by Jack Halls
Gideon cleared his throat. “Mr. Tsukamoto, sir...”
“I said enough. Don’t say another word to me or anyone else until you’re back at the house. You really don’t want to make this any worse.”
Without another word, Hiro spun around and walked out of the room. Devereux waited until the teenagers had walked out the door and then followed them out of the office.
There was no sign of Hiro as they left CENTCOM. Devereux stopped at the exit and opened the door for them. The two guards outside both did a double take when they saw Gideon and Takomi were with him.
Standing in the doorway, Devereux pointed at the autopod station across the platform. “Don’t take any detours. I’ll let them know you’re on your way.”
“You’ll let who know?” said Gideon, looking back at Devereux, but the commander ignored him as he turned and walked back into CENTCOM.
☥
The short trip to the Tsukamoto residence was made in complete silence, as was the walk from the autopod station to the Tsukamotos’ home. The pathway was as familiar to Gideon as the path to his own home. The cadets in his cohort had always been close, since their generation was the last group of aionians born before they reached Valkyrie.
They crested a small hill and looked down at the jumble of cubes that made up Takomi’s house. Gideon had once asked Hiro about the architecture, and Hiro had told him it was called the “modern” style, even though the style was centuries old. They reached the front door and opened it.
Diana Tsukamoto, Padre Diego, and Vincent Uritumbo were talking in the foyer as they walked in. The three of them turned to glare at the teenagers.
Diana was visibly clenching her jaw. For a moment, Gideon thought they were about to get another tongue lashing, but instead, she waved for them to follow her down the hallway.
“Come with me, you two.”
Padre and Vincent watched as Diana led Gideon and Takomi down a hall and up the wooden stairs to the second floor. At the end of another hall, she opened a door and turned to face them.
“Hand me your wristcoms.”
Gideon and Takomi both frowned.
“Why?” asked Takomi.
Diana raised one eyebrow and glared as she held out her hand, waiting.
Takomi shrugged and took off her watch. Gideon did the same. Diana took them and deactivated each one, waving for them to follow her through the doorway.
They entered an office at the end of the house with a view of the fields and river outside. Diana walked around the desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a heavy metal box and setting it on the desk. She opened the lid to the box and dropped the wristcoms inside, removing her own watch and doing the same. The sides of the box were incredibly thick, and she closed the lid with a heavy thunk, returning it to the drawer.
“I don’t think anyone would be eavesdropping on your coms, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
“Why would anyone want to listen to us on our wristcoms?” asked Takomi. “Is that even possible?”
“It’s not supposed to be possible, but recent events suggest otherwise. Now, get comfortable. You might be up here for a while.”
She took a few steps but stopped at the door.
“Oh, and don’t even think about leaving this office. I wouldn’t be surprised if the admiral throws you both in the brig until we reach Valkyrie.”
She walked out and closed the door before they could respond.
Takomi blinked and looked at Gideon. “Was she joking?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Gideon, what’s going on? Why are Padre and Vincent here?”
He sighed and fell into one of the comfortable chairs next to the desk. “I wish I knew.”
Takomi sunk into the chair next to his. “I never should have let you go through with your plan. We’re so screwed.”
“If we hadn’t, we’d still be in the dark. I had to know.”
“We’re still in the dark, Gideon. That book didn’t have any answers, only more questions.”
He tapped his knuckles against his forehead. “It’s all got to be related somehow. I have to know why someone would have wanted my mom dead. Our parents know something, and they were never going to tell us.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t change the fact that we’re screwed.” Takomi stood and walked to the window, straining to see outside in the light of Leviathan’s artificial moon. Gideon closed his eyes and rested his head on his fist.
“What do you think is going on downstairs?” Takomi asked.
He opened his eyes to see Takomi looking down at him from across the desk. “What are you talking about?”
“Our parents should be up here lecturing us, but instead, they’re hanging out with a priest and the head of security.”
“Takomi, honestly, I haven’t the slightest idea. Why do you keep asking me?”
“Sorry. I just hate not knowing.” Takomi fell into her mother’s chair on the other side of the desk. She had only sat for a few seconds before she got up again. “I’m hungry. Want something to eat?”
Gideon shook his head. She foraged through a cabinet until she found something she wanted and sat back down again. As she ate, she would occasionally question Gideon with her latest train of thought, only to catch herself mid-sentence. As time passed, she eventually stopped asking him questions and went to go stare out the window into the night. Several times, Gideon caught himself trying to look at his watch. He was contemplating opening the metal box holding their wristcoms when the sound of footsteps in the hall made him jump out of his chair.
The door opened, and Diana Tsukamoto poked her head in. “You can come down now.”
Takomi’s nervous energy was gone, replaced by a look of dread. Diana led them back down the stairs and down the hall. Outside the double doors to the dining room, Diana held up a hand for them to stop. She walked over to an end table and picked up two pieces of black cloth.
“Sorry about this, but you’re going to need to put these on.”
She tossed one to each of them, and Gideon now saw that they were cloth sacks with drawstring closures.
