Island of the Sun (18 page)

Eleanor and the others rose from their benches as
Youssef spotted them and nodded the woman in their direction. As they approached, Eleanor noticed a name badge clipped to her jacket, but she couldn't read it from so far away.

“Hello!” Youssef said. “You like my cousin's hotel? It is good?”

“Yes, very nice,” Eleanor's mom said.

Youssef beamed and then said, “Please, I am honored to present Nathifa, the niece of Samir. She is a . . .” The word seemed still to evade him, and he turned to the woman for help.

“I'm an archaeologist,” she said. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” She extended her hand to shake with Eleanor's mom, and Betty, but not Luke, and then they all sat down on the benches. “Samir called me and told me you were interested in seeing the pyramids?”

“Yes,” Eleanor's mom said. “But we didn't mean for him to go to so much trouble. It was only something we mentioned in passing.”

Nathifa offered a knowing smile and nodded. “Well, that's Samir. I'm sure you noticed that he takes care of every customer of his. It's an important point of pride for him.”

“Yes, we did notice that,” Betty said.

“And the pyramids are a source of pride for me,” she said. “I'm sorry for the current situation.”

“Not your fault,” Luke said.

“Actually,” Nathifa said, “in a manner of speaking, it is.”

“How so?” Eleanor's mom asked.

Nathifa moved her lapel to reveal her name badge. “I'm a part of the team there.”

Her badge bore a large G.E.T. logo.

Eleanor's whole body went cold and rigid, and for a moment no one spoke. They had flown halfway around the world and walked right back into the hands of the enemy.

“Oh—” Eleanor's mom said. “I, um . . . Is that so?”

“Yes, though I'm more of a consultant,” Nathifa said. “They have their work, and I have mine. I'm there to make sure they don't damage our national heritage.”

“I see,” Eleanor's mom said.

So she wasn't actually a G.E.T. agent. That made Eleanor feel a bit better, but she still wondered how much Nathifa knew about everything. An archaeologist might even know about the Concentrator. “Why are the G.E.T. there in the first place?” she asked.

Nathifa shrugged. “They're digging for something that is ‘relevant to global energy interests.' My team is just there to assist with the excavation and make sure they don't disturb any of the ruins or artifacts, wake any mummies, that sort of thing.”

Eleanor suddenly wondered if the power of the Concentrator might have indeed brought any mummies back to life. Nathifa must have noticed her expression and chuckled. “I'm only kidding.”

“But have they found anything?” Eleanor asked.

“That is technically classified,” she said. “You probably saw yourself they are still digging, which means I can't take you to the site, unfortunately. It truly is closed to the public. But as a favor to Samir, I'm here to answer any questions about the pyramids you might have.”

“What do you say to people who think aliens helped build them?” Finn asked.

Eleanor wanted to kick him.

“Aliens?” Nathifa's downturned lips
did
appear to be frowning then. “I usually say it is historical arrogance to assume that the ancient Egyptians couldn't have built them on their own. Not to mention a little more than crazy to believe that aliens actually landed on our planet. Isn't it?”

“Humph,” Luke said.

“So there's no way we could get closer to them?” Eleanor asked.

“I'm afraid not,” Nathifa said. “Is there a special reason why you want to?”

“No,” Eleanor said, shrugging casually. “We just . . . hoped to see them.”

“Of course,” Nathifa said. “You have traveled far?”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you come from?”

“We were in Italy,” Eleanor's mom said.

“Really?” Nathifa said. “Where?” Her frown still hadn't gone away, and her tone was a bit harder than before.

“Florence,” Betty said. “Quite a lovely city.”

“Is that so?” Nathifa said. “Are you sure you weren't in Peru?”

Eleanor nearly gasped.
She knows
.

Youssef looked a bit confused by the conversation, while Eleanor's mind scattered in fear. No longer a statue, she wanted to run.

“N-no,” Eleanor's mom said. “Why do you—”

“Because I know who you are,” Nathifa said, her eyes darkening. “And I know why you're here.”

