Alyssa Redd's Arc

Chapter 8 of 15

The tablet went dark. The Hollow Man slid it into his coat and turned to the wall behind him. He pressed his palm against the concrete. A seam Alyssa hadn't seen split open, and cold air pushed out. "There's more under us," he said. "Your grandmother didn't just hide a box. She hid a room." Alyssa followed him through the seam. Marla stayed close behind her. The passage sloped down. The bulb above them died and another woke further on, then another, tracking their steps like something had been waiting. The room at the bottom was small and clean. A pedestal stood at the center. On the pedestal sat a squat brass cylinder with glass portholes and a diamond-shaped crystal locked behind the front pane. Beside it lay a star-shaped piece of metal, rusted at the tips, its channels glowing faint pink and green. "Forty years asleep," the Hollow Man said. "It only opens for certain hands. She said one of those hands would be yours." Alyssa picked up the star. It was warm. The channels along its arms brightened where her fingers touched. She looked at the pedestal and saw, without thinking, exactly how it worked: three locks, one key, one current, one voice. "It's built to fail if the wrong person tries," she said. "The whole room burns." "Then don't be wrong," the Hollow Man said. Marla took her free hand. Alyssa slid the star into the slot at the base of the cylinder and turned it. The locks clicked. The crystal behind the glass lit from inside, and a thin voice came out of the brass — a woman's voice, older, tired, unmistakably her grandmother's. "Alyssa. If you're hearing this, you came back. Good girl." Alyssa's throat closed. Marla squeezed her hand. "We're not from Shrumella," the voice said. "We were brought there. Your family worked the shift I circled on that roster. When the records were rewritten, they kept us as proof, in case anyone came looking. You're the one they were afraid of. You always were." The voice cut. The crystal dimmed but did not go out. Light moved inside it like slow water. Alyssa set the star down. Her hand shook once and then stopped. "So I'm not visiting," she said. "I'm from here." "You're from here," the Hollow Man said. A soft chime came from his coat. He pulled the tablet out. On the screen, Agent Chen stood in an alley in a coat too thin for the wind, the case open at his feet. Inside the case, a bright pink core pulsed steady as a heartbeat. "Relay's live," Chen said. Flat. Fast. "Point me." Alyssa looked at the crystal, then at Marla, then at the pink light on the screen. "Point him at me," she said. The channel opened. Somewhere on Shrumella, a woman under blackout was about to hear her name.