The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (7 page)

A voice from behind us answered, “It is the sign of the daughter of the sun.”

They’d come up on us without a sound. A man and a woman, maybe in their fifties. The man was tall and thin with wispy white hair, angular features, and green eyes. The woman was shorter, square shaped, her black hair streaked with gray. They were both dressed in floor-length crimson robes held closed by black belts. The robes had the same symbol as the jumpsuits, embroidered in gold. They wore black-strapped sandals. I had seen outfits like these before. They were kind of like what the Atlanteans wore in my first vision, the one where I’d seen the Three having their throats slit.

These two were definitely products of this world though, not that ancient one. Their faces were tanned and spotted with freckles and black moles. The man had a coin-sized purplish mark on his temple: a Rad lesion. They both looked like they’d spent significant time in the sun without any kind of protection. The woman was smiling, and I could see that she was missing a few teeth, her gums dotted with brown here and there.

“Who are you?” Lilly pointed her knife at them.

“I’m Harvey,” said the man, “and this is my life partner, Lucinda. I know the bodies are a bit alarming, but they are only meant to serve as warnings to potential thieves or scavengers.”

“And each of the volunteers knew that his discarded vessel might be used for this purpose,” Lucinda added. She was smiling warmly at us.

Lilly glanced back at the cases. “Did you just call them volunteers?”

Lucinda nodded. “Yes, their divine essence has been liberated in accordance with official Heliad-Seven custom.”

“Right,” said Leech, as if he understood what they were talking about. “So did you guys come up from Desenna?”

“Yes,” said Harvey. He held up his right hand, palm out to us, fingers slightly spread. So did Lucinda. And there was something weird about their fingers. . . .

“Are you both missing your pinkies?” Lilly asked.

“A sacrifice of the flesh,” said Harvey, smiling, “for the body is only a shell, a temporary home for the divine inside, which is eternal.”

“Oooh-kay,” said Leech under his breath. I saw him balling his hands into fists. Lilly flexed her fingers around her knife.

Harvey lowered his hand. “Please forgive us for taking so long to greet you. You took us by surprise and we wanted to make preparations for the occasion.”

“What are you doing here?” Lilly asked.

“We are the caretakers of this monitoring station,” said Harvey. “We were sent here to listen for word.”

“Word about what?” I asked.

“Why, about you,” said Lucinda. “About the Three.” She looked at Lilly. “You can put the knife away, sweetie. Nomad, isn’t it? From the team that attempted to rescue you.”

“Yeah,” said Lilly, but she kept the knife trained on them.

“You know about that?” I asked.

“Of course we do, Owen.” And he knew my name. “That Nomad strike team was working in conjunction with the Benevolent Mother and Desenna. We helped to monitor the operation. Don’t let these things surprise you. You’re going to have to get used to your importance. After that operation went awry, we never dreamed we’d be so lucky as to actually get to meet you. But then we heard the news of your escape, and imagine our surprise this morning when we saw a blue light coming from the East, right at dawn, just like in the Epics!”

“It was like a dream,” said Lucinda. She blinked, and I thought I saw tears.

“We reported your passing,” said Harvey, “and hung a fresh totem outside, so that Chaac might bring you luck on your journey. Then, we just started packing up to go, you know? Mission accomplished. The Three on their way! But lo and behold, then there were sounds on the roof and in you came.”

“‘And the Memory descended in ships of blue light,’” said Lucinda dreamily. “We are blessed.” She was looking at us like we were holotech stars, standing there bouncing in place, making her earrings and bracelets jangle. She fiddled nervously at a necklace: a silver chain with a small black pendant at the end.

“What?” Leech asked.

“Oh, sorry,” Lucinda mumbled.

“She’s talking about the Epics of the Three,” said Harvey. “You know, ‘Three guardians of the memory of the first people,’ and so forth.”

“I’ve heard that part,” I said, “but not that other thing you said.”

“No, of course not,” said Lucinda. “No one’s heard
all
of the Epics. But there is a passage of it inscribed in the walls of the Atlantean temple near Desenna.”

“There’s a temple at Desenna,” I said, checking this off in my head. “What’s that one like?”

“Well, we’ve never been inside,” said Harvey. “No one has except the Benevolent Mother and her team, and of course the daughter, Heliad, she who can speak to the mind made of crystal.”

“Wait,” I said, “there’s a girl in Desenna who can communicate with a crystal skull?”

“Yes, Heliad. The Daughter of the Sun,” said Harvey. “She has the memory of the first people.”

“Got it,” I said, and felt a little fall inside at hearing this. I glanced at Lilly, but she didn’t meet my gaze. The Nomads had mentioned a skull in the south and a girl, but I had still hoped that the third Atlantean might be Lilly. This pretty much made it official that she wasn’t. Lilly didn’t react. It was like she’d known all along.

“What else does this passage from the Epics say?” Leech asked.

“It talks first about the journey of the Atlanteans,” said Harvey, “after the flood that destroyed their civilization. The people tried to rebuild, but they had lost so much that the Atlantean society never recovered to its prior heights. Eventually, it evolved into other civilizations: Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, Olmec, which in turn evolved into others, and so on until now.”

Some of this sounded familiar from what Lük had told me in the skull.

“And that’s just the beginning,” said Harvey. “There’s—”

“Harvey . . .” Lucinda tugged on his arm. “These kids must be starving.” She smiled kindly at us. “Aren’t you?”

“Kinda, yeah,” I admitted.

