, and then I needed to go. I was sure my grounding sentence was going to get extended now—possibly for the rest of my life, this time—but there was no way around it.
“GSAF knows about the thing Scylla found,” I said.
“What?”
“Yeah. Gilbert saw more than I thought he did. Condor’s playing dumb, but he knows we’ve got it. And he must have figured out that you’re involved, that’s why he’s calling you in now.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and scowled. “Dammit.”
“Tamara, you’ve got to let me take it,” I said.
“No,” said Tamara firmly, her hand on her hip.
“But if Condor figures out you’ve got it, you guys could be in huge trouble. Your moms could lose their jobs.”
“What, and you won’t be in trouble if they find it at your house?” Tamara argued. “Your mom depends on GSAF, too. Probably more than my moms do.”
I sighed. “It won’t be at my house. Henry’s found someone—someone who doesn’t like GSAF any more than we do. He can help.” I paused, then added, “I think.”
Tamara made a noise of exasperation and moved over to the window, looking out at the river below us, and, beyond, the bustling valley of Tierra Nueva. “I don’t know if I would trust some guy Henry found on the internet.”
“I—I don’t. But at least it gives us a chance. And this guy might be able to give us the answers, which is more than I can say for Joseph Condor.”
She put her hand on the glass, not looking at me. Finally, she said, “Fine. There’s a spare key card in my locker. Do you remember the combination?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. I’ll go get it now. Don’t let a word out to Joseph Condor.”
“Of course,” she said. I started to turn away, but abruptly she moved forward and clamped a hand down on my shoulder. “Isaak… be careful, okay?”
“I will,” I said.
She stared at me for a moment. Then she put her hand on my cheek, guiding my face down toward hers, and kissed me gently.
My heart about stopped.
Before my brain could even process what had happened, she pulled away, her face bright red. “I’m tired of always getting interrupted,” she said.
I grinned, and she smiled back. Then she hurried across the bridge and through the doors into Tyson.
◦ • ◦
The sun was setting as I approached the rundown apartment building in South Tierra Nueva. Unbelievably, David Hassan lived not far from Henry’s own apartment. All this time, the answers had been just a few blocks away.
Hassan had to have the answers. If he didn’t, we were all completely screwed.
Scylla’s artifact was tucked safely in my backpack, wrapped in my sweatshirt for protection. Delia had hidden it in the bottom of one of her workshop drawers—it had taken me a panic-stricken half hour to find it. I just hoped she wouldn’t be too torqued at me for taking it. But it was way too dangerous for them to have it at their house right now.
According to Henry’s directions, David Hassan’s apartment was on the third floor. There was no outside access apart from the fire escape, but there was no doorman, either. I managed to sneak in unnoticed, apart from a haggard-looking woman and her three kids I passed on the staircase. The mom was too preoccupied with her armful of grocery bags to pay me any attention, and the two older kids were chattering loudly in Spanish about something that had happened at school that day, so they didn’t even glance in my direction. Just the youngest child stared up at me with wide, dark eyes, clinging to his mom’s shirttail as they passed through the door to the second floor. I smiled lopsidedly at him and kept on climbing.
Apartment 3-F had a door that appeared to have once been white but had faded to a dingy gray. Dark smudges clustered around the doorknob, and the knocker was smeared with fingerprints. I swallowed hard as I reached to lift it. What was I supposed to say to this guy? How was I going to introduce myself without coming off like a nutcase?
I pounded the knocker three times.
A few seconds later, the door opened, its hinges squealing. I stared, mouth agape, at the man who stood before me, with his haphazard shock of white hair and deeply lined face. He grinned when he saw me, brushing ink-stained hands on his pants.
“Ah, Contreras,” he chuckled. “It’s about time you turned up here.”
It was Emil.
“So, then, you’ve found it? The key your father stole?” Emil’s voice was eager. That sour e-cig stench wafted out on his breath, contaminating the already stale air of the hallway.
“I didn’t find anything. I wasn’t looking for you,” I hissed. I started to back away, looking over my shoulder for help, but the hallway was deserted. “What did you do with David Hassan?”
Emil cackled, his laughter turning into a wheeze. “I didn’t do anything with him. I am David Hassan.”
I froze, looking back at him. “What?”
“Of course, I haven’t gone by that name for decades. Too much baggage associated with it. Emil was my father’s name. I figured he wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it, being dead and all.”
“I—but—how?”
Emil rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, don’t just stand there yammering. Get in here. You never know who’s listening out there. And if you’re looking for David Hassan, my guess is you want to talk about something we probably don’t want GSAF overhearing.”
I nodded mutely, clutching my backpack straps as Emil guided me forcefully into his apartment. He slammed the door and locked the deadbolt behind him. I shot a glance over at the fire escape. I wanted to be able to get away quickly if I needed to.
Emil sat at a small folding table in the kitchen and gestured for me to sit across from him. “All right, then,” he said after I finally lowered myself into the chair. “If you didn’t bring me the key, then what do you want? And stop looking over your shoulder like that. I’m not going to eat you.”
I crossed my arms. “Answers would be nice. You keep demanding this key from me, but I don’t have any clue what it is, what it looks like, or where to find it. You say you knew my dad, but I’ve never heard of you. I haven’t even seen or heard from my dad in over two annums. No one even knows where he is. So why should I trust you? How do I know you didn’t kill him yourself?”
Emil frowned, running a calloused thumb over his chin. “Why did you think David Hassan would be able to help you find those answers?” he asked.
“Answer my questions first,” I said.
