The Buried Life

by Carrie Patel

  It appeared that someone had excavated around some of the better-preserved structures and abandoned them after only a very brief exploration. Malone could not even see an entrance to any of them. Passing the metal skeletons of buildings that protruded from the ground like broken bones, she noted that the excavators had ignored many other mysteries that sank deeper into the ground, some sealed by dirt and others apparently in fragments.

  At the end of the avenue lay great piles of rubble, the remnants of destruction and decay strewn like bunkers in a war game. Slinking between boulder-sized hunks of debris, she saw the flash of blue uniforms: guards combing the ruins for uninvited guests. Malone crouched still lower, wondering what she should be looking for, when almost beneath her feet she saw an exposed portion of an immense, flat slab. She followed its edge through the labyrinth of rubble, where the ground dropped sharply to an entrance, excavated from beneath several yards of soil.

  It was an ancient building, much of which was still submerged under the loamy earth. The excavators had dug a broad ramp leading down to the entry. Rows of pillars and windows dropped from the top of the building to the recovered entrance, which was a series of three arched doorways, and angled staircases emerged from the dirt to reach it. There was something impressive and majestic about the building and the way it rose from the earth. Though soiled by centuries of dirt, it seemed to defy decay, its corners and faces showing much less damage than the other buildings Malone had passed. A tarnished copper plaque, still affixed to a broken hunk of stone, sat near the excavated entrance like a signpost. The words “IBRA Y RES” rose from the copper like a fading dream, the only letters that time had not rubbed away from the ancient plaque.

  Malone remembered the words of her benefactor and crept away from the entrance, looking for another way in. Something caught her eye in the morning sunlight. A silhouette loomed a short distance away, directly on top of the hill covering the rest of the partially excavated building. She had at first taken it for more rubble, but, upon closer examination, she realized it was actually the topmost part of the structure. Climbing and circling the mound brought her to an uncovered portion of the building’s dome, where a narrow gap in the soil hugged it and descended to its base. She slipped down the fissure to a spot where a landslide had broken through a window and a considerable portion of the wall below it. Malone dropped through the opening and ducked low as her eyes adjusted to the dimness.

  She was perched on a balcony that encircled a great, round room beneath a series of semicircular windows identical to the breached specimen by which she had entered. The absence of proper lighting left her balcony in relative darkness, but the Council’s team had set up enough torches and radiance stones to work by below. She crawled along the balcony for a better view of her surroundings. Though now dusted in cobwebs, the room must have been magnificent in its day. The faded plaster wall behind her hinted at a deep crimson past, and the apex of the dome above her still sported a squadron of painted angels watching the proceedings below with distant stares. Antique desks arranged in a circular pattern supported a handful of men and women busily writing, and statues in the galleries across the room from her gleamed evasively with the light from below.

  Striking something with her foot, Malone looked down and noticed a book, fugitive from a nearby cart that had been overturned and forgotten. She picked it up, the ancient hardback binding unfamiliar in her hands. The cover read The Prince, and below, “Niccolò Machiavelli.” Her curiosity further aroused, she opened the front cover and read, stamped in faded blue ink, “Library of Congress”.

  The missing pieces of the puzzle began to reassemble. Malone followed the gaze of the statues perched atop the banister and noticed halls leading from the circular room to others lined with books. But it was the person she saw entering from one of those halls that caused her the greatest surprise.

  Rafe Sundar followed an immaculately clad man, who looked more like a researcher than a guard, into the reading room, his coat draped over an arm and craning his neck to take in his surroundings. The researcher had an air of agitation about him, but Sundar was as cool as ever.

  “Dr Hask,” the researcher began, approaching the petite woman at the center of the room, “please forgive the interruption, but we found this man in the stacks.” Even far above the scene, Malone could read the annoyance in Hask’s posture and the unspoken question as to how an intruder had gotten there in the first place. Perhaps sensing this, the researcher pressed on. “Now he’s demanding to see the person in charge.” He obviously hoped that this would be the end of the matter as far as he was concerned.

