Chapter 15
The Consolation of Oblivion
Franklin stops the hovervan on the street corner one block from Club Faraway. Before I even close the door, he speeds away. Taking off the cat mask, I toss it into a garbage receptacle. The streets aren’t very crowded in downtown Purity. The upscale metropolitan area is more office building than residential.
Slowly, I follow the navigation on my wrist communicator. “I’m approaching the club,” I whisper into the device. “Have you located a weapon?”
“Go look under the bench in front of the mechadome clinic,” Balmora replies through the communicator.
I spot the hovering bench in front of a mechadome storefront. Different types of bots are on display. None of them resemble Phoenix. Attached to the bottom of the seat bench, I find a generic fusionblade, tear it away from the adhesive, and strap the thigh sheath to my right leg.
“Got it,” I mutter into the communicator.
“Good. You’re clear to go.”
“Copy.”
I tighten the belt of the long black jacket that Clifton’s team made for me. My hand smooths down the Copperscale. I hope it’s as good as Clifton claims, or I’m dead. The navigation points to a posh, fin-shaped skyscraper. The outside of the slender building resembles gray shark skin. It’s intriguing without being overt. Club Faraway is nestled on the corner, next to other elegant facades of what appear to be average-looking office buildings.
The drug lair doesn’t overtly advertise. No signs. No patrons milling around outside. Balconies speckle the side of the building, reminiscent of an elegant hotel. The rooftop has a penthouse at the peak of the dorsal fin. At street level, glass doors filled with undulating blue water blur the view inside. Pushing one open, I take a cautious step in. The door closes behind me. Bright light from the ceiling and the floor make it hard to see. Security traps me in the vestibule between the outer and inner doors. I’m in a faux tank, the walls all filled with water, blurring everything on the outside. “This is a weapons-free zone,” an automated feminine voice sounds. “Please check all weapon in the receptacle.”
A silver cylindrical apparatus rises from the floor, and a round chute opens inside it. My heart sinks. I have to give up my weapon if I want to get in. I consider leaving, but if I do, I’ll always ask what-if. Reluctantly, I pull the fusionblade from the sheath on my thigh and deposit it in the receptacle. The weapon disappears, and an orange plastic disc emerges. I place it in my pocket. The bright light fades. The doors slide open.
The pristine lobby is dimly lit. The floor shines with wavering aquamarine light, like sunshine filtering through water. Softly lit chandeliers barely push back the shadows. Clusters of dark velvet chairs with high seat backs float above the floor. I gaze around for elevators, hallways, or other attached rooms. There aren’t any. For a drug club, it isn’t attracting any customers.
Soft instrumental music plays. A woman with thick dark glasses sits in the corner facing the door. Her hair is white, with blunt-cut bangs in the front. A fat tumbler of amber liquid rests on the table beside her. A rose-colored cigar sends a curl of fragrant pink smoke up from her ashtray. A glove masks her moniker. On the opposite side of the room sits a thin, well-built man. He’s hollow-cheeked, and dressed as if for the opera, drinking a wine spritzer. I don’t judge: wine spritzers are delicious.
A clerk—middle-aged, a Virtue-Fated secondborn with slicked-back hair and a dark suit with a high collar—stands at a blue wave-shaped desk at the back of the room. The wall behind it is a shark tank. Holographic screens in the desk cast hieroglyphic symbols up onto the clerk’s face.
“Hello and welcome to Club Faraway.” The secondborn smiles. His teeth glint. His glittering diamond ascot pin twinkles. “Do you have a reservation or are you here to meet a party?”
“A party,” I say. “Solomon Sunday.”
His nostrils flare, and his finger hesitates on the virtual screen. He has been expecting me.
