The Cydonia Objective

1.

Washington State

Phoebe woke with a start. Something wasn’t right.

She stifled a yawn then lifted up the window shade, expecting to see they were still over the desert. Instead she was greeted with a majestic view of snow-peaked mountains, one in particular: a massive peak, level with their plane, appearing to be their destination.

Someone was in the seat next to her, and it took a moment for Phoebe to clear out the debris of her cluttered dreams and remember the events of the last day. The girl, the Hummingbird. Aria was sitting on her knees beside her, big blue eyes wide open and trembling.

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered, laying a hand on Phoebe’s arm. Behind her, Orlando’s neck was bent awkwardly, his forehead pressed into a flight pillow and a little blanket bunched up around his ear.

“What’s wrong?” Phoebe’s heart fluttered. Pieces of the dream came back to her: The night sky was falling, the stars tumbling down upon her. And books, thousands of books, millions, crying out in pain…

“Your brother is safe.”

Phoebe put a finger to her lips. “Alexander too?”

Aria nodded, just as the cabin door opened and Temple emerged. His ashen face told a story Phoebe didn’t want to read.

He reached for the TV’s power button. “No easy way to say this.” On the screen emerged a scene of devastation. Phoebe leaned over and shook Orlando, who only grunted and pressed his face farther into the pillow.

“Alexandria was hit today with a seismic event.”

“An earthquake?” Phoebe whispered.

“Seven-point-three magnitude. But…” Temple muted the TV as the camera zoomed in on a section of twisted iron framework that had once supported part of the glass dome. “…it only hit the library complex. Concentrated in that one area… Destroying it completely.”

“Oh my God.”

“Over a hundred dead, so far. Three hundred more injured. Some buried and calling for help. Some…”

“…farther down.” Phoebe was only dimly aware that Aria was holding her hand, squeezing it and whispering, “They’re okay.”

“We need to RV them, see if Caleb and Alexander were there!”

“Already done,” Temple said. “As soon as we got the news. My team relayed information quickly back here that they saw the vault. It’s damaged badly. And several of the Keepers are dead, but your brother and your nephew appear to be unhurt. Although trapped.”

“We’ve got to get to them.” She scowled over at Orlando, who still hadn’t stirred.

Temple shook his head. “Won’t make it before they do.”

“What? Why not? Can’t you get the Egyptian authorities to control the site, keep out Calderon’s people?”

“Sorry, Calderon’s inserted himself and his people into high-level positions at major disaster-relief agencies. We’d been puzzled by that for several months, trying to work out his motives. But now it’s obvious. If they’re testing some sort of weapon, then they need to have control, feet on the ground so to speak. Believe me, if this was him, and we’re ninety-nine percent sure, then it’s too late. They’re already tunneling down there. They’ve got their own psychics–”

“The twins.”

“–who will tell them where to dig, and how to retrieve the artifacts they need.” Temple let the news run a few more seconds, before the feed shifted from scenes of destruction and tragedy to interviews with survivors.

Phoebe squeezed the girl’s hand gently. “So there’s no hope?”

Aria squeezed back and answered first. “Always hope.”

“She’s right,” Temple agreed. “And right now, I hate to say it, but we need you focused on the bigger picture.”

“Which is?”

“Mars,” said another voice. Orlando, his eyes still closed, but flickering rapidly. “And… something else…” His eyes flashed open and he sat up straight. And Phoebe realized he hadn’t been sleeping, not exactly. Dreaming, deep in a trance, focusing his inner sight on what Temple intended for them.

“Damn,” said the colonel. “This is why it’s so hard to work with psychics. I can never do things according to my own timeline.”

“Stow it,” Orlando said, almost under his breath. “We need to know what this is about, now. What’s up there? How much do you guys really know, and why is it you need us to remote-view something on…” he cocked his head, squinting, trying to recapture the vision.

“…the dark side of the Moon?”

2.

After wandering in the darkness, a black so pervasive he couldn’t see anything in front of his face, not even knowing which direction was up, Alexander shifted his perspective. Looking in a direction he at first insisted was down, his brain finally perceived the tiny lights above as stars and not reflective coins in the depths of some bottomless sea. A moment later, realization set in and he understood he was either dreaming or remote viewing.

This wasn’t the vault in Alexandria, where he was surely still pinned beneath that table and the body of one of the Keepers—Rashi, who had thrown herself over him at the last instant before the ceiling collapsed.

This was somewhere else. A vast, black surface that suddenly wasn’t so perfectly dark, as if his eyes were adjusting, filtering and refining the starlight so he could see…

He was standing inside a shallow crater. Impossibly shallow, and more like a trench ripped through the shale, and in every direction he could see the rough outlines of bizarre geology: ridges sharply-protruding peaks, rocky hills thrust out of the land, dust and debris laying in their ancient poses, and suddenly…

His consciousness shot upward, and then skidded around the horizon, until the darkness abruptly merged with light, and around the lip of the orb—the familiar cratered surface—he was greeted with the gleaming blue-green hues of the Earth.

“Alexander…”

His dad’s voice. Weak, like it was spoken from the other end of a massive tunnel. Alexander shook his head, and was relieved to find he could do it. No broken neck or spine at least. But everything was dark, so dark…

He tried to sit up, but found someone was laying on top of him.

At first, with a choking sob, he thought: Mom? But then memories flitted back, descending into their respective pockets where they belonged, and everything fit right once again. The cave-in. The earthquake or whatever it was. Rashi… oh, Rashi…

He felt around her back, but could only move his hands so far before reaching something hard and cold like steel. Then he felt something wet and warm over her back.

“Rashi?”

Nothing.

Then again he thought he heard his father calling his name, but he shut it out for a minute, trying to see, really see. He relaxed, willed his mind to focus, and slipped back-

-to this very room, only minutes ago. Rashi looking up, alarm on her face as dust fell. Dad yelling, reaching for him, and then the ceiling dropping, the dome shattering down the middle. Huge chunks of masonry shorn into pieces, tumbling, crashing onto the table, pummeling the servers, an enormous beam, trailing sparks, slamming toward him. Then Rashi was there, throwing herself onto him just as she grunted and the lights went out.

But Alexander could still see, this time from a higher vantage point, in the gaping crater’s hole, looking down as the walls crumbled and car-sized boulders tumbled free, raining into the hole, piling onto the carnage. But somehow, the beam and several larger pieces of bedrock formed a jutting triangular incline that protected part of the chamber from total destruction. Just enough, he saw in a hazy night-vision light, to crawl out and be able to stand, maybe reach the terminals. But his father…

His vision skirted over the barrier, the wall of debris in the center of the Keeper sanctuary. There was Caleb, trying to lift an enormous slab with a metal bar. Sparks were flying from the ceiling, dancing around the alcoves where the scrolls hid like frightened children behind cracked windows.

“Dad,” Alexander whispered, ending the vision and returning to darkness. Then louder: “Dad!” He shifted, reached up and felt Rashi’s neck.

No pulse, nothing.

Revulsion gave way to utter fear as the darkness reclaimed him. Shifting sounds in the room. The floor shuddering, beams groaning still. Please no aftershocks.

“Hideki? Belarus? Anyone? Can anyone hear me?”

“Alexander?” again, his father. A little stronger.

“Dad, I hear you!”

Silence, then: “Oh, thank God. Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know. I’m trapped.” Under poor, poor Rashi.

“I know,” he said. “I saw. Rashi protected you. I saw you were pinned and not moving, but I didn’t know…”

“I’m okay.” He squirmed and was grateful for his natural skinniness when he found he could pull away gradually and slide out from under her. The beam shifted and dust and pebbles fell onto his face. Covering his eyes, he waited, not moving. Feel like I’m playing ‘Operation’. One wrong move and it’s game over.

“Can you see anything?”

“No,” Alexander shouted back. “At least, not with my normal eyes. But I RV’d and saw… I know I can’t get out of here on my own. I’m sorry, I can’t even get to you.”

He heard the metal bar drop. “I know, Alexander. I’m sorry. I saw that the floor collapsed, but the good news is that a lot of material ejected out of the crater.”

“How’s that good news?”

“Well, the stuff above you isn’t solid, and air’s getting in.”

Alexander took a deep breath, relishing the taste, however dusty. “So I won’t suffocate.” He pulled himself out farther, until only his left leg was still caught. Then it was free, and it felt good to be out. He stretched his legs, wiggled his toes. Then tried to sit up.

“Alexander?”

“Fine!” he shouted back, wincing through the effort. “Although everything feels bruised. I’m glad it’s dark, Dad. I don’t want to see—”

“Don’t think about it, not now Alexander.”

He nodded. Once again, face to face with death, but asked not to face it.

“Listen, son. You have to be strong, and you have to do something for me.”

Alexander got to his knees and reached above him, trying to see how much room there was, and whether he could stand.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes, Dad. And I know what you’re going to say.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen it. The computer terminal, the servers.”

“That’s right. Now, there should be a flashlight somewhere, in the computer desk if it’s still in one piece.

After a long minute of fumbling and searching, scraping his fingers on sharp rocks and jagged pieces of masonry, banging his head on something, he touched a flat metal surface. Followed it around to locate a cold handle. Pulled it, reached inside, among a stack of papers, staplers, magnifying glasses.

“There it is.”

The light was painful and almost surreal, bringing into focus a twisted scene of incomprehensible shapes, angles and obstacles. Nothing that Alexander could recognize immediately; it was as if he’d been teleported to some alien prison cell.

“Alexander, do you have it? Can you see?”

“Yep, got it. Now what?”

“The computer . Is it…?”

“Here…” Alexander found the laptop, on its side, the top dented. He opened it and was relieved to see the screen saver functioning. Moved the mouse, and the password prompt appeared. “Working!”

“Okay, you remember the password?”

“Yeah.” Alexander smiled. He secured the flashlight under his chin, and angled his head so it was pointing at the screen. “Sostratus.”

He typed it in and he gained access.

“Good,” said his father. His voice seemed weaker, tired. Resigned. “Now, listen carefully. They’re going to be here soon. And they’re going to get what they really want—”

Alexander touched the charms around his neck. “The Keys. But maybe I could…”

“Save your energy. Your brothers will just RV the keys, and there’s no place you can hide them where they won’t be seen.”

Alexander sighed. He set the flashlight down, pointing straight up and casting freakish shadows around the crushed alcoves, revealing the shattered scroll casings, the shredded documents and tablets. He forced his attention back to the computer screen, where there were six icons, and an open file.

“But you can still help.”

“How?”

“Rashi was on to something. She wouldn’t tell me everything, but I knew… The Keepers found clues in the ancient documents. Something that could help. Hideki was working on it too, scanning portions into the computer. There should be a file, or a series of files, excerpts translated from the original sources.”

Alexander called up the first open file, scrolled down past the scanned cuneiform script and glanced at the translation. “I see it. This first one has something about…”

“Just read it,” Caleb called. “And remember what you can. Read everything she saved out there—then, before they come for you, delete it all. And smash the computer.”

Alexander smiled. “That’ll be fun.”

“Remember it, and you’ll get a chance to tell me—or Phoebe, soon. And hopefully it’ll be enough to stop this.”

“What about you?” Alexander shined the light back to the wall of debris over the smashed conference table, waving the beam back and forth, looking for even a slight crack to look through and see him. But no, if that was possible, he could fit the keystones through and Caleb could try to protect them.

“There’s a hidden exit back this way. Robert showed it to me once, after I said I was concerned about escape if the surface was compromised. A descending passageway that turns at a right angle and tunnels to the harbor. A huge bank-safe kind of door, opened only from the inside, one that then leads down to the harbor. Of course, there’s scuba gear…”

“Oh.” Alexander thought of how his dad didn’t have the best experiences with scuba, and nearly died in that harbor while searching for the Pharos. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, it’s got to be done. I’ll get out, and get help. I’ll find a way to save you. But you… Alexander, listen to me. You have to be strong. You’re a Keeper now.”

“But…” Alexander looked around at the shattered walls, the broken alcoves. “All the scrolls…”

“We’ll save what we can,” Caleb said solemnly. “But remember, all of it—the whole collection—was scanned and uploaded to remote servers.”

Alexander had asked his mother about those servers one day, while they were at a café outside the library. He still recalled the glint in her green eyes as she leaned in and whispered: “A lot of places. A cave system in the Himalayas. Another in the Andes. A bunker in Mount Shasta, Washington.”

“It’s all still there,” his father’s voice now. “If only in a different form. The scrolls wouldn’t have lasted forever anyway.”

Alexander knew he was right, but still—the original copies. So priceless. To have averted the doom Sostratus originally foresaw for them, only to be destroyed only a few years after rediscovery…

“I’ve got to go now, they’re coming soon. Remember…”

“Yes, I know. I’m a Keeper now. I’ll do what has to be done.” A little hesitation. “I’ll see you soon?”

“That’s a promise. I’m proud of you, Alexander. Goodbye.”

Alexander stood and raised his head, shining the light into the crevices and nooks, surveying what was left of his domain, the vault that had been built to survive for millennia. He allowed himself a moment to grieve for all this, for Rashi and Hideki. And for his mother.

And then he sat down and got to work.

3.

Xavier Montross waited alone in the limousine and didn’t bother trying the doors. He knew they’d be locked. In the back trunk rested an iron box more than five thousand years old that potentially held the greatest of secrets. And somewhere down there in that monstrous fissure, were the only keys that could open the box.

The keys and my nephew, he thought, imagining the boy’s terror, his sudden thrust into responsibility. We’re not so different. I was even a little younger when it happened to me.

