“This,” Fiona said, pulling a folded-up sheet of paper from the front pocket of her jeans and holding it out in front of her, offering it to my mom.
My mom crossed to our side of the ship and took the folded paper, then sat down beside Fiona. She unfolded the memo and skimmed the writing, her eyes narrowing to slits when she reached the bottom of the page. “Henry . . .” The name came out as a low growl passing through her lips. She handed the memo to Emi, standing nearby, then looked at me.
“Henry knew creating a chaos stone could draw the Tsakali's notice,” I explained as Emi and Raiden skimmed the note together. “He wanted it to draw their notice.”
I relayed all I had learned during the encounter with Henry in the lab—that he was willing to play a deadly game of chicken with the whole world in order to get his hands on all that remained of the Olympians here on Earth, including the Olympians themselves. When I was finished, a stunned silence settled over the group.
My attention drifted to the front of the ship, to Hades. I stared at the back of his head, wanting to ask him if there was any merit to the things Henry had implied about the Tsakali and our people. Was there more to the story? Had our people done something to the Tsakali to draw their eternal wrath?
I had left that part out of my recap, and either Fiona didn't notice, or she was smart enough to leave it to me to approach Hades about it later. Henry Magnusson was a devious, manipulative man, but if there was any merit to the things he had implied—if there was any chance that the Tsakali weren't mindless killers, but rather vengeful hunters with a taste for Olympian blood—then Earth and humanity had a much better chance at surviving their arrival. If there was any merit to what Henry had implied. It was a big if.
“Well,” Emi began, handing the memo back to my mom who folded it up and tucked it into a pocket. “I suppose it doesn't really matter why the chaos stone was created, just that it was created and now we have to deal with the consequences.”
I nodded. Good old Emi, ever the practical one.
My mom stood and pulled Emi over to the other side of the ship where the two bent their heads together, no doubt discussing Henry and his misguided motivations.
Raiden sat down beside me on the bench as a wave of exhaustion flooded through me, and I rested my head on his shoulder. I’d tiptoed along a dangerous threshold by expending so much psychic energy, and now that the fight was over and the adrenaline had drained from my system, I was ready to crash. It was a good, cautionary reminder of how my last life had ended. I’d pushed myself too hard, expended too much psychic energy, and something inside me had broken. I couldn’t let that happen again, not while the people I loved were in such grave danger.
“Thanks for saving me,” I told Raiden. “Again.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, laughter a low rumble in his chest. “Much as I'd like to take credit, the ambush was all your mom's idea. As soon as she saw that dickbag marching toward the building . . .”
I could only imagine what had happened next, could only relish the knowledge that my mom had stolen a rocket launcher from the enemy soldiers. She was nothing if not resourceful. I watched her from across the ship, deep in her discussion with Emi, in awe of her ability to pull off the seemingly impossible. And she was just a regular old human with no psychic powers to fall back on. This was my eighteenth cycle—my eighteenth lifetime—but my first with a flesh-and-blood mother. She was amazing, and I felt incredibly lucky that she had chosen to be my mom. Maybe she wouldn’t win any mother of the year awards, but she was one hell of a role model.
Meg crossed in front of my mom and Emi, heading toward the front of the ship, and I followed her with my eyes. She sat in the empty seat beside Hades, and the two started quietly speaking to one another. Through my bond with Meg, I could sense the direction of their conversation—reversing Meg’s condition. Hades had committed to dedicating his full attention to the process as soon as we arrived at the Alpha site and had plugged in the chaos stone, powering up the long-abandoned city. As I eavesdropped on their conversation, my eyelids grew heavy.
Before I knew it, Raiden was shaking me with the arm he had wrapped around my shoulders. “Cora,” he murmured, “wake up.”
I blinked my eyes open, my jaw cracking as I yawned. “I fell asleep,” I said as I looked around without raising my head from Raiden’s shoulder. My eyelids felt gritty, my head groggy.
Fiona had replaced Meg in the second seat at the front of the ship. My mom stood behind her seat, her hands gripping the top of the seatback, and Meg stood beside my mom, both ducking down to peer out through the windshield. Emi sat further down on the bench seat, a notepad on her lap as she meticulously drew up a bulleted list.
My attention returned to Raiden. “How long have I been out?”
A thoughtful frown turned down the corners of his mouth. “An hour, maybe?” He shrugged, his eyes skimming up toward the top of the ship’s hull. “This thing is fast. Switzerland to Antarctica in a little over an hour . . .” He whistled, shaking his head.
“You mean—” I sat up straighter, dislodging his arm, suddenly much more awake. “We’re here?”
“We're getting close,” he corrected. He pointed toward the front of the ship with his chin. “Hades thought you’d be interested in watching our approach.”
“Hades thought right,” I said, my heart beating faster.
The Alpha site had been my home for sixteen cycles, including my last, which had ended in a blaze of glory. I stood and hurried to the front of the ship, more excited than I had expected to be returning to the ice-bound city.
I planted my feet behind Hades’ seat and rested my forearms on the top of his seatback as I bent down slightly to get the best view possible. The view through the windshield was divided in half by the blue of the sky and the white of the ice covering the land below.
