The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (8 page)

Harvey saw me looking up. “Don’t worry, that’s just the air-conditioning system,” he said, rolling his eyes as he returned and put the plate of sizzling meat on the table. “It hasn’t worked right in years, clipping on and off now and then, but you know, nobody out here really knows how that old tech works anymore.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’m just jumpy.”

“Of course, but you don’t need to worry. Look . . .” Harvey pointed at the monitor. There were no disturbances, just our white dot.

I nodded at this, and, hearing no more sounds from above, found that my worry was no match for the magnetic pull of the sizzling meat before us.

“You’ve probably never had tapir,” said Lucinda. “It’s wonderful.”

“That’s like a tropical pig,” said Leech, “right?”

“Yes,” said Harvey. “You know, they are extinct in nearly all their original habitat, but Mother has been able to breed this species for resilience and Desenna has its own stock now.”

“This Mother of yours seems to have it all figured out,” said Lilly.

“She is inspiring in that way,” said Lucinda.

It smelled salty and sweet. Saliva flooded over my tongue, as if the technicians were throwing valves wide-open.

“Go ahead,” said Harvey.

We each took a kebab. I pressed my teeth against the seared flesh. It cracked open, and tangy juices filled my mouth. It was the best thing I’d tasted, maybe ever.

“Wow,” I said. Leech hummed in agreement.

“And you don’t have to worry,” Harvey said with a laugh, “I know there are those nasty rumors, but we are most definitely not serving you
people
or anything.”

My mouth froze. I almost spit out my bite.

“Nnn,” Lilly moaned softly beside me.

I forced myself to swallow. “We hadn’t been thinking that,” I said weakly.

“Good,” said Lucinda. “All that nonsense couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re nothing like how these Gambler’s Falls people ended up.”

“What happened here?” Lilly asked around another bite.

“Well, they did okay for a few years after the great American exodus,” said Harvey. “The ACF thought they were too small to recognize, so they pledged themselves to Heliad and started getting support from Desenna. But then pandemic wiped them out.”

“Was it red tide?” I asked.

“Oh no,” said Lucinda. “I think it was one of the later ones. Red tide was pandemic two, wasn’t it?”

Harvey nodded. “I think this was six.”

“Told you,” Leech said to me.

“Six?” I asked, ignoring him. “I haven’t even heard of three, four, and five. Were they small?”

“Three and five were small, other flu variants,” said Harvey, “like six, I think. But pandemic four was brutal.”

“Black blood,” said Leech.

“What’s that?” I asked. I was surprised I hadn’t heard of these. Then again, if they hadn’t reached Hub, I wouldn’t have much reason to know about them.

“A form of septicemic plague that affected the white blood cells,” said Harvey. “One of the late stage symptoms was the veins turning black. That was a nasty one.”

“That’s gross.” I was surprised to feel a wave of nausea. Normally this kind of talk didn’t bother me. Maybe I had just eaten too fast.

“It was a nasty business here, at the end,” said Harvey. “People went a little crazy . . . but thus there were supplies left behind and the power still worked, so we chose this spot as a monitoring station. Which brings us back to the present.” Harvey slapped his hands together and rubbed them. “It is just amazing that you made it out of Eden.”

“I guess,” I said. I tried a meatball and washed it down with more horchata.

“Do you know where you’re headed next?” Lucinda asked.

“We’re still figuring it out,” said Leech immediately. That was smart, I realized, not giving away the few things we knew. For as nice as these people seemed, we still didn’t know who we could trust for sure.

“You’re certainly in a heap of danger,” said Harvey, “which is why we have a message to give you from Mother.” He produced a small piece of paper and cleared his throat formally. “‘On behalf of the people of Heliad-Seven, the Benevolent Mother would like to invite you to Desenna, where you will be reunited with your sister of memory. In addition, Mother can offer you protection from Eden’s forces and all the support you need to complete your journey. We have a Nomad pod on the way right now, who can escort you safely to the city.’”

