Threshold (24 page)

*   *   *

THE DIM LIGHT
wasn’t exactly easy to read by, but it was better than nothing. The same could be said for Fiona’s reading material—a three-week-old copy of the
New York Times
. After reading the movie and book reviews she searched for a comics section, but found none.
What a rip-off!
She had hoped a little humor might distract her from the growing tension of those around her.

The revelation that she knew about the wraiths before being imprisoned made her a pariah. Her confidence about being rescued by her father, whose identity she refused to divulge, only made the others more skeptical of her presence. Some thought she was a spy. Only Elma continued to speak to her.

A hand bearing the mark of the Herculean Society took hold of the open newspaper and pulled it down. Elma’s head poked over the top. “Any interesting news?”

Fiona lowered the paper to her lap. She sat cross-legged on her cot, wrapped in a blanket. Still dressed in her black pajamas, she looked like a typical girl about to be tucked in by her mother. But she was not a typical girl, and Elma, as nice as she was, could never be her mother. Though kind, she lacked patience, a sense of humor, and an imagination. King had her beat, hands down. “If you consider movie reviews news, then yes.”

Elma blew air through her lips, a noncommittal sound that was neither laugh nor disapproval. She sat on the bed, bending the mattress toward her weight, which seemed heavier than usual. “The others have been talking,” she said.

Fiona had been observing the group since her arrival, watching their movements and listening to conversations with her keen ears. There was a subtle pecking order that kept things orderly, but also created a kind of caste system. Certain prisoners ate first, bathed first, and made decisions for the group. With so many different cultures represented, it seemed the one with the most dominant social structure had been adopted. They had become an underground society with rings of social position. Elma was on the outer ring, mostly for the kindness she’d shown Fiona. Buru, who was speaking to a group of men, had pulled away from Fiona and maintained his position at the society’s core.

But Buru had not forsaken Fiona. The information Elma occasionally delivered came straight from Buru. Which is what made Elma’s next words so worrisome. “They want to get rid of you.”

Fiona sat up straight. “What? Why?”

“You frighten them.”

“I’m just a kid.”

“Since your arrival, you have shown greater strength, knowledge, and resilience than any of them. They believe you are either here to watch us or are the cause of all this.”

“What are they going to do? It’s not like you can have me transferred to another cell.”

Elma just looked at her gravely.

They’re going to kill me,
Fiona thought. Her face filled with fear, but it was momentary. Anger came next. “You just let them try it,” she whispered through gritted teeth.

Elma’s hands shot up in frustration. “You see! Even as these people plot to kill you, you show them to be cowards.” She sat quietly for a moment, then asked, “Where does this strength come from?”

Fiona had never thought of herself as strong. She just got by. She adapted. Life on the reservation hadn’t been easy, starting with: “My parents died when I was little. I was raised by my grandmother. But I think I took care of her just as much as she took care of me.”

“Life without parents can be tough,” Elma said, “but you—”

“A year ago, my reservation was attacked. More than three thousand people were killed, including my grandmother.”

Elma’s hand went to her mouth. The Siletz Reservation attack was well known around the world as the worst terrorism attack since the World Trade Center. “The news said there was a survivor, but never gave an identity. It was
you
?”

As Fiona nodded, Elma reached out and touched her face, then her hair, as though to confirm that this little girl was in fact a Native American. “It’s no wonder you’re tough…” She stood up. “This will change everything. You don’t have to wo—”

The chamber shook. The lights hanging from the ceiling swayed.

As the pounding of giant feet grew louder, Fiona shuffled back against the wall. She knew the sound. “They’re coming for me,” she said.

Elma looked at her, eyes wide. “Who is coming for you?”

Fiona pointed in the direction of the noise, toward the back of the chamber. “They’re coming for us all.”

The back wall of the chamber broke apart, falling into rubble. A tunnel was revealed. A whispering voice came from the tunnel. The crumbled wall shifted into two piles and began taking shape. As two hulking bodies of stone emerged, Elma filled her lungs to scream.

*   *   *

ALEXANDER CONTINUED HIS
explanation. “Which takes us back to the very beginning and the very first recorded mention of a golem, ‘The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.’”

“Adam?” King did nothing to hide his continued skepticism.

“Adam is represented in the ancient stories of many cultures. Try not to get hung up on the Judeo-Christian baggage and try to see the truth. The Bible,
and other sources,
say that God
spoke
the universe into being. Light, earth, water, life, all came from His
words
. And man was formed from dust. We are all golems, but have retained the life imbued to us.

“So this is what, the language of God?”

“Call it what you want,” Alexander said. “But it is the protohuman language, and with the right speaker, it is capable of amazing, and terrible, things.”

“Is that why you broke your promise,” King pointed to the entryway they’d come through, “to her?”

“What humanity does to itself is of no concern of mine,” Alexander said, his voice suddenly harsh. “I, unlike some”—he glanced at Pierce—“am a protector of history.”

