City of Ruins

EIGHT



It takes two days.

We map that flaked corridor centimeter by centimeter. We examine each part of it.

Our scientists determine that the flakes are nothing more than particles that have come off the walls, just like I thought. Only they’re able to date those particles by comparing them to the samples taken from our very first day.

The particles are at least four thousand years older.

I say at least because Bridge says at least. He really can’t predict. When he presented the data, he reminded me that the older sections of the wall— those that formed years ago—showed no more aging than the newer sections. So he has no idea—the scientists have no idea—how long the walls stand before they start showing evidence of age.

He makes his guess based on the historical record. He knows that we have found areas that are at least three thousand years old with no sign of aging at all.

The corridor here is murky—we’ve disturbed so many particles that the air is gray—and a day ago, we started to get readings that reminded me (and Roderick and Mikk) of readings we got near the Room of Lost Souls.

My headache remains, but now I know it comes from stealth tech because I hear a low humming, as if voices are harmonizing softly. Three of the Six hear it as well.

Something is here, something strong. I almost wish it wasn’t so I can bring in a real dive team. It’s clear that the Six are out of their element. DeVries, Quinte, Seager, and Kersting are tired. Rea and Al-Nasir wonder why we have to pay so much attention to detail.

They think the minuscule is unimportant, and their impatience infects me.

I take Rea down the corridor two meters farther than we should go. I take him because that part of the corridor remains dark.

“Maybe,” he says as he turns on the lamps built into his suit, “the wall lights are completely covered in particulate.”

“Maybe,” I say, but I don’t think so. I have already trained my headlamp at the top of the wall, where the lights usually bulge out. I see no bulge. I see nothing to indicate lights at all.

I stand in the center of the corridor and wave my arms, thinking maybe the motion sensors will pick up something, but they do not. All I manage to do is swirl the particles even more. It’s as if we’re in the middle of a dust storm.

Then the light from my headlamp catches something directly in front of me. A movement. My heart starts to pound.

“Did you see that?” I ask Rea.

He turns, training his headlamp in the same direction as mine. The movement repeats and I realize it’s a reflection.

Something is blocking the corridor.

“Let’s check it out,” he says, and starts forward. I catch his arm.

Now more than ever procedure is important.

“We map,” I say, and I can hear his sigh echo through our suit comms as well as through the air. We map, we go slowly, we figure out what’s ahead.

It takes two more days before we understand that what’s ahead is not the end of the corridor, as some of the team speculated, but a door.

A door.

An old, old door without warnings, markings, or lights.

Just a latch that no one has turned in at least four thousand years.

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