The Far Dawn (23 page)

“This is a spaceship,” I say. “Isn't it?”

Lük regards me again. “You are not of the Three.”

“But he has communed with your skull,” Rana snaps in my defense.

Lük keeps working. “Then what is he?”

“He is the one chosen by the Terra to save her.”

I do not like hearing this, being reminded of some noble mission, nor the feeling of guilt it inspires. And I do not like that Rana glances over at me, because I wonder if she is judging my current plan.

Lük finishes the bolt, then works the lever beside it. “Yes, it's a spaceship. The masters' descendants watched the ruin of their world and wanted to go to another, to start over.”

“History doesn't much change,” I say, “does it?”

“It shouldn't surprise us,” says Rana. “Once the Terra was lost, humanity began to look away rather than within to find a better world.”

“Does this thing work?” I ask.

“It seems that they did fly it, based on the burn marks,” says Lük. “But either it became too damaged or over time they lost their knowledge of how to use it. I don't know what they were up to.”

“And you think you can fix it,” Rana guesses.

“I do,” replies Lük. They sound like the ghost version of an old married couple. “I've been working on it for a while and studying the advancements of space travel in the modern world.”

“You know it has been five thousand years since we were here in ancient Egypt together.”

“Has it?” says Lük. “I thought maybe two or three. I haven't been keeping track.”

Rana's tone thins. “Did you ever think to come find me?”

Lük finally looks up at her. “Yes. Every day. But what good would it have done? So much of us was lost to the skulls, and this lingering, it seemed like it was worse when we were together.”

Rana sighs. “Well, yes. It did.”

Lük turns back to his work. When he moves the lever, there are clicks from the floor beneath us. “Yes,” he says to himself, satisfied.

“Does that mean the ship will work?” I ask. It suddenly occurs to me that a spaceship would make other plans possible. I wouldn't have to follow this course I'd set out on. . . .

“Almost. There are a few more things to do,” says Lük. He puts the wrench down in a bag on the floor. I can see that he has a collection of modern tools there, and now he's picking up a blowtorch.

“How long will it take you?” I ask him.

“Not long. These latest corrections have been quick. Maybe just a few more decades.”

“Oh,” I say. Never mind. It makes things simpler, of course, but I still feel air escaping me. A little part of me still wishes for the same thing Seven did: a third option. Oh well.

“Boys and their toys,” Rana says.

“Why are you here?” Lük asks, still working.

“The world is ending,” says Rana. “The Heart of the Terra has been found and taken. The Three have failed.”

Lük pauses. “That explains why those Eden soldiers haven't been down here in so long. Well, it was always a risky plan.” He looks to Rana. “We knew that.”

“We did. We have a new plan, now. Will you come with us?”

Lük surveys the controls. “I have a little more to do here,” he says.

Rana doesn't answer for a moment. I can feel her frustration like gathering lightning, but all she says is, “Suit yourself. Be well, Lük.”

She begins to move away and I follow. We are back at the door when Lük calls, “Find me when you're back?”

Rana's last words to him are as brittle as a desert wind. “We're not coming back.”

I take one last look at the cabin of the vessel, trying to imagine the ancients taking their seats, the masters reaching for the stars.

The cycles repeating.

I climb down the ladder. Rana is silent beside me as we pass two more smaller craft.

Suddenly she hisses like boiling water and shoots ahead, becoming a lethal beam of energy and she blasts through a small craft at the end of the row, shattering it into splinters of wood and metal in a tremendous explosion. The sound ricochets through the wide hall.

I pick my way through the wreckage and find her on the other side, kneeling on the floor.

“Feel better?” I ask her.

“I am sick of all the melancholy,” says Rana. “Sick of these end of days.”

“It seems like you're also maybe mad at Lük.”

“To be mad at him, I would have to still love him, but I don't. I'm not whole.” She tugs the black skull bag as she says this. “Seeing him just makes me feel more empty.”

I rub my hand into the white of her shoulder. “I'm sorry.”

She doesn't reply. We stay there for a moment.

