Ixeos: Book One of the Ixeos Trilogy

by Jennings Wright

  It was only a few hundred yards through the descending tunnel to the portal, and they flew through it to the safety of Paris, tears streaming down Neahle’s face. Grabbing the lit torch from the sconce, Monkey gave her a grim look and started down the tunnel, leaving Sarah to be the comforter.

  “What if something happens to him?” Neahle sobbed.

  “It won’t. He’s here for a reason, right? This whole thing about the Enigma machine was his idea. We need him.”

  “And Abacus… And Riley…” Neahle wiped her face with her soaking wet sleeve.

  “Those two have been in plenty of fights before. They’ve always come out on top. Have faith!” Sarah pulled off her own sweatshirt and started squeezing the water out. “Let’s just get home, get warm and dry, and have some food. They’ll be back before you know it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The men didn’t return for almost two days. By then, Neahle was frantic. She spent all her time pacing, unable to eat or sleep. She was in the library trying to concentrate on Jane Eyre when Kiara ran in, her amber eyes welling with tears.

  “They’re back. Riley’s hurt bad.” Kiara turned and ran out again, leaving Neahle to follow.

  She found the men in the living room with a crowd ringing them. Her brother’s tall form was easy to spot over the heads of the others; she ran over and gave him a fierce hug. He returned it, then turned her towards the sofa.

  Riley lay there, a huge gash in his forehead, both eyes black, an obviously broken nose, and a huge lower lip. His buzz cut blonde hair was caked with dried blood making it look almost black in the torchlight. Through the split lip, it looked like several teeth were missing. His left arm was crudely splinted with a piece of wood and scraps of fabric. His formerly yellow tee shirt was covered with blood.

  Neahle covered her mouth with her hands and looked at her brother carefully, checking for similar wounds. His face looked fine but she noticed he was hugging his middle. Looking around the room, her eyes settled on Abacus. He had a black eye, a deep purple bruise on his right cheekbone, a bloody strip of rag around his head, and a grim expression.

  “What happened?” Neahle asked Clay in a whisper. “Where have you been? Are you okay?”

  “Those two guys beat the crap out of them,” he said. “I’m fine, just some bruises and probably a cracked rib. Riley… He was unstoppable. He kept their attention and he gave out twice as much as he got.” He was silent for a long moment. “One of the gang guys died and the other is in worse shape than Riley. We just… We left him there, beside the tracks.” He cleared his throat. “They wouldn’t stop. Abacus said they must have been high on something. Even when the second one could barely stand, he kept trying to kill us. By the end they didn’t even want the bags.” His voice cracked. “They just wanted to kill us.” He ran a hand over his eyes.

  Neahle turned back to Riley. A woman in her thirties was tending to him, her short brown hair spiked up and a stethoscope dangling from her ears. She had a full medical kit beside her and had already set up an IV. Someone brought warm water. Riley moaned when she touched the wound on his forehead with a wet cloth but didn’t regain consciousness. The medic pulled out a suture needle and thread and started to sew up the cut. Neahle turned away.

  “Where have you been?” she asked again.

  “We went to a warehouse that’s a little south and on the other side of the tracks. We locked ourselves in an office on the second floor and tried to take care of all the wounds. Riley’s been out almost the whole time. We had to carry him back here.”

  Neahle thought of Abacus carrying his dead wife through the tunnels and shuddered. “Is he going to be all right?” she asked.

  Clay stared at Riley, then looked at his sister. “I don’t see how.”

  Dinner was solemn. The news wasn’t good. Riley was still unconscious and had developed a fever. He was being given penicillin, but the possibility of internal bleeding was great, and they didn’t have a doctor. Angie, the medic, was pessimistic.

  “Isn’t there a doctor somewhere? A rebel?” Neahle asked.

  “There are a few old ones out there and they’ve trained some others as pretty good field medics; that’s how Angie got her training. But they can’t come down here. They can’t use the portals,” Abacus answered.

  “Couldn’t the rebels come down into the tunnels if they’re in Paris?”

  “We don’t allow it,” Abacus said, “In case they’re followed. But anyway, no, there’s no doctor up top. Angie trained with an old doctor outside of Chicago; she’s a pretty good nurse. But the damage… It’s extensive.” He touched his own bruise, remembering the piece of wood that had clobbered him.

  “So what can we do” Neahle asked, feeling frantic.

  “Pray.”

  Sometime in the night, Landon arrived. Riley was in the sick ward, a small room with two bunk beds several yards down from the dormitories. Angie was dozing off and on in a small faded upholstered chair next to him, monitoring his blood pressure and temperature every hour. Their one other trained medic, Tyrone, was in Moscow, so she was working around the clock.

  “Angie,” Landon said softly from the doorway, trying not to startle her.

  “Landon!” Angie said, relieved. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Just came. Can I spend some time with Riley? Alone?”

  “Absolutely. You mind if I grab a bite and maybe clean up? I’m beat.” Standing, she grabbed her canvas bag and threw it over her shoulder.

  “Take your time. We’ll be fine.” Landon smiled at her then sat in the vacated chair and put a hand on Riley’s forehead. It was burning with fever.

