They walked on, entering the archway that bisected the Tangle Grid. Halfway through it, she looked up at him and grated between clenched teeth, “Zowan, if you know the way out, take it before he sends you away!”
He gaped at her in alarm. “Why would you think I—”
“I was sitting in your lap after the blackout Monday night, remember? So I felt it when you were jerked out from under me. I felt the draft of the panel opening and smelled that awful stench. Parthos smelled it, too. It was how we realized our first suspicion—that Gaias had taken you—was wrong. I only know one person who smells like that: Neos.”
They came out of the Tangle Grid and headed back around the island in the opposite direction, Gaias now directly ahead of them.Horrified she was talking about this right here in the mall, he looked around to see who might have heard them and hissed, “Neos is dead, Terra!”
“You know he is not,” she said firmly. “As do I. And don’t worry— they don’t watch us nearly as much as we’ve been told that they do.”
“Gaias has been staring at us since we got here. And I was
in
the spaces around the Star Garden,” Zowan began. “I know—”
“Which is why we’re talking out here in the open,” she cut in grimly. “And don’t worry about Gaias. He can’t hear us. He’s only trying to intimidate us.”
“Can’t hear us? What about the oculus?”
“Neos says they don’t work nearly as well as we’ve been told. In fact, he doesn’t think they work at all.”
Zowan frowned at her. “How would he know that?”
“He’s been evading Enforcers for the last six months.”
“You’ve talked to him?!”
She nodded.
“Since Monday?”
“It was a couple of weeks ago.”
Zowan exhaled a deep, shaky breath, rocked as much by the content of Terra’s disclosure as by the fact she’d chosen not to tell him until now. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I guess I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
The music stopped, and having completed their twenty laps of the island, they settled side by side on the freestanding bench, a little way off from the Tangle Grid, with the entire length of the mall separating them from Gaias.
Zowan’s eyes swept the high mirrored window that stretched the length of the mall, overlooking all of it. The reflective surface created a sense of airy space where there was only a narrow vault—and hid the rooms where Father’s wives lived. Father had visited them today, before he’d toured the crèche. They could see out, but no one else could see in. In fact, no one Zowan knew had ever seen any of the wives. They were even more imprisoned than the rest of the Edenites.
He wondered, as he often did, if his birth mother was among them, and why he’ d never been allowed to meet her. . . .
At his side, Terra spoke softly, breaking into his troubled thoughts. “Parthos is convinced the New Babel reassignment is a ploy and that you’ll never leave New Eden alive. He’s certain once the departure ceremony is over, they’ll whisk you away to the termination facility and do the same to you as they did to Fyver.”
He shuddered and didn’t even try to argue with her.
“Which is why you have to leave now,” she said.
Well, he’ d pretty much decided the same, so he couldn’t argue.
“And why I want to come with you,” she added firmly. “Parthos, too.”
He looked at her aghast. “I don’t know if anyone can live up there, Terra. It was bright and hot and—”
“So you did go up!” she whispered, suddenly awed. “You
have
seen it!”
He frowned. “I have. And it didn’t look very habitable.”
“Neos says it is.”
“Neos is dying.”
Her brown eyes widened.
“I also think he’s more than a little insane,” Zowan added. “He says they did something to him in some secret deep-level lab. He doesn’t know what. But it looks like he’s forming an oculus.”
Her surprise gave way to ferocity. “And you don’t think that will be you in six months if you don’t flee now?”
He sighed and fell silent. Then, “I have to get to the physical plant to find the hole I went through, and I can’t just walk up there without a reason. Not to mention the problem of getting in, since the physical plant is restricted to anyone who doesn’t work there.”
“You could go as an Enforcer,” she suggested. “Parthos has a robe. With a bit of smudge on your forehead, you could pass for Gaias if no one looked too closely.”
A shiver crawled up his spine. It was the very idea he’ d entertained himself. And Parthos had apparently acted upon it. “When did he get the robe?”
“Today.”
This time the chill rushed over his whole body as he recalled the assurance he’ d felt in this morning’s Affirmation that if he sought to obey I Am’s command to leave the Enclave, he’ d be shown the way.
