As I reached the bottom I stood and brushed myself off. I found Ellie and the other two staring at me.
“What?” I said, unable to think of anything else.
The Indian woman smiled and applauded softly while Ellie and Tier Hill showed little reaction.
“Ready?” Ellie said.
Without waiting for a response, she grabbed the ring in the door and pulled.
And with that the spider legs sprang from her back, poking through Blanky without disturbing it or the myriad black crawly things that hid beneath it. Hill recoiled and Hari sprang back, nearly tripping as she cried out.
“Holy fucking hell!” She backed almost to the steps. “What? What?”
I had seen those legs before but still wasn’t used to them. I’d never get used to them.
The door swung outward, but this time no wall of stone blocked the way. Instead it opened onto a wide, dark hallway lit by flaming sconces similar to the stairwell.
Hill leaped forward and peered through, saying, “How’s this possible?”
“Told you I could open it,” Ellie said with a smirk. “You need to believe me next time.” As she spoke her spider legs retracted. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
She stepped through the doorway. Hill took a step after her, then stopped. I couldn’t blame him. Who’d want to be alone with her? That left it to me. I was about to fall in line when Hari grabbed my arm.
“I’m not crazy, am I? You saw that right?” I couldn’t help the tears that sprang into my eyes. She spotted them and nodded. “Oh, yeah. You have. What…how…?”
I swallowed and pointed through the door. “If there is an explanation, I don’t think it will be rational, but I’ve a feeling we’re headed toward a big part of it right now.”
“But where did those…legs come from? And where did they go?”
“She says they’re tucked away elsewhere. Don’t ask me what that means.”
I stepped through the door and Hari followed close behind. Hill brought up the rear.
We entered a high-ceilinged hallway dimly lit by flames flickering in small, widely spaced sconces. It spanned maybe fifty feet wide. Darkness swallowed whatever lay above us, but I could see doors set in the walls. So many doors, all made of riveted steel like the one at the entrance.
Hari gestured to Hill’s heavy key ring. “I guess we know what all those are for now. Where do the doors go?”
He shook his head. “No idea. I’ve never been in here. Burbank didn’t mention them in his notes. I don’t know if he ever got this far.” He held out the keyring. “Want to open one and see?”
I almost laughed at Hari’s shocked expression as she said, “Do I look stupid to you? Or crazy? If you notice, they all have locks. I will trust that they’re locked for a good reason and leave them that way.”
“They all seem to be labeled,” I said, squinting at the weird symbols top center on each door. “But in what language?”
“Don’t know,” Hill said, flipping through his keys. “But I’ve got matching symbols here.”
The walls and floor of the stairway chamber behind us had been smooth, almost polished. Less effort had been expended on this passage. Everything looked roughhewn, and I imagined the unseen ceiling to be no different. Perhaps even rougher since the floor was littered with chunks of fallen rock. I stepped carefully.
After walking perhaps a thousand feet we found our way blocked by a massive stone wall that had a Gibraltar feel to it. Part of the Manhattan bedrock, the schist. A steel door identical to the one that had admitted us was set in its base. Ellie, who’d reached it first, tugged on its ring but it wouldn’t budge.
“I’m not sure which key,” Hill said as we reached her.
“Try the same one as before,” I said.
He did and the latch thunked. He pulled on the ring and the door swung open to reveal a large round chamber lit by the same flickering sconces that had illuminated our way since we’d stepped out of the elevator. A round, tapering structure squatted at the center, dominating the space.
Years ago I’d taken the girls on a tour of Hoover Dam that included the generator room where we’d stared in wonder at the huge turbines. This resembled one of those, only smaller. Its design had an Art Deco feel and looked…ceramic.
“This is it,” Ellie said in a flat tone. “The Prime Frequency generator.”
I stared at the thing and hated it.
I said, “This is what made you sick and burned you and put you in a coma? This is what changed you?”
She nodded. “As I said, wrong place, wrong time.”
I looked up toward an arched ceiling. “Then that means we’re directly under the center of the Sheep Meadow.”
“Not necessarily,” Ellie said. “Like my hidey hole, this chamber bends the rules of physics and geometry. It occupies its own space, one that’s not always where it seems to be. When it emits its signal, it’s under the Sheep Meadow. At other times, like now, it’s…elsewhere.”
Hill said, “I’m having a problem getting my head around that.” He looked at Hari. “You?”
“Yesterday morning I’d have been right beside you on the confusion boat. But after where I spent last night, no, it’s fine. Nooooo problem.”
Which seemed an odd thing to say. But I couldn’t let it distract me. I needed to know more about this thing.
“Who built it?” I said.
Hill shrugged. “Burbank told me the signals started in 1941, but according to his notes, the stairway and probably the tunnel were here when the Allard’s foundation was dug.”
I couldn’t stay in the same space as this thing. I walked back out into the passage and burst into tears. I wanted—needed—someone to blame. This big, gleaming, soulless inanimate object wasn’t filling the bill. I kicked one of the fist-sized stones littering the floor and sent it flying, wincing at the pain in my foot. I kicked another. More pain. I deserved it for letting
