PART 24
The drive to New Mexico took twenty-four hours,
with Arthur driving through the night while Daniel and I sat in the back seat like strangers.
The landscape outside changed from the lush forests of the north to the dry,
barren plains of the southwest,
but to me,
it all looked the same.
It all looked like data,
a series of topographical coordinates and mathematical equations that described the surface of a containment cell.
"The fourth node is located beneath an old nuclear test site,"
Arthur explained as the sun began to rise over the red mesas of the desert.
"In nineteen forty-five,
the government thought they were testing a weapon,
but they were actually trying to crack the shell of the archive to see what was inside."
"Did they succeed?"
Daniel asked,
his voice hollow from lack of sleep and the constant,
oppressive presence of the system.
"They cracked it slightly,"
Arthur said with a grim smile,
looking at us through the rearview mirror.
"Which is why they had to build a concrete sarcophagus over the entire area and pretend it was radioactive to keep the public away."
The air outside grew hot,
a dry,
searing heat that made the horizon shimmer like a mirage.
We turned off the main highway onto a dirt road that was blocked by a rusted chain-link fence adorned with faded radiation warning signs.
Arthur didn't stop the car;
he simply pressed a button on the dashboard,
and the chain-link fence dissolved into a cloud of gray pixels as we passed through it,
reforming behind us as if nothing had happened.
"The illusion is thinning,"
I noted,
watching the red sand drift across the road,
forming patterns that looked like ancient cuneiform script.
We stopped in front of a massive,
concrete dome that rose from the desert floor like a gray blister on the red earth.
The entrance was a heavy blast door,
its steel surface pitted and scarred by decades of exposure to the desert wind and the lingering energy of the node.
I stepped out of the car,
and the heat hit me like a physical blow,
but my left arm remained cold,
the silver lines glowing a bright,
vivid blue under the harsh desert sun.
"The key is inside,"
Arthur said,
handing me a small,
electronic transponder that was ticking like a Geiger counter.
"But be careful,
Amelia,
this node is angry,
it has been fed nothing but radiation and military secrets for eighty years."
Daniel stepped up beside me,
his hand resting on the heavy blast door handle,
his eyes fixed on mine with a desperate,
final intensity.
"If we go in there,"
he whispered,
"promise me you won't let it take your name,
Amelia,
promise me you will remember who you are."
I looked at him,
and for a fraction of a second,
the silver in my eyes receded,
revealing the human girl who had grown up in the lighthouse.
"I promise,"
I said,
May you like
though deep down,
I knew it was a promise I might not be able to keep.
