The people applauded, then moved away, allowing Sasha, Nicole, and Lizzie through. Nicole smiled at everyone as they tipped hats or curtsied. She couldn’t believe how excited they were to have her there. She found herself breathing in relief—it was apparent they totally and completely trusted her. So, no one had said anything about her turning her back on the group.
Good.
Hopefully, it would stay that way.
Sasha showed them inside and waited for Nicole to say something. She looked up at the massive interior that had been remodeled into pristine white stone.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
Sasha nodded. “Yes, we’ve worked hard to make it appropriate for the things we protect inside its walls.” He turned to her. “Would you like a tour of the facility?”
“Oh, that would be wonderful!” she said honestly. She realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Sasha clapped his hands. “Fantastic. But first, we have prepared a feast in your honor. I hope you’re in the mood for food!”
Nicole glanced at Lizzie and Lizzie nodded. Nicole turned back to Sasha. “Yes, we’re very hungry.”
“Fantastic,” he repeated. “This way.”
Sasha led them out of the grand front entry and into a long hall, then to a large room full of tables and chairs. The tables were lined with white cloths and set up with plates and cups.
Sasha showed Nicole to her seat. They had to do some scrambling to arrange for a chair to be placed next to her for Lizzie, as they hadn’t been aware she’d be bringing someone else.
Sasha apologized several times. “We should have known you wouldn’t travel alone.”
Nicole waved him off. “It’s totally fine, Sasha. We’re both just so excited and glad to be here.”
The food was delicious. Nicole didn’t know much about Romanian cuisine, so she wasn’t sure if what they were eating was traditional or not, but it was savory and filling.
While they and at least two hundred other people were eating, live music filled the room, making conversation difficult. Nicole was fine with that. She’d been prepared to do some lying, but wanted to get away with saying as little as possible.
When lunch was over, Sasha showed Nicole and Lizzie to a restroom. The girls made sure it was empty before Lizzie had a slight nervous breakdown.
“Are we going to die?” she asked, her hands shaking.
Nicole laughed. “No, we’re not. They’re not deceiving us—they’re genuinely happy to have us here.”
“This is good . . . but what if Tiffany calls or Rebecca shows up?”
Nicole bit her lips. “I’ve been worried about both scenarios. I’ve got my Rebecca blocker on, but I don’t know what the range is for it. She could probably appear here and warn them about us.” Nicole rubbed her forehead. “And as for my mother . . .” She paused. “You know what? We can’t control any of that—we shouldn’t worry about it. Let’s just be prepared for anything to happen. Keep our guards up and magic close, but enjoy ourselves.”
“Speaking of magic, there aren’t any Aretes here.”
“Good thing too. They haven’t been successful in convincing Aretes to change sides. Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, who wants to die for the Tarian cause instead of living with powers?”
“Or live at all,” Lizzie said. “By the way, I’m going to talk, like, not at all. I’ll leave that up to you. You have more practice and I really struggle not to blurt out what’s on my mind.”
Nicole smiled. “Good plan.”
The girls finished up and left the bathroom, finding Sasha waiting a ways down the hall. He turned to them, grinning.
“Ready for your tour?” he asked.
“Oh, definitely,” Nicole said.
She still hadn’t introduced Lizzie, and Sasha hadn’t asked her to. She hoped that wouldn’t be a problem—they really seemed more interested in Nicole anyway, and she was just fine with that. Let the focus be away from her best friend, if it kept her safe.
Before starting the tour, Sasha took them to a small security room and had them fill out their information—name, address, number. Then they gave her and Lizzie cards that granted them full access to the entire building.
“You’ll need it for the tour,” Sasha explained. “Plus, you’re . . . what do you Americans say? VIPs.”
Then the tour started. Sasha took them first to see the treasury. Nicole was amazed. It was full of millions of dollars in every currency she could imagine. She motioned to all of the money. “Is this in case one country or another takes over?”
Sasha smiled. “No, it’s so we can bribe our way to the top.”
Nicole chuckled. “Which we have already, and quite successfully too.”
“Yes, but there’s always room for improvement.” He took them to an adjoining room that housed all of the precious metals.
“Oh!” Nicole said. “I’m actually here for a reason. I need three and a half ounces of platinum for a project Rebecca and I are working on.” She figured it was best to stick with the amount she’d told Julius. Just in case.
If Sasha didn’t know who Rebecca was, he didn’t let on. Nicole nearly rolled her eyes at herself—of course he would know Rebecca. He knew who Nicole was, and she wasn’t nearly as famous as the old woman.
Sasha arranged for the metal to be separated and put into a small box with a lock on it. He showed her how the lock worked, then gave her the key. She put the key in her pocket and the metal in her purse, glad the transfer had gone so well.
After that, they headed to an art gallery. It was absolutely huge. One entire wall was devoted to artwork that had been done by Tarians. Most of it depicted Aretes dying in some form or another. The other three walls were covered with old paintings, many of which Nicole recognized, but all of which had been defaced or damaged in some way. She motioned to one by Cezanne. “Why do they look like this?”
