With nothing else to do, Evelyn followed him.
Once up, in the shadow of the door of the New York Public Library, Tadhg raised his fist, put his wristwatch to his face and said:
“Dawit. We are here.”
Evelyn moved from side to side, restless. She was afraid that the creatures had reached them, and feared, moreover, that everything was a hoax to lead her into a trap. However, Tadhg was right: she saw with her own eyes the creature that entered the bathroom, and also remembered the precise moment when she shot him; an explosion and the being had been petrified.
Tadhg gave her a disdainful look.
The doors opened, just a crack. And they entered.
Inside was a young man with dark skin, tall, and as muscular as Tadhg. It was also attractive. His brown eyes looked up and down with strange fascination as they stopped in the main room of the library, a large room full of table, shelves, a vaulted ceiling, beautiful hanging lamps and, of course, books. There the light predominated, vast and golden, and also a sense of emptiness around it; silence prevailed. With a little warmth in her chest, she lowered her tooth from her sweater.
“It's you,” Dawit murmured. His full lips showed an unthinking smile, as if he could barely contain himself with intense emotion; the excitement of finally knowing her?
“She's Evelyn, Dawit,” Tadhg introduced her, although she had the impression that the other stranger already knew who she was. “Evelyn He is Dawit, agent of the future, like me.”
He held out his hand, slowly, and Evelyn, hesitating, pulled his hand closer. The greeting was quick, although Dawit's fascination stared at it lasted all the time it took them to cross the room into the shadows. Tadhg stuck an elbow in his ribs to his partner, Eve supposed, so he could look away from her. She, on the other hand, knew that there were many things, besides the obvious ones, that Tadhg and his sister had avoided telling her. She followed them, almost blindly, through the corridors of the library. She thought about what Tadhg had told her, which she was important for the future, and wondered why.
“The professor is eager to meet you,” Dawit commented in passing. “We have waited for this moment for years.”
“Years?”
“Yes. We arrived two years ago.”
“I did not know.” She glanced sideways at Tadhg and saw that he was just taking his. “Does the professor also come from the future?” asked.
"He’s the inventor of the machine that brought us to the past," Tadhg explained in an arcane tone; he walked straight and stooped, almost like a military march. “At least he invented the first models that gave rise to the rest. Thanks to him we can communicate from this time with the future through a temporary intercom machine. The professor calls it Sally.”
“Ah.”
She was impressed, she had to admit it.
“There's Juno, too,” Dawit went on. “And Dr. Claire, and the shelters...”
“Dawit! Shut your mouth,” Tadhg snapped.
Dawit fell silent on the spot, looked at Evelyn, smiling, and shrugged. Evelyn could barely contain a giggle.
They climbed a spiral staircase to a second floor. There they stopped before a huge bookshelf that covered three quarters of the wall. Tadhg and Dawit shared a look; then both observed her.
“Are you ready?” Tadhg asked.
Eve nodded.
Tadhg brought the wristwatch back to his lips and said a key phrase of three words. Evelyn was absorbed when the immense shelf divided into two equal sectors and opened to the sides, revealing a white box, very illuminated, like an elevator; she could not help the strange feeling that was beating on her chest: she smiled like a child.
The strange feeling was inevitable. She smiled and sighed, almost at the same time. A part of her felt like a girl entering an amusement park, the world and colored lights spinning around her.
Tadhg turned to her and pointed to the elevator.
"Welcome to the Future Agency," he said.
Without further ado, they entered. The elevator doors closed and her viewpoint of the library was blocked. Evelyn was trying her best to appease her immense emotion. Although there she was, there was another part of her that refused to believe that all this was true. That everything was a dream and that soon she would wake up.
During the descent, none said a single word. Not even Dawit, who kept throwing excited glances at him, as if he was more excited than Eve for her arrival than anyone else. Tadhg, however, was serious and looking straight ahead, tall and stocky; his blue eyes gave an unshakable sight. A part of her tried to decipher what she found familiar in him, but failed in every attempt.
Then the doors opened.
A woman with a white doctor's coat waited for them in a small white hall.
“At last I have the pleasure of meeting you, Fu...,” the woman began.
Tadhg cleared his throat.
“Evelyn,” she corrected herself. “As you know, we've waited for you for a couple of years. My name is Claire Kerr.”
“Claire is Professor Kerr's wife,” Tadhg explained seriously. “She takes care of the shelters and of us, the agents.”
“Where is the professor?” Dawit asked.
“In the lab, honey.” Claire sighed and looked back at Eve. “Are you hungry?
She shook her head.
“You feel good?”
Quiet, she nodded.
“Wow.” The doctor raised her eyebrows and gave the other two a funny look. “What did the pyxis do? Did they rip out her tongue?”
“One of them tried to kill her, of course,” said Tadhg. “But it backfired.”
“What do you mean?”
“She finished with him first.”
And everyone looked at her.
“I just fired,” Evelyn added quietly.
Silence.
“Not many would do what you did, darling,” Claire said in a sweet, motherly tone that moved her. “Most would stay frozen in your place. Also, your performance does not take us by surprise. We know you're brave and furious.” She emphasized the last word.
