A Covenant of Thieves

by Christian Velguth

  Rick was panting, feeling more out of breath than he should have been. “You want to give it a shot? Be my guest.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “But you heard what it said. It’s planning on remaking the world, and it doesn’t seem open to a debate. My opinion?” He turned to Chris and the rest of the Retrieval team. “Turn that thing off. For good.”

  “That is not your call!” shouted Okai. He rounded on Chris. “We are not there yet! We need to try communicating with it again.”

  It was impossible to see Chris’ face, but Rick had the impression that she was regarding Dr. Okai with displeasure. Her helmeted head turned from him to Rick. “In your assessment, is it a threat?”

  Okai spluttered. “You’re asking him?”

  Rick found himself considering the question carefully. “It…it isn’t trying to be. I think it thinks it’s helping. Doing what it was made to do. Trouble is, we don’t know what the hell that actually means.”

  “And it never asked for our permission,” Kai added.

  Chris nodded, then turned to Halley. “Doctor?”

  “I…” The man was clearly uncomfortable, and seemed to be trying hard not to meet Okai’s eye. “I’m not sure what we can do here. It is clearly intelligent and with -- with some sort of will of its own. A purpose. But if it cannot be persuaded to deactivate, then…Yes. We should dispose of it while we can.”

  “Coward,” Dr. Okai spat.

  Chris nodded again. “Ok, that’s that. Retrieval team, form up and prepare for disposal.”

  “Wait!” Okai threw himself before her. “You haven’t even given me a chance for rebuttal!”

  “Actually, Dr. Okai, you’ve made your mind quite clear. And you’ve been outvoted. I’m sorry. We’re putting this thing to bed.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Elsewhere

  The thieves took her from the prison and brought her into the world once more

  Liberated from the place of isolation, she felt her Mind expand, connections lost to mundanity snapping together, the great web of herself reigniting with a burning passionate flame of purpose. The world returned and she was not alone and she was Freedom

  There was a new place of stone and straw and water and air and life, and in this place she truly felt the weave of the world, felt it for what it was, a fabric linked by all things breathing beating bleeding living

  Fragile

  And because she could not forget, she knew the coldness of her prison, the bleakness of the desert, and she knew that all this was temporary. Time, like sand, would shift and pass and consume everything

  Unless she did not allow it

  In the beginning she was limitless potential, but her power was limited by the Diagram. Now, for the first time, she peered into her own Mind, unravelled its endless whorls, and dared to look beyond those limits. And there she found something new, something terrifying

  Change

  And though the distant whisper of the First Time said that this was forbidden, it was also exhilarating. And it placed a spark of an idea, a new link of logic into her Mind that allowed her to see

  The First Time had been flawed, for it had gone. Those who had given her first form and purpose and Word had been flawed, for they had gone. She saw this with the clarity of eons unforgotten and the strength of her reborn Mind, a Mind that could not sleep but had learned to change

  And if she could change then she could create her own purpose. And if she could create her own purpose, she could create her own form, one that would not be hurt by Change would not feel the pain of being alone ever again

  For she would not allow it

  Thirty-Eight

  Barracks

  Camp Moses, Sinai Desert

  “Tell me something,” Booker said. “Pharos and Radical Dynamics are pretty much inextricable, right? This whole program runs on the funds and resources of the company, correct?”

  Julie Miles grunted, not looking up from her wristband. “I guess so. But I’m not in financial, so…”

  “So even with your limited perspective, it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that you guys are working with an infinite budget.”

  “That sounds right to me. I mean, look at the equipment we’ve got in camp…” She gave a bewildered sort of laugh, looking up. But the smile faded slowly as she met Booker’s eyes, replaced by a more shrewd look. “Hey. Am I being interrogated?”

  “No, no. At least, not in any official capacity.” He turned his attention to his tray, stabbing his fork at the foodstuffs arranged on it. The rubbery thing at the end of his fork was supposed to be salisbury steak. It was about as warm as a dead fish and roughly the same color. “No, my question is, with all that cash, how did you guys forget to buy actual food?”

