“The flies that patrol the camp transmit dummy video for this quarter,” he explained. “But if we don’t stay within the boundaries we’ll be discovered. If you see a mark like this, go back the way you came.”
He turned the navigator so everyone could see—an upside-down triangle with smaller circles at the top of the lines that formed the wide portion. It looked a lot like the head of a praying mantis.
The speaker took the lead with Cleo close behind. As Asha and the others moved to follow, something buzzed past her ear. Ducking to the side, she glanced back in time to see an egg-sized, black capsule zooming out of sight, wings vibrating like a hummingbird’s, too fast to see.
“Nobody touch it,” warned the disciple. But the thing had already disappeared around a corner. “Listen for those and stay out of their way. They can’t see you, but if they bump into something that shouldn’t be there it’s going to draw attention.”
They continued along the outer boundary of the village, and after a few minutes they began to cross paths with others. It was clear their arrival had been anticipated. A man and woman Asha recognized as attendants from Cleo’s chamber soon joined them.
After a few moments’ conversation with them, Cleo turned her attention back to the group, choosing two additional attendants to remain with her and releasing the others to find their quarters.
To Asha she said, “Follow me.”
Guided by starlight reflecting off white surfaces, they moved deeper into the village, flowing along curving walkways, stairways, and rooflines. They never passed any large buildings or open spaces—Al Campo was a labyrinth of narrow, winding streets and dwelling-sized two-story buildings. It gave her the same closed-in feeling she got navigating the Fiery Furnace back home.
Sanctuary, too, lacked larger structures, with the exception of the Council House. The physical infrastructure of the Archive was spread out over half a dozen buildings. It occurred to her that perhaps this had been planned—perhaps the Manti, and the governing council, had wanted to discourage meetings of large groups.
Cleo stopped outside a house with a façade that merged mask and skull-like lines—two large eye-socket-shaped windows with a narrow door at the nasal opening.
Inside they found a large and open room, with pallets along the walls, low tables, and cushions strewn around a fire pit filled with coals that glowed without smoking.
The attendant glanced at Cleo, questioning, and she nodded. “We’ll need another bed for our guest.”
As Asha wondered whether the priestess’s physiology allowed her to recline for sleeping, one of the pallets moved, startling her. A form rolled toward them, and in the light from the fire pit she recognized the man from the temple—Cleo’s mate. White teeth glinted in his dark face as he smiled at the priestess.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he murmured. “Come to bed.”
“Not now, my love. I need to have a word with our host.”
“Your host is here.”
Asha spun at the sound of the familiar voice, afraid to trust her ears.
He froze in the doorway, eyes fixing on her, wide and shocked. Thinner than before, with more gray in his beard. But there was no longer any question about the identity of “Hark.”
He took a tentative step. “Asha?”
She rushed at him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Dad!”
“I can’t believe this,” he murmured into her hair. “I thought I’d never … How are you here?”
“I came to find you,” she said, drawing back. He rubbed her cheeks with warm fingers and pressed his forehead against hers. “I couldn’t stop wondering what happened to you. Wondering whether or not you were alive.”
“Oh, Ash,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry. This is no place for you, honey. But I’m so happy to see you. You have no idea.” Moisture glinted in his eyes as they moved over her. “What happened to your hair?”
The oddly practical question caused her to laugh through her tears. She’d been so occupied with survival the last few days, she’d forgotten the mystery of her hair. But it was no mystery after all. The day her mother had told her nothing could be done to recover her father, she’d dug the scissors out of his desk and cut off all her hair. She remembered how she’d sat rubbing the long strands between her fingers, not knowing why she’d done it, but relieved that it was gone. It had lightened her load. Had given her the clarity she needed to make an impossible choice.
Behind them Cleo cleared her throat. “Asha?”
She drew away from her father, wiping tears with the back of her hand. “This is Cleo, Dad. She’s the priestess from the temple—Rebelión Sagrada. Are you the one working with Micah?”
He dragged his gaze from her to Cleo, holding out his hand. “I’m Harker,” he said. “I’ve been working with your man from security at the genetics lab.” He glanced at Asha. “I didn’t know his real name.”
“I know who you are,” replied Cleo. “But I didn’t know we were bringing you your daughter.” The priestess’s lilac eyes shifted to Asha, narrowing and recalculating. Asha’s stomach twisted.
“Thank you,” he replied. He shoved hair from his forehead, and Asha could see he still hadn’t recovered from the shock. “I’m sure you’re tired. I’ve mainly come to welcome you here, and let you know I’m staying nearby. We can talk more in the morning.”
Cleo gave a slow, precise nod. “You have my thanks. And I understand now why my new friend was so anxious to come here. You’ll want time to speak with her alone.”
Her father nodded, slipping an arm around her. “Yes.”
“Of course. But know that she owes a debt to me for bringing her here. I’ll want to speak with her about that soon.”
He frowned at the priestess. “What debt?”
“It’s all right,” Asha assured him, though she was far from feeling it. She squeezed his waist. “Let’s go.”
