Legacy of the Lost Read online

  I paused to take in my new surroundings. The floor and walls were brick, and the chill quickly seeped in through my socks. The brick continued overhead in an arch to form the ceiling.

  Tila had already reached the end of the passage. She was sniffing the crack at the bottom of a reinforced stainless-steel door, tail wagging half-heartedly. The striking newness of the door looked totally out of place next to the aged brick.

  This was all so bizarre, and once again I had the sense that I’d left the realm of reality and had stepped into one of my games. Was I dreaming? I didn’t think so, but then, that was what I usually thought when I was dreaming.

  Swallowing roughly, I continued onward. Dream or not, I wanted to find out what was beyond the door.

  When I was barely three steps away, an eight-inch square of steel slid open in the center of the door at chest height, revealing a shiny, black screen. I could see myself reflected in the surface, my eyes wide and hair wild.

  I froze, head tilting to the side and eyes narrowing as I stared at the door’s new feature. Cautiously, I moved closer, bending down a bit to get a better look.

  Sensing my excitement, Tila raised her head, focusing on me and dancing in place. A whiny groan emanated from her barrel chest.

  “I don’t know what’s behind this door, either, T,” I told her, patting her head.

  She sat, her attention returning to the door. Her tail continued to wag, making a swishing sound on the brick floor.

  All of a sudden, the outline of a hand glowed neon green on the screen.

  “State your name,” a disembodied female voice ordered from somewhere overhead.

  I straightened, looking up at the ceiling. A small, inconspicuous speaker and camera were set near the apex of the archway overhead. I’d missed them before, my focus entirely on the door.

  “State your name,” the voice repeated. It was pleasant enough, and almost imperceptibly artificial.

  “Cora,” I said, but when my voice came out weaker than expected, I cleared my throat. Taking a deep breath, I repeated, “Cora. Cora Blackthorn.”

  “Welcome, Cora,” the voice said. “You are approved.”

  My eyebrows rose, and I glanced down at Tila. She was standing again, her tail no longer wagging.

  “Please place your hand on the screen to verify your identity,” the voice instructed.

  Brow furrowing, I shifted my focus from my dog up to the camera and speaker overhead, then down to the screen on the door. I moved closer and raised my hand, tugging off my glove by the fingertips. I hesitated for just a fraction of a second before pressing my palm to the screen and positioning my hand so it fit within the five-fingered outline.

  The screen flared bright green, quick as the flash of a camera, then faded to black.

  Tila went completely still, ears perked up as she listened to something I couldn’t hear.

  A moment later, there was a loud clanging sound, followed by the hiss of air being released, and the door swung outward. As it opened, hanging Tiffany lamp chandeliers lit up within the room beyond, illuminating the space in a warm, welcoming light.

  My eyes opened wide, and my lips parted. “What is this place?” I wondered aloud, slowly scanning the space.

  It was like the love child of an alchemist’s laboratory and an archaeologist’s study. The brick of the passageway behind me continued into the secret room, the arched ceiling widening to a Catalan vault with a set of pillars dropping down to support the arches every five or six feet. From my vantage point, it looked like the room extended back a good twenty to twenty-five yards.

  Rectangular wooden tables filled the spaces between the pillars, running the length of the room. Some were laden with antique brass or glass scientific instruments, others with enormous leather tomes propped up on bookstands, left open to some seemingly random page. Others, still, displayed complex equipment that looked like it would have belonged in some of the most modern, high-tech labs around.

  An aisle ran down the center of the space between the two sets of pillars and their aligning tables, with another aisle on the outer sides of the pillars on either side of the room. The walls running parallel to the pillars were lined with towering bookcases, each with its own attached ladder. Books of all sizes and colors filled the shelves, sitting beside manuscript boxes—some utilitarian, some ornate—and thin glass cases containing single sheets of papyrus, parchment, and amate.