  “Yes, I see,” she said. “You may return to your station. Inspector Sundar and I are already acquainted.” Sundar’s guide stormed off with a final look over his shoulder, but the researchers gathered at the tables all around ignored the new arrival. “I thought I smelled something rank,” said Hask.

  “That’s probably from my horse, although I prefer to think of it as an earthy musk. We’ve gotten pretty well acquainted since we met at the commune a few hours ago. Alas, we can’t all travel in style. Some of us have to get our hands dirty on the job.”

  Hask grinned. “Why, Inspector Sundar, you understand me better than you think. I’m surprised.”

  “Not nearly as surprised as I am, Doctor. I’ve chased trails across the city and now beyond it… to find a library?”

  “A library, Inspector. Utter the word with the respect it deserves, as a repository of words, of ideas that you and I… well, that you, at least, can hardly fathom,” she said in a voice tinged with disdain and colored with awe. “There are names in this place that have endured for centuries – millennia, even – surviving war and dust and forgetfulness. We stand in the presence of greatness.” She circled their rounded aisle at the center of the desks, gazing around her with a beatific expression.

  Sundar dropped his coat onto the nearest desk. “The only names that interest me right now are the ones related to this project. I have reason to believe that the discovery of this library is related to the deaths of Dr Cahill, Lanning Fitzhugh, and Councilor Hollens.”

  She sniffed. “You detectives are so predictable, and you would do well to take some cues from your deservedly more famous predecessors living in these shelves.” Hask paused, as if on the verge of suggesting a reading list. Abruptly, she spun back to face Sundar. “Except, I am surprised to see you here alone. What happened to your dear partner, Malone?” she asked.

  “That’s Inspector Malone,” he said. “Utter the title with the respect it deserves, identifying a soldier of justice, a word that you seem to have forgotten in the midst of all these others.” Listening above, Malone felt an uncomfortable swell of pride and affection. “She was detained,” he said. For a moment, Malone wondered how he could have found the place, but in an instant she remembered: the map. She had left it in her desk before she left, and Sundar must have searched it.

  Hask crossed in front of Sundar in long, slow paces. “Ah, how unfortunate. And yet you found your way here, all by yourself, without the guidance of your mentor?” In her voice was the silken edge of a vindictive schoolmarm coaxing a secret from an errant child. Malone only hoped that Sundar could hear it.

  He paused. “I may not read, but I can do math.”

  “But surely you told your most respectable chief of your little detour?” Scanning the rotunda below, Malone saw almost a dozen guards surrounding it and a few more filing in and out of the stacks.

  “We both know that this investigation is off the books. So to speak.”

  Hask nodded in one downward motion as she continued pacing. “Yet you came.” Malone had six shots loaded in her revolver. Even if she made all six, Sundar would be surrounded, and the guards had most likely disarmed him.

  “In the hopes that we could work something out. That we could talk more outside the city.”

  “All alone. How very commendable.” She stopped and looked up at him with the most frightening smile Malone
had ever seen.

  “Only my civic duty. Which, at this moment, is to discover your purpose here.”

  “My purpose, as you so aptly put it, is to recover and guard the secrets that have survived, to restore the knowledge around us to proper use and authority, and to piece together a history that was forged long before your oldest memories and that will persist beyond your pitiable life… which may not be very long.”

  A familiar crease crossed Sundar’s smooth brow. “What?”

  At that moment, a guard who had been waiting in the wings materialized behind Sundar and jabbed a dagger into the young inspector’s back. Sundar’s eyes flew wide in confusion and pain, and a scream rattled pitifully in his throat. He sank to his knees, the guard easing him down. “I am sorry, Mr Sundar,” Hask said. “But it’s a pity you didn’t read more.” None of the researchers looked up from their work as the guard dragged him out of the reading room, a trail of blood smearing beneath his limp legs.

