The Moscow Meeting

As I sink through the water inside the air shaft, all I can think about is how cold I am, how my muscles won’t do what I tell them to, how hopeless I feel. Without any light, I’m in total blackness. I can’t turn around in the cramped space, so I have to keep going down, back into the flooded chamber where Sauer’s body is. Then I have two choices: I can either come back up the shaft, or I can go back into the elevator and climb up the cable again. Neither one seems possible. I barely made it up the elevator cable the last time. Now my body is even more worn out and damaged.

To make things worse, the only thing waiting for me if I do manage to get out is a whole bunch of problems. My brother is dead. The weapon I worked so hard to find is gone. The thought of going home and telling my council that I failed my assignment, and that the Minoans now have the weapon, is horrible. Even worse is the idea of telling my mother that Jackson didn’t actually die in the war, but that now he’s dead, and it’s because I couldn’t save him.

Then there’s Ariadne. I don’t want to believe that she betrayed me, that she played me like a fool in order to get her hands on the weapon. And part of me doesn’t believe that she did. She could easily have killed me, or let her sister kill me, but she didn’t. Why? I’m no longer any use to her. She doesn’t need me. Any good Player would have used the opportunity to take me out. And Ariadne is an excellent Player. So why am I still alive? Why did she give me a chance?

Maybe, I think, she doesn’t believe I can make it out. Maybe she’s hoping the freezing water and the darkness will do what she couldn’t bring herself to do.

And she might be right. I can feel myself growing more and more exhausted. It would be easy to just close my eyes and wait for the air in my lungs to run out. I can practically hear the cold whispering in my ear, telling me to give up. It would be so easy.

I feel myself pass through the bottom of the shaft and into the chamber where, somewhere, Sauer’s body still floats. I can’t see anything, can’t even really orient myself to know which way to go. The explosion caused by the grenade Ariadne dropped down the shaft has filled the room with pieces of debris, which further confuses me, as things keep bumping against my body. And I’m running out of time.

I feel my thoughts slowing down. Instead of thinking clearly and quickly, making decisions, I’m lost in a fog, following one idea for a short time and then stopping. The darkness is closing in. All I want is to go to sleep and wake up somewhere else.

Then the voice of Fawn Flowers, my harshest trainer, cuts through the darkness. “The human body has limits,” she says, and I instantly picture her standing over me as I lie in the mud. It’s sleeting, I’m soaked through, and I’m completely worn out after running for what seems like a thousand miles through a snowstorm. My feet are covered in blisters that tear and burn with every step, my hair is frozen into icicles that sting my eyes, and now she tells me I have to turn around and run all the way back the way I came.

Fawn doesn’t help me. She just stands there, scowling as she lectures me. “No matter how strong a body is, it can become too damaged to work. But sometimes the mind can push us past those limits. If you ever get into a situation where you think you can’t physically go on, think about the person you love most in the world. Think about how you need to get from where you are to where that person is. Don’t think about how tired you are, or how much you hurt, or how impossible it seems. Just think about that person and start moving.”

That day, I thought about my mother. I pictured her waiting for me back at our house. I thought about never seeing her again. Then I imagined the look on her face when I came through the door. I kept that image in my head as I forced myself to get to my knees, then to my feet. I kept my mother’s face in front of me as I stumbled a few feet, then as I began to walk. I kept telling myself that she was so close. When my blistered feet screamed for me to stop, I ignored them. When I slipped in the snow and fell, I shut my eyes and saw my mother smiling at me, telling me how much she loved me, and I got up again.

I ran the whole way home like that, one step at a time. And when I finally did reach our front door, I went inside and collapsed in my mother’s arms. Even though my body was wrecked, I’d never felt so happy.

I think about her now. I see her face, looking at me with that expression she has that means she’s worried but doesn’t want to let me know. I can tell she wants me to come home. I try to move my arms and legs, to move toward her, but I feel so heavy. I’m being dragged down into the black water, and my mother’s face starts to fade away.

Then something unexpected happens—I’m looking at Ariadne. She’s standing in front of me just like she was a few minutes ago. Her eyes are locked on mine, and without saying a word, I know she’s asking me to trust her. And I do. I know I shouldn’t. Every Player instinct I have is screaming at me to fight her and her sister, even though I have almost no chance of winning. Instead I look into her eyes and know that I’m here now because she cares about me, that she sent me back into the cold and the dark because it was the only chance she had of saving me.

Suddenly I want more than anything to be with her again. She and Cassandra are probably on their way out of the museum already. I don’t know where they’re going, or how I’ll find them. I only know that I have to try.

At the other end of the room is the elevator and the shaft leading up to an office. But I don’t think I can climb back up the elevator cable again. In the room above me are my clothes, and getting back into them is my best chance of surviving. If I can get back up the air shaft.

First I have to find the opening. I swim up until my outstretched hand touches the ceiling tile. Fortunately, I haven’t moved too far away from where I entered the room, and a few moments later I find the edge of the shaft opening. I swim into it and kick as hard as I can, which isn’t very hard at all. Still, I move up, and every inch brings me closer to air. I keep Ariadne’s face in my mind and keep going.