Out the tinted windows he could see the crowd of fire engines, ambulances, vans and relief workers. Three helicopters overhead. People surging around the perimeter, spectators pushed back by armed police, keeping everyone at a distance from ground zero.

Xavier closed his eyes and for a moment, pictured his childhood room as it was for years, up until the accident that killed his mother and his foster father: the bedroom walls covered with drawings, visions that made the transition from mind to paper. He recalled one in particular: a deep hole bored into the earth, with tiny forms clinging to the sides, smoke rising from below.

He had seen this all before. Didn’t know what it was at the time, but now there was no mistaking it.

Just like there was no mistaking what he’d have to do next. He knew it was coming. Dreaded it, but at the same time found himself intensely curious. But first he allowed himself a moment.

A moment to think. About her.

A soaring flight over sandstone towers, deep ravines and striated cliff walls. Her breath on his neck, her arms fiercely encircling his chest. The intensity of adventure, the thrill of discovery…

And then he was back, and her scent left his lungs with the next breath, replaced by the stinging heat and flavor of death.

Mason Calderon slid into the seat facing Xavier, then shut the door. He had on a lavender silk shirt, sleeves rolled up, his white tie slightly loosened around his collar. A slight cough was his only indication of experiencing anything personally from the destruction outside. He brushed off his pant legs, then combed his fingers through his wavy gray hair.

“So, Xavier. We finally get to chat.” Calderon held a thin leather briefcase on his lap, tapping it gently.

Xavier’s head felt lighter suddenly, and the car seemed to spin. “The Tablet.”

Calderon smiled, his palms now flat against the leather case. “I know you can feel it too.” His eyes were large, Xavier thought, the pupils expanded like a focused cat’s. They blinked, then glanced out the window. His smile never wavered as he shook his head. “Such loss. But still, it was a valuable test. And a warning.”

“A warning to whom?”

Calderon’s gaze swept back to Xavier. “Don’t you know?”

“I know a lot of things. Maybe you should be more specific.” If this was how it was going to be, Xavier was going to have to figure a way to just get in position to kick the senator in the face and shut him up. He knew the next minutes were going to be crucial. Everything he believed in was going to be put to the test. Something was coming, some revelation he hadn’t accounted for. This was the grand meeting between dramatic adversaries, and Xavier, believing himself now thrust completely into the hero’s role, wasn’t going to be fooled.

But then again, maybe he needed a radical change in direction, because so far nothing had been altered. All his visions were still of the same thing: complete final destruction. His death, and everyone’s death at the hands of this man sitting before him so calmly.

Calderon leaned in slightly. “Do you know why the Nazis sent elite missions out to remote corners of the earth? Tibet, the North Pole, Antarctica?”

Xavier stared at him.

“These were hardly positions of strategic importance to the war,” Calderon continued. “And Himmler and other select SS members continued to expend vast resources seeking out areas where there were caves and tunnels penetrating deep into the earth. What were they looking for?”

Xavier shrugged, pretending not to care, although a sinking feeling was forming in his gut. “Treasure?”

“Not exactly. Hitler and the other members of what they called The Thule Society were following up on legends—or possibly if one source is to be believed—remote visions of a certain psychic named Trevor Ravenscroft. The belief in a pre-diluvian civilization, an advanced race, possibly coinciding with Atlantis or else even its predecessor. A race of supermen with advanced intelligence, physical strength and especially, mental powers. Powers and abilities that made them godlike.”

Xavier nodded. “Yeah, so Hitler was insane. Easily manipulated by whackos with god-complexes. Aryan master race. Sure. If they could prove they were descendants of these Thulians or whatever, then they’d what—justify genocide and lordship over the Earth?”

Calderon grinned. “Not only that, although certainly that was a big part of the justification for their quest. No, what Hitler intended was to discover where the remnant of this great super race went during the last cataclysm. Where they hid. And, he believed, where they continue to reside, deep in the earth, watching. Waiting…”

“For what?”

Calderon shrugged. “Hitler thought maybe they were waiting for him. Waiting for a ruler to step up and take the mantle of succession. To build an army capable of overwhelming the lesser races. All at the behest of a ruling class with advanced powers.”

Xavier wriggled against his bonds, wishing he could have hidden a knife in his sleeve to give himself a chance at escape. A chance at ending this here and now. Instead, he had to think of another way. “So, forgive me Senator. What the hell does this have to do with anything? Hitler’s gone, and us ‘lesser races’ smashed his superman dreams and dismantled his aspirations.”

“Gone, yes. But the Custodians are not.”

“The who? Oh, the Thule people. The master race. They’re still there, hiding under rocks?”

“Deep in the earth. Deep underground.” Calderon rubbed his hands together slowly, again looking out the window at the devastation. “And now, Xavier, we finally have a way to get to them.” He patted the briefcase, his eyes glowing with excitement.

And then Xavier got it. He understood his visions. Understood why nothing could stop the coming devastation. And at last, he understood what they were doing up in Alaska.

“Oh dear god,” he whispered. “HAARP. I guessed you used it to cause this localized earthquake. Modulating an ELF vibrational wave, using a billion watts of power, all in the same cadence and frequency into this one spot…”

Calderon waved his hand to move him along. “Yes yes, that was child’s play. Technology we’ve had for decades, but enhanced only recently in the last upgrade to the antenna arrays. All thanks to Tesla’s vision. But still, it wasn’t enough. The Custodians are deep. Deeper than we could ever probe, deeper than we could reach, even with HAARP.”

Xavier motioned with his chin to the briefcase. “But this is the game-changer.”

“It is,” said Calderon. “And I think they’ve been after it for millennia. Two sides, forever at war. It started up there.” He looked up at the roof. “Among the planets. The myths, decoded, tell the story. The gods of the sky and their squabbles, their bloody and earth-shaking battles. Marduk and Tiamat. Thoth and Set, Odin and Loki… So often repeated, so often recalled, if only in fables by our small minds. But there were always those who knew the truth, those who sought for dominance—or if nothing else, at least détente.”

Xavier tried to put the pieces together. “The Emerald Tablet gave the possessor what… a way to tap into greater destructive powers?”

Calderon nodded.

“But the Tablet does more.” Xavier thought quickly. “And now you have the translation. So, what do you need me for?”

Calderon was silent for a moment. “The boys are untested and rash, while you… you have a strength they’ll never attain, at least not in time to be of use. And Nina… well you know her.”

Xavier shrugged. “Does anyone really know her? I thought I did.”

“Regardless, you have an affinity for the power in the Tablet. A power that needs to be wielded by someone who can already do what you can.”

“So it was designed by one of them?”

“If you mean the Custodians, the early race, then yes. I believe so. We have certain evidence, scrolls and traditions that speak of a time when these artifacts were created by the greatest of the ‘gods’, used and coveted by their brethren. But like the hammer of Thor, only one of their own could access its true power.”

“So, fine. You need me. But you already know I’m sworn to stop you. All I’ve seen my whole life is you destroying the world. At first I thought it was to exact some sort of fiery revenge for Marduk’s ancient loss, but now…”

Calderon bent his neck. A moment of doubt crossed his expression. “I am not the destroyer,” he whispered. “They—these Custodians, forever aloof but forever jealous and stewing, dreaming only of their return, like some slumbering Lovecraftian deities—they are the true enemy. As long as they exist, mankind can never be free.” He spread out his arms. “I’m the world’s savior. And you, Xavier Montross, can help me.”

Xavier merely stared at him, dumbfounded. He’d known something was coming, but this?

“Join me,” Calderon said in a voice just above the rumble of the bulldozers, helicopters and rescue equipment. “Stop the Custodians. Together with your remote-viewing, with your ability to spirit-walk or whatever it is you do, and my resources, we can find them. Seek out their hiding places, penetrate their shields, and with this…” He gripped the case in both hands. “With this… we will wipe them out, bury them under a billion tons of earth like the cowardly moles they are. Wipe them out and reclaim this world for ourselves.”

Xavier felt dizzy. Tugged in two directions. “No,” he whispered.

“Xavier, don’t be a fool. They see what’s happening. They’re tracking evolution. We’re changing, transforming… into what they can’t abide.”

“What?”

“Changing into them.” Calderon grit his teeth. “Use your viewing powers later to confirm all this, but trust me. They are the ones that have constantly interfered in humanity’s path. The Flood. The Tower of Babel… Anytime we got too close, started working together, started evolving toward something, unlocking genes they had tried to deactivate. Custodians indeed!” He made an expression of disgust. “Custodians of their own perverse lordship perhaps. If you look, you’ll see their bloody fingerprints stamped across history. Since Babylon and since crushing the last great human civilizations, like those Indus Valley, Peru, Egypt and Cambodia, China—wherever man dared to advance and reach for their true destiny—we believe they’ve opted for the subtle approach. Fostering wars and disunity. Corrupting religion so humanity is always at each other’s throats.”

“Fighting ourselves so we can’t see the real enemy?” Xavier had to smile. “Reagan made the same speech at the UN in 1985. Thought maybe if aliens threatened us, we’d find common ground and unite against them.”

“Yes, you have it! And yes, I’ve had predecessors who have sought to change the status quo. But none with the access to the knowledge or power that I possess. They fear people like you, like my twins. Like the Morpheus Initiative. And they’ve dreaded the rediscovery of The Emerald Tablet.”

“But if it could hurt them, surely they would have found it first. Being as powerful as you claim. They could have done what Caleb did and found it first.”

Calderon shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “For some reason, they couldn’t. Maybe they’ve forgotten how, or else they misjudged and believed it was destroyed or if not, that at least no one would be able to retrieve it.”

Xavier frowned. Something didn’t make sense there. “But…”

“Xavier, stop thinking with your head. Use your heart. Your gut. You know I’m right.”

“But HAARP… if it can do what you believe it can, then these Custodians would have infiltrated it. Sabotaged it, destroyed the potential tool of their own destruction. You can’t sneak something like that past them.” He glanced outside. “Especially after this.”

“We’re well defended,” Calderon insisted.

“I found you, RV’d it quite easily. I just couldn’t physically access the site, not without help.”

Calderon shrugged. “I admit I was worried, but we’re being protected. The legacy of Marduk perhaps. Either way, it’s our fate. Our mission is crucial, and it’s not going to be stopped. We will root them out, and with those keys…” He pointed out the window. “We’ll translate this Tablet fully, and then their worst fears will come true.”

“What do you think that’s going to tell you?”

“Only how to reactivate the genetic material the Custodians blocked in our developing species.” His eyes blazed. “We’re going to do it, wholesale, across the globe. All at once, transforming the world.”

Xavier trembled. He thought of Alexander, and the boy’s love for that Pixar movie, The Incredibles. “And when everyone’s super…”

Calderon got the connection immediately and laughed, then finished the line: “…no one will be.”

After a pause, Xavier shook his head. “But something’s not right. You’re going to make a mistake. Enhancing your technology with the power of the Emerald Tablet will create a level of power beyond your control. You’ll do something wrong. Maybe…” He had a flash of a vision: rocks and magma blasting out of a hole, something with massive force drilling into the depths, layer after layer until cutting through a massive hollow cavity. A gleaming city of marble spires and citadels, suddenly pulverized by an invisible wave of energy which then continues deeper, deeper toward a churning crimson mass.

Xavier’s eyes shot open. “You won’t be able to control the depth. It’ll go too far, causing chain reactions, magnifying the initial vibrations into something unstoppable. It’ll smash into the core, disrupt the earth’s axis…” He felt a rush of heat, heard nine billion souls cry out at once, and then…

“You’ll kill us all,” he said as he collapsed.

Treading carefully over the massive fragments of the library’s shattered glass dome, Nina followed the boys toward the smoldering pit. At the precipitous edge, she looked down. Hundreds of feet, past the crumbling masonry, the twisted metal posts, the smoking husks of several taxis that had been unloading passengers, the fused layers of iron and drywall, the sparking wires, the jagged bookshelves thrust like spears into the sides. Huge chunks of the library’s outer wall—the rounded Aswan Granite carved with scripts from 120 different languages—littered the ledges and were scattered about the pond, the highway, and even lodged in the walls of nearby buildings. Several boats in the harbor had been crushed with exploding debris. In the pit, a host of pages fluttered about, still whirling, descending into the darkness.

In the wreckage, Isaac found a large leather-bound book, its cover sheared in half, spine dented. Smiling, he picked it up, dusted it off and then flung it, Frisbee-style, into the void.

Nina lowered her head. So unlike his father.

Jacob stood farther back, a little wary of heights, still shaken from the last minor aftershock that had rescue crews and spectators running for safety. He edged closer to Nina, started to reach for her hand again, but then saw his brother glaring at him; so he withdrew, shambling over to Isaac.

“Keep back,” Nina ordered. “You had your look. That should be enough.”

Isaac shrugged like he hadn’t a care in the world. “No problem, not for us. Just wanted to see the carnage, we did. See what daddy Calderon can do when he sets his mind to it.”

“And when we help him,” Jacob added, the excitement in his voice faltering as he surveyed the damage once more.

“Come along then.” Nina led them around the barrier, carefully stepping over blocks and gaping fissures. They made their way to the makeshift command center that had been set up inside the planetarium. Rising from a reflecting pool on the outskirts of the main library, the planetarium had been miraculously spared, along with several other ancillary buildings, research centers and administrative offices. The waters of its reflecting pool however, displayed only a pall of lingering smoke, occasionally bisected by roving news helicopters.

Nina and the twins walked around shell-shocked workers, numb-faced police standing beside army members and rescue workers who looked dumbfounded at the totality of the destruction, so much so that they had nothing to do and no one to save. Anyone down in that hole, they reasoned, was beyond hope.

