by David Wood
She turned back, and it was as if the magnetic poles reversed. She staggered toward the balcony rail, throwing her arms around it for fear of being pulled over. The attraction was all in her head and she knew it, but that did not make the sensation any less real.
I need to go down there, she thought. The answers are down there.
Some part of her offered a weak protest. Professor needed her. Urgently. Whatever this was, it could wait.
But she knew it could not wait. A window of opportunity had opened. The Vault was offering her its secrets. If she turned away now, the window might close forever.
She had to know.
Jade shrugged the rope coil off her shoulder, wrapped the loose end around the rail, securing it with a bowline knot, and heaved the rest over the side. With a couple of quick adjustments, she reconfigured the carabiner on her climbing harness into a rudimentary rappelling brake and then eased herself over the railing.
She reached the end of the rope and hung there in darkness, just a few feet above the floor. Her flashlight revealed a chamber that was remarkably like the Oracle Room in the Hypogeum, but with one significant difference. Scattered across the floor of the pit were dozens of smooth shapes that, from above, had looked like scattered stones. Now she saw that they were elongated skulls.
She dangled above the grisly tableau, turning slowly, playing her light in every direction, looking to see what other mysteries the pit concealed.
“Okay, you got me here. What am I supposed to—”
Before she could complete the question, the vortex opened and she was swept away again.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Professor had no idea why he was still alive, but he sensed his execution had merely been postponed.
Kellogg and the other Changeling—the man who still wore his face—walked a few steps behind him, their guns still trained on him, though not quite as aggressively as before. They kept a safe stand-off distance, close enough to maintain control but far enough away that Professor would never be able to get the jump on them. Further evidence of professional training. Shah and the woman walked ahead of them, continuing along the rotunda. Her hand was on his arm. It might have been a merely practical arrangement, a blind person and her guide, but Professor doubted the woman needed any assistance finding her way and there was something possessive in her manner. Shah seemed to be tolerating her touch, but only just.
“What is this place?” Shah asked. “Who made it?”
“Better that you see the answer for yourself,” the woman replied. “Know this, however. It is old beyond imagining. A gift of knowledge sent from the heavens.”
“Knowledge?”
“A revelation.” The woman made an expansive gesture. “The prophets of old came to this place in secret to receive the Word. Now the gift of the revelation is given to you.”
“The Prophet came here?” Shah shook his head. “No. The writings are clear on this. Muhammad was visited by the angel in a cave near Medina.”
“Do you believe he could not have traveled, in secret, across the sea to this place? The cave where your Prophet prayed was a resonator, an echo of this place, just like the Hypogeum. He saw the way to the vault, just as Jade Ihara did. The revelation is not for everyone. It wasn’t for her, but it was for him, just as it was for the prophets of old who came before. Jesus. Moses, Abraham. Adam. And now, it is for you.”
Shah was incredulous. “They all came here?”
“All. A vision is given and a prophet goes forth. But with the passage of centuries, confusion sets in, the people lose their way, and it is necessary for another prophet to be called.”
“And I’m supposed to be the new prophet?” Professor thought Shah sounded skeptical rather than awed. “The chosen one.”
“You were meant for great things, Atash.”
“Chosen by you,” Shah said, insistently.
The woman stopped and turned her face toward Shah. “Who do you think we are, Atash? We have been safeguarding this secret, and watching over all of humankind, for ten thousand years. In the holy writings, we are called angels. Messengers of God.”
“Angels with rubber faces,” Professor muttered. “And contact lenses.”
The woman’s face turned toward him, but she ignored the remark. “Yes, we chose you. That is why I came to you, worked with you to lay the foundation. Roche’s interference forced us to accelerate the timetable, but this was always your destiny.”
“Don’t believe it,” Professor said. “It’s a con. That’s all they are. Con artists, selling whatever lie they think will get you to do what they want.”
He had braced himself against an expected blow from behind, but none came. Instead, the blind woman continued to regard Shah with an intensity that might have been mistaken for worship. “When you have seen, you will be able to decide for yourself whether I am lying or not.”
She pointed in the direction they had been traveling. “Up there, you will find a door. Go through. What you see is between you and God.”
Shah hesitated. “You’re saying the revelations of the Prophet, and all the prophets who came before…came from there?”
An impatient frown cracked Gabrielle’s façade. “What difference does it make? Would you prefer a burning bush? An angel floating above you? You will see what you need to see. Trust me.”
“Spoken like a true con artist,” Professor said.
“Go, Atash. See for yourself.”
Shah stared at her a moment longer, as if there was more he felt he needed to say, but then he turned away and headed off on his own. Professor waited until he disappeared around the curve of the rotunda before addressing his captors.
“Now that he’s gone, would you care to tell me what’s really going on?” He turned around to see if either of the men would give answer, but they were as stonily silent as the blind woman. “No? Then maybe we can talk about why I’m still alive.”
“It’s up to him to decide your fate,” the woman said, not looking at him.