When my head breaks the surface of the water, I gasp in air. My burning lungs expand, and the pounding in my head and chest calms. But I’m not safe yet. Far from it. I still have to get up the rest of the shaft and into the cellar. The longer I stay in the water, the harder it will be, so although it seems impossible, I set my back against the cold metal wall of the shaft, force my knees up until my feet are pressed against the other side, and slide upward one agonizing inch at a time.

The entire time I’m working my way up the shaft, Ariadne is there in my head, urging me on. I never take my eyes from hers, and this is the only thing that keeps me going. Even then, there are a couple of times when I don’t think I can go any farther. That’s when her voice fills my head, telling me not to give up. For her, I don’t. For her, I keep going even though I can no longer feel anything in my fingers or toes.

Then I’m at the end. It takes everything I have left to reach up and pull myself over the edge of the shaft and onto the floor. I crawl to the pile of my clothes and pull them on with fingers I can see now are torn and bloody from clawing at the walls of the air shaft. When I manage to get my coat on, I start to feel just the tiniest bit more alive. I have on clothes. I’ve survived. And I have a purpose.

I stagger up the steps and through the halls of the museum. Outside, dawn is still some time away, and the world is gray and still. I find my way back to the car and try not to think about my brother’s body in the trunk as I get in and start the engine. I turn the heater up as high as it will go and wait for the air to warm up. When my hands are working well enough to operate the shifter, I put the car in gear and drive back to the apartment we’ve borrowed from Lottie’s acquaintance Anaïs—where, I hope, Lottie is still waiting.

She is. When I come in, stumbling, she runs over and helps me into the bathroom.

She starts the water flowing into the bathtub, then helps me take off my clothes, as my fingers still aren’t working quite right. When I’m down to just my boxer shorts, she helps me into the tub. I sink down until only my head is above the water, letting my frozen body thaw. Lottie perches on the toilet, watching me.

“I’m not going to drown,” I promise her, trying to lighten the mood.

“What happened?” she asks. “Where’s the girl?”

“We found the weapon,” I say. “Well, parts of it. And some plans.”

Her face brightens for a moment, and she opens her mouth to speak.

“But there were complications. One complication, anyway. A big one.”

I tell her everything: about Cassandra, and about my trip back down the air shaft into the flooded chamber. Her eyes widen with each new detail. When I’m done, she says, “So the weapon is lost. The Minoans have it.”

“For now,” I say.

“You’re going to go after them?”

I nod. “That’s my plan.”

“How will you even find them?” she asks. “And if you do, how will you get the weapon back? Once they have it, surely they’ll keep it protected.”

“Of course they will,” I say. “As for finding them, I have some ideas.”

Lottie shakes her head. “I hope you have a secret weapon.”

I picture Ariadne. “I think I might,” I say.

She sighs. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Never better.”

She stands up. “I’ll go make something to eat, then.”

She leaves, and I close my eyes. The truth is, I’m still cold. I feel like I’ll never truly be warm again. But I’m alive. The water feels great, but I know I can’t stay here long. There is a lot to be done, and with every second that passes, Ariadne and Cassandra are getting farther and farther away. I need to go after them, and soon.

There’s a knock on the door. Lottie opens it and steps inside. She’s holding a small stack of folded clothes, which she sets on a chair. “Apparently, Anaïs has a gentleman friend,” she says. “I found these in one of the dressers.” She bends to retrieve my pile of wet things. “I’ll hang these up to dry.”

I stay in the bathtub until the water begins to cool, then get out and dry myself with one of the towels. I dress in the clothes Lottie has found. They’re a little big for me, but they’re warm. When I’m dressed, I go out into the other room. Lottie is in the kitchen, stirring something in a pan on the stove.

“There were tins of soup in the cupboard,” she says as she dips a spoon into the pot.

“I’m starting to feel like Goldilocks,” I say as I take a seat at the table. “I wonder what Anaïs will think when she comes home and finds people have been sleeping in her bed, wearing the clothes in her dresser, and eating her food.”

I take a bite of the soup. It’s made with beef, hearty and thick, and I eat half the bowl before I say another word. Lottie sits down across from me and waits. I can tell she’s anxious to hear why I’ve returned alone, but she doesn’t rush me. When I’m done, I push the bowl away. “We need to talk about what happens next,” I say. “Do you and Bernard have somewhere safe to go?”

“Safe?” Lottie says. “Safe from whom?”

“Too many people know about the weapon,” I remind her. I think about Jackson’s body lying in the trunk of the car. She can’t have forgotten what happened. “If someone thinks you know anything about where it is, they might try to harm you.”

Lottie’s face hardens, and I know she’s now thinking about Jackson as well. “There are places where we will be safe,” she says stonily. “And where we can bury Jackson.”

“Where?”

She looks like she doesn’t want to tell me. “In France,” she says.

“I’ll need to know where you are,” I say. “In case I need your help.”