Babel Found (16 page)

POWER

The Citadel

The creature who called itself the master had disappeared shortly after his and Ben’s conversation. It was truly a blessing too. Ben needed to collect his thoughts and rest. Just the strain of everything that happened was starting to eat at him. His body did feel more relaxed, however, but he still couldn’t walk. His mind, on the other hand, was still a mess. Both were something he’d have to fix if he wanted to try and escape before the master returned.

He dragged himself across the large bowl-shaped floor, towards the lowest hanging vine. He still couldn’t believe this was the legendary gardens of Babylon. There were stories that they held a magic, being able to grow in the desolate desert, but then again…it was a myth—pure folklore.

Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were, until now, the only one whose whereabouts had yet to be definitively located.

Not that I really know where I am.
He figured he was in Iraq like they thought, but where… That was the ultimate question.

Originally thought to have been built by King Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 B.C., the gardens themselves have taken on a more mythical persona as time has gone on. But the similar descriptions in various Greek and Roman texts always gave Ben hope that they may have once existed. He figured the size, like a lot of ancient structures, was overstated. He also knew that when the early cultures agreed upon the existence of something like this, it more often than not ended up being real. Like An’tala. There were countless civilizations around the globe that mentioned an island kingdom, but like Babel, no one could come to an agreement on its exact location.

Lost in translation,
he decided.

If Atlantis was directly involved with Babel somehow, then just about anything could be possible. The abilities of those who called the island home gave credence to the notion, even if only a handful of people had such gifts. All they’d need was someone like the woman who attacked D.C. or even the Mayan queen, Coaxoch. One of them could have easily helped build such an edifice given enough time. All they’d require was a design to follow, planned by an architect of sorts.

Hmmm…
He thought as he continued to inch forward. His arms were on fire and his shoulders ached, but he shut out the pain. It wouldn’t matter how much agony he was in if the master got what he wanted.

The master.

He knows a lot more than he’s revealed so far. Maybe he was the brain behind this place. It could be why he’s still here. But he’s not trapped by any means. Ben being inside the Citadel proved that much. It’s why he was doing what he was doing. There was most definitely a way in and out of this place.

Then what?

His NVS glasses were gone and with it any chance of contacting the others.
Not that they’d work here anyway.
If he did miraculously heal his broken body and make it topside, he’d have to have enough time to make the call. Now, he’d need cross Iraqi soil, on foot, with zero knowledge of his whereabouts and no way of defending himself. Of all the places he’d been in his life, Eridu wasn’t one of them.

One thing at a time, Ben.

He scolded himself for getting too far ahead. It was an easy way to discourage yourself. If you just took it one step at a time—essentially mental baby steps—it was easier to see the big picture. Focusing only on the dejected feeling consuming you could easily cause you to skip over the tiny details, especially when getting barraged by the human mind’s natural negativity.
People
as a whole loved to see the glass-half-empty rather than the opposite.

So, he again refocused his mind on his current task: Get to the vines. He needed to see what they could do for his back. Just a whiff of the crushed plant worked as well as it did, acting as a muscle relaxer, but without the drowsiness.

What could a deep inhalation do? What if I ate some?

While the latter scared him more than intrigued him, he figured the results couldn’t be any worse than his current predicament. Die at the hands of the master, or die by some sort of ancestral overdose.

Damn room
, he thought, grunting.

The cave was the size of an arena and the floor started its smooth slope in the next ten feet. He’d have to claw his way up the incline before reaching the lowest hanging vine. Some were growing over his head, but being unable to stand he’d have to keep moving.

They still amazed him too. The fact that they received their lifesaving power from a stone was equally incredible. Then again, he’d seen what happened to Hank. The power of this place, along with everything else associated with it, was one-hundred-percent nonfiction. If he sniffed a leaf and magically walked again, he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

The incline came mid-thought and almost tripped him up. Ben stopped and took a couple deep breaths and pushed on. His shoulders—neither of which he could feel—shook, causing his arms to do the same. He stopped again and craned his head up, allowing himself a small smile of victory. The lowest vine was only a few feet further.

“Come on,” he whispered aloud, feeling sweat drip from every square inch of his face. He was soaked and becoming lethargic from the combination of overexertion and dehydration.

When was the last time I had a drink?

He dug in and clawed forward again, feeling his fingers split open on the stone beneath him.
Or was it a coarse metal?
Didn’t matter either way. The blood pumped through the wounds making the trek even harder. But like before, he endured and pushed himself past his known breaking point. It wasn’t until a large leaf smacked him in the face that he realized he’d made it.

But his triumph was short-lived as be started to slide backwards down the ever-slickening slope. He looked down and saw that both hands were now bleeding. Each palm, along with most of his fingers, were busted open, causing his hands to slip further.

