by K. K. Perez
The picture of Claudia, fast asleep and helpless, blistered the back of her eyes. If Lucy had to trade herself for her friend’s release, she would. Surely the Order of Sophia would at least allow them to say goodbye.
“I have no allegiance to anyone but myself.” Rick’s voice held no emotion, but his knuckles tightened briefly on the wheel.
“But you did belong.”
“I was raised to believe that knowledge must always be governed by wisdom. When Kleopatra of Egypt founded the Order, she named it for Sophia, the goddess of wisdom.” He rolled his shoulders. “Wisdom above all is not a bad philosophy—in theory.”
Frost settled over Lucy’s heart.
“Kleopatra the alchemist founded the Order of Sophia?”
Rick glanced at her sidelong. “You’ve heard of her?”
She nodded.
“Kleopatra discovered the secret to the philosopher’s stone—and she saw it led to greed, treachery, and death.”
Which was why she’d hidden it in her Pharmakon. Lucy wouldn’t let on to Rick she knew about that too, however. What would happen if her mom actually managed to decipher the text? The Sophists would come after her was what.
Rick exhaled a long breath. “Kleopatra realized that sometimes scientists must have the wisdom to prevent themselves from acquiring certain knowledge.”
The founder of the Sophists would therefore have believed that scientists should be protected from Lucy—from whatever secrets of evolution were contained within her DNA.
“It sounds like you still agree with her,” she charged.
“I live by no code but my own.” One-handed, Rick turned the wheel.
Lucy pulled the tourmaline loose from beneath the collar of the turtleneck. If she agreed to be tattooed with the same dark star as Ravi, exactly which code would she be living her life by?
“The Archimedeans believe in progress, state-sponsored science,” Lucy said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. I keep an open mind. Although, state-sponsored science brought the atom bomb into the world.” He caught her eye. “And that was the last time the Orders worked together.”
Lucy couldn’t prevent her jaw from dropping.
“You’re saying the Orders were behind the Manhattan Project?”
“Mostly.” A careless smile. “Quite the appropriate setting for this discussion.”
If nonchalance were a superpower, then Rick deserved a cape and tights.
“What happened?” she said.
“Success is its own form of defeat.”
Lucy arched an eyebrow.
“You’ve seen the mushroom cloud. No one had ever achieved such destruction. Total. Horrendous. But scientifically glorious. Many were left disillusioned—hence the Freelancers. Putain!”
Rick swerved to avoid a car that had broken down in the off-ramp to the South Street Seaport. Another breath hissed through his teeth. Waving dismissively in Lucy’s direction, he said, “After the Manhattan Project, the Order of Sophia became more fanatical about never letting a weapon of such mass destruction be constructed again. Not everyone has the stomach to eliminate all threats.”
The indifference as he talked about threats and eliminations made Lucy wonder, “Why did you leave?” Rick didn’t strike her as someone opposed to using violence or blackmail to get what he wanted.
“Each of us has a story. Mine is not for tonight.”
Lucy could tell that pushing Rick to reveal his reason for leaving would get her nowhere. She didn’t really care anyway. She wouldn’t waste her questions on his personal history.
“Eliminating threats—is that why the Sophists killed Tesla?”
In principle, she didn’t disagree with their policy of not developing WMDs. The problem seemed to be they thought Lucy was one.
Rick pulled the van over to the curb on a cobblestoned street.
“Tesla died before the successful detonation of an atom bomb. And he belonged to the Order of Sophia,” he informed her. “Why would they kill him?”
Professor T said Tesla had telegrammed the Archimedeans on the day he died. If Rick wasn’t aware that Tesla had switched allegiances, however, Lucy wasn’t about to spill the beans. She imagined the Sophists dealt swiftly with traitors.
“We’ve arrived,” he announced.
Lucy circled her eyes around colonial-era buildings. She didn’t know this part of the city at all.
The locks popped and Rick exited the vehicle.