“Fine.” He sighed. “I take it, since you know my real name, you’ve heard of my work with GSAF.”
“Not really. I only just found it last night on an alien conspiracy website. They didn’t have a whole lot of information, though.”
He snorted. “Why am I not surprised? The only people who will give you a straight answer these days are wingnuts.”
That was pretty rich, coming from a wingnut himself. I kept that opinion to myself, though. “So, what happened?” I prodded. “With GSAF?”
“I worked,” he said, “for NASA. Back in ye olden days, before they got folded into GSAF. I was responsible for analyzing data and images sent back from their Lewis and Clark mission, one of the last rovers that was sent precolonization, to test for inhabitability. And I found evidence that indicated that not only had Mars been inhabited by lifeforms before, but that some of these lifeforms had been sentient. Intelligent. Possibly human.”
I sat up in my chair. “What sort of evidence?”
Emil narrowed his eyes at me. “I think you know what sort, boy. I’ve been watching you. I know you’ve found stuff out there in the hills.”
The room suddenly felt very cold. I couldn’t exactly put my sweatshirt on, though, without him seeing Scylla’s artifact, so I just rubbed my hands over the long sleeves of my t-shirt.
“Why did GSAF deny your findings, though?”
He snorted again. “There was a lot of money tied up in colonization. The environmental lobbies were putting pressure on Earth’s governments to decrease carbon emissions. When the big manufacturers found out that they could outsource their operations to another planet, and get a tax credit to boot? It was a land rush. There wasn’t time to postpone colonization to conduct full-scale research. So my findings were discredited, kept under wraps. Swept under the carpet until everyone forgot about them.”
“But… but what about your peers?” I spluttered. “I mean, the other scientists that saw Lewis and Clark’s data—they would have backed you up, wouldn’t they?”
“A few of them did, and lost their jobs as well. The rest of them kept quiet. Economic times were tough, kid. Sometimes it was smarter to sit down and shut up so you could keep putting bread on the table.”
I slumped back in my chair. Un-torquing-believable. It seemed ridiculous, but everything I’d seen over the last two months seemed to match up. I could feel another tension headache pulsating behind my eyes.
“So what are you doing here now? And where does my dad come into it?” I asked.
Emil stood, walking over to the kitchen counter and picking up an e-cig. “Well, I sure as hell wasn’t going to give up on the find of a millennium. I changed my name, and as soon as I could get a visa to come over here and work, I took it. I’ve worked at a dozen different factories since I’ve been here, a good twenty years. Salt mines by day, excavation in the hills by night. I met Raymond Contreras at the shoe plant about five annums ago. I don’t remember how it came up, but he mentioned that his father-in-law was Hector Garcia.” He blew white vapor out between his teeth and sighed. “There’s a name with some clout attached to it. I thought he could help me, being an archaeologist and all. Maybe he’d co-author a paper with me, help me release my findings, get my reputation in the scientific community back. I didn’t realize Raymond was such a dumbass—no offense—or that he and his in-laws weren’t exactly speaking.”
I leaned on my elbows, looking down at the scuffed surface of the table. “So you guys were excavating in secret?”
He nodded.
I glanced up at him. “What did you find?”
He flashed a yellow-toothed grin at me. “Now there’s the question.”
He turned off the e-cig and moved into the living room. A tall bookcase was lined with cheap paperbacks. He pulled a couple off the shelves and dumped them on the table in front of me. “Have a look through those,” he said.
I cocked an eyebrow at him, then flipped open the tawdry-looking romance on the top of the stack. The contents were not, in fact, The Taming of the Duke. Like the Sports Illustrated in my dad’s box, every page was covered over with writing in felt-tip marker. Detailed diagrams of dig sites, intricate sketches of broken fragments not unlike the items Joseph Condor would close our dig site for—everything recorded in minute detail.
“Record-keeping by paper,” he said. “Slow and old-fashioned, but the ideal choice when you’re trying to stay off the grid. I couldn’t have GSAF finding out what I’ve been up to.”
I looked up at him in amazement. “Abuelo said you weren’t an archaeologist.”
He chuckled. “I wasn’t. I had a midlife career switch, if you will. All self-taught.”
“This data is amazing, though,” I breathed. Just as thorough as Abuelo’s own record-keeping. He would be impressed.
I flipped through another book as Emil looked on proudly. “And here I thought you were crazy,” I said.
“Maybe this will teach you not to throw words like that around.”
I colored, but nodded. He was right. Though Abuelo had always said there was a fine line between crazy and genius.
When I was done looking through the second book, I said, “So where does the coin fit into this? And the key? What is the key, anyway?”
Emil moved back over to the bookcase. “The coin and the key are, I believe, the answer to all of this.” He brought another paperback over. This one wasn’t a romance. It was an old sci-fi by Robert Heinlein—Podkayne of Mars. He opened this and flipped forward several pages to a drawing of an arch just like the engraving on the coin. A human figure passed under the vault.
He put an ink-stained finger on the drawing and said, “I’m sure you noticed a lot of talk about Atlantean Arches on those websites of yours, right?”
I nodded.
“They’re found in most major civilizations on Earth. But I’ve found them here on Mars, too. There is one exceptionally well-preserved example not far from here.”
“At Erick’s dig site?” I asked.
“No, no. Closer. There are a series of caves just past the factory district. I believe the first colonists used these caves for shelter when they came here.”
I stared at him. “The first colonists?”
“Yes, of course. Clearly the presence of these artifacts on both planets indicates prior planetary exploration by ancient humans.”
Fourth World Page 11