  There was a sense of stillness about the place, of absolute quiet, despite the gentle hum of the bulbs in the chandeliers hanging over head. It was the heavy quiet that comes from solitude and isolation. From secrecy.

  Tila trotted in ahead of me, disrupting that stillness, and proceeded to sniff everything.

  Slowly, eyes scanning this way and that to take in as much as possible, I followed her in. I made my way down the central aisle, afraid to touch anything.

  My mom had always been a fan of hands-on history—must’ve been the archaeologist in her—but I often struggled with the fear of destroying what could never be replaced. That was the nice thing about video games. Nothing was real. Nothing was permanent, not even death. There was always the chance for a do-over. For a second chance.

  A desk at the far end of the room beckoned me onward. It was an antique executive desk made of some dark wood, the type you’d have found in a nineteenth century banker’s office, with three sets of drawers running up each side. An out-of-place looking ergonomic desk chair was all that stood between me and the desk.

  Papers were stacked into a messy pile on the left side of the desk, topped with my mom’s leather-bound journal, its thin leather band wrapped around the covers, holding in place the loose papers tucked away between the pages. The right side of the desk was cluttered with a small Tiffany lamp, a pen jar, stacks of unused sticky notes in a rainbow of colors, and a wireless computer mouse. And I could just see the corner of a laptop keyboard peeking around the back of the chair.

  The spartan organization of the desk in the library was nowhere to be seen. I’d long thought it odd that my mom’s desk clashed so severely with her sometimes frenetic, often chaotic personality. Now I knew why. That desk was a decoy; this one was the real thing.

  I picked up the journal first. It was the only familiar thing in this unfamiliar place.

  I’d caught my mom scouring the leather-bound book’s pages time and time again, though I’d never managed more than a cursory stolen glance. She was always quick to snap the cover shut and tuck the journal out of sight as soon as she realized my attention had turned her way. She rarely wrote anything new in the journal, at least not that I witnessed, and when she did touch pen to the paper bound within, she did so with the utmost thought and care.

  I unwound the leather cord from around the covers and licked my lips, feeling like I was breaking some sacred promise by even touching the precious book. But if I was ever going to find out what happened to my mom—what exactly she had gotten herself into and what had led her on her ill-fated detour to Italy—I would find it between these covers. After all, she was the one who had led me down here in the first place.

  The trio of ceramic beads at the end of the journal’s leather cord dropped to the desk, landing on the laptop’s touchpad with just enough pressure to wake the computer. The screen lit up, and I glanced at it.

  I sucked in a sharp breath.

  I was looking at a picture of my mom captured by the computer’s built-in camera, with video controls near the bottom of the screen. She was sitting right here, at this desk. In this chair.

  I stood there, frozen in place, eyes locked on the screen. On my mom’s face.

  Without breaking my stare with the computer screen, I pulled the chair away from the desk and sat, exactly where my mom had been sitting when she recorded the cued video. I hugged the all-but-forgotten journal to my chest with my left hand as I reached for the mouse with my right. I inhaled deeply, then held my breath. And pressed play.

  There was a millisecond delay, and th
en my mom came to life right before my eyes. She smiled, but even as her lips curved, a darkness—part sadness, part something else—filled her azure gaze.

  “Hey, Cora Borealis,” she said, her eyes meeting mine. It was almost like she was really there on the other side of the screen, and hearing her favorite nickname for me—hearing it spoken in her voice—made my heart ache.

  My chin quivered, and I swallowed roughly.

  “I’m sure you’re confused,” she said, “but I’m glad you found the study. I should have brought you down here years ago, but . . .” She sighed, averting her gaze and shaking her head ruefully. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try,” I said.

  Another sigh. “You’re special, Cora.” My mom raised her eyes to the camera. “More special than you could ever guess.” She smiled again, less sadness to it this time. “And I’m not just saying this because I’m your mom and you’re my baby girl.” She paused for a moment, seeming to consider her words. “You’re different from other people. You’re not—” She hesitated, frowning. “Well, you know you’re my special science baby, right?”

