PART 21
The air at the bottom of the lake was freezing and tasted of ancient mud,
and the silence was absolute,
unbroken even by the sound of our own footsteps.
As we walked deeper into the sunken city,
the stone structures began to loom over us,
their surfaces covered in strange,
fossilized organisms that looked like geometric ferns.
"This place was built before the water came,"
Daniel whispered,
his voice sounding muffled and flat in the pressurized atmosphere of the lake bed.
"Or maybe the water was brought here to hide it,"
I suggested,
keeping my eyes fixed on the central ziggurat that rose in the center of the valley.
At the top of the structure,
a single light was pulsing,
a pale green beacon that matched the frequency of my own quickening heartbeat.
Suddenly,
a movement in the shadows of an old shipwreck caught my attention,
and I stopped,
pulling Daniel back behind a fallen stone pillar.
Out of the darkness of a rotted cargo hold,
figures began to emerge,
walking slowly across the mud toward the path we had carved.
They weren't human,
nor were they ghosts;
they were manifestations of the system,
constructed from the memories of the sailors who had drowned in the lake over the centuries.
Their bodies were translucent,
made of gray mist and dark water,
their eyes empty sockets that glowed with the same green light as the beacon.
"They know we are here,"
Daniel whispered,
his hand going to the iron wrench he had taken from the truck,
his muscles tense and ready for a fight.
"They don't want to hurt us,"
I said,
though I wasn't entirely sure if the words were true or just a hope.
"They are just parts of the archive that have been left running for too long without maintenance."
One of the figures,
wearing the tattered uniform of an early twentieth-century captain,
stepped forward and looked directly at me.
"The ledger must be balanced,"
he said,
his voice sounding like water rushing through a narrow pipe.
"The toll for the passage must be paid in full."
"I am the administrator,"
I said,
stepping out from behind the pillar and showing him my left arm,
where the silver lines were pulsing brightly.
"I don't pay the toll,
I authorize the expenditure."
The captain stared at my arm for a long moment,
the green light in his eyes flickering as if analyzing the security code embedded in my skin.
Then,
with a slow,
creaking bow,
he stepped aside,
and the other figures melted back into the shadows of the wrecks,
leaving the path to the ziggurat open.
"That was too easy,"
Daniel muttered,
his eyes scanning the dark corners of the stone structures as we continued our march.
"The system is recognizing my authority,"
I told him,
feeling a strange,
dangerous pride swelling in my chest.
May you like
"But the higher the authority,
the greater the cost of the final command."
