Genesis. Volume 2

October 30, 1986. London. The Iron Whale Hostel. Late evening. When everyone splits up to go to their rooms, Lisa stays sitting at the table. Not because she doesn't want to sleep. She just can't—after the tunnel, after Kane, after Arthur spent three seconds choosing between them and his father. Three seconds. That's a long time. She plays them over and over again, like a stuck record, and every time, at the same place, something inside her breaks. Alistair's map lies on the table. Old, paper, folded in four—the creases have already turned into pale cracks. Lisa picks it up, unfolds it. The paper smells of dust and someone else's tobacco. The route is marked in red marker. Neat arrows, labels in block letters. Even, like from a printing press. Almost perfect. Except for one. In the upper corner, in the word "road"—where the route exits the center and heads toward the docks—the letter "d" is written differently. Slightly larger. Slightly more to the left. The pressure is different: not marker, but ballpoint pen. Almost invisible if you don't know where to look. Lisa knows. She sits for several minutes, staring at the letter. Then slowly, carefully—as if the paper might crumble from one wrong move—she holds the map up to the lamp. Tilts it at an angle. The light falls in a yellow patch, warming her cheek. On the blank field, where there's nothing, indentations begin to appear. Not printed. Not drawn. Pressed in. Someone wrote on a sheet that was on top of the map, and pressed hard. Maybe not on purpose. Maybe they were just tired or in a hurry. The marks remain in the paper, like scars. Lisa turns the map over. Looks at the back. The lamp's light shines through the thin paper, and the indentations become clear—white lines on a dark background, like a negative. Streets. An alley. A house number. 14 Moorgate. And an arrow. Not like the one on Alistair's route—different. Short, sharp, pressed almost through the paper. It doesn't point to the main entrance. A side one. Through a service yard. Lisa sits motionless. She stares at the pressed-in route and doesn't breathe. Her mind pounds: someone knew the map would be examined. Knew it would be given to someone who knows how to look. She pulls out her sketchbook. Copies the address—clearly, in block letters: 14 MOORGATE. She sketches the arrow separately, checking against the original three times. Then she folds the map the way it was and tucks it into her backpack—in the side pocket, away from prying hands. The hallway is quiet. Only the pipes hum somewhere behind the wall—monotonously, soothingly, like a beast pretending to sleep. Lisa stands. She walks to Sasha's door. Knocks quietly, twice, with her knuckles. "Sasha. Are you awake?" After a few seconds, the door opens. Sasha is dressed—in jeans, a t-shirt—but her hair is disheveled, and she squints at the light like an owl. "What happened?" "Nothing. Show you something." Sasha looks at her for a second or two. Then she steps aside, letting her in. The room smells of mint gum and old newspapers—a stack sits on the nightstand; Sasha always reads before bed. Lisa closes the door, turns on the desk lamp. She lays the map on the bed and shows the pressed-in route. Sasha is silent for a long time. She runs her finger over the indentations—carefully, as if afraid to rub them away. "This isn't Alistair." "I know." "And not Elias." "Elias knows Alistair isn't alone. Maybe that's why he gave us the map." Sasha looks up. "14 Moorgate," she reads. "Which part of the city?" "I don't know. But we can check." "Now?" "Why wait?" Sasha glances at her watch. Half past one in the morning. She sighs—whether annoyed or resigned, it's hard to tell. "Are you serious?" "Do you know another way to check without walking into a trap?" Sasha is silent. Then she nods. She pulls a sweater from under her pillow—scratchy, woolen—and pulls it over her head. Her hair electrifies and stands on end. She doesn't fix it. They leave through the back exit—Lisa had remembered where it was when she scouted the building during the day. A narrow corridor, smelling of damp plaster and bleach. The clerk at the front desk is asleep over his crossword—yesterday's, still unsolved. They pass without making noise. A floorboard creaks under Lisa's foot, and she freezes for half a second, but the clerk only snorts and turns his head to the other side. Outside—fog. Thick, sticky, like wet cotton. It seeps into sleeves, settles on eyelashes, muffles every scent except its own dampness. Streetlights shine through it as blurred yellow circles—not illuminating, just marking themselves. Lisa takes out the map, checks. Moorgate is in the City, not far from the tube station. About twenty minutes on foot, if you don't cut through alleys. They walk in silence. Sasha ahead, Lisa behind. The fog muffles sounds, and their footsteps feel foreign—as if a third person is walking beside them, keeping pace. The cobblestones are wet, slippery. Somewhere in an alley, a cat meows, the sound muffled, as if through a pillow. 