City of Dust Page 15

  ‘Third floor, move!’ he hissed back at us.

  I frowned and sprinted after him, recalling the floating walkways August had activated. Pantheonite birthright bought so much privilege in this distorted, hierarchical world. Within seconds we were all scurrying up the wall as though we were spiders created there.

  Rajid set a good pace, and paused only when he reached a door set into the wall about a third of the way up. It bore the outline of a white figure overlaid with a bold black cross.

  ‘Recombinant DNA: Transgenic and Molecular Species Unit. Classified personnel only,’ I read, before staring suspiciously at the flashing red box beside the door.

  Rajid reached out and typed a series of digits so swiftly I couldn’t follow.

  ‘How?’ Max began, only to be silenced as the door slid open revealing a sterile laboratory stretching out like a new labyrinth.

  I stared down the parallel banks of bleeping tanks and cages, and felt the fear I’d been suppressing start to leak through my veins. It was hard to stay detached when Pantheon’s regard for life was so oppressively clear. It was a possession to be assaulted, manipulated and erased, all according to the whim of one man.

  Rajid started forward first, his wiry form stalking down through the technology while Max and I followed, unable to drag our eyes from Pantheon’s obsessive game of genetic roulette.

  ‘There are no rules,’ I muttered after I’d passed a few tanks.

  I’d been trying to assess the small rodents objectively, to work out Cassius’s key experimental aim and as far as I could see, each group were differentiated by some small physical abnormality. Some had clearly shaped animal limbs protruding through their skin; while others simply looked like smaller, unhealthier examples of their species.

  There were rats with tiny tapering horns extending from their foreheads; mice that jumped around the tank floor like frogs; and a cage full of cats with ears and noses that glowed every time they passed under an ultraviolet lamp.

  So far, it looked the trophy wall of a madman.

  ‘Cells have been modified with a gene that produces coral fluorescent proteins. It’s a tracker trial,’ Rajid offered, watching me.

  Hazily, I recalled the fluorescent animal I’d spotted many months before in the genetic rubbish heap of the Prolet world. Had it been rejected for possessing a faulty tracker system? All at once I felt new empathy for these feline creations; cats were natural trackers in the outside forest.

  We passed through an aviary infection screen into the primate section, and I deliberately avoided their gaze. These bigger animals were harder to pass by. Every type of small and large monkey was housed here, and although dozens of eyes swung our way, not one natural sound broke the ominous silence.

  I glanced at Max, knowing he was feeling the same silent rage that we were powerless, just now, to help them.

  At last Rajid drew to a halt in a corner housing a waist-height glass cage fortified with thick steel bars. I stepped up next to him, unsure whether to be anxious or relieved, and looked down warily.

  A small creature looked back up at me, and for a moment I struggled to identify it – and then I understood. I wasn’t meant to.

  ‘It has at least two sets of genetically different cells,’ Rajid whispered. ‘One type of animal cell is fused with the eggs of another … or maybe more.’

  ‘It’s named after the …

  ‘Chimera,’ I finished, the word clinging to the air, as though it knew it belonged here.

  I looked into Rajid’s schooled face, which was as unreadable as ever.

  ‘An ancient creature from mythology – comprising a fire-breathing lion, with a goat’s body and the tail of a serpent,’ I finished quietly.

  I pressed my fingers into my leather rations bag containing Aelia’s torn page from the Book of Arafel. Could it be a coincidence? Or was this part of what Aelia had been trying to tell me? To warn me?

  ‘Perfect,’ Rajid muttered, with a curious smile.

  I gazed down at the pensive little creature sitting in the corner of its tank. With the head of a small ape, the body of what looked to be a wild leopard and thick tail of a salamander, it was a jarring sight. I swallowed. It was still a living creature, I told myself, though not a creature of any natural design. Max stepped up beside me.

  ‘For the love of Arafel, is that thing real?’

  As if it heard, the fluffy black-faced creature released a whining cry before bounding around the reinforced tank. For a second it almost looked endearing, and then Max whistled softly, the way he might call one of the village dogs in Arafel. The animal paused in wonder, before looking up and slowly pulling back its tiny black lips to display a complete set of full-sized ugly canines. In a second burst of energy, it flew at Max’s hovering fingers, impacting the tank lid with some force and releasing a stream of fresh, oozing saliva in a fit of rabid fury.