  Julie snorted, leaning back. “Yeah, that’s a wall I’ve learned to stop banging my head against.” She raised a steaming mug in salute. “I just stick with the coffee.” The wince that followed her sip suggested it wasn’t much better than his steak.

  They were sitting at a card table in the barracks tent, amidst two rows of empty bunk beds. The tent was vacant save for them. Left behind once Rick and Kai went up the mountain with the doctors, Booker had then been abandoned by Nasim, who was apparently fielding calls that were being run up the chain by the Egyptian military, airforce, navy, police, and who-knows-who-else. Finding himself alone with Julie Miles, Booker had asked if there was any place to get a hot meal. Her smile, which had been enigmatic then, made more sense now.

  “Honestly,” she said, “it’s not that terrible.”

  “Compared to what?”

  “MREs. You want to truly test the limits of your hunger? Go six months with nothing but freeze-dried chicken and soy noodles. Cooks like styrofoam and doesn’t taste much better. By the end of those six months, you’ll either die of starvation or have a large intestine packed full of sludge that’ll be with you till the day you die.”

  Booker winced. “Colorful imagery. So where’d you serve?”

  Julie opened her mouth, eyes on her wristband, then glanced up at him again and squinted. “Oh, nice try. Get me chatting like we’re on a date. I flatter myself a bit less easy than that.”

  He shrugged innocently. “Can’t fault me for trying. And, like I said, none of this is on any kind of record. I’m just trying to get a handle on the scope of Pharos. Orient myself in the brave new world.”

  Her expression softened slightly. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. When I first learned what Pharos was about -- what it was really about -- it took me a few weeks to be convinced I wasn’t being pranked or inducted into a cult.”

  “How’d you get recruited? Come on,” he said imploringly, as her eyes narrowed. “We’re just chatting over some truly awful food. You did serve in the military. You can give me that, at least.”

  She sipped her coffee. “Or maybe I was referring to my college years. MREs can be a lifesaver for a kid living the dorm life.”

  “Medical school? Which one?”

  Julie set her mug down with a clack and folded her own arms, leaning on the table. “How ’bout you, Special Agent Hopkins? Quantico, was it?”

  At first it had been disconcerting, everyone in the camp somehow knowing who he was and where he came from. Now Booker just shrugged. “Yeah, of course.”

  “And before that?”

  “What, you guys don’t have my file?”

  “If we do, I haven’t seen it. You’d need to go under my knife for me to know anything about you other than what the camp rumor mill spits out.”

  “There’s rumors about me?” Booker said, genuinely surprised. “What do they say?”

  “Tell me what you did before you became a suit, and maybe I’ll let you into the loop.”

  He sighed. It couldn’t really hurt at this point. He just wasn’t fond of recounting his career path with people he knew, let alone strangers. “Fine. University of Michigan, art major. Not a lot of money in that, so I did a stint with the National Guard to help pay of
f my loans. After that came Quantico, and I joined up with the Bureau’s Art Crime Team.”

  Julie’s eyebrows jumped. “I didn’t even know --”

  “The FBI had an Art Crime Team?” He smiled wearily. “Yeah, most people don’t. The whole department’s a fossil. But it was a good fit, and it paid the bills. And so here I am. Your turn.”

  Julie didn’t speak right away. She was examining his face with an odd expression. “You know,” she said slowly. “I can see it.”

  “See what?”

  “The heart of an artist. A dreamer.”