But Nina knew otherwise. After flashing her credentials to a pair of soldiers, she entered the planetarium lobby.

She strode into the main command center, through members of UNESCO, who gave her a wide berth, barely registering the presence of the two out of place boys at her heels; she headed for the center terminal where a man in khakis was bent over a flat screen monitor. He adjusted the Bluetooth device at his ear and then tapped a section of the display—the output of the ground-penetrating radar, showing ridges, clumps of debris and hollow sections.

“Yes sir,” he said. “We’ve pinpointed three such cavities directly under the impact site that could contain survivors. We can get drilling teams started, but without any other information, we’re going to have to guess…”

“You don’t have to guess,” Nina said.

The man turned. Typical retired general sort, Nina thought. Stocky, a little pot-bellied. Neck like an elephant’s leg and a hair as white as a tusk. He stood up straight and let his eyes wander over her body. “Yes senator. She’s here now. With… a couple kids.”

Nina saw Isaac stick out his tongue.

“All right, all right. Your call.” He tapped his ear, ending the conversation. “So, your boss says to dig where these rugrats tell me to dig.”

Nina smiled. “He’s your boss too. And these rugrats are our only chance.”

The man shrugged. Looked her over again, his gaze lingering around her chest. Then he stuck out his hand. “I’m—”

“I don’t care,” Nina said, brushing past him and letting the boys take two vacant chairs around the screen. “We don’t have time to get acquainted.”

Jacob glanced up at her with a smile of admiration at the way she handled the general, then settled his attention on the screen.

The commander tried to move in closer. “This, I gotta see.”

“Give us some space,” Nina ordered. “Go assess something. Now, boys. You know the target, and we know he’s alive. So I need you to focus. Think about these three air pockets down there. Think hard, and try to see. Where is he? Where is-?”

“-our brother,” they both said in unison, after closing their eyes.

But Isaac peeked, and nudged Jacob’s arm. “Wanna race?”

“Shut up. I’ve already won.”

“Boys,” Nina began. They were rushing, clouding the reading. This wasn’t the way.

But then, aware that the commander was still at her back, watching all this, both boys reached out at the same time, as if they were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, and both pointed to the middle cavity, under the thickest section of collapsed concrete, earth and debris.

“Shit,” said the commander. “Had a bad feeling they’d pick that one.”

Just to be sure, Nina thought, she joined her hands to theirs, squeezed and let the information jolt up her arms like two pythons coiling and slithering up to strike at her skull.

Two visions, both almost identical:

Near darkness. A feeble beam of light, dancing around the wreckage, highlighting broken scrolls and broken bodies crushed under huge blocks. The light shining up… and the vision scuttling up the beam with it, through the gap in the cracked ceiling, up past huge blocks, broken metal beams, another body impaled on broken glass, and then out, looking straight up from the center of the crater…

She let go. “Good job, boys.”

“Of course, mother.” Isaac beamed at her, although she couldn’t help notice the sarcasm in his voice. Jacob lowered his eyes. “How soon can we get down there?”

“About six hours, I’d say.” The commander picked up a CB and started barking orders in Egyptian.

“So what do we do while we wait?” Jacob asked, glancing around at the exhibits, the huge photographs taken from the Hubble Telescope, the models of lunar modules and landers. Nina saw his curiosity and wondered again what kind of childhood they’d had with Calderon. School? Friends? Regular boy stuff like playing with rockets and digging for worms? Or had they bypassed all that, being groomed instead for a grander destiny?

“I’ve got new objectives for you all,” said Mason Calderon, striding inside, then leaning on his cane. “And another set of eyes.”

He moved aside, and pointed the cane like a stage magician—and there stood Xavier.

“Why,” asked Nina, “is he out of handcuffs?”

Xavier shrugged. “Bondage was never my thing.”

“Xavier has seen the wisdom of our mission, and that really there is no other choice. Isn’t that right?”

Xavier kept his eyes on Nina. He seemed pale, shrunken, like he’d lost a couple years. She remembered how she’d reacted when Calderon first showed her what was at stake, who the real enemy was. It was a lot to digest, almost too incredible to comprehend.

“We’ve been working the same side all along, just from different angles. All that’s important is stopping them.”

“And your recurring visions of doom?” Nina asked, barely moving her lips.

Xavier gave a slight nod, a tell she knew all too well. And one he knows I’ll see, she thought. What was he up to?

“If they’re behind it, then this is where I need to be.”

With his cane under his arm, Calderon clapped his hands. “Well spoken. But still, Nina please keep an eye on him.” he sighed. “Now, anyone with the ability to see things that aren’t right in front of them, please follow me into the theater of the stars. General McAdams, proceed with the rescue, with all haste.”

“Yes sir,” McAdams said, obviously annoyed at being told to do what he was already working on.

The boys skipped and ran ahead of Calderon who didn’t even look back to see if Nina and Xavier were following. She stood her ground as Xavier calmly walked by. Without looking at her, he whispered: “We need to talk…”

“Talk?”

He glanced back, and in his eyes she saw a fear that almost stopped her in her tracks. “Actually, you need to see for yourself.” He shot a look ahead toward Calderon, then hesitated. Suddenly, his hand was out, reaching for hers.

What’s he got to show me? She found herself reaching to him, longing to meet his hand. To clench it, squeeze him, pull him to her. A rush of emotions, her brain a mess. First Caleb, then her boys. Now Montross. Her emotions were in flux, she wasn’t thinking clearly. For a moment, she had the intense desire to be out somewhere in a dark alley, stalking her target with a machine pistol. Something violent, practical and with purpose.

But this…

Inches away, and Calderon’s voice interrupted them.

“Hurry along, these visions aren’t going to see themselves!”

Xavier pulled his arm back, then wheeled around, presenting a calm face once more. In his shadow, Nina followed. Her arms trembled and her hands opened and closed again, feeling nothing but the chance that slipped away.

What did he have to show me?

Somehow, she knew she was going to find out, but by then it would be too late.

4.

Caleb used the waterproof pouch to hold his clothes, then secured it around his waist, over the swimsuit. Tight-fitting and too European, Caleb thought, groaning and wondering which of the male keepers would have been able to fit in this one.

He tried not to think of the others. How many were left? Hideki and Rashi gone. Robert and Lydia. Four of the seventeen. The others had to be up above, or traveling to Alexandria to survey the damage. Or, Caleb thought, if they had some sense they were getting to their safe sites, communicating by untraceable phones and waiting to be sure they weren’t being targeted again. When this was over, he would have to reunite the Keepers and rebuild a sanctuary somewhere else. They still had plenty of work to do, made more difficult by the destruction of so many original copies of the early documents. But everything they had scanned was still intact, waiting for their interpretation, secrets awaiting revelation.

At this moment, Caleb rued that he hadn’t spent more time with the ancient scrolls; and now, when he most needed the lost wisdom, it was going to be up to his underprepared son to find out what he could, to find something to save them.

After donning his mask and strapping on the air tank, he closed and secured the supply cabinet, then punched in the code to open the hydraulic door set in the floor. It was built into the end of this reinforced tunnel, which extended for nearly a mile under the city, and another two hundred yards under the harbor. He stood on the edge and waited for it to slide all the way open, revealing a staircase below. He descended, and in the small concrete chamber below, he pulled a red lever, which closed the door above him and released the clamps on the far wall, raising it slowly, letting in the waters of Alexandria Bay.

Caleb braced himself, feeling the rushing wave over his shins. He held his arms outstretched at his sides, and imagined he was back under the Pharos Lighthouse, in the testing chamber, secured by chains and waiting for the flood that would prove him worthy to pass the second test. He thought of Lydia. He thought of his mother, of the early members of the Morpheus Initiative who had lost their lives down there.

This was nothing as intense, but he still had to keep his footing as the waters rose up past his waist. He kept his focus on the door, halfway up and rising. Bits of seaweed floated, along with a grey-eyed carp, swimming against the pull. The water rose up to his chin, and then he put in the regulator, took a deep breath, prayed Alexander was okay, then dove under and swam for the exit.

The door would close three minutes later, and the chamber would slowly drain. But by then, Caleb would be fifty yards farther away, heading toward the Ras-El-Ten peninsula. Heading for the edge, where Qaitbey’s fortress stood guard over the foundation of the ancient Pharos.

He swam slowly, maintaining a depth of about forty feet. For the most part, he kept his attention upwards, counting the dark hulls of the boats, but mindful of the ropes and chains that anchored them. He gradually ascended. Thirty feet. Twenty. Closing in on one boat in particular. The closest one to the fortress.

Odd that there weren’t more boats in the vicinity, as it was always a popular spot for tourists to come and snap pictures. A lot of them still remembered the incident eight years ago when a treasure-seeking team of Americans went diving, searching for an entrance to a mythical lost chamber under the original Pharos Lighthouse—only to encounter some sort of deadly fate, leaving their bodies to wash up, in pieces. The government subsequently outlawed scuba diving in a fifty-yard radius of the fortress, a law that Caleb was now flagrantly violating.

But he didn’t have time to waste. He needed a boat. And with the tragedy and the destruction consuming the city’s attention, Caleb felt he stood a good chance of being able to commandeer this boat from its owners and put it to better use.

As he surfaced at the back of the boat, which turned out to be a 26-foot Inboard Cruiser, bright red, he started fighting a queasy feeling. Maybe it was just the color, but Caleb had a sudden sense of danger, as if he had just stepped onto a street without bothering to look for traffic. His head spun as he took out the regulator and breathed normally, reaching for the ladder. Should have RV’d this-

He debated dropping back down under the waves and searching for another vessel, but then he heard something clicking from above. Something that sounded familiar to him after being around so many soldiers and military types in the past week.

It was the sound of someone chambering a round.

Even the way it was done sounded familiar, just as familiar as the sound this particular gun made. A Beretta.

Her weapon of choice.

“Damn,” Caleb said, looking up into the brilliant blue sky a moment before a silhouette obscured his view.

She looked like just another sexy sunbather, wearing a thin bikini that matched the color of the boat. She even smelled like tanning oil; and her hair was pulled back in a tail that whipped from side to side in the wind.

Nina Osseni held the gun steadily aimed at Caleb’s head. “Hi honey. I was wondering when you’d bother to show up.”

He reached a hand up for her to take, but she just backed up, keeping the gun on him. “Sorry, but given our history, I’m not about to touch you right now. Just come on up here and have a seat.”

Caleb hung on the ladder, his mask up on his forehead. He was calculating his chances of diving and getting under the boat, then descending out of her reach. “If I say no?”

She sweetly smiled and shook her head. “You’re not that quick, lover.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Move. We have things to talk about. Our boys saw that you’d try to make for the fort.”

After a wistful look down into the suddenly clearing water, and a yearning glance to the fortress, he climbed. Slid off his air tank, peeled off his mask and kicked free of his fins; then he stood there, dripping onto the boat as she sized him up.

She whistled, almost giggling. “I’m guessing you had to borrow a suit for the swim.”

Caleb narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re making jokes?” He pointed over his shoulder to the mainland, where helicopters roamed over the ruins of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. “Right after that just happened?” His hand clenched into fists. “Nina, what have you done?”

Her grin evaporated. Her eyes darted to the disaster site, then back to her prisoner. “I… I’m still sorting it out. Still figuring…”

“Your place in Calderon’s world?”

“My place,” she said through clenched teeth, “is with my boys.”

“Our boys.” Caleb leaned toward her. “Nina, listen. If I had only–”

“Looked? If you had bothered, or if Lydia hadn’t completely distracted you?”

“I know. I would have seen you, but I had no idea. I wasn’t even thinking of questioning it. You were dead, I thought. Why would I want to relive that? Why would I look for you, only to see you die again?” His eyes pleaded, and this time, at last he really meant it. “I would have, Nina. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to save you.”

She snickered. “Touching. But we both know that once you found out I was working for Waxman, you were glad I was gone.”

“I’m not going to argue anymore. If you’re not going to let me go, then shoot me if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Oh it would, Caleb. It really would. But I think Jacob and Isaac really want to meet their daddy, and I can’t deny them such a simple pleasure.” She took a seat opposite him on the deck, crossing her silky tan legs slowly while she leaned forward, casually holding the .45. “But first, there’s the matter of Giza’s subterranean labyrinth. Senator Calderon tasked me to find out exactly what you learned down there.”

Caleb cocked his head. “Why? Couldn’t he get the boys to RV it?”

Nina didn’t move. “Their minds are… a little OCD, I’d say. Getting them to focus is like teaching a golden retriever to play chess in a park full of kids throwing balls.” She absently tapped the gun’s barrel against her front teeth. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you’re up to? What is it you and Xavier thought you could do to stop Calderon? Stop a man who could do…” she motioned to the devastation on the shore “…that?”

Caleb smoothed back his thick wet hair, and his eyes locked on hers. She didn’t need the gun to make him feel like he was at her mercy. Just like when they had first met, he felt out of her league, humbled by her beauty. Only now, he could see something else behind her eyes: the calculating, catlike fury and selfishness that Nina possessed in abundance. But he held onto a hope that just as Caleb had changed after he had discovered he had a son, maybe some grand lycanthropic transformation would work her over, reforming her. But it didn’t seem likely.

“Go to hell,” he whispered. “You want to find out, you know what you have to do.”

“Oh,” Nina said, tracing her lips with the gun’s barrel, “you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Caleb stood up. “Again, I’m not here to talk, and I’m not here to help you. Do what you need to do, but I won’t be a willing subject.”

Nina stood beside him, taking the bait without realizing she’d just been hooked. Smiling, she reached for him and said, “Just the way I like it.”

