Seven Wonders Book 2: Lost in Babylon Page 23

  But as we neared the next hallway, I heard footsteps.

  We plastered ourselves against the wall. At the end of the corridor, where it came to a T, voices were talking in Arabic. They were close.

  My back was against a door. At eye level was a sign labeled in several languages. The third line read SUPPLIES in English. Under it was a simple keypad with numbers from one to nine.

  In these bright yellow uniforms, there was no hiding. We looked like two giant bananas. Cass turned to me, his eyes wide with fear. Run, he mouthed.

  But I was thinking about the workers who had to get in and out of this supply closet. And about the German soldiers who had to code the secret-message machines.

  I turned toward the door. I thought fast.

  Massa.

  That equaled 13-1-19-19-1.

  I pressed each digit. Nothing happened.

  Cass was pulling me away. Simplicity, I thought. Something easily remembered. A number they would all know.

  On a hunch, I keyed in five digits.

  Click.

  The door opened. We hustled inside and pulled it shut behind us.

  I willed my heart not to fly out of my chest. We listened for the guards. Their conversation was growing more animated. But they were staying put. They hadn’t heard a thing.

  Cass flicked on an overhead light. “How did you do that?” he whispered.

  “Smart guessing,” I whispered back. “Remember the code for ‘com’—three-one-five-one-three? It’s a number palindrome, the same back and forward. Easy to recall. Something they probably all see on their cell phones. So I tried it.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Cass said. “I can’t wait to tell Aly.”

  I glanced around. The shelves contained all kinds of caustic liquids. I jammed small bottles of bleach and ammonia into my bag.

  Cass was eagerly taking down a pile of neatly folded uniforms from the top shelf. Massa uniforms. Brown and institutional. They looked exactly like the things Brother Dimitrios and his goons were wearing here.

  Cass’s eyes were saying exactly what I was thinking. We would be much less noticeable wearing these.

  We each took one that seemed about the right size and changed into them. Another shelf was stocked with matching baseball-type caps, each embroidered with a lambda.

  Perfect. With these outfits, especially with the hat brims pulled low, we could pass for employees. Well, from a distance. A long distance, where no one would notice that we were thirteen.

  “I have another route,” Cass whispered, staring at the phone. “Left at the intersection, then right at the fork. There’s a big room we have to go through. On the other side of that room, we’re pretty close to the exit.”

  Slowly, silently, we opened the door and stepped out. We stepped quickly down the hallway, passing a lounge arrangement like the one we’d just been sleeping in. Then an intersection.

  “What fork?” I said. “This is a four-way!”

  Cass was fingering the screen like crazy. “Sorry. There are all these levels. They overlap. Maybe the fork is on the level above us. Or—or below . . .”

  “Pick one!” I said.

  “Straight,” Cass shot back.

  We headed down a long passageway toward a big, domed room. Some kind of control center. No door, just an archway. We could hear humming, beeps, shouts, an occasional burst of something in English—but even that was gibberish. Sector Five atmospheric control . . . waste systems redirecting to path 17B . . . clearing air traffic . . .

  A man burst through the opening, tapping furiously on a tablet. He was heading right for us. If he looked up, we were toast. Two kids who happen to exactly match the descriptions of the recently captured Select.

  I pulled Cass toward me, pretending to show him something on the phone. We hunched over the screen, our backs to the guy.

  The guy rushed past us without even looking up.

  “We are so close,” Cass whispered. “But this room—it’s huge. Like some kind of command center.”

  “Keep your head down,” I said. “Pretend you have something important to do. Don’t run. When we get to the other side—”

  “Wait,” Cass said. “You want us to walk straight through there? We can’t do that!”

  “They don’t know we’re missing yet,” I said. “This is the last place they’d expect to see us.”

  “But—”

  “Think about Aly,” I insisted. “She did the exact thing no one expected. It takes guts. Which is what we need right now.”

  Cass looked into the room and swallowed hard. “I hope you’re right.”

  We barged inside, keeping our heads down. The place was crawling with people. Most of them looked like they’d just awakened. From the walls, enormous monitors glared down at us like the schedule boards from airports. They showed hallways and rooms, lounges and storage spaces, satellite maps, cross-sections of pyramids. An enormous Jumbotron-type screen loomed over everything, tiled with all the different views of the compound, inside and out. It was their security center.

  I scanned the room quickly. Best to stick to the shadows as much as possible. I pulled Cass to the wall, where the traffic was lightest. We made our way around, hugging the wall as close as we could. I could see an archway at the other end. It led into another corridor that looked no different from the one we came from. I let Cass lead. Cass knew the route.

  He was picking up the pace. As long no one was looking for us, we would be fine. We were just about to the archway.

  Boooweep! Booooweep! Booooweep!

  The sound was more like a whack to the head than an alarm. It shrieked through the room, pounding our ears, blotting out all other sound. Cass jumped nearly three feet. Startled workers turned from their screens to look up at a huge Jumbotron-type screen. It blared two words in bright red letters against a white background:

  SECURITY BREACH!

