The Ophelia Prophecy (21 page)

The debris disintegrated.

Gasping, she said, “How did you do that?”

He guided her through the opening, and she watched it seal up again behind them.

“The technology is similar to what you see above, in the tower. The construction resin is ‘smart.’ A blend of microbial bots and organic material.”

She stared at the reformed surface. “That’s amazing. Like magic.”

Micah smiled. “Not magic. It’s more illusion than reality, but still very complex. There’s generation, and
de
generation, and cooling processes for both. Plus artificial intelligence for ensuring secure access.”

“Who did all this?”

“I did.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Are you serious?”

“Security is my area of expertise. I work for DAB-lab, which gives me access to all the more experimental technology.”

“DAB-lab?” She shook her head, confused. “Do they know that you’re involved with Rebelión? Seems like a serious conflict of interests.”

“No doubt,” he laughed. “No, they don’t know. They can never know.”

She understood now why he was so valuable to Cleo. “Why have you gone to all this trouble?”

The tunnel forked and Micah veered left. She followed, forced to walk behind due to the narrow path through the very real debris from a partial collapse.

“The tunnels are officially off-limits, and we’re the only ones who use them regularly. But it won’t take long for the amir to figure out we’ve gone underground. The modifications to the tunnels, combined with the secure access,
should
prevent them from catching up with us. By the time they figure it out we’ll be long gone.”

“Gone where?” she asked. This would all be for nothing if she ended up farther from her father.

“Al Campo.”

Asha hesitated, confused. “The internment camp for human survivors?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s an empty quarter of the village, set aside in case the people in Sanctuary ever need to be relocated. I worked with a hacker inside the camp to arrange it all. We reconfigured the
flies
—the DAB-lab surveillance cyborgs—so the feeds are showing dummy video for the empty quarter. Basically they’re feeding a bunch of historical footage of nothing.”

“You’re going to hide in plain sight.” She respected her companion’s ingenuity more every moment. “In the last place the amir would look for you. But if you can get into Al Campo, can’t the humans get out?”

Micah paused, glancing back at her. “We’ve created a similar type of secure access point there, and only disciples can open it. But we’re not jailers. We have an agreement with the people inside. In exchange for their help hiding us, we’ve promised to free them once the shift in power takes place.”

“An alliance.”

“Yes, that’s accurate.”

They walked for a while in silence, and she processed the implications. The first one being that she’d made a dangerous deal with Cleo that had turned out not to be necessary. But she couldn’t have foreseen this. And if she hadn’t done it the priestess could have just as easily tossed her back out in the street.

“Tell me,” said Micah. “Who is it you hope to find in Bone Town?”

“
Bone
Town?”

“Sorry. The residents refer to the camp that way because of the architecture. You’ll see. Are you looking for someone else taken by a Scarab?”

“Yes.”

“What will you do if you find them?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

Ridiculous as it now seemed, she’d never thought past
finding
her father. That had seemed unlikely enough in itself. Now it was beginning to look like she had a chance—it fired off a little flare of hope in her chest.

They couldn’t go home—that much was clear. Even if she could find transportation, Pax would come for her; she felt sure of it. They could try to run far enough away from Granada to start a new life. Maybe persuade some of the others to join them. That too seemed to hold low odds of success.

But this alliance between Rebelión Sagrada and Al Campo had suggested another possibility. She’d learned something in the course of her journey: her life in Sanctuary had been half a life. The idea of going back to that kind of stasis no longer held any appeal for her.
Here
she might just see change in her lifetime. Here she could write new history rather than keeping the old history on life support.

But to stay she would have to betray Pax more deeply than she had already. Join his family’s enemies, and help them pull him down. There was a part of her—that sliver of her that had been awakened by him—that she would have to extract and bury before she could. That part of her wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She wasn’t sure she wanted it to.