“Rargh!” he yelled, launching himself onto the vine. He used what strength he had to pull himself up it a foot, but his wet hands lost whatever grip they briefly had. He yelped as he fell hard to the bowl and rolled like a bloodied tree log, only stopping once he found the flat foundation of the room.

Lying on his back, Ben looked up at the Source, trying to catch his breath. A set of giggles erupted from his mouth, sending him deeper into delirium. He snickered again and broke out into an all-out chortle, coughing halfway through.

He clamped his jaw shut and settled down, looking down at his mangled hands. But instead of cringing at what he saw, he looked past the blood and fixated on what he held. A leaf, easily the size of one of his hands, was clutched in them.

Not wasting any time, Ben crumbled up the leaf, feeling the small amount of liquid trapped inside leak onto his hands. He noticed something odd as it did. It was like he washed his hands in Novocain. He could still move his hands, but he couldn’t feel himself do it. He again looked at his bloodied palms and found them perfectly healed. The only sign of an injury was the crimson left behind.

Smiling again, he brought the crushed leaf up to his face and inhaled deeply.

The Kur

Surrounding the central Citadel was a massive underground network of stone tunnels, designed as a foundation to support what had been the largest structure on earth. Those who lived during the tower’s time knew little else about it.

But the master knew. He knew everything.
The Kur,
he thought, reciting the original name for the underground portion of the tower. He was there when it was erected, watching from the shadows. He even remembered the man named, Malecima. The man would even aid in the tower’s plan and site, unknowingly pleasing him with every decision.

He was even bold enough to think he could control the Source.

With every level completed in the tower’s construction, the master found himself closer and closer to his ultimate goal. But then Malecima had to go and decimate it, trying to gain even more wisdom—more power. His human traits of greed and selfishness destroyed any hope of reaching the
heavens
.

Heavens,
he thought, grunting.
Foolish humans. If they only knew what it really meant. There was another meaning behind the word.

The master stopped and looked up, visualizing the skies above. It had been ages since he’d seen the stars. Having been relegated to the underground tunnels for thousands of years, the master itched to walk the Earth. Survival, however, was more important. His eventual freedom would have to wait a little while longer.

But first, I need him…

He needed a host body and a fully human one wouldn’t work. He needed something…better. A regular mortal would just burn up and die after he commandeered it. But Boyd was different. He held a small portion of the Source inside of him, making his body strong enough to hold up against the master’s power.

“Susanoo,”
the master said, calling out to his lieutenant.

But there was no answer.

He growled in frustration. He’d have to try the others. He didn’t usually attempt this, but Susanoo rarely ignored him. He’d have to be gentle as to not destroy their minds.

“Anu.”

Again no answer.

The master quaked with anger, causing the earth around him to tremble. It’s as afraid as the ground could sound, cracking and groaning. Even a few of the tunnels collapsed off in the distance.

His two strongest were either ignoring him—which he doubted—or defeated. They could heal from most every wound, but if they were hurt badly enough…

“Phoenix.”

A scream of pain answered him.
“Who?”
The voice was weak.

“It is I,”
he said, gently. He needed her alive and well.
“Where are you?”

“I…I’m where I was asked to be, approaching my targets in the US. We missed them earlier. Susanoo wanted me to clean up.”

He nodded his bald, grey-skinned head. He, unlike the others, lacked the decorative appearances. His genealogy was much more unique than even the Judges—purer too. He didn’t have
their
weaknesses—their human faults.

“Very well,”
he said.
“Proceed.”

He cut communication with the fiery one and continued down a lesser used corridor. It led to the deepest part of the tower’s base, a level very few even centuries ago ventured. Even him.

They have not been freed in some time,
he thought. He would have smiled if he had the physical ability.
It will be interesting to see what happens when they are.

Safe House

Blairsville, Georgia

She needed this shower. Her body was exhausted. Her mind even more so. She was used to working in her lab for hours on end, but sitting at a computer console for as long as they had worn on her worse. At least when she was mostly on her feet, she’d be walking back and forth from station to station, keeping her back loose. It was very seldom that she’d be stuck in one spot for so long.

The water was hotter than normal, but she moaned in delight as it pounded on her knotted shoulders and neck. She was missing Jeremy’s strong hands and the memory of it kept her mind off the scent the water had. She really hated wells. She smiled, again thinking of his hands. He could knead away even the tightest of lumps.

And then some.

As she worked on her own neck, trying to rid herself of the constant ache, she thought she heard someone shout. But that couldn’t have been right, Todd was still downstairs working. He knew where she was and that she needed a break. He basically begged her to take thirty minutes and recharge.

Was it that obvious?

Once they discovered what they believed to be the location of the tower in Eridu, her concentration started to give, lapsing as she typed. The high they experienced after the call from Daniel and the continuation of it when they contacted Nicole crashed shortly after hanging up. Once Todd and she were done with the
hard part
, they had gone about rechecking things, and assisting Daniel in Algeria.

