Chapter 198
"We've been here before, and we'll return."
As Nirma looked at Arya with eyes that no one could read, she knew her partner was thinking the exact same thing: if that circle truly existed on the Mount of Olives, then there was a possibility the kidnapped disciples had not merely passed through those caves, but had also become part of the very same ritual, a ritual that may have been intended to implant Sinta's name into their memories before they, like the companions in Medina, were taken to an unknown place, released back into society with altered memories, or transformed into puppets without wills of their own, puppets who would write hadiths, puppets who would speak words of praise, puppets who would spread Sinta's name like weeds that could never be eradicated.
"And the third location?" Nirma asked.
Her voice emerged from beneath her veil with remarkable clarity, far too clear for a situation that was anything but clear, like the calm surface of a lake concealing a current powerful enough to drown anyone who could not swim, like a composure forced into existence because panic would save no one, and Nirma had learned since childhood that on missions like this, panic was a poison deadlier than the sweet sleeping gas itself, because the gas merely put you to sleep, but panic made you commit mistakes, and mistakes, in the pursuit across time, could never be undone because time, as one of her former commanders had once said, never forgave.
"The underground chambers beneath the ruins of an old temple or ancient house in the Kidron Valley."
Ashita answered, and this time her voice was quieter, almost a whisper, like someone speaking of something she herself struggled to believe, yet could not deny because the evidence was already before her eyes.
"This is the most speculative of the three, because the Kidron Valley is crowded with ruins from countless periods. The remains of temples, houses, and fortresses lie piled upon one another like wounds that have never healed, wounds that reopen every time they are closed because something beneath them refuses to stay still, continues to move, continues to dig, continues to wait.
However, our agents detected a thermal anomaly beneath one of the ancient ruins. The temperature there is noticeably warmer than its surroundings, as though there is activity underground, as though something is breathing, as though someone is still alive inside a chamber that should have remained uninhabited for thousands of years."
Hearing that, Nirma tightened her grip on the clay phone, feeling the rough Göbekli Tepe carvings press against her palm as though she were reading a map left behind by a civilization that had vanished before history itself began to be written, and inside her chest, something stirred in a way she could not name.
It was neither fear nor hope, but the strange sensation that every trace, every clue, every circle of ash, every cloth map, every metal capsule containing long strands of hair, and every message from the old man whose accent could not be identified, all pointed toward a single place, a single point where Sinta might be, where the kidnapped companions might be hidden, or where something far older and far more terrifying than either of them lay sleeping, waiting to be awakened by someone who did not realize that awakening such a being would mean the end of the world for everyone who was unprepared.
"We'll investigate all ten locations immediately," Ashita said from the other end of the connection.
Her voice had grown firmer, more disciplined, like that of a commander who, despite exhaustion, continued to organize her strategy because she understood that doubt, if allowed to grow in the middle of an unfinished mission, would become a poison more lethal than the sweet sleeping gas itself.
Beside Ashita, Nirma could hear Tegar preparing their equipment, the sound of metal striking metal, hurried footsteps echoing across the cold stone streets of Jerusalem, the sounds of preparations to enter ten pits of darkness that might be hiding the seven kidnapped disciples, or might simply be another trap prepared by the Great Abnormal, just like Anas's house, which had turned out not to be the target but an elaborate snare planned over the course of months.
"But we can't go together," Ashita continued.
Her voice broke slightly as the powerful winds of Jerusalem swept past the clay phone, carrying with them the dust of the Judean wilderness, the very same dust the disciples themselves might once have breathed before they fell asleep beneath the gas they had never suspected.
"Tegar will head to the underground chambers of the former Hasmonean Fortress. I'll investigate the cave complex on the Mount of Olives. As for the underground chambers in the Kidron Valley, we'll send the agents we can still trust. There aren't many left, since we abandoned most of them when we chose to defect.
We'll regroup in twelve hours at the same rendezvous point, the abandoned house near the city gate, the one whose owner died in the plague three months ago, the house no one dares approach because death, much like sleeping gas, drives people away instead of drawing them near."
Nirma could only nod, even though she knew Ashita couldn't see it.
Burdened by everything she had just learned, haunted by visions of bottomless portal pits, footprints without big toes, and the voice of the old man whose accent no one could identify, she found no words sufficient to respond except silence, a silence too heavy to be spoken aloud, a silence like a prayer that no longer knew whom it should be offered to because the God she once knew might no longer be listening, might no longer care, or perhaps had died alongside all the civilizations that disappeared before history itself was ever written.
"But remember, Nirma," Ashita's voice suddenly became softer, gentler, yet beneath that gentleness lay something she could not conceal, a tone of warning, of concern, like someone standing at the edge of a cliff whispering to another standing upon the very same precipice.
"A fugitive will always be considered a fugitive. Your status in the eyes of the Temporal Cross-Police hasn't changed simply because you've uncovered these clues, or because you and Arya are trying to rescue the companions and the disciples from the Great Abnormal's grasp.
To us, you're still disturbers of history, enemies who are meant to be captured or eliminated. Your names are already recorded on the wanted list, complete with identification numbers that will never disappear, even if you succeed in saving a thousand Abnormals."
Arya bit his lower lip.
Not because he was angry.
Not because he was afraid.
But because he knew Ashita was right, that all this time they had been walking upon a blade without a hilt, that every step they took to save history and the Abnormals only dragged them deeper into the mire of criminality in the eyes of the law, that there would never be forgiveness for them because within the Temporal Cross-Police, good intentions could never atone for the sin of making unauthorized jumps through time, altering the past without approval, and becoming time travelers whose very existence had never been permitted from the beginning.
"Don't create a historical catastrophe worse than history itself."
To be continued…