“Boys,” Senator Calderon snapped. “Be quiet a moment, I need to take this call.” He waited, then heard a shuffling, some static, and then her voice.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“Hi Nina. You don’t know me, but you’re about to do exactly as I tell you.”
“And why in the world would I do that?”
“Because,” he said calmly, “I have something here that belongs to you.”
He smiled at the two boys, the twins, as they looked back at him with their mother’s eyes.
21
Nina listened as Marco held the phone to her ear. Her hands were still restrained behind her back and despite coming in from the sweltering heat, she trembled.
“I have something here that belongs to you.”
“What—?” she started, and then froze as a vision suddenly blasted back at her. A vision of a…
… gigantic crowned head, with blue-green radiating spikes, and viewing holes in the crown. Two young boys look out with amazement at the view, then glance up, hoping to climb the last part up to the torch.
And a well-dressed man on the phone, a man with gray hair and piercing blue eyes.
“Nina? Are you listening.”
“I… I see you.”
Silence, then, “Do you, now?”
“Statue of Liberty.”
“My, my. What big eyes you have, my dear.”
Nina swallowed hard, her vision locked on the blood-stained onyx door, seeing beyond the splatters into the first layer of smooth darkness, the black portal that trembled in her sight like a vertical pool of water at night in a breeze.
And suddenly, she saw into it.
Into its depths that had become the past. She saw herself…
… lying on a slab-like table inside a white room. A pod. A decompression chamber. Unconscious, in a coma. Almost dead. George Waxman looking in on her with concern, and fear…. Another room. Darker, but more spacious. At the end of a long, shadowy hallway with non-descript walls and doors. A subterranean facility somewhere. Soldiers standing guard at the only entrance.
Inside. Strapped to a table. Monitors checking her vitals. IVs hooked to her day and night. Machines to keep her alive, extract her wastes, keep her warm, nourish her body, monitor her pulse, blood pressure, heartbeat…
Hers. And the two heartbeats inside of her.
She sees it now, suddenly with abject clarity. Something so undeniable.
Her belly, swollen under the sheet. Nine months from the accident under the Pharos. Nine months from the night with Caleb.
Nine months.
She blasted out of it, almost falling backwards, unable to gain her balance without her hands. Marco and another soldier caught her and held her in place.
“Nina?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone. “Where did you go just then? Did you see something? Did you finally ask yourself the right question?”
Her mouth went dry.
Her vision slammed across the room, settling on Caleb. Then on Alexander.
She whispered something to herself, her eyes still wide in amazement. How could she have been so blind? Alexander’s visions of standing before the door. He, and two others…
“Caleb,” she said, louder. “I’m sorry.”
Caleb frowned, his mouth working. Glanced to Montross, whose eyes had widened.
He knows, Nina thought. “You knew,” she said, to the voice on the phone, to Montross, to Caleb, and lastly to Alexander. “All this time, it was you. You, Alexander.” She let a smile free, took a deep breath and willed with it all the memories of their lives, memories she would soon be sharing, recapturing, enjoying as only a mother could.
“You,” she repeated, turning from Alexander to stare at Caleb, “and my twins. My boys. Our boys, Caleb. You have three sons.”
22
Caleb watched in numb dislocation as Commander Marco handed the three necklaces to Alexander, and his son regally bowed his head, letting the stones settle low on his chest. The keys sparkled, vibrated and hummed.
He looked up at his father first, and immediately Caleb’s heart went out to him, but he was still in shock, glancing back at Nina. That one night in the Alexandrian hotel, before the initial descent under Pharos…
Twins.
They would be two years older than Alexander. Brothers. Psychics too, maybe more so since Nina also carried the trait.
All the time, it was Nina. She was the queen of the prophecy, the mother of legend. The one that ancient remote viewer had glimpsed.
And here was the youngest brother, turning toward the door. Holding out his hands.
“Alexander,” Caleb pleaded. He turned to Commander Marco. “We need to make sure this is right, that he can get in.”
“I can do it,” Alexander said quietly, staring at the door. He placed a hand on it, then cocked his head as if listening to a subtle heartbeat. He nodded, whispering something, then closed his eyes and clenched them tight.
“Alexander…” Caleb moved, but Nina stepped in his way.
“Don’t.” She turned to Marco. “Untie us please.”
“No way.”
She fixed him a deadly look. “Give me back the phone, then. I’ll get him to order you to do it. Or don’t you think your men can handle three unarmed prisoners?”
He debated the question for a moment, then nodded to one of his guards, who moved behind Nina and cut her bonds, then proceeded to release Caleb and Montross.
Rubbing his sore wrists, Caleb nodded his thanks to Nina. He was about to check on Alexander when his son backed up, hands raised, eyes wide open, a smile on his face.
The door began to rise.
He had seen it clearly. Beyond the wall, into the next chamber. As if he had just projected his mind through the door, just as Xavier Montross had been able to do. Except this time, he knew it was more than that.
In the darkness, Alexander could still see. Everything shimmered in violet hues, outlined in silvery-purple. He saw it clearly: the box-like chest against the far wall, between two pillars supporting the roof. Then, through some effort, he was able to will his mind-self to turn and view the door from the backside. And there, glowing brighter, almost golden-white, was a lever.
Without thinking, he reached for it and felt contact. Thrilled and invigorated, without a thought to logic or understanding, he muscled the lever up. It barely budged at first, as if resisting an unfamiliar hand, but then it clicked into a groove and rose effortlessly.
This is why I had those visions. This is what we — my brothers and I — can do!
The room shook, the colors on the onyx door pulsed and flashed, and as it ascended, he ducked and glided out of the room, slipping under the rising door like a contestant in a limbo contest.
Back in the main chamber, he saw his body and went to it, embracing himself and gasping for a breath.
Montross knew that timing at this point was everything.
He hoped Caleb and Alexander would catch on, and do what was needed. Maybe they already knew, maybe Caleb had seen, or maybe Alexander had, in whatever astral state he had just projected himself.
But quickly, Alexander was brought forward by Commander Marco, dragged into the room beyond the door, where the illumination from the floodlights spilled through and highlighted the plain-looking chest sitting alone between two nondescript pillars.