Chapter 127

Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Seven

If the sled moved even a little bit slower, Connor was sure he’d become sick. As it was, the sensation of imminent doom built and built inside his head, and his stomach shot bitter bile up the back of his throat.

Elise giggled over the hum. “It’s faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”

And it was, because no one actually ever saw faster-than-light travel.

Somehow, the vehicle not only kept them securely in place but kept an atmospheric bubble around them filled with surprisingly fresh air, otherwise, they would’ve found it hard to breathe.

Still, the sense of motion—the awareness of motion—was intense.

Walls whipped past.

When they came to the room with the serpent carcass, the vehicle climbed over the corpse and the rocks and shot up vertically through the hole in the ceiling.

At that moment, with the blur of the room and the snake barely registering, Connor actually felt the pressure of something moving him.

The vehicle had saved him from decapitation, pushing him down as it shot through the hole.

Speeding vertical was worse than flying along parallel to the floor.

Or at least it was more nauseating, he thought.

And then they were aboveground again, darting toward the broad avenue. The golden glow lit the street and the walls but didn’t reach the ceiling high overhead.

Elise twisted around, smiling as if there were no risk of a sudden stop snapping her neck. “I’ve been thinking.”

“About Toshiko? I already told you—”

“About this underground prison compound. In a world full of improbabilities, you happening to have a girlfriend who possesses one of the most rare items known to humans shouldn’t be shocking.”

That made a sense of its own. Far too many things had come together at just the right time to put them here.

Someone had funded the archaeological research team.

Someone had killed Dr. Litvinenko.

Someone had tipped off the Directorate that one of their most wanted fugitives was coming to Mara.

Someone had done all of that and more.

That someone was Selen.

She was obviously the tool of the creature imprisoned wherever it was the sled was speeding to, a creature that could apparently scheme and craft over the course of millennia.

So it made perfect sense that the alien K’luuta would have done the same.

Elise snapped her fingers. “You still with me?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I was thinking about this race between prisoner and jailers.”

“It’s an interesting problem, isn’t it? We’ve all been manipulated to make this come about.”

“Exactly.”

The archaeologist’s eyes dropped to his chest plate, which hid the amulet. “Are you worried that your girlfriend is going to resent you once she realizes she was used by an external force?”

He hadn’t thought of that. Toshiko was extremely strong-willed. Could something actually manipulate her? “I’ll have to see.”

“Are you two tight?”

Connor blushed. “I…haven’t seen her in years. When I went off to fight for Zacharias Wentz, I left her.”

“That could be hard to forgive. I don’t think I’d be able to past that.”

“She understood that I was just an idealistic kid.”

“I can only imagine.”

The vehicle slowed, then took a sharp turn and accelerated again, and a moment later, they were descending a ramp like the one that had brought them down to the maze of broad avenues and towering walls.

Elise looked away. “Anyway, this sprawling underground compound? I’ve been looking at it all wrong.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, when we received the images and video, we all assumed the ruins were the ancient civilization and whatever was down the well was something that came later.”

“Okay.”

“Except it’s not okay. Why would you build something on the surface, then dig beneath it? It makes much more sense to build this place first. Your priority is getting the prison running, right?”

“Unless they already held the thing in a different prison somewhere.”

“Doesn’t matter. The point is function over form: prison first, then the rest of this stuff. Maybe they build the avenues and the hidden rooms and stuff first, but that prison is right after.”

Connor shrugged. “I guess that matters to an archaeologist.”

“It does. It matters a lot. But what’s more intriguing is the implications for technology. If the ruins aboveground are millennia old, how much older is this? A decade? A century? For us, even pulling something like this off…?”

“We could do it.”

“Let’s say we could. Could we do it to last a thousand years?”

“With all the super-materials being created today? I think so.”

“Even the best composites eventually come apart. And down here, there’s more than just water at work. There’s the tectonic activity.”

“We don’t know that there’s any natural tectonic—”

“This thing can cause it, though. It’s powerful enough to simulate faults. It’s doing something below us. And they must have planned for that.”

Connor thought he might have felt heat from the amulet, but it was there and gone. “All that these K’luuta did, it didn’t stop this creature.”

“They knew it wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, but…” He slumped. “They expended themselves fighting it.”

“Are you worried humans aren’t ready?”

“I know they aren’t. We’re fighting each other over planets in a galaxy full of them.”

“I doubt our builder aliens were some monolithic, peaceful tribe.”

The thought that the advanced species might not be a big, happy family was actually comforting. “Is that an archaeologist’s opinion?”

“It’s a cynic’s opinion.” Elise winked.

Connor rubbed his chest.

For a second, he was on the river with Toshiko, admiring the way the sun lit her skin.

Then they were beneath the trees, and she was pulling the amulet off.

What had been real, and what had been a dream?

The tea ceremony, the time on the river, being together under the trees…

He remembered all of that. He’d lived it.

But the amulet had been in the dream, and it had felt just as real.

More than anything, he wanted to ask Elise if she thought maybe it wasn’t just the K’luuta at work, bringing everything together to counter their enemy.

What if Toshiko had stumbled across things with her hacking?

What if she’d used her brilliant mind to put the pieces together?

And then what if she’d done her part on her own, without manipulation?

If she’d acquired the amulet and gifted it to Connor, it could have been meant as a warning to stay away from the mission.

That’s what she’d said, after all: Don’t go.

And yet he had.

And now, maybe even Toshiko’s eternal bond wouldn’t be enough to save him.