Journey Through the Mirrors (47 page)

“Yes,” Madu said. “This is a famous formula used for the Helmholtz resonance.”

“What is that?”

“It describes the phenomenon of air in a cavity. We’ve all seen it in action.” Madu blew over the opening of his water bottle, creating a whistling sound. “The size of the cavity, the volume of air inside it, and other factors dictate the quality and the pitch of the resulting resonance. This formula speaks to that.”

Mr. Perrot heard a cracking sound. He and Madu saw that Sumsari was standing on top of the platform at the center of the room and had broken one of the Egyptian flutes in half. He was digging the tip of the small penknife into the portion of the flute he was still holding. Madu turned in alarm. “What is he doing? He’s ruining the only clues we have!”

“No!” Sumsari yelled, as Madu rushed over to try to take the flute from him. He pointed the tip of the knife at Madu threateningly before walking off.

“He has lost his faculties,” Mr. Perrot said, as he walked over and backed Madu away from Sumsari. “He will not be of much help to us. We must focus on deciphering the Egyptians’ amplification secret. The lives of Nadine and many others depend on it.”

Mr. Perrot and Madu looked over at the clock that Simon had left. There were forty-two minutes before the top of the hour, at which time Simon was going to activate Nadine’s neuro device. “We don’t have much time,” Mr. Perrot said, picking up the remaining long flute.

“It is called a ney,” Madu said. “This particular instrument must be at least three thousand years old.”

“The platform in this chamber depicts two men playing similar instruments,” Mr. Perrot said, walking over to it.

He took a small scraping tool from the bag and began to scratch the surface, revealing a brownish color that contrasted with the rest of the limestone. Madu took out a chisel and assisted Mr. Perrot in clearing off more of the oxidation. Small sparks flew as they scraped, and the hair on their heads began to stand up straight with the greater charge. “It’s copper,” Madu said. “It is reacting with the new capstone.”

Just then, the lighting dimmed, and a loud clanking could be heard. Mr. Perrot and Madu looked up and saw that Sumsari had toppled over one of the fire urns and was striking at the center of it with the pick. Smoke rose from the smoldering coals on the ground near the pillar as the clanking continued.

Mr. Perrot and Madu turned their attention back to the task at hand. “So instead of inserting a copper rod into the platform to achieve conductivity as the Teotihuacános did,” Mr. Perrot said, “the Egyptians poured melted copper directly into the stone.”

“It would seem so.” Madu sighed. “But it still doesn’t answer the question of how they amplified the power.”

Mr. Perrot stood and grabbed the burning torch that Simon had stuck in the ground. He held it above his head and looked at the openings in the ceiling. “Would you mind blowing into one of those flutes?” he said to Madu.

Madu picked up one of the neys and did as Mr. Perrot requested. A sound echoed in the chamber and, as at the Pyramid of the Moon, reverberated through the openings in the ceiling, causing a harmonic to form.

“No!” Sumsari yelled. He had stopped striking the urn and was looking at them with a blank expression. “No! No!” He continued to pound the bottom of the urn.

“I would have expected the electricity to have increased,” Mr. Perrot said, disappointed. “Please, another note.” Madu blew into the flute again, and a different harmonic started. Again, Sumsari shouted, becoming more agitated.

“Remember what we learned in Mexico,” Madu said. “The flutes there needed to be played in a particular order to create the proper harmonic.” He looked at the ney Sumsari had broken. “And as at the Pyramid of the Moon, our instruments have been broken.”

“Move!” Sumsari yelled at them. Mr. Perrot and Madu both rose to their feet and saw that Sumsari had tied the rope to the toppled urn and was dragging it over to the platform. “Move!” he yelled again. Mr. Perrot and Madu stepped away. Sumsari grabbed one end of the urn and lifted it onto the platform.

“What’s he doing?” Madu asked.

Mr. Perrot did not answer but looked on in fascination as Sumsari lifted the other end of the urn and adjusted it on the platform. The moment he did so, Mr. Perrot and Madu felt more static electricity fill the chamber.

