by Nick Cook
‘It’s not working, Jack!’
‘But it doesn’t make sense to lure someone with the right key into a death trap.’
The water surged again, lifting us further towards the ceiling decorated with carved star constellations.
Why wasn’t the bloody Empyrean Key working?
My gaze snapped back to the tuning fork. Of course, I couldn’t bloody hear it over the deafening roar of water. We were going to die because I couldn’t hear the vibration of a tuning fork… Wait, vibration! That was all sounds waves were, so…
I struck the tuning fork again, but this time I pressed its handle against the top of my jawbone just beneath my ear. A deep note filled my eardrum, humming through me, and the icons blinked back into existence round the orb, plus a new mouth-shaped icon that blinked rapidly.
I spun the Empyrean Key and selected the icon, managing to grab a last lungful of air just as the water surged up over our heads. The mouth icon turned green and I flicked my wrist forward underwater.
We were buffeted by currents from every side, the world a confusion of swirling bubbles and muted howling. The only constants in the chaos were Jack’s arms still clasped round me and the stone orb held tight in my hand.
Then I heard a new sound – a rumbling noise somewhere ahead of us. A vortex of bubbles reached out and grabbed hold of us, pulling us towards the far side of the chamber. I caught a glimpse of the top of the temple skimming past, the head of the Supay statue rushing towards us. Through the swirling haze I could make out his mouth had pivoted open to reveal a black hole behind. The current strengthened, pummelling our bodies as the dark cavern of nothingness rushed towards us. The maelstrom sucked us into the mouth and we sped away along a dark underwater tunnel.
My chest burned as my lungs used the last of the oxygen. Unknown things crashed into me, but still Jack and I hung on to each other, two souls fighting for life.
A pinpoint of light quickly grew brighter and wider. In an explosion of water, we were swept out into daylight. Still clinging to each other, we dropped at least fifty metres into a pool of foaming water, hitting the surface hard. The impact knocked the air out of me as we slid beneath the water. But our momentum was killed rapidly. We kicked upwards together desperately and burst through the surface in a shock of air and sky.
I gulped in fresh oxygen as I began to make out where we were. Behind us the waterfall that had carried us into the pool was tumbling from a cave mouth in the side of the mountain.
Together we swam for the shore and crawled up on to the embankment into the shadow of the surrounding jungle. Every part of my body felt as if it had been pummelled. We both slumped on to our backs, staring upwards, me still miraculously clutching the Empyrean Key and the tuning fork to my chest.
Then, of all things, Jack started to laugh, tears filling his eyes. He whooped and pulled me into a tight hug.
A second later, he pulled away, grinning. ‘We’re fucking alive, Lauren!’
I was half laughing, half crying, as we grabbed each other in another hug. I felt the beat of his heart against my chest and I felt a surge of love for this man. Instinctively, I turned my face towards his, my lips almost brushing his neck. But then he pulled away and it felt as if a part of me was missing.
A bubble of sadness rose through my body as I gave him a forced smile. His eyes skated away from mine and I sighed. Whatever it was we had between us, we were so not on the same page.
Chapter Fourteen
We’d barely spoken as we headed deeper into the jungle, not wanting to alert any eyes on the mountain to our escape. Confusion about what had just happened with Jack clouded my mind. I’d felt the guy soften into me, our edges merging, and the next he was pulling away like I was an ancient warty grandmother who’d just tried to kiss him. Thankfully, I had other things to focus on, and tried to ignore the crippling embarrassment.
Despite both being soaked through, we were drying quickly in heat of the day, thanks to our high-tech wicking clothing. Fortunately, the rest of our belongings had remained intact and dry inside our rucksacks, our Sky Wires as sturdy as ever. I’d already tried contacting Mike on both the walkie-talkie and the phone, but so far he wasn’t picking up. I was trying not to automatically jump to the worst conclusion: that he’d been captured.
