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  All characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons or events are coincidental.

  Copyright © Immogen Books and Akropolis.

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  For my father

  Akropolis

  Book 2

  The Room

  Her bare feet slapped against the shiny reflective floor, moving faster than she would have thought possible just a few minutes ago. The adrenaline surge was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Her blood flowed with fire, every inch of her body tingling, heart hammering a heavy fist against her breastbone.

  The pounding in her ears thudded like a bass drum, but not loud enough to drown out the sounds of her pursuers. They slid around corners and banged into walls, tumbled over each other in their haste to close the gap, shouting out for her to stop, as if that singular word could pacify the screaming voice in her head.

  When she rounded the next corner she spied a set of pristine silver doors at the end of the hallway. She ran at them full tilt, expecting a hidden sensor would trigger them open and realized too late that nothing was as it seemed in this place.

  Claire slammed into the metal surface and rebounded, hitting the ground hard and sliding across the floor. She jumped to her feet almost immediately, propelled by fear and panic, hands groping for a handle. There were two buttons on a panel off to the right on the wall that she had surprisingly not noticed. She pushed these frantically, practically sobbing with relief when they lit up and a dinging sound signaled the opening doors.

  With her pursuers rounding the corner behind her, she hastily squeezed through the aperture, scraping her chest painfully against the metal, her forward momentum slamming her against the opposite wall of the little cabin with enough force to rattle her eyeballs in their sockets. Turning around, she saw a small crowd racing towards her, some in white lab coats and others in unfamiliar black uniforms.

  Inside the little cabin, Claire saw a bank of buttons with numbers in ascending order. She pushed the number one, hoping it would take her up. The doors slid closed with her pursuers still a breathable distance away, but what she quickly realized to be a lift, moved in the opposite direction of her desire, causing her to finally vent her frustration verbally.

  “NO DAMMIT!”

  She went to punch a number in ascending order but withdrew her hand at the last moment, afraid the lift would reverse course and take her back up to her pursuers. Whether their intentions were benign or violent mattered little. After what she had seen no explanation was sufficient enough to warrant her surrender.

  When the doors opened again after a few seconds, she started to moan deep in her throat. The lift had taken her to the one place she was desperate not to see, the room on the other side of the glass hallway.

  The dinging sound resonated again, signaling the closing doors. She forced her body forward at the last second, shoulders banging against the metal, causing them to rebound open. The fact that there was a safety sensor gave her pause, and then an idea.

  Claire gave little thought to modesty as she stripped off the flimsy gown, leaving her naked except for undergarments. She wadded up the fabric and set it on the floor between the doors. As she surmised, they started to close a couple of seconds later and then retracted when they came in contact with the gown. That would stop them only long enough to realize that the lift was not coming back up. There were likely stairs somewhere nearby, but she knew that avenue of escape was no longer an option as her pursuers were sure to reach them before she did. Her best bet was to find another exit.

  When Claire turned around, she faced the room with mounting resolution. It wasn’t a room per se, but it was difficult to think of the words to describe such an alien structure. The massive area extending before her was more akin to a giant tunnel with rounded smooth concrete sides that were littered with metal catwalks and stairs. The scale was on par with the lobby of the Pantheon, but whereas that piece of architecture was pleasing to the eye, this place was cold and sterile.

  The tunnel, or whatever the hell it was, rose to a height of about a hundred feet, and led away from her to a dwindling point that could be the end or just the limit of her vision.

  There was no other direction to run, and she knew that the longer she stood there gaping decreased her lead. With the adrenaline still flowing through her veins, she darted towards the side of the tunnel and mounted a flight of grated metal stairs, wincing slightly as the soft soles of her feet scraped painfully against the grain. Once at the top of the catwalk she put on a burst of speed, taking advantage of the straight path, feeling the reverberations of the metal up her calves and thighs.

  She ran for almost thirty seconds before she came to a branching tunnel to her left. It was much smaller, only twice her height and barely twenty feet deep, but it contained a door. At least she surmised as such; it was as wide and high as the tunnel itself but imposing, a grey steel monolith with a large wheel at its center and spokes like handholds extending out.

  At that moment, Claire heard the shouts of the lab techs and guards behind her and ducked into the side tunnel before they could spot her. She knew her strength wouldn’t last long. Already she could feel the ache starting to creep up her legs, causing them to tremble from the strain put upon them.

  It took only a moment for her to understand the purpose of the wheel in the middle of the steel door. Her legs carried her to the contraption, the weakness no longer creeping but fully engulfing her from ankles to thighs, threatening to cripple her and send her unceremoniously to the floor.

  She reached out, hands grasping the spokes sticking out of the wheel, and gave a hard shove clockwise. The wheel moved an inch and then held fast and wouldn’t budge.

  Behind her she could hear the sound of feet rattling against the girded walkways. They weren’t far. There was no way she could outrun them if she headed back out now.

