“He knows the words in the Key Study.” Zowan turned his gaze to Cameron. “I think he knows I Am.”
“You are what?” Terra demanded. “You think he knows you are what?”
“I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about I Am. It’s a name. He’s also called God and the Lord God.”
Terra clearly had no idea what he was talking about, so Zowan explained to her about the voice he had heard in his head, speaking words like the ones from his fragment of the Bible, telling him to leave and that he’ d be shown the way to go.
Cam could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“And I was shown,” Zowan concluded, telling them about the mysterious light he’d followed up to the surface after Neos had abandoned him. “Now I think part of why I’m here is to meet him.” He looked around at Cam.
A chill crawled up the back of Cam’s neck. All this time he’ d thought he’d come to witness to the scientists at K-J, when it was this young man he’ d been sent for. Suddenly the hand of God upon his life had never been clearer.
He glanced down at his watch. “It’s five-thirty,” he said. “When do you need to be back to avoid discovery?”
Immediately Terra went all stiff and stubborn again. But Zowan pressed her. “Come on, Terra. It’ll only be for a day. To buy us all enough time.”
At length Terra reluctantly agreed, but with the warning that they’d probably just get lost trying to go back.
“It’s marked,” Zowan told her. “But I’ll take you down to the pump room.”
“I’d like to go with you,” Cam said. “I want to see this pump room, at least.”
His request produced yet another round of protest and hesitation, but finally it was agreed he’ d go, and they set off down the dark passages, past the striped bed on its frame, under the groaning wooden supports, through the rock tunnels, down the steep slope, and through the crawl tube. At least, Parthos, Terra, and Cam did—Zowan stayed on the other side, waiting while Cam had his look.
Having brought up the rear, Cam was last to wriggle out of the tube into the damp, musty confines of the shadow-cloaked pump room. He crawled out on his hands, got his feet under himself, and stood, surveying the array of horizontal pipes and pumps and thinking it looked like a regular pump room. Maybe a bit bigger than most. One that might service only the Institute and its campus. And while he thought he’ d kept a good sense of direction in their underground jaunt, and thus believed they had come a considerable distance from the campus, he didn’t know for sure.
Parthos shifted uneasily, and Terra said, “If we really are going back, we need to do it now.”
Cam pulled out the BlackBerry, took a few photos, both by natural light and with the flash, then reholstered the phone. “Remember,” he said, “after you secure the drum, make sure you brush away the footprints.”
They nodded, and he turned toward the hole he’ d just come out of. Abruptly another mind brushed his own, catapulting him back to the Afghani lab with Dr. Garzi. The other visitors had left, and Rudy, in his guise as a potential buyer of one of the pods and financier of the project, was pressing the biologist about the X rays that had been taken of the thing, wanting to know what exactly had been found.
Garzi grew visibly disturbed, rambling on about the difficulty of penetrating the covering, the question of whether what they’d seen might be a reflection, the general inconsistencies of subsequent X rays, and other objections until Rudy cut him off.
“Dr. Garzi, what do you think you found?”
“Bones. There are bones inside.”
“Human bones?”
“Oh no. Not human.”
“Then what?”
Garzi’s dark eyes flicked away. “We aren’t sure. . . .”
“And is it alive?”
“The outer covering is, most definitely.” Garzi paused. “But is the inside alive? We don’t know.”
“But you think it might be.”
“The bones do seem to shift position, but that might be a result of the outer covering, the way it moves when it expels the cubes.”
“Dr. Garzi,” said Rudy, “give us your best guess. We need to know.”
Garzi frowned, rubbed his beard, and said, “We think whatever these things are, they may somehow be trapped inside their pods. Workers report hearing voices commanding them—sometimes pleading with them—to come and let them out.”
“Let who out?” Cam asked intently, having heard the voices himself.
“It’s always just ‘me.’ ‘Come let me out.’ But some hear multiple voices, especially when in the tomb, and aside from the pods themselves we can’t pinpoint anything else that might want letting out. . . .”Garzi’s words, and Cam heard the voice again.
