“So tell me about yourself, child,” the Old Lady said.
“I think you already know everything about me,” Nina said sharply. “At least, it definitely feels that way. Your underlings have been following me around too. So, I doubt there's much that I can say that you don't already know.”
Nina might not have feared the Old Lady very much but she also was a long way away from trusting her or from being friends. She didn't mind telling this old woman how she felt about the way she handled things. It might have been petty, but Nina was still quite angry about having apparently been stalked for some time by strangers—or at best, an Italian detective she barely knew.
“I must apologize,” the Old Lady said. “They should never have been seen, or told you that they had ever even been there.”
That was an interesting apology, Nina thought. The Old Lady wasn't apologizing for having Nina followed. She didn't have any remorse for sending her men to spy on Nina. No, she was mostly just disappointed that her underlings made it known that they were spying at all. She didn't regret the surveillance one bit.
“Think of it like this, my dear,” the Old Lady said soothingly. “Athletes, performers, people like that are often viewed by scouts before they are recruited. They aren't usually aware that these scouts are even watching from the audience or from behind the scenes, and that's how the scouts like it. They don't want their presence to influence the one they are viewing. They want to see them as they are, raw and sincere, before making a decision about them.”
“So that's what you consider yourself? A talent scout?”
The Old Lady grinned with her yellowing teeth. “I have been known to have an eye for promising individuals. And you, my beautiful girl, are very promising...more promising than most of the drivel that have tried to become part of our collective here. To say that I am impressed would be just a most horrendous understatement. I am far more than that. I am thrilled that someone like you exists. Someone with so much talent on her own, but that also shares a history with the Order of the Black Sun. You are a perfect candidate to join our ranks.”
So that's why they were so interested in her. They weren't just looking for someone with her skill set. They wanted someone with the connections that she had, especially with the Order of the Black Sun. They probably wanted to utilize her inside information against Purdue and the Black Sun but Nina was definitely not going to allow that to happen. She wasn't going to be turned into a mindless weapon for the Old Lady and her disturbingly loyal followers to use against her friends.
“You want me to join something that I know nothing about...and you still can't at least give me a name. I've turned down jobs for much less than that. Contrary to your beliefs about your security measures, names are important. They aren't just about creating a brand. They establish a connection between the members of the group, so everyone knows what flag they are fighting under. What do you expect your workers to put whenever they're asked about their employer?”
“I will take your thoughts into consideration, Dr. Gould,” the Old Lady said. “Our lack of a name also separates us from other factions that do similar things to what we do...your friends, the Order of the Black Sun, for instance. There's no chance being mistaken for them when we don't have a name at all. Besides all that, it helps keep us hidden. A name would firmly establish something as a group, easy to bring down in one fell swoop. But nameless, we are all just individuals joining together to make our dreams reality.”
“And what's your dream?” Nina asked. “Destroying the Order of the Black Sun?”
The Old Lady's rocking chair came to a sudden halt as she put her toe to the floor. “It is not at all what you think, child. The Order of the Black Sun has been a blight upon this world for a very long time. They are a stain that needs to be removed. You think that David Purdue is going to somehow change that? No. I had hope for a moment that he was going to be able to get rid of the Black Sun for good during his battles with Julian Corvus...but then he decided to take control and push things in a new direction. That's futile.”
“You're wrong,” Nina said. She had seen the results firsthand. She knew that Purdue's decision for the Order of the Black Sun was a good one. “He wants to do a lot of good for the world using the Order's resources and he already has. He's been making positive changes already.”
“Perhaps,” the Old Lady said. “But it will not last. It never does. There have been many leaders of the Order of the Black Sun...and it always ends up the same. Believe me, I have seen it with my own eyes. The Order of the Black Sun was your enemy for years, weren't they? It might not seem like it right now but I promise you, they still are, even if you're a part of it. It does not matter who is running things now. Think about it. Think about that enormous collection of artifacts that they have locked away there. Do you really think any of those relics are actually safe there? Under David Purdue's leadership, I understand that your order is just collecting even more. That's not even including the ones that Purdue had collected before taking control of the Black Sun. The Order of the Black Sun is sitting on a stockpile of some of the planet's most valuable and even some of its most dangerous items. The relics are just sitting there, waiting to get turned into a real mess. All of it is just to appease David Purdue. He just wants his retribution on the Black Sun. And to do that, he's willing to just strip the world of all of its history in the name of protecting it.”
“And what would you suggest instead? What do the all-knowing Nameless Ones like you and your friends do with all of the items that you protect? You must have a vault of some kind.”
“We don't,” the Old Lady said. “We know better than to put all of our eggs into one basket. That has always been a terribly misguided strategy. Instead, each member of our group is responsible for at least one item we've found, sometimes more. We used to be a very small group of likeminded individuals but over the decades, we have expanded. But unlike the Black Sun, we haven't let our expansion and the spread of our influence corrupt us.”
