Jade kept hugging the ladder to her, certain that if she let go, even to get a better hold, she would lose her grip and fall into the meat grinder below. She tried to find the rungs with her feet, but felt only empty space.
Another thunderclap shook the mountain, and what little remained of the interface and the surrounding tower dropped away. For a fleeting instant, Jade saw the vast cavity inside Bell Rock — the towers and aqueducts and air channels crumbling like an elaborate house of cards.
Then the shockwave hit. The Vault breathed its last, a blast of heat that buffeted Jade, propelling her up even as it engulfed her in a cloud of scalding steam….
And then it was over.
She lay beneath a sky full of stars. The smell of crushed earth was still in her nostrils, but the air was clear.
Professor lay beside her, and between them was a heap of rope, the ladder that Jade was still clutching. Professor had made it to the top and then hauled up the ladder — and her — like a fisherman dragging in his net. He had saved her.
She made a mental note to thank him.
To her left, a narrow fissure marked the Changeling’s secret entrance to the vault, or rather to the cavern where the vault had once stood. She did not need to look into it to know that the vault and all the answers it might have held — secrets or illusions — were gone forever.
Maybe it was better that way.
EPILOGUE — REVELATION
The call came just after noon.
Jade had been lounging poolside, an activity, or more accurately a lack of activity that under normal circumstances, she would have found unbearably tedious. After the events of the past week however, lying out in the open with nothing buy sky above her, was just what the doctor ordered, literally as well as figuratively. The urgent care provider she’d seen the morning after her “climbing accident” had prescribed a regimen of rest and relaxation, along with ice, physical therapy and some heavy duty painkillers. She wasn’t keen on the ice treatments, but she was developing a new appreciation for sunbathing
The spa resort where they had booked a suite was just a thirty minute drive from Bell Rock and the hidden ruins beneath. They had not gone back to the site, which had been closed by the Forest Service due to “seismic instability,” and at last report, it would be several weeks before the popular tourist destination was open for business again.
Jade wondered if it would still be as much of a draw now that the source of all the paranormal activity associated with the place had been destroyed. She supposed it would. Stories of the Bell Rock Vortex, coupled with the human capacity to believe the unbelievable, would sustain the phenomena long after Jade was gone from the earth.
She had just returned to the room when Professor’s phone rang. He muted the television, which was tuned to a cable news channel, and answered. “Hey, Tam.” He glanced at Jade and then said, “I’m going to put you on speaker.”
“Jade?” Tamara Broderick’s strong voice crackled from the device, but Jade couldn’t tell if her tone was one of disapproval or awe. “You do have a knack for kicking the hornets’ nest, girl.”
Jade settled onto the couch beside Professor. “Hey, if it wasn’t for me you’d have no idea the hornets were even there.”
“Simmer down. It’s a mess, but I’m not unappreciative. The problem is figuring out who I can trust with this. God da—” She stopped herself. Tam had a smoker’s relationship with profanity — she was always trying to quit. “Frigging shapeshifters.”
“Changelings,” Jade corrected.
“They aren’t able to change shape,” Professor said. “It’s all just theatrical makeup and method acting.”
“I’m not stupid,” Tam shot back. “I know what they are. That little package you sent us is the gift that keeps on giving.”
It took Jade a moment to realize Tam was referring to Eve, the Changeling prisoner Professor had captured in Tasmania.
Tam was still talking. “We’ve got a list of probable infiltrators that includes at least two members of the President’s cabinet. That’s just in our country.”
“Well that explains your good mood,” Jade remarked.
“When does the roll-up start?” Professor asked.
“There’s not going to be a roll-up,” Tam said, wearily. “If we started arresting senior political figures and pulling their masks off, the world would come apart at the seams.”
“You can’t just leave them out there.”
“Actually, we can.” She paused as if trying to figure out how to deliver an unpleasant message. “There’s going to be a negotiated phase-out.”
Jade exchanged a worried glance with Professor, but neither of them interrupted Tam’s explanation.
Tam explained that, in order to keep the secret of the Changeling conspiracy a secret, the infiltrators would be given the opportunity to voluntarily relinquish their positions of authority in exchange for a promise of amnesty and resettlement in the witness protection program.
“How do you know they’ll go for it?” Professor asked.
“Why wouldn’t they? They can’t hide anymore, and you’ve utterly dismantled their raison d’etre.” She paused a beat. “You have, right?”
“The Vault was completely destroyed,” Jade said, letting Tam draw her own conclusions.
“These people are dangerous,” Professor intoned. “They’ve held power for a long time. They aren’t going to just roll over and give it all up.”
“We had all better pray they do,” was Tam’s grave reply.
Jade wondered if it really mattered. Despite Roche’s conspiracy theories, it seemed unlikely that the Changelings had ever wielded absolute control over the world’s governments and economy. She wasn’t sure that was even possible. In any case, if the Changelings were removed from power, someone just as unscrupulous would probably take their place.
Power corrupts and nature abhors a vacuum, Jade thought.
Tam was speaking again. “Do have any insights into what made the thing tick?”
“Infrasound frequencies can be used to induce a dream-like state,” Professor said, authoritatively. “People in that state see what they expect to see.”
“That doesn’t explain how Jade knew the vault would be in Arizona.”
Professor had no ready answer for that.
“It’s not the first time we’ve found something we can’t explain,” Jade said with a shrug. She had no inclination to speculate further. “What about Shah?”
“Latest intel puts him in Tehran. He’s gone back home.”
“So we can’t get to him?”
“Bigger fish to fry,” Tam said. “He was never much of a threat, and from what you’ve told me, he has reason to hate the Changelings even more than we do. Whether he meant to or not, he did us all a huge favor by destroying the vault.”
“Not sure how I feel about him,” Jade said, thinking aloud. “I don’t think he even knew whose side he was on.”
“Maybe we’ll run into him someday,” Professor said. “And you can ask him.”
Jade shrugged. “Or not. I’m just glad it’s all over.”
When Professor did not respond, she looked over and saw him staring at the television. On the screen, a graphic banner announcing “Breaking News” was flashing over stock footage of naval vessels on the ocean. The crawl beneath the picture said, “Possible debris from Flight 815 found.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess it is.”
But for the mountains towering behind the city skyline and the signs on the shops — Farsi written in the elegant Nasta’liq script — Atash Shah might have believed he was back on Park Avenue. The affluent Zafaraniyeh neighborhood in northern Tehran was every bit as modern, and almost as cosmopolitan, as Manhattan. It even had a synagogue, which probably would have astonished most Westerners.