E
LEANOR LOOKED AT HER MOM, AND
L
UKE, AND
B
ETTY.
They were just sitting there, perhaps too stunned to do anything else. But Eleanor felt they had to get away, now, while they still had a chance. Her body screamed at her to move.

Eleanor's mom swallowed. “What do you—”

“This isn't the place to discuss it,” Nathifa said.

“I do not know what you are saying,” Youssef said next to her. “What is this?”

“Oh, it is nothing to worry you,” Nathifa said to him. “Please thank Samir for calling me when you see him?”

“Of course.” Youssef blinked and nodded. Then he
spoke in Arabic with her, and Nathifa replied to him in Arabic, and Youssef nodded again and rose to his feet.

“I leave you now, but here is my number.” He handed Luke a card. “Call me, please, if you want me to drive you.” A few more good-byes followed that, and then he left.

Nathifa leaned closer to them and lowered her voice. “I have another van coming. It will take us somewhere we can talk.”

“Hold on,” Luke said. “You're crazy if you think we're going anywhere with you.”

“Please,” she said. “You must.”

“No, we mustn't,” Luke said, rising. “And unless you brought a few of your friends from the G.E.T. with you, it looks like you're outnumbered, pal.”

“I have not told the G.E.T. you are here,” she said, motioning for Luke to sit again. “And I won't. I promise. There is someone who would like to speak with you, and I'm here to take you to him. But it's not the G.E.T. You must trust me.”

“The last person we trusted pointed a gun at her head.” Luke nodded toward Eleanor.

Even then, in that moment, Eleanor's mind flashed briefly to the sight of Amaru's bleeding chest, and she shut her eyes tightly for a moment.

“And he was working for the G.E.T., too,” Betty said.

“I am
not
working for them,” Nathifa said. “That's what I'm trying to tell you. You must understand, I've only cooperated with them to keep an eye on what they're doing.”

Eleanor wanted to trust her but hesitated.

“We know what you are looking for,” Nathifa said. “And we know where it is.”

“We?” Luke said.

“Where what is?” Eleanor asked.

“
It
,” Nathifa said.

Eleanor and Luke shared a look. “Does the G.E.T. know . . . where
it
is?” Eleanor asked.

“Not yet,” Nathifa said. “Please, there isn't much time. If I was working with them to catch you, they'd be here already, and you'd be in custody, no? There is a van waiting right outside, and we can go someplace where we can talk. Will you come with me?”

Eleanor looked at her mom, and her mom looked at Luke and Betty. Luke scratched his beard but nodded. Betty cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows, but she seemed to be agreeing.

“Very well,” Eleanor's mom said.

Nathifa rose to her feet. “Thank you.”

The others slowly stood and followed her. On the
way, Eleanor surveyed the other people in the lobby, and then the street, searching for any sign of a trap.

Nathifa was right. There was a van waiting in front of the hotel. She opened the doors, looking up and down the street, and ushered them in. Finn climbed in first, followed by Betty, and then Eleanor's mom. As Eleanor climbed in, she glanced toward the front to get a look at the driver, and in that same moment heard her mom whisper, “My God.”

Luke stopped halfway inside the van. “What is it?”

Eleanor's mom stared at the driver. “You're Johann von Albrecht.”

T
he driver was a slender man, with long gray hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, and wide, thick glasses in gold frames. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said, with a slight German accent, and a nod of his head.

Luke climbed the rest of the way into the vehicle, and then Nathifa took the front seat. She gave von Albrecht a nod, and he pulled into the afternoon traffic somewhat less competently than Youssef had.

“You are Samantha Perry, if I am not mistaken,” von Albrecht said.

“I am,” Eleanor's mom said. “This is my daughter,
Eleanor. And this is Luke Fournier, Betty Cruz, and Finn Powers.”

“Dr. Simon Powers's son?” von Albrecht asked.

“You've heard of my dad?”

“Naturally.”

“How?” Finn asked.

“I am working for the G.E.T.,” he said. “Or rather, I was.”