“This is so exciting!” said Lucinda. “First Heliad returns, and now the Three are reunited! All is just as Mother predicted!”

“What do you mean by ‘predicted’?” Leech asked. He turned to Lilly and me. “Their ‘Mother’ used to be EdenSouth’s version of Paul. She led an overthrow from inside.”

“A revolution,” said Harvey. “The first liberation.”

It worried me to hear this. Their Benevolent Mother might not be a part of Eden now, but she had been. Did that mean that on some level, she was like Paul?

“For years, the Benevolent Mother foretold the return of Tona’s daughter,” Lucinda explained. “Tona is the sun deity. Mother said that when the daughter of the sun returned, she would be the direct connection to the first people, whose ways we emulate, based on Mother’s translation of the ancient texts inside the Atlantean temple. We all looked forward to her return, and yet, after a decade, hope had begun to fade. Then just as all was seeming lost . . . there she was! We all gathered on the beach and watched as she swam up from the depths, emerging from the sea in a flowing white dress, the beautiful Heliad among us. And we have rejoiced ever since.”

“That was something,” said Harvey, closing his eyes, smiling. He put a hand on his chest and inhaled deeply through his nose.

I could barely follow all this. I thought that the Heliad-7 cult was only a few years old, but clearly they’d been around awhile before they overthrew EdenSouth.

“Why was all seeming lost?” Lilly asked. “I mean, Heliad is the most popular religion outside the Habitable Zone and the Edens, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” said Lucinda, a shadow crossing her face, “but there was a seed of doubt. A rumor . . .”

“A heresy is more like it,” Harvey added, his face puckering like he’d eaten something spoiled.

“You see,” said Lucinda, “people began to fear that, instead of the gods returning, as Mother predicted, they were in fact
leaving
. A rumor began to spread that the gods had forsaken earth, and that the end-times had come. This was in spite of the teachings of the Benevolent Mother, in spite of the magic she could show us, and her prophecy of Heliad’s return.”

It’s understandable in an age like this,” said Harvey. “People have a right to fear for our future. I mean, you see what we’ve done to this planet. Is it so hard to believe that humanity has been forsaken, that the gods have had enough? Even in Desenna, the Rise may be over, but living is hard and only gets worse. There is more hope now that Heliad has returned, and now that the Three have come . . . but still, even
we
have thought, from time to time, that who could blame the gods for leaving, to start somewhere new?”

Harvey and Lucinda shared a wide-eyed glance, Harvey rubbing his hands together, Lucinda fidgeting with her pendant.

“That’s why we wondered . . .” Lucinda began, speaking in a hushed tone, but then, she shook her head. “I can’t.”

Harvey rubbed her leg supportively. “What Luce was going to say was, we were wondering, since you’ve been in Eden . . .” He swallowed hard, and continued in a fearful whisper, “Do you, by chance, know of the Ascending Stars?”

I glanced over at Lilly and Leech. Their looks matched my thought. “The what?”

“The Ascending Stars,” said Harvey, still quiet. “The lights that rise from earth into the ethers of space. People claim to have seen them. There are rumors from the south of lights that leave in the night.”

“You mean like satellite launches or something?” asked Lilly.

“No,” said Lucinda. “They’re not from any of the countries that control space launch. These are from remote spots, places thought to be uninhabited.”

“It’s these sightings,” said Harvey, “that fueled the legend of the gods departing. In Desenna, the people who spread these rumors say the stars are ascending from Tulana, the resting place of the souls where the gods dwell. Of course, Tulana is just myth. Still, people believe . . . and until Heliad returned, it was this rumor of the Ascending Stars that threatened to bring down Desenna.”

“I’ve never heard of any of that,” I said. Lilly and Leech motioned in agreement.

Harvey sighed. “Some believe they’re connected to Eden somehow, a part of Project Elysium. We thought you might know.” He sounded disappointed.

“Nope,” I said. “Do
you
guys know anything about Project Elysium?”

Harvey shrugged. “We know that it is secretive, and that it is Eden’s plan to create a new paradise after their domes fail. This is the standard theory. And we know that seeking Atlantis is part of their plan.”