Hades craned his neck to glance back at me. “Ready to go home?”
I nodded vehemently, not tearing my stare from the windshield.
Hades shifted the controls, and the ship glided lower, closing the distance between us and the frozen ground with frightening speed. We slowed at what felt like the last possible second, and the Argo hovered a few feet over the ice.
Hades flipped a switch on the control panel, and the ship shook momentarily as a holoscreen appeared in front of him. The screen provided a secondary view, showing us the ice directly below the ship. Hades raised his hand and tapped a spot on the holoscreen, locking on a target.
A faint humming sound filled my ears, and seconds later, a bright orange laser beam struck the ice at an angle. The ice steamed as it melted around the beam, forming a perfect tunnel through the frozen barrier.
“I haven't been back here for nearly fifteen hundred years,” Hades said, watching the beam cut through the ice. “Not since I was scavenging parts to repair the Omega site.” Again, he glanced back at me. “It’s not the same as it once was,” he warned. “Prepare yourself.”
The border around the holoscreen flashed red, and a second later, the orange beam cut through the final frozen barrier separating us from the ancient city buried deep below the ice and winked out. Hades flipped the switch on the control panel back to its original position, and the holoscreen disappeared. The ship jarred again as the laser generator retracted into the hull.
I held my breath as Hades guided the Argo down through the ice tunnel, darkness triggering the ship’s external lights, and soon enough, we emerged into an enormous frozen cavern filled with endless columns of ice, glistening where the light from the ship touched.
The breath escaped from my lungs and my mouth fell open as I realized we weren’t in a cavern at all, but the Alpha site, and the frozen columns were actually buildings encased in ice. It was almost unrecognizable as the city I had once known so well. It was like the whole city had been turned into ice and had been slowly melting over the thousands of years since our people abandoned it.
Hades landed the Argo on the ground near t
he base of one of the ice-shrouded buildings. It took me a moment to recognize the building as the central tower. My confusion wasn’t all that surprising, considering the “ground” on which we had landed was actually located near the tower’s mid-point, with dozens of floors buried beneath the ice. Of course, Hades would start here. The central tower was the heart of the city, and it would provide us the most direct access to the underground mainframe, controlling the entire city’s infrastructure, including the power source.
With a flip of that same switch on the control panel as before, Hades initiated the laser generator and the holoscreen appeared once more. This time, he angled the beam projector forward instead of downward. The orange laser beam flared to life in front of the ship and started melting a hole through the ice encasing the central tower. As soon as the holoscreen flashed red, warning us it was almost through the ice, Hades flipped the switch to shut down the laser generator.
“You should probably take over,” Hades said, glancing back at me. “If you’re up for it. I'd rather not blow out the entire floor.” The corner of his mouth tensed, and he leaned forward, peering up toward the top of the tower, which had been consumed by the ceiling of the ice cavern. “We need this building intact.”
I knew exactly what he meant. The central tower wasn’t just a building; it had been constructed to project an energy field out from the spire at its tip, forming an energy dome that would hold the surrounding ice at bay. If we accidentally destroyed the tower by severing it through the middle, we would never be able to push back the encroaching ice and restore the city to its former glory, and it would remain this frozen wasteland.
Hades punched a button on the control panel, and the ship shuddered as the loading ramp slowly lowered.
I turned and made my way to the back of the ship. As soon as the ramp touched the ice, I started my descent. And for the first time in twelve thousand years, I returned home.
13
Retracting my doru, I tucked the weapon back into the sheath on my back and created a ball of glowing energy on my outstretched palm as I led the way through the hole I had just cut through a window in the side of the central tower. I paused just inside the opening and scanned the distinctly administrative space, the electric-blue glow from my energy ball casting eerie shadows. As I looked around, I moved out of the way to let the others through.
Hades entered first, carrying the chaos stone in its orichalcum containment cube, his holoband emitting a strong, white light to illuminate the way for him. The others followed him in through the hole, flashlights in hand, staying close to one another as they looked around, studying the alien structure.
“This place is weirdly normal,” Fiona commented. “I mean, cubicles—really?”
I glanced at her, watching her inspect the barren metal surface of a partitioned desk. I wasn't surprised by her reaction. The admin levels of the central tower really did bear a striking resemblance to the interior of the standard modern human office building. It hardly looked alien, especially not in comparison to the Omega site, which was Fiona’s only frame of reference.
Our entry into the city couldn't have impressed her much, either. To anyone who had never been here before, it would have been nearly impossible to see the mounds and columns of ice for what they really were—the buildings and towers of an ancient Olympian city.
I smiled to myself, thinking Fiona and the others were in for a big surprise. “Just wait,” I told Fiona. “Once Hades plugs in the chaos stone and gets this place booted up, you won't be quite so disappointed.”
Fiona threw me some serious side-eye, her skepticism written all over her face. “You better not be getting my hopes up. I was promised an alien city, but so far all I've seen is an ice cave and some office space. Lame . . .”
I snorted a laugh. “Just trust me, Fio,” I said as I started after Hades, who was already halfway across the aforementioned office space.