Until something rumbles the floor, the entire cavern. Dust sifts down from the ceiling.

“What was that?” I wonder.

“I don't think that's a normal sound for an Eden,” says Rana. “This way.”

We reach the far side of the wide cavern and here is a modern steel door embedded in the ancient stone wall. Light seeps beneath it. I try the smooth handle, but it is locked. I study the door in Rana's faint light and find a red button beneath the handle. I press it.

“Emergency override,” an electronic male voice says. “Please show identification.”

A small circle in the middle of the door lights up green. The retina scanner.

I glance at Rana. “Well, here we go.”

I put my bionic eye to the light.

21

THE GREEN SPEARS INTO MY VISION, BUT INSTEAD of seeing spots or greenish blobs I see a kind of static white that fractures into pixels. The light hums, moving up and down and then left and right and then winks out. I blink at the distortion, and in the moment of silence my heart begins to race. Each step now feels almost unbearable, like the journey may end at any moment.

Somewhere far above, there is another explosion.

“Identity verified, Eden citizen: David Marks, age eighteen, Eden community participant level one-A.”

I exhale hard. Robard's people did it. They probably made me eighteen so I could travel as a selectee alone.

The door doesn't open right away, though, and I am just beginning to doubt, when there is a shrill beep and the handle turns. We step back as the door hisses open. A short woman in a white lab coat stands on the other side, wearing thin-framed glasses, her hair back. Behind her is a bright, clean lab of metal tables holding ancient tablets and artifacts, computer screens angling down from the ceiling, workstations with other white-coated technicians tapping busily—

But also red lights flashing everywhere.

The woman looks at me bewilderedly. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Rana's glow is gone, and I feel a sense of expanding and tingling all over. She has slipped inside me and out of sight.

“I'll travel with you like this,” she says, her voice somewhere near my ear. “Hold my bag.” I feel the skull bag's strap slipping onto my shoulder.

“Who are you?” the woman asks. She looks around me. “How did you get in here”—she checks the pad in her hand—“David?”

“I, um, got lost.” This feels like an impossibly lame excuse.

And the woman doesn't buy it, but there is another rumble from above; and as dust rains from the stone walls around me, one of the computer screens crashes to the tile floor of the lab, smashing and making the woman and everyone else jump. She looks frantically around the room. Other technicians are hurrying toward the door on the far side. Some are tucking computer drives under their arms.

She glances back at me. “Whatever—you're on your own.” She runs for the door.

“Go,” says Rana.

I jog after her, through the lab so similar to the one beneath the Aquinara in EdenWest. We hurry out into a long white hall with flashing red lights. Other doors are popping open and workers are all running in the direction of an exit sign.

“What's happening?” I ask a young man who happens to catch my eye.

“It's crazy. Some kind of revolt,” he says breathlessly. “Something about unfair treatment? I don't know—I thought the suicides last night were the worst of it. Those people leaping off buildings, but this is just getting insane.”

“The loss of the Terra,” Rana says, and I know this but I am not going to think about that. Just keep moving.

Except something out of the corner of my eye makes me stop. We're just passing double doors that hang open, and I see a large space of carved stone inside. A technician darts out, slamming into my shoulder without an apology.

I step through the doors and find myself in an ancient dome-shaped room. It's similar to the navigation room beneath EdenWest, with tiled walls that show oceans and islands that were a mystery to me then but I know now: scenes from Atlante. But this room doesn't have an obsidian star ball on a pedestal. It has many pedestals, all arranged on circular copper tracks in concentric circles.

And each pedestal holds a stone ball, of varying sizes, carved with stripes, with mountains and canyons. Some have rings.

The planets.

“This is a model of the solar system,” I say.

“We knew of the planets,” says Rana. “Just some of the knowledge that was lost in the fall, not to be found for thousands of years.”

“Yeah, but, these maps make it look like . . . like someone saw them. Like the masters actually got up there in that ship.”

“I don't know,” says Rana.

