“Absolutely, commander,” Esme said. She quickly wrapped the donut in a clean sheet of cloth in such a way that Claudia could still bite one end. When Claudia reached to take the offered cruller, Esme caught her hands in the exchange. She leaned in close to whisper across the space to Claudia. “Please, forgive me for assuming you were an Irradiate. Feel free to come by any time.”
Claudia had a biting comment rise in her throat, but she tamped it down. As much as it irritated her that Esme would only fawn over her after learning whose daughter she was, the pragmatic part of Claudia’s mind refused to condemn her for adhering to societal norms of a city that Claudia didn’t truly know yet. She resolved to get to know Esme better before she could know if she was worth knowing—especially if the process involved eating donuts in the cheerful little shop.
“You’ll be seeing a lot of me,” Claudia said, opting for the friendlier, almost flirty comment instead.
This seemed to please Esme immensely. As Claudia and her father walked from the shop, she glanced back over her shoulder to see if she could catch Esme in a more honest moment of watching them. To her surprise, the little donut shop owner actually seemed to have been looking at the backs of Claudia’s legs.
Chapter 13:
What Lies Beneath.
The elevator down to the Keeper’s sanctuary wasn’t the elevator next to the donut shop as Claudia suspected. It would have satisfied an Occam’s razor sort of suspicion that her father actually just lucked across her on the way to somewhere nearby. The truth was far more flattering and in line with what Claudia actually wanted to believe; her father knew her and still wasn’t done searching for her.
She ate her cruller as they walked, finding it was everything she’d hoped it would be. Esme was as talented as her father said she was, although Claudia began to wonder where she might have come by flour and milk to make such a treat, or the far more exotic items like sugar and coffee.
The elevator they were seeking was across the Chinican market from the donut shop, down a few streets, and guarded by little more than the unassuming façade of an orange mining basket dangling from a heavy winch. They rode down the old mining elevator into the rock of the earth. The lone light in the cage above them lit the damp stone walls of their chamber as it slowly crept by. Claudia and her father stood on opposite sides of the elevator, facing and mirroring each other in their casually leaned postures.
“Fathers make obvious mistakes,” her father finally spoke. The deep rumble of his voice carried above the squeak and squeal of the elevator’s descent. “Most fathers mistakenly chase after their daughter’s love, ignoring the need for respect. Likewise, fathers will expect their sons to be perfect extensions of them, continuing work and dreams left incomplete by the father. The lucky few of us will grow up with our children to realize these are both foolish dreams. Children will become the people they are meant to be regardless of a father’s wishes.”
Claudia knew this to be true from watching Olivia. Her father wanted nothing more than her love and had lost her respect in the process. From what Danny had told her during their brief, yet eventful relationship, his father expected to raise an accountant only to end up with a surfer. Danny had laughed at the thought; his father was petrified of the ocean and Danny was terrible with numbers. Claudia wasn’t sure what her father had done so right that so many other fathers failed at. She loved her father, respected him above anyone, and wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps.
“You managed to avoid those obvious mistakes,” Claudia said.
“This is true, but in doing so I made others.” He tapped his thick index finger against the side of his nose in the classic pose of thinking he always adopted when he didn’t wish to give words to his thoughts right away. Claudia wondered if she’d unconsciously picked up that from her father as well. “I left you to your independence, did not protect you as well as I might have, and thus made you someone very similar to myself.”
“I’m proud of who I am—prouder still that you think I am like you.”
“Yes, I know you are, and a foolish father might be proud of this too,” her father said. “You are not supposed to continue my work though. I am meant to complete my work, leave the world a better place for you so you might have your own work. I failed in this, but I have been given another chance.”
“What do you mean?” Claudia didn’t like the look in her father’s eyes, the distant quality of a man who had stared too long at the ocean and lost his place on the shore.
“I have to create for you a world where survival isn’t a daily concern, and I know how…” the rest of his words were cut off by the elevator’s slow stop. Her father pulled himself from his leaned position against the railing and opened the gate for her.
They exited the basket into a hallway that was blacker than anything Claudia had ever known. Outside the halo of the elevator’s light, the cavern stretched into complete darkness. They were deep in the earth after a long elevator ride that started well below the surface already—for the first time, she felt that depth.
“Touch your hand to the wall and follow it,” her father said. “I am behind you.”
She touched her right hand to the stone of the wall as she was instructed and walked carefully with her other hand outstretched in front of her. At first, she took mincing, cautious steps, but as nothing about the passage seemed to change, she gained the confidence to walk more boldly. After a few twists and turns, a faint, golden light began to illuminate the passage and the sound of great machinery reverberated through the stone. Claudia’s hand left the wall as they continued on toward the light.
The passage was chilly, not necessarily cold, but definitely of a brisker temperature than the marketplace. As they neared the source of the light and sound, the passage became almost uncomfortably warm.
