Novum: Revelation: (Book 4) (9 page)

Raines nodded. “All right, dear.”

“Ask them how their closets work,” she whispered.

Raines looked down at her then back up at the group. “So tell me, do you know how your closets work? I assume she is referring to—”

“Norman!” she hissed. “No embellishments. If you’re not going to solve this yourself, then you have to play by my rules.”

Raines looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, dear. How do your closets work?”

Vee answered first. “If she means the clothing recyclers, I guess we assumed they are just very advanced versions of what we all use.”

Jane whispered something in Raines’s ear. He said, “Our recyclers can’t create new fabrics. They just recycle what’s been put in them.”

“So they have technology we don’t have,” AJ said. “This has nothing to do with—”

Jane whispered again, and Raines’s eyes widened. Then he asked, “How is it that this facility had exactly the same number of bedrooms as people in our group?” He looked down at Jane. “I should have asked that question myself.”

“Are you saying they knew we were coming here?” Jake asked. “And they built this place just for us?”

“We only left the village a few days ago,” Jessie said. “No one could have built this place that fast.”

Jake figured it out first. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”

Jane smiled. “I knew you would get it first. We’re not that different, you know?”

“Get what?” Vee asked.

Jake stepped out of the rec room and looked at their living space. “How much of this is real, and how much is not?”

Jane walked out to stand beside him. “The food has to be real, or we would have starved by now. I would guess that everything inside the central ring, and everything outside is not.”

“What are you two going on about?” AJ asked. “You can’t seriously think we’ve been living inside a simulation all this time, can you?”

“Should I show them now?” Jane asked Jake.

He looked down at her. “Are you saying that you know how to end it?”

“I told you I like to stay awake at night. I heard them use a code phrase before giving a command. It’s…” She proceeded to make a barely audible series of clicks then said, “End everything.”

Jake felt a rush of vertigo as the room’s outer wall dissolved. He then found himself standing inside a large rock cave. As Jane had guessed, only the central living space was unaffected.

“I can’t believe this,” Raines said. “I see it, but I can’t believe it.”

Jake turned to see a tunnel in the back of the cave, right where the missing door should be located. “They must have gone in there,” he said.

When everyone turned to see what he was talking about, AJ walked over to look inside. “It’s a well-lit tunnel,” she said then looked back at Jake. “I think we’re about to get some of our questions answered.”

As Jake stood there looking at the door, the story of Pandora’s box came back to him, and he said, “I just hope the answers don’t get us all killed.”

“Everyone find your backpacks,” AJ said, “and load them up with as much food and water as you can carry.”

Jake looked back at the galley. “Everyone grab a knife from the counter as well, just in case.”

Raines’s face turned serious. “Do you think it’s dangerous in there? If your father and Ash went inside…”

Jake looked at him and then up at the cave they were standing in. “My father and Ash are part of this,” he said. “I think that makes them the danger here.” Raines nodded and headed to fill his backpack.

His crew had become proficient at last-minute packing, and within fifteen minutes, they were all heading into the tunnel single file. Jake offered the lead to AJ, since she had far more experience with dangerous situations, but she declined and insisted on going last to “defend the rear,” as she put it.

He carried a large knife in his right hand. It felt awkward, and he kept switching from point up to point down, but neither seemed correct. What if he ran into Ash or his father holding it that way? Would they think he was threatening them? He wished he could have been able to carry it tucked out of the way, like fastened to his belt, but there hadn’t been time to work anything out.

The tunnel went straight back for at least a hundred meters before it reached a steep stairwell heading downward. After several minutes descending it, Jake could feel the pressure in his ears building. The weight of what must be millions of tons of stone above him made him feel small and insignificant. When they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped and allowed the others to gather in another narrow tunnel. This tunnel was very short, and at the end was a metallic wall with a door set in the middle.

“That’s the torus,” Vee said. “After a day spent next to it, I’d recognize that material anywhere.”

“Why did my brother have us looking up on the surface for a way in?” Jessie asked. “If he knew about this entrance, why didn’t he tell us?”

Jake realized that his acoustics officer still wasn’t getting it. She had been through so much already, with her brother dying, then coming back to life, then her being told he was just a simulation, then alive again. It would be too much for most people. “I think it’s safe to assume that Ash isn’t telling us everything,” he said, trying to break the truth to her gently. “However, we don’t actually have any proof that he, or my father, are doing anything that would be detrimental to us.”

“They lied to us,” AJ reminded him, “about everything.”

“Yes, they did, but—”

“No buts, Jake. We have to be prepared for a worst-case scenario. We’re on our own down here, and they have the advantage.” She looked at Jessie. “We need everyone on their toes. Do you understand what that means, Jessie?”

She nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m on your side if…if it comes to that.”

“Good girl. All right, everyone get their knives ready.” She turned to Jake. “You go first, and I’ll follow.”

Before he had the chance to protest, she pushed open the door. Inside, it looked like a narrow room, but when he stepped through the opening, he saw that it was actually a walkway running left and right as far as he could see.

“Which way?” Vee asked.

“Should we split up?” Raines asked.

Jake looked at AJ. “Normally, I would say yes, but not this time.”

“I agree,” she said. “I think that under the circumstances, we need to stick together.”

“Then left or right?” Vee repeated.

Jake looked down to see if there were any wear patterns or anything suggesting which way his father and Ash had gone, but he didn’t see anything. The floor seemed to be made of the same material as the wall, smooth and very hard.

“This follows the inner wall of the torus,” he said, pointing down the walkway. “I’m willing to bet we could get lost in here really easily, so let’s find a way to mark this door. We’ll go left for a half hour or so, and if we don’t find anything, we’ll come back to this spot and try the other way. Either way, we don’t want to lose our only way out of here.”