“Firstborn Sunday is—” His eyes widen in terror. I duck. The clerk’s neck and jaw explode from a fusionmag shot, spattering brain matter onto the tank behind him. I don’t look back but jump over the desk. A second fusionmag blast strikes me in the back between my shoulder blades. Judging by the angle, the shot had to have come from the wine spritzer man. The Copperscale of my coat absorbs part of it, but the impact is like being hit by a speeding hovercraft. I slam into the shark tank and slide to the floor. The clerk’s corpse twitches beneath me. I wheeze. My lungs feel turned inside out. Flecks of the clerk’s blood mar his diamond tiepin. I pluck the tiepin from the cloth.
Footsteps draw nearer. Ignoring the pain, I lurch up and throw the tiepin at the man who shot me. The needle and diamond slice into his pupil. Wine Spritzer screams and holds his hand to his bloody eye. I reach across the desk, grasp his other hand, and turn his fusionmag. We shoot at the white-haired assassin stalking toward us, but she dives to the floor. I twist the fusionmag in Wine Spritzer’s hand again and shoot him through the chin with it, blowing off the top of his head. As he crumbles, I tear the weapon from his hand.
The woman on the floor fires again. The pulse hits my right bicep. My jacket absorbs most of the pulse, but it still knocks me off my feet. My fingers go numb. I can’t hold on to the fusionmag, and it drops to the floor and slides. Straightening, I reach for it with my left hand. The woman walks around the desk, and her perfect cherry lips gape open when she sees I’m not dead. My fusion pulse blows her shattered heart out of her chest. She flies backward and hits the ground, bouncing.
I stagger to my feet as the numbness in my arm gives way to aching tingles. It still works, but it aches like hell. Moving my fingers to get the feeling back into them, I search Wine Spritzer with my other hand. A spade-like knife is concealed in a leg sheath. He was waiting for me. Whoever planted the assassins in the lobby knew I was coming—or someone like me. I remove his glove. No moniker—but a scar where it used to be.
I move to the woman. Her hair is a wig, and when I pull it away, she’s bald. Gruesome scars cover her scalp. I pluck the dark glasses from her face. Brown eyes with a silver tint stare up, unseeing. I don her glasses and wig, stuffing my long brown strands beneath it. I untie her rose-colored scarf, wrap it around my throat and the lower half of my face, and remove her glove. She doesn’t have a moniker either—it was cut out. I take her fusionmag and shove it in my pocket. Back at the clerk’s desk, I use the spade knife to cut out his secondborn moniker, stuffing it inside my glove so that it shines through the mesh.
Then I use the holographic screens above the desk to find Gabriel. He’s registered in the penthouse suite. I do another search. Solomon Sunday is registered to a suite on the eighth floor—the Euphoria Room. Maybe it wasn’t Balmora who set me up. Maybe Gabriel is here after all. Maybe my mother knew someone might come to kill him, now that he’s in Virtues, and set a trap here and in the penthouse.
The wall behind me slides sideways. Straightening in surprise, I realize that the wall was merely a holographic illusion. An entryway to a drug den lies open. Everything inside is red. Huge, round, ruby-colored lanterns hang from the ceiling. It’s like a multilevel casino, but instead of gaming tables and machines, there are tall transparent cylinders containing bodies. The bodies are suspended behind the glass. Some are alone in their tubes and simply float like dreamy fetuses in wombs. Others are suspended together in massive glass cylinders, entangling each other in orgies of passion. Decadent crimson furniture surrounds some of the glass tubes, occupied by firstborns watching the haze of smoke and naked bodies.
People walk the floor like zombies, with pallid skin and unbalanced gaits. A Virtue-Fated firstborn with bloodshot eyes stops in his tracks next to me. He’s stooped and unsteady on his feet. “Is this real?” he asks.
“No,” I reply, making my way into the red-poppy haze. The wall slides shut behind me, hiding the lobby. Serpentine clouds of red smoke hang in the air. The scent spins my head in lazy circles, even through my scarf. Red banners hang, curling and floating, from beams above, blooming like poppies—opening and closing, opening and closing.
A young boy, maybe eight, takes my hand. Wordlessly he leads me to a jewel-red counter where a secondborn—wearing a mask with a painted poppy over her nose and mouth—dispenses a menagerie of mind-altering substances from behind glass. Holographic menus display on the glass.
