ARC: The Buried Life

by Carrie Patel

  She stayed at the window until the train lurched to a start again and rolled away from the farming commune. Still fascinated, and curious to see it in the full colors of the day, she was sorry to watch it slip past her window. Almost forty minutes into the resumed journey, she rolled open the sliding door in her boxcar and was momentarily deafened by the roar of the tracks. Climbing the metal rungs to the top of the car, she shivered as the early November chill drew goose flesh from her skin and the biting wind swept back her hair.

  More jolting than the morning wind or the clattering train was the view. The landscape rolled out farther than her eyes could see in the fading dark, and she fought an urge to return to the train and the tight spaces that she had been bred to live in. The sight of so much open expanse made her feel tiny and helpless, as if the sheer immensity would swallow her up and she would simply dissolve, pulled apart and negated by vast emptiness.

  Malone gripped the surface of the boxcar and trained her eyes on the distance, where a silver-surfaced river cut through the landscape. At this point, she could expect to reach it in just a couple of minutes. She pulled herself from the frosty sweep of wind and returned to the railcar, where the air now tasted stale and dank. Grabbing the grain sack that had served her well those past hours, she decided to put it to one last use.

  As the train neared the river, she gripped the sack by its sides and stood poised in the open door. She clutched the sack tighter to her chest for padding and leaped clear of the train, burying her face in the smell of dried barley.

  She landed flat on the sack and rolled down the knoll and away from the train, each thumping contact with the ground emptying her lungs in visible puffs. Malone at last tumbled onto a flat, and her velocity decreased until she ceased spinning altogether and lay catching her breath, her face skyward.

  Heaving and staring up, she pushed the grain sack off of her and noticed the dawn colors uncluttered by a mausoleum skyline. Rolling to her elbows, she picked herself up and dusted off her knees. Liesl Malone then turned to the ridge and, noting the time, raced toward the rising sun.

  All of the colors Malone saw in the fields and the blushing horizon existed underground, but in fabrics, paintings, and other manmade objects rather than in earth and sky. She had ventured aboveground many times before, but not without cobblestones beneath her feet and marble or granite to mark the land. Adjusting to the sink and spring of grass underfoot, she put such observations from her mind. Duty still took the first priority. For whom she acted was becoming an increasingly complicated question.

  The ridge next to the river was bare on the initial ascent, and Malone was careful to remain on the northwestern side and out of sight of any patrols below. As the rise leveled, she could see for miles to the east. A carpet of dark green foliage spread out before her in the hazy sunrise, and somewhere beyond it lay the secret that would claim more lives before the sun rose again.

  After covering a few miles, Malone began to descend again and slowed her pace. The windswept hilltops flattened, and bare, bristling forests sprang up. Though leafless, the trees grew thick and wild enough to provide cover. She remembered Jane’s map with its sparse arrangement of cities and farming communes and the forbidding blankness in between.

  She reached a plain where the trees grew more thinly and spread across a broad field of ruins. Chunks of white marble and forsaken structural remnants marked what must have been a city in the distant past. In the east, a familiar shape rose on the horizon.

  Broken columns jutting like crooked teeth surrounded a rectangular veranda. Crossing to the other side, Malone saw a bearded statue enthroned in what was left of the pavilion. Creeping vines nearly covered what time had not already worn away. Malone found no entrance to the underground, and she followed the giant’s gaze east.

  Continuing through the ruins, she found a toppled obelisk pointing still further down her path. Malone marveled at its size and the clean line of its taper, shattered and separated in several places from its fall, and she realized that this must be the broken arrow in Jane’s note. She proceeded along the indicated path, gazing up at the wide and broken world that was springing up around her. Her cover had grown scanter, and the clearing amidst the ruins seemed to form a broad avenue. Crumbling buildings and free-standing walls formed skeleton rows on either side of her and sank gradually into the earth toward the horizon. A set of fresh footprints caught her eye in a bare patch of dirt, and she moved further into the shadows as she continued east.

