“Yeah, I’d say they’re back. And in pretty good shape, too,” I say grimly. “Training secret agents in Switzerland and doing … whatever’s going on here.”
I take the flashlight from Ixchel and offer my hand.
“Come on. We’ve got to finish this. We’ve got to find out what they’re doing here. We don’t even know how to open the outside door. We’re already trapped.”
We jog back through the tunnel. It always slopes down, heading deep under Becan. Long past the point where we last saw Martineau and the professor, we come to a fork in the tunnel. We pick the left tunnel and continue. Then, from somewhere up ahead we see light and hear voices. I switch off the flashlight. Behind a gap in the rock, several figures are moving.
There are more voices this time, not just the two we heard on the way down. This time, they sound muffled, as if coming through filters or a mask. I just about recognize Martineau and the professor. Then, unmistakably, I hear the voice of Simon Madison rising above them.
“No, no, no, that’s not how it works. The codex says something like, ‘In liquid form the Key is highly unstable … must be used within sixty minutes.’”
The professor says tartly, “Yeah … I remember the instructions, Simon.”
“But if you’re using the liquid form of the Key after it’s been frozen, it isn’t fresh … it’s not going to work.”
The professor sounds smug and confident. “We’ve modeled the experiment with a bio-sensor. Fresh or thawed—there’s hardly a difference.”
“Bio-sensor—are you serious?!” Madison’s voice rises to a shout. “A bio-sensor is fine for working things out in the nice, perfect environment of a lab. But things could be totally different here. We’re working completely in the dark! We should stick to the damn instructions.”
Now it’s the professor’s turn to shout. Except she doesn’t just sound loud and angry when she shouts—she sounds dangerous. I don’t quite understand what, but something is clearly going wrong with their experiment.
“Did y’all see a high-tech production facility anywhere around here? No, sir! If you want this to work, then it’s gonna have to be frozen. Now, Simon, apply the Key to the Adapter. Stop wasting my time.”
Marius interrupts in a mild yet firm way. “Perhaps you’d explain your objection to Simon’s objection, my dear professor? After all, it seems like he knows what he’s talking about …”
She rips into him. “Oh, well, pardon me, suddenly I’m surrounded by experts …”
Madison is still angry. “A frozen Key is not gonna work!”
The woman remarks, “The codex does say that the Key should be fresh. But in the lab we’ve used the liquid form of the Key after freezing, then thawing. It still binds tightly.”
Superpolitely, Marius asks, “‘Binds tightly’ … ?”
The Professor begins to speak very slowly, like a teacher talking to a class. “Well, this Key, see, it sticks to a chemical coating on the surface of the Adapter. The Key changes the chemical coating in some way. Like magic! Yeah—imagine the Key is a magic potion, and we put some onto the Adapter. When the magic potion is on the Adapter, the Adapter can do its job.”
This time Marius sounds frosty. “No need for such a patronizing tone, my dear lady.”
The professor sighs, exasperated, but she keeps going. “We activate the Adapter with a ‘magic potion’—the Key. Then we place the Adapter in the Container, and it activates the Revival Chamber. We think.”
Marius’s lofty tone is back. “My dear, we all know what we’re trying to achieve. I just don’t see why you aren’t taking Simon seriously.”
“Right,” Madison agrees.
With a tone of finality, she says, “Why waste more time arguing? Do the damn experiment.”
Pressed back against the walls of the tunnel, we can hardly see anything of what’s going on. I lean forward for a second and catch a glimpse of six or seven people, all wearing gas masks and protective suits made of a crumpled blue material. Madison, as well as “Marius” and this “Professor,” stand by the entrance to the room.
Ixchel pulls me back against the wall. “Did you understand any of that?” she whispers, baffled.
I’m pretty excited to be more clued in than Ixchel, for once. “Not everything … but this stuff is mentioned in the first pages of the Ix Codex. I think they’re going to try to use the Adapter in the Container. To activate the Revival Chamber—whatever that is. But for this to work, it needs some kind of chemical reaction. Madison thinks that one of the chemicals in their reaction might have deteriorated.”