Harvey paused and looked to Lucinda. They both seemed to be growing more nervous as we talked.

“We know of many people,” Harvey continued, “who wish they could be part of Eden’s plans, even in Desenna, though to say so would be treason.”

“You mean be part of the shiny new paradise,” said Leech.

“Yes,” said Lucinda. “That would be nice.” She sounded like she might be one of the “many.”

A silence passed between us. Lucinda fiddled with her necklace, rubbing her thumb over the top of the pendant. I caught a better glimpse of it and saw a design on it, like three raised circles. She and Harvey both stared into space. It seemed like more than just worry between them. There was sadness, too. I wondered, had they lost children to the pandemics? Had the plastics cancer made them unable to have kids at all? Had their loved ones died too soon? There were so many possible causes for a person’s sadness in this world.

At the same time, in the pause, I started to become aware of a clock ticking inside me. These people had not turned out to be a danger; in fact, in these last few minutes I’d actually felt almost safe. Food was helping that. It was the first time in days that my guard had been down, but Paul was still out there, coming for us.

Another deep thud echoed above us. Still blank. I thought of what Harvey had said about air-conditioning. I remembered the sound of air warping ducts when the heat came on out at Hub. Those booms were hollow and empty. These sounded heavier. I glanced at the sensor again. “Nothing on there?” I asked.

Harvey seemed to snap out of some daydream. He looked down at it. “Nope.”

Still, I couldn’t help worrying about the craft. Had I tied the sails off? If one of them caught the wind, the craft could blow into the wall or over the edge.

“We should probably get moving,” I said.

“Going?” said Harvey. “Oh, but, well, what about our offer from the Benevolent Mother?” Harvey checked his watch. “The Nomad pod should be here in just about fifteen minutes. Why don’t you just stay and finish eating?”

“Um . . .” I said. I turned to Lilly and Leech, wishing I could read their minds. Lilly shrugged slightly.

“It’s a great invitation,” Leech said, eyeing me, again like he was checking that we were on the same page, “but we had a prior plan, and so we need a minute to talk about it, you know, just
us
.” He started to stand.

“Yeah,” I agreed. This was more good thinking by Leech. “We’ve had a long few days, so maybe we’ll just head up to the roof and talk it over, and then we’ll let you know?”

“Oh,” said Harvey, “I mean . . .” He shared another worried glance with Lucinda, almost like he was trying to send her mental messages. “I guess a few minutes would be . . . fine?”

I wondered if they’d be in trouble with this Benevolent Mother if we were to leave, if failing to convince us was the kind of thing that could get you packed in a freezer.

Lucinda nodded at Harvey, and turned back to us. “Sure, of course.” Her voice had started to shake, matching the fidgeting of her hands. She glanced down, seeming to study the black pendant as it flipped between her fingers. “That should be okay. Just, um . . .” she said, “remind me again, which one of you is, is not, you know, one of the . . .”

“You mean not an Atlantean?” Lilly pointed her thumb at herself. “That would be me. Why?”

I hated hearing her say that. But something about what Lucinda had just asked struck me as odd.
Remind me again . . .
Had she actually asked about that before? I didn’t remember it. Maybe that was just her nerves, or she misspoke.

There was a clicking sound. Something tiny and plastic. It took me a second to find the source: Lucinda’s pendant. I wondered if she’d broken it in all her nervous fidgeting. She was staring at Lilly, saw me gazing at her, then her eyes flicked away almost like she’d been caught.

“Excuse me.” She lurched up from her seat, but her movement was erratic. Her knee slammed the table, and our bottles toppled over. Horchata splattered everywhere. “Oh dear!”

My bottle rolled off the table and landed on the carpet. I reached down to grab it, some random polite instinct kicking in, triggered by nerves, and I caught a glimpse under the coffee table. I noticed a pair of shoes in the shadows. They were only in the corner of my eye for a second, but that was enough time to see that they were sneakers. . . .