The situation they faced seemed to have changed dramatically in the past few moments, and Eleanor struggled to decide on the question she wanted to ask first. To begin with, it was obvious now that Nathifa had known who they were through her G.E.T. connections. Youssef, on the other hand, hadn't seemed to understand what was going on, but had Samir? After all, it was he who'd alerted Nathifa to their presence. When Eleanor asked Nathifa about that, she shook her head.

“No, he asks me to come talk with tourists about the pyramids at least once a week,” she said. “He's tried to get me to give lectures at his café. Usually I tell him I don't have the time, but when he described you, I had to find out if you were the fugitives we've been warned about. The moment Finn mentioned aliens, I knew who you were.”

Eleanor glanced back at Finn, and he hung his head.

“You are looking for the telluric vortex machine, are you not?” von Albrecht asked.

“Yes,” Eleanor's mom said. “But we call them Concentrators.”

“Concentrators?” von Albrecht said, and then repeated the word a few times, listening to himself. “That is a good name. Watkins calls them the Trees of Life.”

“Nathifa said you've found it?” Eleanor asked.

“No,” von Albrecht said. “But we know where it is.”

Eleanor didn't know what the difference was, but there was a more important question to ask first. “How close are the G.E.T. to finding it?”

“Not close,” Nathifa said. “They believe it is located at Giza.”

“But we have your map,” Eleanor's mom said. “That
is
where the telluric nexus is located.”

“I was wrong,” von Albrecht said.

“Then where the hell is it?” Luke asked.

“The Valley of the Kings,” Nathifa said. “Three hundred miles up the Nile.”

“Your map is three hundred miles off?” Betty said.

Von Albrecht pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “Mapping telluric currents is no simple matter, madam.”

“So where are we going now?” Eleanor's mom asked.

“A warehouse,” Nathifa said. “You will not be discovered there, and we can explain everything.”

The van crawled through the city, past shops, mosques, houses, and hotels, and even an open-air bazaar. They eventually came to a stop outside a tall gate. Nathifa gave von Albrecht a key card. He swiped it through an electronic station, and the gate opened to admit their vehicle, then closed behind them. After they'd climbed out of the van, Eleanor noted the thicket of barbed wire atop the wall that enclosed the courtyard in which they'd parked. Stacks of wooden pallets and crates filled the corners, along with chunks of masonry.

“This way,” Nathifa said, and led them to a low door in a building that rose three or four stories above them, one with a flat, barren facade and tall, imposing windows.

The door had another electronic lock, which chirped and blinked with a swipe of the card, and the door opened. Nathifa led them in, with von Albrecht following at the rear. The interior was somewhat dark and hazy, the only light falling inward from the windows up near the rafters. But Nathifa threw a switch, and a formation of fluorescents buzzed to attention, illuminating a dozen or so rows of freestanding shelves that ran the length of the building, three or four tiers high, stuffed with boxes and crates.

“What's in all those?” Finn asked.

“Historical artifacts,” Nathifa said. “Property of the Ministry of State for Antiquities.”

“Mummies?” he said, and Eleanor couldn't tell if that idea excited him or frightened him.

“No. The warehouse climate isn't controlled. Most organics are far too delicate to store here. This is mostly ceramics, sculptures, that kind of thing. From all periods, so you'll find stuff from the Old Kingdom, the Ptolemies, the Romans, all of it.”

“Wow,” Eleanor said.

“I'm surprised you still care about all this,” Betty said.

“What do you mean?”

“No offense.” Betty made a gesture toward the door. “But the refugees out there will tell you the world is ending, and some might argue this is a waste of resources.”

“There are some in my own government who argue that,” Nathifa said. “Because of them, my department has almost no budget left. Many of us volunteer.”

“Why?” Finn asked.

Nathifa looked at von Albrecht. “It seems to me that if the world really is coming to an end, it is more important than ever to preserve who we were. To leave something behind.”