  Out of habit, I nodded, leaning in a little.

  When I was a young girl and would ask about my dad, my mom would tell me I was her “special science baby” and that unlike all the other kids, I was unique because I didn’t have a father. At least, not in the traditional sense. As I grew older, she explained that I was a product of in vitro fertilization—a test tube baby—a child she had wanted so badly that she had relied on advanced science to bring me into her life. She explained that my father had been an anonymous donor selected purely based on his desirable genetics to contribute his DNA to the IVF procedure.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” my mom said on the computer screen. “I carried you in my womb, but you weren’t the standard IVF baby because, well . . .” Again, she hesitated, closing her eyes. “Because you’re not mine, Cora.” Her eyelids raised, unshed tears turning the blue of her irises more brilliant than ever. “You’re not even human.”

  “What?” I blurted. My chest heaved with each breath, and I slowly scooted the chair backward, shaking my head. This was a joke, it had to be. A cruel, sick, twisted joke.

  “You were found in a preserved embryonic state,” she continued. “So far as we know, you are the last remaining member of an ancient, advanced species of hominids who came to this planet seeking refuge thousands of years before the dawn of human civilization.”

  I balked, my jaw dropping and eyes bulging. First, she told me I wasn’t hers. Then, I wasn’t even human. Now, she was claiming I was an alien?

  “And I don’t think your condition is an illness, but a gift native to your species.” She pressed her lips together, tears sneaking over the brim of her eyelids and streaking down her cheeks. She hastily swiped the tears away. “I’ve always thought that, but I didn’t know how to help you. I probably should have told you a long time ago—Emi’s been on me about this for years—but the longer I carried this secret, the harder it became to admit the truth.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Not just my mom, but Emi was in on it, too?

  “I know I’m taking the coward’s way out, telling you like this.” My mom inhaled and exhaled deeply, focus drifting away from the camera. “I don’t know, maybe I should go upstairs right now and tell you all of this in person, but . . .” She raised her left hand, chewing on her thumbnail. “I have nothing to show you—nothing to help you.” She bowed her head, shaking it weakly. “Not yet, anyway.”

  I clenched my jaw. My mom hadn’t gone upstairs. She hadn’t come to my room and confessed any of this to me in person. And for the briefest moment, I hated her for doing this to me.

  “I hope you never see this,” my mom said quietly. A moment later, she cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders, seeming to regain some of her composure. Her focus returned to the camera. “Helping you—that’s the whole point of this expedition to Brazil. I’m looking for guidance from your people, or at least, from the last remnants of your people. From the things they left behind. There’s a device that should help you control your gift—I’ve seen one, once, but it’s impossible to get to. But . . . I think I know where to find another one.”

  I shook my head ever so slowly. She was serious. Dead serious. Subconsciously, the fingers of my right hand sought out the pendant with its odd, color-changing stone hanging from the chain around my neck. I couldn’t help but wonder if the necklace was the device she was talking about.

  “You’ll find a full explanation of everything I’ve gathered about you and your people and their origins in my journal. I just . . .” She took a deep breath, her eyes seeming to search the camera. “I thought you deserved to hear the truth from me . . . just in case I don’t make it back.”

  I laughed hollowly, chest tight and throat constricting. This was crazy. Pure insanity.

  My mom leaned in suddenly, resting her elbows on the desk, and her expression darkened. “Listen very carefully, Cora,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ll believe any of what I just told you, but that doesn’t matter right now. If you’re watching this video, then I’ve been caught.”

  I straightened, eyes narrowing. I shoved all of the craziness she’d just dumped on me into the back of my mind. This was what I’d been searching for. Now, more than ever, I wanted to find my mom. I needed to find her.

