"What about you?"
"Just go, now."
Frustrated, she turned away and followed his instructions, slowly browsing through the collected books along the outer wall until she was within ten feet of the exit.
The room's silence was broken by the sound of feet running across the carpeted floor. Alarmed, Lisa turned to see Daniel coming toward her at a dead sprint.
"GO!" he shouted.
She fell into step right in front of him as they mashed against the door and ran out into the Great Court.
Having started at what must've been over one hundred feet beneath the surface, Alex and her companions were surprised at just how many rungs this ladder had-and how far down it went.
It didn't seem to end.
All of them-Alex, Payton, Julie, Mrs. Edeson, Cornelius, Nora, Fletcher, Hector, Charlotte, and the young guy whose name Alex still didn't know-held small flashlights, but still none of them could see the bottom. Not even Payton, who led the way at the bottom of their procession downward.
"Helloooo!" Alex called out. Her voice echoed down through the cylindrical hole and then back up at them.
"That can't be a good idea," Fletcher whispered. "You really want to let the evil conspiracy people know we're climbing down their tiny little hole?"
"You think that's what we're going to find down there? Substation Omega Prime?" Julie asked. "Maybe we should call Grant...."
Fletcher replied, "At least we've got our powers. That Trevor kid must have vacated the premises."
"Give me that," Payton said. He snatched Alex's flashlight and dropped it.
Alex opened her mouth to protest but then waited in silence for the flashlight to find purchase on something beneath them.
Long after the light had faded from their sight they heard a tiny clink from far below.
"I hate climbing," Alex muttered as they continued to slowly descend.
"This isn't climbing," Fletcher replied. "Climbing is going up."
"I hate you," she said miserably.
"You all are giving me a frightful headache," Mrs. Edeson said. "Could we not observe silence until we reach the bottom?"
Alex replied, "How's about you tell us about your powers, instead?"
Fletcher chimed in as well. "Yeah, I'm dying to know how you pulled off the barrier."
"It's called ingenuity, darling," Mrs. Edeson replied. "I control willpower, as I demonstrated in the Library above. I can make anyone do anything I so choose. Cornelius has the peculiar ability to establish a perimeter of thought around himself-he causes everyone around him to think about what he wants them to think about. And Charlotte is a broadcaster-she can control the transfer of all forms of electronic information. Wired or wireless, as the case may be."
"She's how you were able to regulate the flow of information going in and out of the city," Julie offered, catching on.
"And why satellites covering the area inside of the barrier returned images of static," Mrs. Edeson added. "She's quite clever."
"But how were you able to create and maintain such a complex desire-not wanting to leave the city-in so many minds all at once?" Fletcher asked, wanting specifics.
Cornelius answered. "Well, consider my ability and that of Mrs. Edeson. If you multiplied them by one another, you could create a barrier of thought or will that forces others to do as you wish."
"I get it," Fletcher replied. "That's what the other guy does-Mr. Special. He joins your minds together, allowing you to use your powers as if they were one and the same. Remarkable. In this case, you removed the desire from outsiders to enter the city, and the desire from those on the inside to leave."
"More or less correct," Mrs. Edeson replied.
It was ten more minutes before they reached the bottom, which opened into another cubbyhole of a room, much like the one above. It was far too small to fit them all, but there was a door opposite the bottom of the ladder. Payton reached the bottom and hopped off the ladder, examining the door before he opened it.
It was tremendously ornate, carved out of solid oak, with another version of the Secretum's symbol etched into it-this one as wide as the door itself. The remainder of the door was carved with intricate scrollwork, patterns inside of patterns that dazzled the eyes. In the center of the Secretum's symbol was a number, carved so that it stood out from the symbol.
"What is it?" Alex asked as she neared the bottom of the ladder and the door came into view. "What's it say?"
"It's just a number," Payton replied.
Alex stepped forward and read for herself. The number "17" was inscribed in the center of the symbol.