He felt a burning rush as she grabbed his wrist, and then she was turning him towards her, and the sun was behind her, blazing through her hair, and her face disappeared into the blackest shadow as she leaned in.

And then her lips were on his, her tongue opening his mouth, her lungs sucking in his breath. He squirmed in her grasp, even as he felt the electric chill of her curves against his wet chest, her legs encircling his calves, pinning him in place as she took his thoughts. His memories, his essence.

But this time, he was prepared. His mind was focused.

She may have thought she was taking from him, but this time, he was the one giving.

She saw it all, just as he had mentally prepped it, as if he had loaded the projector in his mind, and had it playing in an infinite loop so that anyone that poked their head in for a look, would see…

A massive ripple of energy, nearly invisible but sparking as if roiling with electromagnetic charges at war within the ether, a wave tearing through New York City, blasting the skyline apart, cutting a swath through the island, tearing across the harbor and splitting the waters, causing mirror-image tsunamis, parting before the Statue of Liberty which seemed to wince before being struck. It shatters, arm, torso and crown tossed in separate directions, caught up in the flux and separately pulverized.

Then—ascent, and a satellite’s view. The ripple tears across the globe, leaving a path of destruction from an origin point somewhere in eastern Alaska. But then… the clouds are massing, swirling over the northern hemisphere, lighting up from within, periodically bursting with intense flashes. Massive auroras are appearing in the upper atmosphere, as if an unseen hand works with vibrant watercolors, splashing them in broad brushstrokes over the world’s skies. Breathtaking. Beautiful.

The earth trembles. Wobbles unsteadily. In breaks of the clouds, the land masses seem to be shifting. Major sections tearing free. Waters spilling over entire countries. The globe shifts the wrong way. The poles reverse. Flipping, as if something has completely unsettled the core, scrambled it and shut off the dynamo at the center of Earth’s molten center, then jump-started it again.

The vision draws sideways so that the Earth is out of the frame, and its companion pulls near. The Moon. Silvery, lustrous, complacent. So bright…

…on one side. But we’re nearing, soaring around, towards the darkness. Towards…

The vision ended in a searing ball of light. Intense white that turned to yellow, then dimmed… and dimmed. She couldn’t get her bearings, but Nina felt as if she were weightless. Still in space. Still…

Then it dawned on her. She couldn’t see, not yet. Not with the glare of the sun still tearing at her eyes, but she knew all the same. She was in the water. In the damn harbor. With… a vest on? And—a regulator stuffed into her mouth. She was breathing the tasteless but pure air from a scuba tank.

That meant…

Shit!

She tried to spin around, awkwardly lashing out with her hands. Where was he? How did she get out here?

But then she realized it.

He had been ready for her. He knew she’d try to pry the truth from his mind, and he was ready.

But with what?

What the hell was that?

She floated, and her vision gradually returned along with the sound of a motor, a familiar motor, departing swiftly.

Damn Caleb.

Lucky, he thought, steering the boat the last few yards, coasting into the dock, where two youths waited with ropes to reel and tether him in. I got lucky. Nina had her guard down, and never considered that Caleb could show her anything that would literally send her reeling.

Let her stew on that, he thought as he disembarked and gave the boat-hands a tip out of the purse Nina had left behind. He took that with him, wrapped in a towel that he tucked under his arm.

Happily, she had also left her cell phone on the seat. He quickly made his way into the shadow of Qaitbey’s Fortress and took it out, preparing to dial Phoebe. But first he glanced out into the harbor, where far out there he thought he could make out Nina, starting to swim for the rocky shore. He knew it was probably a mistake to let her live. But he wasn’t a killer. He could no more strap weights to her chest and dump her, unconscious, into the harbor, than he could strangle a sleeping cat. Not to mention the newfound connection they shared. But while he couldn’t kill her, only incapacitate her for a time, neither did he believe they could work together.

Hopefully what he had shown her would cause her to second-guess what she had been told. Or at least, to start to question whose side she was really on. But he wouldn’t count on it.

He had work to do.

On the second ring, Phoebe picked up and once she heard his voice, relief flooded hers. “Big brother! Glad my vision wasn’t wrong, and you’re still alive. How’s Alexander?”

“Safe, for now. But listen, we need to move fast. And I don’t want them tracking this call. I need your help. Can you get me out of here? Where are you, I tried looking, but only–”

“Saw something blue?” Phoebe’s voice was giddy, like she had just opened a favorite present. “We got ourselves one of those shields!”

“A what? And who’s we?”

“You won’t believe me. Orlando and I, we’re on a plane, nearing…”

Caleb heard an unfamiliar voice yell out and cut her off: “Don’t say where we’re going!”

“Oh right,” said Phoebe. “Kind of defeats the purpose of a shield. Anyway, we’re with some others with similar interests. Been recruited, you might say. We’ll find a way to get you here discreetly.”

“Phoebe, listen. That can wait. If you’ve got access to discreet transportation—and I can only cringe and guess why—then have your new friends have a jet waiting for me at the Alexandrian airstrip. I need to go to New York City. I’ll explain later.”

“Oh, I bet it’s something to do with the statue!”

Caleb held out his hand for a cab, as soon as he reached the end of the promontory and back toward the street.

“You wouldn’t believe what we’ve seen,” Phoebe continued. “And we’re about to learn a lot more, I’m guessing, but already it’s out of this world stuff.”

Caleb caught her emphasis, and immediately thought of the artwork down under the pyramids, the strange remnant technology, and his and Xavier’s visions.

“Okay, just tell me you can get the plane.”

“I think so. Go, and we’ll have it ready. Just for you?”

“Yeah, Xavier’s let himself get captured.”

“What? Why?”

“Said it was to buy us our escape, but I know he’s got something else in mind. He needs to get into Calderon’s camp, probably has to do with something he’s seen. But all that’s out of my hands. I need to get the one thing I know can help us.”

“All right, big brother. Get to the airport, do your thing. We’ll see you when we see you. In the meantime…”

“You’re in charge of the Morpheus Initiative, Phoebe. I trust you. And if you trust these new friends, then you have my confidence to bring them in on what we know. Pool your resources. If I fail…”

“Yeah, yeah. If you fail, it’s up to me. Again.”

Caleb hung up, then dropped the phone on the street as he entered the cab. As soon as they realized Nina was gone, they’d be looking for him. And with the twins’ ability to find him, he didn’t want to make it any easier by letting them track her phone. He told the driver where to go, then settled back, hoping to close his eyes, rest and let his visions seek out some possible solutions.

5.

Alexander tried hard to focus, to do everything his father had told him. To just think about the computer and his responsibility, but it was difficult. So hard to concentrate down here in the dark. With the priceless books and scrolls and tablets, most of them ruined. With the darkness and the shadows.

With the dead.

He couldn’t keep his mind on the task of sorting through the computer files. Clicking on folder after folder, trying to find something useful without even knowing what he was looking for. Worse than a needle in a haystack, because half the time these files just opened scanned photos of the original texts, which then had notes written in Greek or Coptic—languages Alexander was still not proficient with to say the least.

He was beginning to panic. The air felt thinner after every minute. The shadows deeper. The flashlight light a little fainter. Finally he turned it off and just focused on the computer screen, and tried to imagine he was home in his room in the dark. Nothing else but his familiar bed and books around him in the dark. Just those, and his computer.

And it worked, and he relaxed and started to make some progress.

-Until he heard the rumbling from above.

Oh no. He trembled and his mouth went completely dry. The drill.

He was going to have to kick this into gear. Come on, you’re a Keeper now. He had to find the answer, finish his mission. For his father. For the Morpheus Initiative, for the memory of all the Keepers lost today. He couldn’t let them down. But he needed to improvise. The computer search route wasn’t working. It was time for another tactic. One that had to work, and fast.

They’re coming.

He shut the laptop’s cover and sat in darkness with his eyes closed. Ignoring the rumbling from above, ignoring the dust filtering through the gaps in the ceiling and coating his head like falling snow, he focused on the target. It was a vague objective, but hopefully something his subconscious could latch onto if it went fishing around in a murky pond with a hook the size of a bazooka.

Think! Rashi had found something in the recovered library. Something big, something she shared with the others. All of them except Dad.

Think!

And suddenly, a nibble. Something jerked in his mind, a vibration rattling his mind. And then he saw–

Lydia. His mother, hunched over the central table, looking through a large magnifying lens at an intact rectangular stone slab with odd writing all over it. Keepers Rashi and Hideki standing behind her, anticipating her reaction.

“This is it,” Lydia whispers. “The Rongo-Rongo script. Its first translation into Sumerian. This is…” Her face pulls back from the glass, and her eyes are beaming, her expression numinous. “This is everything.”

“Yes,” Rashi says, “we now have a cipher we can use to decipher the writings at Harrapan and Mohenjo-Daro.”

“And these others,” Hideki adds, motioning toward a table full of rough-edged tablets, some looking incredibly ancient.

Lydia’s smile matches theirs. “Robert will be so pleased!”

Rashi nods. “He’s been searching for this translation for years.”

“He hoped it would be in the collection,” Lydia says. “You know Robert, he believes in all that pre-historical civilization stuff, that some great race was wiped out or went into hiding before our current recorded history, and that maybe this script was their only legacy.”

“If we could only translate it,” Rashi muses with a smile. “Which is now possible. So, are you going to tell Caleb?”

Lydia glances to the pile of waiting tablets. “Not yet. Let’s see what we learn. He’s not coming back for another four months. Let’s see what we can translate first. And if there’s anything he needs to know, we’ll decide at that point. For all we know, this will just be gibberish, or maybe a list of holidays and crop yields or something.”

“You don’t believe that,” Hideki says. “If that were the case, these pieces wouldn’t have been safeguarded in the most secret vault on the planet.”

Lydia sighs. “True. But still, let’s be extra careful about what we translate. This could be the biggest revelation yet, in all these texts. Explosive knowledge that could have damning results for the whole planet.”

A bitter blackness suddenly replaced everything, leaving Alexander in a near whimper, longing to stay by his mother’s side. At once he crumpled over, nearing tears, reaching with his mind to get back there. To see her again, to see–

- her typing furiously at the computer. Alone in the chamber. The packed alcoves surrounding her on the rounded walls, all those priceless scrolls and texts crafted by ancient hands while her own fingers deftly move across the keyboard. Her lips silently spell out the words as she translates from the latest tablet and types.

The view moves closer and Lydia pauses, trembling, glancing around.

“Caleb?”

She backs up in the chair, moves her head back and forth, her eyes closed, as if seeking a scent. Then she shakes her head and returns to the screen. “Sometimes I get these feelings… Like you’re looking in on me from another time and place. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

She sighs, opens her eyes and looks intently around the room. Up at the ceiling, around the silent and deep alcoves. “If it is you,” she whispers, “just know that I did this for you, and for Alexander. I’m hiding what we’ve found, because if you discovered it you’d mobilize your little group and go out hunting these… people. I know you would. And you’re not ready, oh god Caleb… what I’ve learned…”

Her shoulders tremble. “Don’t… just don’t go after them. Don’t even look for them. Because they’ll know. Please, for Alexander’s sake. For all our sakes. If you somehow find this, just leave them alone. If you can. Unless… it’s unavoidable.”

She moves the mouse to close out the file she’s been working on—and just before it disappears, the name is visible:

“Custodians.” Alexander opened his eyes and in the darkness he fumbled for the flashlight switch, found it and in the burning brilliance, he returned to the computer.

“Okay,” he said, over the increasing volume of the drills coming closer. “Let’s find where mom’s hidden you, and what all the fuss is about.”

6.

Mount Shasta, Washington State

They landed at the small airport outside of McCloud, near the base of the majestic, snow-capped Mount Shasta, then assembled into two jeeps that proceeded through the picturesque town at speeds Phoebe thought bordered on criminal, not to mention obviously attention-grabbing, at a time when she expected they’d want to keep a low profile. The lovely town instantly tugged at her heart, and she squeezed Orlando’s hand. He was smiling at the scenery, the quaint shops, restaurants and inns at this resort town, reminiscent of the old gold rush period, and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing: that when this was all over, maybe they could get away and come out here for a romantic vacation.

Aria sat in the back with her father, who seemed to be recovering nicely, but was still in and out of consciousness. She watched with wide eyes, taking in the lush forests of pine, the variety in the colors of the leaves, the grass and brush. But always her attention was drawn to the great mountain, the ice and snow covering most of its surface up to the dazzling white peak. Phoebe could only imagine what the girl was experiencing, having lived her whole life in the dry desert.

With the town behind them, the road narrowed and they traveled for a while in silence, with Colonel Temple at the wheel, his mirrored sunglasses covering any sign of emotion. A few more minutes and they turned onto a bumpier trail where the alpine woods closed in and scraped against their windows as they moved into Shasta’s shadow. Soon, NO TRESSPASSING signs began to appear, and their ears popped as they began to climb.

But it wasn’t much longer before they stopped, coming to a high metal fence manned by two camouflaged men with heavy rifles. A nod from Temple, who showed them a pass, and they were through.

A rectangular two-story windowless building stood under a canopy of trees against the base of a steep rocky incline. A half-dozen satellite dishes of various sizes pointed through one clear section to the blue sky.

“That’s it?” Orlando asked, stepping out of the jeep and stretching.

Temple chuckled. “Give us a little credit. We may not have unlimited funds, but we’ve got enough for a little luxury. This is just one of our redundant communication sites.” He was smiling as he reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out a small transmitter. He pointed it at a flat wall of the mountainside, and moments later a doorway appeared. Two sides split open and parted, revealing a tunnel, and a globe-shaped silver car on a set of tracks.

