Phoebe sighed. “Sure, let’s get it over with.”
“Okay,” Temple said, taking a step back. He lifted his face to the sun and closed his eyes. “Here’s the target: Seven-seventeen AM, central Siberia. June 30th, 1908.”
Phoebe heard Orlando make a choking sound, but it was lost in a tremendous roar, a deafening explosion of sound and fury. She stood on a muddy hill looking down toward a river. But in a miles-long stretch of terrain, the forest was decimated: trees flattened, others blackened, the ground churned up, smoking. A huge swath cut through the wilderness.
And then: it was as if the viewing reversed. A rumbling, which rose and rose to such horrific volume and intensity until it swallowed up the world, the trees rising, filling, turning green just after an immense light retracts into a glowing wave of energy, rippling backwards and up at an oblique angle into the sky…
Orlando was doubled over. “Tunguska,” he whispered. “Another target Caleb should have put on the list.”
“What was it?” Phoebe asked, her lips now parched.
“No one’s really sure,” Orlando said, after it was apparent Temple wasn’t going to speak. “At the time, they thought it was a meteor. But after several scientific teams got there and searched, they found no impact crater and no evidence of meteorite elements. But something sure hit that area with a force like a meteor.”
“Good enough for me,” Temple said. “You passed the quiz. Now back in the plane and let’s get to work.”
“So we’re in?” Phoebe voiced. “Past the bullshit? No more secrets, no more games?”
“Or freakin’ quizzes?” Orlando added.
Temple grinned. “No more quizzes. But as for the secrets… In time I’ll let you in. Don’t want to blow your minds all at once. Then you’d be no good to me. Or your friends.”
“Our friends,” Orlando whispered. “How are they?”
“You can find out soon. Get on the plane and let’s head back to our facility.”
“But…” Phoebe looked back to the ruins, silent and desolate. “But this city was so ancient. And Tunguska was only a hundred years ago. What’s going on?”
“They’re both related.”
“And Mars?”
“We’ll get to that.” He stepped back into the plane. Orlando met Phoebe’s eyes, and saw all her confidence fleeing. Saw her teetering on the edge of exhaustion, overcome by the weight of such visions and responsibility.
He felt the same things, but right now he feared something far more personal. If he didn’t get her out of this, she might never come back. So he did the only thing he could think of.
He took her hand, pulled her close. And kissed the dust from her lips.
11.
Alexandria
Caleb hadn’t been back here, to the modern library, for almost five months. The last time, he and Alexander had spent a couple days in the city, visiting all the tourist spots and sailing in the harbor, where Caleb had pointed out the place where he had nearly drowned that fateful day he had his first vision of the Pharos. They visited Qaitbey’s Fortress, and Caleb had a difficult time keeping Alexander from finding the secret lever that would open the door to the sub-chambers… and the great seal guarding a now-empty vault. The boy wanted to see, and Caleb couldn’t blame him. Someday, he promised, they’d come back when it was safe, when they wouldn’t get caught.
He had vowed that they would do it together, with Lydia. The next time all three were in Alexandria together. The next time…
Caleb had to stop and hold onto a pillar as a rush of images burst into his skull. Like she was still there, still waiting.
“Let’s take him,” Lydia says while propped up on her elbow on the bed beside him. “Tomorrow. He’s ready!”
“Isn’t one vault enough? He’s got enough to do here.”
“What are you worried about? The danger down there…”
“Is still real. It’s not like the traps don’t work anymore.”
“He just wants to see. He’s proud of you. Proud of us—what we did. It’s something before his time, and he feels left out.”
“Well, he wasn’t. He was a big part of it. If it wasn’t for him…”
“You and I would not have been apart. And you might not have found the way in with me holding you back.”
Her eyes are so profoundly large, green like the Emerald Tablet, so deeply resonant and magnetic. It’s as if she knows he’s lied to her. Knows he’s hidden it away, told her it was lost. Should he tell her? Is now the time?
He opens his mouth, but she’s leaning in. Her lips against his, silencing his voice. She pulls back, only for an instant. “Just think about it. We’re running out of time. A boy’s only a boy for so long.”
Caleb caught his breath and looked up to see Alexander and Rashi staring at him, both concerned. They stood between a gap between two enormous rows of shelves. Books as far as he could see in any direction.
“I’m okay. Just had a moment.”
Alexander moved forward. “Was it Mom?”
Caleb smiled. “Yeah… just, I haven’t been here since…”
A flash, an explosion of fire. A charred body, spinning around, and facing him, two green orbs in a blackened skull boring down at him, recriminating…
“Dad?” His hand on Caleb’s shoulder, Alexander pulled him up. His grip was strong, firmer than Caleb had ever remembered. It’s already too late. He’s not a boy anymore. And it’s my fault. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
And Alexander shook his head. “No reason to be.”
“I did to you what my mother did to me. She stole my childhood, and I never forgave her for it, not until the end.”
Alexander rolled his eyes. “I’m still a kid. I’m—what’s the word? Resilient. After we stop the bad guys and save the world, I’m still going to want to watch cartoons and play that 3D PlayStation you’re going to buy me for Christmas.”
A laugh mingled with a choking sob as Caleb stood up and hugged his son under the watchful gaze of the Keeper, Rashi. When they were ready, they made their way through the stacks and the shelves, the seemingly endless texts, volumes and tomes. While they walked, he took a moment to gaze fondly on all these works, and looked up at the sunlight-kissed levels above, all those treasures preserved here, hopefully for a long time to come.
At last, they made it to the elevator and accessed the locked sublevel. As the doors closed, Caleb glanced away from his son, out the doors and saw-
In the center of the library, on the marble floor in a shaft of light, Lydia stood alone, head bowed in silence.
The once metal-walled hallway was now decorated with ancient artwork: Sumerian friezes, Babylonian bas-reliefs, Egyptian murals… Caleb had walked this hallway more than a hundred times, and each time he felt as if he were coming home.
Into the vault, Rashi joined several other Keepers: two men and a woman busy at work at their stations. Hideki Matusi, bone-thin, yet regally elegant in a way Caleb always associated with ancient scholars, stood over a glass table, lit from below, as she analyzed scroll fragments with a microscope. She took a break from translating the ancient texts and came down to greet them.
She nodded sympathetically to Caleb. “We mourn for Lydia. But the work must continue, as she would have wanted it.”