Bhavin glanced over to Grant. Grant said, “There’s no evidence we can find of Nadar Corporation’s network being compromised, but it’s possible Gail has been able to exceed our ability to detect infiltration. Today was… humbling sir.”
Bhavin said, “Fine then. We stick to quarantined vehicles from now on.”
“Yes, sir,” Axel said. Axel flagged the waiting car with a swipe on his closed-network phone.
They waited in silence for a moment. Bhavin was looking outward, staring at the speckled Los Angeles cityscape basking in the noonday sun. “Gail will have established me as a more significant threat after today,” he said. “I trust you will be watching my back.”
“Of course, sir,” Axel said.
“And we will have to move to phase three.”
“Phase three, sir?” Axel asked.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Bhavin responded, turning to lock eyes with Axel.
“Yes, sir,” Axel responded, and he refrained from asking detailed questions. It would be more prudent to wait until they were out of the building.
For some time afterward, Axel would remember Bhavin’s eyes at that moment. Many men would be ashamed and embarrassed after what had just happened. In every respect the announcement had been an epic failure, and doing the interview had introduced Bhavin to an unconscionable level of risk. Yet, despite the failure, despite the increasing threat, Bhavin didn’t appear disheartened. Rather, Bhavin’s eyes remained infused with an unwavering determination.
A determination that would be extinguished all too soon.
A MORNING WALK
As spring waned in Seeville, so darkened the minty sprouts of new growth into a deeper, more emerald shade of green. The comfortable light breezes had turned heavy, sweeping away the once-numerous Monticello blossoms. It seemed that only the mornings and late evenings made for comfortable outdoor excursions. Today, Flora’s skin was already clammy with perspiration, despite the morning hour.
Perhaps it was her quicker pace, or the fact that her stride harbored more tension. It wasn’t easy chasing this ox of a man around the mountain.
There were no overt signs that Mehta would betray them. He gruffly attended their meetings and contributed to their discussions with skeptical insights. He even helped out in maintaining the estate. But Flora still didn’t know this man well enough to trust him, not after what he’d done to her. Only a short time ago he was party to betraying and torturing her.
It had been several weeks after the incident with Euclid, and most vexing was the fact that Mehta had remained with them at Monticello at all. He was a merc, and merc’s didn’t like to linger, yet here he was. Madison would often ask Flora about him, and the questions would give her pause. Could he still be under contract with the railroad, or even the Essentialists? She had to admit, it was a possibility.
So she watched Mehta carefully. Today she saw him march off the estate at a particularly brisk pace, without giving notice. She felt it best to follow.
She paused behind a thick poplar trunk and watched Mehta skulk over the old stone bridge, then tuck down into the forest to the right. The bridge was at the base of Montalto, the mountain southwest of Monticello. She knew there was an old path nearby that went farther down the mountain into the city, and that it could be accessed from this particular patch of forest.
She took the opportunity to run along the bridge, hunched over, using the elevated stone walls for cover. Then she carefully ran across a cleared area into the forest where she’d seen Mehta enter the thicket.
Immediately inside the wooded area, the path seemed to go cold. Mehta’s footprints faded to nothing.
All of a sudden bulky arms enveloped her, lifting her off the ground. She fought and kicked against her assailant, frivolously trying to break free.
“So it is just you,” she heard a gruff voice behind her ear. “I should’ve known.”
She dropped to her feet, but was unable to establish her balance. As a result, she tumbled awkwardly onto her buttocks. From that compromising altitude she turned back to see Mehta shaking his head.
“How many times will I catch you trying to sneak up behind me? You have the stealth of a mastodon.”
“I… I want to come with you.”
He frowned. “Do you even know where I’m going?”
She thought of trying to guess, but her wits failed her. Instead she just shook her head. He looked at her as one might a petulant child, then sighed and said, “Come on, then.”
They didn’t take the path down the mountain, but rather hiked upward through the forest, scaling the side of Montalto.
After a few minutes of climbing in silence, Mehta said, “it’s not me you should be worrying about. Keep an eye on the Madison woman, or this Owen boy. They shouldn’t be trusted.”
“I’m not keeping an eye on you, or anyone else. I’m here to help,” Flora said.
He looked back at her with a scowl.
They climbed and climbed for another twenty minutes. Flora felt chastened by Mehta’s comments. She decided it would be best not to inquire as to their destination for the time being.
Soon they neared the top of Montalto, where Monty, the great beholder statue of Montalto, stood tall above them. There was also an abandoned old farmhouse not far away. She’d heard these lands had been owned by Euclid’s estate but had been uninhabited for decades. Few had any interest in living in the shadow of the beholder.
Mehta walked cautiously around the mountaintop, staying inside the forest and giving the beholder a wide berth.
The beholder’s prodigious size monopolized the vista, and Flora couldn’t help staring at it. Thick ivy reached up its legs from the ground, as if the giant was wearing green, knee-high boots. Its gray surface could still be seen in a few places, where there were no streaks of bird feces, stray vines, or moss that had found purchase. Its belly was excessively rounded, almost distended, like a man who had overeaten at a great feast. Another oddity was its eyes, or rather lack of them. The sockets were dark with pockets of green growth and dung. Chorus larks rested on the giant’s shoulders and would at times circle it’s head in melodious arcs.
There was a giant statue in the mountains west of Grand Caverns. The disciples called it Clay’s Colossus. “Nourish the soil or become stone,” they would say, citing the old myth about the Colossus’s disruption of the land and its resulting purgatory. Every year there would be a pilgrimage of youths to see it, just as Talon had done only weeks before her departure.
Flora imagined stripping away the moss, ivy, and feces from the beholder in front of her, and she realized there would be a striking resemblance to the Colossus. But the Seeville beholders were supposedly built by the Spoke named Ursula Okafor, and Clay’s Colossus by the Essentialist clansmen Clay Ripplewood. How could they build the same statue? Why would they?
Mehta abruptly cut out across an overgrown field toward the farmhouse. Flora had to run to keep up. He stepped on some fallen timbers of the run-down building and climbed up onto the perforated roof. He lay down on his front and took out a long scope, pointing in the direction of Seeville. Only when Flora realized what he was doing did she climb up the building via the same route.
When she arrived next to him, Mehta was switching between glancing at the scope and taking notes on a note pad.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“The structures they’re building at the observatory and stadium.”
“Why?”
“To see if there’s anything new to report about what they’re building. Also to find weaknesses.”