“Do you have aerosol?” I ask the Moon-Fated attendant. “Something that will make me sleepy?”
She languidly twists pieces of her garnet-colored hair around her finger. “Of course. Hazy Daze-99.” She holds up a cylindrical can and depresses a button on top of it. The aerosol mists in a short burst. The arch of it forms a rainbow. It doesn’t seem to affect her. “How many?”
“Everything you have and a mask like yours.”
Her eyes bug out. “Do you want that on a hovercart?”
“Yes.”
“Scan your moniker,” she says.
I scan the clerk’s moniker as she loads a few dozen aerosols into a hovercart. The cart passes through to me.
“Do you know where the lifts are?” I ask the little secondborn boy at my side. He nods, calls the lift with his moniker, and tugs my hand. As we walk to the lift, I ask, “What’s your name?”
He shrugs lethargically. I make a mental note to come back for him when I have the power to change his life by rescuing him from this awful place.
I enter the lift alone and wait for the doors to close. Then, opening the lid of the hovercart, I take out several cans and place them on the floor. I slip the mask over my nose and mouth and wrap it with the scarf. I lift a can and spray the cameras in the elevator, puncture several other cans in the hovercart, and close the lid.
The dial on the hovercart is set to “Follow Mode.” I reset it to “Propel Mode.” The hovercart hits the doors and grinds against them. Positioning the clerk’s moniker beneath the scanner, I select the eighth floor. The elevator rises. I lean back into the corner where the walls of the elevator meet. I lift one foot and place it on one wall. My other foot pushes against the other wall. With my feet on each of the two corner walls, I use the leverage to scale them and press myself against the ceiling near the doors. When the car stops and opens, armed guards are waiting, their fusionmags drawn. The hovercart idles forward. One of the guards opens it. An aerosol cloud wafts out. Their shoulders round, and their arms grow heavy. Thumps resound as the guards topple over.
Someone calls, “What is it?”
I drop down from the ceiling.
A guard glances at me and smiles dopily. “Adreana,” he murmurs. He must think I’m the female assassin from the lobby. He slumps against the wall and slides down it.
Sounds of pounding feet grow near. I puncture more cans and toss them into the hallway. Billowing fog fills the air. Feet slow. Bodies hit the floor. When the fog clears, I peek my head out and draw it back fast. A dozen guards sit limply against the walls—some lie on the floor, weapons fallen haphazardly beside them. It’s rainbow fields forever out there.
Following the trail of bodies, I reach the door at the end of the corridor. No sounds come from the other side. Pulling out my fusionmag, I aim it at the door, and then, on second thought, I hide the weapon behind my back, and knock. The door opens partway. “You’re supposed to be in the lobby,” a tall, burly man says. I kick in the door. He stumbles back, drawing his fusionmag. I shoot him in the chest. His colleagues are gathered around a virtual screen watching a pre-trial training session. They draw weapons. I lift my fusionmag and pull the trigger in rapid succession. Bodies twist and fall like discarded puppets. I should feel bad, but I don’t. If I were here to kill Gabriel, they wouldn’t have stopped me because they were too busy entertaining themselves.
I bar the door and cautiously creep to the main apartment. It’s empty. In the master bedroom, I find Gabriel alone, passed out on the bed. His dark hair is in disarray. Cadaverous eyes rimmed in dark circles sit atop his hollowed cheeks. His elegant silk shirt is open, revealing his sunken chest. His rolled-up sleeves reveal scabs and bruises. He trembles. He’s either done too much or not enough.
I tug the scarf and mask from my face. “Gabriel,” I whisper. Tears prickle my eyes. I touch his shoulder and try to rouse him. He finally opens his eyes and squints at me.
“Who are you?” he whispers.
I pull off the white wig and glasses. “Fabriana Friday,” I murmur through my tears.
“Are you here . . . to save . . . the world?” he asks weakly. It’s something he would’ve said when we were kids.