Temple removed his sunglasses And said, in a business-like tone, “Welcome to Stargate.”

After the doors closed and they were all situated around the surprisingly roomy interior, the tram moved them along at a more-than-leisurely pace that made Orlando compare it to the New York subway system. Except the view out the convex windows was less interesting: just occasional dull lamps revealing little beyond what one would expect inside a tunnel burrowed into a mountain.

“Alexander would love this,” he said to Phoebe. “Reminds me of the villain’s secret lair inside that volcano in The Incredibles.”

Temple heard him and smiled. “Not the vibe we were going for, but secrecy is vital. And anyway…”

Aria’s eyes widened. “You didn’t build this tunnel! You found it here.” She was sitting on her father’s lap, his arms around her waist protectively.

“What?” Phoebe stared at the girl. “You saw that?”

Aria pressed her little fingers against the glass window. “They found it, using their psychics.”

“Following up on native American legends about a race living within the mountain,” Temple added. “And… rather sensational reports through the years. Prospectors, climbers, explorers… tall tales of robed men and women appearing from the caverns, speaking enigmatically and then disappearing. Strange lights at night. Weird craft-shaped objects coming and going…”

“A regular UFO hotspot,” Orlando said, then shrugged. “At least according to Coast to Coast AM Radio.”

Phoebe leaned across the aisle toward Aria, and looked out the window at the lights passing in the darkness. “What else did you see?”

The girl closed her eyes. “I saw… I see… that where we’re going… it’s one big hollowed out cavern that they’ve made into their headquarters. But there’s something, some place they can’t get into. They wanted to get further, but there’s a door of some kind.”

Temple nodded. “A barrier, black, solid and thick. The Dove had been having visions of it for years.”

“But never,” Aria added, “seeing anything behind it. Only blue.”

“Correct. Apparently they let us get this far, but no further.”

The tram was slowing, and brighter lights appeared.

Orlando frowned. “So there’s a door. Couldn’t you bust through? Or drill around it?”

Temple smiled. “Course we tried. But any machinery that got within twenty feet suddenly died. EMP field of some kind, protecting it. Tried manually digging around, but whoever we sent to do it came back… the only word I can say is… ‘befuddled’. As if their brains were temporarily scrambled. They had no idea what they were there to do, or even where they were, and it took hours for the memories to clear. So no, we can’t get through.”

“Hmmm,” said Phoebe. “Sounds like you were invited to a party, but then denied entrance at the front door.”

“That’s about the way we saw it,” Temple replied. “But we didn’t take offense. Instead, I’m thinking maybe this is their way of testing us, observing us first. Seeing if we’re worthy to get inside to the big dance.”

“How long has it been?” Orlando asked. “That you’ve been tested?”

“Four years, give or take.”

Phoebe whistled. “Maybe it’s not a test.”

“What do you mean?” Temple cocked his head. And for the first time, his voice didn’t sound so confident.

She shrugged. “Maybe you’re just meant to be close. All of us in one spot…”

“So it’s easier to wipe us out,” Orlando finished.

Temple was about to say something when the interior suddenly got a lot brighter. The walls of the tunnel gave way and their tram hurtled above an enormous open space. They hugged the stalactite-covered roof, racing along a monorail track that circled the mile-wide facility, looking down on a complex of rectangular buildings, pathways and plains. Pipes and wires ran along the sides of the elliptical cavern, with pathways laid out in concentric circular grids. Giant floodlights stood at regular intervals, and the track angled toward one pyramid-shaped glass building that stood fifty feet above the others.

“Central command,” Temple pointed. “Where we’re headed. Where you’ll meet the team.”

“And the diabolical super villain in charge,” Orlando mused.

“That would be me,” Temple said with a grin as they began to slow down. “Now, get ready for some revelations that are really going to blow your mind.”

Inside the sparkling glass-walled command center, the tram stopped at a level lit up by major lights diffusing through the windows. Looking up, the walls converged at a point where another huge circular light hung, giving the whole area a feel of being inside the luxurious lobby of an ostentatious hotel. There were three fountains and a waterfall, nestled inside a park-like area with large palm trees and lush flowering bushes. Multicolored birds flew about, chirping and singing. There were rounded picnic tables, benches set alone in shaded areas where people sat and appeared to be meditation, or just sleeping.

“You’ll have time to enjoy the scenery later,” Temple said, urging them along. He headed toward an elevator set in a rectangular, ivy-covered central pillar. “We’re needed down below.”

They followed, Aria and Phoebe first, then Orlando who pushed Aria’s father in a wheelchair. The doors closed and they descended quickly in a sealed car. “I’d have expected glass walls,” Orlando said. “No view?”

Temple shook his head. “These levels are largely private. We have twenty-seven psychics at work down here, along with a staff of sixty to maintain the complex, cook the food, run information searches and gather real-world intelligence. That all happens on levels four and five. The psychics, they’re down on six.”

“In the basement,” Orlando commented. “Where we belong.”

Phoebe jabbed him. “Okay, so what’s the plan? We meet everyone, and then what? We’ve got to help Caleb and Alexander, and stop…”

“The end of the world, yes. All in time.” The doors opened and Temple led them out into a much different setting. Soft lights, mahogany walls, dark carpeting. Leather couches, gold-framed maps on the walls: ancient-looking maps of the world, depictions of the stars and planets from the Middle Ages.

Orlando whistled as he rolled Brian Greenmeyer forward.

“Leave me here,” the man whispered. “Tired, and this looks like a good place to rest.”

“Dad?” Aria turned around. She still held Phoebe’s hand.

“I’m not worried,” he said. “You’re with good people.”

A thin, matronly woman stood up from a desk in the dark corner and took the wheelchair handles from Orlando. “I’ll watch over him now, get him a drink and some food.”

“Thanks, Laurie,” Temple said. He gripped the doorknobs and opened the two large oak doors, and then they were passing through a long hallway lit by what looked like turn-of-the-century gaslights set in bronze gargoyle sconces.

“What’s behind all these doors?” Phoebe wondered, looking ahead and losing count until the distant end of the corridor.

Temple paused at the first one. “Okay, a little off the main tour, but I’ll show you. These are our ‘contemplation chambers.’ Each a little different. Décor suited to the objective.”

“What objective?” Orlando asked.

Temple put a finger to his lips and quietly pushed open the door.

Inside were three people sitting in large bean bags, each a different color. They wore sleeping masks and seemed to be dozing… except for the pads of paper and pencils in their hands. Around the walls were hung photographs—aerial maps of mountain ranges and coastal regions, geological studies that seemed to center around fault lines running across the ocean beds and highlighting volcanic areas.

Temple eased the door shut. “We have them solely focused on natural disasters. Trying to predict the next ones, probing likely hot spots.”

“And if you get a credible hit?” Orlando asked.

“We quietly leak it to the geological community and do what we can do evacuate ahead of the event. But…”

“You haven’t had much luck yet?” Phoebe asked.

“Not as such. Close, but timing’s always a bit off. Sometimes they can’t tell whether it’s weeks or days, or in a couple regrettable instances, only minutes away. We’re working on refining the techniques. And we hope, maybe with your help, to improve our results. But first things first, or there won’t be any need for any of this.”

“What’s in here?” Orlando asked, reaching for the next door.

Temple grasped his wrist just as he turned the knob and the door opened a crack. “Leave that one alone.” He closed it gently, but not before Orlando got a glimpse of two older women, dressed as gypsies, standing before a glowing globe with their hands out and their eyes closed.

“Was that the moon?”

Temple sighed. “Yes, but the less you see of that, the better. We try to keep them alone and what they’re working on secret. We even have a shield permanently blocking that room, since it could cause the most alarm if certain elements determined what they were looking for.”

“Which is?” Orlando clenched his hands into fists. “Let’s get on with it. Get to the good stuff.” He pointed to the door. “I want in there.”

“Soon.” Temple ushered them along, speaking as a tour guide without opening any more doors. “In here we’ve got a rather gifted, if unfocused, talent looking for other candidates across the world who have demonstrated precognitive abilities. In this next room we’ve got four siblings, ages twelve through twenty seven, who together seem to share the same visions. We’ve got them probing certain historical events, trying to piece together what really happened to colonies—or whole cities—that went missing. Roanoke. Mayan centers, Pueblo towns… We have a list.” He slowed near the end of the corridor, passing two more doors. “Here we’ve got our largest room, a testing facility for new members. We put them through a series of blind objectives and gauge what they seem to be best at.”

They kept walking, with Aria and Phoebe glancing at each door, and Orlando itching to get inside and dig in. “This is just the kind of place I told Caleb we needed. More psychics, more objectives. Cool stuff to figure out! Damn, Temple, unless you’re jerking our chains, I love this place! Where do I sign up?”

Temple held up a hand before one more door on their left. “One thing more to show you before we enter the main conference center. In here, you’ll meet—”

“-The Dove,” whispered Aria with an odd smile on her face. They opened the door.

He was, to put it mildly, a little different than Orlando or Phoebe expected. He sat in an enormous leather reclining chair. Enormous because it had to be in order to fit his frame. Easily four hundred pounds, the Dove was in his late fifties. Balding, multiple chins, arms and legs the size of small redwood trunks. He went shoeless, and his big feet were up, presenting a grotesque view. Cheetos crumbs and pizza crusts littered the front of his extra sized Worlds of Warcraft t-shirt—the same kind Orlando had been sporting, until the incident with the eels.

Phoebe gave his arm a squeeze as if to say, look—there’s you in a few years.

“Hey there,” the Dove said, waving a big hand in their direction. “Just taking a break, boss. These the newbies?”

“New to you, maybe,” Phoebe quipped. “I’ve been at this since before I could talk.”

“I stand corrected.” He slapped away the crusts from his shirt. “I’d get up and meet you, but I don’t get up much. Not when these good people can bring me anything I want. If I didn’t have to piss and… well, I’d never get up. Too busy anyway.” He spun his chair around slowly, groaning with the effort. And Orlando took a step in, wrinkling his nose at the smell, noting the air fresheners working in the corners, overtime apparently.

Why is he called the Dove? he wanted to ask, and would as soon as they were alone.

The room was small, with maroon-painted walls supporting large bookshelves crammed full like the shelves of a used book store. On the walls were movie posters—specifically ones of a certain genre. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Close Encounters. The Day the Earth Stood Still. War of the Worlds.

Orlando nodded. “So in here, you’re studying film classics?”

The Dove made an un-dovelike sound. “Ha, good one. Nope, in here I do the important stuff, looking in on our ‘friends’. As much as I can, sneaking around their defenses, mostly seeing the footprints rather than the feet—or tentacles—that made them.” He grinned and chuckled, wiping his greasy hands on his dirty pants. “Hey Temple, you show ’em the NASA chick’s highlight reel yet?”

Temple shook his head. “Heading there next.”

“Highlight reel?” Phoebe asked.

“NASA chick?” Orlando followed up with.

The Dove grinned. “Oh, it’ll be a hoot, believe me. I’d join you, but…”

“Right,” Orlando said. “You’d prefer not to get up.”

Making a gun out of his fingers, the Dove pointed and grinned. “You got it, Orlando Natch. And by the way, good work out there in Bamian. I took a little time off the hunt to check you guys out.”

“And thank you,” Temple said, “for your timely intelligence when we needed it.”

The Dove gave a half-hearted bow from his seat. “Now, if that’s all, gentlemen and ladies, I have some more snooping to do. And you have a lot of catching up to do if you’re going to be anything but dead weight, which I have my doubts about.”

“We’ll try not to disappoint”, Phoebe said, leaving quickly, eager to breathe the fresh air out in the hall.

“Toodles!” called the Dove as the door closed behind them.

“There,” Temple said. “That went better than expected. He can be… a little less than charming sometimes.”

“Please,” said Orlando, “tell me he wasn’t a skinny geek like me when you found him.”

“He’s actually on a diet,” Temple said, “and doing quite well at it. We saved him from an extended stint at a rehab center where his chances were not very good. Gave him purpose and now he’s actually trying.” He made a face. “Just not entirely motivated.”

He moved forward to the end of the hall, toward a gold-plated two-door exit. Smiling to his three guests, Temple opened the doors and led them into a room that gave Orlando the immediate impression of stepping into Mission Control at NASA. Two rows of tables with comfortable leather seats before a central conference table and a main wall covered with projection screens of various sizes, including one immense screen currently split into eight smaller rectangles. Different scenes were presented on each one, and Orlando recognized a view of some jungle temples in Belize, while another had a distant view of the Taj Mahal, another the Great Wall of China, one had the Pyramids, and another, Stonehenge, and another–

“The Moon. And that,” Orlando pointed to a center screen where a reddish, rocky desert image stood eerily silent. “First I thought it was the Southwest, a random desert somewhere. But I’ve seen that before, from the rover’s camera. It’s…”

“Mars,” said a new voice. A woman stood up from behind a large-screen computer monitor in the second row. She was thin and shapely, with long auburn hair and blue eyes that were haggard and weak, and yet sparking with a twinge of excitement that only came from discovery after long hours of searching. She wore jeans and a loose white t-shirt with the words: ROCK CLIMBERS DO IT HAND OVER HAND.

Nodding to Temple, she came around the table and extended her hand in greeting to the newcomers. “My name’s Diana Montgomery. And I’m…” she glanced at Temple questioningly. “Well, I’ve only been brought on two months ago, but I guess you can say I’m a consultant.”

Temple stepped inside, shutting the door behind them. “Sure, we’ll keep that title. Diana was a consultant for NASA most recently, until certain illicit behavior was discovered.”