Amazingly, our disguises were still in place too, although Jack’s ponytail now resembled the tail of a drowned cat and I really needed a brush to drag through my blonde locks.
My gaze wandered back to the side of the mountain, just visible through the thick trees. The waterfall that had spat us out of the cave mouth was now just a small tumbling stream.
‘I guess that means the chamber has emptied itself of water,’ I said, nodding at it.
Jack glanced at me for the first time since the almost-kiss, his eyes meeting mine. ‘Which means Fischer and Villca won’t have too much trouble getting in there. And by the time anybody else outside their inner circle realises what’s going on, it will be too late to stop her spiriting all that gold away.’
‘You think?’ I gestured towards Jack’s Sky Wire phone clipped on his belt. ‘Didn’t you take lots of photos? Wouldn’t it be a shame if somehow they got out into the public domain…’
Jack slowly smiled. ‘Wouldn’t it just? Then all that gold could be claimed by the Peruvian state rather than lining the pockets of Fischer and Villca.’
‘Exactly. We can hand the photos over to Ricardo when we get back to town. I’m sure he can make good use of them.’
‘But what about Cristina? We have to help her somehow,’ Jack said.
‘Ricardo has access to that security-camera footage directly linking Villca to Cristina’s abduction. Combine that with the photos of his involvement in setting the charges that blew up the Solar Observatory and I suspect he’ll end up rotting in a Peruvian jail for the rest of his life.’
‘That bastard deserves everything that’s coming for him,’ Jack replied. ‘So what do we do about locating the micro mind? I’m worried it might still be hidden in that chamber somewhere. I doubt we’ll be able to gain access again, as at least in the short term it will be swarming with Villca’s and Fischer’s people. As much as I hate to admit it, we may have reached the point of handing this mission over to Tom and his security team.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m as certain as I can be now that it’s not at Machu Picchu. My money is on Choquequirao. Why else would they have built that model of the city inside and gone to the trouble of booby-trapping it?’
‘That does make sense—’
Jack’s words were cut off by animal cries erupting all around us as hundreds of birds took flight. A moment later a tremor shuddered though the ground. It was a lot less powerful than the last one, but still strong enough to whip the tree about. Then a deep tone vibrated from the mountain and my whole body buzzed in sympathy, as if I were a tuning fork.
‘Another monowave quake?’ Jack asked, staring at me.
But I ignored him because light was bursting over the Empyrean Key in my hand. However, rather than the usual menu items appearing, it showed just a circle round the stone orb in a horizontal plane. An arrow in its circumference pointed to the left of us and I followed it, seeing a distant mountain range. As the ground continued to shake, I reorientated my body towards the mountains. The arrow remained pointing straight towards them, like a compass needle locked on to magnetic north.
Jack peered at the Empyrean Key and then me. ‘Is that sound from the mountain triggering your synaesthesia?’
I nodded. ‘I’m seeing this arrow pointing towards that mountain range in the distance.’
The quake started to subside and the deep humming from the mountain faded. The arrow began to flicker round the orb.
Jack unclipped his Sky Wire and pulled up the map function. A green dot indicated our position on the northern slopes of Machu Picchu. He zoomed the map out to show a large section of the surrounding area and typed ‘Choquequirao’ into the search bar. A red marker a
ppeared to the west of us. He zoomed in on that until we could see a satellite view of another Inca temple on a mountaintop.
‘Is that the direction your marker is pointing to?’ Jack asked.
I nodded as my heart expanded with fresh hope. The sound from the mountain faded away to silence and the icons vanished. ‘Hopefully we’ll find that micro mind in the building the other Empyrean Key was placed in.’
‘OK, but what if it wasn’t a micro mind at Machu Picchu that triggered your ability?’
‘It has to be something to do with the shape of that chamber. Remember that echo effect inside it? If the Angelus were involved in its construction, I expect the acoustic effect was far from an accident. It must have been designed to trigger a visual response in someone with synaesthesia.’