The loud rushing-air sound of the ventilation system overwhelmed Garzi’s words, and Cam heard the voice again.
“It’s about time you got here. Come down now, little mouse, and let me out.”
With a gasp Cam returned to the moment, the hum of water pumps around him replacing the rush of the Afghani ventilation system. The voices, however, came with him:
“Why are you standing up there?” it rebuked him.
“I know you hear me, grasshopper!” a second voice intruded. “Come and release me.”
“I will make it worth your while,” said a third voice. “Whatever you want is yours—just come now.”
“Oh, my Lord!” he murmured.
Parthos and Terra were staring at him in consternation and some alarm, and he had the feeling they’d been speaking to him while he’ d been in the flashback.
But he had nothing to say to them, only turned and scrambled back through the tube as they positioned the plate across the hole behind him, the metal drum clanging softly as they pushed it against the plate.
It was only as he emerged into the room on the surface side of the tube that he realized he’ d cut his hand—most likely on the edge of the steel plate as he’ d entered the tube. He stood beside Zowan, regarding the red blood welling out of the ragged cut on his left palm while panic pushed at the edges of his mind.
“Are you all right, Cameron?” Zowan asked, watching him wide-eyed.
Folding his thumb across his palm to close the cut and slow the bleeding, Cam said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
When Cam and Zowan returned to the exit chamber at the top of the tunnel passages, they found it much brighter and warmer than when they had left it. Here Cam finally sat down to examine the slice in his palm. The blood that had flowed from the wound as he’d walked had cleaned it fairly well, so he just wet a spot at the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped the skin clean on both sides of the cut. Then he pulled some bandages from his fanny pack, intending to use them to hold the cut’s edges together.
Unfortunately, he was so hampered by his shaking hands, he could hardly get the bandages out of their wrappers, much less peel off their protective backings.
“Let me help you,” Zowan said, reaching out to take the one Cam was mangling.
“No! I’m okay.”
But as the shock of hearing the ancient warriors speak to him waned, memory of their words crowded more insistently into his mind. “Why are you standing up there? Come and release me. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Nausea clawed up the back of his throat, and the exit chamber grew so white he had to drop his head between his knees so as not to pass out. All this time he’ d never truly believed they were here. At one of Swain’s other facilities, perhaps, but not here. Not here. God wouldn’t do that to him again.
No, of course not “again.” You’re not the same person you were the first time. I’ve brought them back so you can see that.
No! Cam prayed. Not again! I can’t face them again.
“Please,” Zowan said, breaking into his distress. “Let me help you.” He laid a hand on Cam’s shoulder, jolting him out of the dark fog of fear into which he had blundered. Fear was a sin. Fear was an insult. He had no
reason to fear, not if he really believed I will never leave you nor forsake you. Besides, hadn’t Rudy said he had a team to go in? That Cam was eyes and ears only?
Cam drew a deep, shuddering breath and straightened, nodding for Zowan to go ahead with the bandages and telling him how to place them when he got them out of the packages.
As he pressed the first one into place, Zowan asked, “Do you know about the seeds, Cameron?”
“Seeds?” A myriad of horrifying meanings raced through his mind, all involving the sarcophagi and their mysterious black cubes.
“In Gen-ee-s . . . er . . . Genesis. Where it talks of the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman . . . How the first will bite the heel of the second—”
“—and the second will crush the head of the first,” Cam finished for him, his mind glomming on to the topic as a welcome diversion from his inner horrors. “It’s a prophecy.” He drew a shaky breath. “You know of the Fall, then.”
“The Fall? No. I just . . . Our mission as citizens of the Enclave is to eventually reseed the earth. We have protective arks carrying all the seeds of every plant and animal in the world hidden away in New Eden’s depths. Seeds are very important to us. So that part caught my eye, and I wondered what it meant—seed of the serpent, seed of the woman. But what is this Fall you refer to?”