  Max snatched his hand away, despite the solid glass walls; just like Octavia’s piranha monkeys, nothing in this place was ever what it seemed. I glanced at Rajid, who was watching silently.

  ‘Intelligence, speed, strength,’ Max observed. ‘It’s a clever combination.’

  ‘It’s a travesty!’ I snapped. ‘It’s the most unnatural … creature I’ve ever set eyes on.’

  ‘And yet, the ancient Greeks and Romans thought up far worse.’ Rajid’s eyes glittered.

  ‘Thought up far worse,’ I defended, ‘but the chimera of mythology never really drew breath …’

  Did it?

  I was pretty sure I hadn’t spoken my doubt aloud as my head started to pound, recalling snatches of Aelia and August’s Voynich revelations. I’d just about accepted that creatures of mythology had once graced the earth, but a chimera? Surely that wasn’t even biologically possible?

  Rajid stared at me, before leaning in so closely I could see his inked Cerberus pulsing with aortic blood.

  ‘The Voynich,’ he breathed. ‘Aelia knows its oldest secret.’

  ‘What secret? What else does the Voynich hide?’ I rattled back, beads of cold sweat breaking out across the back of my neck. My head felt woolly. Surely medieval coding for mythological creatures was enough of a secret for anyone?

  Rajid shook his head.

  ‘Cassius and Thomas, your ancestor, stumbled across something else buried deep within the text of the Voynich. A legendary curse, so old even Octavia didn’t know of its existence,’ he whispered excitedly. ‘So, when Thomas worked out the cipher and ran, he also took the medieval coding for a legend that only he and Cassius had shared. Then, of course, he went on to hide his research in the—’

  ‘The time! Rajid!’ I interrupted, preventing him from divulging the Book of Arafel’s secret.

  My brain rattled. Could the Voynich be hiding something more? His new revelation made so much sense. Cassius’s fury, his interest in the young Prolet insurgents and Aelia’s hastily torn-out note.

  Rajid nodded, his panther eyes narrowing. I glanced at Max, feeling like I was sliding down a mountain of ice, towards an inevitability.

  Cassius knew, Aelia knew, Rajid knew.

  And yet I was carrying Arafel’s responsibility alone. How did it make any logical sense, not to balance the circle of knowledge out? I clenched my fists; if only Grandpa hadn’t made me promise, things would be so much easier.

  ‘Is this a … chimera laboratory then?’ Max asked, turning to stare into the endless cages and tanks around us.

  ‘Something like that,’ Rajid responded, his voice suddenly whimsical again, ‘but with Cassius, you can never be sure you have seen the whole.’

  Silence hung in the sterile corridor, chased swiftly by a shrill bleeping noise.

  ‘We need to go,’ I urged.

  I shot a look at Max, the air bleeding with new tension.

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ Rajid confirmed with an odd smile. ‘Just time for one last thing …’

  He spun on his heel and slipped through to an inner room that was darker than the rest, holding th
e door open after him.

  ‘Fourteen and a half?’ he updated, patiently.

  We dived into the inner room without uttering a word. And as soon as Rajid closed the door, it closed in like a giant clamp. The room was too cocooned, too warm and cloaked in a darkness that had nothing to do with the lack of light. I shivered despite the clammy temperature. There was a feeling in this room that was different from the rest. It was malevolent and knowing, almost as though it had a consciousness of its own.

  I swung my gaze around, trying to work out why Rajid had dragged us in here despite the risk of being caught. The room was huge and lined with banks of tanks; attached to yet more whirring, flashing technology. An intermittent red light flashing above a third tier of long screens caught my attention. It was lit with familiar images.

  As I stared, pieces of an ancient puzzle materialized and connected before my eyes. There were cryptic words in faded writing, alongside columns of letters that were merging and changing all the time. Cold fear spidered from my neck to my toes, as I recognized the ancient nonsense script from Thomas’s research. It was text from the Voynich Manuscript.

  ‘This is Voynich work. The computers … they’re trying to work out Thomas’s cipher,’ I hissed.

