“Like me?” Giovanna asked, pressing a hand to her chest. She shook her head. “Oh, no. We couldn’t have that. Pia had a few million nanites grafted to the skin cells on her body. So much of that was scar tissue. The fire badly damaged her nerves. She couldn’t see. The best solution to all of the problems, and to give the nanites the best interface possible, was total body prosthesis.”
Gideon raised a hand, his face twisted. “Woah. You can’t even find black market cybernetics installers that will go that far.”
“What?” Cora asked, turning to everyone in the room, perplexed. “I don’t get it. What’s that?”
Giovanna leaned to Cora and rested a hand on her shoulder. “That’s when there’s more parts in me made by Tetriarch than the ones I was born with, patatina.”
Cora shuddered. Native people didn’t abide any technology put into them, believing it damaged their spirit. The natural aversion conjured up all sorts of grotesque visions of getting carved up on a table by some butcher, replacing organic parts with rods and hydraulics. Even if the reality was far cleaner and clinical, it turned her stomach all the same.
“The shapeshifting caused so much pain that the nanites had to be reconfigured to pump constant streams of Prodicaine into my system,” Giovanna spoke directly to Julian. “Years of physical therapy. Then combat training. Infiltration technique. Acting classes. Learning how to shapeshift. Never seeing the sun or my own reflection. No, Doctor Ludovich had to retire after all he did to create me. I was his legacy.”
Julian mulled over her statement, crossing his arms. “I find it hard to believe that the Italian government would have such a breakthrough with you and let him go so easily.”
“Unfortunately, Doctor Ludovich was thrown from his penthouse window,” she replied, returning to her cool, unshakable elegance. “The same night, there was a break-in at his lab. All of his research was gone, too. It was probably the Chinese. Or the Russians. Such a shame.”
“Quite,” Julian replied sarcastically.
“So, Pia Serreti is dead,” she explained. “Now you know who she was.”
Julian’s eyes flared, absorbing the information. He took a breath, gathering himself before checking the screens on his Arcadia. Michael adjusted himself, wrapping his arms around his chin and cracked his neck into place.
“I guess that brings us to you, Johnny Clean,” Julian said.
Johnny raised a hand and shook his head. “I don’t think so. You expect me to sit here like Gia and sing Kumbaya with you, then you definitely didn’t do enough research on me.”
Julian stayed fixed on Johnny’s eyes. Cora watched the exchange, as if it were a contest between two statues. Neither gave an inch, their expressions stone. Julian was the first to speak.
“I have only one question,” he said. He pointed to Cora. “Your relationship to Miss Blake. You were a sniper in the American’s Second Civil War, were you not?”
“I was,” Johnny said, eyes narrowing.
“On the American side, correct?”
“Yes,” he replied. “What’s your point?”
“Well,” Julian lifted his hands. “Your targets wouldn’t have been Americans, would they?”
Johnny leaned forward in his seat, eyes intense. The guards in the room closed a step toward him, edgy and ready to pounce.
“What the hell are you insinuating?” Johnny said, folding his hands and resting them between his legs.
Cora knew that posture well. Guards or no, if the next thing out of Julian’s mouth offended him, Johnny was going across that table. In the past few years she’d known Johnny, what Julian was asking was tantamount to reopening an old wound. There was a reason he wasn’t a sniper anymore, and it wasn’t his age nor a lack of skill. In her heart, she knew the question Julian was trying to ask - how could Johnny befriend a Native girl?
Given his role in the war, he must have had a dozen high-profile Native people in his crosshairs at one point or another. If she had to guess, he was responsible for making sure that the magic-users, far at the back of the battlefield, were removed before their magic altered the course of the offensive. Given that the world grew uncomfortable with the displays of magic the Natives used to defend themselves and break off from the United States, she assumed he didn’t succeed as often as the UNS Army intended him to.
“I’m saying your relationship with Miss Blake seems to be in contradiction to the targeted elimination of her people,” Julian said, dry and concise. There was no mincing of words. It was as if he invited Johnny to attack him if he didn’t like the question.