“The urn is made of copper. It is causing a greater reaction with the capstone . . .”

Sumsari then took the portion of the ney that he had broken off and knelt down next to the urn. He placed the end near a small hole that he’d picked into the base. He blew into the ney. The sound echoed, and a soft harmonic was created. Sumsari placed his ear on the side of the urn and listened. When the harmonic disappeared, he gathered some sand off of the ground and poured it carefully into the hole, then blew into the ney and placed his ear on the side of the urn again.

“I think he is tuning it,” Madu said.

“Tuning what?”

“I think he’s trying to construct a modified Helmholtz resonator.”

Mr. Perrot and Madu watched as Sumsari repeated the process over and over again. He blew on the ney after adding more sand to the urn, and suddenly, an explosion of blue light came through the openings in the ceiling, along with the crackle of electricity. Mr. Perrot and Madu stepped farther away from the platform. Sumsari continued to play until the harmonic seemed to peak. More intense electrical snaps came from the openings above and began to crawl along the walls and large pillars at the corners of the chamber.

“I can’t believe it,” Madu whispered, astonished. “I think he’s figured it out.”

Sumsari jumped up and down in jubilation. Although he had stopped blowing into the ney, the current continued building.

His jubilation did not last long. Suddenly, all the energy he’d created began to dissipate. He dropped his hands and placed the ney next to the brass urn. Then he picked up his piece of chalk and resumed his mumbling and drawing on the wall.

“I thought he had it,” Mr. Perrot said, disappointed.

“He did,” Madu said. “He found the harmonic.”

“But shouldn’t it last perpetually, then?”

“This is not the same pyramid it was three thousand years ago,” Madu said. “The outer surface and much of the limestone have crumbled away.”

“How can we be certain this will work at the NovaCon site?” Mr. Perrot asked.

“We can’t be certain,” Madu said, looking at the clock on the PCD, which now read two minutes to the top of the hour. “But there is one thing I am certain of,” he continued softly. “I have to protect Nadine.”

Madu picked up the PCD Simon had left and placed a call.

54

Your soul wears a mask so that you can participate in the playground of life without people holding you to a past.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

NOVACON ISLAND, 2:00 P.M. LOCAL TIME, MARCH 26, 2070

Valerie walked into location 6-9-6 with her gun drawn and holding Mr. Pastor in front of her. Logan and Nadine entered right behind her. Just as Nadine had described it, the room had a shiny translucent floor providing a view of the lava flowing beneath it, twelve chairs arranged in a large circle, and floating illuminated orbs. Two men and a woman were standing with their backs to the door in front of a HoloPad. Valerie was shocked by what she saw on the HoloPad. She stepped over a large bloodstain on the floor near one of the chairs.

“Why is my father on that HoloPad?” she yelled. “Where have you taken him and Madu?”

The projection disappeared. One of the men turned, his gun already drawn. The light from an orb above him bounced off his highly polished gold weapon. He was the tall man with dreadlocks who had abducted Sumsari. His gun was pointed at the bloodied face of the person sitting in one of the chairs. It was Chetan.

“Your father is safe,” the second man said. He was standing near the HoloPad, his back still turned to Valerie and Logan. “For now.”

The woman wearing the black business suit turned. “Hello, Mr. Ford, Agent Perrot,” Catherine Bribergeld said. “I’m rather surprised to see you here. You could have just called. We would have been glad to give the WCF a tour of our facility.”

“Who is the man standing next to you?” Logan asked. “Turn around!”

“I’m not altogether sure you want to see me, Logan. Or, rather, what you’ve turned me into . . .” The man turned slowly, revealing his scarred face.

“Simon!” Logan called out in shock, as he stepped past Valerie. She stuck her arm out to stop him from going any farther.

Simon laughed. “I still can’t get over how much I enjoy the expressions on people’s faces when they see me these days. It invigorates me.”

“How can you still be alive?” Valerie asked. “We saw you fall into the pyre.”