Lucy’s chest expanded. “Ravi?” she whispered.
No answer. What had happened to him?
Spare change on the dashboard, a few pennies and dimes, flew toward her and she ducked. Lucy had to get her electromagnetic field under control. Claudia’s life depended on it.
She closed her eyes and imagined herself dressed in a coat of armor like Ravi had taught her. No energy could get in or out. Lucy added another layer of virtual protection and the pennies stopped rattling.
A different kind of rapping broke her concentration.
“We don’t have all night.” Amara knocked on the window again.
“I’m coming.”
I’m coming, Clauds.
DON’T LOOK DOWN
Rick’s words echoing in her mind, Lucy followed the Freelancers toward their destination in Lower Manhattan. Amara flanked her so closely they may as well have been superglued. Under very different conditions, she might bring Ravi here to see the tall ships moored to Pier 17.
It occurred to Lucy that the Order of Sophia feared her genetic mutation because it could render humanity as archaic as a schooner. Given that carriers of the lightning gene were prone to premature death, however, their intolerant stance seemed like a bit of an overreaction. How much mayhem could she really cause?
Lucy’s eyes flitted across the redbrick façades of nineteenth-century row houses. She’d presumed Rick would be burglarizing one of the many Wall Street office buildings within spitting distance, going after the corporate titans made from steel and glass.
Why would one of the houses in the historic district be heavily guarded?
The group turned down a dead-end alley. There were no doors or windows interrupting the brick of the row houses. If Rick thought Lucy could walk through walls, he was in for the disappointment of his life.
Shadows from the nearby skyscrapers were cold on her cheeks.
Rick made some kind of hand signal and the crew scattered, melting into the darkened corners of the alleyway. He crooked a pinky at Lucy. With no choice but to obey, she trudged to his side.
“Now what?” she said, hoping that Ravi was still picking her up through the com device.
“We go down.”
Lucy followed his gaze. It was a manhole. A bronze manhole cover decorated with six-petaled flowers. Six six-petaled blossoms surrounding a word in Greek that stopped her heart.
σοφία
Lucy’s eyes went wide and Rick muffled a chuckle-cough in his fist.
“Sophia,” Lucy whispered, the word lacerating her throat. “You brought me straight to the Sophists’ door?”
After Rick’s spiel about not agreeing with the extremists, she’d allowed herself to believe he wouldn’t just hand her over. She should have realized he was ruled by self-interest. There was probably a pretty penny for her head.
“Calmes-toi. Nobody’s home.” His laughter became a barking cough. “They simply have something I want.”
Rick’s attempt at reassurance did nothing to lift the weight from Lucy’s chest.
Trying not to shake, she demanded, “What do you expect me to do? Lift the cover with the power of my mind?” A flying stapler was one thing. A sheet of metal with a three-foot diameter was quite another. “I can’t do it.”
He narrowed his eyes to slits, assessing her like a predator who toys with his prey before swallowing it whole.
“You can. Or you will. But we don’t have time for that tonight.”
“T
hen what?”
“Patience.”
Patience was an important virtue for a scientist to possess, but Lucy had steadily been running out of hers. Every second that ticked by was another second Claudia was being held captive.
Rick clicked his fingers and Mikhail materialized out of nowhere, crowbar in hand. Where had he stashed the crowbar? Better to remain ignorant, actually.
“Won’t it be alarmed?” Lucy cautioned.
Vulpine smile. “We have an inside man,” Rick replied.
Of course they did. The Freelancers had moles in both Orders. Perfect.
With a couple grunts, Mikhail made quick work of the manhole cover.
As promised, no alarm sounded.
Rick performed a mocking half bow and waved his hand. “Ladies first.”
Great. A mercenary who was a stickler for manners.
Girding herself, Lucy wrapped her hands around the rusty rung of a ladder and began her descent below the city. Grime slid between her fingers as a dank smell filled her nostrils. She really didn’t want to know what it was. She also ignored the chattering of some kind of critter with whiskers that interrupted the trickling of water.