Johnny smiled and nodded. “Okay, I see what you’re trying to get at now. The girl is like a daughter to me. It was a war, a goddamn Civil War. We were fighting people we knew. People we called brothers. I pulled the trigger when I had no other choice. There wasn’t any hate in my heart for her people, and I’m not at her side out of some feeling of guilt. She knows I’ve done things.”
“Still love you, Johnny,” Cora smiled defiantly at Julian. If he was searching for cracks in their solidarity, she refused to give him the pleasure.
The corner of Johnny’s mouth curled up as he turned his head to her. “Right back at ya, kid.”
Cora didn’t like Julian making Johnny uncomfortable. She volunteered for his attention with the raise of her hand. “You got your answer. So I guess that leaves me.”
“Well, you’re the biggest train wreck of them all, aren’t you?” Julian replied, glancing down at the screen projected on the back of his hand. “Your final fitness report indicated issues with insubordination, Native sympathies, a drinking problem, and promiscuity.”
Cora laughed and shook her head. “That report was doctored by Lucius’ men when they hacked the NSA servers in Berlin.”
“And yet, here we are,” Julian replied. “According to Michael, he observed you in Heaven’s Crest in the Native Lands.”
“I was born there,” Cora replied.
“You have given up the NSA and turned your back on the UNS.”
“They shouldn’t have made me choose between them and my people.”
“You drank a full bottle of whiskey on your way here,” Julian continued.
“I was thirsty,” Cora replied with a huff. “What is your point here? That there was a glimmer of truth in the lies they planted in the report?”
Julian leaned forward, his gaze fixed on her. “I’m saying I don’t trust you. Not once, but twice you’ve been in the presence of Lucius and lived to tell the story.”
Cora scoffed, incredulous. “Yeah. And?”
“I had to bury Dante in a closed casket,” Julian raised his voice. “He didn’t have one-tenth to do with Project Phoenix as you did. I’m supposed to believe Lucius just spared you out of the kindness of his heart?”
Cora’s head dropped. The mention of Dante became a lump in her throat. If only he had escaped with her, he’d still be alive. Julian invoking his name as any strike against her was insulting, at best. She gritted her teeth, struggling to keep her eyes on the goal of the meeting.
“Lucius is difficult to explain,” she replied. She sighed. “On both occasions, he told me that we’re fated to battle each other like we did. He didn’t kill me because he knows he can’t.”
“Can’t?” Julian asked, his tone demanding.
Cora lifted her head. “No. He can’t. You can’t change fate, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Even if he tried to kill me, it would fail for some reason or another. And he did try, back when I blew up his little satellite station. He got interrupted by a phone call.”
Julian stood up, Michael followed suit, his face a mask of confusion. Julian turned for the door, affording her one last glance.
“I don’t buy it,” he said, turning his attention to Michael. “Get them the hell out of Camelot.”
“Sir, I think-”
“You’ve done enough thinking for one day. Just do it!” Julian shouted as he left the room.
Michael turned to Cora. A
ll she could do was shrug. Julian’s animosity pointed directly at her. He hadn’t so much as raised his voice to anyone else. She couldn’t imagine what she’d done in the past few minutes of meeting him that would warrant such a reaction. As uneasy and confused as Michael looked, it didn’t seem he understood it any better.
Silence filled the room as Cora exchanged glances with her team. In the distance, Julian’s voice carried down the metal hallways outside. He was yelling at another person, though Cora strained to hear what he was saying.
“...I met her. I don’t share your confidence,” he shouted.
The reply he received was so soft-spoken that Cora didn’t catch a word of it. Michael turned his back to her, staring out the doorway to the hall. Either he was awaiting another confirmation to black-bag her and ship her back to Heaven’s Crest, or someone else was coming.
“Go ahead!” Julian yelled, his voice trailing off as he moved farther away, ranting the whole way.