*   *   *

Pax stared down at the iron rings, unable to distinguish rust from blood. There was no reason for a chain like this—Manti technology could have created something much more sophisticated, both lighter and stronger—but Cleo had a flair for the dramatic. Or perhaps it was meant to be symbolic of their disdain for scientific interference in reproduction.

More likely she chose them because they hurt.
Yes, he was giving her too much credit.

“Asha was here,” called the priest.

Pax turned, nodding. He could smell her too, as well as the disciple they’d met in the alley. They’d both been in this room more than once.

“Fear leaves a mark,” Carrick continued. “So does…” The priest glanced up from the spot on the floor he’d been staring at. His gaze met Pax’s only briefly before he glanced down again.

Pax felt sick.

The priest disappeared into a curtained-off area. “I lose her here,” he called. “It’s like she walked through the wall.”

Pax followed him into what he’d assumed was an enclosure to stow attendants in the event of a sudden desire for privacy. But it looked more like a makeshift corridor.

“That’s possible,” said Pax. “Some kind of illusion, maybe, or a false wall.”

He rested his hand against the curved surface. It felt solid, and
warm
—characteristic of this particular building resin since it was basically alive.

The wall was seamless. There was no section that didn’t match up. No darker or lighter color, or sudden change in texture.

The priest followed Pax’s lead, wiping small circles over the surface with his hands, and they worked toward each other from opposite ends of the curtain.

“My close vision is not very good, but it doesn’t look like—”

The priest broke off suddenly, and Pax looked up. “What is it?”

Carrick shook his head. “I thought I saw something—like a beam of light. It’s gone now. I think I imagined it.”

“Stay there,” commanded Pax as he walked over to join him. “Move your hands back to where they were when you saw the light.”

The priest slid his hands slowly, and after a moment he said, “There!”

Pax blinked at the wall. “I didn’t see anything. Do it again.”

“There.”

He stared at the priest’s hand. He very much doubted the man was hallucinating. Despite being nearsighted Carrick might be more sensitive to movement or changes in light.

“Move your hand,” said Pax. The priest complied, and he placed his own hand in the same position. “Tell me if you see it again.”

“Yes. It … it’s illuminating that mark on your arm. Now it’s gone.”

Clever
. Pax growled, slapping his palm against the wall. No wonder they hadn’t bothered to secure the temple better. They’d all gone underground.

He stared up at the ceiling, thinking. They hadn’t searched the upper floors yet. The temple
felt
empty, but it was possible some of the disciples were still inside. They’d have to try. Otherwise they could waste a huge amount of time looking for another way to open the door.

Unless …

He glanced at Carrick. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Back to the alley. We need a key.”

*   *   *

“We’re not all like him.”

Micah’s voice interrupted Asha’s thoughts, bringing her back to the present moment in time to step over a large piece of broken pottery.

“Not all like who?”

“The amir’s son.” Micah glanced back at her briefly. “Did he attack you?”

She hesitated, despite the fact there was no reason for her to shield Pax from this man’s disapproval. But telling him didn’t feel right. Especially in light of the rumor about Pax and the priestess. It painted a picture that didn’t really fit Pax.

Which isn’t my concern.

“I was spared that … affliction,” said Micah, apparently taking her silence as an affirmative.

“It’s more complicated than him attacking me,” she said. “I ran from him. He thought I might be a threat to him. He grabbed me and I fought him. Then something changed. He—” She shook her head. “Nothing happened. I was able to get away. After that he ordered his ship to protect me.”

“Really?” Micah turned and reached for her hand as she started over a two-foot-high pile of loose rubble. The shoes from the temple were more practical than Iris’s slippers, but not by much. As he lifted his arm, the wide cuff of his shirt slipped back to reveal a row of spikes, smaller and softer-looking than the priestess’s.

“He has more control than he thinks he does,” she continued, concentrating on her footing. “He didn’t want to hurt me.”

Micah eyed her curiously as she alighted on solid ground beside him. His eyes moved to the cast on her wrist, which she’d all but forgotten. “You don’t hate him.”

