Following Berdinos's directions, Murphy took the passage on the left.
It led to the Creation Engine's main control room.
The culprit behind the civil war that had engulfed the empire was in the control room now. As he'd said himself, the authority he'd inherited from the Mamluk elder had only gotten him this far.
To enter the Creation Engine's power chamber, he needed higher-level authorization. The Shanghais had spent a thousand years trying and failing to obtain it. To be precise, on the entire continent, Murphy was the only one who could meet the Creation Engine's authorization requirements.
Knowing that, Murphy had the upper hand and no reason to panic.
He entered the unremarkable passage, curious to see what kind of "truth" Berdinos would show him. But when he followed it into a simple, square room, he found no documents of any value.
Then his gaze fell on the recessed squares in the walls.
He approached and ran his hand over the unusual material surrounding one of them, feeling a few scratches.
"Are these cages?"
Murphy asked.
"I assume the Creation Engine's staff a thousand years ago didn't live in 'employee dormitories' like these, no matter how down on their luck they were?"
"Yes, they're cages."
Berdinos's voice came through a speaker installed nearby. A device switched on, and a holographic projection descended from above, recreating the area as it had been a thousand years ago.
Murphy stood still, turning to look around at the holographic images.
Every square compartment in the space around him held a Shanghai. They wore loose garments that looked like those given to test subjects. They didn't seem to have been mistreated; Murphy saw no wounds on anyone, at least. Still, the sight of thousands of people confined together was deeply unsettling.
Murphy walked through