“When the serpent tricked the woman into eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then getting the man to eat it, too.”
“Oh. I know about that.” Zowan tore open the second bandage, frowning. “So . . . did the woman fall out of the tree, then? I thought she just picked the fruit off, but sometimes the sentences are confusing to me.”
Cam chuckled. “No one fell out of the tree. But when they ate, they disobeyed God’s command not to and were changed.” He paused, trying to think of the best way to describe it to someone with no frame of reference. “Not only would they one day die physically, but at that moment they had died to God, to I Am, as well. That deadness has been passed down to all their offspring—including you and me—except one: the seed of the woman. The seed is one of her descendents.”
Zowan applied the second bandage to Cam’s palm. “So her descendents are separate from the man’s?”
“No. The seed of the woman didn’t come from the man.” He fell silent again, realizing he wasn’t making any sense. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with all that Zowan most likely didn’t know. Best he just keep his explanation very simple. “The seed of the woman had no human father, because His father was God himself.”
“His father was God?” Zowan murmured. “You mean he is the son of I Am?”
Cam grimaced. “More or less. Yes.” No way would he try to introduce the concept of a triune God on top of everything else.
“And the seed of the serpent?”
“That would be all those who follow the serpent’s ways.”
Zowan’s blue eyes narrowed.
“The way the serpent hated God and lied about Him to deceive the woman into disobeying,” Cam explained. “He’s still around today, though not in serpent form. Still deceiving people into disobeying God, and fighting against Him. Those are the serpent’s ways, and those are what drove the people who crucified Jesus.”
Zowan looked up from peeling the backing of the third bandage, his expression one of utter incomprehension. “Who is Jesus? What is ‘crucified’?”
Well, of course the young man had never heard of Jesus, nor of His crucifixion. Swain would have no place for such a tale in his world. . . .
“Jesus is the seed of the woman,” Cam said. “People plotted to kill Him, and He let them do it so He could take the punishment God demanded for our disobedience. God’s totally perfect and righteous. You see . . .” He trailed off in frustration. That wasn’t the way to go, either. With every attempt to explain, he just made things worse.
He watched as Zowan applied the last bandage to his palm and then breathed a sigh of resignation. “The bottom line is, if we believe in Jesus Christ and what He did for us, we’ll be saved . . . er . . . God will give us new life that can never be taken away.”
He fell silent, praying the Holy Spirit would take something in all that jumble and make it clear to the kid, because right now Zowan looked completely lost.
Cam gathered up the discarded wrappers and backings and stuffed them into his fanny pack. “Maybe I can explain it better tonight. For now, I have to get back to the zig before someone comes out to look for me.”
“You’re leaving?!” A note of real panic sharpened the youth’s voice.
“Just for the day. You’ll be okay. I’ll have to make arrangements for supplies or a vehicle, neither of which can be delivered until dark. With the crawl tube secured, this is the safest place for you. It won’t be pleasant, but these’ll help.” He handed over his water bottles—one full, the other half—then followed them with two Powerbars, a package of dried fruit, and a sack of salted nuts.
“Okay, then. I need to go.” Cam moved to the hole and dropped to his knees.
“Cameron? Does I Am ever speak to you?”
Cam looked back over his shoulder. “Not with words I can hear like I hear you. But inside, yes, He does.”
“He told you to come here, didn’t He?”
“I think He did.”
“And now He’s telling you to go.”
“Well, I hope so. I believe so.”
Zowan nodded. “I haven’t slept all night. I think I’ll go down and use that bed.”
“Good idea. I’ll see you, once it’s good and dark again. Don’t get concerned if I’m not here right away.”
With that, Cam turned and wriggled through the hole. Crawling out from under the juniper, he stood and immediately texted an encrypted message to Rudy asking for a face-to-face ASAP. He did not include the photos, just said he had something to share.