  It appeared that someone had excavated around some of the better-preserved structures and abandoned them after only a very brief exploration. Malone could not even see an entrance to any of them. Passing the metal skeletons of buildings that protruded from the ground like broken bones, she noted that the excavators had ignored many other mysteries that sank deeper into the ground, some sealed by dirt and others apparently in fragments.

  At the end of the avenue lay great piles of rubble, the remnants of destruction and decay strewn like bunkers in a war game. Slinking between boulder-sized hunks of debris, she saw the flash of blue uniforms: guards combing the ruins for uninvited guests. Malone crouched still lower, wondering what she should be looking for, when almost beneath her feet she saw an exposed portion of an immense, flat slab. She followed its edge through the labyrinth of rubble, where the ground dropped sharply to an entrance, excavated from beneath several yards of soil.

  It was an ancient building, much of which was still submerged under the loamy earth. The excavators had dug a broad ramp leading down to the entry. Rows of pillars and windows dropped from the top of the building to the recovered entrance, which was a series of three arched doorways, and angled staircases emerged from the dirt to reach it. There was something impressive and majestic about the building and the way it rose from the earth. Though soiled by centuries of dirt, it seemed to defy decay, its corners and faces showing much less damage than the other buildings Malone had passed. A tarnished copper plaque, still affixed to a broken hunk of stone, sat near the excavated entrance like a signpost. The words “IBRA Y RES” rose from the copper like a fading dream, the only letters that time had not rubbed away from the ancient plaque.

  Malone remembered the words of her benefactor and crept away from the entrance, looking for another way in. Something caught her eye in the morning sunlight. A silhouette loomed a short distance away, directly on top of the hill covering the rest of the partially-excavated building. She had at first taken it for more rubble, but upon closer examination, she realized it was actually the topmost part of the structure. Climbing and circling the mound brought her to an uncovered portion of the building’s dome, where a narrow gap in the soil hugged it and descended to its base. She slipped down the fissure to a spot where a landslide had broken through a window and a considerable portion of the wall below it. Malone dropped through the opening and ducked low as her eyes adjusted to the dimness.

  She was perched on a balcony that encircled a great, round room beneath a series of semicircular windows identical to the breached specimen by which she had entered. The absence of proper lighting left her balcony in relative darkness, but the Council’s team had set up enough torches and radiance stones to work by below. She crawled along the balcony for a better view of her surroundings. Though now dusted in cobwebs, the room must have been magnificent in its day. The faded plaster wall behind her hinted at a deep crimson past, and the apex of the dome above her still sported a squadron of painted angels watching the proceedings below with distant stares. Antique desks arranged in a circular pattern supported a handful of men and women busily writing, and statues in the galleries across the room from her gleamed evasively with the light from below.

  Striking something with her foot, Malone looked down and noticed a book, fugitive from a nearby cart that had been overturned and forgotten. She picked it up, the ancient hardback binding unfamiliar in her hands. The cover read “The Prince”, and below, “Niccolò Machiavelli.” Her curiosity fur
ther aroused, she opened the front cover and read, stamped in faded blue ink, “Library of Congress”.

  The missing pieces of the puzzle began to reassemble. Malone followed the gaze of the statues perched atop the banister and noticed halls leading from the circular room to others lined with books. But it was the person she saw entering from one of those halls that caused her the greatest surprise.

  Rafe Sundar followed an immaculately-clad man, who looked more like a researcher than a guard, into the reading room, his coat draped over an arm and craning his neck to take in his surroundings. The researcher had an air of agitation about him, but Sundar was as cool as ever.

  “Dr Hask,” the researcher began, approaching the petite woman at the center of the room, “please forgive the interruption, but we found this man in the stacks.” Even far above the scene, Malone could read the annoyance in Hask’s posture and the unspoken question as to how an intruder had gotten there in the first place. Perhaps sensing this, the researcher pressed on. “Now he’s demanding to see the person in charge.” He obviously hoped that this would be the end of the matter as far as he was concerned.

  “Yes, I see,” she said. “You may return to your station. Inspector Sundar and I are already acquainted.” Sundar’s guide stormed off with a final look over his shoulder, but the researchers gathered at the tables all around ignored the new arrival. “I thought I smelled something rank,” said Hask.

