At dawn, I accompanied Karl, two medics, and the same five scientists as before to the Pyramid of Beauty. I was more wound up inside than at almost any other time in my life.

The scientists brought several bags of equipment, all of which was a mystery to me. They also brought some pamphlets, one in each language. The medics brought two blankets, a canteen of water, a few basic medicines, and some dried meat and fruit.

Along the way, no one spoke of the decision we would have to make. It was the elephant in the room no one wanted to touch. Even after we arrived, and everyone set down their bags, we stood looking at each other awkwardly.

Karl finally asked the dreaded question. "Which woman shall we wake?"

Julius had tried to absolve us by claiming all potential guilt for himself, but every one of us knew that wouldn't work. If tragedy struck the woman we chose, it would be her bad luck and our sin. Suddenly, I was ashamed of my eagerness the night before.

"The one who scratched the inside of her cell?" Evelyn asked.

"Potentially condemn her just because she tried to get out more than the others?" Beanpole asked, and shook his head. "That would be an unjust reward. No. Not her."

I spoke up. "Beanpole, I'm the one who pushed for this, and now I acknowledge I shouldn't have been so hasty. I'll take the consequences of my own actions. I'll choose."

"But how?" Karl asked.

"Let's make it simple," I said, and pointed at the first cell of the nearest row. "She's closest."

We all looked at each other some more, but apparently no one had a better idea.

We approached the woman I had chosen. She had long dark hair and wore a white gown adorned with sequins.

The cell door had a handle. I gave it a tug, but of course it didn't open. I hadn't expected it to.

"All right, Karl," Beanpole said. "What do we do?"

"My Master opened the cell door by pressing buttons on the back," Karl said. "But I don't know how we can do that."

The room was huge and triangular, with the cells arranged in very neat rows. Each row was back-to-back with another row on the next aisle, so the rear of each cell – and any buttons to be found there – was inaccessible.

Standing at the end of the row, Abner said, "There is a slight gap." He was referring to the fact that the backs of the cells bowed inward ever so slightly, making a gap a couple of inches wide between the cells where they met back-to-back, about halfway up. "The Masters' tentacles are so precise and flexible, and thin at the tips; it's easy to suppose they could reach into this gap and press buttons our hands can't reach."

Side by side, the cells were a uniform distance apart, perhaps an inch. Looking in the gap between cells, one could see, at the very top, the side protrusions which jutted out from one cell and slotted into the next, allowing the cells to be aligned perfectly.

"Then how do we disconnect this cell from the row?" Silas asked Karl.

Karl looked abashed. "I don't know. Sometimes the Masters' tentacles moved so fast. I think they were pressing more buttons on the back, but I never really understood how they did it."

Beanpole was on his knees, peering around the cell as best he could, but I could tell from where I stood that there wasn't much more to see.

Francois pulled a crowbar out of one of the bags. "Engineering solution time."

Karl and Beanpole tried to pry the door, but the seam was too tight to admit the bar.

"Did we bring rope?" Beanpole asked.

"Two," Silas said. "Ten meters each. Nylon."

Beanpole looked around, then said, "I have an idea."

He took a rope from the bag and tied it to the crowbar, then grabbed a second crowbar. He stood across the aisle from the cell we wanted to enter and said, "Someone help me up, and someone tie this rope to the door."

Silas tied the other end of the rope to the door handle of the cell we were trying to open while I formed a cradle with my hands, stooped, and braced myself. Beanpole set a foot in my hands and I hoisted him onto the cell across from our target cell. My rib protested a little, but I told it to shut up.

Beanpole slid the bar with the rope tied to it into the gap between two cells and behind the protrusion which connected them. He knelt behind the bar, turning sideways to use his own leg to hold it in place.

He held the second bar behind the first, perpendicular to it.

He looped the rope around the horizontal bar, then began turning it around the vertical one. This reeled in the rope, spooling it onto the vertical bar.

"A winch," Abner murmured, smiling.

"A what?" I asked.

"It's one of the simplest machines," he said.

I looked at Beanpole. "That's not a machine," I said.

"Scientifically, a machine is any object which changes the direction or magnitude of a force," Evelyn said. "You know how you can't lift a large stone with your hands, but you can lift it easily if you pry it up with a lever? Well, that makes the lever a machine. And a winch is the same principle. By using those bars to tighten the rope, Jean-Paul can exert a lot of force easily."

