We were in a private dining room of a Guardian-owned restaurant so I saw little need for all this codename cloak-and-dagger nonsense, but I supposed it was better than taking unnecessary risks. Besides, we would probably be using these aliases during our stay in Lumina, so it would be best to get used to them here and now.
“Let’s eat,” said Raider as the hand-shaking contest drew to a close. “Our meal’s getting cold.”
Perhaps partly because we turned out to be acquaintances of his trusted partner, Raider made no further complaints over dinner about our rule-breaking. But nor did he give us many details about the situation in Lumina. He seemed to agree with Mr. Jenson that the less we knew, the safer it was for the cause. If only he knew what we knew!
“Did you find your family among the Guardians, Sharky?” I asked over dessert.
“I did,” replied Mr. Jenson. “I was briefly reunited with my son, but now he and his wife serve the Angels while I remain a Guardian.”
“Ouch,” I commented.
I noticed that like everyone at Wood-claw, Raider and Mr. Jenson both continued to call Randal’s faction the “Angels” rather than the “Guardian Angels.” I guessed that this was the official position of true Guardians worldwide.
Mr. Jenson continued, “I had to convince our leaders, under delving, that I wouldn’t betray the Guardians next and follow my son back to the Angels. And I won’t. At least not voluntarily. If I am caught, then that is fate, but I would much rather live to see a future that is free of King Divine’s rule, where my son and I can choose our own lives.” Mr. Jenson gave me a wry smile and added, “Still, the real reason I haven’t been booted from the Resistance is because they have preciously too few phantoms at their disposal. They need me enough to take a small risk.”
“One way or another, you’ll see your son again soon,” Raider said to him darkly. “This war is nearing its tipping point. That’s why the Resistance is taking greater risks these days.”
“Like with us?” asked James.
Raider didn’t reply.
After the meal, we bid Rachael and Ms. Ferris goodbye in the restaurant’s parking lot. They would make their way back to Wood-claw by road, hopefully without incident. Raider, in addition to being a delver, was our hider for the rest of our journey.
The dark purple minibus that we had parked alongside turned out to have nothing to do with us. Raider and Mr. Jenson had come in two plain old sedans. Terry and James rode with Raider while Ed Regis, Alia and I rode in Mr. Jenson’s car. We were taken to a Guardian safe house on the outskirts of the city.
Inside, Raider had Mr. Jenson run us through the entry procedure that would be used to smuggle us into Lumina the next day.
“Does everyone here know what a phantom train is?” asked Mr. Jenson.
We all nodded, even Alia.
Mr. Jenson next asked, “Has anyone ever been in one?”
Nobody nodded this time. Not even Terry had done this before.
“Five first-timers,” muttered Raider, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’d think Proton would have more sense…”
“They’ll be fine,” Mr. Jenson said to him confidently.
Then Mr. Jenson explained to us, “We usually transport only one or two people at a time. The Angels believe that Raider is one of them, so he is cleared for open operations in Lumina. I am not. I, along with the rest of you, will go in invisible, following Raider.”
As a psionic phantom, Mr. Jenson could turn part or all of anything he touched temporarily invisible. How that exactly worked was as beyond me as how any other psionic power worked, but Mr. Jenson could turn his and other people’s bodies, clothes and even metallic weapons so transparent that they couldn’t be spotted under a noon sun.
There were downsides, however. The most obvious was that if you turned your whole body invisible, you wouldn’t be able to see anything because light would pass straight through your eyes. Phantoms usually left just their eyeballs visible, which was creepy but necessary. This time, however, all but Raider would become completely invisible, and holding on to a rope to keep us together, we would be led by Raider into Lumina. This was the “phantom train” that Mr. Jenson was referring to.
But phantom trains, especially long ones, were very risky. In addition to blindness, another major downside to a phantom’s invisibility cloak was that any sudden movement, such as falling down or bumping into something, could instantly remove your invisibility right along with the invisibility of anything you were touching. That is, if even one of us tripped on a stone or something, everyone holding the rope could be instantly exposed.