Evelyn frowned slightly.
More complicit looks between the doctor and the agents. Then they turned to Eve.
Dawit smiled.
"You'll know soon,” he said. “Now,” he added as he put his arm around Evelyn's shoulders and led her freely through the white hallway, “I'll show you the Agency's facilities.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Agency's facilities were in a secret subsoil under the New York Public Library, formerly intended —as Dawit was explaining— to be a restricted area for important and top-secret literary relics. After the arrival of the Agents of the Future, the same president of the nation had destined that the place be remodeled and those relics become part of the private collection of the White House.
That last detail impressed Evelyn; although, if she thought it through, of course he knew it.
“After all, he is the president,” she said after finishing her mental reflections.
The corridors, their walls and floors, were white and as bright as a revamped version of the rooms of Heaven. You could breathe a fresh and tenuous metallic air despite being a place twenty meters below ground—according to Dawit's own words. Of course, the corridors were narrow and very straight, and it was almost impossible for three people to cross them in the same line. So Dawit and Evelyn preceded the march, and Dr. Claire and Tadhg, commenting so softly that Eve could not hear them, they closed it. The tour was short.
The facilities were only distributed on two floors. At that time they only walked down the Upper floor, the largest and most important, because there was the laboratory of Professor Kerr, the small clinic that Claire chaired and the training room, where the agents were preparing to fight against the pyxis. The Inferior floor —as Agent Dawit indicated— contained the rooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen and the dining room.
All spaces were very straight, very white, very bright and v
ery quiet. Even after the belligerent events that occurred during her extraction, Evelyn managed to calm herself during the tour of the Upper floor.
“What do you mean by extraction?” She asked Dawit after the mention of that term.
“Well, Evelyn,” he said. “The extraction was what Tadhg did by bringing you here, healthy and safe. That is what the agents of the future do, protect the people who will be important in the future and who are in danger in their own time. To those people, once safe with us, we call them protected.” He smiled. “You will already know them all.”
“How many shelters do they have?”
“Until now, three.”
“Four with you.” Tadhg was looking at her with hard eyes when he turned to face him. “Of course, we plan to train you as one of us: an agent of the future.”
“Why?” She said.
Nobody answered.
The silence became tense and Evelyn snorted angrily.
“Do not bother, Evelyn,” Claire comforted her. “In time you will know everything.”
Eve looked at her meekly.
“Does it also come from the future?”
“Do not.” The woman stroked her cheek lightly with the back of her hand and looked at her as a mother would. “Michael and I are from this Time. We were lucky to be chosen by the agents to be part of their group; it’s the least we can do. I heal their wounds.” She looked at Tadhg and raised an eyebrow. “By the way, I have to treat you that cut. Your eyebrow bleeds.”
Eve argued that with Michael she was referring to Professor Kerr. She decided not to ask any more questions and trust that woman.
“When will I meet the professor?” She asked.
"Now," she heard Dawit say, as cheerful as at first. “The Professor is in his laboratory. There.” And he pointed to the double door in front of them.” He stepped forward, opened it and gave Evelyn a theatrical signal to be the first to enter.
The laboratory was large and low-ceilinged, very bright like the rest of the rooms. There were metal shelves here and there, sectors filled with shady devices, machines that moved robotically as in a modern factory, and multicolored lights that twinkled or stayed static. There the air was colder, though not as cold as in the rest of the rooms.
Tadhg and Evelyn found the professor seated in a rotating chair, before an extensive desk, and concentrated in a too complicated plane so that she could understand it with a first and only glance. He was not alone. There was a girl standing at his side, with a meditative look on the plane; she was the first to see them.
"They're here," she said with special emphasis on here, as if she did not quite believe it.
Professor Kerr rotated the chair. For a moment she saw that his face lit up at the sight of her.
“You're here,” he murmured, and Evelyn wondered why they all said the same thing in that tone. “What manners mine? Juno, bring me the crutches.”
Then Evelyn noticed the lower part of the professor's waist: his right leg was missing to the knee. He swallowed hard and tried not to pay much attention to it. He exchanged a glance with Tadhg, who remained unmoved, while the young woman brought the metal crutches to the professor.
Once on his feet, Kerr was as tall as Tadhg. Maybe he was about fifty years old; he combed gray hair, although not with preparation, his hair was abundant and still ashen. He wore a pair of thin glasses that hid light blue eyes. His features were aquiline, straight and severe, but the broad smile broke everything that was inflexible in him. He approached Eve, laboriously, in the mood to give her a hug, and she pulled away, more by instinct than by fear.
Kerr held back and smiled again.
“You have done a good job, boy!” He said to Tadhg with a smile. You have brought her healthy with us.
“Did you doubt me, professor?” Said Tadhg with an indulgent voice and a sly smile.
“No, boy; of course not.” He came up to him and patted him on the back like a friend... like a son. Maybe that was it, Evelyn thought; if Tadhg came from the future, it could be Kerr his father or his grandfather, although the eyes were different blue. “You and the rest have done their last three extractions with great efficiency.”