  “He’s not going to make it,” Angie said, watching him. “Something’s wrong inside, probably internal bleeding, and antibiotics aren’t working.”

  “We’ll see. He may yet turn the corner.” Landon waved his hand. “Go on, get something to eat, have some hot tea. No rush.”

  Angie returned two hours later, having eaten, bathed and napped. She stood outside the door for a moment, preparing herself for the worst. There was nothing she could do for Riley, and he was too sick to be carried to a doctor. He was lucky he’d survived the trip from London. Slowly turning the doorknob, she pushed on the door and stepped in.

  Riley was sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows, talking with Landon. Around the bruises, his face had a healthy color. As she walked over he glanced up and grinned at her, his brown eyes alert. She stood at the foot of the bed, speechless.

  Landon stood up and shook Riley’s hand. “Great catching up with you, Riley,” he said with a smile. “You’ll be on your feet in no time, I’m sure.” He turned to Angie. “He turned the corner.” He gave her a brief hug and left, closing the door behind him.

  Angie stared at the closed door for a long moment, then looked at Riley, who was smiling back at her. “What… What happened?” she managed.

  Riley shrugged. “I have no idea. Last thing I remember, we were fighting these two punks in the dark on the tracks. Next thing I know, I’m lying here and Landon is talking to me, and then you came in.”

  “You were dying!” Angie said.

  “Apparently not,” he laughed. “I feel pretty good.” Looking down at his broken arm, he said, “The arm’s a bummer but it doesn’t hurt much. How are the guys?”

  Angie stared at him, trying to make sense of what her eyes were telling her. Finally, shaking her head, she sat down. “They’re fine. Bruised and sore but nothing serious. Clay broke a rib or two. You definitely got it the worst.”

  “Those guys were high on something—they were crazy! I guess I was knocked out?”

  “Three days ago. Abacus and Clay carried you to a warehouse. You stayed there for two days and then they carried you here. You had a fever, internal bleeding…” She stared at him, her
hazel eyes glistening with unshed tears. “We couldn’t do anything for you, Riley. You were dying.”

  He realized for the first time that she was serious. “Wait, three days? I’ve been out that long? But I feel fine!” He looked down at himself as if looking for the fatal wound. He took in the IV still in his arm and felt the bandages on his face. “So I was actually, really, dying? What happened?”

  “Landon came,” Angie said. “That’s all I know. I was here with you, and he came in and told me to leave and not worry. I came back expecting you to be dead, and there you were, sitting up, talking and laughing. What did he say to you?”

  Riley frowned, thinking. “Nothing. I mean, just the usual ‘hi, how are you’ stuff. I woke up and he was sitting next to me and his hand was on my forehead. When I opened my eyes, he smiled and asked how I felt. I said I felt like I’d been in a fight and he laughed.” Riley shrugged. “That’s it.”

  “I’d better go tell the others. You stay here and rest. You may feel fine, but you weren’t fine two hours ago.” Angie put on her best stern-nurse face to make her point.

  As she walked to the door, Riley called out, “Hey, Angie, can you bring some food? I’m starving!”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Word of Riley’s miraculous recovery circulated throughout the tunnels, but no one else saw Landon. Abacus made an executive decision to send Jose, their ops leader for Spain, and Monkey to visit Michael de Santos’ house in Madrid and search for the Enigma machine. He and Clay needed time to recuperate; Abacus brooked no argument.

  “Besides,” he said to Clay, who had come to his office to complain, “There’s word from Marty. He’s found some messages. We can send him a status update—you know he’s probably driving himself and everyone else nuts waiting to hear if we got a machine.” Abacus sipped his tea. “And I thought we could take a quick trip to Berlin.”

  “Berlin? Why?” Clay asked.

  “We’ll take the code books we found and let a German tell us what we’ve got. The portal in Berlin is close to one of the rebel cells so we can make a quick trip safely.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. What about Marty? What’s he got?”

  Abacus handed Clay a folder. “Here you go. He’s got an email trail between a Ukrainian scientist and some anonymous person at the LRTD with some very strange conversations. It’s all in there.”

  “LRTD?” Clay asked, flipping through the pages.

  “Logistical Resource and Task Division. They’re the ones who handle the prison.”

  Clay pulled out an email with groups of five letters at the bottom. He read it through and laughed. “That’s gotta be code. So now all we need is the machine.”

  “And the right code book.”

  Jose and Monkey left that night. The portal was in Toledo, so they would have to take motorcycles into Madrid. Even though the de Santos house was in the middle of the city, Madrid was scantily populated so the mission would be relatively quick and safe.

  Abacus and Clay left before dawn the next morning. The doorway brought them into the Friedrichstraße station, in what was formerly East Berlin. Both the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn subway lines had once come through the station as well as regional trains. It was as well situated as any portal, being located in the center of Berlin.

  Jogging up the quiet escalator, Abacus said, “It’s not far. There are only three cells in Berlin, and they’ve got a pretty low level of gang activity here. We’re crossing the river on the railroad tracks, so watch your step.”

