Alexander finished pouring the tea, placed a cup on the table in front of King, next to the untouched glass of scotch, then took his own seat, next to Asya. He pursed his lips, blew on his cup to cool the brew, then sipped his tea. The tiny teacups looked ridiculous in his massive hands.
Lynn reached for her own cup and took a sip. Alexander had not poured a cup for Peter. The man still had a glass of scotch in his hands. King eyed the tea suspiciously, but seeing no ill effects on Lynn, and not wanting to be rude, he sipped the brew. It was strangely lacking in flavor, like drinking hot water. He wondered why anyone would drink it. Still, he popped the ibuprofen and washed it down with another sip of the scalding liquid.
“Those speakers of ancient languages all had one other thing in common, Jack. Something I didn’t find out until too late, which is why so many of them perished, and why I was so keen to safeguard them all.” Alexander scowled at the thought of the dead that he had failed to protect.
“What did they have in common?” King asked.
Alexander looked directly at him. “Me.”
King turned to Asya, but she looked as confused as he did.
“I don’t follow.”
“Jack, I know you might not believe it, but I am several centuries old. How many offspring do you think a man like me might have had over those years?”
Then it hit King all at once. “No…”
Asya hadn’t figured it out yet. “What?”
“All those people…my daughter. They’re all your descendants.” King looked at Alexander, with his mouth open. “And…shit. We are too.” He glanced at Asya again so she would know the ‘we’ implicated her.
Alexander nodded. “As is your father. I didn’t know at first, but I looked into the incident when your mother bugged you.”
“Sorry, son,” Lynn smiled sheepishly.
“I had suspected our connection for quite some time, Jack.” Alexander drank his tea.
“You mean to tell me you weren’t tracking my movements?” King asked.
“Think about it, Jack. Centuries, and generation after generation? I can’t possibly keep track of all my descendants. But sometimes I come across someone I’m sure about. You noticed that you and your sister were immune to those creatures — you called them Dire Wolves — in Norway, while the rest of your team was affected?” Alexander pointed to King and Asya. “My blood, diluted by centuries of course, but enough to keep you from feeling the effects of those creatures.”
King recalled that other members of Chess Team and even support members of Endgame had been affected by a fear-inducing sonic cry from the creatures they had faced the previous year. He alone had seemed immune to the effect. But during the final battle, he had discovered that Asya was likewise unaffected.
“Wait, you’ve mentioned that you’ve been known by many names. Was one of them Adoon?”
Alexander’s face darkened. “Where did you hear that name?”
“In Norway. The thing we fought — Fenrir — referred to us as the ‘Children of Adoon.’ I thought at the time that it was speaking of Earth’s inhabitants or referring to the Biblical children of Adam, but it wasn’t, was it? It was talking about me…and my connection to you. Who the hell are you?”
Alexander sighed. “I’m just a man trying to get home, Jack. And I need your help.”
“When you say ‘home,’ you don’t mean Greece, do you?”
TWENTY
It had been only a few hours, but Queen, was already deeply tired of the three Ridley clones. They were the enemy, but as much as she wanted them gone, she needed to understand them.
“So you three are exact duplicates of the original Ridley? You have the same emotions, the same thoughts? How does that work?” she asked.
They were standing in the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, a large circular walled field with patchy grass and stone debris of what Queen guessed were once buildings. The remains of pillars stood around the circumference of the stadium — some only nubs after the ravages of time. A lone standing pillar stood on a raised platform. The center of the arena had a recessed area like a trench with gates on either end. Seth led them down to one of the gates, which he then unlocked with a key.
“As I’ve said, we three do not possess the mother tongue, but as I understand it, our Creator used the mother tongue to merge his DNA with the raw material he imbued with life.
Queen raised an eyebrow. It sounded hokey as hell, but she’d seen it with her own eyes more than once. “By raw material you mean, what, clay?”
“It is the most stable of elements with which to imbue life,” he replied. “And our lives began as fully formed duplicates of our Creator, complete with his memories, aspirations and intellect. But from that moment forth, we each began creating new memories and having new thoughts shaped by our individual experiences. So while two years ago we were duplicates in every way of Richard Ridley, now we might even be considered human, as we have each led separate lives and made choices our Creator might not have.”
“That’s too bad,” Queen said, as they entered the shadowed end-chamber behind the gate. Knight and Bishop had barrel-mounted flashlights on their MP-5 submachine guns that illuminated the space around them. Jared moved to the wall and began running his fingers along the top, where it met the ceiling. When his fingers found an indentation, he slipped his index and middle finger inside.
“Why is that?” Seth asked.
A loud clatch noise filled the arched space, and a portion of the stone wall began to slide back on incredibly quiet pistoning motors. Queen could just barely hear them hissing like air compressors.
She shoved Seth toward the open doorway. “Because I was thinking about killing one of you. If you were just plain old duplicates of Ridley, I wouldn’t shed a tear. But on the off chance that as ‘new humans’ you might have some redeeming quality, I’ll keep you alive a little longer.”
Seth stepped into the new opening, which revealed a modern metal stairwell and concrete walls. He reached to the wall and flipped on a light switch. Suddenly the stairwell was lit up with bright fluorescent spotlights mounted on the walls and protected by metal cages. He turned to Queen. “That is very considerate of you.”
Rook walked past the man, intentionally slamming his shoulder into Seth’s. “I didn’t make any such promise, cupcake.”
Seth looked at Knight, but the short Korean just stalked away into the stairwell after Rook and the other two duplicates.
Then Bishop walked toward Seth. “Don’t even look at me.” Unlike Rook, Bishop walked around Seth, as he made for the stairs. He was the poster child for anger management, but that was primarily because he stored up his rage for when he really needed it most. Then he became a volcano. If he let himself rough up one of the duplicates, he might just open the flood gates and end one of them.
Or all of them.
Queen, on the other hand, had no trouble being physical. She took Seth by his shoulder, and with one deft twist of her hand, she guided his body around, so he faced the stairs. Then she shoved him to follow Bishop.
The stone door slid quietly shut behind the group as they made their way down the stairs. At the bottom, they faced two corridors, but Jared, the supposedly mute duplicate, pointed down the tunnel leading west. Eventually they came to a metal door. On the wall beside it was a keypad.
Jared tapped in a code of five 9s, and the door unlocked with a soft clicking noise. Enos, the supposedly deaf duplicate, pulled the door handle open to reveal a janitorial closet filled with mops and bottles of cleaning supplies on high shelves.