“I’m here to rescue you, Solomon Sunday.” I touch his hair. It’s brittle. He doesn’t reply, just continues to tremble.
I speak into the wrist communicator. “I have him, Balmora. I need a superfast airship.”
“You’re getting a delivery hover.” Balmora’s voice rings through the wrist communicator. “Creamy Crellas. Side alley—below your position. Can you get there now?”
“We’ll get there.”
The extra glove and leaded swatch I brought with me slide easily over Gabriel’s left hand, blotting out his moniker. I roll my brother onto his side, and then reach for his belt, sliding it from the loops of his trousers. Undoing my own belt, I hook them together. I thread the long belt behind Gabriel’s waist. Lying next to him like a spoon, so that my back is pressed against his chest, I secure the belt around my waist so he’s strapped to my back. Reaching behind me, I lift his arms and hoist them over my shoulders. The bruises on my back and chest ache. So does my arm, but I ignore the pain.
When I stand, Gabriel comes with me, his dead weight distributed to my shoulders and back. Hunching over, I carry him to the empty balcony. We inch out onto it, and then I lean Gabriel against the wall, holding him there with my back against his chest. I pluck the clerk’s moniker from my glove and drop it on the balcony. I peel back the glove covering my moniker, and menus spring up from the silver sword. I may not be able to communicate with it, but I can activate the hoverdiscs on the bottoms of my boots. I program them for rapid descent and smooth my glove over my moniker again. I clutch Gabriel’s arms. He isn’t very heavy, but it’s awkward to move with him on my back. Disregarding gracefulness, I climb over the railing of the balcony and leap off.
The cool wind whistling past my ears deadens the shouts from the henchmen on the rooftop. They don’t shoot, probably because Gabriel is shielding me. A few of them jump from the peak of the dorsal fin. My brother doesn’t move. He’s barely conscious.
Near the ground, the hoverdiscs activate and slow our fall. When I halt just above the sidewalk, inertia makes it feel as if my kneecaps will explode. Wincing, I look around for the alley. Sinister figures using gravitizers land on the avenue behind us. Black-clad, they hold rifles that could blow holes through Gabriel and me. But none of them fires. They pause, speaking into their monikers. I use my hoverdiscs to skate in the opposite direction.
They pursue us, but they’re on foot, so they fall behind. Rounding a corner, I nearly run into a hovering delivery craft idling in the alleyway. Animated characters made to look like crellas dance in a three-dimensional display of jouncing revelry around the perimeter of the hovertruck. Crella creatures bathe in chocolate streams that morph into showers of glaze and sprinkles.
For a second, I think I must have been sprayed by Hazy Daze-99, because this is my biggest fantasy, but then a man with a thick unibrow and a double chin calls to me through the window of the hovertruck: “Get in.” He points his thumb to the rear of the vehicle. The truck lurches forward, picking up speed as it moves through the alley.
“No!” I whimper. The back door of the craft slides open. I force my legs to move, skating behind it, my thighs burning. The holographic crella creatures wave banners and march next to me. Clenching my teeth, I lurch for the opening. As we dive through the doorway, the driver triggers the hatch, and it falls closed, hiding us within.
Small lights near the floor illuminate the inside of the hovertruck. Steel racks of ice-cream-filled crellas line the walls to the ceiling. In the truck’s crisp refrigeration, I lay on the floor beside Gabriel, our breath huffing in white wisps. I can’t tell if my brother shakes from the cold or from detoxification. The belts cut into my flesh. Unhooking the clasp, I free us from them. Gabriel tumbles away, curling into a ball on the floor.
“Gabriel, are you okay?” I ask.
“Where . . . am I?” he whispers.
“You’re in a hovertruck. I’m taking you to Balmora.” His forearms are so thin it makes me want to cry.
“Should let me die,” he says between clenched teeth.
My heart throbs painfully. “I’m not letting you die.” Peeling off my jacket, I lay it over him. We take a corner, and Gabriel rolls across the floor. I lift his head, stabilizing him against my shoulder. In my other hand, I hold a fusionmag pointed at the back of the hovertruck, in case the guards catch up to us.