“That’s why we practice here,” said Raider. “And you’re all going to be perfect at this or we’re not going anywhere tomorrow.”
Raider wanted us visible during our practice in the house, and Mr. Jenson didn’t want to turn just our eyeballs invisible because that was truly disgusting. Instead, we wore cloth blindfolds as we lined up behind Raider and had him lead us through the rooms like a group of prisoners on a leash.
Raider taught us his signaling system. “If I cough once, don’t stop but expect a low obstruction ahead such as a curb or steps. Two coughs, you stop immediately. We don’t want anyone crashing into anything or anyone. I will gently pull the rope when I want you to start walking again.”
We carefully weaved our way around the furniture as we listened for Raider’s coughs. The going was slow but we gave Raider no reason to scold us. After almost an hour of practice in the house, Raider had us remove our blindfolds, saying grimly, “Time for the real thing.”
“I know Richard has experienced cloaking before,” said Mr. Jenson, “but have the rest of you ever been cloaked?”
Only Terry raised her hand.
Mr. Jenson then asked, “Completely? Eyes included?”
Terry lowered her hand, saying, “Never. Besides, the last time for me was almost ten years ago.”
Mr. Jenson said warningly, “Blindness, even temporary blindness, can freak some first-timers out pretty badly.”
“Don’t worry, Sharky,” replied Terry. “No one on my team freaks out easily.”
Mr. Jenson started with James, touching his upper arm, and James instantly disappeared.
“Whoa,” said James’s disembodied voice. “This is something new.”
Next, Ed Regis, and then Alia, then Terry.
“This is so different from a blindfold,” remarked Alia, who sounded more awed than afraid. “I can’t see anything. It’s like I don’t even have eyes.”
Finally, me. As Mr. Jenson touched my arm, the world around me blinked out of existence. Mr. Jenson made our guide rope invisible too, but we couldn’t see it anyway. Groping our way around, we lined up behind Raider: Mr. Jenson first, followed by Ed Regis, James, Terry, Alia, and me at the end.
Then Raider took us on a walk outside, once around the neighborhood. It had been a long time since I had been blind, but it was still a mildly familiar world for me. Constant uncertainty and slow, deliberate steps.
Keeping a tight grip on our guiding rope, we all made it back to the safe house without incident. We turned visible again by stamping our feet on the floor, and as my eyes came back into focus, I saw that Raider finally looked a little impressed with us.
“I had expected at least one or two accidents,” said Raider. “We’ve never had a train this long before.”
Terry smiled. “Like I said, we don’t freak out easily.”
“Alright,” Raider said evenly, nodding. “We’re going tomorrow.”
We spent the night at the safe house on sofas and in sleeping bags on the floor.
The next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Jenson once again turned us and himself invisible for our car ride to the Resistance. Lumina was a five-hour drive from here, which meant that we would arrive a little after lunchtime, but the only person who could be seen outdoors there was Raider. So the real question was how to fit seven people into a single small sports sedan.
The answer:
uncomfortably, to put it mildly. Raider of course drove, and Mr. Jenson got the front seat next to him. Meanwhile, I was crammed in the middle of the back seat with Alia on my lap, Ed Regis on my left and Terry on my right. But it was James who really ended up with the short end of the stick: he was put in the trunk with our baggage.
Or maybe James was the lucky one. At least he didn’t have to worry about losing his invisibility cloak. Though we weren’t barred from talking, we sat silently for most of the ride. Alia felt pretty heavy by the time we finally arrived in the outskirts of Lumina.
Though hungry for lunch, we had no time to eat now. Getting into Lumina wasn’t a simple matter of walking with an invisibility cloak. There were thermographic security cameras set in strategic locations all around the Angel city, and through these, the Seraphim could see our body heat. Fortunately, Resistance hackers had some limited access to these camera systems and could override them at prearranged times and locations.