Slow, labored steps echoed closer, ringing out on the steel plating. Michael turned, pressing his back to the doorway. An older man walked through, assisting his steps with a cane. Unlike the soldiers around him, he wore a suit and jacket that hung baggy on his frail form. What little hair he had rested on the sides of his head, shaved close like the buzzcuts of the stern-looking guards in the room. Cora looked him up and down before settling on his gray eyes, wide with shock as he stared back at her.
“It’s you,” he said. He shook his head. “I should have suspected.”
Cora’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, sir. Do we know each other?”
The old man nodded, loose skin on his neck jiggling. “We did. And we will. It’s so damned hard to explain. I’m not sure where to begin. To be safe, though, I think it wise we discuss this in private.”
Cora hated the riddles that accompanied prophecy, but her father tried to tell her that relating them wasn’t an exact science. She’d gotten used to the frustration of deciphering cryptic messages about the future well enough to smell when one was coming. She sighed, resolved to go with the flow, for the time being.
“Sure,” she said, standing up. Johnny grabbed her by the arm. Her reflection stared back at her off his glasses, but his face warned her against leaving. She patted his hand. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
“Who is this guy?” Johnny insisted, motioning to the old man.
“My name is Merlin,” he replied.
Past Tense
Courtesy made Cora alright with the old man holding onto her arm as he led her down the hall, and his grandfatherly demeanor put her at ease. It was a welcome break from the tension of dealing with Julian, and the constant worry that her team would be fighting their way out of this place. Pipes continued through the ceiling of the hallway, while her motorcycle boots clicked with each step on the metal-plated floor. Coupled with the narrow corridors, she might have been right about being on a submarine.
Guards were everywhere. The pair couldn’t walk twenty feet without spotting one, watching them intently. Merlin’s shaky hand rose up, pointing to a door off the main hall. Cora opened it up and held it for him. The interior was no prettier than the interrogation room, but more lived-in. Candles accompanied the LED lighting along the ceiling, far easier on the eyes than where they’d come from. His desk was metal, like everything else, and bolted to the floor.
“Shut the door,” he said, waddling to his chair behind the desk. “Come in and sit with me.”
Cora obeyed, sitting in a rigid chair before his desk. He fetched a pair of corrective glasses from the desk and eased into his seat. At rest, he didn’t look as frail, and certainly not like a wizard of legend. If anything, he evoked memories of Professor Clark at Harvard Law bringing her to his office to argue the finer points of her essay on Wild Boar v. State of New York.
“Can I get you something to drink, my dear? A glass of water?” he asked.
Cora raised a gentle hand. “No, thank you.”
“Something stronger, then?”
That sounded like a trap. At the very least, stereotyping her by that ridiculous fitness report Lucius’ men cooked up was insulting. She pursed her lips, unsure how to respond. With all that had happened since their arrival, a drink sounded wonderful to relax the muscles.
“What is your drink, dear?” Merlin pressed.
“Jack,” Cora shook her head, trying to be dismissive. “It’s an American label, I don’t expect-”
Before she could finish, he lifted the black-label bottle from a drawer beneath his desk and set it down. Cora guffawed, stunned at first, but her brow furrowed as this played out like a setup.
“You just happened to have my favorite brand, huh?” she said, crossing her arms.
The old man came back from under the desk with two glasses. “Not until you said so. If I told you it was magic, would you believe me?”
“More readily than you telling me that you keep some for a rainy day,” she replied. Leaning forward, she gripped the glass and waited for a fill. He poured a double, but she kept staring at him. He went on to a triple, checked with her, then kept on until the tumbler was full. “You obviously read the reports.”
The old man raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t read anything. I remember.”
Cora sat back, her mind flooded with questions. It could wait until she pounded her drink down in gulps. Whatever he said next, she’d need all the booze she could get. She politely set it back to the desk, waiting for Merlin to take his first sip before refilling her glass.
“You have concerns, no doubt,” he said. “Ask your questions.”
“You’re really the same Merlin of legend?” Cora asked.
He nodded back with a cheeky smile. “I’ll be hitting the big one-six-four-oh in August.”