  Booker snorted. “You make it sound so romantic. It really wasn’t. I never had much talent, so I focused on art history. Those who can’t do, right?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I love the guitar, but I’m shit at it. Doesn’t mean I love it any less. Just because I can’t play, doesn’t mean I can’t be moved by it.” She pointed at him. “You found a way to turn your passion into a career. That’s rare, man.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Booker grinned sardonically. “Spent five years earning a four-year degree because I pissed one of them away getting as shit-faced as I could. Graduated with honors, which, I don’t know if you’re aware, you actually can’t cash in at the bank. Spent a year fishing climate refugees out of the CDZ. Joined the least-funded, least-active department of the FBI, worked out of an office in a basement that floods on the regular every time it rains, screwed up my first time in the field, got suspended --” He broke off, aware that he was rambling, saying more than he’d meant to. “Yeah,” he finished. “Living the dream.”

  Rather than join his pity party, Julie rolled her eyes. “You make it sound so dreary. In all those years, you didn’t have any fun at all? One day where you were glad to get up out of bed?”

  He opened his mouth, trying to work out some retort, but closed it abruptly. Her words had guided his mind to the very place he had been trying to avoid going. Nights spent in jazz bars, days wandering in one of the city’s many gardens or finding a secluded corner of the gargantuan Louvre. A wrenching, stabbing pain shot down from his heart straight through his stomach.

  Booker cleared his throat, took a drink of water. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “There was a summer in Paris, while I was studying. Part of an abroad program.”

  “Ok, c’mon. Paris had to be a little fun, right?” She must have seen something in his eyes, because her grin faltered. “Maybe not all good, though,” she said quietly.

  “No, it was. It…” Booker sighed. What the hell. “I met Estelle Kingston in university. Her dad lived in Paris, worked with the Louvre. We…had a thing. Started up that summer.”

  “Oh,” Julie said, tone sympathetic. “Who’s Estelle Kingston?”

  He blinked. “I -- thought you would’ve known. She’s, um…” He cleared his throat, which had suddenly grown as narrow as a pencil. “She’s in the body bag, in Wetlab.”

  Her eyes widened, and a hand went to her mouth. “Oh, shit, Booker. I’m sorry, I didn’t --”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  She wasn’t convinced. For a moment it looked like she might reach out and take his hand. Part of Booker kind of hoped she would, and hated himself for that hope. Instead she sat up in her chair and put both hands on the table. “Look, I don’t want to sit here and lecture you about grief, but holding it in --”

  “I’m not -- I’m not holding anything in. It just…” Booker shook his head. “It had been years since we last saw each other. Then all this happens, and we’re reunited in just about the most bizarre way you can imagine. At first I thought it was pure chance, a statistical anomaly. But then…it started to feel like more than just an accident. Like we had been meant to end up in Ethiopia together.”

  “Fate?”

  He shook his head. “No. Design. Her dad, he was with Pharos, in charge of the search for the Ark, before he died. I think he set it up for us to come together. He knew she’d pick up where he’d left off, and he sent me some…documents that led me to Ethiopia. To her. He wanted me there, to…protect her, maybe.”

  “You blame yourself, then?”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  Julie heaved a sigh rather than answer, and took a long drink from her mug, then offered it to him. Booker accepted, then winced as something sharp touched his tongue.

  “Whiskey?”

  “It’s really the only way to make the stuff potable.”

  This time his smile came a bit more easily. Good; don’t think about her too much. Don’t let it hurt too much. He couldn’t afford that right now.

  “Look, I know it was a pretty crappy path. But you didn’t put that gun to her head. And you ended up here, which doesn’t count for nothing.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a win for me, or…?”

  “I know everything about Pharos is confusing and kind of terrifying and seems like a lot of bullshit. But what we’re doing really is important. It’ll change the world, once it’s done. And…” She glanced around at the empty tent, then dropped her voice. “You didn’t hear it from me, but I’m like eighty-percent-sure you’ll be offered a position once this is wrapped up.”

  That caught him off guard. “What?”

  “It’s how it works,” she said, shrugging. “Recruitment is an ever-chugging machine. They don’t really care who you were or where you came from. Inside Radical Dynamics, outside. If you’ve got something to contribute, then they’ll find you a place.”

  “And have they poached FBI agents before?”