“Of course,” said Harvey. “Sorry. Luce is right. We have so much to tell you, but not on empty stomachs. Will you join us?”

“We’re kind of in a hurry,” I said. “Eden is coming.”

“Yes, I’m sure they are,” said Harvey, “but, like I said, this is a monitoring station. We have sensors in place. If anyone gets within thirty kilometers of this place, we’ll know and can get out of here. I’ll show you the readouts. This way.” Harvey took Lucinda’s hand and they started down the aisle.

Lilly and Leech and I turned to one another.

“They don’t seem dangerous,” I said.

“Paul didn’t seem dangerous, either,” muttered Leech.

“On the one hand . . .” said Lilly, and she flashed a look at the bodies in the freezers, “but on the other hand, you two are gods in their religion. Plus . . .” She rubbed her stomach, “Hungry. And they have information.”

My stomach wanted to trust them, too. And “If the third Atlantean is in Desenna,” I said, “we’re probably going to need to go there.”

Leech sighed. “If I vote no, I’ll get outvoted again, so . . .” He started after them.

I glanced back at the frozen bodies, at the food, and took a deep breath. “Here we go,” I said to Lilly, and we followed the robed figures down the dark hall.

HARVEY AND LUCINDA LED US FAR DOWN THE STORE, Lucinda pushing our cart, until we reached an open area beneath a sign that read
HOUSEWARES
. They had cleared everything to the sides, and created a makeshift apartment with walls made of boxes and stacked furniture. A standing lamp with an amber shade cast warm light over two couches, a pair of recliner chairs, and a monitor screen, all arranged to form a square with a plush blue carpet and a glass coffee table in the center. Behind that was a bed, a few tables that were serving as a kitchen area, and a desk covered in primitive-looking computer equipment.

“Have a seat,” said Lucinda.

We sat down, all three of us on the same spongy couch, instinctively staying close as a unit. I immediately fixated on the coffee table. It was covered with brightly colored plates of food. There were little round things that seemed to be meatballs, tiny puffs of a flaky pastry, fried rolls, and chunks of a bright yellow fruit.

“Some of it’s been here a few years,” said Lucinda. “A few things for decades, but it’s all still good. Kroger and the major food companies developed some amazing preservatives during the Rise. Almost like they knew people would be storing stuff for long periods!”

I tried one of the pastry puffs. The warm, flaky outside collapsed around a gooey, tangy center. There was some kind of meat in there.

“That’s real Arctic soft-shell crab from the 2050s,” said Harvey, “after the Arctic Sea became ice free and before the anoxic tides killed all the sea life there.”

He placed a little square device on the table. It had a grid with a glowing white dot in the center. “This is a reading from the proximity sensors. The white dot is us. If anything else shows up on this screen, then we can worry. This is how we knew you were arriving.

“Now, back to the food. We’ve got something fresh, too.” He moved over to a waist-high, black structure, opened the lid, and turned a dial. There was a
thwump
of air and a quick lick of flames burst inside it. Some kind of grill, connected to a round white tank. He tied on a flower-printed apron, then pulled foil off a plate. A tangy smell tingled my nostrils. Harvey began slapping sticks lined with chunks of pink meat onto the grill. As each landed, it released a loud hiss and a burst of steam. He closed the lid.

“Drinks?” Lucinda put three glass bottles in front of us, a tan liquid inside. The glass was beaded with condensation. “It’s horchata. Made with Mother’s new rice strains that can survive in our saline soil, and sweetened with agave. You’ll like it.” She sat down on the opposite couch, looking at us expectantly.

I took a sip. It was creamy, dusted with spice. It put all that fake-tasting bug juice at camp to shame. “It’s good,” I said.

“I’m glad you like it.” Lucinda smiled warmly. Her free hand was fiddling with her pendant again. I wondered if we made her nervous. “Here, while you’re waiting . . .” She picked up a slim black remote control and turned on the monitor.

The screen blared to life, showing the Northern News Network. A female newscaster in a black suit stood on a bustling, modern street. Glassy buildings filled the skyline. Tiny trolley cars slid by on rails. People strolled by in suits, all well-trimmed, carrying handbags and briefcases and all holding silver sunbrellas over their heads.

I had the same feeling I always got when seeing a glimpse of life up in the Habitable Zone. It looked so easy, so
vital
. Like if you lived there, life would feel like it had a point. That wasn’t always the case at Hub. Helsinki didn’t look like an Eden city; there weren’t SensaStreets or people out water-skiing, living a life oblivious of the real world, but still . . . It looked nice: living on the surface, going to a school with actual windows.

“I’m sure Eden will tell them,” said Leech sarcastically. He sounded like he was thinking the same thing as me: Was this something that had to do with Project Elysium?

The picture cut to a man standing among an endless sea of tents and tarps, with stark-looking people huddled in groups beneath every triangle of shade.

I heard sniffing beside me, and turned to see Lilly’s eyes watering.

“What?” I asked.

“I hate thinking of my parents there,” she said, “knowing they spent the last days of their lives in that hell.”

“Barbaric,” Lucinda scoffed. She switched off the screen. “I can assure you, Heliad-Seven isn’t anything of the sort.”

I wondered how that could be true, considering the body outside, and the
volunteers
in the fridge.

Harvey opened the grill again and a plume of smoke leaped up into the rafters. He pulled the kebabs off and brought them over.

He was halfway to us when there was a distant, heavy thud from above. I glanced up toward the ceiling shadows. Had that come from the roof?