  Under it were photos of Cass and me.

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  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  THE EXIT AT THE END OF THE HALL

  “GO!” I SHOUTED. “Just go!”

  We bolted through the archway, out of the room and into a wide, more modern corridor. Workers were hurrying curiously toward the control room. Some of them were checking their phones.

  We ducked into a restroom and hid in two adjoining stalls. A guy raced out from the stall next to ours, muttering under his breath. We waited until the footfalls died down, then sneaked out.

  “Second left!” Cass said, eyes on the phone. “Looks like there’s an exit at the end of the hallway there.”

  “I’ll scope it out first!” I sprinted ahead to the second corner. Before making the turn I stopped, back against the wall, and peered around.

  Cass was right. The corridor just around the corner from us ended in a doorway, about fifty feet away. But standing in front of it were Brothers Dimitrios and Yiorgos. They were yelling in Egyptian at two hapless-looking guards.

  I sprang back. “We’re busted.”

  “What are they saying?” Cass whispered.

  “How should I know?” I replied.

  It wasn’t until then that I realized my head was buzzing. And not just because of the chase.

  It was the Song of the Heptakiklos. Near us. Very near.

  “Do you—?” Cass said.

  I nodded. Cass peeked at our phone. Then he looked across the hall at a door on the wall across from us. A door like a bank vault, thick and ornately carved.

  “Jack?” he whispered. “How much room do you have in that sack?”

  He held out the phone to show me our GPS location. The room opposite us, behind the vault door, showed as a rectangle.

  In that rectangle were two glowing white circles. “This person who owns the phone,” I said, “is definitely trying to tell us something.”

  We walked closer. “
Where’s the handle?” Cass hissed. “Vault doors are supposed to have big old-timey handles, like in the movies.”

  “Ssh,” I said.

  Dimitrios was still talking. I focused on a smooth black panel, where a doorknob might once have been. It glowed black and red. “It’s a reader,” I said.

  “Fingerprint, like at the KI?” Cass said, his face tense. “Or maybe a retinal scan.”

  “RS” was the name of the app—it meant Retinal Scan.

  “Cass, you are a genius!” I said.

  I snatched the phone from him, and he flinched. Both of our hands were way too sweaty. The phone slipped out, clattering to the floor.

  Dimitrios’s voice stopped. We froze.

  I scooped up the phone, fumbling with the controls. I pressed the control button to get the app grid. I swiped too hard, scrolling past three screens.

  “Who’s there?”

  Dimitrios.

  I scrolled back until I found the one I was looking for. RS.

  I pressed. The eye filled the screen. I could see myself reflected in it. My chest contracted.

  There was something about this eye, something that seemed familiar.

  Do it. Now!

  “Jack, they’re coming!” Cass shouted.

  I turned the phone and held the eye up to the black sensor.

  Beep.

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  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  DEAFENING SILENCE

  THE DOOR CLICKED open. We pushed it hard and slipped inside. The thing weighed a ton.

  “Stavros? Is that you—finally?” Dimitrios’s impatient voice bellowed.

  Click.

  The door made an oddly delicate sound as it shut.

  We held our breath. A different voice shouted from the right, the direction we had just come from. “Nowhere, Brother Dimitrios! Vanished from their rooms. Both of them. But they can’t go far.”

  Brother Yiorgos.

  Now the voices met, directly in front of us. “The trackers?” Dimitrios demanded. “If they escape—”

  “They’re wearing the bracelets,” Yiorgos said. “The KI will not be able to find them if they escape. Which they will not do.”

  Dimitrios made a sound of disgust. “I want every exit out of this place sealed,” he said.

  I could hear his footsteps thumping away from us. We stood still in the ensuing silence, not daring to move. The room was pitch-black. A string, connected to an overhead lightbulb, tickled the top of my head. My chest felt like a rabid hamster had been let loose inside.

  I knew a Loculus was in here. Maybe both Loculi. The Song was deafening. I stared at the sliver of light under the door. It flickered as guards raced past. Now random shouts were echoing loud and fast. Voices I didn’t recognize. Languages I didn’t know.

  When this wave of sounds was gone, I reached upward and pulled the string. The bulb clicked on, flooding the room with greenish-white light.

  The rear side of the door was a slab of metal, undecorated. At the spot opposite the sensor was a thick iron latch, which had opened when we’d used the retina.

  I turned into the room. It was empty, save for an old, sturdy-looking wall safe with a rusted panel:

  “Try the pattern!” I said.

  Cass started with 142857, then went on to 428571 and 285714. “They’re not working!” he said.

  “Stop,” I said, staring at the panel.

  Simplify.

  The number keys looked old. Some of them were faded. If people had been opening this safe for years, their fingers would wear off the numbers.

  The wear and tear showed a pattern.

  I lifted my finger toward the one. Then I tapped out a pattern that resembled the shape of a seven—left to right across the top, then diagonally down to the left-hand corner.

  1, 2, 3, 5, and 7.

  With a dull click, the door swung open.

