“You’re familiar with this dump?” Cheyenne said.
“In actuality,” Atticus said, “it’s one of the most interesting geological formations on the planet. If I weren’t with you, I’d be running around like, woo-hoo -”
Casper pushed him hard. Atticus stumbled forward, his sleepy eyes focusing. His brain suddenly connected with something that had been dulled by sleep.
His terror.
Bread truck. Sack. Handcuffs. Jet. It all rushed back.
They had knocked him out on the plane. Cheyenne insisted on it. She was afraid he’d get sick.
He glanced around for a way to escape. He was no longer handcuffed, but there was nowhere to run. It looked as if they were in a vast moonscape, the monstrous rock formations casting deep shadows in the afternoon sun. He’d seen photos, but in person they were much bigger – like giant rock fingers poked through with enormous holes. Caves.
They were heading toward the largest rock, shaped like a sinking ship. At its base, an ominous-looking sign had been tied to a trash can:
Atticus rubbed his eyes, recalling his years of online language tutorials. “Wait, that’s Turkish,” he murmured. “And it means ‘Danger: Collapsed Cave.’ ”
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Cheyenne said.
She shoved him in before he could protest. He hit his head and had to duck low to fit through. His ankle twisted as it landed between two wooden planks, rotted and termite-eaten. Cheyenne scampered on ahead, waving a flashlight.
“I can’t see!” Atticus said.
“Casper, where are you?” Cheyenne called over her shoulder.
“Emptying my pockets.” Another flashlight beam, behind Atticus, began illuminating the planks. “A trash can outside. All the convenience of home.”
Atticus stumbled along, his head scraping the low ceiling. “Wh-where are you taking me?”
“To a place where we can talk in private.” Cheyenne stopped short. She gestured into a corner of the cave, sweeping aside a thick spiderweb. “Go.”
Atticus peered into the pitch darkness. The cave seemed to end there, a tiny, dank chamber big enough for one person. Nothing beyond. Just a cranny in a cave where a dead body could rot and no one would ever see it.
Cheyenne pushed him in. As his back hit the cragged wall, she and her brother crowded close to him. A light blinked on above, bathing them all in a greenish white glow. “Unrecognized DNA,” a mechanical voice droned.
“Allow access!” Casper called out.
A series of beeps was followed by “Voice recognition accepted.”
The ground rumbled. With a loud scraping noise, the floor beneath their feet began to move. They were on a circular platform, slowly sinking.
“No!” Atticus reached for the lip of the floor, but Casper batted his arms away. Bright lights flickered on below their feet, and soon the cramped, stinking cave gave way to a vast underground chamber.
The place was freezing. Enormous maps spanned the walls. A news ticker scrolled headlines near the ceiling. A bank of clocks ticked in unison, telling time in different parts of the world to the thousandth of a second. Brushed-steel cabinets lined the walls near empty computer workstations, their black, webbed chairs gathering dust.
The platform reached the chamber floor with a dull thump. Casper grabbed a chair. “Make yourself at home.”
Atticus sank into the chair, sending up a small cloud of wispy dust. His throat was dry. He had to swallow twice before he could eke out a sound. “What am I supposed to do?”
Cheyenne pulled a handkerchief from her bag and dusted off two seats. The twins sat. “Tell us what you know.”
“About what?” Atticus asked.
Cheyenne glanced at her brother, rolling her eyes. “The genius thinks he’s too smart for us nincompoops.”
“About being a Guardian!” Casper exploded, lunging forward.
Atticus screamed. His leg dug reflexively into the floor, propelling the chair backward. He crashed against a computer table, the impact knocking the wind out of him.
Casper cracked up. “Brave kid.”
“I suggest cutting to the chase,” Cheyenne said, looking brightly around the room. “No one can hear you in here. No one knows where you are. You will not leave until you answer. And you will not live if you don’t.”
“I don’t know anything!” Atticus insisted. “I told you! My mom was dying. She said I was a Guardian. She said we were enemies of you guys. The Vespers. She said you were after some secret. It was all in fragments – I can barely remember.”
Casper grinned. He stood slowly and sauntered to the wall. There, he opened a cabinet door. “Maybe we can change that,” he said.
Inside were a series of long knives. Casper pulled one out, a thin blade that made a high-pitched shhhhink.
Atticus felt the blood rush from his head. For a moment he could see only white spots. The room around him seemed to shrink, its frigid temperature warming, the walls rushing in, everything decaying into a tiny trap… .
His brain flashed an image of the tiny room at the airport. A men’s room. A tiny can.
Germ Away.
“I know! I mean, I don’t know!” he blurted, words propelling through his mouth before he could think. “That is, in actuality, I don’t know the information. In my head. But I have it. All of it. That’s how we Guardians do it. Even though we’re, like, nerds and geniuses, all we know is the inscription.”
Casper cocked his head. “The what?”
“Encryption!” Atticus said.
Slow down. Think.
Casper came closer, casually sliding the blade along his fingernail and shaving off a thin slice as if it were butter. “Go on… .”
“It … it’s a precaution,” he said. “To avoid hypnosis. And torture. And truth serums. We just know the key sequence, that’s all. So we can decrypt it.”
Casper flung the blade’s tip forward, sending a fingernail into Atticus’s face. “What. Exactly. Is it. That you decrypt?”
“It’s all in my flash drive!” Atticus said.
Cheyenne looked dismayed. “The one I smashed under my foot at the airport?”
“No!” Atticus shot back. “Another one. Hidden on my key chain.”
Casper’s face darkened. He lifted the blade carefully over his head. Then, with gritted teeth, he hurled the knife at Atticus.