“Him? You mean Shah?” This was unexpected. He had made no secret of his antipathy toward the Iranian journalist, but they had reached an accord and Professor did not think the man would countenance further bloodshed, especially at the urging of the Changelings. Maybe they believed that sparing Professor’s life would give them leverage over Shah, or perhaps they intended to continue using him as a hostage to assure Shah’s further cooperation, but if either was the case, they had misjudged the nature of his relationship with Shah.
“When he has received the vision, he will face a choice. Spare your life and risk you telling the world about the vault, or kill you in order to preserve the secret.”
“Ah, I see. So really, you just want him to be the one to do the dirty deed. Just like when you sicced him on Jade.”
Her smile confirmed his accusation. “You’ve misjudged him,” Professor said. “He hates you. Hates how you used and manipulated him.”
“He will be a different man once he has received the vision,” Gabrielle said, her tone a mockery of reverence. “He will understand that everything we have done was necessary.”
“See that’s what I really wanted to talk about. Maybe you’ve convinced Shah with that nonsense about being angels, but you’ll have to try a lot harder to convince me.”
“And why would I waste my breath talking to a man who is already dead?”
Professor glanced at the two men but their expressions were as inscrutable as hers.
He had worked all the angles, counted the number of steps separating him from the gunman, rehearsed the moves in his head. In some of the scenarios, he succeeded in killing one of the men, but never both. No matter which of them he attacked first, the other would be able to shoot him dead. There was only one scenario where he did not die. Not right away at least.
“Okay,” he said. “No more wasting our breath then.”
He sprang forward, diving at Gabrielle like a baseball player trying to steal second. He could sense the men
behind him tensing in response to the attack, fingers on the triggers of their pistols. He didn’t think they would fire. Not if they were trained as well as he thought they were. Too much chance of a stray round hitting the woman. If he was wrong….
But he wasn’t wrong. The two gunmen held their fire and Professor hit the unsuspecting woman and bowled her over. As they went down, he wrestled her body around, using her as a human shield. To keep them at bay, he wrapped one arm around her neck. “I’ll kill her.”
The threat stopped the two gunmen, but Professor knew the standoff would not last indefinitely. In fact, it would probably not last more than a few seconds. If he made good on his threat, he would be throwing away the only thing keeping him alive, ergo he dared not kill the woman. If the two Changeling gunmen had not figured that out already, they soon would. His only play was to double down.
“Drop the guns or I’ll break her neck,” he snarled. He shook her, hard. “Do it! Now!”
When the men did not comply immediately, Professor knew they had called his bluff. Damn it. Can’t kill her, can’t let her go. What did that leave?
He hauled her erect, lifted her off the ground so that his body was almost completely covered by hers, and started walking backward, in the direction Shah had gone. He had no idea whether he could count on Shah for assistance, but standing still was not an option. Unfortunately, his steady retreat was not much different than remaining where he was. The two gunmen matched him step for step, and he could see them growing bolder with each passing second. One of them would charge, or perhaps both at nearly the same instant, and then the loaded dice would be cast.
“Stop!”
The shout from behind startled Professor so much that he almost stumbled. The two gunmen were equally surprised, and whatever offensive action they had been contemplating was stillborn. The shout had come from Shah.
Professor twisted half-around, careful to keep Gabrielle between himself and the gunmen, and regarded Shah warily. Even a quick glance was enough to confirm that Shah seemed changed by whatever he had experienced in the vault. Though he had been gone for only a couple minutes, he appeared shaken, as if the foundations of his entire life had been hit by a magnitude eight earthquake.
“Atash?” Gabrielle’s voice was barely audible. The pressure of Professor’s arm across her throat made it difficult for her to breathe, much less speak.
“I’m here.” His voice was flat, distant.
Shell-shocked, thought Professor.
He stared at Gabrielle for a moment, then met Professor’s gaze. “Let her go.” It was neither command nor plea, but more an indifferent suggestion.
Professor relaxed his hold enough to let the woman gasp in a hoarse breath, but did not release her. “Not until those guns are on the ground.”
Shah turned to the men. “Do it.”
The two Changelings exchanged a look with each other and with Gabrielle, and then by mutual accord, stooped over and placed their pistols on the cavern floor.
“And the one you took off me,” Professor added.
Kellogg produced the Beretta and laid it beside the others.
“Now, take a great big step back.”
The men conferred silently a second time, then complied.
“Shah, how about you collect those guns.”
Shah knelt and picked up one of the pistols, then used his foot to send first one then the other skittering away down the passage he had earlier disappeared into. Professor frowned as he watched the guns vanish into the shadows, wondering if Shah was not thinking clearly or if he had intentionally deprived him of a weapon.
“Let her go,” Shah said again without looking at Professor. “I need to speak with her.”
Professor let his arm drop, allowing Gabrielle to stumble away. As she did, he tried to move nonchalantly in the direction of the cast-off pistols, but Shah immediately stopped him with a meaningful gesture from his gun hand.
“Damn,” Professor muttered, looking up from the gun pointed at him to meet Shah’s eyes. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t see that coming, but I was hopeful. So, I guess the con worked. You’re buying into the Messianic malarkey?”
Shah ignored the jibe. “Gabrielle, what I saw… Tell me it’s a trick. Special effects or something.”