“Your father asked me the same question,” Simon said. “Maybe Logan can answer you. How about it, Logan? You must have a theory about how I managed to survive. You, of all people, should be able to solve this mystery. I’m certain that you’ve realized a thing or two about those blank pages in the
Chronicles
. Perhaps you saw something inexplicable when I fell.”

Logan recalled the moment when he’d seen Simon fall into the pyre at the Manikarnika Ghat along the Ganges. He recalled how calm Simon had looked, that he hadn’t screamed when he fell. “The hidden symbols,” Logan said quietly. “You said you knew about the symbols.”

Simon clapped his hands. “Bravo! They’re more powerful than even I could have imagined. But I suspect you already know that. I also suspect that some interesting things might be happening to you, no? But I can’t take all the credit.”

Logan was silent a moment, before he murmured, “The blue light . . .”

“Yes, the light cast me away from certain death,” Simon said. “But, as you can see, I was not entirely spared from the flames. My face certainly was not.”

“What are you talking about, Simon?” Catherine asked. “Symbols and blue light?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Simon told her.

“You’re not going to get away with this, Simon,” Logan said. “This device will not work without the proper—”

“Proper activation harmonic,” Simon interrupted. “Yes, I know that. With the help of that batty old music man, Robert and Madu were actually able to figure out how to get this device to work. I was just speaking to them.” Simon motioned to the HoloPad platform behind him. A quiet rumbling began. “You see, the doctors are already using the information they received.”

“With the help of President Salize,” Catherine interjected, “NovaCon will soon be the only credible supplier of electricity in the world.”

“People are dying out there because of this device,” Valerie said, glaring at Catherine. “And what about the destruction of the gas wells? How many lives did those nanites of yours claim?”

“Those deaths were unfortunate but necessary,” Catherine said. “The world can now sleep better knowing that the energy crisis and all the earthly chaos is about to end.”

“Necessary!” Valerie shouted. “You people are sociopaths!”

“We people?” Simon said. “We are here because people like you need us. Just like doctors exist because of the ill. Just like teachers exist because of the stupid. Just like missionaries exist because of people who need sustenance for their souls.” Simon gave Valerie a smile. “Just like WCF agents exist because of clever villains. Have you ever wondered what God would do if there was no one to save? Did you know that more people died from the Great Disruption than at the hands of any man or woman in all of human history? I don’t see you chasing after Mother Nature, though, Agent Perrot. I don’t see you trying to sentence her to prison. No, it’s people like us who get people like you
riled up so you can wake up in the morning and have something to do with your otherwise boring and insignificant lives. We are the reason you people have purpose. Good and bad, Logan. The yin and the yang, the positive and the negative—it is the great waltz of life. Do you know what this world would be like without people like us? Have you considered what the world would be like without struggle and strife? I’ll tell you. It would be boring.”

Simon shrugged. “You know, I was prepared to let you all die at the commemoration. I was prepared to see the whole Council of Satraya building blown to shreds!”

“You planted the nanites,” Valerie said.

“Actually, it was Catherine who planted them, but it was my idea. Don’t you want to know why the activation signal stopped, though? It was because of the books. You see, at first, I thought that Deya’s books had fallen into the pyre and were gone forever. But while I was recovering, it occurred to me that if I survived the flames in the pyre then perhaps the books survived, too. When Catherine told me at the last moment that they were actually being displayed at the commemoration next to some of your mother’s mosaics, I rejoiced and immediately instructed Kashta to kill the signal. You could even say I saved your lives, if only briefly.

Simon turned now to look only at Logan. “You actually saved me a great deal of effort by coming here. I don’t really care about all this energy hullaballoo, even though Catherine sees merit in it. My former friend Dario wasn’t much of a progressive thinker. My father seemed to like him, but I think it was because of Dario’s wine rather than Dario’s vision. That is his blood on the floor over there. And to think I once called him Uncle Dario.” Simon smiled, as Valerie and Logan could not help but glance at the dried blood on the floor. “No, I really don’t care about this energy device. What I really want are Deya’s books.”