“You know all about the Order, I'll give you that, but what's the connection between you and us? There's obviously history.”
“Oh yes,” the Old Lady said with some nostalgia. “Quite a long history.”
Nina rapped the underside of the chair she was sitting on. “Well I obviously have time to hear it. It's not like I’m doing anything else right now.”
“Patience, child,” the Old Lady said, and seemed to emphasize the child part. “We will get there in due course.”
“Why not just tell me now? The inspector made it pretty clear that this is all some kind of audition...but I'm currently a member of the Order of the Black Sun so whatever connection you have with them needs to be made very clear before I even consider making any kind of a decision.”
The Old Lady's pleasant demeanor wavered for a moment and the wrinkles that stretched across her face seemed much deeper than before. Nina thought she caught a glimmer of the Old Lady's real face but that visage quickly morphed back into a much warmer one.
“Patience.”
Nina could have pressed more, just to see if she could bring out the Old Lady's true face again, but she didn't want to go too far. It was a fine line to tread. If she pushed too much, the Old Lady could easily end this whole conversation or maybe even end Nina's life if she was as bad as Purdue seemed to think. Nina had no idea how this woman might react when really challenged.
“Let me first ask you this...does David Purdue really care about the story behind any of those artifacts that he had hoarded away in the Black Sun vaults? Does a billionaire like that actually bother trying to understand the significance of what he takes and what they mean to so many different cultures? I doubt it. He doesn't care about whether or not he should remove the relics from their homelands. He just takes them for himself. You may come to see one day, like I have, that there is a very thin line between collectors and thieves.”
Nina understood where the Old Lady was coming from, honestly. There was a per
iod of time that she had similar thoughts about Purdue but that was back when she barely knew him. After everything she went through with him, she saw the real Purdue. She knew that he cared, even if he didn't always show it. David Purdue wasn't the dispassionate, rich man that the Old Lady made him out to be and clearly thought he still was. At least, he wasn't that anymore. Nina knew that for a fact.
“You wouldn't believe the amount of old relics my people have discovered, only to leave them be. Some things shouldn't be taken. Some things are hidden well enough by the world without having to be put in a lock box. David Purdue does not understand that and will never understand that. If he sees something that is valuable, he is going to make sure that he gets it. But you, my dear girl, are different aren't you? Your interest with history is genuine, it's real. You are not in it simply to have the artifacts for yourself, you just want to keep them safe so that the history they reflect is never forgotten. David Purdue just seems like the best option to make sure that that happens...but it's not the only way. You don't have to endure his selfishness.”
The Old Lady took a pause, her graying eyes studying Nina.
“I see so much of myself in you.”
Nina hoped not. She never wanted to look as wrinkled and decrepit as the Old Lady did. She hoped she would age much more gracefully than that; maybe become just a sweet grandma rather than some threatening fossil.
“I was a historian for over forty years. I still am...just in a far less official capacity. Protecting the past from being stomped on, discarded, and abused has been my life's work. I know it is yours as well. You and I are kindred spirits. You must see that.”
For all Nina knew, the Old Lady was coming up with some story just to have something in common with her, something that she could use to forge a bond between them. This all could just be a lie to make Nina feel like the Old Lady understood her. But Nina wasn't going to let her off that easy, she wasn't just going to take the woman's word for it. She wanted the real truth and so far the Old Lady had been keeping quiet about some important truths.
Nina inadvertently looked straight into those yellow beads on either side of the Old Lady's pointy nose. They were looking right back at her, full of history and full of sights that Nina probably couldn't imagine.
“But who are you?” Nina asked. “What do you have to do with the Order of the Black Sun?”
“Everything,” the Old Lady said with a sigh. “Our history with them goes back to their inception. We, like the Order and a handful of other secret societies around the world, wanted to protect the past of the human race. As I am sure you are well aware, there are so many relics from dead civilizations, from important historical milestones, from the bloodiest of wars, and from the quietest of homes. We wanted to preserve anything we could. The Order of the Black Sun pretended that they did the same. They were liars. So we put them in their place and they lessened their destructive nature, but only slightly.”
The Old Lady was very intentionally still keeping it vague. Nina was sure that these were only the broad strokes of a mural that was painted mostly with blood red paint.
“There's more to this, isn't there?” she asked, stating the obvious.
“Of course there is,” the Old Lady said. “History can't be told in a few sentences. You know this. We'll get to the rest in due time. Forget about the Black Sun for now. It's time you saw more about what we have to offer, child. We may not have some highly secure vault room where we keep artifacts, but we do have something even more grand than that. I think you are going to feel right at home there.”