AJ patted him on the shoulder. “Nice thinking, Captain.”

Vee pulled a sweater out of her backpack and handed it to Jake. “Will this do? It’s pretty warm in here, so I don’t think I’ll be needing it.”

“Perfect,” he said then walked over and shoved a sleeve into the grating in an air duct near the door. It hung there, looking like a creature trying to climb the walls.

“Too noticeable,” Dr. Wood said from the doorway. He was the only one who hadn’t yet stepped through it.

“That’s the idea, Doctor,” AJ said. “So that we don’t get lost.”

He walked through the group and pulled down the sweater then pulled out his knife and cut off a small piece of the fabric. He handed the sweater back to Vee and shoved the cut piece into the grate. “There,” he said. “Now, we can see it, but hopefully no one else will notice it.” He looked directly as AJ. “You did say we should be cautious, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Doctor, I did.”

Wood nodded then look at Jake. “Very well, then. Lead on, Captain.”

They walked for about fifteen minutes, passing unmarked doors about every three minutes, but each one was locked. When it seemed like thirty minutes had passed, they checked one more door and then returned to their starting point. Wood’s small marker was still there, but it was easy to spot the door because it was the only one leading away from the center of the torus. After another thirty minutes walking in the opposite direction, they were just about to turn back, when they found one door that wasn’t locked.

“Do we trust this?” Dr. Wood whispered.

“We’ve come this far, Doctor,” Jake said as he cautiously pulled the door open a crack and peered inside. No lights. He opened the door a bit wider, and the room lights flicked on, startling everyone. Jake opened the door wider so that everyone could see. It was a large warehouse, or storage room of some sort, easily twice as big as their living space, and filled with dust-covered objects of all shapes and sizes.

AJ pointed to the floor. “No footprints in the dust,” she observed. “No one’s been in here in a very long time.”

Raines squatted down and touched the dusty floor. “I’d say many decades, at least. Probably more like centuries.”

“Can we go in and look around?” Jessie asked. Before either Jake or AJ could respond, she grabbed Jane by the hand and pushed past everyone to go inside.

Vee looked at her grandfather. “Have fun,” he said. “Just don’t push anything that looks like a button.”

“We didn’t come all the way down here just to look through other people’s junk, did we?” Wood asked.

“We came down here for answers, Doctor,” AJ said as she went in.

Jake looked at Wood and added, “Besides, it’s the only unlocked door we’ve found, so why not look around?” He started to follow AJ but then had an idea. “Hey, Doctor, I don’t imagine there will be any medical equipment inside, but I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

The doctor pushed past him, saying, “I’ll check for myself, thank you.” Jake just smiled and followed him in.

Since most of his crew fanned out to the central part of the room, he decided to check out the objects off to one side. Some were recognizable, like a bridge control unit similar to what was used in the
Wave
. There was also something that looked like an old-style food processor. Other pieces were unrecognizable.

“Look at this,” Raines called from the opposite corner. When Jake arrived, he saw his engineer standing next to the unmistakable shape of a Mind Ship.

“How did that get here?” Jake asked as he took a cautious step backward.

Raines smiled. “I don’t think it’s the same one,” he said.

“But it’s dangerous,” AJ warned. “We all nearly died because of that thing.”

“I think this one is harmless,” Raines said.

“Why would you think that?” Jake asked.

“Because someone took it all apart,” Vee said as she climbed out of the body of the ship. She held a black tube up in front of her. “I think this is it, Grandfather.”

Raines reached out and took the object. “You might be correct,” he said.

“What is that?” Jessie asked.

Raines held it up for all to see. “I believe this is the heart of the ship; it’s the transmitter.”

“Where have you seen this technology before?” Dr. Wood asked, once again surprising Jake with his sudden, and almost random, interest in things.

“We stumbled upon a ship like this about half a year before you came on board,” Jake said, being careful to avoid any details. After all, the reality was that they had actually stolen the so-called “Mind Ship,” and then were nearly arrested when they dumped it in the Rift to keep it out of the military’s hands.

“I seriously doubt that,” Wood said, reaching out and snatching the tube from Raines’s hand.

“Hey,” Vee yelled. “That’s ours.”

“No, it is not,” he fired back.

Jake walked over and grabbed the tube from Wood. “I’ll hold on to this if you don’t mind.”

Before Wood could complain, AJ stepped between them. “And if you do mind, you can take it up with me.”

Wood backed off. “That device is more valuable than you can imagine.”

“Oh, I think we can imagine quite a bit,” Jake said.

“You don’t even know what it is used for.”

“How about planting suggestions in people’s minds without them knowing it?”

“Exactly,” Wood said. “It could be a valuable tool in treating many forms of schizophrenia.”

“It could also be used to control a population, make them less likely to rebel,” Raines said.

“You don’t seriously—”

“Enough,” Jake yelled then calmed his voice. “We can talk about this later. Right now we’re here to find out what’s going on in this place and, if at all possible, find out where our ship is docked.” He handed the transmitter to Raines, who put it in his backpack. “You’re sure it’s safe to carry around like that?”

Vee nodded. “It has to be powered to work. As long as it’s not juiced up, then it’s safe.”

He looked at the doctor. “I appreciate your dedication to your craft, Doctor. I had an uncle—”

Wood put his hand up. “Spare me your platitudes, Captain. If we were not trapped in this so-called paradise and bound together for survival, I would have had you all arrested for possessing such a device and for admitting to having destroyed one like it in the past.”

AJ reached over and grabbed Wood’s knife from his pocket. “You’re on your own from here on,” she said. “You will never be a part of this crew.” With that, she turned and headed out the door. “Let’s go, people,” she called over her shoulder. “We’ve wasted enough time digging through bilge.”