THE GOLDEN LINE
I CLOSE MY EYES and drop my head in my hands, suddenly exhausted. A pocket of silence consumes me and a chill squeezes into my bones. I thought I was getting to know Arself. I was starting to trust her and even to like her in a way, but now she’s grown sinister again, and huge. She’s been watching all the viewers! I didn’t understand before that she meant spying on them. How could she think that’s okay? What I don’t know is if she’s been manipulating them.
Of course she has, I realize. She brought me here. She didn’t exactly brainwash me, but she brought me to Grisly Valley and the vault. And now she’s in me. She’s part of me. Despite what she promised, she can take over whenever she wants. I’m revulsed by the idea.
Dimly, I become aware that Lavinia is talking over the speakerphone.
“Okay. Yes. We’re on it,” Linus replies. He swivels my chair toward him and grips my shoulders. “Rosie?”
I lift my gaze to find his face close to mine, and his concern snaps me out of my horror.
“Can you hear me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say.
I glance up to see Burnham is watching me, too. Behind him, the computers are reset to the original array of security shots, maps, and The Forge Show. I want to tell Linus and Burnham about Arself, about how she, not Berg, is running the surveillance on the viewers, but it’s too horrifying. I have too many questions of my own.
Linus gives me a little shake. “I need you to listen to me. Lavinia says two people are climbing around the front gate,” he says.
Burnham reaches past me to the main console and starts typing. “Check this out,” he says.
He points to a flicker of motion on one of the screens, and then he expands the view. I straighten slowly.
Near the entrance to the park, two men are walking side-by-side down the center of the Main Drag. My heart constricts as they step under the glow of the first security light. On the left is Ian Cowles, lanky, hunched, and as scruffy as ever. His baggy camo pants are tucked into his black boots at the ankle, and he’s wearing a black jacket that bulges with pockets and zippers. His left hand is wrapped in a bandage: a memento from Doli. Beside him, Sandy Berg carries himself with natural authority, even here, and I cringe at the familiar sight of his solid build and tidy blond hair. He wears a tan, short-sleeved safari shirt over dark trousers, and his watch glitters gold.
“That’s Berg for sure,” Linus says. “Who’s with him?”
“That’s Ian,” I say.
“The guy from the Onar Clinic?” Burnham asks.
“Yes,” I say with loathing. “He’s the most repulsive, revolting, putrescent person I’ve ever met, besides Berg.”
“Don’t hold back,” Burnham says.
I step closer to the screen, staring as the men walk under some trees. Burnham shifts around with the touchpad, and the next shot shows a closer image of them from another angle as they continue walking up the Main Drag.
“They must know we’re here at Grisly,” Linus says. “It can’t be a coincidence they’re coming now.”
“But do they know we’re in the keep?” I ask.
Berg and Ian walk out of view of the security camera, and Burnham works the touchpad again. The screen remains on the empty street where they just were.
“Sorry,” Burnham says. “I don’t exactly know how to work this.”
“Check where their car is,” Linus says. “Let’s see if they came alone.”
Burnham pulls up a few more camera angles, all wrong. My fingertips itch like wild again.
Get him out of the way, Arself says. Let us in there.
Fat chance.
Don’t be dense. We’re on your side.
Not enough, you’re not.
Burnham pulls up a few more security angles, all empty, and finally locates the handicapped parking area beside the main gate. A white sedan is parked in the glow of another tall security light.
“See the car?” I ask.
“Yes,” Linus says.
In another screen, Berg and Ian show up again. They’re still walking down the Main Drag, taking their time.
“They’re awfully confident,” Linus says. “Why aren’t they coming faster? Do they want us to see them?”
“Maybe they don’t know we’re here,” Burnham says.
“None of that matters,” I say. “If they come into the Keep of Ages, we’ll be caught.” There’s only one way down from where we are: the staircase that leads back to the main hall.
“We have to go,” Burnham says. “I’m not fast.”
“Wait. Look,” Linus says.
Berg and Ian have slowed before a gift shop, the last one on the Main Drag, right before it meets Scylla Square. I turn to the window in alarm, and I can actually see them out there talking. Berg adjusts an earpiece in his right ear. Ian takes a gun out of his pocket, turns it over in his hand, and nods. Then Berg backtracks a couple paces and goes into a door while Ian resumes walking toward the keep.
“We seriously have to leave,” Burnham says. “Come on!”
He doesn’t bother turning anything off and bolts toward the doorway. Linus and I hurry after him, down the dark stairs and out into the hall with the fireplace. We reach the big double doors of the keep and look out the gap just as Ian starts up one of the outer stairway bridges, the one to our left. We can’t get out without being seen, and Ian has a gun. We’d be vulnerable just trying to get through the tight gap of the doorway. Burnham, beside me, seems bigger and slower than ever.
“What do we do?” I whisper.
“Back,” Linus says, yanking my arm.
I turn and run with him across the hall toward the downward staircase. Burnham’s right behind us. We descend into the dark. Half a dozen steps down, after the first turn, I can’t see a blasted thing. I bump into Linus’s back. Burnham bangs into me with his brace, and I bite back a gasp of pain. Linus’s arms come around me, steadying me, and Burnham goes motionless on my other side. Silent, with my heart beating, I turn my gaze up the staircase to where a faint gleam of reflected moonlight touches the wall. I can feel my pupils expanding, begging for more. A scratching noise comes from above. Then silence. Then a creak of pressure. Then a distinct footstep.
I wait, hearing only silence, and then another footstep, softer than before.
“He’s going up,” Linus whispers.
We listen, straining our ears.
“He’ll find all the computers on,” Burnham whispers. “He’ll be able to see anywhere we go through the surveillance.”
We should have turned them off or busted them, but it’s too late now.
“Come on,” I say. “We have to run for it.”
“Where to?” Linus says. “Are we going after Berg?”
I scramble for a plan. Even with Ian after us, I still need to find my parents. If I can do that, I’ll be in better shape dealing with Berg. “I’m going to keep looking for my parents. The next place is the garbage area by the juice stand in Zombieville. That’s down the right-hand staircase to the south, past the Giant Cesspool.”
“You can’t be serious,” Burnham says.
“I still have to find them!” I whisper viciously.
“We should go now,” Linus says.