“The thermographic camera system was originally set up by the Guardians to keep Angel phantoms out of New Haven,” Raider had explained to us the day before. “As long as we keep to our course and time schedule, the cameras will always be looking in the wrong direction when we pass them.”
We had little choice but to trust him. Keeping us strictly on need-to-know, Raider had told us nothing of our route into Lumina or our final destination.
Getting out of the car, I could tell by the sounds around me that Mr. Jenson was opening the trunk to let James out and re-cloak him. Our duffel bags had to be made invisible too. Mr. Jenson had probably made just his eyes reappear so that he could see what he was doing. In a few minutes, we had shouldered our bags and formed our train, tightly holding the invisible rope that Raider would use to lead us into the Angel city.
Even blind, I could tell that the others were nervous. This was no longer practice. One mistake by any one of us and we would all be discovered. Blindness wasn’t a problem for me personally, but I was worried for the others, especially Alia since she would have to walk faster to keep pace with us.
But Raider and Sharky were experienced guides. We would later learn that they had been handpicked by the Resistance leaders to make sure that we arrived safely. Loosely holding the end of the rope, I followed a step behind my sister as we moved carefully and silently toward the center of the Angel city.
As it was midday, and a weekday at that, it wasn’t very crowded on the sidewalk and Raider didn’t have to rely entirely on coughing signals. As he walked, he would mumble things like “right turn ahead” so that we would be ready when the rope changed direction.
After about thirty minutes, I suddenly recognized the concrete under my feet. I had traveled this road blind many times, and just by the sounds around me and the “feel” of the sidewalk, I knew that we were about to pass right in front of the entrance to New Haven One. This was where the Angels’ most prized hider allegedly lived on the topmost floor.
We passed the entrance without stopping.
A little later, we entered the park. Again, my ears and my feet instantly remembered the route I used to jog every day. I remembered the smell of the grassy field where Cindy had taken us to picnic in the summer. This was where I had taught Alia to ride a bike. It was where I had held hands with Laila Brown.
“Addy,” Alia whispered into my mind, “I think we’re in the park.”
I smiled. Even Alia, who had never experienced blindness before, knew where we were. So much for Raider’s need-to-know route.
As we continued through the park, despite the early-November chill, I heard the voices of a few picnickers, probably senior citizens. I also heard a baby crying in the distance. It made me think about baby Laila, and I had a feeling that Alia was thinking the same thing.
Exiting the park, we crossed a street. Raider coughed a warning. We were led up five steps and into a large room which I guessed was the entrance hall to one of the forty-story high-rises that the Angels had taken from the Guardians. There we stopped once. Raider greeted the lobby security team as if they were friends, but by their conversation, I could tell that these men were Seraphim.
As we started moving again, I felt myself brush up against Alia from behind.
Alia said in a panicked voice, “Addy! Addy, I lost the rope!”
This was why Mr. Jenson had asked me to bring up the rear. With my free hand, I grabbed my sister by the back of her jacket and pushed her along in front of me.
We entered an elevator. As it started to climb, I heard Raider let out a sigh of relief, but his relief was nothing compared to mine. I carefully helped Alia find the rope again before the elevator came to a stop.
One short walk down a tiled hallway, through a door, and Raider said, “End of the line. Shake it off.”
I stomped my left foot on the floor. My vision returned, and I saw that we were standing in a small living room not unlike the one back in our apartment at Wood-claw.
Alia looked up at me sheepishly. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
I grinned. “No promises.”
Raider turned to us, announcing, “This is my place. Yours is below.”
“Where are we?” asked Terry.
“New Haven Four?” I guessed.
“Correct,” replied Raider, looking surprised, “though now it is known as Lumina Nonus.”
“That’s Latin for ‘ninth,’ I believe,” said Ed Regis.