Pierce had moved closer, his attention captured by the new twist in the conversation. “You’re an eraser of history.”

“To preserve it, sometimes it must be forgotten. The past does not belong to the present. Should your grave be exhumed in a thousand years, would you want your body dissected, put on display, or any number of other crimes committed against the dead done to you?”

King thought about how he felt standing over his mother’s grave. He understood Alexander’s point. Life was sacred and our bodies, in death, were as well. He also understood the man’s motivation. “You knew them,” he said.

Alexander looked at King and then to the shining floor. “There are men I knew on display in museums. Men who would find the treatment of their bodies scandalous.”

“But what about what we can learn from the past?”

“What man learns, he soon uses to destroy. The fascination with uncovering secrets is simply a craving for power. And this situation is no different. The protolanguage was disseminated for a good reason. It should not be in the control of modern man. It is a rape of history that cannot stand.”

“That’s it?” Pierce said. “That’s why you’ve been running around the planet collecting people? To keep someone from learning this ancient language?”

“And to protect their lives,” Alexander said. “They are the last speakers of ancient languages. Their knowledge—their lives—are precious to me. Whoever is doing this is desecrating everything I have sworn to protect.”

“Then you don’t know who’s behind the killings?”

“No,” Alexander said. “Nor do I know how this language truly works. But I have identified a man—a genius physicist and former rabbi, who dabbles in genetics and biology as well, who might be able to—”

Pierce suddenly stepped closer. He looked nervous. “Do you two feel that?”

King trained his senses on the physical world around him. He could feel a gentle vibration tickling his body. He’d been so caught up in the conversation that he’d missed it. “Is there a subway nearby?”

Alexander shook his head no, and stood to his feet. “The land is protected above and below.”

“Protected from construction,” Pierce said. “But from attack?”

“Every entrance is watched by heat sensors and motion detectors,” Alexander said. “There is no way in without my knowing.”

“What if someone created a
new
way in?” Pierce asked.

A flash of concern appeared on Alexander’s face.

“Fiona,” King whispered.

Alexander burst into motion, running out of the gallery, back the way they had come. King followed close at his heals, knowing the immortal man was going to protect the people he’d worked so hard to hide away. Pierce lingered a moment, not wanting to leave the room of archaeological treasures behind, but then followed.

As they entered the maze of hallways the vibrations became intense enough that they had to stop moving to remain standing. When the shaking dissipated and the rumbling of stone quieted, a new sound filled the tunnels—a woman screaming.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Washington, D.C.

PRESIDENT TOM DUNCAN
sat at the head of an executive table in a West Wing conference room. Seated with him were twenty-seven advisors on everything from the school system to the space program—apparently every sector of the country was feeling the pinch. But none greater than the economy.

“People are staying home,” Claire Roberts said. She was one of five top financial advisors. Her expertise lay in foreign investments and lending, but she was rarely ever wrong. “People are choosing to watch movies online rather than go to the theater. They’re driving less. Buying less. And if it keeps up, they’ll all start losing their jobs.”

“C’mon,” said a firecracker of a man. Larry Hussey, Duncan’s domestic economic advisor, was eternally optimistic and, without fail, disagreed with Roberts. “Internet sales are up. Way up. The market will self-correct when the crisis is over. The American people are still consuming, just in the privacy, and safety, of their own homes.”

Roberts sighed and looked at Duncan. “He’s right about Internet sales. The economy is hanging on, but it’s by a thread. Here’s the difference. When the average American goes out to buy a book, they don’t just spend eight dollars on a paperback. They spend between three and five dollars on gas unless they’re driving a hybrid. They buy a chai latte or frappachino. A large percentage of those people end up eating at restaurants afterward and another chunk of people will go see a movie as well. To buy a book online requires no gas, shipping is often free, and there are no opportunities for residual spending.”

“It might solve the country’s credit card debt,” Hussey grumbled.

Roberts raised her voice. “The vast majority of online sales are made with credit cards.”

Hussey slouched a little. Though the man would never verbalize defeat, Duncan recognized the body language.

“That leaves us with the question of ‘why’ and the potential solutions,” Roberts continued. “The why is simple. In normal times of crisis, war for instance, people spend less money on nonessentials. Movies, books, music. Luxury items. All the entertainment industries take hits to the pocketbook. People feel unsure about the future and instinctively hoard a little bit. But what we’re experiencing here is something a little different. People are afraid to go out. They’re afraid to congregate in large groups because that might make them targets. After all, if Fort Bragg can be hit hard, what’s to stop the bad guys from striking a concert, or football game, or a packed movie theater? Even church attendance is down, and that normally goes up during wartime.”

“Solutions?” Duncan asked. He hated the question because he had his own answer: to personally hunt down and catch whoever was behind the attacks. Instead he was stuck deciding what to do about the population’s spending habits. There might be ways to ease the problem, but he knew damn well that the only real solution was to rain down a healthy dose of Deep Blue justice.