76°00'08.2"S 53°43'31.2"E - Nuevo Trujillo, Spanish Antarctic Colonies

  26.05.2024 18:30, UTC+03:00

  A tower of glass floors and windows, covered in ink and history. This was the place. It was fitting for her and our rendezvous. Century-old documents and carpets lined the walls of the Museo de Historia Escrita. Scribed history.

  I had never visited this place or any such place before. Growing up in Santiago, tutored in the Royal court and outside of any regular school system, I guess no one cared to show me museums. I lived within the heart of Royal heritage; I needed no reminder of their history.

  “Centuries ago, this was all they could do to preserve memory,” I said. I read a plaque next to a long carpet covered with Spanish and another unknown script. “I guess it is ironic that this is the place you would choose.”

  IRONIC OR FITTING?

  The words appeared in front of me. At the corner of my eye, I could see her. She was approaching me. Was it because I had finally figured things out?

  “Fitting. You are right. Like a key. I am now sure you are the key, Catalina, but I don’t know what you unlock,” I said.

  A FAILSAFE. THE PLAN IF ALL OTHER PLANS FAIL.

  I turned around. She was there. I knew she was dead, but she was there. A grey figure walking among the tourist crowd.

  “What plans have failed?”

  LONDON FAILED. THEN THE BREACH HAPPENED.

  Pencil-drawn words appeared in the space around me, projected by Catalina’s lingering Curse. She was still in my mind.

  WE HAD TO HURRY. BUT THE BLACKOUT KILLED ALL COMMS. WE WERE ALONE. I WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE THE FAILSAFE.

  “Do we have to do this by passing notes? Isn’t there a faster way we can talk?”

  “If you promise not to freak out around people. Only you can see me. I needed a moment to take in the ink.”

  I turned around. She was there, standing behind me. A two-dimensional living drawing, a shifting shadow of Catalina. Her voice sounded like pencils scratching on paper, but it was real.

  Well, she was real to me. Not for everyone else. I decided to turn and face the wall lined with the inscriptions, pretending I was absorbed by the exhibition.

  “How do you exist?” I asked.

  “I left an imprint in your mind as a failsafe for the Adios protocol. Azura planned that when the Blackout happened. I will not last forever, but just enough.”

  “So, you were a traitor too?” I asked. She did not respond. “Catalina?”

  “I cannot decide. Maybe I was. But that will not matter much. Our interests are aligned for the moment.”

  “I cannot work with traitors,” I said, and I meant it. My oath was to the Royal family. I would not taint it just to solve a mystery. Catalina worked for my team, yes, but if she was so stupid as to align herself with terrorists, I would not follow her to her folly. Unless…

  “Then your Prince and Queen will die a horrible death.”

  “Is that meant to be a threat?”

  She chuckled.

  “I am dead. I cannot threaten. But remember. I know what is written for him, but the ink is still fresh. You can erase it.”

  “How are they going to die? Who are you working for?”

  “I was working for Plata. A branch of Escapadas that had infiltrated the Trastamara Agency.”

  Escapadas? Plata? Was that what these traitors called themselves? I remembered, during the battle, they had shouted “Bermellon”. Color-code names, then.

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  “And why do you want to kill the Queen?” I asked.

  “I told you. I want to help you save her. Without her, Azura’s plan will not work.”

  Could I trust her? I turned to my left and looked at the two-dimensional scribble that she had reduced herself to. Just to speak to me. Her hair looked frozen in a momentary frame, her face was poorly drawn with exaggerated features, perhaps exactly as she could see herself, her flaws and her pain magnified.

  No, I could not trust her. She was a Cursed fragment of my imagination, led by rebel motives. Perhaps I could not even trust the memories she had unlocked for me, no matter how much they made sense. But I had decided it was worth my time.

  “Okay, I am listening.”

  She nodded, and we started walking slowly through the corridors of the Museo.

  “First, we need to retrieve Weaver’s Token. When the Blackout happened, Azura staged my death and made sure I was sent to find it. This way, she thought I could still complete the mission even if all of the Plata were caught.