“Ah, an educated man,” said Raider, nodding appreciatively. “The Angels renumbered the New Haven buildings in Latin with little regard for the Guardians’ old system. Only NH-1 retains its place, officially Lumina Primus, though almost everyone calls it Lumina Prime.”
“We passed in front of Prime on our way here,” I said.
Raider looked stunned. I merely smiled.
“Okay, genius, what floor are we on?” he asked.
“The twenty-first?” I ventured, basing my rough estimate on the length of our elevator ride.
Raider stared at me in utter disbelief. Alia laughed.
We really were on the twenty-first floor, which put us exactly halfway up the building. Raider led us into his bedroom, where he pushed his queen-size bed off of a large rug set in the middle of the room. Then he rolled up the rug to reveal a trapdoor built into the floor.
Raider knocked several times on the trapdoor in a code-like pattern. After waiting for about thirty seconds, he slowly lifted the door up. A short wooden ladder extended down into the space below the floor.
“In you get,” said Raider as he tossed our bags down into the hole. “Welcome to the Resistance.”
Chapter 9: Nonus Twenty Point Five
The ceiling was higher than that of a crawlspace, but only Alia and I could stand up straight. My hair brushed up against the concrete. Everyone else either had to stoop forward or at least bend their necks to the left or right in a comical manner.
Mr. Jenson had come down with us, but Raider remained in his condo to close the trapdoor and hide it again under his rug and bed. There were two men waiting for us: Knights armed with automatic rifles. They greeted us and told us their call signs, and then, along with Mr. Jenson, they led us deep into a maze of corridors littered with supply crates and bulging garbage bags.
“We call this Twenty Point Five,” explained Mr. Jenson as we followed the Knights. “It spans the entire floor and serves as our headquarters in Lumina. There are several other entrances from the twentieth floor below and the twenty-first above, and even I probably don’t know all of them.”
“Where are you taking us, Sharky?” asked Alia.
Mr. Jenson smiled, saying, “To our leaders, of course.”
Pipes of all sizes cut across the ceiling, and we had to constantly duck under them as we made our way through the dark and stuffy labyrinth. Most of the corridor walls weren’t really walls so much as random sheets of plastic, metal and assorted junk that had been propped up between the thick concrete supports of the building. Through breaks in the various materials and t
hrough curtained doorways, we could see little rooms and occasionally a few people inside talking quietly, resting, or studying a computer monitor.
Another turn, and we stepped through a curtain into a largish square room that was dimly lit by two fluorescent lights lashed to the ceiling pipes. In the center of the room was a low coffee table with several mismatched chairs around it. Rectangular wooden boxes were stacked in one corner of the room while a long leather sofa sat against a wall. Against another wall was a dining table cluttered with papers and maps. Two men were hunched over the table, talking in whispers.
As we entered, they turned toward us, and I got an even greater shock than when I first saw Mr. Jenson back at the Chinese restaurant.
One of the men was our long-lost friend, Mark Parnell.
Letting out a cry of joy, Alia rushed forward and jumped into Mark’s arms.
The two Knights who had escorted us here reflexively raised their guns, but Mark called to them, “No! It’s fine.”
Hugging Alia tightly once, he set her back onto the floor and said, “No more sudden movements here, okay? People are very, very jumpy.”
Mark looked a little haggard but otherwise just as I remembered him with his shaggy beard, round glasses and his quiet, warm smile.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, shaking his hand. “We thought you were dead.”
“I had feared the same of you until we heard from Wood-claw of your visit,” replied Mark. “It’s good to see you again.”
The other man, whom I didn’t recognize, said, “Jacob here and I codirect the Resistance movement in Lumina. I’m Proton. Welcome to our headquarters.”
We introduced ourselves with our aliases. We were told to keep our real names strictly to ourselves, even between friends. Mark’s call sign, Jacob, had been taken from his long-lost twin brother. His partner, Proton, a pyroid and berserker with extensive training in urban warfare, had been a high-ranking Lancer Knight back in the days of New Haven.
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