I picked up the pace, jogging to catch him as he reached the landing to the spiral staircase that wound around and around the glass-paneled lift at the center of the tower. Of course, seeing as the city currently had no functioning power source, the lift was out of order and we had to take the long way down.
Our footsteps on the metal stairs echoed up and down the staircase, sounding too loud in the long-abandoned place. Down, down, down, we descended, passing through seemingly endless floors of cubicles and larger, enclosed offices.
Until, finally, we reached a floor with a ceiling height double that of the higher floors. The staircase was surrounded by a circular corridor with three arched openings, the one nearest the landing being the grandest of the three.
Hades veered off the staircase at the landing and headed for the larger archway, leading us into the cavernous chamber where the gephyra resided. The floor here was polished granite, pearl-white with gray veins, the stone harvested from nearby bedrock. More granite panels lined the walls, cut through by ribs of gleaming silver orichalcum-steel alloy and alternating with huge, floor-to-ceiling windows, their transparency cloaked by the thick sheet of ice coating the exterior of the building. And the gephyra stood at the center of the room, a broad, circular orichalcum platform, ringed by a trio of steps leading down to the granite floor.
“This is it?” my mom said, passing me as she made a beeline for the gephyra. “This is the traveling device?” The others trailed into the chamber, their eyes wandering everywhere.
Raiden followed my mom’s path, heading for the gephyra. “This can really transport you to other worlds?” he asked over his shoulder.
I moved off to the side to stand with Hades, letting the others get a good eyeful of the otherworldly device. Honestly, it didn’t look like much in its dormant state, but once we powered it up . . . then it would truly be a sight to behold. I couldn’t help but recall the first time I had seen it, when Demeter had opened my eyes to the universe.
“The first time I traveled through the gephyra,” I told them, “I came here.” I snuck a glance at Hades, standing so still beside me. What secrets was he hiding about our people’s distant past? “This world was supposed to be our fresh start,” I said softly.
But now I wasn't so sure a fresh start was possible for our people. I could have deactivated my regulator and dug through Hades’ mind to unearth the truth for myself, but he would have sensed what I was doing, and he wouldn't have appreciated it. He had withheld significant information from me in the past—things I never would have known to look for. I needed to know if he was doing it again, and if he was, why. I wanted to trust him, and for that to happen, I needed to give him the chance to volunteer the information on his own. If there was even any information to volunteer. But I would give him that chance.
“This is where we’ll set up for the time being,” Hades said, loud enough for everyone to hear him.
Hades looked at me and lowered his voice. “I'm going to head down to the sublevel to plug the chaos stone in the mainframe.”
Fiona turned away from the gephyra’s platform and headed our way.
“I may need your help getting in there,” Hades went on. “Without power, I'm not sure I'll be able to get through some of the doors.”
“You got it,” I said with a nod. Besides, the time alone would give me a chance to do a little digging to see if Hades had anything he wanted to share.
Fiona skipped the rest of the way to us, dashing my hopes for a private interrogation. “I'll come with you. There's no way I'm going to miss the chance to see the mainframe.” She stopped and rubbed her hands together eagerly.
“We’ll unload the ship,” my mom said, hands on her hips as she scanned the rest of the chamber, her focus finally landing on Hades, then shifting to me. “Unless there's something else we should be doing?”
In my periphery, I saw Hades shake his head and also look at me. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared beyond my mom to the gephyra, a strange combination of anticipation and dread swirling in my gut as I imagined everything the next tw
enty-four hours might bring. Heading off-world was always a gamble, and after so long, anything could be waiting for us in the lost colonies. There was only one way to find out what, exactly—to go and look for ourselves.
“No,” I finally said, dragging my attention back to my mom. “Unloading the Argo is perfect. We'll need to unpack all of our bags and repack again with whatever gear we can scrounge up here.” I chewed the inside of my cheek, thinking out loud. “I want to hit a couple of other towers before we head out, stock up on some better weapons and gear for everyone . . .”
I turned to the side, staring at the wall of ice blocking one of the massive windows. The tower belonging to the Order of Amazons would be right there, could I see through the frozen glass. Only now it would be empty. A hollow shell of the place it had once been.
I was so distracted by thoughts of the past that I didn’t notice my mom’s approach until she rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. I looked at her, startled by the contact.
“Are you all right, sweetie?” she asked, compassion crinkling the corners of her eyes. “I can only imagine how strange it is for you to be back here.”
A sad smile curved my lips. “Everything is so different.” I laughed under my breath and shook my head, slowly scanning the chamber that had been bustling with activity the last time I’d been here. “So empty,” I added, my voice sounding distant, even to my own ears.
My mom gave my shoulder a squeeze and offered me a warm smile. “Maybe sometime soon it won't be so empty anymore.”
Swallowing hard, I forced myself to nod and returned to staring at the wall of ice blocking the window. I couldn’t let myself sink too deeply into the hope that one day soon the Amazon tower would be teeming with my spearsisters once again. Hope could too easily become expectation, and expectation, disappointment.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “Maybe.”
Dreams of the Damned (Atlantis Legacy Book 3) Page 9