  “If they figure out what I’ve done,” she said, “if they learn about you, they’ll come after you.” Her stare intensified. “You cannot let them capture you, Cora. They want to use you. To dissect you. To destroy you. If you get even the slightest suspicion that you’re being watched, run. Run as far and as fast as you can. I will do everything I possibly can to help you.” The complete and utter conviction in her voice frightened me. “So long as I still breathe,” she said, “I will find a way back to you, and I will protect you.”

  I was gripping the pendant so hard that the edges dug painfully into my palm, even through the thin leather of the gloves. “Protect me from who?”

  “I hope this isn’t goodbye,” she continued, “but if it is, know one thing—I love you, Cora. I feel so honored to have been a part of your life, and I will carry you in my heart until the very end.” She smiled one last time, and closed her eyes, releasing a string of tears that streamed down both cheeks.

  When she reopened her eyes, the blue of her irises seemed to have dimmed. “Remember to read the journal. It’s all explained in there.” She kissed her fingers, then touched them to the camera, and then the screen went black.

  Behind me, someone cleared their throat.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. I sprang out of the chair and spun around, my mom’s journal still clutched to my chest.

  Emi stood in the center aisle a dozen or so paces into the room, her hands clasped before her and her mouth pinched.

  Tila ducked under one of the long tables to reach her, tail wagging and nose sniffing.

  “So, Diana finally told you,” Emi said, ignoring the dog. She raised one eyebrow pointedly and added, “Not the way I would’ve gone about it, but I’m glad it’s done.”

  Bummed, Tila let out her patented groan-whine, then sat, her eyes glued to Emi.

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again when I found I had no words. Instead, I simply shook my head.

  Emi’s expression softened, her eyes filling with compassion. “It sounds crazy, I know, but—”

  “What?” I said, voice layered with disbelief. “What do you know, Emi? What do you know about me? About my mom?” I waited for her to answer—to confirm or deny the things my mom had said in the video—but she said nothing. I took a step toward her. “Please, Emi. Tell me what you know.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. “I—it’s complicated, Cora.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head with more force. Hurt and betrayal mixed together within me, resulting in a surprising emotion—anger. “It’s simple, Emi. You lied to me. My w
hole life—” I clenched my jaw, barely holding in the sudden, simmering rage. I breathed in and out through my nose, staring hard. Accusing. “Did you know what my mom was really doing?” I asked. “Did you know where she was going? Did you lie to me about all of that, too?”

  Emi returned my stare, her lips pressed into a thin, flat line. Her lack of denial was admittance enough.

  “Do you know what happened to her?” My voice had taken on a hard edge I’d never heard from myself before. “Do you know who ‘they’ are?”

  Emi nodded. “The Custodes Veritatis.”

  “The guardians of the truth?” I said, translating the Latin aloud.

  Again, Emi nodded. “It’s a secret organization whose sole task is keeping the world from finding out about the Atlanteans.” At my blank stare, Emi clarified, “The aliens.”

  My brow furrowed. I could hardly believe that Emi was confirming my mom’s crazy story.

  “Diana and I were members,” Emi explained. “It’s where we met.”

  “So, you weren’t in the military?” The sense of betrayal I felt sharpened my words.

  Emi shook her head. “Read it,” she said, glancing down at the journal clutched to my chest. “I’m sure Diana explains everything in there far better than I will.”

  “I’d rather hear it from you,” I said. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been mad at Emi. But now, the anger roared through my veins, burning away two and a half decades of complacency. Of ignorance. Of misplaced trust.

  I gave Emi seconds—eons—to respond. When she finally did, her words were beyond disappointing. “Read the journal, Cora. After that, I’ll answer any questions you have—and I’m sure you’ll have many. Just read it, first.”

  I blew out a breath and shook my head. “Thanks for nothing,” I muttered as I brushed past Emi, the exposed skin of my arm skimming against hers. Normally, the brief contact would have triggered an episode, but I hardly noticed the lack of one, now. My thoughts were too disordered, and I was too pissed off to care.

  Tila’s nails clicked on the brick floor as she followed behind me.