The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (19 page)

Binny was no expert on architecture,
but intentionally or not, the person who’d designed this deliberate
tangle of buildings and paths had created the most incredible skate
park she had ever seen. She made a mental note to return here with
her skateboard someday. Someday, that is, when she actually had a
working skateboard, she reminded herself.

“
Caleb said they would
have archives. Let’s find the archives.” With her instruction
given, Binny pedaled forward.

“
The buildings have
names.” Penny offered as they got closer to the nearest one. But as
they got closer that seemed less helpful than she’d originally
hoped. “Orpheus?”

“
What’s an Orpheus?” Binny
asked.

“
Orpheus is a demigod.”
Zach and Penny answered in unison – cracking each other up in the
process.

“
I knew that.” Binny said
unconvincingly as the other two giggled. “But why does it say
Orpheus on the building?”

The kids continued pedaling towards
another building with another name on the side –
“Heracles”.

“
Another demigod. They’ve
named all their buildings that way.”

Swallowing her pride a little Binny
asked, “what’s the difference between a demigod and a
god?”

Zach answered without hesitation, “A
demigod is what you get when a god and a human have a baby – a
mortal being with god-like powers.”

“
That’s so cool.” Penny
chimed in.

“
Not always. The demigods
get their powers from the gods. But a lot of times the gods get
angry at them for misusing their powers and end up killing them.
Sometimes parents even kill their own children.”

§

Three buildings and three demigods
later the kids were no closer to finding the archive. “Doesn’t this
place have some sort of a map? At the mall there’s a map of all the
stores.” Binny complained.

“
If they did, it would
probably be a map of the Greek islands.” Zach snorted.

“
What’s a home plate doing
over there?” Penny pointed.

Just over the small rise of greenery,
the kids found a circle of dirt. In the center of the circle was
home plate. Batter’s boxes had been painted in the dirt on either
side of the plate. A small bronze plaque was raised off to the
side. Binny dropped her bike in the grass, wandered over to the
plaque, and began to read aloud.

“
On this spot batters
swung at pitches in Sick’s Seattle Stadium. Opened on June 15,
1938, Sick’s Stadium was home to the Seattle Rainiers, the Seattle
Pilots, and for a few weeks in the summer of 1946 the Seattle
Steelheads of the West Coast Negro League. On September 6, 1976,
the Rainiers beat the Portland Mavericks 2 to 0. It was the last
time professional baseball was ever played at Sick’s
Stadium.”

“
We had a baseball stadium
right in our backyard. And they tore it down for this? An office
park?” Penny was incredulous.

“
What are you children
doing here?”

A thin woman in a white lab coat had
marched up over the rise and was standing a few feet from the kids,
surveying them and their bikes. In the upper left quadrant of her
lab coat the name S. TRACE was embroidered. Her hair was pulled
back in a severe bun. This made her face look pinched and sharp.
Her eyes appeared to bug out a little bit from behind her small
studious glasses. She sounded not quite angry, but certainly
annoyed and impatient for an answer to her question.

Zach and Penny started moving towards
their bikes, getting the sense that it was time to leave this
place. But as they still hadn’t found the archives, Binny had other
ideas. “Oh, we’re here to visit my mom.”

A look passed between Zach and Penny,
but Binny and the thin woman in the lab coat were
oblivious.

“
Your mother?

“
Yes. She works
here?”

“
Yes. In the
archives.”

“
The archives? We don’t
have archives.”

Zach and Penny were now looking
exceptionally itchy to make a quick exit. What was Binny doing? But
then the woman continued. “Oh, do you mean the Records
Room?”

“
Yes, that’s it.” Binny
sounded so convincing. Now it was Zach’s turn to wonder how she’d
gotten so good at lying. Binny continued, “I’m so sorry. I just
forgot the name of the building it’s in.”

“
Minos. The Records Room
is in Minos.” The woman raised her eyebrows signifying her
exasperation that the kids weren’t already heading in the direction
she was pointing. “Don’t dawdle please. This is a place of
business, not a playground.”

“
Yes ma’am.” Binny might
as well have saluted she sounded so formal.

The kids mounted their bikes and
pedaled in the direction the woman had pointed. They were careful
to avoid the grass, but they couldn’t avoid the woman’s annoyed
gaze. It followed them until they rounded a corner out of
sight.

When they were sure they were far
enough away that they couldn’t be heard, they burst out laughing.
They giggled as they rode, amazed that Binny’s lying had not only
gotten them out of trouble but had pointed them in the right
direction.

Binny laughed with the others, but
underneath it, her heart was racing. She wasn’t sure what had come
over her. She knew lying was wrong, and she didn’t feel good about
doing it. But despite her parents’ confidence in the doctor, Binny
knew that something wasn’t quite right. Binny believed with all her
heart that she needed to uncover the details to save her baby
sister. That was more important than having to tell a small lie to
some uptight lady she would never see again.

§

The Minos building was at the opposite
end of the campus, right next to a moderately sized greenhouse. The
building that housed the records room was a perfect circle with no
windows on the sides. But plenty of light was let in by a glass
dome that sat atop the structure. It gleamed in the summer
sun.

Binny led them carefully away from the
front the building and off to one side, out of view of the
employees periodically passing in and out. Zach observed, “There’s
no way we can get in. Did you see? The employees all have badges to
identify themselves to the guards at the entrance.”

“
I know.” Binny answered
curtly.

“
So are we done
here?”

“
Did we find out
anything?”

