Free Abyss (Songs of Megiddo) by Daniel Klieve

out. It didn’t seem likely that this was the ‘largest and most sophisticated’ hub of The Organisation that Wright had been talking about. Then again: in its very inauspiciousness, Dio realised, it would have been hidden in plain sight.
    Smoke led Dio and Yvonne to the bank of elevators on the far side of the lobby
    “So ...this is Palatine Hill?” Dio queried. Smoke looked at him, again, like he was a small, stupid child.
    “I already told you, Haifa – ” Dio scowled: less surprised that Smoke knew where he was, originally, from, than he was annoyed that she managed to make it sound like a girl’s name: “ – It’s under...Pueblo.” She rolled her eyes, manoeuvring Dio and Yvonne into the first elevator whose doors opened. Leaning in – and wedging her body against the gap into which the door had retracted to stop it from sliding shut – she craned around, and flipped open the small security panel below the three vertical rows of floor numbers. She clawed her hand into the large, red, intercom button, and held it down – provoking an angry, static crackle – waiting.
    “Uh ...some sort of problem? Lifts appear to be working as-per-usual?” A gruff, put-upon male voice stated. Leaning a little further into the lift, Smoke recited:
    “Sierra, Mike ...” she paused; her eyes flickering shut with an embarrassed grimace. Dio noticed Yvonne’s smile expanding as Smoke’s face fell. “Fuck. Hold on, I forgot.”
    “ Highly professional, operative Smoke.” Dio raised an eyebrow. The voice – still the same voice, on a basic level – had become crisper, more authoritative, and less rough-around-the-edges. Dio recalled the regard that one of the first Officers he’d served under in the IDF had had for voices.
    “They trick your brain,” he’d said. “ If you can change how you sound, you can have people questioning what they’re seeing. You can have people who’ve seen you before; who’ve spoken to you before, questioning their memory. There’s no camouflage like accent and intonation.” Dio had never quite understood what he meant until that precise moment. Comparing the two voices he’d just heard: the same voice twice, that is...if he hadn’t known better, he would have confidently assumed a sizeable age difference; a definite class difference; also, very probably, a height and weight difference. He shook his head. The Human brain was a strange and gullible thing, indeed.
    “Yeah?” Smoke snapped, jolting Dio out of his thoughts. “And fuck you too, dickhead: you try remembering twenty of these fucking codes, every single day.”
    “The code please, Smoke.”
    “Yeah, it’s...” She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking hard: “ ...Oscar...Alpha, Zulu, Charlie... Golf ?” Smoke’s attempt was followed by a pause that must have been in its third trimester. Dio found himself reflexively holding his breath, until:
    “Confirmed.” He exhaled in relief. So, less noticeably, did Smoke.
    “Thank fuck, right?” She said, with a bland chuckle.
    “Just do what everyone else does and write them down?” The voice suggested in a secretive stage-whisper.
    “ Now who sounds fucking unprofessional?”
    “ I’d rather be unprofessional than get a first-hand look at what happens when you fail one of these checks.” Smoke paused, considering.
    “Yeah. I might just write them down, then.”
    “Good call, ‘Sierra Mike’. Until next time.” Smoke let her finger slip off the button, before closing the panel and deftly dancing her fingers up all the buttons on the left side of the rows of floor numbers. “Have a swell trip, you guys,” Smoke feigned excitement with deliberate ineptitude; her syrupy smile melting into a gritty, irritated scowl before she’d even completed the sentence: “See you down there.”
    §§§
    After about a minute in the elevator, the doors had opened. The entrance to another lift – a much, much larger one – had gaped, directly ahead, separated from Dio and