"We'll want to get out of the way," Francois said.

"Hold on," Silas said. "We also don't want the door to damage the cell across from it when it pops off."

Beanpole paused. Evelyn tied the second rope to the cell door handle, then tossed that rope over the rows of cells to the aisle behind. While the rest of us stood out of the way, Silas walked around to that aisle, grabbed the rope Evelyn had thrown, and held it tightly around his waist. He nodded to us, and Abner said to Beanpole, "We're good." Beanpole resumed.

The rope Beanpole was pulling became taut, then creaked ominously. Beanpole continued turning the bar, straining just a little. The rope creaked further.

With a horrendous bang, the cell door popped off, with such force that I do believe it would have hit the cell opposite had not Silas been holding it in check with the second rope. The door flung around as if on a sharp pivot and hit the floor.

"Science for the win!" Abner crowed.

I helped Beanpole down, and we gathered in front of the woman we were trying to free.

"I'll do the honors," I said, still taking responsibility.

Beanpole shook his head. "No. As simple as it is, it's still a technical operation. I'll do it."

He took out his knife, gingerly stepped up into the cell, and sliced the tiny wires at the very top of the cap. He stepped down.

We watched. Nothing happened. But from what Karl had told us, we knew it would be a slow process, so we didn't move, didn't speak. The minutes ticked by. A perfectly still, seemingly-dead person had never held such rapt attention as this woman.

"She's breathing," Francois suddenly whispered.

"Are you sure?" one of the medics asked. "I don't see..."

"Yes, I see it," Beanpole said quietly.

I couldn't, at first. Then I saw it, too – the very, very slow rise and fall of her chest.

A medic stepped forward and felt her wrist. "Slow, faint pulse," he said.

The other medic unrolled a blanket onto the floor. We pulled the tacks out of the woman's gown, lifted her out, and set her on the blanket. We used the second blanket, still folded, as a pillow.

Over the next five minutes, her pulse and breathing gradually became that of a normal person. A few more minutes and she began to stir. Another ten and she was somewhat cognizant.

Thinking back on it later, I was grateful her awakening was so gradual. It allowed her time to come to grips with the fact that her thoughts were now different, and that she was lying on a floor surrounded by strange men watching her closely. But our constant assurances (in several languages) that she was safe, and that she would be okay, seemed to help.

Beanpole knelt beside her. "My name is Jean-Paul," he said in French. "What is your name?"

She stared at him in confusion, then weakly asked in German, "So we are French now?" The question seemed to come from the last vestiges of sleep. Perhaps she thought she was dreaming.

Beanpole repeated the question in German. Her confusion instantly cleared a little, and she said, "Helga."

"Pleased to meet you, Helga," Beanpole said.

"What is going on?" she asked. She was still a little groggy.

"Now is not the time for questions," a medic said. "We will tell you very soon, but first, I want to be absolutely sure you are all right. I am a doctor. Don't be alarmed, you appear to be in perfect health. But I want you to concentrate on nothing but breathing for the next five to ten minutes. Just close your eyes and do nothing but breathe until I say otherwise. Please."

She did as instructed. Ten minutes later, she was fully alert.

The medic helped her stand. She teetered at first, getting used to legs she hadn't stood on in years, perhaps decades. She looked around, fear on her face.

"What is this?" she asked, and noticed her empty cell. "What...why...?"

Beanpole explained. She was weeping before he finished.

A medic stepped forward. "Helga," he said. "We need you to be strong. We need your help. You are the first woman we have revived. We must know how you feel. We will not revive any more women unless we know that you are all right." He hesitated, then added awkwardly, "Physically, I mean."

She closed her eyes and wept some more. After a few seconds, the medic repeated, "Helga, please. We need you to be strong. We need your help. Please."

She opened her eyes and faced him.

"Are you feeling any ill effects from the revival, physically?" he asked. "We must know. You are the only one who can help us."

She shook her head. "Physically, I am fine."

Every one of us breathed an enormous sigh of relief. She instantly saw what a burden her words had lifted from our shoulders.

"Thank you," Beanpole said, and reached out to take her hand. "Dear Helga...thank you."

We gave Helga some food, water, and a little more time. She sat on the blanket, brushed away her tears, and read the pamphlet while eating and drinking.