Maybe it's the 17th Substation? she pondered. But no, there weren't numbered doors like this at the last two substations....
Payton pushed open the door.
Stephan's eyes lit up. "Hey, I got him! We're on with Levi."
His fingers raced across the keyboard.
"Um, can you come around here a sec?" Stephan said. Grant stood from his chair and circled the table to stand behind his young friend.
He saw Stephan's visage in a tiny window on the screen and himself stepping into view behind him. It was a live video image Stephan was sending over the Net. He typed words as Grant watched:
see? believe me now?
"He didn't believe I was really with you?" Grant asked.
Stephan shook his head, grinning. Grant returned to his seat.
"Tell him I would like to know where he gets his leads from on my whereabouts."
Stephan typed the message. Grant waited impatiently for the response to come through.
"Says he has an inside source," Stephan relayed.
"Inside what? My people? Some government agency?"
Stephan clicked the keyboard again.
"No, from underground," was the reply.
Underground? What's that supposed to mean ...
Unless... ?
Daniel and Lisa's escape had progressed outside to a remote parking area when their efforts were cut short by gunshots fired just over their heads.
Lisa wanted to keep running, but Daniel shook his head no. He put his hands up and turned around.
The two men approached, weapons trained on them both.
"Turn around, down on your knees!" one of them barked.
"What's the charge?" Daniel asked as handcuffs were roughly placed on his wrists.
No response.
"I demand to know what we're being charged with! Who are you? Scotland Yard? MI-5?"
The men forced him and Lisa down onto their knees, facing away from them. "Neither, actually," one of them hissed. Daniel caught a glimpse of one of the men's hands as he was roughly shoved down.
The symbol of the Secretum was tattooed on the man's wrist.
Guns appeared, silencers already in place, and the muzzles touched the backs of Daniel's and Lisa's heads.
"Wait, why are you doing this?!" Daniel cried.
"Sorry, Doctor Cossick," the man behind him said. "But you've been classified a `loose end,' and our orders are to remove you from the picture."
Two gunshots rang out, but Daniel discovered much to his shock that he was still alive. And something wet was all over the back of his head.
He turned cautiously to see a man wearing an overcoat and a woman in a pantsuit, both with guns raised, carefully approaching the attackers, both of whom were already falling to the ground, dead.
"Sorry for our tardiness," the woman said. "But you're not an easy pair to locate."
Satisfied that the two attacking men were dead, they holstered their weapons and pulled out badges. MI-5, both of them. They helped Daniel and Lisa to their feet but didn't remove their handcuffs.
"I don't understand," Lisa stammered nervously. "What's going on?"
"You're under arrest for aiding the wanted criminal known as `Guardian."'
Lisa and Daniel glanced at the dead men on the ground. "Then who were these two?" he asked.
"We were expecting you could tell us," the woman
replied.
Nothing else was said. The British agents led Daniel and Lisa to an unmarked sedan and drove them away.
"I want you to type exactly what I'm about to say," Grant said, formulating a statement quickly in his head. "Put, `Guardian wants to know if you can fill in the blank.' Then put a long underlined space followed by the words `of Six."'
Stephan seemed curious but sort of shrugged and typed in Grant's words.
"What's a `Seekretoom'?" Stephan asked, trying unsuccessfully to sound out Levi's reply.
"He knows about the Secretum?!" Grant asked, massaging his forehead, thoughts spinning rapidly. "Ask him if he knows where to find `Omega Prime."'
He waited impatiently as Stephan typed the question. "He says `Omega Prime' is located at the heart of the Secretum. They're waiting for you to come and enter their world."
Grant's breaths were coming faster and faster now. This was it ... The end of his search was so close now.... "Where do I find the entrance to their world?" he whispered.
"Don't have to, mate," Stephan replied, reading the screen. "Says you just have to find the nearest Entry Node."
"The nearest what?"