  Try the wheel again.

  Her father’s voice, strong and persistent, resounded so clearly she glanced behind her expecting to see him standing there, but the tunnel remained empty of ghosts. The effect, however, cut through the panic that had so strongly enveloped her.

  Turning back to the wheel she gripped it again, having an epiphany that almost made her laugh shrilly out loud. Gritting her teeth, she used all of her strength to apply force in the opposite direction, nearly tumbling to the ground when the wheel spun easily and with little resistance.

  Claire heard a deep thunk, like a giant mechanism or switch moving within the large steel door. She reached out and stopped the spinning wheel then pulled it towards her.

  The door yielded surprisingly easy, though at a snail’s pace. She let go of the spokes and began to hobble towards the ever-widening crack, trusting to the weight and momentum of the door to continue carrying it open.

  “Come on come on come on-“ she breathed under her breath.

  The door inched open enough that she was able to squeeze through and enter the other side. Immediately she looked to the back of the door and found a sister wheel. She grabbed the center of it and dug her heels in, pulling it towards her and bringing it to a halt.

  For a moment it seemed like she just didn’t have anything left in her. The door refused to budge, standing stock still like an immovable mountain. She knew that any second her pursuers would come running past the tunnel and see the partially open door. Her brief escape would be for naught. They’d put her back to sleep in that room with all the others…or worse.

  The idea of worse gave her the extra strength she needed. She gritted her teeth and yanked twice, grunting with what little breath she had left, nearly pulling her shoulders out of their sockets with the effort.

  Finally, the giant door began to swing closed. At the end when it was almost flush with the wall, she could hear the sounds of booted feet just at the edge of the tunnel. A second later and she was surrounded in darkness.

  Claire froze, not even attempting to spin the wheel and lock the door. It would surely be seen by any running past the tunnel, not to mention the sound of the locking mechanism. She forced herself to breath deep and slow her pulse. One breath, two breaths, and so on, until her heart was no longer racing and she was certain that they had either run past her tunnel or were standing right outside the door.

  It was a chance but either way they’d double back sooner or later. She spun the wheel and heard the deep thunk as the lock engaged, a temporary wave of relief flowing over her. Even if they could re-open it from the other side, she still felt better with the large wall of steel between her and them.

  Now that her blood wasn’t pounding in her ears, Claire noticed how deep the darkness actually was. It felt heavy, oppressive; like the Wall did the first time she crawled through it. She put the door behind her and stepped forward, instantly regretting it, floundering behind her with her hands until they connected to the door, as if it were a life raft in the midst of a stormy sea.

  From far away a sound started up, a humming monotone that became louder and louder. She wondered what horrific shock was coming next when all of a sudden she was cast out of the darkness and back into the li
ght.

  Her arms came up protectively as she flinched back, but it was just a row of lights in the ceiling flickering on. Their yellowish glow cast a pallid aspect over her surroundings but it was far better than the complete blackness of before.

  The tunnel in front of her ended about fifty feet ahead with another door, this one just taller than her and painted a faded blue that was starting to chip. There was a protruding handle.

  Claire started down the tunnel, using the wall for support, cringing slightly when the lights overhead crackled with a tinny sound like glass breaking. The adrenaline was nearly gone now and she realized that her weakened legs wouldn’t hold her up for much longer.

  The pale blue door looked slightly hunched up close, warped almost, as if time had the same effect on it as it did living things. She reached out with a trembling hand and grasped the cold handle, pushing down on it until she heard the click. It swung inward on squeaky hinges.

  Inside was a narrow, rectangular room with no exit door that she could see. It was wide enough to fit maybe two people abreast. The wall to her right was filled with foreign looking panels littered with switches and knobs that made absolutely no sense to her. To the left was a long desk with screens and even more buttons and switches, as well as two very dusty looking cushioned chairs with wheels.

  Claire stumbled to one of these and almost fell into it with a groan of relief. The rows of screens in front of her were dark and also covered with a thin film of dust, just like everything else in the room, but she could tell that someone had been manipulating parts of the panels at one point. The dust was obviously disturbed and in some places wiped away.

  She looked up slightly above her head and saw a small sign with a button below it. The sign was simple yet alarming.

  PANEL, SIGNAL, LAUNCH

  The last word in that trio was the only one to make sense, but even that did little to dispel the anxiety that was growing within. She had an idea of where she might be, except she didn’t want to entertain that thought just yet. It was too exhausting to wrap her mind around. Her body slumped, limbs heavy with exhaustion, aching in places she had never noticed before. If only she could close her eyes for a bit.

  That was when Claire noticed another small sign to her right, the only other label on the panel that wasn’t marked with nonsensical numbers and letters. It was almost identical to the first sign but instead of a button it referred to a switch covered in a red tab. It simply read: BLAST SHIELD.