“
The only thing I know is
that we should be eating hot dogs and watching a baseball game
right now on this spot instead of wandering around all this
boringness.” Penny piped up, interrupting the standoff between the
siblings.

Binny continued arguing with her
brother, ignoring Penny’s attempt to change the subject. “We don’t
need to get in to look around.”

“
Have you developed x-ray
vision to go with Cassie’s invisibility?” Zach asked sarcastically
gesturing to the solid windowless wall between them and the inside
of the records room.

“
Don’t be a jerk. We can
see what’s inside through the roof.”

“
Huh?”

“
Didn’t you notice that
enormous glass dome on top of the building? I bet we can see
everything inside through it!”

“
I’m so sorry. I’m such an
idiot for suggesting you had x-ray vision, when clearly you’ve
developed the ability to fly.” Zach was looking positively
triumphant! “It’s only 15 feet high or so. It will be a short
flight.”

Binny just looked back at Zach
angrily, nostrils flaring.

“
Will this
help?”

Zach and Binny turned from their
faceoff to find Penny standing there half-carrying half-dragging a
long ladder that looked like it just might get them up on the
roof.

“
Where’d you get that?”
Zach seemed more annoyed that Penny had interrupted his comedy
routine than relieved that she’d solved their problem.

“
It was in the
greenhouse.” Penny offered casually, pointing to the structure
behind her with a thumb over her shoulder.

“
Thank you
Penny.” Binny spoke the words with extra
emphasis. “What a thoughtful and creative idea,” Binny added,
looking at Zach, clearly indicating that she thought Zach had been
anything but thoughtful and creative.

§

The Minos building was one enormous
room filled with filing cabinets, the tops of which could be
clearly seen through the panes of glass that made up the domed
roof. Most of the cabinets, and sometimes individual drawers were
labeled with big pixilated squares. These symbols appeared to
denote what was inside each cabinet.

For a while the kids just watched.
They watched Luce Laboratories employees walking up and down
different sections of the Records Room. Employees would use their
phones to scan the big square symbols on the cabinets to confirm
they had found the right spot. They would then remove or replace
folders in the cabinets. Often they would make copies of the
contents of those folders at the large bank of photocopy machines
along one wall. The kids watched employees come in with their
security badges past the guard and receptionist at the entry desk.
They watched employees leave past the same guard and receptionist,
reclaiming their bags on the way out.

After some time, Zach interrupted
their reverie. “Do you know who Minos was?” He continued, not
waiting for the girls to supply an answer. “He was a Greek king –
son of Zeus and Europa. Every seven years he ordered seven young
girls and seven young boys into this big maze called a
labyrinth.”

“
They sure did like
sevens.” Penny joked.

“
Why?” Binny
asked.

“
A minotaur lived in the
center of the labyrinth. The children were a sacrifice.”

“
I don’t see any half-bull
half-man living down there.” Penny quipped casually.

“
It sure does look like a
big maze though.” Binny sounded far away.

§

“
There, what’s that?”
Penny was pointing to a small area in the Records Room.

Off to the side, away from all the
other criss-crossing pathways through tall filing cabinets, there
was one area that seemed to be walled off with its own separate
door.

While they’d probably seen a dozen
people come into the Records Room, only one had gone into this
special area. Access appeared to be governed by entering a code on
a keypad at the door. Zach, Binny, and Penny watched closely as the
light on the keypad turned from red to green after the employee had
entered the correct code. When the light was green, he turned the
handle and went inside.

“
Whatever’s in there must
be pretty important for it to have extra security.” Penny thought
aloud. “They even gave it its own additional glass
roof.”

“
That’s so nobody can just
climb up over the wall and into the room.” Zach
suggested.

“
But they made it
see-through so it would get the light from above.”

“
It has bars underneath
the glass.” Penny observed. “That’s a lot of work to keep something
locked away.”

Binny added, “That must be where they
keep the records of whatever Dr. Huitre injected into Mom. I’m sure
of it.”

“
Look!” Zach whispered. It
was almost a hiss.

Binny and Penny followed his gaze to
the other side of the room just in time to see the thin woman who
had lectured them on the grass, talking to the receptionist and
security guard at the entrance to the Records Room. The thin woman
looked displeased. She was flanked by two burly men wearing dark
uniforms, hats, and sunglasses. The Luce Laboratories logo was
embroidered in gold on their sleeves. The receptionist kept shaking
her head.

“
It’s time to go. Now!”
Binny felt more panicked than she sounded, but she didn’t exactly
sound calm.

The kids scrambled down the ladder one
at a time.

“
Let’s run.” Penny
insisted.

“
It’s too late, she’ll
come out of there any second and we’ll run right into her and those
two goons.” Zach sounded nervous too.

“
Guys. Help me put the
ladder back.” Binny started moving to take the ladder off the
wall.

Zach was almost pleading now. “What
are you doing? Who cares about the ladder?”

“
If we get caught, I don’t
want her to know what we were looking at. And maybe we can hide in
there until she moves on.” Binny’s head was nodding toward the
adjacent greenhouse.

Zach was all set to argue, but Binny’s
plan didn’t actually sound half bad given their
predicament.

The kids felt as if they’d been
transported into a jungle. It was filled with plants as far as the
eye could see. The humidity hit them as they entered and if they
weren’t sweating already from fear of getting caught, the
environment in the greenhouse did the trick. Penny waved to Zach
and Binny to join her under a long table. The kids all caught their
breath and tried to stay quiet, unobtrusive, and
invisible.