  Inside, embedded in the wall, was a deep rectangular hole that contained two wooden boxes. “Eureka,” I whispered.

  Cass opened one, to see a familiar glow—the flying Loculus. As he reached inside, it levitated to meet his fingers. “Good to see this again . . .”

  I opened the other box, which seemed to contain nothing. As I thrust my hand inside, my knuckles hit something solid. I grinned. “Two for two.”

  Attached to the wall, to the right of the safe, was a table containing a couple of sturdy sacks—big ones, which had obviously been used to carry the boxed Loculi here.

  I placed the flying Loculus, in its box, inside one sack.

  The other Loculus I would need to have in hand. Quietly I sidled to the doorway and put my ear against it. Silence.

  Looking at Cass, I mouthed Let’s go.

  As we turned back to the Loculus, the door beeped. I looked over my shoulder.

  The inner latch was turning downward, slowly. I reached up, pulling the lightbulb string. The light went out.

  And the door began to swing open.

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  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  PUSH HARDER

  THE LIGHT BLINKED on. A man with thick stubble looked straight at me. He muttered something extremely nasty-sounding in another language.

  Then he looked away.

  Behind him, a woman wearing a Massa cap peered inside. Her eyes circled the closet.

  My back was jammed against the wall, my palm firmly on the Loculus. I held my breath. Cass was clutching my arm so tightly I wanted to scream. I wanted to remind him that invisibility depended on contact, not grip strength.

  The two began to argue. The woman reached up and shut the light. Slowly the door swung back.

  We waited for the click. Even then, neither of us dared take a breath for a few seconds. Until the footfalls had faded into the distance.

  “That was close,” Cass said. “I owe you, Jack.”

  “Stay alive,” I replied. “That will be the best payback. Now let’s get out of here. Hang on to my arm.”

  I held on to the invisibility Loculus, and Cass took the flying one. No one would be able to see us. I carefully thrust the handle down, pushed the door open, and stepped into the hallway.

  It felt great. Too great. You have no idea what your body feels like when you’re invisible. Solid but weightless. It’s the opposite of being underwater. There you have to adjust to the resistance. You push harder. Every motion is exaggerated. With invisibility, it’s the opposite. You feel like your arm will fling off with every swing, your feet will slip and thrust you into the air. You have to pull back. It makes you want to giggle.

  And I could hardly imagine a less giggleworthy moment.

  I turned left. At the corner I peered around to see the exit. At the end of the long hallway, in front of the exit door where we’d seen Dimitrios minutes before, three burly men stood guard.

  Cass’s grip tightened on my arm. We lifted off the floor, only a few inches, to avoid having to make footsteps. I sucked in a lungful of dry desert air that blew in through the open door. It felt liberating.

  Unfortunately the ceiling was too low for us to fly over the guards’ heads. So we hovered, waiting.

  The sound of a truck stopped the men’s conversation. Through the door I could see uniformed men piling out, rifles and ammo belts across their chests. We shrank against the walls as the small militia ran inside, shouting.

  I shivered. Cass stared wide-mouthed.

  The soldiers were fitted out for war. They were here to find us.

  As the guys spread out to the different hallways, the three guards turned back toward the open door. They were looking outside again, shoulder to shoulder.

  What do we do now? Cass mouthed.

  With my free hand, I reached for the pouch on my belt and mou
thed back, Call MacGruber.

  By now, the container of ice cream was melted and gooey. I tossed it, and it landed about three feet behind us with a dull thud. It was totally visible, totally a mess. For good measure, I threw the bottle of vegetable oil after it.

  The guards turned. Their faces scrunched in bewilderment, and they began walking toward it curiously. Leaving the door. Heading directly in front of us.

  We backed away, flattening ourselves even more.

  One of the guards bumped against my shoulder. Solid. I nearly dropped the Loculus.

  He staggered back with a gasp. In his eyes I could see two and two coming together reluctantly. These guys must have been taught about us. About what we had found.

  The man called sharply to the others. All three reached into holsters, pulling out pistols.

  Two of them walked slowly toward us, their eyes unfocused but intent. The third moved to the door, blocking escape.

  The guard closest to us grinned. “We know you are there. Exactly where. You cannot get away. I will proud to be the one to bring you in. So. You have to the count of three to appear, or I will shoot. One . . .”

  I looked at Cass. My fingers were sweaty and slippery on the Loculus. I wedged it under my arm.

  The guard poked me with his rifle butt and laughed. “Three!”

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  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  THE SAFETY CATCH

  I HEARD THE click of a safety catch. I wrapped my fingers around the pepper container, screwing off the top—and I tossed the contents.

  Moving fast, I wriggled out of the gun’s way. And I tossed the contents.

  “Yeeeeeaaaa-CHOO!”

  The guards and his ally sprang back. The other guard, the one at the door, faltered, just in time for me to throw another fistful of pepper.

  “Let’s go!” I shouted.

  We tore out of the building to a chorus of sneezing, and a new vocabulary of very bad words.