 

Karl and the medics took Helga to the camp. They would monitor her for several days before we revived anyone else. We weren't taking any chances, and I now appreciated that much more than I had.

After they left, the scientists took the equipment from their bags and walked around the room, looking at their equipment closely. They seemed to be searching for something.

Beanpole took out a metal box with a short rod attached, then pulled on the rod, revealing that it had collapsible sections which could extend about a meter. Noticing my surprise, he said, "It's called an antenna. We use it to detect, or receive, radio waves."

I nodded and asked nothing. I knew I wouldn't understand. I just watched, fascinated.

I had promised myself I wouldn't run to Eloise and look at her again, because I knew it would accomplish nothing but torture. The urge to break this promise was strong. I took deep breaths, and distracted myself by watching the scientists. They were muttering.

"Everywhere, but no source," Silas said. "I don't get it."

Beanpole was scowling at the device he held, then glanced sideways at Helga's cell. Hesitating only slightly, he walked to her cell and thrust the device inside.

Suddenly excited, he waved the device all over the cell walls and ceiling, and finally looked upward. "I think I found it!" he exclaimed.

The other scientists rushed over.

"The signal comes from above," Beanpole said. "From this nodule, here! It's behind the light bulb, so it's hard to notice."

Abner looked around. "I still don't see how these cells are getting power. I don't see any plugs or cables."

Francois answered. "The EM detector indicates the initial power connection to the city is through the floor in about a dozen places. The way these cells snap together, I think their connection includes a power conduit."

Beanpole held his device near the top of several other cells. "I get the same reading in each one. Each cell has its own transmitter. They're very weak, but they're strong enough to overlap. That's why we detected a signal everywhere but no clear source: we were looking for one source instead of hundreds!"

I couldn't stand it any longer. "What does this mean?"

"We think we've solved the mystery of why these women's caps are still receiving signals when everyone else is free," Beanpole said. "Each cell has its own low-power transmitter, directly above the woman's head. Since the command to become dormant is so specialized, and must be maintained constantly, the Masters probably found it easier to create these special transmitters instead of using their general transmitter."

"Of course, I should have seen it!" Francois said. "Karl's Master revived the woman in the damaged case by pressing buttons on the back of her cell. That fact tells us that some commands sent to her cap were localized! It was staring us in the face!"

Evelyn patted his arm. "We're all short of sleep. We're going to miss some things."

"The localized transmitters saved their lives by returning them to dormancy when power was restored," Abner said. "If the order to sleep depended on the main transmitter, they would have run out of oxygen long before we found them."

"We ought to be able to wake them all at once simply by cutting power to this room," Silas said.

 

"I'd rather not," Julius said upon hearing this idea. We were back at camp, reporting to him and Andre in the mess tent. "From what you've told me, each woman is going to wake terrified and confused. We don't have the manpower to help them all at once, and their mass hysteria might become a disaster. Let's wake a few at a time. Those women can then help the others as they wake, and so on."

"Also, cutting power to the room might involve dismantling part of it," Andre said. "And as long as those women's lives are in our hands, the less we do and the simpler we keep it, the better."

Julius nodded.

"Have you spoken with Helga?" I asked Julius.

"I have. Charming young woman. She's still in a bit of shock. Mostly, she's thankful to be out of the city."

Silas spoke up. "Well, I, for one, am unhappy about Helga's presence in our camp."

The rest of us were surprised. "Why?" Andre asked.

"Because I really want to debrief Karl on all he knows, but Karl is suddenly unavailable. He has appointed himself Helga's assistant." Silas nodded to a far table on the opposite side of the tent.

We all looked. There were Helga and Karl, shyly trying not to gaze into each other's eyes.

Everyone smiled.

"Good luck with that," Julius said to Silas.

"I know!" he said. "What am I to do? How can I compete against her?!"

We all laughed.

 

The next three days, I kept as busy as I possibly could. No rest, no breaks, no time to dwell on the possibility of reviving Eloise. I shoved her from my mind as hard as I could and concentrated on peeling potatoes, patrol duty, guard duty, whatever I could do.

One job which provided an interesting distraction was helping to build pigeon lofts.

The resistance had brought a number of homing pigeons from the castle, divided into three lofts. One loft was trained to return to the castle, another to Paris.

The third loft consisted of young pigeons. Over the next several months, we would train them to know Camp Freedom as home, after which they would be transported by land to key locations so they could be used to send messages back to us.