Rick plunged after her into the darkness, a flashlight gripped between his teeth.
Mikhail re-covered the manhole, eclipsing any streetlight filtering down.
Her insides convulsed.
The darkness was too familiar. An old friend Lucy wanted to forget. Knowing that her seizures were caused by a genetic mutation rather than a more straightforward neurological condition didn’t change the reality of her symptoms. Professor T had given Lucy hope that she could learn to master them, but the darkness would always be waiting for her.
Her feet connected with a hard, slippery concrete floor. Rick reached the bottom a few seconds later and Lucy winced as the flashlight shone directly in her eyes. Shielding herself, yellow dots continued to strobe against the inky blackness.
“Where are the others?” she whispered as her eyes readjusted, roving the tunnel that stretched before them. “And where are we?”
“There are tunnels all over this city if you know where to look.” He shrugged. “As for the others—they do not need to see what you can do. I am considerate, non?”
Rick was a lot of things. Considerate wasn’t at the top of Lucy’s list.
“Are you saying the Orders built a secret labyrinth beneath New York City?” she asked.
“London aussi. Paris. Rome. The Orders are everywhere.” He circled the light around the cramped corridor and began walking. “They can’t take all the credit, however. There were the bootleggers. And the Freemasons.”
Rick glanced back at Lucy over his shoulder and removed something from his pocket with casual grace.
“You might need this. Catch!”
Lucy raised her hands, fumbling as the Tesla Egg landed between them.
“It was you!” she hissed.
He laughed as he continued navigating them forward. She stared at the egg. If Rick knew what it could do, he must know the risks of giving it back to her. He must be confident that he had enough leverage to keep Lucy compliant.
Much as it infuriated her, he was right.
A grateful, happy buzz spread through her body as her hand closed around the egg. As if a missing limb had been returned.
Emerald light illuminated the tunnel. She heard a low whistle as Rick shut off his flashlight. He didn’t need it anymore.
Simultaneously the tourmaline began to dig harder into Lucy’s throat, almost choking her. The stone struggled to match the boost to the oscillation of her electromagnetic field provoked by Tesla’s invention. Excitement thrummed through Lucy thinking of the experiments she could perform on herself, scientific fascination momentarily outweighing fear.
“We could take your show on the road,” Rick commented.
Bite me, Lucy thought. She bit her tongue instead.
They reached a crossroads.
He pointed at a ladder.
Up they went.
A WORTHY FOE
Being burned alive was not how Lucy had planned to end her evening.
Luckily, the fireplace was a fake. As Rick crawled through the firebox on his belly, Lucy wiped her dirty palms against her leggings. She had to hand it to the Sophists. The illusion was complete, right down to the chopped wood resting by the hearth. No one would ever suspect that a trapdoor to a secret network of tunnels lay beneath the chimney.
Lucy twirled on the spot, observing her surroundings by the forest-green glow radiating from the Tesla Egg. She wasn’t sure how far they’d walked underground, perhaps only a block or two, but it appeared as if they’d stumbled through a wormhole into the early 1800s. And they were standing in someone’s living room: a pair of claw-footed armchairs were positioned on either side of the fireplace; in the far corner of the room was a Jane Austen–era pianoforte. Oil paintings of battles and portraits of women with Marie Antoinette powdered wigs were staggered along oak-paneled walls.
Her eyes completed their circuit and settled on the mosaic inlaid across the mantel. Rose-colored tiles were once more arranged in six blossoms containing six petals each. At the midpoint of the mantel, three flowers on either side, lay a beetle.
Crackling filled her ears. The com device. Something must be jamming it. She shook her head like a wet dog and the static dissipated.
“The scarab,” Lucy said, taken aback, praying that if Ravi could hear her he might recognize her location.