I don’t remember the last time I was this close to my brother. Maybe when he stopped my mother from killing me on my Transition Day? That’s how it goes, though. The Fates Republic won’t allow us to be a family, using propaganda and their stupid hysteria-eliciting rhetoric to sow suspicion between siblings—casting doubt over secondborns’ intentions. Anger heats my face. A tear slips over my lashes. They should’ve left us alone as kids—let us be each other’s friend. Everybody always pointed out his golden sword instead, like it was the reason for him not to love me. But Gabriel loved me anyway, and it destroyed him. I can see that now.
Tears like I’ve never allowed myself course down my face. The Fates Republic keeps selling us the biggest lie of all—that we’re nothing to each other. Enemies. Now we’re all just liars.
My wrist communicator lights up. Wiping tears and snot, I take a few seconds to answer it.
“Do you have him? Is he okay?” Balmora’s voice trembles.
I take a deep breath and exhale. “I have him. He’s not okay. He’s sick and frail.”
“Just get him here,” she says with a shaky voice.
Soon the hovervan comes to a stop. I wipe my face on my sleeve again and train the fusionmag on the door. It slides open. “Let’s get this over with,” Double Chin says. “I’m late for my rounds.” He ignores my weapon and waves me out. “Move. We have a delivery barge ready to take you to Balmora at the Sea Fortress.”
Two more men with silver sun monikers flank him. One of the men has scars on his face from burns that went untreated. Lowering the fusionmag, I allow the three bakers to help me with Gabriel. They hoist him up and carry him out. I take my jacket and hop down. We’re on the waterfront. Tall white lights push back the darkness along the length of the pier. Sea air pushes at my hair. The bakers unload tall steel containers from the back of the hovertruck. Two are empty. “Get in,” the one with the burn scars grunts. The other two bakers are already loading Gabriel inside a separate case.
Harrowing fear blows through me. I’ll be at their mercy if I get inside.
The burned one reads my dubious expression. “You think we want you dead?” he asks. He’s missing a few teeth and smells like bread. I shrug. “We don’t want Grisholm to be The Virtue. We want one of us—a secondborn. We got nothin’ against you. You’re secondborn . . . and anyway, Balmora says you’re not to be harmed.” My options are limited, so I swallow my fear and step inside the hovering steel case. “You’re going to have to give me your weapons and wrist communicator. The security scanners near the Halo Palace might pick ’em up.” Reluctantly, I hand over my communicator and all the arms I’ve collected.
“Now lift your shirt,” he says.
I stiffen. “Why?”
“I have to put this on you.” He holds up a clear plastic swatch with silver wires running through it.
“What is that?”
“It mutes your heart so no one can tell that anything inside the box is alive. The case will hide your body heat.” I lift my shirt, and he attaches the adhesive swatch over my heart. “Paddy, you got some of ’em calico crellas?”
The one with the oblong face and a beatdown expression nods and walks to the cab of the truck. He returns and hands a small satchel to his partner. The baker offers it to me. Inside, a couple of pastries sit wrapped in wax paper. “For the brave one,” he says, and then shuts the door, locking me inside. Darkness and a delicious fresh-baked crella scent assault me. The case floats forward amid muffled shouts. Unwrapping a crella, I bite into it, and I’m overtaken by the taste of cinnamon-flavored sunlight. I should’ve been born into the Fate of Suns. If this is a last meal, it’s a good one, maybe the best one.
When the case finally opens, maybe an hour later, I inhale large gasps of fresh air and squint against the lamplight. I’m in a room that resembles the exposed belly of an ancient sea vessel. An enormous chandelier made of coral and sea glass hangs from wooden rafters. Its lights resemble white tapers, but they’re actually fusion energy.
Quincy holds the door for me. I brace my arm against the side of the case. My knees ache, but I rise and step down out of the crate. I stand inside a palatial bedroom with an archway to a stone terrace.