“Over our heads?” said Takomi. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m afraid so. This room is full of people who you don’t need to see yet, but they want to hear what you have to say.”
“Say about what?” asked Gideon.
“We’re going to ask you some questions, and whether or not you get to take off the sacks depends on your answers.”
Takomi opened her mouth to say something more, but Diana held up her hand and gave her a hard look. “Enough, Takomi. The alternative was months of solitary confinement. If you want some answers, this is what you’ve got to do.”
Takomi looked at Gideon, who threw up his hands.
“Fine,” said Takomi. She gave her mother one last glare before she pulled the sack over her head.
As Gideon pulled his own sack over his head, the atmosphere suddenly changed. The home was no longer familiar or friendly, but ominous. Through the cloth, he could sense movement, and he heard doors open. Someone approached him, and he recoiled slightly as hands touched his shoulders.
“Don’t worry, Gid.” It was Hiro Tsukamoto’s voice. “We’re just going to go sit down. Your dad’s going to ask you a few questions. You need to be completely honest.”
Hiro led him forward into the dining room. Someone closed the doors behind them, and the little bit of light that had seeped through the cloth disappeared.
“There’s a chair in front of you,” said Hiro. Gideon heard Diana guiding Takomi in a similar fashion. “Put out your hand.”
The back of the chair was closer than he’d expected, and his knuckles slammed into the wood as he raised his hand. Gideon tried not to curse, imagining a dozen sets of eyes watching him as he felt his way into the chair.
For some time, nobody spoke as he heard Hiro sit down in the chair next to him. He assumed Takomi was sitting on his other side, with Diana next to her.
Other than that, he was completely disoriented.
“Sorry about this.” It was his father. The tone of voice didn’t convince Gideon he was all that sorry. “In a moment, you’ll understand why this secrecy is necessary.”
Admiral Killdeer cleared his throat. “I’m about to ask you a series of questions, and I need you to be completely honest. There’s no point trying to say what you think we want you to say. There are no right or wrong answers. All that matters is the truth.”
Chairs around the room creaked as the unseen listeners seemed to settle in. Admiral Killdeer paused, and Gideon assumed he was waiting to see if they understood. He nodded, and apparently Takomi did too, because the admiral continued.
“Takomi, what did you do immediately after you left my office two weeks ago?”
“Um....” Takomi fidgeted in her seat.
“We already know most of it. You’re already in trouble. At this point, the best thing you can do is tell us the truth.”
Takomi sighed, then proceeded to tell him about the detour to Doctor Marcus’s home, and the things they found there. She talked about the strange symbol, and how Gideon had seen it in the admiral’s office, and in the photograph his mother had shown him a few days prior. When she’d finished telling him about how they’d gone to Diana for answers and left empty-handed, she stopped. For several agonizing moments, the room was silent.
“Does all that sound right to you, Gideon?” asked the admiral.
“Yeah. I mean, yes it does, sir.”
The admiral whispered something, and somebody whispered back before he continued. “Gideon, tell us all about your little adventure today.”
It was the question he’d been anticipating, and so he didn’t hesitate as he related the night’s events. When he was done, there were more whispered conversations around the room. He was beginning to think there were a lot more people here than he’d realized.
“Gideon, if I ordered you to act like you’d never heard that conversation between Doctor Marcus and your mother, to pretend like you’d never broken into the doctor’s house or my office, pretend like you had never seen that book, and to pretend like the explosion was an accident and leave it at that, what would you do?”
It was a strange question, and Gideon didn’t answer right away as he processed it. He got the impression that his father already had a pretty good idea what he would do. Lying wasn’t going to work, and would just create more trouble. He took a deep breath and spoke with all the confidence he could muster. “I’d tell you to your face that I’d follow your orders, sir, but as soon as possible, I’d do everything I could to find out who killed my mother, no matter what you or anyone else ordered me to do.”
A half dozen whispered conversations started up all around him.
“Quiet, please,” said the admiral. The room fell silent. “Takomi, what would you do?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. The truth.”
The chair next to Gideon creaked as Takomi shifted in it. Her voice shook as she spoke. “I’d try to convince Gideon to listen to you, knowing that he wouldn’t. Then he’d convince me to help him.”
Diana laughed. “Exactly as I told you. Almost word for word.”
The admiral let out a long sigh.
“I can’t say I ever doubted it, Diana. I wish you were wrong, but...” He paused. “Well, I wish they were a few years older, but what’s done is done. Let’s put it to a vote.”
“Ethan,” said a familiar voice that Gideon couldn’t quite pinpoint, “think about what you’re doing. They’re just kids.”
“So was I,” said the admiral. “In fact, I think I was ten when I was initiated. If we forbid them, they’ll keep snooping, and they’ll inevitably cause more problems. This way, they can get the facts, instead of half-truths. I don’t like it, but it could be worse. We’ve already discussed all of this. It’s time to vote.”
There was a commotion as people moved about. No one left their seats, as far as Gideon could tell, but it sounded like they were moving something around a table.