The blind woman shook her head. “No tricks.”
Shah was not satisfied with the answer. “Jade Ihara said that sound frequencies can trigger hallucinations. Is that what happened?”
“Would you question the means by which God chooses to deliver his message? If he called you on your phone or spoke to you from a television set, would you consider that unseemly? The message is what it is, Atash. There is no god but God, and you are his Prophet.”
Professor studied Shah’s expression. The man did not seem particularly overjoyed by his calling. “The others came here? Muhammad? Jesus?”
“From Adam at the founding of the world, to Bahá'u'lláh.”
Professor recognized the name taken by Mírzá Ḥusayn`Alí Núrí, a Persian Muslim from the 19th Century, who claimed to have received a new revelation from God and subsequently founded the Baha’i religion.
“All came here?” Shah repeated. “Yet there is no mention of this place in any of the Holy writings.”
Gabrielle was visibly displeased by Shah’s refusal to simply embrace his new role in the divine plan. “You are the Prophet. It is for you to decide what you will share, but just as you have questioned the seemliness of the manner in which the revelation was given, know that there are others who would also do so. They might demand to see it for themselves. That is why the prophets of old did not reveal their journeys. And…” She gestured in Professor’s direction. “It is why he can never leave this place.”
“That’s right,” Professor said, sarcastically. “You can’t have me telling the world that your religion is complete hogwash, and that the Wizard is really just a machine being run by a crazy old guy hiding behind a curtain.”
Shah stared at Professor. “A cover up.” It was a statement not a question, but there was nonetheless an undercurrent of disbelief.
Gabrielle’s frown deepened and when she spoke, there was no hiding the disappointment in her tone. “You are the Prophet of God. Start acting like it. He is an unbeliever. His presence here is sacrilege. An affront to God. You know what must be done.” She paused a beat. “It is not necessary for you to do the deed, Atash. Simply give the order and it will be done.”
For several seconds, Shah just stared at the gun in his hand. “No,” he said finally. “I’ll take care of it.”
Then he aimed the gun and fired.
TWENTY-NINE
The world opened, and Jade saw everything.
They came in vessels—spaceships, she supposed—that, to the primitive bands of hunter-gatherers who occupied the area, must have seemed like great monstrous beasts or spirits of the sky. With elongated skulls and unblinking black eyes, pale gray skin, long smooth sexless torsos, their appearance was remarkably like the images that would, in later years, inform descriptions of demons and much, much later, the entities known, to those who believed in such things, as “grays.”
Extraterrestrial visitors. Aliens.
The grays paid little heed to their human neighbors. The nomadic people might have been insects, scurrying about, unnoticed by the alien workmen, whose attention was consumed with the task of hollowing out the great tower, which would one day be called Bell Rock. When they excavated a cavity using tools that were beyond even Jade’s imagination, they used the overburden to fashion durable concrete with which to build structures and the machinery of the Vault. Jade had no sense of how many years passed while they labored. Decades. Perhaps centuries. When the machine was complete they turned their attention to the primitive humans, and Jade saw now that the grays had not been ignoring them after all, but merely making preparations. The Vault was, in fact, just the first phase of an experiment, and the humans would be, in scientific terms, the dependent varia
ble. Lab rats.
To maintain the purity of the experiment, the grays took some of their subjects and modified them, imbuing them with enhanced intelligence and abilities with which to carry out the programming written into their DNA. Physically, they appeared no different, save for jet black eyes and smooth skin that seemed not quite fully formed—a blank canvas on which they might paint the faces of others whom they wished to impersonate as they went forth into the world to do their part of the great experiment. They, and all their scions through the ages, were the Changelings.
The experiment was a thing of simplicity. A man—a shaman or in later years, a priest—would be shown to a special place—the Hypogeum, or one of many such sites scattered across the world, whereupon they would be compelled to make a pilgrimage to this distant land, and there receive the vision. What exactly that vision would entail depended as much on the man and his preconceptions as it did on the machinery of the vault, for the great machine did not implant new ideas so much as stimulate connections between disparate memories and beliefs. That was, in fact, the whole point of the experiment, to see what wonders these men might accomplish with just a gentle nudge every thousand years or so.
Roche had not been far off the mark with his belief that all of reality was merely a holographic simulation being controlled by otherworldly entities.
It was not given to Jade to know if the grays continued to monitor their experiment, if the tales of demonic visitation and UFO sightings across the gap of history were actual encounters with the grays, or merely the product of random infrasound frequencies stimulating ancestral memories. She suspected the latter, just as she suspected that the experiment had gone awry over the millennia, the way a message handed verbally from one person to another and then to another got distorted with each telling. The Changelings, though bound to their purpose by genetic chains, continued to guard the vault, dissuading those whom they deemed unworthy of receiving the vision, men like Archimedes, who in their genius, might have envisioned a new way forward, a world built on logic and rationality, rather than superstition. Similarly, they used their chameleon-like abilities to infiltrate the halls of power, making subtle adjustments but when necessary, triggering upheavals and wars to reset the balance. Their signature was writ large across the tableau of history. Roche had seen it, though imperfectly, and it had ultimately cost him his life.