The passage opened up into an underground cavern that Claudia imagined would have taken millennia to construct. She’d seen the Grand Canyon earlier in her travels and now she was seeing the subterranean Grand Canyon. The passage they’d used opened somewhere in the middle with equal space above and below. The roof of the cavern above appeared to be lined with strange metal panels while the bottom of the canyon, where the river would run was actually an open thermal vent of lava. Amid the many walkways crisscrossing the canyon, men and women walked amidst numerous Transcended robots.
“Startling the first time you see it, eh?” her father leaned over to ask her. As they walked deeper into the lair of the Keepers, her father directed her to points of interest. “In their digging, they discovered a fault line and opened it to get at the geothermal power source. They bring in sea water from the pipes you see along the walls and boil it with the heat from the lava. As far as I know, it powers everything in the city. We used to use the nuclear reactors from the ships for power, but they phased those out entirely and now they remain functional only for emergencies.”
“How could they build all of this in a little less than seven years?” Claudia asked.
“The Transcended can build incredible things in no time at all,” her father said. “Imagine a world where society was wiped clean and anyone who wanted to remake the world in new and interesting ways need only convince others to follow them. Apparently, very few people liked society as it was. The Ravens you told me of are just one incarnation of that longing for the world to be different than it was—the Keepers are another.”
The people they passed paid them about as much attention as the Transcended, which was to say, absolutely none at all. Claudia guessed them to be the Keepers although they didn’t look like she expected. Many were older, but nearly every age range was represented in some number. The clothing worn by the various Keepers was as eclectic and strange as everything else in the cavern. Suits, lab coats, robes, and more comfortable clothes mixed in an endless array of uniforms that spoke of a society that put no importance on appearances and at the same time astounding importance on appearance judging from the suits and elaborate r
obes.
“There were no guards anywhere,” Claudia said. “Are people simply allowed to come down here as they wish?”
“They can,” her father said. “Nobody is denied access to knowledge of the Keepers. Most do not come down here though. I think the entire thing frightens most people.”
Claudia could understand that. Open rivers of lava and giant robots walking on stone pathways was pretty damn scary. Add to that the fact that they appeared to be nearly a mile below the surface of the earth and she could see why visitors were rare. If she weren’t in the company of her father, she likely would have turned around and gone right back up after a single glance.
“Professor Kingston!” her father shouted to a man walking amidst a flock of students.
The entire scene was bizarre. There was a man dressed as a college professor walking amid a group of younger men and women who were dressed like students, talking with them as though he were passing between school buildings rather than walking amid giant robots on a ledge above a fault line filled with lava. The professor took his leave of his students. The gathering of a dozen or so dispersed without their center.
“Commander Marceau,” Professor Kingston said, “how good of you to come see me.”
The two men met in the middle with a warm handshake and smiles on both sides. Olivia may not have respected her father, but it was clear Claudia’s father did. More than that, if Claudia was still any judge of her father’s behaviors, her father liked Professor Kingston.
“Professor, this is my daughter Claudia,” her father said, guiding the conversation toward where Claudia stood.
The professor was smaller than her father in most ways, being of slighter build and shorter stature. He wore his receding, gray hair short and swept back. His face, which mirrored Olivia’s in many ways, was clean shaven and pleasant. The man dressed in a sweater vest, an oxford button up shirt, and a bowtie, which was precisely what Claudia always imagined to be a professor’s standard uniform, although her only point of reference was television shows and movies from before the invasion.
“It is a pleasure to meet you at last,” Professor Kingston said, offering his hand to Claudia. “My daughter and your father have told me so much about you, I feel like I know you already.”
Claudia shook his hand, which was soft, warm, and immaculately tended. “All complimentary things, I hope.”
“Indeed, and Dr. Gatling has even been down a few times to speak with me about your condition. He is the only surface Keeper you’re likely to meet. If you’d like to get a rise out of the old doctor, I encourage you to call him the Wizard of the Tower.” Professor Kingston and Commander Marceau laughed in unison at this. They walked together toward some goal known only to the two men. Claudia fell in a step behind them as they walked and talked ahead of her. Apparently, her part in the meeting was over and now she was meant to observe the action from her position down stage.
“There are grumblings out of Hastings’ old command structure,” her father said.
“No doubt upset at the sudden dispersal of power,” Kingston replied.
“They’ll get over it, or they won’t,” her father said. “We have more than their aspirations to think about.”
“Olivia said she wishes you would worry more about their grumblings.”
“Olivia worries enough for all of us.”
“True enough,” Kingston said. “On that topic, I would ask that you find a way to help her back into some work. She’s chaffing under the discharge Hastings gave her. Nothing so grand as direct combat, but perhaps security on the Balclutha.”
“Consider it done.”
“While I’m asking favors, I might impose a couple more upon you.”
Claudia recognized something strange passing between the two men. She wished Veronica was there to see and explain what was going on. All she could tell was that Kingston was building toward asking for something long denied to him by Hastings.