Back in his apartment he showered, then doused the slice in his palm with hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment and closed it up with superglue and butterfly bandages. He brewed up some coffee in the machine in his room as he dressed, then poured himself a cup and went to stand at the window, staring down at the campus as he reflected.
He knew he should go down to breakfast soon. That was why he’ d cut off the conversation with Zowan, after all. But now that the prospect loomed before him, he didn’t think he could face all those people and maintain the façade that nothing had changed. The immensity of what they had done—were doing—overwhelmed him.
Poe was right. They were playing God. Or at least Swain was, creating his own little world, populating it with people who had no normal family ties and relationships, who had no choice but to believe whatever he told them was true. They were his slaves. Worse than slaves, if Gen’s remark about their not being human was indicative of the attitudes of most of those in the Inner Circle Were they Zowan’s vaunted Elders? Was this the fold Swain yearned for Cam to join?
For a moment he was so angry he couldn’t breathe, and it shamed him that he’d ever responded to any of Swain’s offers. In it he saw his own arrogance, not just in thinking he could come to Kendall-Jakes and be above it all, but in his desires for success and approbation, and in his frustration with the constant hindrances of the academic bureaucracy. He’ d chafed at their pettiness, their small-minded rules and silly procedures. Swain had offered him deliverance from all that, or so he thought—even knowing the old adage that whenever something seemed too good to be true, it usually was.
And yet . . . and yet he didn’t believe he was entirely out of God’s will in all this. He’ d asked for guidance, after all, the doors had opened, and it seemed pretty clear now God had brought him here, in part, at least, to free Zowan and his friends—and not just from Swain, apparently. Zowan’s self-initiated desire for God in a place where no one had ever mentioned God’s name amazed him, and the story of how he came to have the fragment of Genesis amazed him even more. Almost as if there is a God, he thought wryly.
There
was the matter of the warriors in the sarcophagi, as well: beings at least 4000 years old whom he believed to be the Nephilim referenced in Genesis six, the unlawful offspring of fallen angels and human women.
He stood there, fear fluttering up in him as he touched again the notion that God really did want him to face them. . . . He could almost consider it now, knowing that if it were the case, God would see him through it.
And if he could face the Nephilim, he could surely face those people in the dining room. Which, seeing as he’ d finished his coffee, he’d better get to before it was too late.
Still, it wasn’t easy. His first sight of Swain—looking exactly like Zowan—ignited his outrage all over again. And having to sit there as if nothing was wrong—giving civil answers to Gen’s questions about the day’s schedule, watching the director chat lightheartedly with his subordinates—took every shred of self-control he possessed. Then it got even harder when Swain addressed him directly, asking about his Sunday run, mocking him with suggestions that his injury was a sign of God’s displeasure for Cam’s having neglected Him, and finally getting round to ragging on his obsession regarding his daily Bible studies.
“I mean, do you have to listen every day? Do you ever actually take a break?”
Cam scraped up the remains of his cheese omelet and piled it onto his fork, then looked up at Swain. “Do you ever take a break from eating?”
Swain’s blue eyes flashed. “Is that supposed to be some sort of equivalent?”
“Food for the soul and spirit.” Cam slid the forkful of omelet into his mouth.
Swain held his gaze levelly, and Cam knew he’ d succeeded in irritating the man, even as he wondered why he did so. Or was he simply not seeking to avoid it anymore?
“You’re a fanatic, Doctor,” Swain snapped.
“It goes with my paranoia.” Again the words just popped out. Maybe it was the shock of having a man he’ d admired for years exposed for the monster he really was.
“Indeed it does,” Swain said. “What? Are you afraid you’re going to forget what you believe?” He paused as the others snickered. “Or is it your only hedge against all those terrors and disappointments of your past?” He smiled smugly, for he’ d certainly nailed part of the situation. “You keep trying to convince yourself that God won’t let those haunting inner voices touch you, when what you really need to do is just listen to what they’re trying to tell you!”