Diana raised her hands. “Caught with my hands in the cookie jar, downloading some evidence they preferred remain classified.”

“Before that,” Temple continued, “she served as assistant to the Director of the Smithsonian.”

Diana smiled at Orlando. “Before being kindly asked to resign after I once again…”

“Got your hand caught in the cookie jar?” Phoebe supplied, pulling Orlando back a little and sending a signal at the same time.

“More like their restricted archives.”

“But not before she first found some rather interesting things,” Temple said.

“Artifacts. Certain relics that didn’t fit with the modern historical consensus. Things that made me question everything about our evolution, our discoveries and technology.” She turned and walked back to the main wall, where she eyed the scenes of Mars. “And that sent me searching for answers in the one logical place where it made the most sense. The one place,” she said, “that terrified the hell out of me.”

“Up there?” Aria asked.

Diana nodded. “I used my connections and a little blackmail, I’m not afraid to admit, to get a job as a consultant to NASA. Then worked my way into a position to gain access to material off limits to most everyone except a few higher-ups. I took what I could, and confirmed in my own mind everything, all my worst fears.”

“And then,” said Temple, trying to hurry her along. “She got caught. Or would have, if the Dove hadn’t glimpsed what she was doing. We acted quickly, scooping her up just before a team was prepared to take her out… permanently.”

Diana looked down. “And I’ve pretty much been here in exile ever since.” Her expression brightened. “But it’s not so bad. Every once in a while I get a break and can go outside and do what I really love.”

“Rock climbing?” suggested Phoebe.

Diana nodded. “Ever since I was a teenager. Me and my dad.” Her face fell. “Until he died investigating something strange at a cave in the Grand Canyon.”

Orlando gasped. “Kinkaid’s cave?”

Diana smiled. “Figured you might have heard about it.”

“I remember that,” Phoebe said. “The news conference. That was you?”

She nodded. “I broke the story. Or tried to. Later, after my resignation, the Smithsonian retracted it all and said there was a huge mistake, that items had been misclassified in the archives. Forgeries, all of them. They said that I had acted rashly without their consent, blah blah blah.”

“But you knew the truth,” Orlando said wistfully. “Egyptian artifacts in a cave, thousands of years old. In the damn Grand Canyon. That must have been an adventure, finding those!”

“Well, I had help.”

Temple grinned, looking from Phoebe back to Orlando.

“Help?” Phoebe asked.

“One of you,” Diana replied. “A remote viewer. He came to me in the desert, saved my life, and then helped me find the hidden chamber. He showed me everything, and he… we…” Her eyes turned glassy and wistful. “Well, I haven’t seen him since, but he had these drawings, and…”

“What was his name?” Phoebe asked, her mouth dry. Fearing she knew the answer already.

“Xavier,” Diana said quietly, her voice cracking with emotion. “Xavier Montross.”

7.

When the first rocks started falling, Alexander had just finished rereading his mother’s file for the second time. His head swam with scanned images, rough drawings made by the other keepers. Ancient maps that looked like the inside of anthills, crude sketches and strange symbols, a timeline with notations in his mother’s hand. He was still putting all the pieces together, trying to decide whether all this was some fanciful early myth or if it could it possibly actual history, when rubble crashed through behind him.

Chunks of stone, fused metal and pieces of glass tumbled free and slammed into a bank of shelves. Alexander jumped up, snatched the laptop and retreated to the far edge of the chamber, shrinking into a corner where a section of the wall had collapsed. He thought momentarily about throwing the laptop on the ground, picking up a sharp hunk of concrete, and bashing it in, rather than let them get its secrets too. But that file… something his mother had been working on, something Dad had never seen… And what could hold the answer to everything. He couldn’t let it go.

He had to save something from down here.

A shaft of light stabbed inside as if a giant had just poked its finger through the top of a cave and let in the sun. In the uncomfortable brilliance, Alexander could see two ropes descending, followed quickly by dark-clad men.

Surprisingly, he discovered he was experiencing relief as much as fright. At least I won’t suffocate to death, alone in the dark.

Two flashlight beams struck out in opposite directions, spraying the walls and the rubble. One hesitated on the face of the dead Rashi, then joined the other, converging, moving as one to the farthest corner. Both of them froze, highlighting their prey.

“We have him,” said a voice.

The two lights blazed in his eyes, and Alexander couldn’t make out anything but vague outlines of the men standing over him. He heard a familiar voice, but it came from a speaker, crackling.

“Does he have the keys?”

“Boy,” said the man behind the closer light. “Where are they?”

Raising his hands before his eyes, Alexander said, “What if I told you they were under that pile of wreckage over there, and good luck finding them?”

A moment of quiet, and then the man chuckled. “I’d say you were bluffing. Your brothers seem to think you’ve kept them around your neck.”

The other one coughed. “Care to show us?”

“All right, all right, I’ve got them here.” Alexander reached under his dusty shirt and withdrew the cord. The three pyramid-shaped keys reflected in the light, sparkling green.

“We’ll take those.”

“Let him keep it on. Calderon said we’re taking him with us.”

“Fine. Okay kid, rescue time. Get up.”

Alexander rose, still half-blinded. He bent down, reaching for the laptop, but suddenly one of the men snatched it up first.

“I’ll take this too. Since you were keen on protecting it.”

“Move it, kid.”

Alexander let himself be led back to the ropes. Strong arms scooped him up under his armpits, something was clasped into the man’s belt, and then—they were rising. About halfway out of the crater, Alexander’s eyes adjusted—and he wished they hadn’t. What he saw bore no resemblance to the place he had spent most of his young life. The world’s largest library, a wonder of the modern age, gone in an instant.

His eyes welled up and tears cut through the layers of dust on his cheeks and fell back into the pit, to the vault still filled with the broken dreams of the ancients.

Something at eye-level caught his attention, and as the crane swung them over the drilling equipment and to a makeshift platform, he saw two boys standing on the edge, impatiently waiting to greet their brother.

“He doesn’t look like he’s all that special,” one boy said, circling Alexander. “Does he, Jacob?”

Hugging his shoulders, he tried not to stare at the boys. Jacob stood right in front of him, looking at him like he was a sideshow exhibit, and Isaac moved around, inspecting him from all angles. But Alexander tried to stay strong. “Didn’t say I was.”

His two rescuers had moved to a position back near the black Hummer waiting at the other side of the platform. Alexander squinted and tried to see in there, but was too distracted.

“Ah but you’re the promised one,” Isaac said.

“The one who opened the door first,” Jacob added.

“Found the great old box you did,” Isaac sneered. “Just didn’t open it. Now we have you. Got the box, the secret books, and the keys.”

“Keys to the universe,” Jacob said.

Alexander’s hand went to his necklace. He held the three stones, immediately feeling a twinge of something vibrating into his fingers and up his arm. “It won’t help you. Not after what I just learned.”

“And what,” said a new voice, “did you learn down there?” Mason Calderon had come around from the side, behind a line of rescue vehicles, their lights flashing. Further in that direction, barricades held back a surging crowd growing larger by the minute, a sea of desperate faces.

Calderon came strolling forward, leaning only slightly on his cane. His suit coat waved in the wind around his back as he moved. His face, Alexander thought, was smoother, glossy and wax-like, as if he’d just been rejuvenated. His eyes sparkled as he came right up to Alexander, then stopped and looked at all three of the boys.

“A family reunion! Isn’t this just grand. Boys? Did you introduce yourself to your long-lost brother?”

“He knows,” Isaac said bluntly.

“Obviously,” Jacob added.

Alexander resisted his curiosity at studying these kids and instead turned his glare to Calderon. “My uncle Xavier thinks you’re going to destroy the world. So if these keys are going to help you, then forget it. I won’t help.”

“Then what?” Calderon spread out his arms, with the cane’s dragon head pointing up to the clouds. “Are you going to jump back into the hole? We’ll just fish out your body and get those keys your family worked so hard to obtain. And as for destroying the world…” He shook his head. “Don’t be silly. I intend to save it.”

“But Xavier saw…”

“I believe he saw what would happen if I didn’t succeed. If he didn’t join me and help me unlock the secrets of the Emerald Tablet. To annihilate the true, secret enemy of mankind.”

“He’s joined you?” Alexander felt the energy leaving his voice. The keys now felt like heavy iron chunks. Calderon stepped to the side and Alexander could see a man with red hair standing by the back of the Hummer, opening the trunk. The two soldiers were with him.

“Come on,” Calderon said as he turned his back to the boys. “Let’s get this damn box open and see what we’ve won.”

“But—”

“Move it,” Isaac said as he jabbed his elbow into Alexander’s side. “And give me those!” He reached out like he was going to strangle Alexander, then snatched at the pendants, caught a hold of the cord and yanked it free.

“Hey!”

Isaac skipped ahead, twirling around, holding the keys high. After a moment’s hesitation, Jacob followed, glancing back once to Alexander. “Come on,” he said in a low voice, and waved his hand.

Sorry, Dad. Hanging his head, Alexander followed, and the only thing keeping him going was the belief that maybe Xavier knew what he was doing. He was always a step ahead of everyone. Maybe this time, he had Calderon right where he wanted him.

But when Alexander made it to the Hummer and saw Xavier shoved aside by the guards, his head down in resignation, all hope fled.

“The Keys,” said Calderon, and took a step back. “You boys do the honors.”

Isaac quickly stepped up. He slid the stones off the cord and held them all in his hand, gazing at them longingly. Alexander wondered if he even appreciated who had held those objects. Cyrus the Great, Genghis Khan, Alexander… The greatest leaders and conquerors in history; and now, this kid was handling them, roughly inserting one into the slot.

“What about me?” Jacob asked, moving in.

“Snooze you lose,” Isaac replied, fitting in the second.

“Hope it zaps you,” Alexander said.

Isaac glanced back before inserting the third. “Right… Hmmm, why don’t you do the last one?” He held out his hand.

Alexander glanced over at Xavier, who had raised his head and was watching Alexander. He gave a nod, indicating he’d be safe, as Alexander thought. There was no danger at this point to anything other than the contents of the box. But his visions had shown that the three keys alone would do it.

The hand bobbled. “Come on, brother. Honor’s all yours.”

“Somebody just do it,” Calderon snapped.

Alexander sighed. “Let Jacob do it. I’m tired.”

Jacob flashed his eyes at him—whether in anger or gratitude Alexander wasn’t sure. But then he snatched up the key from his brother and slipped it into the slot. The twins jumped back with a cry as a flash of light erupted from around the crack in the lid. A hiss of steam shot out in all directions, and then the cover propped up an inch.

Calderon stepped through them, put the cane under his arms, and with the brazen confidence of a man fulfilling his believed-in-destiny, he lifted the lid up and off.

He peered inside and smiled.

Alexander couldn’t see at this angle, and then the twins were climbing up, gathering around and looking inside.

“Just a bunch of clay tablets,” said Jacob.

“Goofy writing,” Isaac added. “Boring!”

“Have some respect, boys.” Calderon lifted one tablet out, holding it up. The script was familiar in places, Alexander saw. With alternating lines of ancient Greek and then the familiar script that was on the Emerald Tablet—which Alexander realized now was slightly reminiscent of the Rongo-Rongo carvings his mother had translated, the ones at that Mohenjo-Daro place, and Easter Island.

“Hey,” Alexander said. “That—”

But then the scene melted away and he was on an island, standing on a flat grassy hilltop under a pure blue sky. Below, miles from the waves that caressed the rocky shore, a hundred workers toiled in a quarry, hacking at the black granite chunks. Molding them into giant Moai that would be aligned into sacred patterns and stand guard, warding off the annihilation that comes for men when they become too advanced.

“We will be safe here?” someone asks. And there is a woman, beautiful and shapely. Tall, with long black hair blowing in the breezes around her face, obscuring her eyes. She holds a smooth piece of driftwood in her hands. On it is written that script in alternating rows, front and back.

Instructions set to animalistic myth. Instructions on how to hide. To live simply and to protect themselves.

And wait.

Wait for salvation.

“Will it be long?” she asks, her voice cracking in the wind.

“Undoubtedly,” the chief replies. “Many, many generations.”

He looks to the sky, to the defiant moon hanging high and triumphant, stubbornly refusing to yield to the rising sun. And he trembles, recalling the legends.

She notices his gaze.

“How can we think to hide?”

“We just do as we were brought up. Just as there is evil, there is good. Darkness and Light. We must hope the light will protect us.” He sighs and reaches for her hand. “But come, enough of this melancholy. We have much living to do before we pass on.”

Alexander blinked and it was gone. Xavier’s bushy red hair was centered in his vision, the wide blue eyes searching his. “You okay? Lost you there for a minute.”

“Yeah, I’m…”

Xavier was shoved aside by the cane, and Calderon stooped down. “Tell me you didn’t go looking anywhere you weren’t invited.”

“What do you mean?” Alexander stammered, still woozy, still smelling the salty ocean breezes and mistaking the sound of hammering and digging of the rescue attempt with the construction of the giant heads on Easter Island. “I don’t have much control over what I see. I just saw that writing and—”

“And did you see anything… blue? A wall of blue, or a congregation of people, like monks in white robes?”

“What?”

Calderon continued staring at Alexander, searching his eyes for a fear that wasn’t there. “Never mind. You’re okay.” He shot a glance at Xavier. “You too, watch yourself. We’re in dangerous territory now. Now that we have this…” He motioned to the box, the tablets.

“What are you afraid of?” Alexander asked, his voice meek.

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Does it have to do with the… Custodians?”

Calderon made a sharp breath. He spun and gripped Alexander’s shoulder, tightly. “Where did you hear that name?”