Cora shrugged and picked up her refill. “Well, you don’t look a day over eleven hundred. Can you tell me how that’s possible? Did you sleep between The Awakenings, like the dragons?”
“No,” he replied, dismissive of the question. “I share nothing in common with the creatures. During the last Awakening, while my magic was still strong, I took certain precautions that would dramatically slow my aging process and protect me from an untimely death.”
Such mastery and power bewildered Cora. Other than enhancing sight or leaping incredible distances, she’d never known power over magic like that. He explained it as though it were a commonplace safeguard. Perhaps it was, in his time.
“I can’t wrap my head around that,” she said, shaking her head. “How could magic protect you once the last Awakening ended? Magic was gone for centuries.”
He replied with an easy, reassuring smile. “Magic is never gone, my dear. It moves likes the tides. The Awakening is high tide, of course, but once it recedes, the water doesn’t stop existing, does it?”
Cora blew out a long breath and leaned back in her chair. “Alright. You said we know each other? How?”
Merlin grumbled and adjusted in his chair. The question bothered him. “I want to be perfectly honest with you, yet this is one aspect of the world I never grew to understand. Tinkering with time is something I swore I’d never even investigate, even if it could be done.”
“I’ve heard prophecy before,” she said. A warm sensation entered her brain, forming a cushion around it. It was wonderful. She held up her glass for another refill. “I’m used to dealing with visions of the future. It was my father’s gift.”
He unscrewed the cap and topped her off, shaking his head. He searched for words, not of what he should say, but how much he held back. His face a mask of restraint, several moments passed before he replied.
“It is not of the future,” he said. He wobbled his head back and forth, frustrated. “I should say, it is, but it isn’t. To you, we have never seen each other before today. I met you when I was much younger, though.”
“Oh, geez,” Cora sighed, throwing back her drink in a long, continuous sip. “May as well just hand me the bottle and start explaining.”
&n
bsp; Merlin pushed the bottle forward. As Cora grabbed for it, she noticed it was full. She paused, pointing at the bottle before thinking better of it. One thing at a time.
“We met during the First Awakening,” Merlin said, letting the notion hang in the air.
“You mean, someone that looked like me? One of my ancestors, perhaps?”
Merlin shook his head. “There weren’t many Native American women with magical abilities roaming England in 546, my dear. Perhaps it would be simpler to show you.”
Cora sat up in her seat. “Show me?”
He went under his desk again, returning with a tome that looked as ancient as it was heavy. At four inches thick, the leather-bound book weighed down his frail arms, making it to his desk with a thud. He set his hand on the cover and locked eyes with Cora.
“This is the Pendragon Codex,” he said. “In it, I have chronicled a lifetime spent at the side of Arthur’s bloodline. Every event of note is detailed in here to present. Our conversation here today will no doubt be my night’s work.”
Cora stood up and leaned over the desk, awed by the historical significance. “You know the information in there would probably throw our entire known understanding of history into a tailspin, right?”
“The weight of responsibility I carry is to mankind first, and the Pendragon line second,” he replied, his tone grim. “Humanity is better off without a full picture of where we’ve been, and where we’re going. I believe the Illuminati do a fine job of dispensing information as the public can handle it.”
“High praise for such a shady organization,” Cora said.
“It’s what I created them for,” he replied with a kind smile.
Cora laughed to herself. He hadn’t even opened the book yet, and already tossed her understanding of the world out the window. She nodded without speaking, beckoning him to continue. He opened the book to an early page, close to the beginning. His writing was infinitesimal, in a beautiful script of a language she did not understand. As he scanned and flipped pages, looking for the right one, her eyes were drawn to illustrations on the page. They were reminiscent of Da Vinci’s sketches. She recognized Excalibur from the hilt that peeked from over Julian’s shoulder, embedded in rock. A water spirit emerging from a lake was on the opposite page. He turned another page, where Lucius stood proud in his dragon form.
The Pendragon Codex Page 6