  “That’s probably from my horse, although I prefer to think of it as an earthy musk. We’ve gotten pretty well acquainted since we met at the commune a few hours ago. Alas, we can’t all travel in style. Some of us have to get our hands dirty on the job.”

  Hask grinned. “Why, Inspector Sundar, you understand me better than you think. I’m surprised.”

  “Not nearly as surprised as I am, Doctor. I’ve chased trails across the city and now beyond it… to find a library?”

  “A library, Inspector. Utter the word with the respect it deserves, as a repository of words, of ideas that you and I… well, that you, at least, can hardly fathom,” she said in a voice tinged with disdain and colored with awe. “There are names in this place that have endured for centuries – millennia, even – surviving war and dust and forgetfulness. We stand in the presence of greatness.” She circled their rounded aisle at the center of the desks, gazing around her with a beatific expression.

  Sundar dropped his coat onto the nearest desk. “The only names that interest me right now are the ones related to this project. I have reason to believe that the discovery of this library is related to the deaths of Dr Cahill, Lanning Fitzhugh, and Councilor Hollens.”

  She sniffed. “You detectives are so predictable, and you would do well to take some cues from your deservedly more famous predecessors living in these shelves.” Hask paused, as if on the verge of suggesting a reading list. Abruptly, she spun back to face Sundar. “Except, I am surprised to see you here alone. What happened to your dear partner, Malone?” she asked.

  “That’s Inspector Malone,” he said. “Utter the title with the respect it deserves, identifying a soldier of justice, a word that you seem to have forgotten in the midst of all these others.” Listening above, Malone felt an uncomfortable swell of pride and affection. “She was detained,” he said. For a moment, Malone wondered how he could have found the place, but in an instant, she remembered: the map. She had left it in her desk before she left, and Sundar must have searched it.

  Hask crossed in front of Sundar in long, slow paces. “Ah, how unfortunate. And yet you found your way here, all by yourself, without the guidance of your mentor?” In her voice was the silken edge of a vindictive schoolmarm coaxing a secret from an errant child. Malone only hoped that Sundar could hear it.

  He paused. “I may not read, but I can do math.”

  “But surely you told your most respectable chief of your little detour?” Scanning the rotunda below, Malone saw almost a dozen guards surrounding it and a few more filing in and out of the stacks.

  “We both know that this investigation is off the books. So to speak.”

  Hask nodded in one downward motion as she continued pacing. “Yet you came.” Malone had six shots loaded in her revolver. Even if she made all six, Sundar would be surrounded, and the guards had most likely disarmed him.

  “In the hopes that we could work something out. That we could talk more outside the city.”

  “All alone. How very commendable.” She stopped and looked up at him with the most frightening Cheshire cat smile Malone had ever seen.

  “Only my civic duty. Which, at this moment, is to discover your purpose here.”

  “My purpose, as you so aptly put it, is to recover and guard the secrets that have survived, to restore the knowledge around us to proper use and authority, and to piece together a history that was forged long before your oldest memories and that will persist beyond your pitiable life… which may not be very long.”

  A familiar crease crossed Sundar’s smooth brow. “What?”

  At that moment, a guard who had been waiting in the wings materialized behind Sundar and jabbed a dagger into the young inspector’s back. Sundar’s eyes flew wide in confusion and pain, and a scream rattled pitifully in his throat. He sank to his knees, the guard easing him down. “I am sorry, Mr Sundar,” Hask said. “But it’s a pity you didn’t read more.” None of the researchers looked up from their work as the guard dragged him out of the reading room, a trail of blood smearing beneath his limp legs.