“Stop it, that hurts.”

Xavier’s hand settled on Calderon’s wrist, squeezed and pulled it back—and for a moment both men stared at each other in a contest of wills. Until the barrel of an MP5 was shoved against Xavier’s temple.

“Take it away,” Calderon whispered.

“You first,” Xavier replied, squeezing harder. “You don’t touch him.”

Calderon opened his fingers. And the gun pulled away. “Fine.” He slapped at Xavier’s hand, then turned back to Alexander. “Tell me. What do you know?”

“Oooh,” said Isaac, moving in close to Calderon’s side. “Our brother’s in trouble. Learned secrets he shouldn’t have.”

“Shut up,” Calderon hissed. “This is serious shit. Up until now I’ve had the luxury of operating without their interference, mainly because the Morpheus Initiative have drawn their attention with their plunder of the Tablet.”

“But they want it too,” Alexander said. “It’s why it was hidden so well. I learned the Custodians can see, but not as well as us. They’ve lost focus over the long years, and they’ve lost touch.” He snapped his head to Xavier. And it all spilled out of him as if he now believed it to be pure fact, never any doubt. “They’re underground, most of them. The survivors of the last age, the ones with the powers to see the damage the wars would do to the planet. Claimed to be the shepherds of the next race, the ones without any psychic abilities.”

“The grunts,” Isaac said, “as me and Jacob call ’em.”

Jacob moved into view, looking pale, as if this was a subject he had heard once and didn’t care to revisit.

“What else?” Calderon urged.

Alexander hunched his shoulders, trying to appear thinner and less consequential. “I don’t know. My mom and some of the Keepers deciphered some ancient document from the Pharos vault that had these legends.”

“About what?” Calderon prodded.

“Wars. Ancient wars,” Alexander said. “Myths like a lot of the others. The gods in the sky battling it out. Good and evil.” Excitement started building in his voice. “But they used great lightning bolts and blasted the planets. And there were two of those power things—the Tablets of Destiny. Each side had one and let loose on each other, first in small targeted ways and only to the warriors. But then it got worse, and more desperate and the one side—who based their weapon on Mars, attacked and flipped the Earth…”

“Flipped its magnetic pole,” Xavier whispered.

“…and the Earth’s forces retaliated with a weapon shot from a great pyramid that wiped out life on Mars, and then something else happened. Someone managed to steal the bad guys’ tablet and break it with a lance.”

“Marduk,” Calderon whispered, nodding and caressing the slain dragon on his cane.

“And then—”

“All right, that’s enough.” He stood. “You’ve read the same legends I have, which I’m guessing is what Robert Gregory saw as well and conveyed to me. Just proof of what our leaders have always known.”

“But,” said Alexander. “It’s true?” He waited, and after no response, said, “But if they’re still here, waiting, and there’s only one tablet left…” Alexander made the realization. “It should have been destroyed, too, if Thoth had not been so cautious.”

“Maybe,” said Xavier, “he kept it around in case mankind had need of it again someday. In case the threat wasn’t gone for good.”

Calderon nodded in agreement. “In case the enemy regrouped and was determined to claim its revenge. Well, thanks to that foresight, we now have it and can finish the job. Pack this up,” he ordered the guards. “And we all ride together. We’ll scan the tablets on the way to the airport, then send the data to my translation team standing by.”

“Standing by where?” Alexander asked as he followed Xavier into the Hummer.

Jacob and Isaac moved in front of him and both turned at the same time and answered:

“Alaska.”

8.

New York

The ferry to Ellis Island was nearly full, surprisingly so for a weekday. But Caleb quickly worked his way past the gift shop, where he bought a liter of orange Gatorade, then up two levels to the roof where he found an open seat on a bench near the back. He had bought a classic Yankees hat on the street outside, so now he looked like another tourist.

He sat and waited for the ferry to leave, and was grateful for the cloud cover, even if darker storm clouds seemed to be massing along the skyline. After all the days of heat and direct sun, he’d welcome the shower. From this vantage point he could keep an eye on the line outside, watching for anyone suspicious who might have been following him since he’d come back into the country. Watching, especially for Nina.

For all he knew, she may have recovered, learned where he was going and beat him here. In a minute he’d try to remote-view her, but he had other objectives weighing on his mind, vying for his attention.

An Asian family sat in front of him, parents and grandparents, while their kids—two boys and a girl—scooted into his row and sat on the bench beside him, grinning.

“First trip to the statue!” the girl said, waving a large foam finger at him. She had a pink crown on her head, contrasting with the green spiked crowns worn by her brothers.

Caleb smiled and nodded. “Going to the top?”

“I am!” one of her brothers boasted.

“Are not,” said the girl. “I heard it’s too hot in there, and too hard to climb.”

“And,” said the father, turning around. “We didn’t get enough tickets.”

“Tickets…” Caleb rubbed his head. “I forgot we need a separate ticket for the crown.” The one he held only granted access to the museum and the lower pedestal.

“Sold out,” the man said. “Months in advance, since they reopened it. Eight years after the attacks, it’s been off-limits.”

Caleb nodded, wondering… What else is up there? What else are they protecting? Mason Calderon knew something was there, but his boys weren’t skilled enough at finding it. And whoever hid it there kept the knowledge to very few people.

Caleb would have to view it, and would have little time for trial and error, little time to spend getting the questions right. He took a deep breath, trying to relax. And then, even if he found it…

“Excuse me,” he said to the man in front of him. “I heard that your children might not be interested in the long, hot climb. Might you have an extra ticket for the access to the crown?”

Halfway to their destination, as Lady Liberty appeared to grow in size, becoming the colossus that can only be appreciated from up close, the kids got out of their seats for photo opportunities along the railing. Caleb, pretending to sleep, now had some time to really concentrate. He put out of his mind all the things he could no longer influence: Alexander’s situation, Phoebe and Orlando, the twins, Nina, Lydia… Everything.

At first, none of them would relent, and the weight of responsibility—as leader, father and husband—put up a brazen resistance. But finally, after gently pushing, he created space. Sent his other concerns drifting, out far but not out of sight. And for a time, he let go. And let his mind seek out the answers to a question he kept posing, focusing the words, preparing his thoughts. He felt his spine tingle, the back of his head break out in a sweat under the hat, and then-

The first vision rises up: A great workshop. Enormous sheets of bronzed copper rest on tables. A giant’s shoulder, partially completed, and an arm gripping an enormous tablet in its huge hand. A dozen men stride through the chaos, barking orders, assisting at different stations; hammering the copper sheets into the wooden framework.

Another glimpse: a different warehouse floor, this time with the enormous head resting on the floor, two men standing before her melancholy eyes, admiring the workmanship. They’re pointing to the crown of spikes, whispering and nodding their heads…

Is that it? Caleb wondered, briefly returning to the world of light and wind and sound. The ferry rocked gently on the waves as it sailed toward Liberty Island. Is it inside one of the spikes? Signifying the seven continents and seven seas, maybe there was a riddle to solve, a way to determine which held the treasure by the location of its designated continent? Then he cringed, imagining having to crawl up onto the head and fight the winds and the view almost three hundred feet above the base.

Keep looking, he urged. He had to consider everything, and this was free-viewing, a brainstorming session. Next, he saw a huge fairground, great crowds dressed in late-1800 fashions. Women with umbrellas and long dresses, men in top hats and canes, all strolling the grounds despite the heat and humidity, the flies and the refuse bins overflowing with trash faster than the workers could empty them. A long banner reads: 1876 Centennial—Philadelphia. Past the tents and display stands, invention stands and horticulture exhibits, to a line snaking around and around, where people wait to pay their fifty cents to enter the immense outstretched right arm and ascend into a huge copper torch. Along the balcony around the torch’s simulated flame, people are crammed in, waving to their friends below and marveling at the sights.

“Just another month,” says the promoter at the tent’s entrance. He spins a cane up and down, pointing at the gaping spectators as the sweat pours down his face and soaks his black suit. “Before this engineering wonder will make its way to New York, to Madison Square Garden, before it’ll be shipped back to France, and then… You’ll see the whole thing, the new colossus—Lady Liberty—assembled in a few short years in New York’s Harbor. But here, and only right here, you get to climb inside what will be the highest point. Imagine the view, imagine the spectacle! Just fifty cents! Get inside and see for yourself this marvel of the modern world!”

The vision swells, money changes hands, then a blur and now the interior appears. A winding staircase, a tight fit cramped with people on every side, going up and coming down. Then, up on the balcony. Others looking out at the scene, but the vision continues to study the flame. Moving around the torch from all angles, looking for any obvious seams or compartment entrances, not finding anything, but still…

Makes sense, Caleb thought dimly, part of his mind still lucid. Just like at the Pharos… which the Statue of Liberty was modeled after, in part. The treasure, the wisdom, was secured in the light, or in actuality, its mirror reflection below…

As above so below…

Caleb’s eyes snapped open. They were very close now, circling around Liberty Island and veering toward the docking point. But the statue was there, rising like a giant in all her splendor. Caleb immediately focused on the pedestal and again had to marvel at how closely it resembled the Pharos’ structure as he had seen it in his visions. If not for Liberty standing upon it, this could be the Pharos itself, it was that similar. Instead of a small statue of Poseidon gracing the top of the Pharos, this monument had the massive goddess of wisdom and justice—originally intended by Bartholdi to be a representation of Isis.

But in all other senses, both were beacons of truth and hope. And, Caleb recalled, both were lighthouses. The Statue of Liberty’s torch had been meant to provide illumination for the harbor, to guide ships in during the darkest of nights. But…

Show me, he thought. Maybe that was the direction to search.

New York harbor, filled with ships. Spectators and business vessels alike. Anchored and watching the dedication. The scaffolding removed, the gleaming statue stood revealed in all her towering splendor. Fireworks blasting into the sky, exploding in brilliant reds and blues with showers of white stars pinwheeling over her crown. But the lights on the torch, eight lamps around the base, barely provide enough illumination to compete with the pyrotechnics display in the sky.

A flash, and later… Engineers are working on the torch, cutting into the flame, creating two rows of portholes and inserting lamps. Below, a steam-powered electric generator powers the lamps, but… Shift to Manhattan Island, and a gray-bearded man with an armful of designs stares out at the statue and mutters, “It’s the light of a mere glowworm.”

Another shift… A cool fall day, and again several engineers are at work along the torch’s balcony… A thick belt of glass replaces the portholes, and an octagonal pyramid-shaped skylight is fitted as a skylight on top. An oil-powered generator replaces the old one. From the crown, the same bearded man looks up through the windows and frowns at the fractured, mutilated light that still fails to perform as expected.

Again a shift ahead… And a man in a brown suit stands on the deck of a yacht, with American flags waving around him, and a crowd of reporters and aides. It’s night, and the harbor is dark, with stars blinking overhead, and a fleet of ships all around. Ahead, the black shape of the enormous goddess stands mutely in the dark. “President Wilson,” says an aide. “You may now light it.”

Grinning, he gives the signal.

And from high above, the torch springs to life. Different again, now fitted with six hundred small windows of yellow-tinted glass and fifteen gas-filled electric lamps.

The reaction is anything but spectacular. Wilson bites his lips and listens to the muted applause before turning around and heading down below.

It never quite worked as a lighthouse, Caleb knew. Even though it was retrofitted along with technology advances every couple decades. But certainly the torch was now hollow and could serve as a hiding spot. But technicians who changed the bulbs would surely have discovered anything like a slender ancient blade hidden inside. Wouldn’t they?

Caleb shook his head. They were approaching the dock. People were getting up, heading down the stairs to get in line to get off the ferry.

He still had time.

Time to keep looking. To go back to something else he had seen. The dedication day. The ceremony…

A small group of men in full Masonic garb stand before the base while behind them, a great procession approaches, led by the Grand Master, all in attendance for the rite. A pastor gives a benediction, speaking of this statue as a symbol of freedom… And then the dedication. A copper box set into a space in the cornerstone and overlaid with a plaque. The box… containing among other items a copy of the Constitution, bronze medals earned by the Presidents, city newspapers, a portrait of Bartholdi and a list of Grand Lodge officers.

The box…

Caleb shivered with excitement. Was it possible? It could have been opened up, the spear placed inside, then reset into the cornerstone, guarded and most importantly, hidden in plain sight.

He stood up, feeling the rocking of the boat as it was finally secured. He was alone on the top deck, and felt the first sprinkles of rain. The heavy clouds now swirled over the statue, as if they’d followed him. It seemed the torch was in danger of being devoured by the ominous weather.

The cornerstone… If the Spear was there, how would he get at it? He started heading for the stairs, but then caught a glimpse of the base of the statue. The walls of the star-shaped foundation. And he recalled that this site, once called Bedloe’s Island after a British Admiral who owned the land as a summer home, had later been occupied by the military where they built a star-shaped fort, with massive twenty-foot high walls and cannons at every point, ready to defend the harbor. Fort Wood was later chosen as the base for the Statue, perfect in its complimentary design and symbolism, and yet…

Something bothered Caleb, and on the way down the stairs and passing the gift shop, with all the dangling trinkets and miniatures of the Statue and base, he realized what it was. The orientation didn’t make sense.

It could have been that General Patton was driven more by practicality and less by symbolism, and therefore didn’t care about where the object of America’s power rested, only that it was secure, but Caleb would have imagined that, like Sostratus, he would have hidden it either at the ‘Above’ or ‘Below’ points signifying light and wisdom. It should have been in the torch, or at its diametrical opposite, as in the Pharos’ vault.

Somewhere equally below the level of the torch.