Sasha glared at the painting. “Arete artwork—as much as we can get our hands on. We’ve allowed some of our more passionate artists to have their way with the paintings.”
Nicole nodded, pretending to approve. She gazed at the paintings, trying not to feel bad for them and their original artists. Most had torn canvases, others had graffiti all over them. She felt like she was looking at an art exhibit by junior-high students, it was that ridiculous.
After they finished with that room, Sasha showed them statues and original sheet music by famous composers—Nicole couldn’t even bear to look at how that stuff had been treated.
Sasha turned to Nicole, rubbing his hands together and grinning. “Would you like to see how we protect the fortress?”
Nicole’s eyes widened in excitement. “Oh, yes. That would be awesome.”
He took her to a large room, most of which was filled with computers and monitors. He pointed out the various securities they had in place, including lasers, alarms, cameras, and heat sensors. “All with the intent of catching someone unauthorized to enter the building.”
“Very good,” Nicole said. “How many hours does the typical worker spend here?”
“Around twelve a day. Everyone is on a five-day-per-week cycle, starting at eight in the morning and ending at eight in the evening. Workers have two days off to recuperate energy and return, and the facility is staffed all days of the week.”
Nicole raised her eyebrows. That sounded like a lot of work for one person to have to put in. Sasha rushed to continue, probably misunderstanding her expression.
“Should we be doing more than that? We can increase their hours, if you wish.”
“Oh, good heavens, no. If anything, I’m worried it’s too much for them to handle.”
Sasha relaxed and gave her a compassionate expression. “I’m pleased to hear of your concern. Do not worry—we don’t work the employees like this year round. Just over the past few months in preparation for . . . for the big event.”
Nicole chuckled. “I’m as ready as anyone for that to be over.”
A line appeared between Sasha’s eyes. “Even though it means your death?”
Nicole took a breath, releasing it slowly. “Yes. I’m not looking forward to that, but I do feel strongly that this needs to happen. There are bigger goals at stake here than my own personal feelings.”
Sasha looked like he was about to say something else, but Nicole didn’t want to keep going with that line of conversation.
She motioned to the security measures in place. “What happens if you come late at night to finish up a project?”
Sasha shrugged. “It doesn’t happen so often, but my security clearance turns off alarms in any area I walk through. I don’t trigger them and am able to move around without problem.”
“This is good,” Nicole said. “I’m impressed. I won’t pretend to really understand how any of it works, but it’s obvious the place is well protected.”
Sasha beamed, happy to have her approval, and he continued the tour.
They crossed through the room with the art on the walls—Nicole keeping her eyes down, not wanting to see any of that again—and entered a small courtyard with picnic tables and trees and flowers.
“This is where employees take breaks and eat. They’re allowed to phone their families here, but nowhere else in the building.”
They crossed the courtyard and entered the facility again. This side wasn’t nearly as showy as the first.
“This is where all the highest-clearance things are,” Sasha said. “We must proceed with caution.”
Nicole nodded, following him into another room where hazard suits lined the walls. A woman stepped forward to help, and Nicole, Lizzie, and Sasha all put on suits. Nicole and Lizzie met eyes, and Nicole could see the confusion she felt on Lizzie’s face. Why would they need this much protection? What could possibly be in the facility that would harm them?
They found out pretty quickly after going through an air-tight clean room.
Sasha led them into a lab. The place was full of equipment, machines, fridges, and a bunch of lab workers dressed in varying colors of hazard suits.
Sasha tapped on his mic and turned to Nicole and Lizzie, helping them turn their mics and speakers on.
“Here is where we grow and develop our biological weapons.”
Nicole’s mouth popped open. “Wow. You’re serious? We actually have that stuff?”
Sasha grinned. “Yes, we do. Allow me to show you around.”
He took them to one section of the huge lab and showed them the anthrax there. He pointed to the fridges, where Nicole could see vials of liquid and bags of powder. She didn’t know anything about anthrax, but suspected that much of the stuff could infect and kill hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.
Sasha showed them other areas, similar to the first, where Ebola, smallpox, AIDS, various plagues, measles, and other horrible diseases were being developed and tested. Nicole got chills as she realized the implications of all of this. None of the reports at the world convention had mentioned it. Why had it been kept secret? Why were they okay with her learning about it now? Or was this something they really just kept on the backburner and didn’t focus on most of the time?
“With great difficulty, we’ve developed a strain of each disease that is completely immune to vaccinations. Basically, if a person has been vaccinated for measles, they’ll still be highly susceptible to our version of it. All strains are capable of passing from healthy people to other healthy people. And a bonus—we’ve discovered that the mortality rate of each of them is much higher than we’d expected.”
Nicole swallowed the bitter taste that was growing at the back of her mouth. She pulled on all of her acting experience from the past few months and smiled at Sasha. “This is really amazing. How long has it taken to get to this point?”
“Many, many years,” Sasha said. “The lab has been here since the forties. And this is where most of our employees work. Well, here and in the testing rooms.”
“You’ll show those to us, right?”
“Oh, of course!”