It was odd to hear it spoken aloud, but of course it was true. She didn’t hate him, enemy or no. “He brought me here against my will,” she acknowledged. “But since then he’s done all he could to protect me. Even from his own family.”

“But you ran from him.”

“I had to if I didn’t want to end up in the Alhambra. And he would never have helped me find my father in Al Campo. What excuse could he have given the amir for that?”

Micah nodded. “Not one the amir would accept. I’ve wondered about what really happened between you. I followed you into that alley because I sensed the tension. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Asha glanced at him, surprised. “Not because you wanted to recruit us?”

He laughed. “We do a lot of that sort of work, but no.”

“Thank you. That was kind.”

“Well.” He turned then, and continued down the corridor. Her gratitude seemed to have made him uncomfortable.

“Did you know that I was human?” she asked. “Pax said some would sense it.”

“I did sense you were different. But the smell of sagrada tends to overpower everything. My father is human, though, so I was curious to get a closer look at you.”

“Your father is human?”

“Yes. My mother is Manti. Nearly as Manti as Cleo.”

“How did—” She hesitated, knowing it was an intensely personal question. “Do you mind if I ask how that happened? I thought the humans were all in Al Campo.”

“Intermarriage is the one way they can get out. It’s part of the DAB-lab protocol for reproduction.”

When Pax had told her the genetics lab needed human DNA, she’d never guessed they’d incorporate it in such a …
traditional
way. “How does that work, exactly?”

“If someone wants out, they volunteer. There’s a lottery among those deemed too Manti to reproduce with other Manti. Basically it’s an arranged marriage. It avoids the more sterile approaches of using donors or tampering with DNA.”

“Do people ever run once they get out?”

“Sometimes. But if they’re caught they’re executed, so most don’t.”

Internment, forced marriage, execution—it almost made Sanctuary look utopian. “Do your parents … do they have any feeling for each other?”
Or is it just another kind of prison?

“Believe it or not, yes. My father adores her. She pretends to tolerate him, but the adoration is mutual. It wasn’t always that way, though. I was conceived in a glass tube.”

“I see.”

“My five siblings were conceived the old-fashioned way.”

“Five!” Five siblings could hardly be explained away as a moment of weakness.

“We were a pack of little devils.” He laughed. “I think they bonded out of desperation.”

They could be talking about any other couple. Any
human
couple. This reminded her of another potentially sensitive question she wanted to ask him. “Earlier when you said you’re not like Pax, did you mean you don’t experience the same sort of … drives?”

Again he laughed. “No, I don’t mean that. I just mean it never takes me over so completely I could hurt someone.”

“You’re lucky. I think it would be pretty hard to live with.”

They stopped in front of another wall, and Micah fixed his gaze on her before opening it.

“I understand why you had to leave him, but outside of that, it sounds to me like you don’t bear him any ill will. I’m not going to ask you questions that could have answers I’d be obligated to share with others. But I want to warn you that Cleo is very dangerous when crossed.”

Asha swallowed. “I don’t doubt that.”

He passed his hand over the wall, and the tunnel opened out into a cavern filled with dark-cloaked figures. Cleo noticed their arrival and walked over to meet them.

“There are two groups behind us in the tunnels, my lady,” Micah told her. “They’re the last. You should cross in small numbers, just to be safe.”

Cleo nodded. “Your friends in Al Campo will be ready for us?”

“It’s earlier than we agreed, but they knew something like this might happen. They’ll be ready enough.”

The priestess smiled. “I don’t know how we’ll manage without you, Micah. We would never have prepared for this in time without your talents, and your devotion to our cause.”

Asha glanced at him, alarmed at what the first statement suggested. Micah bowed his head, acknowledging the praise.

“I hate running like thieves in the night,” continued Cleo. “That temple represents our greatest triumph—the funding we were able to procure, alone. The idea of Emile giving it to some wealthy patron, or turning it into a museum…” Her mouth twisted in disgust.