"What do you see?" Fletcher asked as he neared the bottom of the ladder. He brought up the rear of the group, so everyone else was already at the bottom and moving through the ornate wooden door by the time he saw the small foyer. Dim light protruded through the doorway, but he couldn't tell what was inside. "What's in there?" he called out, rushing to catch up.
No one responded.
Carefully, he stepped off the bottom rung. He brushed his hands off against each other, displeased at the rust and soot that had accumulated on them from the climb down. He turned.
Stepping through the door, his breath caught in his throat and his jaw fell.
A small tunnel, just wide enough to accommodate the door, opened into a cavernous space like nothing he'd ever seen.
The shape of the space was like two horizontal cylinders that passed through one another. It was an underground chamber, comprised of intersecting tunnels of staggering proportions. The walls curved up and around in a perfect circle, reaching a pinnacle at least two hundred feet above where they stood at its bottom. The curving walls themselves were made of solid rock, but they were braced every twenty or thirty feet with gleaming silver struts that went all the way around.
Fletcher noticed that the walls were made of far more than just rock. Pieces of metal and electronic circuit boards were scattered throughout, as if sewn directly into the structure of the walls. But there were no wires, no cords leading from one panel to another. Whatever this was, whatever made it work, it was all buried inside or built into the rock.
The chamber hummed quietly as the ten of them merely turned in their own circles, taking in the enormity of it all. Alex and Julie stood out at the very bottom of the chamber, near a T-beam that jutted upward; the others remained closer to the door.
Fletcher stepped a little farther in and realized that the humming was coming from the T-beams. Were they electromagnetic?
Alex opened her mouth to break the silence when a high-pitched whistling sound was heard from one of the tunnels. It was so ear-splitting, no one realized that there was something in the tunnel moving. Something huge, headed straight for them. A tremendous gust of wind rushed at them, so hard the flesh on their faces pressed inward and distorted against it.
"Down!" shouted Payton, and then he vanished in a blur, reappearing on top of Alex, who was now lying on her stomach, Payton pinning her down. An enormous gold-tinged object darted through the tunnel at lightning speed. Its belly soared through the space where Alex's head had been only a second ago, and then it was long gone, down the other end of the tunnel.
It went by far too fast for any of them to get a good look, but it was clearly huge-and it seemed to have floated in the exact center of the tunnel.
Fletcher thought it might've had a cylindrical shape, matching the tunnel, but rounded on the ends.
Like some sort of high-powered subway train or monorail, able to move faster than anything he'd ever seen-maybe even faster than Payton.
He watched the others recover from this astonishing sight, and Alex and Payton peeled themselves up off the ground. He waited as recognition lit their eyes-why couldn't they ever understand as fast as he could?-and they turned to look at each other in shock.
They all knew exactly what they were looking at, what they had just seen, and what they were standing inside of.
But not a single one of them could form any words adequate for their discovery.
It was unbelievable.
"Is this?" Alex began.
"Wait a minute ..." said Fletcher, looking around. "Where's Julie?"
Alex spun in place. "She was just here, right beside me! Right before that thing-!"
Alex looked up at each of them in horror.
Payton shouted, "JULIE!" His voice echoed through all four tunnels, but no other sound was heard.
"We should call Grant," Alex said.
Payton turned to Alex and the others. "I dove for you both," he said. "I don't understand. She was standing right here beside you."
"They grabbed her," Fletcher stated. It was the only logical conclusion. If that "train" thing had hit her, there'd be smashed bits of her all over the tunnel. But there weren't.
"Are you insane?" Alex asked. "Did you see how fast that thing was moving?"
"Then maybe somebody else grabbed her from the ground while we were distracted, I don't know. It was loud enough that we didn't hear her shout," Fletcher replied. "All that matters is, she's gone. And now the team is down by two."
"Yes, but up by four," Mrs. Edeson noted, a knowing glimmer in her eye.
"Whatever they did with Morgan, this is how they traveled," Nora noted. "Maybe she and Julie will be held together someplace?"
