Wolf Song (Wolf Singer Prophecies Book 1)

rush the guards. They weren’t expecting a lot of resistance.” Creed glanced at Vin then looked back at me.
Before I could ask about the look, Creed appointed Vin as a look out, and gestured me to the main console. I rose to my feet steadily enough, and followed him to the smooth gray table that gently curved in echo to the curve of the vista wall screen. There, he swiped and tapped into various touchpads on the console until a holographic projection floated in front of us.
It was a set of images. On the right-hand side was a flurry of computer code that rained down letters and numbers faster than I could blink. On the left, was some kind of topographical map with various red dots blinking throughout. And in the middle was a digitized blank screen with a cursor waiting for its next command.
“What’s this?” I asked. “I mean, I know it’s a kind of prompt, and this whole thing is a computer but what’s this got to do with anything?”
Creed cleared his throat, shifting his gaze from mine. “Key personnel left in a hurry, and they were sure we wouldn’t follow them. They said we’d be too busy dealing with this.” He waved his fingers, and the topographical map grew larger. He clicked again, and then again until the image magnified and I saw that the areas that lit up were towns.
I didn’t know where exactly; geography was never my strong suit. But the universal demarcations of trees, mountains, and rivers were clear. This area was my home, or damn near could be given the terrain. There were enough glowing red dots that indicated that there were more settlements than I thought possible.
There were others. More people, more life, so much more than I’d dared dream was possible. We’d been so isolated, surrounded on all sides with a dense forest and hidden monsters, that we’d felt all alone.
A thought itched the back of my mind, though. If certain people like Gabriel and Zorah St. Clair knew more than they were telling, then they also had to have known that other towns like theirs existed. I swallowed down that hard truth and absorbed it for another time.
For now, there was a significance that I was missing beyond the startling revelation that a kind of civilization survived. I held out a shaky finger, pointing to the holographic projection in front of me. “These are towns, right? This one could be my town? One of several possible ones?” I bit my lip, afraid to ask. “Are they in some sort of trouble?”
Are we?
Is my dad?
Creed nodded gravely. “Remember what the message said? About the reckoning? I think AEGIS just bumped up their time table.” With another tap, another screen floated into my field of view, pushing the topographical map back to the left. This screen was also recognizable.
On the top half of the screen was a blinking black dot; on the bottom half was a timer that counted down. I took in the descending numbers, the blinking red dots on the aerial maps, the fact that the personnel left confident that they wouldn’t be followed…
I was witnessing a sort of doomsday device.
Dread flooded my body and sent shivers down my back.
Hellfire will rain down the mountain.
This was the source of the Hellfire that ruined so much of the world. This space station wasn’t just a research facility. It was a weapon. One that had been used to rain destruction on the cities, the one that created the After.
“This is a weapon about to go off, isn’t it?” I asked Creed, my eyes locked on the numbers growing smaller and smaller. I didn’t know how much time we had left but it wasn’t long. Less than an hour.
“We sent others through that rainbow bridge that connected back to town, hoping to get the people underground. If the worse happens, they should be able to survive.”
“Should?” I asked, still transfixed to the holograph in front of me.
“The church basement must have been built as a shelter, given how roomy it was, with all those provisions. Getting the rest of the town underneath there in time would be the problem.”
I nodded. If they were kept in ignorance like me, the idea of sheltering would be a nuisance, especially if a preacher had shielded them from Hellfire in the past with nothing more than his words.
Words.
I looked at the blinking dot, as if ready for some input. Like a password. Or a code.
My hands reached for the keyboard on the console before my brain had time to process the gut instinct that hit me. Creed had said it before. The key word is Soleil.
I typed in the letters of my name, and the top half of the screen shifted until five lines appeared across the screen. What now? “Okay, clearly my name was the right password for that, but any clue about this?”
And then we said it at the same time. “The cipher!”
“But, do you even remember it ramina?”
Whenever Creed was less worried, and we weren’t facing the imminent demise of mostly innocent people, I would have to remind him to quit calling me that.
I dug into my pocket instead of answering him, and pulled out the bit of worn paper. There were so many combinations of letters, it would be impossible to know which one.
“It could be any one of these words and in any combination,” he said.
I scanned the paper, knowing it had to be simpler than that. I was overlooking something really simple.
That line of numerical code on the bottom jumped out at me, mainly because I hadn’t used it anywhere yet. The first set had equated to “C4.” Something about that and the way the lines on the screen looked…reminded me of very distinct memories. Of my father teaching me how to play on the piano. Of finding middle C.
“It’s a musical sheet,” I whispered. I plugged in the corresponding numbers and letters and pressed enter. A digitized swirl of dots