Free Pentecost by J.F. Penn

subterranean tunnels and rooms in his design. The rooms were plotted on maps, stored amongst archives that marked the stolen treasures of kings, and protected as secrets of the realm. With the square constantly watched by cameras and people always present, it was also a secure location for precious artifacts. There was even a tunnel leading straight to No. 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister’s residence. In the days when he cared about religious affairs, it was often used for secret meetings and even as a way out away from the reporters permanently camped outside the office. But the entrance had been locked and sealed after the Second World War and now the Prime Minister was in the dark about the occult knowledge they sought and studied.
      Jake walked along the central corridor towards the main research rooms, his thoughts preoccupied with questions about the stones. He was also disturbed about having to work with Morgan Sierra. He was used to working alone or with a team who did as he said, and he had certainly never had to factor in an unpredictable, if highly capable, outsider. In modern times, funded by handsome grants from secret sponsors and the sale of certain precious artifacts, ARKANE’s underground base had been redesigned to be an ultra-modern workplace. Flat screens and laptops sat in all the rooms, centrally placed as the walls were covered with bookshelves. The physical library was spread across the whole place in this way, except for those books that needed special environments or were too precious to be on display. These were held in pressure and temperature controlled vaults but ARKANE was no longer just a fusty library of old books.
      As Jake walked, he looked into the rooms through glass paneled doors. Various teams were working in each, some in lab coats testing strange devices and others, white gloved, poring over manuscripts. He was a field operative but most at the base were researchers, eagerly working down here with their secrets. There was no natural light in the underground section but the lighting had been subtly tuned so it was bright but not fluorescent. On some of the walls were intricate trompe l’oeil paintings, so detailed they looked real. Windows looked out onto the Mediterranean sea or the Pyramids, one was a gabled room view onto the Eiffel Tower, and another a glade with birds and flowers. The rooms had different scents and sounds, surf and sea-spray or birdsong with sage and lavender. Jake knew it had been designed for peak creativity, making the place feel more idyllic than a deep, dark cavern underground where enigmas lurked in corners.  
      Martin Klein’s office was one of the tiniest rooms in the ARKANE layout but it was a rare privilege to have an office to himself. He was officially Head Librarian but was considered more like the Brain of the Institute. He was highly intelligent, perceiving patterns where others could see nothing. He created worlds on the walls of his office in colored markers, drawing fantastical creatures and plants, other-worldly scenes of beauty while he pondered the problems of the Institute. Every now and then, the whole office would be painted white and he would begin again on the fresh canvas. His mathematical and data processing ability was considered genius level, but he did not quite understand the subtleties of human interaction. His compulsions may have set him apart in the office, but his ability to figure out how disparate knowledge fitted together was phenomenal and had earned him the affectionate nickname, Spooky.
    Jake knocked on the door of Martin’s office, and made sure the young man was aware he was there before he spoke,  
    “Hey, Spooky, what you working on?”
      Martin spun around in the desk chair and jumped up, bobbing towards Jake and then retreating back to his desk. He was a tall man with a shock of blond hair, too long for an academic. He couldn’t bear to be touched by a barber, so he roughly chopped it