That made sense to Eleanor, though it didn't seem to satisfy Betty, whose toughened skin showed her disagreement in its creases. But Betty was also the type of person who had voluntarily gone to work the Arctic oil fields, and as Eleanor had come to know her, she believed that choice to have been motivated as much by the desire to do something that mattered to her in the face of a dying earth as it was by a desire for profit. It was the practical choice, and it seemed that to Betty, this warehouse of historical artifacts couldn't be less practical.

“Come,” von Albrecht said, and he strode toward a work area against one wall of the building. There were several tables mounted with magnifying glasses the size of dinner plates, and spread with a feast of small statues, vases, and fragments of both. Von Albrecht assembled a ring of rolling office chairs in the space between the tables and motioned for them all to sit, and once they had, he asked, “What are they like?”

“What are what like?” Eleanor's mom asked.

“The Concentrators.”

“They're . . . how do I even describe them?” Her mom looked up at the ceiling. “They're about ten meters tall, with branches that span the same distance. They do resemble trees . . . but they have strange physical properties that defy human perception.”

“So they are extraterrestrial in origin?” he asked.

Her mom nodded. “The evidence is conclusive.”

He sighed. “When the G.E.T. came to me, they said they had found a way to harness the earth's telluric currents in order to keep us alive. I was excited, and I worked with them to identify the places on the planet with the highest energy potential. They had already found the first Concentrator in the Himalayas, of course, only I didn't know it then. They were only using me to look for more of these . . . machines. They intend to tap the devices themselves, not the telluric currents, which is an insane proposition. We know so little about them. When I realized the true purpose of the G.E.T. here, I left and went to hide among my refugee countrymen. But I have maintained contact with Nathifa.”

“So they have control of the Himalayan Concentrator?” Eleanor's mom asked.

That would make shutting it down very difficult, and perhaps impossible. It might even make what they were trying to do in Egypt pointless. But Eleanor believed they still needed to try.

“Yes, they have control of it,” von Albrecht said. “But from what I hear, it is very different from the ones you describe. Much larger. Perhaps it is the master, connected to and in charge of the others.”

“Do you know about the rogue planet?” Eleanor's mom asked.

“Yes.” Von Albrecht's back hunched forward, as if he were deflating. “Yes, I know about the dead world.”

“But do you know they're connected?” Eleanor asked.

“What are connected?” he asked.

“The Concentrators and the planet.”

“What? No, they . . .” But von Albrecht stopped then and exchanged a glance with Nathifa. His eyes went to the floor, where his gaze seemed to roam absently for several moments while he worked something out in his mind, and then he looked back up at Eleanor, his eyes wide. “It is a predatory world? Can this be?”

Eleanor nodded, relieved that he believed her.

“It all comes together,” he said. “That is where the energy is going.”

“Yes,” Eleanor's mom said.

“So it's not dead after all. Questions I had not previously been able to answer.” He held up two fingers. “Where did the machines come from, and where is the energy going? You have answered both. And now . . .” He pushed his glasses up, squinting, working more things out. “The Concentrators must be stopped,” he said. “Or the earth is doomed.”

“We're trying to find them to shut them down,”
Eleanor said. “I already stopped the one in the Arctic, and the one in Peru. Now we're here.”

“You shut them down?” Nathifa said. “How did you do that?”

Eleanor felt reluctant to reveal the answer to strangers, considering how her own mother had reacted to it, but if they were to help each other, von Albrecht and Nathifa would find out anyway. “I have a kind of connection with them,” she said.

“Fascinating,” von Albrecht said. “They say the same about Watkins and the Himalayan Concentrator.”

Watkins could connect with a Concentrator
? While something about that reassured Eleanor—she wasn't the only freak—it also meant she shared something singular with her enemy, and that made her feel even less comfortable with her mysterious ability. Who . . . what . . . was she?

“But if she can shut it down,” Nathifa said to von Albrecht, “that would ensure the G.E.T. never find it.”

“What do you mean?” Eleanor's mom asked.

“They're looking in the wrong place,” Nathifa said. “Sooner or later, they will realize it, and they will go searching elsewhere. But if we have already shut it down, there won't be any telluric energy for them to trace.”