  Malone knelt in her spot behind the banister, frozen. A scream stuck in her throat, leaving her as helpless to free it as she had been to save Sundar. She looked up at the statues, as if hoping that their eyes had witnessed a different scene. Suddenly, the sight of the statues, the faded paint, the musky desk and forgotten books filled her with an unspeakable revulsion. Numb, but for the tremors zipping through her body, she crawled back to the rockslide and clambered up the debris and back through the window. Malone gasped at the brisk morning air as sunlight hit her face and clawed her way out of the pit, which now felt like a grave. Reaching the surface, she hunkered down on her hands and knees and vomited. Her face was already wet with tears, and frozen in her mind was the final image of Sundar’s face as he fell to his knees, stricken with terrible understanding.

  “I truly am sorry for your loss, but believe me when I tell you that he was gone the moment he set foot in that place.” Malone stumbled around to face a man she had never before seen. He was thin and tall, though it was hard to tell how tall, crouched as he was. His wispy, bright red hair framed an elegant face, but what caught her attention were his eyes, shrewd and motionless. “Almost no one who has discovered Project Prometheus has lived to tell about it,” he said, seeming to hold back a conspiratorial wink, “and I believe you’ll understand why.” She dimly realized that she was still bent over a pile of her own sick, trembling.

  “I suppose that you’ll require an explanation. Sit down, let’s get you out of that mess… that’s better.” Pulling her away from the dome, he sat across from her in a fresh patch of grass and tilted his head with the matter-of-fact air of someone about to share common knowledge. “Inspector Malone, we’ve much to talk about. Yes, I know who you are, and my name is Jakkeb Sato.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Revelations

  Jane fought her way through the crowds and headed toward the Vineyard. Confusion swept the streets as the masses swarmed in panicked tides and scattered squads of the City Guard attempted to stem them. She had rushed from the restaurant, deaf to Olivia’s protests and Fredrick’s questions. Foreseeing Jane’s destination, Olivia had gone so far as to try to stop her, but Fredrick had restrained Olivia as Jane set off at a swift jog.

  Her mind whirled as she pushed her way through streets and tunnels. Olivia’s latest revelation had left Jane dazed, but she was inclined to believe it. If Roman had really assigned Olivia to eliminate her, the savvy maid could have easily done so, and she certainly would not have bothered to treat her to lunch and a safe haven that afternoon. But as much as she wanted to feel gratitude toward her protectors, she was appalled by the implication of their role in the bombings. She did not want to believe that Roman himself was responsible for the murders… or could it have been Olivia, making outings at strange hours? Jane needed answers and she only knew of one person to ask. She would only have to hope that she could overcome his usual predilection for dodging questions.

  As she raced through town, she wondered about the actual damage of the bombs. So far, she had only seen the secondary effects manifest in citywide hysteria, but a dark corner of her mind dreaded the moment that would thrust her up against the bloody face of the tragedy. Rounding a corner and rushing directly into a knot of panic, she saw the cause of the uproar.

  Nearly half of the block ahead of her was smashed. Where once a hive of offices had stood, a pile of smoking rubble and bodies now lay. Ordinary citizens and whitecoat medics alike heaved moaning and screaming bodies from the wreckage and lay them in what open space they could find, no doubt praying for the swift arrival of the ambulance carriages, while a crowd of useless onlookers stood by in shock. The area where the offices had stood was cleft open like a cross-section, showing halls and rooms that now led nowhere. Jane hoped that the bombs of “various sizes” had been mostly smaller.

  When she neared Carnegie, she slowed her pace. The crowds had thinned drastically as she approached the Vineyard, leading her to believe that the whitenails and their associates had either fled or hidden in their mansions. Stranger still was the sudden absence of guards. The few Jane had seen had been busy redirecting the crowds. Jane covered the last leg of her journey at a lope before that could change.