Balmora’s melodic voice says, “You’re in the Fate of Seas’ tower.”
Gabriel is sprawled on the floor with his head cradled in her lap. She strokes his damp hair. My brother has been sick. Bile clings to his lips, which are a frightening shade of blue.
“We need to get him to a bed.” Balmora’s pleading eyes stare up at me.
I kneel on one knee and hitch Gabriel’s arm around my shoulders. Balmora does the same on his other side. We lift him up and drag him. His black boots skim across the carpet, kicking up dust motes.
The bed isn’t as musty. Its ornate frame is carved from real wood, which hasn’t been done much for centuries. It’s a pirate’s bed, or, at least, that’s what it seems like. Its four massive posts are carved dragonheads resembling mastheads from sea ships that no longer exist. Someone has recently changed the bedding, and dustcloths have been removed from the furniture and left in a heap in the corner. We hoist Gabriel onto the mattress and rest his head against the plump pillows.
“Where are your drones?” I ask Balmora.
“Outside my bedroom in The Virtue’s tower.” She fusses over Gabriel, pulling his boots off, removing his shirt.
“Why aren’t they with you?”
“I had a Star-Fated secondborn infiltrate them. A coded voice command from me will trick the drones into thinking I’m in my bedroom. Another will make them believe I’m in the gallery, and another that I’m in the media room. The Exos who monitor me have grown bored and often just rely on the drones to keep track of me. And my attendants are afraid of me, so when I tell them I want to be alone, they’re happy to leave me to myself.”
“How do you go anywhere in this place without being seen?”
She looks at me with an appraising stare. “My father’s brother, Edward, the last secondborn commander, taught me the secrets of the Sea Fortress before he died. We lived here together for years, my uncle and me. He introduced me to the network of spies who helped you tonight.”
“I thought you had developed it on your own.”
Balmora’s laughter contains little humor. “This network has existed for hundreds of years—passed on from secondborn to secondborn. You wouldn’t know about it, of course. We always lack Swords, because secondborn Swords within a family are rarely able to communicate with one another. Take your uncle, Bazzle, your mother’s brother. He was killed at eighteen, only a few weeks after his Transition. He could hardly pass any information to you. You weren’t even born. And the secondborn workers in the Sword Palace are terrified of your mother. They’re not a good resource for our network. The risk of discovery is too great. It’s not like that with other Fates. We live much longer than secondborn Swords. We work together, sometimes live together.”
“Census doesn’t know about it?” I ask.
“Census infiltrates our network from time to time. We recently had a whole branch of our operatives sheared away in the Fate of Moons. Some were murdered. Some destroyed themselves to protect others. We’re nearly blind there. Same within the Fates of Stars and Atoms. They’ve sided with the Gates of Dawn and cut us off, but we continue to groom operatives—individual Star- and Atom-Fated secondborns who reside outside their fatedoms will sometimes work with us. In Virtues, I have hundreds of secondborns of all Fates who have sworn loyalty to me.”
“What we need right now is a physician for Gabriel,” I urge.
“He’ll have one. An Atom will be here soon.”
Quincy brings a bowl of water from the bathroom. Setting it on the table next to the bed, she wrings out a small cloth and hands it to Balmora, who uses it to bathe Gabriel.
My brother opens his eyes when she washes his face. “Where am I?” he whispers.
“Safe with me,” Balmora assures him.
He lifts his shaking hand, touching hers. “Told you not to come . . . too late . . . should’ve . . . let me die.” His voice is raspy and slurred.
“You’re not allowed to die,” Balmora scolds in her bossiest tone. “Do you hear me?”
“I can’t stop her . . .”
“Who, Gabriel?” I ask, coming closer to the bed. “Who can’t you stop?” I’m worried that he means me. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I can’t,” Gabriel whispers. His eyes are now bleeding from their corners. “Only you can. Too many zeros.”
Is he delusional? Am I just part of his hallucination?
“Who is she?” I ask him. “Mother? Are you talking about The Sword, Gabriel?”