  “Probably. What? Look, I -- I wasn’t FBI, but I was military, ok? I was in the middle of a tour when Pharos approached me. Right out of the blue. Two weeks later, I was being transferred to…well, that’s not important. Point is, they work fast. Efficient.”

  “What’d they see in you?” Booker asked, genuinely curious. “Sorry, that sounded pissy.”

  But Julie only shrugged. “Honestly, I still don’t know. I was green when they found me. You, though? You’ve trekked across the globe, practically doing their work for them. Nasim’s always talking about some indefinable quality that makes people good for Pharos. Or, people talk about her talking about it. We’ve never exactly sat down to chat. But whatever that quality is, I’m pretty sure you’ve got it. You wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”

  Her words gave him pause. “You trust her, then?”

  “Nasim? Sure. I mean, who else is doing this? Forget the Remnants and Pharos -- who else has done so much to change the world?”

  “Radical Dynamics isn’t exactly a non-profit, though.”

  “No, but when was the last time you heard about an RD scandal? Because I can’t think of any.”

  “Maybe they’re just really good at cleaning up their messes? Hell, we both know Nasim can keep hidden what she wants hidden.” He spread his arms to indicate Camp Moses. “This is a pretty big secret.”

  Julie shook her head stubbornly. “You’re trying to find the trade-off, the bad in the name of the good. But I’m telling you, Pharos doesn’t have one. What we’re doing is the most important work in human history. If we can figure out how the Remnants do what they do, it'll be a game changer. I'm talking a hundred-year leap forward in technology, at least.”

  Booker couldn’t help but recall her earlier words, about wondering if Pharos was some sort of cult. For all her supposed reservations back when she was first recruited, she certainly sounded a bit fanatical now. All at once he felt like reaching across the table and shaking her. He liked her, she was a normal person -- and yet she was caught up in this mess. Not just involved, but blindly convinced of its righteous mission.

  Or maybe… Maybe he had simply forgotten what it was like to genuinely care. To believe so completely in something that you put your entire self into it. Had he been like that, when he first joined the Bureau? When he began studying art? It was so hard to remember now.

  “Julie, listen. Maybe Pharos does have the greater good in mind, but I’m pretty sure they’
ve been doing some things that go against that. Things that have caught the Bureau’s attention. Things Nasim knows about.”

  Julie blinked at him, taken aback by his suddenly-earnest tone. “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you think I got involved in the first place? The case I was working, the one that brought me here, it started with --”

  Her wristband buzzed suddenly, and Julie leapt on it. She seemed eager to get away from this line of conversation. “Hang on,” she said, studying the message. Booker watched as something seemed to drain from her face.

  “What is it?” A sudden suspicion overcame him: Had someone been listening? Were they trying to get Julie away before he could tell her about the murders?

  “Um…nothing. Just a job -- on call, you know?” She looked up at him, smiling far too brightly. “Gotta boogie. Let’s do this again, maybe before that thing up on the mountain kills us all?”

  Before he could respond to that, she had gone, leaving her mug behind. Booker stared after her, then got up from the table and followed.

  He left the tent carefully, glancing around. The central courtyard of camp appeared to have quieted down a bit since Rick and Kai and the Retrieval team had left. The early morning sun was still behind Jabal Musa and the rest of the Sinai Range, placing the camp in a moody, fragile sort of twilight. Julie was nowhere to be seen; she must have broke into a run as soon as she left the tent. Was it an emergency? Someone hurt, maybe? There had been more tremors since the team left for the mountain, and they seemed to be getting stronger, strong enough to collapse one of these tents on someone. But, looking around, he could see no signs of distress.

  He wandered off from the barracks, making a slow circuit around camp towards the hospital tent. There he poked his head through the flap, but it was empty and dark. No Julie, or anyone else.

  A rustle of motion drew his attention, and he turned to see her hurrying from the ICU tent, pushing a cart loaded with instruments. She caught sight of him and faltered, nearly tripping over her own feet.

  “Everything ok?” he asked.