Sasha led them out of the lab and through a door opposite from the one they’d entered. They were still required to wear their hazard suits. Nicole was sweating a ton—whether from the suit or from her fear about what she’d learned, she wasn’t sure.
The testing rooms were small. A chair with leather straps was in the center of each room, facing a wall of windows. Sasha explained that visitors and executives watched from the other side of the glass while patients were injected with the diseases.
“But aren’t most of those diseases slow acting? Doesn’t it usually take a few days for symptoms to appear?”
“Not when you inject the person with high doses,” Sasha said. “And our strains really are more powerful than the ones created by nature. They multiply in the human body much faster than you would imagine.”
Sasha clapped his hands, turning to Nicole. “Oh! We’re testing a strain of smallpox tomorrow morning. Would you be interested in attending?”
Not on your life, Nicole thought. Instead, she nodded. “I’d love to. I can’t believe so much of this has been so successfully kept under wraps. This is absolutely astounding.” She hesitated. “But our flight leaves at noon. Will we be finished by then?”
“Of course—the test will start promptly at eight o’clock. It usually only takes half an hour, if we give a triple dose.” He winked. “In order for our diseases to be truly dangerous, they need time to spread. Rather than acting immediately, we’ve engineered them to stay in the host for at least five hours. Obviously, for maximum exposure, more time would be beneficial, but the number of diseases we have will help us overcome the setbacks from such high-powered strains.”
Nicole tilted her head. “I’m curious. Why develop these at all? We’ll be in charge of the world in a short amount of time anyway. Aretes will be dead and Rebecca will be ruling the world with the Great Ones at her side. Why do we need these diseases?”
Sasha nodded. ‘This is a great question. The diseases are our insurance against failure. Our backup, if you will. Rebecca comes here occasionally—about once a year—and she’s been pretty specific concerning the need to continue our work, in case something on her end fails. We’ve been instructed to set things in motion if anything goes wrong, even without a direct command from her.”
“Have you had any problems with local governments?”
“Of course not. You saw how much money we have—that money exchanges hands quite frequently. With the proper bribery and occasional threat, governments haven’t been difficult at all.”
“This is good to hear.” Nicole looked at Sasha. “What about personnel leaks? How do you know we can trust the employees?”
“We only hire those with the best referrals. All employees must be Tarians with at least fifteen years of service to our group. We haven’t had any problems—as you know, Tarians are very devoted to the cause.”
A crease appeared between his eyebrows. “The last place I want to show you can be very disturbing, especially for someone as young as you. I want you to prepare yourself because what you’re going to see is upsetting, even if you hate them.”
Nicole nodded. “Thank you for the warning. I appreciate it. What is it you’ll be showing us?”
“Our test subjects.” Sasha turned and led Nicole and Lizzie down a short hallway and into a very large room filled with double rows of little glass cells that lined either side of a narrow alley. Inside each cell was a prisoner on a bed.
Nicole nearly vomited when she saw the conditions of the people. The dirtiness of their cells, the obvious pain on their faces.
All were infected with some horrible disease. A lot of them had skin lesions and pus-filled bumps. Many clenched bloodied sheets. Several were children.
It took her several minutes to catch her breath, to calm herself.
“What happens to them now?” she asked.
“We let them die. We can’t have them wandering the streets, infecting other people—not until we�
��re ready.”
“Who are they?”
“Aretes and families or supporters of Aretes. Basically, anyone who has tried to stop us.”
Nicole knew it was a stupid question, but she had to ask it anyway. “Are they in pain?”
“Probably. Some of them scream when they’re first transported here, but we quickly train them not to. It upsets our workers too much.”
“Morphine?”
“Oh, heavens, no.” Sasha glanced at Nicole. “They don’t deserve anything like that. We wouldn’t give it to them even if we had barrels and barrels of it.”
Nicole felt tears pricking the backs of her eyes as she looked at the suffering people. Her vision blurred and her lips trembled. She didn’t even want to ask how the Tarians trained them not to cry out in pain. It was too horrible already, too awful.
She blinked, forcing herself to concentrate, and glanced around the room, trying to figure out how many people were there. After a quick count, she realized there were eighty cells in the room—four lined up at a time, with two rows on either side of the walkway she, Sasha, and Lizzie were on.
Eighty cells, and none of the people were Aretes. She couldn’t sense any magical pulses whatsoever. Why was that? Dare she ask Sasha?
She glanced at Lizzie, saw the same sympathy and disgust on her best friend’s face, and decided to voice her question. The more information they had, the better. She was going to help these people or die trying.
“Why can’t I sense their magical pulses? I mean, you said some of them are Aretes.”
Sasha stepped closer to one of the cells and pointed to a little black box attached to the glass with wires that lined the corners of the entire cell. “This prevents them from using their powers. The moment they step in here, their ability to call magic to themselves is terminated.”
“I didn’t know such a system existed,” Nicole said. “Who invented it?”
“Rebecca, of course. Through other talented people, as she’s unable to do the work herself.”
“So, the moment I step into one of these rooms, I lose my ability to use magic?”
Reclaim, Mosaic Chronicles Book Five Page 9