“Gabriel’s dead.” His smile is tragic. “Only Solomon Sunday’s left.”
“You’re Gabriel,” I whisper.
“Gabriel’s dead!” he shouts, his voice higher but not actually louder. “Just let us die!” He struggles to sit up, but he’s too weak. Balmora holds him down. His eyes flutter shut, and he pants for breath.
“You should go,” Balmora says to me anxiously. “You’re upsetting him, and I can’t have Exos looking for you here. I’ll have Quincy show you the secret way out. Don’t come back unless I call for you.” Pearls of sweat shine on her upper lip.
Gabriel is still trembling, covered in sweat. I desperately want to stay with him, but I know I’d only put him in more danger. “Balmora, you’ll keep me updated on how he is?” I ask.
“As best I can,” she replies, rising from the bed to hug me. We cling to each other for a few moments, and then she lets me go. “Thank you for bringing him to me. Quincy, help Roselle get back to shore. Use the sea gate, and make sure no one sees her leave.”
Quincy nods. “It’s this way.”
She leads me to the stone balcony, where the wind tosses my hair, pushing it into my face. Stone griffins, frozen in midpounce, stare at me from above. Quincy climbs the protruding mortar of the tower like a monkey and pulls on the stone snout of the griffin, wrenching it to the side. A stone wall beside the tall column opens, showing the outline of a doorway. Quincy climbs down and pushes against the wall, and the opening grows larger. She disappears inside. I follow her. Her small fusion-powered light pushes back the darkness inside, allowing me to see past her into a cramped hallway about three feet wide and maybe seven feet high.
“Push the door closed,” Quincy says.
I lean against it until it locks in place. Quincy turns away and walks farther into the stone hallway, a spiraling ramp down the outer wall of the tower. It’s a dizzying journey. The walls are dry and rough, but the air is damp and has a faint scent of rotten fish that gets stronger during the long descent. At sea level, other passageways branch off. Quincy stops and turns, whispering, “This leads to the main hallway. Security for the fortress is nearby.” She puts her fingers to her lips.
I nod. We tiptoe farther down the spiraling stone ramp. The air grow damper. Sea urchins encrust the walls. At the bottom is a small landing and a deep pool of water.
“The sea gate is down there.” Quincy points to the dark depths.
“You mean, underwater?” The last thing I want to do tonight is get wet.
She nods and walks to a round wheel with handholds. Turning the wheel activates a pulley system, which raises an iron gate, drawing it up from the water. “Are you a good swimmer?” Quincy asks.
“Decent,” I reply, tugging off my boots.
Quincy opens a wooden box and pulls out a device that looks like a small torpedo with handlebars. She set it down on the stone floor. Opening the front of it, she places my boots inside. “Anything else you don’t want to get wet?” she asks. I shrug off my jacket and hand it to her. She folds it and places it neatly in the torpedo. “This mask goes over your eyes and nose so you’ll be able to breathe. There’s a dim headlight that I’ve programmed to extinguish when you get close to shore. When you get to the beach, press this button to open the hatch. Remove your things, then press this button, and the underwater propulsion device will return to the fortress.”
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Watch out for sharks.”
My insides quail at the thought.
The mask sits tight against my face, and the air activates before I ease into the water holding the propulsion device with both hands. Sinking beneath the surface, the mask illuminates the opening to the sea ahead. The right handlebar has the throttle grip. Turning it slowly, I ease away from the stone fortress.
The water is cold, but it’s not unbearable. My legs drift as I circumvent rocks and reefs. Beautiful coral is alive with sea plants that sway in the current. As I near the Halo Palace, the water becomes shallower, and my chest and thighs bump against the sand. I let go of the throttle, and the waves push me gently toward the shore. I stand up and wade forward until I’m only waist deep. I collect my boots and coat from the niche, holding them above the water with one hand, then take off the mask and drop it inside before closing the compartment. Following Quincy’s instructions, I press the button, and the vehicle submerges and jets away.