  ‘That among other things,’ Rajid responded cryptically. ‘Not that he’s managed it. At least not yet. He needs more … information.’

  Rajid was scrutinizing me with such intensity, I could feel my cheeks starting to burn.

  I longed to challenge him there and then.

  But there was Max to consider. I dropped my eyes in frustration, thinking of the carefully drawn-out cipher I’d stored with the Book of Arafel; the Book Aelia had stolen from Arafel. Did Cassius have it by now? He had the cipher, but surely he still needed the keyword to make it work.

  ‘Why are we here, Rajid?’ Max demanded, peering into one of the medium-sized tanks intently.

  I gritted my teeth. We had to be approaching ten minutes. Why didn’t he just say it, instead of being so mysterious-painted-man all the time?

  ‘OK, this has gone on long enough, Rajid!’ I rounded on him. ‘Why don’t you just tell …’

  ‘Tal, come here!’

  The alarm in Max’s voice stopped me mid-track. And as I stepped towards him, to stare through the darkened glass, I felt my world slip sideways. This was it, the moment Rajid had been leading up to – the raw reality he couldn’t explain and needed us to see. I inhaled deeply, trying to think straight, but it felt as though someone was driving a miniature spoke between every individual nerve.

  Then the air was broken by another shriller alarm, and this time Rajid nodded.

  Without hesitation, we bolted from the room and past the chimera tank. It looked up, only mildly distracted from its foraging, and the eerie hush seemed almost ironic. How could a Biotechnology Programme with the potential to reap such a devastating effect, be so quiet? I wanted to scream.

  Rajid was fast. But Max and I were Arafel tree-runners. We sprinted back to the entrance, and descended swiftly into the heart of the laboratory. The whole area was gradually illuminating, and nausea rose in my throat as we sprinted towards the side laboratory. We couldn’t be caught here, not again.

  I hardly dared breathe as we dived through the infection screen and towards the grey, metal unit. This time, the confined space didn’t even register, and I was inside and sliding back down the frayed rope ladder before Rajid had finished pulling the metal door across.

  The faint, low voice of a Pantheonite filtered through the air, and although the rock floor beneath my feet was hard and reassuring, I was filled with a sickening suspicion that I’d glimpsed the eye of a new storm. And it was right above my head.

  ‘Hey … you OK?’ Max’s whisper reached through my haze.

  Impulsively I reached up and hugged him. He froze for a second, still not quite sure if he was ready to let our recent conflict go, and then he wrapped me up in the tightest, warmest embrace.

  Somatic-cell nuclear transfer.

  The words blew around my head like poppy seeds on a breeze. They hadn’t meant much until I’d looked into the tank, and seen the tiny curled-up semi-gelatinous creature, still attached to an umbilical cord. And then the scientific words had slowly drained of their mystery. There had been a clipboard hanging next to it, filled with notes and ticks and scribbles. But the topmost line had been clear enough.

  Voynich Genome Trial A: Gene characteristic isolated: Independent choice 2209 01/12

  Pantheon had progressed from a vaccine that suppressed free will, to identifying and removing the gene altogether. And the most frightening part of all had been the endless rows of identical tanks stretching as far as the eye could see – in a room that looked nearly the size of Arafel.

  August’s words echoed through my head: ‘My original DNA was enhanced with Octavia’s signature coding – plus a little cocktail of two-thousand-year-old Roman DNA – and non vos! A new Equite was born.’

  But this wasn’t as simple as enhancing existing DNA. This was creating whole new underclass designed to do just one thing: Cassius’s bidding.

  I closed my eyes. If Cassius was capable of producing an ever-ready army of obedient Prolets, their lives would bear even less value than they did already.

  Max’s arms tightened, the implications of what we’d just seen beginning to register.

  ‘I don’t need to know the science to understand the aim,’ he muttered into my hair. ‘We’ll find Aelia and put a stop to this. Once and for all.’

  Rajid cleared his throat pointedly. ‘Touching though this moment is, we need to move. These tunnels are checked periodically, and Ludi is our last chance to rescue Aelia.’

