Chapter 120

Chapter One Hundred Twenty

Connor coughed and brushed dust from his armor as he backed away from the collapsed wall blocking the road he and Elise had been following. Large slabs mixed in with rock chunks of varying size, same as at the collapse that had separated them from the others.

And just like that collapse, the occasional bits of debris still fell, long after the collapse, the clap and crack echoing hollowly.

The archaeologist didn’t look up from her pocket computer.

It was strange the way the suspended particles made the device’s green glow seem ghostly, just like the builders’ holograph.

Elise shook her head. “We’ll have to go back to the main avenue.”

“All the way back?” A cough shook Connor, then more of the thick phlegm came up—salty and gritty. He walked away and spat the clump out, then shivered in the increasing cold.

This place was falling apart, and it seemed to be intent on killing them.

The archaeologist turned in a slow circle. “Wait. There’s another way.”

“Where?”

“About halfway back. Not even that far.” She started back the way they’d come.

Connor matched her pace easily, brushing dust from his chest plate. “Two collapses in the span of an hour?”

“That’s not the crazy part.”

“I don’t follow.”

Elise cocked her head, as if challenging him. “Seismic activity? It often comes in bunches. Small tremors before, small tremors after, no telling how much in the real event.”

“Okay.”

Her eyebrow arched. “You still don’t see the oddity?”

He shrugged. “I’m not a geologist.”

“That would probably work against you at this point: not seeing the obvious because it fits the patterns you expect.”

“What?”

“A lot of scientists can get lost in the data. They see something that makes sense, and they accept it because the data points to consistency. A good dose of healthy skepticism helps. A lot of common sense helps more.”

Connor sighed. “I’m still not following, I’m afraid.”

“Think about it. Three seismic events spread over an hour-and-a-half. Each one blocks us off from the other team members. And I mean that it conveniently completely blocks us off. No small gap to squeeze through. No way to cautiously dig through the debris.”

“You’re saying this isn’t natural.”

“I’m saying that someone or something is deliberately blocking us off from reaching your girlfriend.”

“It’s not like that.”

“You two obviously had something going on. The only thing she hasn’t done was mark you with her scent.”

“We broke things off a couple months ago, but it was purely physical.”

Elise snorted. “It’s never purely physical.”

Connor blushed. He didn’t need someone explaining to him how relationships worked. He might still be getting the hang of it, but some things were obvious. It had been his heart Selen had toyed with, not the other way around.

Ahead, Elise’s flashlight beam disappeared in one of the dark alleys they’d passed earlier.

She turned toward it. “That’s our shortcut.”

It was a narrow passage, with white, unadorned walls rising to the ceiling towering overhead. In such a tight space, even a small collapse could trap them.

And being trapped in a place like this was the same as death.

He poked his head into the alleyway, sniffing. “I don’t like it.”

“What’s not too like? Maybe a hundred meters down that, and we’re on a parallel path—”

“That’s what I don’t like. It’s the obvious choice.”

Now the meaning sank in for the archaeologist, whose head reared back. “You think there’s a deliberate force at work?”

“I’m…” His shoulders slumped. “It makes sense. If Mosiah and his friends unleashed an influence when they stole those artifacts, they maybe that influence extended beyond this planet. Maybe it was inside of them.”

“You mean like possession?”

“In that video, the man I saw…shifted form.”

Elise puffed her cheeks out. “That’s some pretty ancient concept you’re throwing around.”

“Maybe. Think about it: Selen was exposed to at least two of these guys.”

“And one of them was the guy you said shifted form. I follow your thinking. But you never noticed this before?”

“Mosiah said his accomplices all started dying off recently. The way he said it, I wouldn’t be surprised if those deaths were helped along.”

“You think Selen killed them?”

“Maybe some of them. She’s had opportunities. But I think whatever this thing is killed them. And for some reason, it chose to possess Selen.”

Elise considered the alleyway again, then hurried back to the main avenue. “You’re more bought-in than I thought.”

“I’m trying to understand this outside influence. She’s been acting weird lately, making reckless decisions, putting the blame on me when things go wrong.”

“You ever think—” The archaeologist’s head turned. “—she’s been corrupted all along?”

“No way. She was never like this before.”

“Okay. You’re the one who knows her. But she’s been exposed to—”

“She wasn’t corrupted. Looking back, she was always professional and decent. It’s only in the last…year or so that things changed.”

But was that true? Connor couldn’t be objective about the matter, and he knew it. He was a young man, driven by hormones, and Selen had been the ideal person to capitalize on that after Wentz’s rebellion failed.

Passion for the righteous beliefs Wentz offered up had been enough to put aside basic urges, but without the revolution…

No. She had been kind and fair and decent when they’d met.

Connor cleared his throat. “If she took advantage of me, it was a fair exchange.”

Elise’s head came around again. “Was that a confession?”

“A clarification. I didn’t want to sound ambivalent.”

They turned onto the main avenue again. Somewhere back toward the builders’ holographic chamber, another avenue was filled with a collapse.

Once was coincidence. Twice and you had to be wary. Three times, and you’re the fool for not seeing the obvious.

Selen was blocking their path.

The archaeologist glanced down at her computer. “All right, same as before: at the next left turn—”

Her words were lost in the deafening crack of the avenue beneath them.

Connor’s light caught the walls, then the floor splitting, and the shudder ran through his legs.

Then the ground beneath them ripped wide open, and he fell.