“He also has a couple of Elder’s robes,” Terra added with a smile. “I could go as Elder Sophia, and he as Elder Horus.”
“Absolutely not! Bad enough that I would masquerade as Gaias—I’m already slated to be removed. But if you or Parthos were caught—”
“How could it be any worse than what we’re already living?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said about that secret deep-level lab? Besides, I meant it when I said I don’t know if we could survive up there. It was hot, dry, empty. Where would we find food? Or water?”
“Neos says it’s up there. And I’m willing to take my chances. So is Parthos.”
“Okay. I understand that. But there’s no reason for you to rush. Let me go up and see what’s there. We might need to plan this more slowly, stockpile food and water. If we all go . . . everything will be thrown into turmoil and they’ll hunt us down.”
“If you disappear, the first people they’ll come to will be me and Parthos,” she said bluntly.
And he knew she was right.
A competition of acrobatics in and off the Tangle Grid started up then, and the crowd closed around them, blocking off their view of Gaias as it blocked off his view of them. Moments later Parthos squatted before them.
“Did you ask him?” he asked of Terra.
She nodded, then summarized their recent discussion, concluding with Zowan’s insistence on going alone. “He’s worried we’ll get ourselves into trouble.”
“Just being your friend has already done that,” Parthos said, affirming Terra’s earlier words. “And we’re happy about that, so don’t try to spare us from it. If you use the robe, I’ll be implicated. If you don’t, you won’t go anywhere. Besides, they’ll be looking for you, not us.” He smiled. “They would never expect us to be so audacious.”
Zowan frowned at him.
“How do you plan on getting into the physical plant once you get there?”
“I don’t know,” Zowan said. “Though Neos did say that as Father’s son, all he had to do was hit the lock plates and the doors would open. I don’t see why that wouldn’t happen for me, as well.”
“He could do that
before
he kidnapped you and took you to the surface,” Parthos pointed out. “Those plates have undoubtedly been reprogrammed by now, and while I suspect they’ll still work for you, they’ll also surely signal security so the Enforcers will know where to look. Since I’m betting Elder Sophia’s touch will also be accepted without the stigma, Terra should be the one to push the lock plates. For as you are one of Father’s sons, she is surely Sophia’s daughter.”
He had a point.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” said Parthos. “We leave tomorrow night during your party, right after Terra returns to crèche duty. Helios and Erebos will distract Gaias while you slip away. I’ll leave shortly after.”
They’d meet in the orchid room, where Parthos would already have hidden the robes. Once those were donned and a blot of grease dabbed on Zowan’s forehead to serve as the substitute oculus, they’d head out through the food storage areas and into the main corridor leading up from the commons. Surely “Elder Horus” and an Enforcer on a mission of great haste and importance were unlikely to be stopped and questioned.
Terra would meet them in a small court near the physical plant and access the lock plates to let them in.
When Zowan again sought to argue against her going, the other two refused to listen. “Elder Sophia is second only to Father,” Parthos pointed out, “while Horus is several ranks lower and doesn’t have the range of access she does. We need her.”
Zowan continued to frown from one to the other, deeply annoyed that all their ideas made so much sense and that, not only could he think of nothing to refute them, he lacked a reasonable alternative. But what if he couldn’t find the hole? What if he
had
hallucinated? What if they were caught? There were so many risks. . . .
Terra squeezed his hand and leaned against him. “There’s another compelling reason for me to go I haven’t told you about,” she said grimly. “Gaias. He’s put in a request for a union with me.”
A mix of horror and intense anger nearly choked him. She was too young. She was a crèche worker. She was unwilling. . . .
But Gaias was an Enforcer and one of Father’s sons, as well, and with Terra only a week away from turning eighteen, Zowan knew the Elders would not deny him his choice.
“I will
die
before I submit to that,” Terra hissed beside him.
“Heads up,” said Erebos, whom Zowan noticed now for the first time. He’ d taken up a lookout position at Parthos’s side, facing away from the conversation so he could watch the mall. “He’s on his way.”
“That’ll be Gaias,” muttered Parthos. “Are we good on this plan?”
Zowan heaved a breath of resignation. “Okay. We’ll do it your way.”