‘But what created it?’
‘Without something to generate the sound, like a tuning fork, how about a slow-moving monowave originating at a different location?’ I replied. ‘We know that sound was amplified within that chamber. So what if, like my tuning fork being struck, when the right vibration hits the chamber it creates a resonance, which is channelled through the rock?’
Jack’s eyes widened. ‘And then anyone near the mountain with your form of synaesthesia would start to see visions, just like Cristina did when a monowave quake hit.’
‘Bloody hell. This is going to blow Mike’s mind when we tell him. Talking of which, we should try checking in with him again.’
Jack nodded, put his Sky Wire on to speaker mode and dialled Mike. A moment later we heard it ring… Ten seconds became thirty… Jack was about to give up when there was a click.
My heart leapt. ‘Oh, thank god, we were wondering what had happened to you.’
But there was only silence at the other end of the line. I frowned at Jack.
‘Hey, buddy, can you hear us?’ Jack asked.
‘Who are you?’ asked a male voice with a Peruvian accent.
Jack hit the call end button. ‘Crap, that can’t be good.’ He pulled up the map and toggled to an option at the side of it. A location marker for Mike appeared, showing that him, or at least his phone, was now in the police station in Aguas Calientes.
My gut twisted. ‘Shit!’
Jack’s hand trembled and his expression zoned out. It made me think of the training exercise we’d completed back at Eden. We’d had to cross a fast-moving river in a deep gorge with a rope we’d managed to string over it. I’d thought it was Mike who would freeze because of his fear of heights, but of all people it was Mr Hero himself who’d had a bad case of the shakes halfway across. So bad that I’d ended up stringing a second line across and headed out to him to talk him across to the other side. Nothing about it was mentioned afterwards by any of us – it was just one of those things. But back then I couldn’t help but wonder whether the stress of what we’d been through was starting to get to Jack.
‘Jack, are you OK?’ I asked.
His eyes focused on me and he blinked. ‘Sorry…what were we talking about?’
I stared at him, feeling rattled that he could tune out something so important. ‘Mike. Best case, he’s lost his phone and it’s been picked up and handed in.’
‘Worst case, he got himself captured at Machu Picchu,’ Jack replied, seemingly back to his usual self.
‘But if he’s fallen into Villca’s hands…’ Fear bubbled in me.
‘Let’s just pray he’s sitting at the rendezvous point in the bar wondering where his phone is.’
‘I bloody well hope so, but my instinct is that this is bad, Jack.’
‘You’re not the only one.’ He stepped out again and my eyes lingered on his back for a moment. Where had he been in his head just now?
We checked in with Niki as we headed down the mountain towards town and filled him in on what was happening. He gave us strict instructions not to engage, even if we discovered Mike was in trouble. If that happened, we were to contact him again and he would call back a security team from the UFO investigation and send them in to secure Mike’s release. I wasn’t thrilled at his plan – it would no doubt delay any rescue attempt – but I also understood the sense in it.
I told him I’d email him photos of Villca’s abduction of Cristina, plus Fischer destroying the Solar Temple. Niki promised to get the word out via social media – using secure, untraceable routes that Tom had already set up. One way or another Villca and Fischer would face the music.
Once I’d emailed Niki the photos and hung up, Jack and I accelerated into an almost full-blown run, yomping through the jungle back to the city. With every passing minute, my anxiety levels ratcheted up. What if Mike had been captured and tortured to reveal what he knew? What if we were too late…? My looping thoughts only quietened down once we’d arrived at the edge of the town and started to make our way towards the bar. Everywhere seemed to be swarming with police vehicles, their blue lights flashing as they rushed around.
My thoughts also kept returning to Jack’s strange reaction to the news about Mike. I discounted what had happened at the waterfall – I’d obviously misread the signs. But Jack zoning out like that was so similar to what had happened over the ravine. I’d put that down to stress, a panic attack even. But what if it was something more? Even if he didn’t want to talk about it, I needed to know, if only for my peace of mind.
