Chapter 124
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Four
With the glow stick fading, Elise led Connor through a surprisingly intricate series of passageways peppered with the occasional doorway.
There was no sign of damage to the walls, no debris piles, and their steps echoed quietly and evenly, furthering the sense that the damage that had plunged them underground was very localized.
Every now and then, the smell of the giant, black serpent oozed from a doorway, and Elise hurried past.
Sweat dripped down Connor’s brow. “Why’s it so warm down here?”
“If I had to make a guess, I’d say for the same reason that snake was here.”
“So it wasn’t drawn here by the warmth.”
“Maybe. They were definitely connected.”
“Well, I’m lodging my official preference for the cooler air above.”
The archaeologist smiled over her shoulder. “You’re not alone.”
A few steps later, she stopped abruptly at a symbol-covered wall. As she had before, she squatted and ran her fingers over the symbols, but this time Connor realized her lips were moving, and her eyes were narrowed.
He leaned closer. “You can read this?”
“Read goes too far as a description. I can recall some of the symbols and the inferred meanings. Putting those together to make an educated guess is tricky under the best of circumstances.”
The glow stick dimmed.
Connor took it from her and shook it hard, then handed it back. “Sometimes, it helps.”
She frowned. “Not this time.”
He stepped back and listened, then sniffed the air. The snake had been through this passageway at some point, even though it would have been a tight fit. Maybe it had been younger and smaller, or maybe it didn’t care.
Elise stood. “Well, that would appear to have some value.”
“As in?”
“There should be a door around here.”
“A door.” He looked back the way they’d come, then squinted down the passageway. “I see another opening up there.”
“A door, not a doorway. It should be close, although it might not be.”
“That’s not helpful.”
She held up a finger. “And it should be to the left or right.”
“Okay, that’s definitely not helpful.”
“I told you that I don’t actually have the ability to read the symbols.”
The glow stick dimmed again.
Connor glanced around. “It’s too dark to split up.”
“Then we search together.” Elise pointed the light the way they’d been headed. “Let’s try that way. Before you ask, no, there’s no reason.”
“Good enough.”
As Elise walked, she ran a hand along the wall to her left, producing a soft rasp. “How long were you and Selen…an item?”
“Well, when she recruited me, it was over a dinner and drink.”
“You mean it ended up being like a date?”
“She was pretty, and I was young and unattached.”
“Okay. That was fast.”
“Are you judging me?”
“No. I’m curious, though, whether the influence was something that was there as far back as when she recruited you.”
He frowned. “You mean that she couldn’t have been attracted to me?”
“Hardly. You’re a good-looking guy. But what if the influence of this thing includes a limited…prescience? What if it could see the future and realized you might be a little susceptible to Selen’s wiles?”
“So, it’s been planning this for centuries, and I’m the weak link?”
“Don’t be so defensive. The thing that really matters is whether or not that’s something these people who imprisoned this monster anticipated.”
“I—”
Elise stopped. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
She retraced her steps, running her finger along the wall again. “There.” She pressed the dimming glow stick closer. “A shallow crease.”
“The door?”
When he stepped closer, the wall opened, and a door whispered aside.
It was a room—a large room.
Inside, the green glow of the previous chamber they’d found slowly brightened, revealing walls lined with the same sort of technology as the first chamber.
And there were other types of technology.
Elise hurried in and set the dying glow stick on what looked like a table built into the near wall, then rushed over to the wall with strange technology.
There were more gems sitting upon another small platform.
She touched the blue diamond, and the holographic alien returned.
It stared for a moment, flickered, then spoke the same way it had earlier—in their language.
“Human species representatives…welcome. We anticipated this outcome.”
The archaeologist snapped her fingers. “There. They anticipated.”
Connor rested his fists on his hips. “You don’t think that’s a little odd. Your exact words—”
She shushed him, and the holographic alien continued. “By the time of your arrival, what has been imprisoned has exerted influence for some years. If our designs have succeeded, it has been many thousands of your years.”
Connor pointed to the panels that looked different from the ones they’d seen before. “Ask him what these other devices do.”
Elise rolled her eyes. “Ask him? It’s a recording.”
“Sure, but maybe it ‘anticipated’ our needs.”
The glowing alien hovered, staring.
It seemed to be waiting, so Connor leaned closer. “We need to find our comrades. We’ve been separated, and they’re far ahead of us.”
Elise glared at him. “Raising your voice doesn’t help it understand.”
Before Connor could reply, the alien nodded. “There are mechanisms for rapid transportation. There are mechanisms for distant communication.”
That would be the new technology. Connor pointed to one of the unfamiliar panels. “Communication or transportation?”
The alien stared for a moment. “Communication.”
“Then that other one’s transportation.”
“Transportation.
Connor stepped in front of the communication device. “Could we use this to warn our friends aboveground? Could we warn people back in Coil Sector?”
Elise shook her head. “I never saw any sort of antenna—”
“How would we know antenna from trees? This technology—”
“Fine. You play with that.” She sidestepped over to the transportation device. “If this can move us around rapidly, what would stop us from just heading for the ship?”
“For one thing, I’m not leaving without the Moon boys. They’re family.”
That put a smile on the archaeologist’s round face. “That sounds exactly like the sort of answer someone would want to hear if they anticipated all of this happening.”
“What?”
Elise smirked. “Nothing.”
But Connor understood what she meant, and at one level, he resented it. It implied not just manipulation on Selen’s part but on the part of the people who had imprisoned the galaxy-destroying creature.
If that were true, what made them any better?