14 Moorgate turns out to be an old Victorian building. The facade is covered in scaffolding—apparently under renovation. Or pretending to be. The ground-floor windows are boarded up with plywood; on the second floor, thick curtains the color of dried blood. Only the third floor is dark, empty, without curtains. The side yard—through an archway, between the building and the blank wall of the neighboring house. It's dark as a cellar there. The streetlight isn't working—either burned out or unscrewed. Sasha turns on a small flashlight. The beam—narrow, white—slides over wet cobblestones, over walls, over the boards nailing the basement windows shut. It smells of wet brick and something sour—mold or old paint. "Look," Lisa says. One of the boards has a gap. Thin, almost invisible in the dark. But Sasha's flashlight catches it, and through the gap, light seeps out. Warm, amber. Not electric—from a lamp with a shade. A living light. Lisa presses her eye to the gap. The wood is cold against her cheekbone. Inside—a room. Not a basement. Not a storage space. Bookshelves along the walls, reaching the ceiling—dark wood, gold spines. A massive oak desk, with a green lamp. An armchair with a high back, a crumpled blanket on the armrest, as if someone just stood up. A carpet on the floor, dark burgundy, with a worn path leading to the desk. No one. "See anything?" Sasha whispers. "I see." "Anyone there?" "Not now. But someone lives there." Lisa steps back from the gap. She checks her watch. Almost two. The fog has already crept under her jacket collar, and her neck is wet and cold. "Tomorrow we come back with the others." "The others?" Sasha raises an eyebrow. "Are you going to tell them?" "I will. But not yet. First I need to check whether any of us has gone to meet Kane." Sasha is silent for a long time. The flashlight trembles slightly in her hand—or maybe it's just a trick of the fog. "You mean me?" "I mean everyone." "I see." They return the same way. At the corner, by a closed takeaway with a peeling "Fish & Chips" sign, there's a phone booth. The glass is fogged from the inside, and light seeps through it—dim, barely alive, like a nightlight in a child's room. "Wait," Sasha says. "I want to check if it works." "Why?" "Just in case." She steps into the booth, closes the door. The glass immediately fogs up more. Lisa waits outside, shifting her weight from foot to foot—the cold rises from the cobblestones, seeping into her boots. Through the blurred glass, she can only see a silhouette: Sasha lifts the receiver to her ear, says something. Short. Her lips move—and that's it. Then she hangs up. She comes out. "It doesn't work," she says. "Too bad." "Yeah." They walk on. Lisa looks at Sasha—she's staring straight ahead, but her breathing is slightly steadier than it should be. Like someone who's just finished controlling something. "It doesn't work," she'd repeated. Her voice had been calm. Too calm. Lisa says nothing. She just notes it. Files it away in her memory: a phone booth, a corner, fogged glass, Sasha's lips—three words. Maybe four. Maybe just a number. At the hostel, they split up for the night. Sasha closes the door—the lock clicks like a period at the end of a sentence. Lisa sits on her bed without undressing. The springs sag under her, creak. Behind the wall—silence. Even the pipes have stopped humming. She pulls out her sketchbook. Writes: "14 Moorgate. Side yard. Behind the boarded-up planks—light. A room with books. No one inside. Phone booth on the corner. Sasha went in. Said something. Maybe a signal." She rereads. Then adds: "Alistair's map isn't the only message. Someone expects us to find the second address. Or wants us to find it before Kane does." She closes the sketchbook. Puts it under her pillow—a habit from the first night, when they were still afraid of being robbed in their sleep. Behind her eyelids—pressed-in letters. White lines on dark paper. Streets, an alley, a house number. And an arrow—sharp, almost punched through. She'll fall asleep toward dawn. First she'll lie awake, listening—footsteps in the hallway, whispers behind the wall, her own heartbeat. Then she'll slip into a dreamless darkness. And when she wakes, she'll tell Arthur everything. Not right away, not from the doorstep. First tea. Then the map. Then the facts. In order. Because order is the only thing left when everything else has gone to hell.