  ***

  We waited in Rajid’s depressing cell until he said it was time. Sliding down on the threadbare blanket, I tried not to stare suspiciously at the eccentric man who’d somehow managed to evade the entire Pantheonite guard, while the rest of his hard-working population had been incarcerated.

  ‘Just what is it that makes you so special?’

  His words still haunted me, and I longed to demand what he meant, but it was impossible with Max around.

  Rajid withdrew his white-handled curved blade from a dirty old waistcoat, and began sharpening it on a small piece of quartz. The sound was both unnerving and comforting, reminding me a little of the sound of the treehouse building in Arafel. Only in Arafel, there were always so many other more familiar village noises too: builders hammering, chickens clucking, lemurs calling to one another and the forest, always whispering.

  Here though, it was the only sound in a small space, and it reverberated around the room like a saw.

  ‘Why didn’t you just tell us?’ Max quizzed angrily. ‘Why go to all the effort of actually taking us to the laboratories?’

  ‘Would you have believed it … just so?’ Rajid returned, his head crooked to one side.

  He had a point.

  ‘How could such a thing even be possible?’ I asked after a beat. ‘Surely genetics relates to physical characteristics, not will or choice.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ he responded, not even looking up from his rhythmic paring. ‘Genetic research has linked genes with key behaviours for many years. The first trials were with Prolet animal species, with varying degrees of success. But the genetic modifications hinder speech as well as free will, which made testing difficult.’

  My thoughts flew to gentle, kind Pan and I knew in a breath he was one of those same creatures, born to fulfil a duty to Pantheon. No wonder he’d always appeared so bound and faithful to Lake, Pantheon had created him without a will of his own to choose.

  What effort had it taken for him to accompany Lake in the escape from Pantheon?

  And his sacrifice in Isca Prolet – had it been a final act of servitude or an escape? An uncomfortable silence descended.

  ‘Why do you carry the mark of the Cerberus?’ I ventured after a few minutes, watching his blade glint every time he ran it against the
stone.

  ‘Cerberus is the Hound of Hades, the offspring of two monsters,’ he returned slowly. ‘He watches at the gates, neither in nor out of Hades. And he guards with eyes that flash, like sparks from a blacksmith’s forge. All who pass into Hades are welcome, but those who try to escape, Cerberus tears limb from limb.’

  I stared as Rajid continued sharpening his blade, waiting for some kind of conclusion. There was none. Max raised his eyebrows.

  ‘A friendly critter then,’ he muttered, after a beat.

  Chapter 13

  ‘And now we take one of these,’ Rajid instructed, as though we were learning to weave our first willow ladder.

  He pressed a filthy yellow jar, suspended on a piece of thin string, into my hand. I swallowed as the creatures inside shuffled around, but I was grateful. It was substantially later, and every now and then a faint roar reached through the walls.

  It was quietly terrifying.

  ‘Ludi,’ Rajid pronounced, as though it was the answer to life itself.

  ‘OK, which means what exactly?’ Max asked with a deep breath.

  Rajid threw him a look of disdain. ‘Ludi Pantheonares, like the infamous Ludi Apollinares. Held by the ancients in honour of the God Apollo!’

  Rajid stepped up closer to Max, his face a curious mix of revulsion and excitement.

  ‘The legend claims that during their first celebratory Ludi Games, the Romans were invaded. They took up their arms, released a deadly barrage of arrows upon their enemy, and then returned, victorious and undeterred, to their sport.’

  I couldn’t tell whether Rajid was intending to horrify or entertain.

  Max scowled, holding his lantern up high so we could inspect the exit tunnel.

  ‘Which only proves,’ he scathed, ‘that the Romans were a barbaric lot I wouldn’t share my breakfast with any day of the week!’

  I held my tongue. He was talking about one Roman in particular, of course. And I didn’t know what I thought of him any more. Except he’d deserted everyone when they needed him most.

  I forced myself across the dirt floor to the ventilation chimney and gazed upwards. My nerve evaporated instantly. It was endless. Max levelled a look of real concern in my direction, but there wasn’t time for discussion. The plan was an ambush when Aelia was brought out of the Flavium dungeons. And the best observation point, Rajid swore, was only accessible via the tunnel.