Chapter 197
"We've made progress on our end as well, Nirma. After infiltrating the internal communications of the Temporal Cross-Police agents assigned to monitor the days leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we managed to identify the abduction sites of the seven disciples: Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot.
And there's an interesting pattern. Every one of those locations shares the same characteristics. They are vulnerable places, places where gas could spread without being detected, places where the wind, the smell, and the architecture worked together to conceal every trace."
Nirma nodded even though Ashita couldn't see the gesture, because she had begun to recognize the same pattern herself, the pattern that connected Medina to Jerusalem, the pattern that suggested the Great Abnormal never chose its targets at random, that every house they entered, every gas they released, every portal they opened had been calculated, had been planned, had become part of a symphony that never stopped playing even though no one could hear it anymore, because every audience member had already fallen asleep beneath that sweet-smelling gas.
"We've mapped a total of ten potential locations."
Ashita continued, her voice now faster, more technical, like an agent presenting the results of an intelligence analysis in a briefing room, even though that briefing room existed only in imagination, because in reality she was standing on the outskirts of Jerusalem in 33 AD, her robe still damp with the morning dew that never seemed to arrive.
"But after remapping everything and correlating the wind patterns, the architecture, and the evidence collected from the crime scenes, it all narrowed down to three highly probable locations. Three places where sleeping gas could be released in massive quantities without being detected. Three places where the seven disciples, abducted from seven different locations, may have been brought together before being transferred somewhere unknown."
Nirma felt her fingers tighten around the clay phone, not because she was afraid of dropping it, but because she knew the three locations Ashita was about to mention were the key to the puzzle they had been trying to solve all this time, a key that might lead them to Sinta, or to the kidnapped companions, or perhaps to something entirely different, something they would not like but would have to face because there was no other choice except to move forward or stop and let everything collapse.
Nirma had never learned how to stop, even when her teachers in the past insisted that stopping was part of strategy, that sometimes silence was wiser than movement. Ever since childhood, she had decided that she would keep moving until her legs could no longer carry her, because to her, stopping was the same as dying, and she was not ready to die before discovering who Sinta truly was, why everyone, both in Medina and in Jerusalem, seemed compelled to remember her name, and why the old man with the unidentifiable accent had called Nirma and Arya "walking memories," as though they possessed no identities of their own, only functions, only tools, only blank pages upon which someone had written a message they had never asked to carry.
"The three locations, Ashita," Arya interrupted, his voice calm yet urgent, urgent like someone standing before a locked door, knowing the answer he had sought for so long lay behind it, yet holding no key, only questions. And questions, as a philosopher from an age whose name he had never even heard once said, were the most useless keys if you didn't know how to use them.
"Tell us one by one."
Ashita took a deep breath, long enough for Nirma to imagine the dust swirling around her feet in Jerusalem, long enough for Arya to feel his heartbeat quicken beyond its normal rhythm, long enough for both of them to realize that what was about to leave Ashita's lips was not merely information, but a map leading to the next battlefield, a battlefield from which they might never return because it was neither in Medina nor Jerusalem, but underground, in places the sun had never touched, through corridors no ordinary human foot had ever walked. And when Ashita finally spoke, her voice was flat, flat like a death report, flat like names recited during a funeral, flat like someone who had lost so much that there were no tears left to shed.
"First: the Underground Chambers of the Former Hasmonean Fortress, near the Western Wall. An underground structure dating back to the Hasmonean period and later expanded during Herod's reign. A network of interconnected rooms linked by narrow passageways, with no natural ventilation. Most importantly, it lies beneath an abandoned settlement left deserted after the civil war, meaning no one lives above it, no one would hear if gas were released, and no one would see if the seven disciples were brought inside one by one through secret passages connecting the fortress to seven separate abduction sites."
As soon as she heard that, Nirma pictured the underground chambers: cold, dark, their stone walls thousands of years old, and somewhere in a forgotten corner, perhaps the lingering scent of sweet gas still remained, along with footprints missing their big toes, along with echoes of screams that had never been heard because those mouths had already been silenced by a sleep they had never invited. Within that vision, she felt a chill that came not from the wind blowing through Medina's date palms, but from deep within herself, from the place where she kept every fear she had never allowed to rise to the surface.
"The second location," Ashita continued without pausing, because pauses in reports like these only gave fear time to grow, and fear was an agent's greatest enemy, an enemy that could never be killed with swords, gas, or weapons from the future, because it lived inside, between every heartbeat and every breath, between the belief that you would survive and the certainty that you never truly would, because death, in the end, was the only certainty no one could escape, whether apostle or sculptor, wealthy merchant or an ordinary young man who only wanted to be a good host to his friends.
"The Cave Complex on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. This site is more natural than man-made, limestone caves formed thousands of years ago, with vertical and horizontal passages that remain incompletely mapped even by archaeologists of the twenty-third century. Its advantage is that the Mount of Olives is relatively quiet at night, far from the bustle of the city, and these caves possess natural ventilation that can be controlled. The vents can be opened to release the gas after the operation is complete, or sealed to trap the gas inside if necessary. And there's one more thing, Nirma. According to the data we've gathered, the Temporal Cross-Police agents discovered traces of a ritual at the entrance of one of the caves: a circle of ash and olive oil, exactly the same as the one you found in Sa'd's house."
Arya drew in a sharp breath.
Not because he was surprised, but because it confirmed that the pattern they had been following all along had never been wrong, that the circle of ash and olive oil was not a ritual unique to Medina or Jerusalem, but the signature of the Great Abnormal, the mark they left behind wherever they carried out a major operation, a signature that read.
To be continued…