  “I had her unredacted report, so I can fill in the blanks in Ricardo’s material you have. My trail had led me to her training grounds in the Nuevo Trujillo T-Academy quite fast. But their vaults were empty. No sign of the Token.

  I believed there was no hope. That someone else had gotten to it first. So, three days ago, I met Azura. We were here, in the Museo…” Her voice trailed. I wondered how painful it would be to stand where she and her were once alive. I had trouble not feeling pity for her.

  “So, the Escapadas caused the Blackout to search for this Token?”

  “No, no. I have no idea what caused it yet. But it was our only chance, while systems were down across the city.”

  “Okay. So, you still have no idea where that Token is, and you need me to find it.”

  “I have an idea. And with it, you can save your Prince,” she said.

  “But not if I hand it to Ricardo, Sagrado Padre, or Se?ora Maria, right?”

  “We will get there when we get there,” she said.

  “I see,” I said, for the first time, actually speaking the words. For the past fifteen minutes, we were talking only telepathically. I knew anything I said and did would be surveilled. Azura was indeed smart. She had paired two psychic Curses, waiting for the moment they would be useful to her. Impossible to intercept or stop them from working together.

  A soothsayer and a doomdrawer. What was left of her, at least.

  I walked to the edge of the corridor, now closer to the glass walls of the Museo, letting the glass-filtered sunshine bathe in the rooms covered with scriptures. I pulled out the touchpad with the reports. I read again through the files, but now, where redacted messages or black boxes would hide the words behind, Catalina’s pencil drawings would come in and project the hidden words. Adding meaning and further information, creating a unique report, only for my eyes.

  The events of the last week now made sense. Azura’s plan and faith to me, even unclear to Catalina, was now clear to me.

  Elena. Remember your duty to the Royal family, but also remember your duty to yourself.

  These were her words. I trusted them then, but not anymore. She was only preparing me to play the role she wanted at the right time.

  “I am sorry to report to you, Catalina, that Azura had made a fool of both you and me. If I am right,” I said, but she had now disappeared. Not permanently, I knew she was lurking somewhere, imprinted in the back of my mind. But retreated, not to listen to what I had to say. Perhaps she had already figured out the same thing.

  “Good. This was easier than I thought,” I said, now out loud. I clicked on my earpiece, changing it to an operating frequency, directly connected to where I needed it.

  “T4-Palmira. Do you copy?” I waited a few seconds. “T4-Palmira, T4-Zhang, do you copy. I need a direct report to T2-Ricardo.”

  “Yes, I copy,” T4-Palmira’s voice was on the channel. She sounded exhausted, if not irritated.

  “Pass a request for a four-person strike team. And three support teams in the periphery of the Plaza de Armas. Do not evacuate civilians unless I give the command. Do you copy?”

  “Yes, T3-Elena. T2-Ricardo has pre-approved any requests you would make,” Palmira’s voice trembled. I felt a tinge of surprise – Ricardo had expected that I would move fast. Palmira’s voice begged for explanations, but she did not dare explicitly ask me for them. Besides, my asking for all those resources in the center of the Nuevo Trujillo, she knew something was about to go down. Something I could not explain to her over comms. I could hear her typing on the other side, before she confirmed: “The strike team can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  I gazed into the distance. Plaza de Armas was not far from the Museo, and I could see the marble arches around it, even from afar. I could also see the main train station hosting stops for all the trains connecting Nuevo Trujillo to the other cities of the Spanish Colonies. The Plaza de Armas Station had been locked down for a week now, trapping everyone in Nuevo Trujillo, including me. Azura could have ordered trains to evacuate – or even trains from Santiago to arrive with reinforcements. She did not, citing lockdown protocols. Even Sagrado del Padre had used the aerial route.

  The Transantarctic had been the last train reaching and remaining in the city since then. I was aboard that train when the Breach happened. When the Prince used me to soothe everyone on board and then disappeared.

  “Good, I will meet them there.”

  I was on that train when everything started to go wrong. In a route that Azura had forced me to take.

  I knew that from a distance, it would be impossible for me to see the Transantarctic. But in my mind’s eyes, I saw it waiting on its platform, locked down and waiting for a command to drive back to Santiago. With its precious cargo.