Rick traced his finger along the tiles. The Freelancer might have abandoned the Order of Sophia, but he admired the insect with the same expression Ravi wore when he talked about the Ouroboros. What was it her mom had told Lucy about the scarab? The Egyptian alchemists believed it to be a sacred animal, possessing the power of creation and transmutation. But surely the Sophists knew that wasn’t true?
Not looking at her, Rick said, “There are those who’ve never believed the philosopher’s stone was a what—but a who.”
This was not the moment for philosophizing. “Where are we?” Lucy demanded.
Please be hearing this, Ravi.
“A merchant’s house. Once a big player in the opium trade,” Rick answered, unhelpfully enigmatic.
“The Sophists were nineteenth-century drug dealers?”
“Narcotics can be medicinal.” He lifted an eyebrow. “His descendants run a pharmaceutical company. And this home is now open to the public as a museum.”
A museum? They’d broken into a freaking museum! The police were probably already on their way.
“Are you kidding me? There must be a million cameras in here.” She pitted her cheeks. “Shouldn’t we at least be wearing masks?”
“Not a million cameras. Only the one.”
Rick pointed at a grandfather clock on the opposite side of the room.
“Take care of that for me.” He waved at it with a grin. “You Americans say cheese, correct?”
Anger flared inside Lucy and the radius of the St. Elmo’s fire grew. Rick wasn’t concerned about starring in America’s Most Criminal Home Videos. Meanwhile, Lucy could forget about college.
“Whatever you think I can do, you’re wrong,” she said, an edge to her voice.
Rick lunged for her and allowed the emerald flame to singe his jacket. She yanked her hand back instinctually, then cursed herself for not holding her ground.
“What I know you can do is send an electromagnetic pulse that disables the camera’s circuitry. By the time anyone realizes the feed has gone dark, we should be gone.”
“You’re delusional.”
Rick smiled at her, a hard smile, but the look in his eyes was strangely misty.
“I knew someone else like you. Long ago. You remind me of her.”
Lucy rocked onto the balls of her feet. “Who? What happened to her?”
“That is also not a story for tonight.” Any glimmer of tenderness vanished from his face. “Meet me upstairs in two minutes. We need to clear out befo
re the guards do their next sweep.”
“What if we don’t?”
“That’s what Meifen is for.”
In three imperious strides, Rick had left Lucy to her own devices. She had no time to lose.
She eyed the grandfather clock. Weathered cherry wood, a swaying brass gong like a lolling tongue. It didn’t look like a worthy adversary, but looks could be deceiving.
“Okay, Luce. You’re back in your lab,” she said aloud. “You need to create an electromagnetic pulse. What do you do?”
If Ravi knew the answer, he wasn’t forthcoming. All she was getting was spitting white noise.
Of course!
Lucy was the source of the static. Her heightened emotional state must be jamming the frequency. She should have realized sooner. But she did have a pretty good reason for being stressed out of her mind.
She held the Tesla Egg in one hand and rubbed the tourmaline around her neck with the other. The stone stabilized her oscillations, but what Lucy needed was to be the opposite of stable. She glared at the egg. Theoretically she could amplify her electromagnetic field so that anything else using her frequency would couple with her and burn itself out.
Theoretically.
The question was how to focus the direction of the electromagnetic burst. She didn’t want to fry everything in her immediate vicinity. Especially not her com device, the only link she had to Ravi.
Urgently, with shaky fingers, Lucy unfastened the necklace Claudia had lovingly crafted and laid it on the mantelpiece.
She hurried toward the clock and held out her hand. In the center of the gear that suspended the second and minute hands together she noticed a blinking red light. If the Order of Sophia didn’t know about her before, they did now.
Lucy gripped the Tesla Egg and watched the emerald fire intensify, brighter and brighter. Like when she was back in her garage lab, she imagined the most distressing thing she could.
She pictured Claudia, blood leaking from her mouth, her throat split from ear to ear in a gruesome grin. You were too late.
Lucy swallowed a scream as a dull popping noise echoed throughout the room.