  She pounded on Roman Arnault’s door, struggling with the possibility that he might be elsewhere. The tide of recent events – from the bombings and Olivia’s subsequent revelations to her own intrigues and attack (which now seemed distant and minute by comparison) – had left her with enough to sort out through many sleepless nights, but the thought of bearing it without any idea of what it all meant was too much. Out of breath and shaking with nerves, she leaned against the doorpost and continued beating an irregular rhythm on the door. She relaxed when Roman opened it, looking, if possible, even more surprised than he had at her first visit.

  “Roman, I–”

  “I warned you against coming back.” He sighed, sounding more weary than angry. “Quickly, before someone sees you,” he said, taking her arm and not waiting for a response. He guided her back to the drawing room with neither the hospitality nor the wrath of before, but with a sense of urgency. He brought her once again to the crackling fireplace and turned her to face him. “Jane, I cannot tell you what a mistake you’ve made in coming here. What can I say to make you understand that you have to stay away?”

  “You lied the other night, didn’t you?” Jane said. Roman blinked, mystified. “You didn’t send Olivia to kill me.”

  “Oh, that… Is that what you came all the way to tell me? Thoughtful, but I’m afraid this was unnecessary,” he said, a strain of emotion coloring his dark voice. “You’ve put yourself in more danger by coming here.”

  Jane dropped into the chair next to her. “Danger from what? The Council?”

  Roman grasped her hands and gently pulled her to her feet again. “No, it’s much worse than that. For you, anyway. The Council will soon be among the least of your worries, and for that reason you must leave. Tonight.”

  “Leave where?”

  His eyes flew wide and he leaned closer to her, his hands shaking hers with emphasis. “The city! Recoletta. After tonight, this place will no longer be safe for you.” He watched her eyes for understanding and continued more calmly. “I have exercised what little influence I have, but you know too much, and they will kill you for it if you remain. I wanted you to stay out of the murders and the rest of this mess, but you’re too close to be safe,” he said, awkwardly, avoiding her eyes.

  “Who are ‘they’? And what could I possibly know?”

  Roman hesitated. “The Council’s replacements. And you know that the Council didn’t break down on its own.”

  “There was a murderer. Everyone knows that.”

  “Do they?” Roman raised an eyebrow. “People believe it because they’ve been told so. But when this is all over, they’ll be told another story: that the Council cannibalized itself, and that the councilors and their most corrupt cronies turned on one another when their machinations spiraled out of control.”


  “And that’s how the murders happened?” said Jane.

  Roman nodded. “And the replacements figured it out and came to clean house.”

  “People will never believe that.”

  “People allow themselves to believe a lot of things, Jane. And once this all plays out, it will make more sense than you think. But you’re one of the few people in Recoletta who knows better.”

  Jane bit her lip. “I could go along with it.”

  “Not convincingly.”

  “No one knows who I am,” Jane said. “No one even knows I was in Mr Fitzhugh’s house.” She paused, wrinkling her brow. “Well, almost no one.”

  “These things have a way of getting out. We can’t take that chance.”

  “But this doesn’t make sense! If ‘they’ wanted me dead, the real murderer could have easily killed me two weeks ago.”

  He still held her hands in a surprisingly warm and soft grip. “It was not the murderer who drugged you,” he said, watching her. He looked down at his hands and quickly dropped them to his sides. “Don’t make me say it.”

  She hesitated and regarded him. “You mean that you…? It was you in the house that night?”

  “You said that you had more errands in the Vineyard, and of course I knew what had already been arranged at a certain address and time,” he said. His gruffness sounded as artificial as Jane now knew his threats to be. “The assassin only had one target, but any complications would necessarily be eliminated. I followed you and, after some difficulty in that darkness, incapacitated you.” He cleared his throat and looked away, frowning. “I later explained that I had followed the assassin to keep an eye on things, which, after the way he nearly bungled the first job, was not unreasonable,” he added crossly, “and that in his carelessness, a young housekeeper had followed him in… and was no longer a threat. By the time they learned that you were alive, it was too late to do anything. They had been convinced that it wasn’t worth the effort to get to you.” Roman did not have to tell Jane who had done the convincing. The faint color in his cheeks said everything.