"But where does this go?" Alex asked, exasperated.
Fletcher's attention was elsewhere. "I bet I know a way we can find out."
The others rejoined him in the small tunnel that led to the wooden door. A small panel outside the door held a lever, several LED lights that were currently turned off, and words written in various languages.
"I think it's a call button," he said.
He pulled the lever.
"We'd better get you home," Grant told Stephan as they exited the cafe together. He absently scratched at the scar on his hand and noted that the red marks had died down considerably. But they'd been replaced by an odd blue discoloration that surrounded the scar. He'd never seen anything quite like it.
A wave of nausea suddenly came over him, and he found himself holding Stephan's shoulder for support to keep from losing his balance.
"What's wrong? Guardian?" Stephan asked, his eyes looking around their surroundings as if he were about to call for help, right there in the heart of downtown London.
"It's my fault."
Grant turned right. Trevor stood there.
"Sorry," he said.
"Who's he?" Stephan asked.
"Trevor," Grant replied. "He's ..." Grant grappled with how to explain it simply, "he's another like me."
"Cool," Stephan replied eagerly. "What's your superpower?" he asked Trevor.
Trevor didn't answer him. His attention was fixed on Grant.
"What are you doing here?" Grant asked, while his stomach cramped under the terrible pains that accompanied being so close to Trevor.
"I was sent."
"By your masters in the Secretum?"
Trevor appeared mildly stung by the words but tried not to show it. "I can't stay long; they're expecting me back rather quickly."
"So they're coercing you somehow, that it?"
Trevor didn't reply to that question. He merely looked on Grant with a sad expression.
"They've got you tagged, don't they?" Grant said softly. He didn't wait for Trevor to reply; there was no need. Somewhere in his clothes or implanted somewhere in his body there was a tracking device. Pos
sibly even a wire, listening in to everything they were saying right now.
"I was instructed to tell you that they have just picked up your sister," he explained. He fished a piece of paper out of his pants pocket and handed it to Grant.
"Who? The Secretum?" Grant cried. "They have Julie?!"
Grant snatched the paper and unfolded it. It contained a map depicting a view of the Middle Eastern nation of Turkey. In the central southern portion of the map was the asterisk-like symbol of the Secretum, marking some unidentified mountain range. It was exactly what Morgan had expected them to find at the London Library.
Grant stared at the page, a knot building in his stomach. Then he looked up at Trevor, anger coloring his face. Trevor recoiled slightly, and Grant guessed from the boy's reaction that his eyes had turned red again.
Let's hope no more cities are getting swallowed up into the earth right now-
Good grief, now they've got me believing it!
Grant's phone rang.
"It's him," Trevor said, locking eyes with Grant.
Grant flipped open the phone. "Is my sister alive? For your sake, the answer had better be yes."
"She lives," Devlin replied through the phone in a heavy Russian accent.
Wasn't he South African? That's how it sounded when he called me in L.A....
"I wish it weren't necessary to take her from you," Devlin continued, "but it is the only way we could ensure you would come. There are parts of what we do that are most repugnant. But sometimes questionable ethics must be employed for the greater good to be accomplished. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know."
"What about Morgan?" Grant asked, dreading the answer because in his heart, he already knew it. He'd known it since he woke up in St. James's Square and could no longer feel her presence.
"I am truly sorry, Grant," Devlin replied. "We did everything we could, but she was too far gone by the time she reached our surgeons."
Grant was surprised that despite the empty feeling he felt inside, no tears formed in his eyes. Why couldn't he cry for Morgan? She was gone! What was wrong with him? Was he too preoccupied with his sister? Or was it something else?
"I know this will mean nothing to you, coming from me," Devlin continued, "but you have my deepest condolences. I knew enough about Morgan to know that her loss must be deeply felt by all Externals who knew her. Casualties are an ugly reality, in any army," Devlin said, echoing something Grant's grandfather had told him about the Loci.
Fearless (Dominion Trilogy #2) Page 27