“This time it was not like that,” Tadhg said. “One of them almost killed Evelyn, and the rest left the house a mess. Although in that I also contributed.” He grinned sideways.
Eve glared at him.
The professor turned his attention to her.
"Maybe they did not tell you, Evelyn," he said. “But you are very important to us... and to the future. A year ago we discovered that the pyxis had found a way to communicate with the past; we do not know exactly how. What we do know is that information has been transmitted; information that has allowed them to kill valuable people in the past to tip the balance in their favor in the future.”
“And what do I have to do with this?” Eve asked.
Kerr did not disappoint her like the others.
“You, Evelyn White,” he said, and his name in that man's voice sounded as if he were glorified, “You are the founder of the Future Agency.”
Evelyn's eyes widened.
“Do I?”
“Yes.” Kerr nodded several times. “I cannot give you details, because, given the circumstances, we would alter the course of history. But you must know. You must know that the Pyxis know that you are their main threat and that therefore they must eliminate you in the past so that there is no future without you, without hope, without fury. Now you understand?”
She nodded, confused, but nodded.
“We were sent here with the mission to stop the three events that preceded the Great Catastrophe,” Juno interjected. “But, as the professor said, a year ago we learned about the new intentions of the pyxis, and suddenly our mission changed. Now our mission is to safeguard the lives of those who are... who will be important for the survival of humanity in the face of this threat?”
The girl straightened up, having been reclined against the large desk and with her arms folded across her chest. She stepped forward towards them. Her hair was black as coal, and she had short shoulders. It was not very high —even Evelyn was more than she was—. Her skin was tanned and with clear Latin features in the shape of her eyes and the curve of her upper lip. She was beautiful, and slender, like an atypical Brazilian model.
She moved forward to Eve and extended his hand.
"By the way, my name is Juno," she introduced herself, and Evelyn shook her hand, not saying her name, for she was sure she already knew it. Juno cocked her head from side to side. “Where is the doctor Claire? And Dawit?”
“Claire said Jim had a cold and had to give him his medicine," Tadhg said. “Dawit has gone with her. Jim just trusts Dawit and you, of course.”
“I guess Evelyn only trusts you,” Juno said with a sour laugh. “Well, you were her savior.”
Juno looked at Evelyn and raised an eyebrow.
Tadhg gave a dry laugh, turned and left the room, firm as a soldier.
“Oh, come on, Tadhg!” Juno, laughing, went after him. ”Why not? You saved her.”
Then, in the laboratory, there was only Professor Kerr, Evelyn and a cold and abysmal silence.
“So you invented the machine that brought you here?” She began.
Kerr was staring at her.
“So is.” He tried to clear up. “Well, at least one day I will. So far I have managed to create a temporary sonic sling that only receives messages from the future and transcribes them for us, that way we know who is going to attack the Pyxis before it happens.”
“Ah,” she said with evident astonishment.
Kerr sighed, still smiling, and walked past Evelyn with his one leg and the pair of crutches under his arms.
“Come, Evelyn,” he called as he approached the double door and left. “I will show you your room and, in addition, I will tell you some things that maybe you should know.”
She followed him without a word. He went thr
ough the door and reappeared, next to that crippled man, in the straight and bright corridors of the Agency. Evelyn's heart was pounding. She wanted to know urgently what Professor Kerr had to say, because there was still a lot of mystery surrounding her extraction.
"I know you're very confused and afraid, girl," the professor commented. “I would be in your place too. In the next few days your life will change forever, you will be trained to become the first agent of the future of this era.”
“You ...” she began to say. “You said that…”
“Yes. I've been a little hasty telling you that detail, but it's true.”
Eve looked at him intently.
“How?” She said.
“In a couple of years you'll have the chance to change the world,” Kerr explained. “You will be the salvation. The pyxis are close to taking the first step to the Great Catastrophe that threatens, in the future, to end the human race. I wish I could tell you more, Evelyn, which would ease your grief a little.”
She did not know what else to say, and apparently, the professor either. They followed the path in silence towards the Inferior floor, where the rooms and the rest of the rooms that had not yet met. There were no stairs to descend, but a smooth, spiral-shaped slope, like a spiral staircase without steps. As they passed the smooth staircase, she thought of a question that could break the silence.
“Why do they call me Fury?” She said.
The professor stopped short and looked at her undaunted.
“It's a tradition of the agents,” he explained. “Each one has a nickname inspired by their personalities or derived from their real names. Tadhg is not the real name of Tadhg; just as Juno, Dawit and Rhys were not born with those names.” He shrugged, a gesture that was funny to Eve. “I do not know what they were thinking when they put those names, or what was thinking who put them!”
“Why Fury?” She insisted.
“I do not know.” Kerr shrugged again. “Maybe your personality.” He continued on his way before she could reply, and, as he did, he added, “I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little longer to find out for yourself.”
“Evelyn!”
The voice came from behind.
Days of Fury (Future Men Series Book 1) Page 4