  Clay followed him across the wide metal bridge. In the dim early morning light, he could barely make out the water of the River Spree flowing below. The moon had set, but the sun hadn’t yet risen. The silhouettes of tall buildings loomed over the track ahead. A hundred yards on, Abacus climbed down a ladder into a tree filled space.

  “Is this a park?” Clay whispered.

  “No, it used to be the yard behind these apartment buildings. It’s all grown up now, which suits us fine.” He jogged down an overgrown path to a gray arched doorway, the only door in the back of the four story building. Knocking softly, they waited.

  In short order, an old man with long grey hair pulled back into a braided ponytail answered the door, a pistol in his hand. When he saw Abacus he grinned and waved them inside with the gun, sliding it into the back of his pants.

  “Ach, Abacus, my friend!” he said in heavily accented English, giving Abacus a huge hug. “And who do you bring to us?”

  “Clay McClelland, this is Franz Amsel.” The two men shook hands. “Franz, we need some translating help.”

  “Anything, anything! And did you bring me some tea?” Franz led them through the narrow building and up a flight of stairs. The windows were blacked out; the house was silent except for their footsteps on the old wooden floor.

  “Of course. And a special treat.” Abacus slung his pack around and pulled out a tin and a small box.

  Opening it, the old man’s rheumy eyes lit up. “Chocolate! Where did you find chocolate?” Franz popped a truffle into his mouth, closing his eyes and savoring the treat.

  “Will has been experimenting. How’d he do?” Abacus asked. Franz kept chewing slowly, smiling, his eyes still closed. “I’ll take that as, ‘he did good.’”

  Finally, Franz opened his eyes and sighed. “Thank you. That was the best chocolate I’ve had in many a year. Now, what do you have for me?”

  Clay opened his back pack and brought out the large stack of code books. “We’re looking for a code book that’s from the Kriegsmarine for the Enigma M3.” He handed them to the old man, who stared down at them.

  “The Nazis. They still haunt us, eh?”

  “This time the Nazis may end up helping us,” Abacus said.

  Neahle was surprised to see her brother sit down next to her at lunch. “I thought you went to Berlin.”

  “There and back,” he said, taking a bite of his smoked fish salad sandwich.

  “That’s some kind of record! Any luck?”

  “Three of the books we brought back are Kriegsmarine M3 books. But they’re all different. Franz said they were probably from different battle groups.”

  “Three’s not so bad,” Neahle said. “I read through what Marty sent over. Those messages aren’t long, so even if we use all three code books, it won’t take that long.”

  “The problem will be if the message is double encoded, once with a regular code, and then using Enigma. None of them will make sense when we first run them through the machine, even if we have the right code book.”

  “That’s your department. I can’t even unscramble the Jumble.” They laughed. It was true, she’d never been able to unscramble letters to form words and she was terrible at Scrabble.

  “I’ll work on it as soon as we get a machine. I don’t suppose Monkey’s back?”

  Neahle shook her head, chewing. “Too soon.”

  “Yeah, figured. I hate waiting.”

  Riley slid into the chair opposite Clay. His face was now a gruesome mélange of greens and yellows. “Hey, what’s up?”

  Clay stared at him. “I heard you were better, but… Wow!”

  Riley shrugged and took a big bite of his sandwich. “Don’t know,” he said, talking around the food. “Landon came and I was better. I don’t remember anything about it, but Angie said I was at death’s door.”

  “You were halfway through it,” Neahle said. “You looked terrible. Not that you look fabulous now.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Riley said, winking at her. “I feel pretty good, just the arm to worry about.” He held up his cast.

  “Amazing,” Clay said. “Those guys beat the crap out of us and now you’re sitting here eating a sandwich.”

  “So are you,” Riley pointed out. “What happened to them?”

  Clay
glanced at Neahle, and then looked at Riley. “One of them died. The other was in about as good a shape as you were. Well, as you were before Landon came.”

  Riley sighed and put down his sandwich. “Dang. They just wouldn’t let up, would they?”

  “Nope. I don’t understand why do they hate us so much.”

  “I don’t think it’s us. I mean, yes, it’s us. But it’s everybody who’s not them. The gangs, they’re like dysfunctional families. Mostly, they’re kids of rebels who’ve either seen their parents killed or captured, or who don’t know enough about how this world was before the Firsts took over to care about getting it back. They weren’t even alive before the war—this is all they know. They’ve set up their own societies and people like us are enemies to their way of life.”

  “But we’re trying to bring freedom!” Neahle said.

  “They think they’re free now. No one tells them what to do, they live where they want, do what they want. They think staying alive until they’re twenty-five is the best they can expect and that’s all they’re trying to do.”

  “But that’s not freedom,” Clay said, frustrated.

  “It’s living with tyranny,” Riley confirmed. “Trust me, they don’t care about you, about the rebels, or about Darian. They see us as being as much of a threat as the Firsts. Don’t forget it. Your life depends on it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  As they were relaxing in the living room after dinner, Hannah came in and waved for Neahle to join her. Neahle sat next to her on a bright orange cushion in the corner under a hand painted copy of a Japanese print. Depicting a huge stylized wave, the painting covered three walls with bright blues, oranges, pinks and yellows. Amidst the dim light of the claustrophobic underground, it was refreshing.