He put his arms around her lightly, in part to hide his tense expression. “Don’t worry. I’ll come to visit you very soon to try to increase our family.” He felt a flood of revulsion at the thought and instantly condemned himself for it. He released her and looked directly into her eyes. “For now, just remember what I told you to say if my father asks. You will remember, won’t you?”
She nodded again and wiped her eyes on her apron.
“You’re a good girl, Annabeth.”
Chapter 20 – Underground Intelligence
Cassie gave herself a few days to let her head stop spinning from her dizzying conversation with Maddie. When she felt that her brain had absorbed all the new facts that had bombarded it, she drove back out to the schoolhouse. “A glutton for punishment,” she thought to herself ruefully. She didn’t understand why Faye was pushing her to learn the basics so quickly. Sybil had been given years to understand the Arkana and how the organization worked. Something else was going on here. Something to do with the cowboy and the key, but she didn’t know what. All she knew for sure was that she was taking the crash course version of Pythia 101. She pulled into the clearing and walked up to the schoolhouse door. A familiar face peered around it just as she reached the top step.
Startled, Cassie asked, “Why is it that I never get a chance to knock before you pop out like some jack-in-the-box with a necktie?”
Griffin gave her a slight smile. “We have security cameras monitoring the grounds. I was alerted and came out to meet you.” He opened the door wide. “Please, do come in. Are you ready for your grand tour of the vault today?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said guardedly, remembering Maddie’s warning. “Wait until Griffin gets started.”
He seemed a bit less ill at ease in her presence this time as they walked through the main schoolroom. It was just as quiet and empty as during her previous visit. When they entered the short corridor at the back of the building, Griffin stopped in front of what appeared to be a janitor’s closet. He pulled the door open to reveal another door immediately behind it—a modern steel elevator door. When he swiped a key card into a slot next to the door, Cassie could hear the elevator ascending to meet them.
Reading her surprised expression, Griffin gave her a knowing look. “I would respectfully remind you of the adage about appearances and deception.”
The elevator doors parted, and they walked inside. There were no buttons to push for the floor they wanted. Instead, Cassie saw a keypad on the inside of the door. Griffin punched in a code, and they began to descend.
Nothing could have prepared Cassie for the sight that greeted her when the elevator doors opened again. They were standing in an underground room that was the size of a school auditorium. It was filled with desks—row upon row of desks. They were staffed by people of every nationality, race, gender, and age. Over a hundred of them. Some people were working at computers. Some were consulting books. Others were on the phone engaged in heated discussions with unknown people on the other end of the line.
The ceiling was twenty-five feet above them, glowing with overhead light from some unseen source. Even though they were below ground, it felt like sunlight on Cassie’s skin. She was about to ask Griffin, but he anticipated her question.
“You like our lighting system? It’s quite clever actually. Full-spectrum illumination that mimics the progression and intensity of natural daylight.”
She looked at him skeptically. “You mean you have a sunrise and sunset down here?”
He nodded. “The duration and angle of light is calculated to match the time of year outdoors. It’s brighter on the east side of the room in the morning and on the west side in the evening. Once our artificial sun goes down, people can use their desk lamps, of course, but we also have an artificial moon rise that corresponds to the actual phases of the moon. While our daylight sky is opaque, our night sky is transparent, complete with constellations appropriate to this latitude and longitude at any given time of year. We want to preserve a natural environment as much as possible.”
“Speaking of which…” Cassie pointed to a dog which was lying patiently next to the desk of a middle-aged woman in the front row. On another desk, a cat slept curled up in an out-box. A third desk held a birdcage with a cockatiel inside.
“People are encouraged to bring their pets to work. The more nature we can incorporate into the environment, the better.”
“I guess,” Cassie offered noncommittally as her eyes wandered around the space. There were potted trees in the corners; some nearly reached the ceiling. Waterfalls trickled and splashed beside them.
“Are we still under the school?” she asked.
“Yes, partly. We excavated additional space around it too.”
“There are so many people down here. Why didn’t I see any cars when I drove up?”
“There’s an underground car park on the other side of the building. The ventilation system is state of the art.” Griffin cast a glance toward the multitude of desks in the middle of the room and gave a sigh. “It’s unfortunate our technological innovations haven’t yet extended to the information we collect. You see, we’re still in the throes of converting our paper records to computer format. Some of us are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the information age. I confess that I, myself, am far more comfortable with the printed page.”
Cassie registered surprise. Griffin had to be in his early twenties, but somehow he’d managed to miss the digital bus. When it came to books, he seemed as technophobic as some Luddite in his seventies.
Griffin clapped