The Old Lady's fingers clamped around the arms of her rocking chair and she slowly rose to her feet. Nina was pretty sure that she heard just about every bone in the woman's body creak and crack as she got up, like she had been stationary in that seat for years before that moment and she was only now going to return to a world of motion. Nina imagined the Old Lady just sitting in that seat for days on end, maybe even weeks or months, collecting dust while she conspired and planned how to destroy her enemies or protect the world's history. Maybe spiders crept up to her, walking along her old body or wrapping cobwebs around her like her still form was the perfect infrastructure to create their new webs with. Nina was honestly surprised that the old woman wasn't covered head to toe in a thick layer of dust.
The Old Lady looked like she could barely stand but she managed to just enough with the help of a thick cane that one of her assistants handed to her. Once she looked all situated, steady, and ready to move, she turned to Nina. “Shall we, child? What are you waiting for? Let's get moving.”
Inspector Amaro waited by the door, holding it open for them. He offered Nina a smile as she slowly followed the Old Lady out into the hallway. It was surprising that they didn't wrap a blindfold around her head and over her eyes again. They either trusted her enough to see their base of operations or there wasn't really anything too alarming for her to see. Then again, there was the third option—they could kill her before she ever had the chance to tell anyone anything about the place. That was probably their safest bet but she really hoped that they chose an alternative instead.
The corridor around them was strikingly bright. Glaring lights hung over their heads and they were surrounded by walls that were painted completely white. It wasn't at all what Nina expected from a villain's lair, but maybe it was just another attempt by the Old Lady to try and make herself not look quite as evil as she probably was.
Nina had a lot of time to admire the strangeness of their surroundings since the Old Lady shuffled across the floor at a snail's pace. Each step she took was tiny and unsteady as she moved through the base. It was no wonder that she spent her time sitting around in a rocking chair, it took forever to get anywhere else. Nina usually considered herself to be a pretty patient person but this was a difficult test. Nina didn't know where they were going but she knew it would probably take about three hours to get there—and it really did seem like it.
After what felt like an eternity, the Old Lady finally came to large set of doors. She turned around to Nina like she was about to present the grand opening of some new restaurant.
“Here we are,” the Old Lady said with some excitement. “I hope you are ready, my dear, because I doubt you have ever seen anything like it in your life. I've seen a lot of things, but I can guarantee that there is nothing else quite like it.”
The Old Lady was really acting like this was some huge presentation. Whatever was behind those doors must have been amazing. If it wasn't, then Nina wouldn't be able to help but feel let down after all of this buildup. She didn't make that long journey down the hall behind the slowest woman on the earth to just end up being disappointed.
The Old Lady handed her cane to Inspector Amaro and then put her two trembling hands on the door handles, pulling the doors open with surprising strength. The doors swung open and like a curtain on a stage, they revealed something of interest behind them.
Nina didn't enjoy being in this situation but it was impossible not to smile after seeing what was behind those doors. She was filled with an immense joy moving up her body and had the instinctual feeling that she never wanted to leave this place all of a sudden, when moments ago, she wished she hadn't even come.
She was staring at the largest library she had ever seen. There were dozens upon dozens of rows of bookshelves directly in front of her and each shelf stood at least four times as tall as she was. They seemed to go on endlessly. To her right and left were just more and more books, all neatly tucked away in their place, lining all of the walls of the room. No matter which way you looked, you would see more books than most people would ever read in their lives. It was incredible and completely unbelievable, but here it was, somehow existing in actual reality right in front of her eyes.
It took a long moment for Nina to step inside of this vast library. She almost didn't feel worthy enough to go near its infinite contents. It was so unreal, she was scared that going near it might reveal that it was all some kind of
mirage or illusion. It was like some place out of a dream, somewhere that existed only in her wildest imagination since she was just a little girl with her face buried in a book.
It made the collection of old books and scrolls the Order of the Black Sun have in the deep vault look like a small used book shop in comparison. There must have been a thousand times the amount of books in this place, if not even more than that.
“What is this place?” Nina asked with genuine astonishment.
“The largest collection of historical text to ever exist on this planet.”
“How many are there?”
“I lost count a long, long time ago but I can assure you, there are more pages here than anywhere else in the world. Every book in here is a first edition, authenticated and full of interesting information about their specific periods. We have everything from personal journals to widely distributed textbooks. Our library would dwarf even the legendary lost library of Alexandria. If all goes well, ours will not suffer the same fiery fate.”
The Old Lady led the way into the library, shuffling inside slowly. Her pace gave her quite a lot of time to talk as she moved.
“We allow complete and unrestricted access to every single book in this library to all of our members. There are enough pages here to last more than a lifetime. Even if you sat down and read all day every day for the rest of your life, you wouldn't be able to read every book that we have in this library.”
Nina tried her best to imagine that. A skeleton sitting down, surrounded by endless stacks of books towering over them. This library was more than impressive. It was unbelievable but here it was, thousands upon thousands of books just waiting to be read and studied. Nina knew exactly what this was. It wasn't just a perk for joining the Old Lady's gang, no, this was a very tempting bribe.
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