He and whoever else survived were to be picked up and taken to a safe location in Israel. There, Daniel would wait until further notice. It was another of the in-depth precautions Jeremy had set up. No matter where they went, he would make sure they had a backdoor out of the area, or at the very least, somewhere to lay low for a while. He had contacts all over the world, and if he couldn’t find someone, then surely Hank or Ben could. Even Todd had a few resources to help in case of emergency. His were primarily other hacker friends, but like most people in that profession, they were experts at staying unfound.

The noise started up again, but this time, she could clearly hear that it was, in fact, Todd. He was getting closer to the sound of it, climbing the stairs in hurried stomps. The hard wood of the steps could be heard throughout the entire house actually, echoing off the main hallway’s high ceilings. Maybe he’d gotten in contact with Hank? Maybe Ben?

“I can’t hear you!” she shouted, hoping he could hear her.

Instead, the feet continued to boom, advancing down the upstairs hall, eventually stopping at the bathroom door. She expected to hear him knock, but instead he just rushed in, the door slamming into the wall as it swung open. The interior doors had no locks.

Startled, Olivia began to draw the curtain back enough to poke her drenched head out and curse the man’s existence. She wasn’t exactly dressed for conversation.

He one-upped her, however.

The decorative partition was thrown to the side, revealing a frightened and sweating Todd. Naturally, his eyes found her vulnerable state, widening to the size of saucers. Before she could leap out and choke the man to death, naked or not, he spun and dove for the bathroom’s closet. Throwing it open, he dug out a robe and tossed it to her.

She caught it and donned it, past the point of rushing to cover herself. It really didn’t matter at this point.

“What is it!” she barked, adding a venomous look.

“We need to go,” he replied, swallowing hard.

“Go, why?” she asked, confused. They were safe here. “Did you hear from Hank or Ben or—”

He shook his head. “Worse… Phoenix.”

Now it was her turn to be shocked. “You talked to her?”

He shook his head again, his normally tangled blonde hair, plastered against his worried face.

“Why are you so sweaty?” she asked. She’d seen Jeremy and him play video games before and actually start to sweat with the effort.

This is different, though.

“No,” he said, beckoning her forward, “she’s here.”

“Here?” She exclaimed, hopping out of the tub, and making for the open door. Once she stepped out into the upstairs hall she saw what gave Todd such a fright.

“Oh…” he said, “and the house is on fire.”

She could see that. The rear stairwell faced the front of the house, giving her a clear view of the front door. It, plus the office and the adjacent living room, were ablaze.

“What about the computers?” she asked, rushing to a room at the end of the hall.

“They’re gone, but the files are backed up. We won’t lose anything.”

Good
, she thought as she entered the room, discarding her robe. She dove into her suitcase, uncaring that Todd followed her in. He saved her life by acting as he did. Now, getting out alive is all that mattered. Modesty be damned.

She threw on a shirt and slipped on a pair of shorts.
Going commando for a while, I guess.
She would have normally chosen otherwise, but now was not the time to focus on such things. She found her sneakers and slipped them on quickly. Next was a pair of handguns out of a second bag.

She tossed one to Todd, who bumbled with the airborne weapon, eventually catching it and checking it over. He was supposedly an excellent shot, having
trained
extensively on first-person shooter and arcade games. She didn’t care as long as he could defend himself.

They bolted from the room and made their way to the stairs, but slid to a halt when a fiery demon stepped through the flames and into the home’s front hallway. She was a sight to behold.

Phoenix had jet-black, charred skin, pocked with glowing fissures that burned from within. Her eyes were also black, matching Susanoo’s. Whatever Latin flavor she had in Disney, posing as the petite lifeguard was gone. It was replaced by the hellish figure that stood before them now. But unlike her brother, she remained the same height, not growing taller and thicker. She also kept her other feminine qualities too.

They both opened fire, sending a dozen bullets into her chest and stomach. Groaning in displeasure, they stopped shooting as soon as they saw the first few rounds disintegrate into ash upon contacting her skin.

“Nope…” Todd said, pushing Olivia down the other end of the upstairs hall. They passed the bathroom and entered the rear, corner-most room, closing the door and locking it.

“You don’t really think that’s going to stop her do you?” Olivia asked, backing away from it, gun up.

“Not at all,” he said, opening the back window. “I just don’t want her to see us leave. It may buy us a few more seconds.”

Olivia nodded and rushed to the window, quickly climbing onto the sloping roof. Todd practically leapt through, turning and drawing the blinds shut from the outside. Next, he gripped the glass the best he could and slid the window back into place.

The room’s entrance exploded in a cloud of flaming debris, smacking and cracking the glass. Flinching in fright, Todd teetered back, tripping over Olivia’s foot. She wasn’t able to halt his tumble as he rolled twice and disappeared below.