“Good night, then,” he said. “I’ll call again at breakfast. You have food enough to last a few days. If you’ll provide me a list in the morning of anything you’re lacking, I’ll do my best to get it. Meals will be spare for a while, until your security man can find a way to modify the food req without anyone noticing.”
“I understand,” replied Cleo. “Good night, Mr. Harker.”
“Just Harker,” he corrected. “Harker St. John.”
Cleo nodded and turned from them, signaling the end of the interview. Whatever she might owe the humans for concealing her here—however gracious she’d been in the exchange with her father—it was clear enough she intended to maintain her authority even in exile. She’d probably determined in less than a minute that she’d have no trouble with Harker St. John. Soft-spoken, kind, and unassuming, he was the last man to tangle with someone like Cleo.
Or at least that was the man Asha thought she knew. As much as she adored him, it was clear she’d underestimated him. As he had her.
They walked arm in arm down the path, stopping in front of a plainer-looking house. Scanning the façade, she noticed one of the inverted triangle symbols painted near the curve of the roof.
“Is it safe to be here?” she asked. “I can’t be seen by one of those fly things. People may be looking for me.”
He raised an eyebrow, but then held out his arm, gesturing her inside. “It’s safe if you don’t go beyond this point. This marks the boundary of the section of grid we’ve blocked.”
The house was smaller than the one provided for Cleo and her attendants, with a single pallet and a small table and chair. Her father knelt at the fire pit and waved a hand over the coals. The room brightened with soft orange light.
“Are you hungry?”
“Dad, what’s going on?”
He glanced up. A smile softened his haggard features. “You’re so beautiful, honey. More so than I even remember. You should have cut your hair a long time ago.”
“Why did they take you away?” Her voice broke from impatience and strain, and from the
grief that had never really left her.
He drew in a deep breath. “Sit down, Ash.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
She was so happy, so relieved to see him, but she needed to understand what had propelled them into this danger and chaos. Her mind had made a connection after talking with Micah, and she couldn’t help feeling that her father had deceived her.
“You were behind that virus, weren’t you? The Ophelia Prophecy?”
“You found out about that from the security man—Micah?”
Asha nodded. “But I don’t understand.”
“Okay. I can explain. But it’s the middle of the night. You must be tired.”
Tired indeed, tired to the marrow of her bones. “Tell me.”
He gestured to a cushion beside him. “Come sit down, honey. I want to be close to you.”
She joined him at the fire pit, and he continued, “I’ll explain about the prophecy. But I need to go back farther for it to make sense.” He squeezed her knee. “You know I’m good with computers.”
Recoverer of lost data. Developer of inventive search tools. She nodded.
“I worked for years to break into the governing council’s database. I—”
“You what?” She gaped at him. “Why would you do that?”
“I had a lot of questions about Sanctuary. Our survival didn’t make sense to me. I used to try to discuss it with your mother, but she made me feel like I was crazy.” He closed his eyes, struggling to control emotion. “Eventually I did get into their system. What we believe about Sanctuary, Ash, it’s—” He opened his eyes and met her gaze. “Sanctuary is basically a human breeding facility for the Manti.”
“I know, Dad.”
His expression morphed from defeated to angry in a second. “Is that why you were sent here?”
“No. But we can talk about that in a minute. Tell me the rest.”
He took a deep breath. “When I pieced it together, I almost killed myself. I’d never considered myself the kind of man to do something like that.”
He wasn’t. But she understood it. Discovering your life was built on a lie—she remembered how numb she’d felt when she learned the truth.
“Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”
He frowned. “Because it was incredibly dangerous information. And it involved your mother. A huge secret she’d kept from us. From everyone. A betrayal of her family as well as her powers of office.”
“Did you confront her about it?”
“Not then.”
Which implied he had confronted her. Asha’s hands felt slick, and she wiped them on her tunic. She needed to know the whole truth, but she was beginning to feel afraid of it.
“Do you know Zora Cruz? Zee?” he asked.
The surprises were coming too fast now for her to keep up. “Yes. We became friends after you disappeared.”
This time she saw she’d surprised him. “Is she okay, honey? Did she come here with you?”
Asha shook her head, bewildered. “As far as I know she’s fine, but she’s not here. How do you know her?”
His gaze moved to the fire pit. “I was involved with her.”
Asha blinked at him, trying to assimilate the unexpected piece of information.
“You mean…” She wasn’t sure why she should find this shocking. Maybe because she couldn’t imagine a woman more different from her mother. Yet in some ways they were a lot alike.
“Yes, we had a relationship.”
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t she have told me?” It was more than that. Zee had intentionally withheld the information. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to involve you, honey. I think you’ll understand better when I’ve finished.”
He eyed her expectantly, and she said, “Go on.”
“Zee found Stella Engle—Ophelia. I’m assuming you know about that too.”
Something else Zee had withheld. Even when they’d found the old woman with Pax she hadn’t mentioned it. “No,” she replied.
“Stella’s inner circle lied about her drowning,” he explained. “She was starting to draw unwanted attention from the council. That old woman is crazy, but Zee told me some of the nonsense she muttered, and it got me thinking. I started poking around in your research on her. I read your personal Archive journal.”
