Timing was everything.
‘We had quite a few meteorites come through here lately,’ the man said, finally rounding the spiral to reach Denton. ‘So many meteorites the last few years, we’re running out of room!’
Denton didn’t want to look up from the unmistakable honeyed crystal of the CM1 meteorite. ‘Yes, the sun’s dark twin slings them through here every cycle,’ he said. ‘Like a cosmic pinball machine.’ He chuckled at his own joke.
The man’s face creased under the lights. ‘The sun’s what?’
‘Ah,’ Denton said. ‘Something I read on the plane.’
He looked around the chamber. Since they’d posted security at both entrances to the chamber, Denton, Czarina and their new friend were the only ones present.
Czarina stood at the bottom of the spiral. For a moment she looked like a fixture on display as she inspected the chamber walls. She peered up at them from under her Cleopatra haircut. He quite liked her deep red lipstick. It matched her ruby leather jacket and cinnamon skin. It wasn’t often operatives wore lipstick. But this was an unusual circumstance.
‘What temperature do you have this room set at?’ Denton said.
‘Sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit,’ the man said. ‘And fifty percent relative humidity.’
Denton nodded. It was extremely likely that this CM1 meteorite had never reached room temperature; only the shell would have heated when crashing through the Earth’s atmosphere. If it had contained the Phoenix virus when landing in the Antarctic, the virus could still be intact and dormant. The very idea sent a shiver of excitement through his fingers as he ran them across the glass.
‘This could be the one,’ he said.
‘Oh dear,’ the man said. ‘Do we need to evacuate the building?’
Denton took a moment to respond. ‘No. Not yet,’ he said. ‘But we’ll have to bring a prelim team in to check it out. There’s no need to concern ourselves yet, but if you’re as cautious a man as I am, you will keep anyone from entering this wing.’
The man nodded. ‘I can do that. It’s a good idea.’
Denton turned to him. ‘That’s a nice suit.’
The man tried to conceal his pleasure as he extended his arms. ‘Oh this, just a Hugo Boss. Tailored, of course.’ His smile faded. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, back at that statue, how did they get the skulls that big?’
‘Maybe she was born with it, maybe it was Maybelline,’ Denton said.
The man blinked and, at a loss for words, left Denton alone with the meteorite and Czarina. Denton waited for him to completely disappear before turning to Czarina. She hadn’t moved since he arrived; her attention diffused across the chamber.
‘Can you do it?’ Denton said.
Czarina gave a single nod. ‘We’ll need a large amount,’ she said. ‘A very large amount.’
‘The explosives under Grand Central should do it,’ Denton said. ‘Don’t use it all though.’
‘Shall I bring in the cosmochemists?’ Czarina said.
Denton returned the nod. ‘Have everyone else stand by,’ he said. ‘If this is it, we have to do it right.’
Czarina turned and walked out of the chamber, leaving him alone with the meteorite.
He touched the glass that surrounded the meteorite. ‘Perfection.’
Chapter 11
Giant colorful feathers brushed Sophia’s face as a line of drummers shuffled past her. Thanks to Aviary, Sophia was in the center of a colorful stampede of dancers, faces half-painted as sugar skulls, colors from dresses and suits swirling into her vision.
Sophia stood near East Harlem at the corner of Central Park, shoved enthusiastically forward by Aviary into Dia De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead festival. Percussion and the chirp of woodwind instruments guided the costumed through a progression of traditional Aztec and folkloric Mexican dances.
Sophia stepped aside to avoid a woman in a cream corset decorated with large fiery marigolds. Her face made Sophia flinch, — it was painted sparingly with delicate black lines. Large circles around her eyes were shaded in violet and dotted with multicolored jewels that glinted in the setting sun. Skeleton teeth were painted over her lips and dark daggers across her nose.
She felt Aviary’s hand on her shoulder. ‘Keep going.’
Sophia checked her iPhone. There were no pulsing dots. She zoomed out and still found no dots. Not even in Newark. She seized Aviary by her arm.
‘They’re gone,’ Sophia said.
Aviary took her phone and thumbed the control center. ‘It’s dropped out. Give it a few seconds.’
Sophia nodded and took the phone back.
They passed a boathouse on their right, beside a lake. She noticed their path was flanked by makeshift altars covered in cloth and decorated with fruit, candles, wild marigolds and other flowers. Aviary pointed to the edge of an altar as they passed and Sophia noticed packs of cigarettes, shots of alcohol, bottles of water, soda and even hot cocoa.
‘For the weary spirits, when they arrive,’ Aviary said, adjusting the ruck on her shoulders. Although she hadn’t said anything, it looked like she’d purchased the same ruck Sophia carried.
‘Remind me why I’m here again,’ Sophia said.
‘Because I want to eat food and drink alcohol,’ Aviary said. ‘And by extension you will also eat food and drink alcohol.’
Sophia continued with the flow. People in stilts loomed over her, faces painted entirely as skulls: white with black around the eyes, nose and mouth. Men dressed as women and women dressed as men, other mourners dressed as skeletons and still others as demons.
The altars changed. These were decorated with candy and toys. Tiny white skulls covered in colorful icing, ornaments and bejeweled eyes. Aviary called them sugar skulls; they had large ones for adults and little ones for children. They each represented a departed soul. Aviary quickly added that you’re not supposed to eat them, not that Sophia was planning to.
Tables offered food people were actually eating, however. Mounds of fruit, peanuts, plates of chicken mole — the smell was strong and reminded her she hadn’t eaten since the morning. There were also tortillas and some sort of large bread Aviary called pan de muerto.
As the sun began to set over New York, they passed a collection of grave markers. The markers looked like miniature houses painted in lavender, blue, a pale yellow and some in pink. All were lit with candles inside.
Soon they reached Aviary’s friends, although it was hard to recognize the four jaguar knights through their makeup and costumes. She had to suppress a laugh at the four rigid-framed knights, ex-Force Recon marines, as they curtsied for her. Like most of the attendees at the festival, their faces were half painted as skulls. But what she found most delightful was they were dressed — rather elegantly, she thought — as women, each wearing an adorable white dress and wielding not a carbine but a white lace parasol. The three Hispanic knights looked completely unfazed while the fourth, an African American knight she recognized from their operation in Denver, seemed fractionally self-conscious.
‘That’s an interesting costume,’ she said to him.
‘Yeah,’ he said, twirling his parasol. ‘But you know what? It’s kind of liberating.’
‘Shots!’ one of the knights yelled, spiraling into the group with a cluster of tall shot glasses.
Sophia found herself cradling a glass — or plastic as it turned out — as the knights cheered, yelled, ‘To the dead, salut!’ and emptied their glasses — delicately so as not to smear their face makeup.
She watched them drop into the procession, dancing like lunatics. Aviary raised her glass to Sophia and drank half of hers. It didn’t look pleasant because the redhead winced afterward.