  Claire flipped up the tab, hesitated, but ultimately the curiosity got the better of her, and pushed the switch into the upright position. Immediately a deep rumbling sound emanated from all around her. She would have fallen over had she been standing. As it were, she froze in place as what she had assumed to be just a wall on the other side of the panels in front of her, began to slowly move upwards.

  It took a few seconds for her to realize that she was staring at glass and a dull steel wall rising behind it. She put her hands on the console and pushed herself up and out of the chair, noticing as she did so that the top of the panels had print there, another set of words that made little sense to her: ICBM CONTROL ROOM.

  When the wall partition finally ground to a halt, Claire could only stare in shock and awe at the gigantic cylindrical object on the other side of the glass.

  The service consisted of only a handful, the relative few who were most likely curious rather than grieved. It was an abnormality for certain, a non-revival order, and it tended to draw those who wanted assurance that such a request was beyond their understanding.

  They did not come with pity or condolences; their faces held none of these things that could be considered empathy; rather their expressions were confused and awkward, as if they couldn’t conceive of the proper response.

  When they approached Claire, they fumbled their lamentations and made a mockery of what her father considered to be a blessed and somewhat transcendent experience. Her mother had chosen the Ether, oblivion, rather than the artificial existence of the majority. They did not understand her choice, nor would they ever. Such selflessness was beyond their grasp. The fear of death, of the possibility of nothing but the void, had become a quaint fairytale to those linked to the Cloud. Death was merely the transition from organic to biosynthetic. The only thing that changed was the vessel.

  Claire understood their false commiseration, that their sympathy was predicated upon their own misconception of the choice her mother had made. No doubt they believed her too burdened with the pressures of everlasting life, the daunting aspect of continuing one’s existence indefinitely. They considered her weak or bereft of the will to survive.

  Her father had explained at length the choice her mother had made, expounded upon the concepts of life after death and the perseverance of the human soul. Claire held these explanations aloft like a torch in the darkness when in public, but the truth was that deep down she felt the tiniest bit of resentment and bitterness for what she perceived as a selfish act.

  The parade of people took only a minute, the attendees offering encouraging smiles in a benign if insincere way, and then they were gone, leaving Claire and her father alone with their grief…alone except for her grandfather.

  Papa Talbot had always seemed so tall to her, a goliath of a man, and though his body was old and failing with the passage of time, there was a reserve of strength within him that seemed to radiate through his very pores.

  Her father, Edward, was by the foyer wall. Having seen the last of the guests out, he had not moved far from the door. Claire was sitting on the couch in the living room, a parade of photos and screenshots on the table in front of her, Mom’s smiling face staring up at her from a dozen different backgrounds.

  Papa Talbot had loitered until the last of the guests filtered out. His comforting had found a spot on Edward’s shoulder and he leaned forward, whispering in his ear.

  They huddled together like that for an interminably long time, her papa’s face growing more earnest, the whispers starting to exceed the point of secrecy.

  “Enough, goddammit!” her father exploded, throwing off the arm on his shoulder.

  When Edward turned towards the older man, his face was crumbling and tear-stained, but resolute.

  “Don’t ever bring that up again. Not now, not ever,” he threatened, no longer shouting but with a steel’s edge Claire had never heard before.

  He glanced her way and his expression softened, began to crumble. With a rough gesture he wiped the tears from his eyes and turned back towards her papa.

  “Say your goodbyes…and then don’t ever come back.”

  Her father walked across the room without a second glance her way and out the back door through the kitchen.

  Papa Talbot was leaning against the wall in the foyer, looking tired and waxy. When he noticed Claire looking at him he pushed off and stood tall, squaring his shoulders. He gave her one of his patented grandfatherly smiles, the kind that made his eyes twinkle like the Claus of the old stories.

  “I’m sorry, Love,” he said gently, using the moniker that he’d always used for her mother.

  It felt right somehow that it transitioned to her, but it made the hole inside of her grow that much bigger.

  “What was that about, Grandpa?” she asked, neither shy nor timid about her question.

  Her papa didn’t respond for a moment, as if gathering the correct words together.

  “Oh, just an old argument,” he said with a sigh. “When one gets old one tends to lose all decorum; you get grumpy and insistent that your way is the only way. You become less resilient and sometimes make poor choices based on stubbornness.”

  “Are you talking about yourself or my father?” she queried.

  His Kringle smile turned into a deep frown, proving that it took more muscles in the face to procure the disapproving glare as opposed to the benign one.

  “Myself, Claire. I assure you that I mean myself. Your father has always been a better man than me. It is a difficult pill for a relic such as I to swallow, but I do it with the knowledge that he is also half the reason you exist. Such a thing is not a measure I hold up lightly. You are the very embodiment of your mother’s soul. What hope she had for this world and our future resides in you.”