There are more details around the room: maps that look like planet surfaces, sketches of more temples and crafts like nothing we've seen so far. But there is no time to examine it all. There is a huge thump of air and a crash. An alarm begins to sound. The lights go out, then blink back on in red emergency lighting only.

“I think now is not the time to find out,” she adds.

“Okay . . .” I back out but can't help lingering on this model of the solar system, and the carvings on the ceiling that look like clouds, or galaxies, nebulae. . . .

An alarm begins to sound and the electronic male voice speaks again. “EVACUATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY. SECURITY LOCKDOWN IN ONE MINUTE.”

We move back into the hall, empty now, papers fluttering in the wakes of the evacuees. I run toward an exit sign and it leads to an elevator.

As we near, flickering lights and a blast of sparks indicate that the elevator is not going to work. It's lying tilted in its shaft, smashed glass everywhere, and there are silhouettes inside, unmoving.

“Stairs,” says Rana.

I turn and push open a door and begin racing up metal switchbacks.

“SECURITY LOCKDOWN WILL BE IMPLEMENTED IN TWENTY SECONDS.”

There are no doors at each landing, just more stairs.

“TEN SECONDS.”

My heart is pounding against my ribs and my legs burning when I finally reach the top flight and a door. I slap the handle.

Locked.

“SEVEN . . . SIX . . .”

I find a red button, press it, and another retinal camera lights up on the door.

“FOUR . . .”

I put my eye to it. The light blinds me again.

“TWO . . .”

It flicks off.

“ONE . . .”

Come on—

“SECURITY LOCKDOWN IMPLEMENTED. RATIONS ARE STORED IN THE SUBBASEMENT LOCKERS.”

“No!” I slam the door with my hands.

“Identity verified,” the door says, its voice calm by contrast. “Eden citizen: David Marks, age eighteen, Eden community participant level one-A. Please note: All one-A personnel are requested to make their way to the East Terminal exit for immediate transit.”

“That's got to be the selectees,” I say, and pound on the door again. This can't be happening. I can't miss the exodus after all this.

I hit the door again and again until my hands ache. When I stop, I hear shouts, and now gunfire outside.

“Maybe we should look for another way,” Rana suggests.

I glance back down the stairs. “It's too far and there isn't time!” I slap the door again.

This time, something hits back from the other side.

“In here!” I shout.

A muffled voice replies, “Stand back!”

I move away and there is a hiss, and now sparks jump through the seam beside the door handle. There is a glow of melting metal and then a snap. A heavy thud and the door pops open. A black-clad Eden soldier stands before me, gold visor down. He holds a pulse rifle in one hand and a subnet phone in the other.

“Identification,” he barks at me.

I step toward him. “My eye?”

“No, participant level one-A confirmation. That's what brought me here.” He holds out the phone, and I realize he means the bar code.

With a wave of nerves, I hold out my right pinkie, hoping the soldier won't see the stitches, hoping the bar code will actually work. A red light beams from his phone, and he moves it slowly over my finger.

There is a beep. The soldier reads the phone.

“Mrs. Reeves,” he says, but then he realizes I'm not a woman. “Wait, that can't be right.”

“It's Marks,” I say. “You don't have me?” I try to sound annoyed by this.

Something cracks and splinters in the nearby streets and there are screams.

The soldier glances at his phone again and then shoves it in his pocket. “Network is going haywire. Sir, you need to get to the east exit immediately. I'll escort you there for your safety.” He motions to a small electric motorcycle.

I step out and see that we are in an alleyway between buildings in the EdenEast city. We get on, and the soldier speeds out onto a larger road. The street is largely deserted, littered with debris, and many windows are smashed.

“Most of the rioters have moved toward government buildings,” says the soldier.

“What are they protesting?”

“Someone leaked the dome integrity data,” says the soldier. “A senior official, just before he leaped off the Extension Services building last night. Selectee lists were publicized this morning. Mobs have been on a witch hunt for officials or selectees. We've gotten most of you out, but not all. You're lucky. I was on my last sweep.”