My heart seizes, and I glance at Jules. His eyes are waiting for mine, kindling with a tiny flash of hope.
De Luca knows.
Dex looks rather fearful himself. It’s one thing to be found out by a handful of teenagers, and quite another to be the sole captive of the man responsible for the security of the whole continent. “Yes, sir,” he replies. “We’re the descendants of the Centauri settlers, lost in space and time.”
De Luca’s shoulders sag a little and he steps back until he’s got the support of the cell wall at his back.
“You believe us now,” Jules says quietly. There’s anger in his voice, and I can’t blame him. If De Luca had believed us earlier, we wouldn’t be in this position. The world would’ve had time to prepare for the invasion. Maybe they could have even stopped Lyon. But when I look at Jules, his body is rigid with control.
He’s angry, but he’s not going to blow this last chance to win ourselves an ally.
De Luca’s face is troubled, his habitual mask of superiority and disinterest cracking and mixing with fear and confusion. “I don’t know what I believe,” he says slowly. “But I know our researchers have shown that the disease in Lyon has come from an artificially engineered toxin, and that it’s far more sophisticated than anything we’ve seen before. I know that the shuttle we were assembling to send a team of astronauts up to the ship in orbit was sabotaged, using technology our engineers haven’t manage to decode yet. And I know—” His eyes flicker across toward Jules and me. “I knowyoubelieve it.”
It’s not an apology. I don’t think we’ll evergetan apology from a man like De Luca. But he’s changed his mind. And that’s all we need.
“You have to let us out,” I say, trying to keep my voice even and suppress the urgency in my heart.
Both De Luca’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you insane? I have to question you. All of you. If any of what you’ve been saying is true—and,” he admits with reluctance, “clearly some of it is—then the fate of the world rests on what you know.”
Helplessness wants to take over again, but I ball my fists at my sides, summoning strength to speak up to this man with the power to keep us locked up indefinitely. “Maybe if you’d questioned us a few days ago,” I reply. “But we don’t have time for that now.”
Jules nods, adding, “One of the operatives—the girl you had incustody with us in Catalonia—she’s headed for the portal here in Prague as we speak. You’ve got to let us stop her.”
De Luca eyes each of us, clearly taken aback. But either his comeuppance has shattered his composure more than I thought, or he’s morefrightenedthan I thought, because for the first time since we encountered him, he looks uncertain. “You’re asking me to leave the fate of this city, and quite possibly the world, in the hands of a group of teenagers.”
“Believe me,” Jules says wryly, “wetriedto hand off responsibility to the grown-ups half a dozen times. Now, we’ve got no other option.”
“I’ll gather some troops to send with you,” De Luca says finally. “Give me a few hours to put the orders through.”
“We don’t have a couple of hours.” Dex straightens, a hint of impatience in his stance. “And troops will just make her fight. I’ve got to try to talk her down, or a lot of people are going to get hurt.”
De Luca shifts his weight from foot to foot, the reality of the situation contradicting every procedure and rule he knows. “I can’t just let you all go. I can’t just wait to see what happens.”
“You have to.” Jules’s voice is quiet. He’s been quiet since he agreed to do the Addison speech reprise. If De Luca lets us out, we might be able to stop Atlanta and then broadcast the video afterward—the rest of the world has a couple of days, but Prague has hours at best. Jules isn’t off the hook yet. He’ll still have to stand exactly where his father did.
Suddenly, an idea hits me with all the force of a freight train. “You know what you can do?” I interject, talking over the start of De Luca’s reply to Jules. “Put out a statement of support. Tell the world that the IA has changed its stance on the warnings of Dr. Addison. Tell them to listen to his supporters online, and to pay attention to what we’re asking of them, and—and most of all? Tell them to bloody well listen to his son when he goes live after we’ve stopped Atlanta.”
De Luca takes a step back, boot heel thudding against the wall at his back. His gaze flickers between me and Jules, every nuance of his body language screaming discomfort. His jaw tightens, and for a moment I think I’ve blown it—that he’ll lock us up after all, just out of petty vengeance and embarrassment.
But then he lifts a hand and raps on the door at his side. A few moments later, the soldier outside opens it. De Luca steps through and then holds the door out with one arm, eyeing the four of us. “I will.”
I exhale, some of my tension draining away, and sneak a glance back at Jules. He’s watching me, stunned, and when we all move toward the cell door, he steps close to me and whispers, “Thank you.”
De Luca clears his throat, a gesture of hesitation that he’s clearly unused to. “I’ll send backup as soon as I can. Where do you think this Atlanta will be?”
“In the old waterways below the city,” Dex replies, with utter certainty.
“I’m in the uncomfortable position of realizing nobody’s going to believe me any more than I believed you. I’m not sure how quickly I’d be able to get an official force together. But if I can’t help you, I think I know someone who can.”
The underground of Prague is … not what I expected. I’m not sure what I was picturing—something like a sewer system in an American city, or tiny dirty tunnels—but instead it’s like there’s an entire second city below the streets of Prague.
Getting in was easy enough. Getting here was hard. I would have thought running from the police would be far less terrifying than hiding away on an alien spaceship. Instead, every second of our trip through the city was torture. Once we were out on the street again, every siren, every shout, every car that turned unexpectedly or pedestrian who happened to walk our way made mecertain we were about to be attacked, either by the Undying or by IA forces who didn’t know De Luca had changed his mind.
A shriek as we passed a street vendor drew out a tiny, answering yelp from my throat as I whirled around—but the sound came from a child being handed an ice cream cone. With the torrent of pulse-pounding anxiety flooding my system I couldn’t tell the difference between delight and terror.
Once we reached our destination, though, it turned out there were Prague underground tours offered all around the city, and tagging along the end of one—and slipping away at the first opportunity—was child’s play.
Now, as we emerge from a brick-lined tunnel into a vast underground courtyard with vaulted ceilings and intricate stonework, I can’t help but stop short, my mouth open as I stare.