Nodding, Parthos stood and, taking a sudden strong interest in the contest at the Tangle Grid, slipped away into the crowd. At the same time, Terra released Zowan’s hand and slid off the bench, leaving him to sit alone, contemplating what he’d just set in motion. The destruction of his friends’ lives might not stop with Andros, he realized. For if Parthos and Terra had guessed the hole to the surface originated in the physical plant, surely the Enforcers had, as well. What if all this ended with him leading his best friends to their deaths?
But what if it leads you all to freedom?
The question brought with it the awareness that only minutes ago he’ d had no idea how he might get to the surface again, and now he had a plan, with the disguise and access he needed provided for him, along with two—no,
three
—co-conspirators. Could that possibly be the work of I Am? It certainly wouldn’t be hard for a being who had created the Earth and destroyed it with water to take care of such minor details in Zowan’s insignificant life, but would He?
Zowan wished he had more of the
Key Study
. When God had told Abram to leave, he’ d obeyed, but Zowan had no idea what had happened after that.
He stood up just as Gaias pushed between the wall of people surrounding Zowan and stopped before him. The Enforcer frowned, eyes flicking from the empty bench to the backs of the immediate bystanders, all of them focused on the Tangle Grid contest and none of Zowan’s closest friends among them. Frustrated, Gaias scowled darkly at him, then shoved him aside and continued through the crowd as if he had not been watching Zowan at all.
Cam’s cell phone rang early Saturday morning, rousting him out of a deep sleep and then out of bed as he groped across the bedside table trying to find the phone. From the way the light blazed around the cracks in the bedroom’s blinds, he judged it well past his normal hour for rising. But when he’d fallen into bed around 3:00 last night, he’ d planned to sleep in. For the second Saturday in a row.
Finding the phone, he answered with a groggy hello. Immediately the person on the other end apologized for a wrong number and hung up. By then awake enough to remember the calls he’ d made last night, Cam waited, and after a moment an encrypted message appeared on the screen. He pressed the key to decrypt and read:
“Frog prnts & bld
smpl = PS. EMP fryd Jp.”
As soon as he’ d read the words, the message vanished, erased by the BlackBerry’s automatic security function. Even so he stood there, staring down at it, struggling to get his sleep-fogged brain around what he’d just read: An electromagnetic pulse had fried the Jeep’s electrical system, and the prints off the plastic frog and the blood sample were . . . Parker Swain’s? But Cam hadn’t taken a blood sample from Swain, only whatever saliva was on the fork he’ d pilfered.
Finally he realized that the prints and DNA profile Rudy’s lab had gotten off that fork matched the prints off the frog on the one hand, and the blood on Lacey McHenry’s lab coat on the other.
Which meant either Director Swain was indeed some kind of modern-day Jekyll and Hyde or . . . Cam drew a deep breath as the pieces fell into place.
Frogeater wasn’t Swain’s son; he was his
clone
. As incredible as that was, it was the only explanation that answered all the questions, particularly in light of the conversation he’ d overheard last night in the Golden Saguaro viewing gallery. Somehow Swain had succeeded in producing a human clone of himself that had survived to adulthood. More than that, he’d succeeded in subsequently introducing genetic modifications into that clone without immediate catastrophic malfunction. Modifications which had resulted in “phenomenal phenotypical transformation” and given him terrifying abilities. Like his extraordinary strength and speed. Like the wielding of the electromagnetic pulse that had fried Cam’s Jeep.
Light suddenly flared at the edges of Cam’s vision, and he gasped as the flashback swept him back into the depths of the Hindu Kush. With his three remaining teammates on his heels, he raced into the tomb’s vast outer chamber, where the hundred mighty warriors glared down from their seventy-foot-tall panels—clubs, swords, spears, and stylized bazookas raised to annihilate all intruders.
A roar of fury erupted from the inner chamber Cam and his fellows had just exited. The ground shuddered as static crackled in his headset and everything went dark—the gallery’s twelve standing lamps and the men’s head lamps alike. Acutely aware of the approaching roars from behind, Cam pulled a handheld flare from one of his side pockets and lit it.