“Todd!” she yelled, crab walking over to the edge.

When she looked, she found him sprawled across a set of bushes, half embedded in them. She couldn’t help but smile at the man’s dumb luck. He’d proved himself to her so far. She’d been in his position not too long ago. Jeremy had sought to remedy that immediately, wanting her to be able to take care of herself.

Olivia had even gone as far as training with Nicole, trying to keep up with the woman. She was a one-of-a-kind mauler, with beauty to spare. But she’d seen remarkable kindness from her as well. They’d become quick friends and Olivia wouldn’t admit it aloud, but she looked up to Nicole. The woman had been through so much and still found the ability to love again.

Olivia turned, dangled her short legs out and over the edge of the roof, and dropped, landing on her feet…and then her butt. She grunted and stood as the rest of the upstairs room burst violently, splattering the backyard with flaming debris. She rushed over to Todd, who was having issues disentangling himself from the thick shrubs, but once they were both moving again, they ran for the rear of the property.

The wooden privacy fence was easy enough to scale and would hopefully provide them with some much-needed cover as they attempted
Phase Two
of their escape.

Phase One
was to get out of the house alive. The next part of the plan was to get to the mysteriously empty lot behind Frost’s former abode. It’s something they had only recently checked into. What they found was interesting, to say the least. Frost’s company, Broadsword Inc., actually owned both lots, and until a couple weeks ago, they had no idea why.

Todd led her through the thick brush towards the center of the acre lot. It’s the only uncleared plot of land in the small neighborhood.

A branch snapped back and caught her across the forehead, refocusing her on the trek forward. When she did, she heard the familiar sound of sirens off in the distance. They—Phoenix included—were about to have some unwanted company soon.

“Almost there,” Todd said, holding another branch aside. She ducked under this one and was led into a small clearing at the center of the lot. She stopped and watched as he knelt, digging into the loose sand with his hands.

“Help me,” he said, continuing to dig. She complied and dropped on all fours, scooping out handfuls of earth.

They found something smooth and hard only a few inches into the ground. Together, they cleared the area around it as he reached down and pulled. She flinched when a crack broke the calm of the woods around them.

She leaned around Todd and found him punching a code into an extremely out of place combination pad. The crack she heard was him forcing open the casing that surrounded the pad, keeping it dirt-free. She’d been so busy recently that she forgot to ask what they found here. She knew it was a bomb shelter of sorts, but that’s all she knew.

“Okay,” he said, yanking on the hatch. “Down we go.”

The door popped, hissing like an airlock. She’d been through several of these in her time studying DNA and other biological agents. This was no different, except it was underground.

Todd ushered her in first. She didn’t argue against the chivalrous display, knowing Todd would have to lock the hatch from the inside. As she climbed, a bevy of lights lit up the room below. She didn’t care, though. All she cared about was Todd getting the damn lid shut.

“I’m sorry.”

Halfway down the twenty-foot ladder, Olivia looked up. Todd was shutting the hatch…
But he’s still outside?

“What are you doing?” she asked, catching her breath. Was Todd turning on her—on all them? Was he secretly working for the enemy?

The look on his face, however, was quite the opposite.

“No, Todd!” she yelled. “Don’t do it!”

“I have to,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “She’ll see the hatch and know where we went. I’ll bury it again and head for the street.”

“You’ll never make it!”

He shrugged. “So be it.”

And with that, Todd slammed the lid shut. As she climbed she heard a whirl of gears lock into place and another hiss of air. She was locked in tight. Olivia looked over to the keypad and touched it, but cursed when she saw she needed the sixteen-digit code to exit as well. She was stuck—safe—but stuck.

Todd…

He, on the other hand, was on his own.

Through blurred eyes, Olivia looked at the room below. It was easily twenty-by-twenty wide, as well as another twenty feet in height. It was also wall-to-wall with weapons. As she descended the ladder again, she wiped the tears away from her eyes. When her foot hit that metal floor, she stumbled and fell, landing hard.

“Damnit.”

She went to look up, but stopped, seeing something in her periphery. She allowed herself a smile and leapt to her feet, rounding the centrally-located ladder and sitting at the obviously updated computer station.

Trying her own personal log-in information, the computer booted without issue, revealing a duplicate of the screen in the office as well as the same hard drive contents. She smiled again, and laughed, wiping away another set of tears.

“Paranoid bastards. Always covering their asses.” She was, of course, speaking to Jeremy and Todd. The company men were always making sure things were either backed-up or in her boyfriend’s case, always having a ‘backup plan.’

With a renewed sense of purpose, Olivia typed furiously. She’d help Todd anyway she could, in any capacity. She wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines and
survive
while he sacrificed himself. Even trapped in this underground storeroom, she wasn’t out of this fight yet.