I gathered my resolve. ‘Jack, I need to ask you something.’
Jack glanced round at me. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m worried about you.’
He stopped dead, his gaze falling to the jungle floor. ‘Why’s that exactly?’
‘You seemed to have some sort of moment when you heard about Mike. Something similar happened during the training exercise back at Eden. Is there anything I should know about as your team leader? Something that might affect your performance on this mission?’
His gaze slowly lifted from the ground back to me. ‘You know at Skara Brae how I went charging into everything without a care in the world?’
‘I put it down to you being a naturally heroic Viking.’
‘No, I’m afraid that, like any person with half a brain in their head, I was scared to death. But I was able to blot that out – and there was a reason for that.’ He looked at his hands. ‘Have you ever noticed me with the shakes?’
I nodded, and a swirl of worry passed through my stomach. ‘Please don’t tell me you have some serious medical condition?’
‘Not in the way you mean.’
‘So what then?’
‘It’s one of the withdrawal symptoms of coming off Prozac too quickly.’
The huge knot of anxiety in my stomach loosened. ‘So you were on antidepressants – big deal, Jack. It’s not an issue. After all, half the world takes something to numb the pain from time to time – from booze to drugs and everything in between.’ A new thought surfaced and I found myself staring at him. ‘Hang on, is this something to do with the death of your wife?’
‘No, I was on Prozac long before Sue died.’
‘Right… So you’re telling me that you freezing up over the ravine was down to you taking Prozac?’
‘Actually the opposite. I knew I had to clean up my act so I could stay sharp enough to help you take on the Overseers, so I stopped taking my meds when I arrived at Eden. It was a chance for a fresh start and I didn’t want to screw things up again. I’d done OK until that ravine crossing. One of the possible symptoms of Prozac withdrawal is dizziness and a real doozy hit me on the bridge. The world was literally spinning round me, so I had to keep my eyes shut. You know the rest. It also happens at moments of shock, like thinking Mike has run into serious trouble.’
The missing pieces of the Jack Harper puzzle were starting to make sense at last. ‘You poor guy. You should have said something before now, Jack.’ I would have reached out to hug him, but I wasn’t sure my heart could take a fresh rejection so soon.
‘I find it difficult to talk about this to people, Lauren. There’s only one other person who knows ab
out it.’
‘Mike?’ I asked.
‘No, I’ve never told him.’
‘Who then?’
‘Alice.’
I couldn’t help staring at him. Jack had chosen to share his most intimate secrets with a woman he’d only just met. Why hadn’t he told me before? Wasn’t I a good enough listener – or maybe he just didn’t see me as a close enough friend?
Jack hung his head. ‘I told her I’ve been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.’
Another piece of the puzzle. ‘Something to do with your time in the military?’
He nodded, still not looking at me.
‘But I thought you were a trauma surgeon and not on the front line?’
He let out a hollow laugh. ‘The thing about a military front line is that they move suddenly. Our field hospital was in a military compound supposedly far away from any insurgent activity. But the guy who snuck into the back of a supply truck wearing an explosive vest beneath his jacket obviously didn’t get the memo.’ Jack started to shake as he stared at the floor. ‘The explosion ripped apart our medical tent where I was operating on a marine who’d just had his leg blown off. And the explosive vest had been packed with ball bearings…’
‘Oh god!’
Jack’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Friends and colleagues were ripped apart in front of me. I was only saved thanks to the metal gurney that shielded me from the blast. If the shrapnel that slammed into it had been two inches higher it would have sliced me in half…’
I took Jack’s hands in mine and massaged them with my thumbs, forgetting the barriers he’d previously thrown up between us.
‘I got to live that day when so many of my friends died,’ Jack continued. ‘Later I wished I’d been killed with them, because I couldn’t cope with living. I had a complete breakdown – I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t function. The military understood and gave me a full honourable discharge.’