“What might those impositions be?” her father asked.
“I would like to sit down with your daughter and record what information of the outside world she would be willing to share with me,” Kingston said.
“I’d like to do that myself. Why don’t we make a week of it up in the tower?”
“Certainly,” Kingston said. “Finally, I know you are planning on anti-incursion assaults on the Slark squads planting the lasher trees. While I can’t condone the resumption of conflict, I would ask if a Slark prisoner of war could be supplied for our research that you might find your way to deliver one.”
That was the one Hastings had denied; Claudia could see the tension jump to attention in her father’s shoulders to verify this. She also knew from her time with the Ravens that taking of Slark prisoners was a giant waste of time. Capturing them alive was difficult as many committed suicide before it was possible, but even if one could be caught, they were nearly impossible to communicate with. The Raven scientists spent years trying to crack the language barrier with limited success. Although, Claudia guessed the Keepers might have an easier time of things if her surroundings were any indication of what they could accomplish.
“I will not risk the lives of any of my soldiers in such a pursuit, but if an opportunity should fall in our laps, I will instruct my men to take one of the lizards prisoner rather than execute it.”
“That is all I can ask.”
They parted ways amicably. Immediately after Professor Kingston walked away from them, the flock of students returned to gather around him. Their stroll ended near another passage leading to an elevator, which Claudia guessed was entirely planned by Kingston.
“Hastings didn’t want to take the Slark captive,” Claudia said once she and her father were riding up an elevator toward the surface again.
“He did not.”
“Because he didn’t want any chance of a peace being brokered with the aliens,” Claudia surmised.
“Precisely.”
“There were people among the Ravens who thought that would be possible too,” Claudia said.
“What conclusion did they reach?” her father asked.
“As far as I know, we gave up on trying to talk to the lizards,” Claudia said. “Back then, we didn’t think there was anyone on their side worth talking to anymore. I think that’s changed though.”
“Because of what you saw in Carson City?”
Claudia nodded. She’d told her father the whole story about how she’d come to be in the City of Broken Bridges, including the assassination work she’d done in Carson City. He hadn’t said much at the time beyond expressing praise for a job well done. Either his stance on the topic was changing or at the very least evolving.
“I believe I want to find one of these gators,” her father said. “We can see then what the Keepers might make them say.”
Claudia didn’t know Hastings or what kind of leader he might have been. She knew what her father was like though and suspected the Slark had never faced an enemy like him. When she was little, she used to watch him play chess in the park. He never attacked the same way twice, never defended in a structured way, and confounded opponents with maneuvers that looked like chaos only to discover they were all part of a bizarrely grand plan. She had no doubt the fall of society and the years of searching for her had made him stranger, maybe even a little unstable, which she guessed would alter his already eccentric plans in some truly unpredictable ways. Claudia came to the conclusion that the war with the Slark was about to get very interesting.
Chapter 14:
A Question of Perception.
Olivia received her posting on the Balclutha as promised. The Balclutha was a proper three-mast, square-rigged, 256 foot windjammer built in Scotland in 1886. The ship sailed north along the coast to set up lumber camps or drop off foragers to collect livestock and survivors should they find any. As the northern California and Oregon coasts were cleared of survivors and livestock, the primary focus of the ship was to collect the cut timber and exchange labo
rers from the camps. Refitting the museum vessel hadn’t taken much effort and as one of its original purposes was hauling lumber, putting it to an old task seemed only natural for the black, red, and white square rigged vessel. The long term security details assigned to the various lumber camps required more physical capabilities than Olivia could boast and so she was relegated to the ship’s touring squad, returning to port after every tour.
The first sojourn on their most recent voyage was Crescent City and the redwood lumber camp there. The bay was dredged deep enough for the Balclutha and the observation dock on the other side of the lighthouse peninsula had been repurposed to accommodate the mighty ship. Late morning rain fell heavy on the deck and insistent winds snapped the sails before they could be trimmed. Olivia stood tall near the prow of the ship, getting the first view of the city and the storm rolling toward it out of the north as they rounded the mountains guarding the city to the south. Even in the dwindling days of autumn, the northern California coast was lush and green.
Olivia’s security detail was comprised of four former San Francisco police officers and four former enlisted men from the Royal Navy’s shipwrecked battle group. It was actually rather fortuitous that Olivia returned to active duty when she did as the officer she was replacing had taken ill with appendicitis at the apex of a tour near the mouth of the Columbia River and died before the Balclutha could return him to the City of Broken Bridges for surgery.
Olivia rallied her men with a sharp whistle that followed the ringing bell to assemble the unloading crew. Her eight man squad fell in to a perfect line at full attention along the railing. “Quick and quiet work of it, gentlemen,” Olivia told them as she walked in front of the line on her whirring and ticking leg. “Set up shop in the old roundabout parking lot with two by two watches.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” the men said in unison.
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