I avoided Helga, not because of any dislike, but simply because she reminded me of everything I was trying not to think about. I never asked about her progress or the plans to revive the remaining women. I knew Beanpole would tell me whatever I needed to know.

And he did. Three days after reviving Helga he came to me in the afternoon and said, "Helga is well, and we've decided. Tomorrow."

I forced myself to remain calm. I wondered how I could feel more fear about this than I did when the Tripods brought me and Fritz into the city the first time.

The same group as before, along with Helga, assembled at the city gate at sunrise the next morning. (Oddly, Helga still wore her gown because we didn't have much spare clothing.) We all felt Helga's presence was important, because if the next woman to revive saw a woman kneeling beside her instead of a bunch of men, she was more likely to feel safe. Also, Helga was a member of minor nobility, and like most nobility, knew several languages.

But as we started forward, Helga had a minor panic attack. She turned away from the city, leaned over, placed her hands on her knees, and shook.

Poor Karl didn't know what to do. (By now, he and Helga were at the hand-holding stage.) He desperately tried to comfort her, while simultaneously trying to get her to continue.

One of the medics subtly shook his head at Karl, indicating it was okay that we wait. Karl and the medic talked to Helga quietly for about half an hour while the rest of us waited awkwardly.

As best I could tell, Helga never wanted to enter that city again. She agreed it was important, but knowing you need to do something and being able to do it are two very different things.

Eventually she stood, breathing deeply. "I'm so sorry," she said to all of us, and we all quickly assured her it was okay. Trembling, she gripped Karl's hand, and we entered the city. As we stepped into the lift, I noticed Karl wincing with pain. Apparently, Helga had quite a grip.

When we reached the pyramid, I couldn't stand it any more. I rushed to Eloise. She looked the same, of course. Her small oval face; her short curly dark hair; her blue gown trimmed with white lace.

"She is the next to be revived?" Helga asked.

Beanpole nodded. "We are acquainted with her. She's...very important to Will."

Helga nodded in understanding.

 

There was no chill in the air, but I was shivering all the same. It's a good thing I didn't have to tie any ropes; I'm not sure I could have held my hands still enough to do it.

Using the same method as before, we popped the door off Eloise's cell. Helga let out a short, sharp yell when it happened, as we forgot to warn her how loud it was.

We gathered in front of Eloise. The world around me seemed to be floating. I looked up at her for several long moments, then looked at Beanpole and nodded.

Beanpole disabled her cap. That accursed cap which had taken her from herself, from her family, from me.

I suddenly realized how crucial Eloise's cap was, to everything. Its cruelty had actually saved my life by opening my eyes. And I, in turn, had played a key role in destroying the Masters' reign.

Out of all the caps they ever placed on humans – millions upon millions of caps – the one they placed on Eloise was their downfall. Big mistake. Her cap had backfired in the biggest way possible, for it had turned me into a weapon, a weapon who went on to play a vital role in their defeat.

I got a tiny bit of satisfaction from that.

Normally, we would have backed off and left Helga alone with Eloise. But in this case, Eloise actually knew me and Beanpole, so we, along with Helga, knelt beside Eloise and waited for her to wake.

She revived at about the same rate Helga had. She looked at our faces in groggy confusion for a few minutes. Then she looked steadily at me, raised her hand slightly, and whispered, "Guillaume?"

Tears cascaded down my face. I never thought I'd hear that sweet voice again.

I raised her hand to my face and nodded.

She spoke again. "You are...Guillaume's older brother, yes?"

I couldn't help but laugh. I had aged almost five years while she had not. "No, my dear Eloise. I am Guillaume. I am a few years older, but I am Guillaume."

"Guillaume?" she whispered, then exclaimed "Guillaume!" and sat up to throw her arms around me.

I held her. I held my dear Eloise in my arms again. Time stopped, and the entire universe fell away.

 

 

 

Author's note: In Appendix 1, I explain how I fudged the math to lessen the current age difference between Will and Eloise, despite the fact that Eloise has been in suspended animation for four-and-a-half years. TLDNR: I made Eloise as old as I plausibly could, and Will as young as I plausibly could, when they first met, without violating canon too much. Using my math, in this story, Will is now approximately two-and-a-half years older than Eloise instead of four years older. I declare Will to be currently seventeen and Eloise to be currently fifteen. Appendix 1 has the details.