The shuffling stopped, and there were a few seconds of silence before Admiral Killdeer spoke again. “Eight for, three against. A clear majority. Gideon, Takomi, you can take off the hoods now.”
Gideon reached up and pulled off his hood, taking a deep breath of fresh air. What had seemed a dark room now seemed bright as his eyes adjusted. Directly across the table sat his father. On the admiral’s right sat Commander Morgan Devereux, and on his left sat Major Vincent Uritumbo. Their presence was unsurprising, since they were the admiral’s first and second in command.
More surprising was the presence of the priest, Padre Diego de las Casas, and Sophia Salvioli, the beautiful Italian fighter pilot. Now Gideon realized hers was the voice that he’d recognized. Next to Vincent sat his wife, Alexia, who smiled at Gideon and Takomi. Their combat instructor, Lieutenant Tawny Drexel, glared at them with her arms folded across her chest. It was odd to see her with her hair down in a sleeveless sundress. She noticed his eyes lingering on her, and she scowled. He quickly looked away.
But the biggest surprise was to see two Voidborn sitting at the table. Connor and Veronica Hallows were only a couple generations older than Gideon and Takomi. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Gideon remembered that Connor was Sophia’s grandson. His parents had been killed in an accident before Gideon was born, and the couple had only been married a short while. Gideon and Takomi would have been getting to know Connor and Veronica much better soon, since both of them were flight instructors.
It was a strange mix of people staring back at him from across the table. Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out how half of them were connected to his mom or Doctor Marcus. A quick look at Takomi confirmed she was as confused as he was.
“What just happened?” asked Gideon.
Admiral Killdeer gave them a rare half smile. “Congratulations. You are now members of the oldest society in history. Welcome to the Order of the Luzariai.”
CHAPTER NINE
Answers
GIDEON STARED BACK at his father, dumbfounded. “The Order of what?”
Admiral Killdeer almost seemed amused as he looked across the Tsukamotos’ table at Gideon and Takomi. “Luzariai,” said the admiral. “Padre, I think these two have waited long enough. Time for some answers.”
The priest leaned down next to his chair and produced a wooden box. He placed the box on the table and opened the lid. From inside, he pulled out a small object and held it out for them to see. “Do you two recognize this symbol?”
“Of course,” said Takomi. “It’s a cross.”
Padre nodded. “And what does it symbolize?”
Takomi paused. “Christianity.”
“Not exactly.”
“Christ?” said Gideon.
“No.”
“Christ’s death?” said Takomi.
“Closer. Why don’t I just tell you? It’s a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. In other words, immortality.”
Gideon and Takomi looked at each other, then turned to watch Padre pull another object out of the box. “What about this one?” He held out the symbol, which looked a lot like the cross, but with a teardrop shape above it.
“That one’s Egyptian, I think,” said Takomi. “But I don’t know what it means.”
“It’s called an ankh, and it too represents immortality. Here’s another one.” The priest pulled out a wooden disk with a white symbol painted on it. It was roughly the same shape as a cross.
“It looks Chinese,” said Gideon. “And I’m going to guess it symbolizes immortality?”
“Hey, you’re not as dumb as everybody says you are.” There were several chuckles around the table as Padre put the symbol away. “Here’s an interesting one.” He pulled out a metal object and held it up. Gideon squinted to get a good look at it. It depicted a bird with outstretched wings rising from what looked like fire. He racked his brain to think of where he’d seen it before.
“Oh, I
know,” said Takomi. “That’s a phoenix. It burns up and rises from the ashes. Also immortal.”
“Nice, Takomi. There are more, lots more, but I think you’ve got the idea. Besides their meaning, what do all these symbols have in common?”
Gideon looked over the symbols, now laid out on the table. “All of them are kind of cross shaped?”
“Good. Easy enough, right? Why do you think that is?”
Gideon shrugged. “They must have copied each other.”
“Not exactly, but they were all influenced by the same thing. Let me show you.”
Padre reached into the box one more time and pulled out a black book, holding it up for them to see the symbol imprinted on the spine. It was the book from his father’s office, or one just like it.
“What does this look like to you?
“It’s a picture of a man,” said Gideon.
“Or woman,” said Takomi.
“Both, actually, and neither. Notice the cross shape? This is another symbol for immortality, but one far more ancient. It’s called the Aeternal, and all these other symbols are derived from it in one way or another.”
Admiral Killdeer leaned forward. He really seemed to be enjoying this. “Are you thoroughly confused yet?”
Takomi and Gideon both nodded.
The admiral continued. “You two have just been initiated into an ancient order older than written history. The thirteen people in this room represent all that’s left of the order, at least that we know of. We’re called the Luzariai, and you’ll take the places of Monica and Doctor Marcus.”
Gideon sat up in his chair. “So they were part of all this.”
The admiral nodded. “Yes, and we think that’s part of the reason they were murdered.”
“I knew it.” Gideon clenched his fists until his skin hurt. “By who?”
“We don’t know, but we’re going to find out. Your mother and Dr. Marcus were investigating malicious code buried deep in the software controlling the satellites. We think they were close to discovering its source, and that’s why they were killed.”
