The Fifth Healer

36.

I hold out the feather. Dr. Khan takes it. To my surprise, she smiles. That's a first.

"Congratulations," she says, her tone shifting to something more pleasant. "Each of you passed the final test."

"That's a first," says Sloan. "All of 'em?"

"I don't understand," says Ainsley. "Didn't Nikolai win?"

"There are two ways to win the race. You can grab the feather and return it first. Or you can choose to cooperate, in which case everyone wins. The latter is, shall we say, far rarer among initiates."

"Rare?" says Sloan, incredulous. "Has it ever happened?"

"Not in my time," admits Dr. Khan.

"What's this prize we share?" asks Wally.

"The prize is that you advance. All of you do. Congratulations," says Dr. Khan. "I daresay this harmonious cooperation with fellow Chronopaths is exactly what we need more of ."

"Chronic what?" says Wally.

"We'll get to that," says Dr. Khan. "Come. Follow me."

She turns toward that dark corridor.

Harmonious cooperation isn't a precisely accurate description of what went on back there. But Ainsley and I indeed teamed up to get the feather. Niles saved Ainsley's life in the library before. And Wally? I guess Wally did give me part of his sandwich. That's something. I just hope Dr. Khan doesn't ask us any more questions about the race. Our inevitably contradictory stories about what happened at the Lincoln Memorial will fall apart really fast.

It's strange my parents were so insistent I win the race when it turns out I could receive the same prize-advancing to the next stage-but also get to bring my friends along by simply choosing to share the credit. Were the rules different back when my parents wrote their letter, or did they just fail to realize there was a second option?

We file in behind Dr. Khan, one by one. It's narrow enough I can reach out and touch both cold stone walls simultaneously. We walk for a ways, the sound of everyone's feet echoing loudly in the narrow passage. Just when I thought I was done walking for the day.

Niles says, "Dr. Khan, why do you keep calling it the Washington Obelisk?"

"I'm pleased you asked, Niles," she says. "Do you remember the Rising Sun Inn?"

"Where we dropped off Ainsley?" asks Niles.

"Yes, on General's Highway," says Dr. Khan. "A road so named because...?"

"Uh...you said Washington traveled it on his way to giving up his post as general?"

"Correct," says Dr. Khan. "After he'd served two terms as President, many again wished him to establish a monarchy. And again, he declined. Does that sound like the sort of man who would want a five-hundred-foot-tall monument built to honor himself?"

"Maybe not," says Niles. "Why did he have it built then?"

The sound is echoey, but the passage is narrow enough the rest of us can easily listen to their conversation.

"It wasn't built during his lifetime," says Dr. Khan. "It was, however, proposed. But he delayed your congress in starting construction while he quietly asked for a redesign."

"What was the redesign?"

"You are familiar with these newfangled Google Maps, I assume?" asks Dr. Khan.

"I mean, yeah," says Niles.

"Would it surprise you to know that for three years maps of Google displayed the direction of the shadow of the Washington Monument in real time? That is, where the shadow was pointing at the very moment you were viewing the map?"

"Seriously?"

"Do I strike you as unserious, Niles?" she says flatly. "It's a fact. Look it up for yourself. The shadow used to be visible on the maps of Google."

"Used to?"

"Obviously, we arranged for that feature to be removed from the maps."

"Who's we? Why?" asks Niles, who's walking ahead of me, right behind Dr. Khan. The group's pace is quick. My blistered nub complains with each step.

"We wouldn't want the Fourths to figure out the true significance of the Washington Obelisk, of course," says Dr. Khan.

I'm walking right in front of Ainsley. I feel self-conscious. Is she looking at me? Is the blister making me walk with a limp? If so, does she notice?

"As to your earlier question," says Dr. Khan, "when George Washington signed the U.S. Constitution, he sat in an ornate throne known as the Rising Sun Chair."

"Rising sun...the same name as the inn," says Niles.

I see a pinpoint of light up ahead. The end of this passageway. Almost there.

"Correct. In Washington's day, mechanical watches had already been invented," says Dr. Khan. "Yet do you know what Washington carried in his pocket instead of a mechanical watch?"

"Uh...is there such a thing as a pocket sundial?"

"Indeed. Washington carried it at all times," says Dr. Khan. She pauses. "So now you understand the purpose of the obelisk in the city that bears his name."

"He wanted to turn the whole city into a giant sundial," says Ainsley from behind me. She's been quiet this whole conversation while she listened to Niles and Dr. Khan, so hearing her voice startles me.

"Precisely," says Dr. Khan.

At last, the passage ends, dumping us in a giant, well-lit underground room with several dark vehicles parked. Above us is a shimmering blue skylight.

Wait, does this mean...

Ainsley is wondering the same thing. She snakes her hand through the air, drawing an invisible map. "Which means right now we're...underneath the World War II memorial? And the part with the cells and the trials...that was the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial?"

"Correct again," says Dr. Khan. "The pools have glass bottoms, which also function as the ceiling of this facility. It's a special one-way glass so we can see out, but tourists can't see past what looks like a concrete bottom."

I shut my mouth, which I notice is hanging open. I look up, thinking about how we're currently beneath the World War II Memorial.

"Can we sit down already?" asks Wally. "My feet are killing me."

Yeah, well, try having one foot in the grave.

"You have until tomorrow at 12:12 p.m. to rest," says Dr. Khan. "And decide."

"Decide what?" asks Wally.

"If you want to proceed. To join us. To become an initiate."