“‘Science will destroy us,’” murmured Asha.
“That’s right. It gave both of us ideas about approaches to challenging the Manti. That was around the same time I broke into the council database, and after that we took the whole thing a lot more seriously.”
“You were Zee’s Archive connection,” she replied, remembering the data on hypnosis. “She sent you here too.”
“No.” He shook his head, leveling his gaze at her. “Your mother did.”
The statement whipped out like a slap. She realized she’d been holding on to the hope that in the end, somehow, her mother would be cleared of involvement in all this.
“Miri found out about the affair,” he continued. “She was furious. We stopped loving each other a long time ago, your mother and I, but the council had its eye on Zee. She heckled in town meetings, couldn’t help herself. Your mother thought I was being irresponsible. Exposing you to dangerous ideas.”
Asha sat frozen, afraid to breathe.
“She said some awful things. So did I. In the end I got so disgusted with her holier-than-thou bullshit I threw it all up in her face.”
“Threw what up in her face?” She hardly needed to ask. It was all coming together. How her parents’ hatred of each other had finally made a more thorough job of what it had begun long ago—ripping apart her family.
“What I’d discovered about Sanctuary and the Manti.”
“And she sent you away for it. Let the Manti take you.”
“I wasn’t the first to threaten to expose the council. It was part of their agreement with the Manti. They couldn’t afford for us all to know. Can you imagine the fallout?”
It was a halfhearted effort at absolving her mother, and they both knew it. Miriam had taken Asha’s father from her, knowingly and intentionally.
“It was part of Zee’s plan anyway,” he continued, “sending sleepers here to disrupt the Manti. I had helped her with it. I knew enough about them from your research that I believed it could be done. I know now that I went a little crazy—it was exciting, and being with Zee was … I know I’m an old man to you, but I hadn’t felt that way in a very long time.” He shook his head. “It was more than that, though. Living with the information I’d uncovered, going on with my life, doing nothing—it was no longer possible for me.”
This much Asha could fully grasp. She’d become intimate with that sentiment herself.
He fixed his eyes on her face—round, brown eyes that everyone said he’d passed on to his daughter. “But it was never supposed to be me, Ash, I promise you. And my god, it certainly wasn’t supposed to be you. I don’t know how Zee could do this.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. Her father’s eyes followed its progress until it dripped onto her tunic.
“It wasn’t her idea. It was mine. She only helped me because I was ready to do something crazy.”
“Well I’m so glad you avoided that,” he said with a broken laugh.
She reached for his hand, squeezing it. “I was going to find a way to come here anyway, with or without her help. She gave me a better chance of surviving and finding you. I just don’t understand why she kept so much from me.”
“What did she keep from you besides our relationship?”
“She never told me Mom sent you here, for one. Or what you learned about the Manti.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. For one thing, I never saw her again after the confrontation with your mother. Even if she figured out what happened, if she’d told you, you might have done the same thing. You could have exposed her.”
Asha’s thoughts drifted to her father’s journey to Granada. “
Do you remember the Manti that brought you here?”
He shook his head. “Someone drugged me. I went to sleep in my bed and woke up here.”
They stared at each other in silence, processing the stream of confessions. She thought about Micah, and their conversation in the tunnels.
“So you locked up the entire city’s computer network for two days?”
Her father grinned, and it dropped ten years off his face.
“Did you know that part about science destroying them is the motto on their temple?” she asked.
“Is it really?” He laughed. “That virus is how I met Micah. He untangled my hack and followed the threads right to me. I thought I’d been so careful. So smart.”
Her father was becoming a new person, right before her eyes. Had he always been like this? Mischievous? Adventurous? Subversive? As she replayed her memories she realized he had been; it just ran deeper than she’d ever suspected. His Archive self was very different. She’d seen this alternate Harker down in the Furnace, dangling his feet off the arch at sunset.
“How did you do it?” she asked, letting his amusement file the sharp edge off her pain.
His eyes were bright with excitement. With pride. “I was there for an interview and genetic screening. The lab tech’s connection to the network dropped, and she stepped out to find someone to fix it. I had this impulse to try and fix it myself—old habits. By the time I spun the terminal around the connection was back up. I didn’t have time to think about what I was doing, much less figure out their system. But the tech was still logged in, and the protocols weren’t any different from the ones I know. Back in Sanctuary I had been thinking about ways of attacking them digitally—Zee and I both knew it was really the only way we could attack them. If we were going to wage war, it had to be psychological.”
“What is the Ophelia Prophecy? Besides that part about science.”
“I just strung together the more ominous-sounding of Stella’s ramblings. Random nonsense, mostly. Talk about angels and arrows of fire. It sounds like vengeance and reckonings. Self-destruction through folly. It seemed just the thing.” He looked at her. “I got the idea from you, honey. From your journal. You attached a note to that quote about science, cross-referencing an article about Manti beliefs and superstitions.”
The Ophelia Prophecy Page 18