  Malone knelt in her spot behind the banister, frozen. A scream stuck in her throat, leaving her as helpless to free it as she had been to save Sundar. She looked up at the statues, as if hoping that their eyes had witnessed a different scene. Suddenly, the sight of the statues, the faded paint, the musky desk and forgotten books filled her with an unspeakable revulsion. Numb, but for the tremors zipping through her body, she crawled back to the rockslide and clambered up the debris and back through the window. Malone gasped at the brisk morning air as sunlight hit her face and clawed her way out of the pit, which now felt like a grave. Reaching the surface, she hunkered down on her hands and knees and vomited. Her face was already wet with tears, and frozen in her mind was the final image of Sundar’s face as he fell to his knees, stricken with terrible understanding.

  “I truly am sorry for your loss, but believe me when I tell you that he was gone the moment he set foot in that place.” Malone stumbled around to face a man she had never before seen. He was thin and tall, though it was hard to tell how tall, crouched as he was. His wispy, bright red hair framed an elegant face, but what caught her attention were his eyes, shrewd and motionless. “Almost no one who has discovered Project Prometheus has lived to tell about it,” he said, seeming to hold back a conspiratorial wink, “and I believe you’ll understand why.” She dimly realized that she was still bent over a pile of her own sick, trembling.

  “I suppose that you’ll require an explanation. Sit down, let’s get you out of that mess… that’s better.” Pulling her away from the dome, he sat across from her in a fresh patch of grass and tilted his head with the matter-of-fact air of someone about to share common knowledge. “Inspector Malone, we’ve much to talk about. Yes, I know who you are, and my name is Jakkeb Sato.”

  Chapter 15

  The Revelations

  Jane fought her way through the crowds and headed toward the Vineyard. Confusion swept the streets as the masses swarmed in panic tides, and scattered squads of the City Guard attempted to stem them. She had rushed from the restaurant, deaf to Olivia’s protests and Fredrick’s questions. Foreseeing Jane’s destination, Olivia had gone so far as to try and stop her, but Fredrick had restrained Olivia as Jane set off at a swift jog.

  Her mind whirled as she pushed her way through streets and tunnels. Olivia’s latest revelation had left Jane dazed, but she was inclined to believe it. If Roman had really assigned Olivia to eliminate her, the savvy maid could have easily done so, and she certainly would not h
ave bothered to treat her to lunch and a safe haven that afternoon. But as much as she wanted to feel gratitude toward her protectors, she was appalled by the implication of their role in the bombings. She did not want to believe that Roman himself was responsible for the murders… or could it have been Olivia, making outings at strange hours? Jane needed answers and she only knew of one person to ask. She would only have to hope that she could overcome his usual predilection for dodging questions.

  As she raced through town, she wondered about the actual damage of the bombs. So far, she had only seen the secondary effects manifest in city-wide hysteria, but a dark corner of her mind dreaded the moment that would thrust her up against the bloody face of the tragedy. Rounding a corner and rushing directly into a knot of panic, she saw the cause of the uproar.

  Nearly half of the block ahead of her was smashed. Where once a hive of offices had stood, a pile of smoking rubble and bodies now lay. Ordinary citizens and whitecoat medics alike heaved moaning and screaming bodies from the wreckage and lay them in what open space they could find, no doubt praying for the swift arrival of the ambulance carriages, while a crowd of useless onlookers stood by in shock. The area where the offices had stood was cleft open like a cross-section, showing halls and rooms that now led nowhere. Jane hoped that the bombs of “various sizes” had been mostly smaller.

  When she neared Carnegie, she slowed her pace. The crowds had thinned drastically as she approached the Vineyard, leading her to believe that the whitenails and their associates had either fled or hidden in their mansions. Stranger still was the sudden absence of guards. The few Jane had seen had been busy redirecting the crowds. Jane covered the last leg of her journey at a lope before that could change.

  She pounded on Roman Arnault’s door, struggling with the possibility that he might be elsewhere. The tide of recent events – from the bombings and Olivia’s subsequent revelations to her own intrigues and attack (which now seemed distant and minute by comparison) – had left her with enough to sort out through many sleepless nights, but the thought of bearing it without any idea of what it all meant was too much. Out of breath and shaking with nerves, she leaned against the doorpost and continued beating an irregular rhythm on the door. She relaxed when Roman opened it, looking, if possible, even more surprised than he had at her first visit.