Caleb looked out the window, and first grimly imagined a descent under the earth, three hundred and five feet to the mirror reflection of the torch. But geologically that would be challenging. The earth here in the harbor was soft and lacking in a suitable foundation for carving out tunnels or chambers. But with modern technology it wasn’t out of the question. Maybe somewhere in the old Fort Wood there had been a vault, a storage area beneath the earth, something that could have been expanded. A shaft drilled and reinforced.

He leaned against the railing as the ferry rocked with a wave. A rumble of thunder groaned over the chatter of tourists, some of them now retreating into the safety of the ferry, not wanting to brave an imminent downpour.

But Caleb pushed through. He was distracted, his mind swimming with alternatives.

He had to get inside the pedestal, find someplace quiet. Some place of inspiration where he could finish the viewing, peer deeper and focus his vision. Too many competing possibilities. He had to narrow them down.

Pushing through the jarring, smelly tourists, past the Asian family gamely trying to get out, he made it down the ramp and through the crowd sheltered under the docks’ rooftop waiting area, and just as the storm let loose, perfectly timed with a huge bolt of lightning to the right of the statue, Caleb ran out into the rain, heading for the main entrance.

Halfway there, something made him pause and look back. Another ferry was coming, tossed from side to side but chugging along, rounding the bend toward the docks.

And on the second level railing, he could just make out a flash of a red windbreaker alone in a sea of dark colors. A brunette leaning over, scouring the crowd, looking for someone.

It’s her, Caleb thought, turning and running faster. He was out of time.

Nina had found him. And he was sure she hadn’t come alone.

9.

Mount Shasta

“Montross,” Phoebe whispered. “He…”

Diana nodded, blushing. “He opened my eyes. To so many things, in such a short time. And, well he promised to see me again soon. I haven’t seen him in years. But I know he had a larger mission.”

“Which,” Orlando said bitterly, “involved ripping us off and killing a lot of people—and kidnapping a kid, don’t forget that. And bringing back that Nina psycho.”

“He would never–”

“Guys.” Temple held up his hands, officiating. “Now’s not the time to debate Mr. Montross’s villainy.”

“But it is,” Phoebe insisted. “If Diana believes him, if she’s holding a torch for him or something.”

“I’m not!”

“Sounds like you are,” Phoebe snapped. “When did all this happen?”

“Six years ago.”

“Soon after he walked out on the Morpheus Initiative.” Phoebe was fuming. “He saw the danger before the team ventured under the Pharos, and he saved himself without warning the others. Then he up and went halfway across the world to help you?”

Diana looked down at her boots. “There was something he said he needed. An artifact. Something he saw in the archives. He needed me to help him get inside to find it.”

“So he used you.”

“No. Well…”

“What was this artifact?”

Diana sighed, and her eyes clouded over.

And suddenly Phoebe gasped. Her body twitched and she saw…

A lonely farmland, a rusty weathervane. A few cows grazing. A red barn in the distance. And a backhoe with its shovel in the air, releasing a torrent of dirt beside a deep hole. The earthen sides are striated with deeply hued layers.

The engine stalls, sputters and stops as a man in dirty overalls jumps out. He has an election button on his grimy t-shirt: FDR ’32. His shadow falls on the pile of dirt—and a gleaming fossilized skull. Enormous. Horned, with a wide-plated crania.

The man looks back into the hole. Bends down and peers closer at the rounded bones peeking through the earth. A ribcage.

And inside…

Something that looks like a soccer ball. Spherical

Shiny.

He jumps down, slides his fingers through the gaps between the bones. Touches the thing, brushing away the dirt and dust…

Revealing a gold surface. Thick plating. And–

–symbols.

Lettering. A script.

The farmer backs up, holding his head and wincing as if he’s suffering the sudden onslaught of a migraine…

A flash, and the same site, except black cars are parked around the backhoe and men wearing dark suits, fedoras and sunglasses are standing around the hole. Diggers wearing what look like deep sea diving gear pull up the dinosaur ribcage, intact, with that spherical object still inside. They place the orb inside an open, lead-lined chest, slam and lock the cover. Money changes hands and the farmer signs some multi-paged document, then stands there, mute as the cars all drive away and he’s left with a deep hole and a fistful of money.

“Oh my god.” Phoebe had her hands on the table’s edge, trying to steady herself. “I saw it… was that real?”

“What?” asked Orlando.

Diana leaned in. “What did you see? The archives at the Smithsonian where Xavier found the item?”

Phoebe glanced up. “The Smithsonian? No, but… the men I saw at the farm, in black suits and cars with matching paint jobs…”

“The farm,” Diana whispered. “Wyoming. In 1931 a cattle farmer dug up a fossilized Triceratops, with something in its belly that should not—could not—have been there. An artificial object inside the gut of a sixty million year old dinosaur.”

“So,” Orlando said, “your old employer hushed it up. Like I’ve heard they did with a lot of stuff they found in America, things of obvious European, Asian and even Egyptian origin. Things that didn’t fit with conventional theories.”

“At the time, I convinced myself it was a hoax. That the Smithsonian hushed it up because there was no other logical assumption, other than that the farmer himself—or someone close to him—found the bones, then fabricated this sphere, put it inside, then reburied it to be discovered later.”

“But now you don’t think so,” Orlando said.

“Not after everything else I found in those restricted archives. After researching literally thousands of other anomalies that never made the light of day because conventional scientists—whose duty should have been to objectively analyze all the data before making conclusions—instead buried or simply destroyed evidence that didn’t corroborate existing theories of man’s comparatively recent evolution. Or the Diffusion Hypothesis. Or the belief that Sumer was the first main civilization, or that the Americas were only populated by savages who had traveled across the Siberian Ice Bridge ten thousand years ago.”

She took a breath. “While I had access to the secret archives in the Smithsonian, I catalogued thousands of man-made artifacts discovered in geological layers indicating great antiquity. Skulls and bones indicating that modern humans had coexisted alongside lesser developed species that we supposedly evolved from. Coexisted even with dinosaurs…”

Temple sat back, sipping his coffee, but unable to hide his smile as he watched Phoebe and Orlando’s reaction. Aria however, just seemed bored with the conversation, instead glancing around the screens with the awe of a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons on a big screen.

“I can’t believe you just saw that,” Diana said as she stared at Phoebe. “I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, especially here, but sometimes… I admit I often wondered if Xavier was just a good con man. If he cooked up everything and made his inside knowledge appear like psychic ability.”

“Well, now you know,” Orlando said.

“Although,” Phoebe added, “I’d say Xavier’s still a con man. Don’t trust him. Ever.” She turned her glare at Colonel Temple. “Whatever that sphere is, I’m thinking that it’s something that can shield his presence from remote-viewers.”

“Why do you think that?” Temple asked.

“Because I sat in on a lot of sessions where George Waxman and the Morpheus team searched the world over for Xavier, and never found a thing. I think he needed it to block his activities, to hide from us so he could break Nina out of her confinement and go about his mission.”

“If he did all that,” Diana said, “he must have had a larger reason. He must have known…” She waved her hand to the screens. “About this. About what’s going to happen unless we stop it.”

“And that,” said Temple, “ends this uncomfortable discussion. Diana, if you please… the presentation. Tell our guests about your evidence. What you’ve confirmed, what we’ve been looking for.”

“Maybe you should start,” said Diana, who seemed winded as if she’d just run a race in the hottest part of the day. “I need a breather, and I’m guessing that our guests might not listen with an open mind if I start out.”

“We might,” Orlando started, then shut his mouth after a look from Phoebe.

They all took their seats, with Diana moving to the front and sitting by herself. She shot Temple a look and said under her breath. “You could have warned me about this.”

Temple just shrugged. He poured himself a glass of water, then passed the pitcher around. “Okay, we’re going to start with a little Theology 101.”

“Ugh,” said Orlando. “If I wanted to go to Church…”

“Listen. You all know the first verse of the Bible.” Temple stared at them, and when no one spoke up, he said, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Orlando raised his hand. “Ooh, I know! What is: Genesis, chapter one, verse one?” He tapped himself on the back. “Do I win a Lexus?”

“Nope. Listen, the word used for God is Elohim, which is plural—gods, or more precisely, ‘beings from the sky’. And get this, the Hebrew word for ‘in the beginning’ can have two meanings. Either the literal ‘in the beginning’, or it could mean with the beginning. Or put another way: ‘with what remained of the past.’”

He let that digest. “So what Genesis could be saying is the same as what a lot of other creation myths the world over speak of: Advanced beings—or planets representing gods, or both—battled in the heavens, and their warfare resulted in massive cosmic destruction, reordered the heavens and created new worlds, our own included.”

Diana cleared her throat. “With what remained, the gods created the sky and the earth.” She took a sip of water. “So many creation myths the world over. And so many similar beliefs about a savior as well—one who dies violently and is reborn. And whose blood and body are then consumed by the survivors to either sustain life or to grant eternal life. The Mali tribe has Nommo, who is continually crucified to a tree, his body and blood taken into the earth, creating seeds that feed the people the next spring. There are so many more—Tammuz, Odin, Mithras, Quetzalcoatl, and of course, the original savior-god, Osiris, who was murdered, cut into pieces and sent to the underworld before he rose up and is now situated in heaven—not coincidentally at the destination point for the worthy in the afterlife.”

Temple nodded, but saw that his guests’ eyes were glazing over. “Okay, flash forward a couple billion years—or a half million, depending on how radical you want to take all this. In the more distant history, a huge planet—we’ll call it Tiamat—collided with another body out beyond Mars, and the collision created the Earth and also the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The moon—one of Tiamat’s satellites, remained with the Earth, basically forming a dual planetary system. Tell them Diana, about the moon.”

She stood up, took a deep breath.

But Orlando cut her off. “You’re not going to tell us that we never went there, are you? All that Hanger 18 crap? Because, I’ll tell you—I RV’d a lunar mission once. And it was real, not filmed on any stage.”

“Oh, we went there all right,” Diana said. “But I’m guessing you didn’t see much more than that—a visit and a landing, or you wouldn’t be talking so calmly about this.”

“Maybe…” Orlando said, glancing at Phoebe. “I didn’t ask the right questions, those kinds of questions.”

“It’s okay,” Temple said. “If you had, you would have either gotten the shield or some unwanted visions, things that have made other psychics give up ever working for us again.”

“Okay… I’m not sure if you’re joking or not, but sorry, continue. What’s wrong with our moon?”

Diana took a breath, then started. “Our moon, by all theories, shouldn’t be there. It’s a celestial freak of nature. It’s too large—the ratio between satellite and master the largest in the system, and dynamically impossible to explain. It’s one-quarter the diameter of Earth. The next largest satellite circling a planet is Titan, but it’s only one-eightieth of Jupiter’s diameter.” Diana took a breath. “No theory explains how it could have been ‘captured’. Also its orbit should be elliptical like most captured satellites, not perfectly circular. And for that matter, it shouldn’t be in a perfectly synchronous rotation.”

“A what?” Phoebe asked.

“Our moon is at the perfect distance and rotational speed so that it always shows us the same face. That’s a near impossibility to achieve through chance.”

“So…” Orlando left the question out there. But Diana ignored it.

“For centuries astronomers and stargazers have been reporting unusual things up there—just on the side that we can see. Strange lights, pulses. Objects that seem… geometrical and show up where nothing existed before, like a twelve-mile ‘bridge’ over the Sea of Crisis viewed in 1958. Other strange anomalies include seven obelisk-shaped spires six-hundred feet tall near a gigantic rectangular depression in the Sea of Tranquility.” She took a sip of water. “The seas themselves, the enormous dark areas you can see with the naked eye, are plains of fused soil requiring temperatures greater than forty-five hundred degrees to produce. NASA speculated that ancient cosmic bombardment must have occurred, the equivalent of billions of H bombs.” She rubbed her hands together, continuing without focusing on anything but the table top.

“There have been unusual radio signals coming from the moon, reported early on by Marconi. Nicolas Tesla—more on him later—speculated that someone was up there, and we should be prepared. And the craters themselves—they often defy theoretical models.”

“Like how?” Orlando asked. “I’ve seen pics, they seem normal to me.”

“From down here, maybe. But their depth is wrong. For example, a one-hundred-fifty mile wide crater was found to be only three miles deep. Something that huge, causing such an impact, would have gone much deeper, unless the mantle was some kind of tougher material than anything we could expect. And… the bottom of the crater was found to be convex, instead of the other way around.” Diana shook her head. “So many anomalies, and I’ve barely started.”

Temple refilled her water. “Go on, quickly. Get to the good stuff.”

She stared at her glass, the swirling liquid. “Since the beginning of the lunar program, there have been miscalculations, problems and… unusual missteps. The first few missions overshot the moon as mission control discovered to their surprise that they had miscalculated the moon’s gravitational pull, expecting a much greater mass, given the moon’s size. After adjusting again, early landings struck harder and faster than planned—and created a metallic ringing upon impact. And speaking of landing, the original craft and crew were prepared to be caught in a deep sea of dust, as should have been the case, given the moon’s extreme age, its lack of atmosphere and its direct exposure to dust-producing solar rays. But there was relatively little dust, less than an inch.”

Diana pushed a button and all the main screens went black, then started up with a presentation. “What I’m about to show you,” she said, “are photographs captured by the early Apollo missions. There are a lot of these pictures, and they tend to be overwhelming after a while. None of these have been seen before by anyone outside of NASA—and only there to a select few.” She tapped a key on her laptop and the screens went black as she talked. “From the beginning,” she said, “there have always existed two space programs.”

10.

Liberty Island

After breezing through the shortened security checkpoint, where the crowd impatiently waited out the rain, Caleb bypassed the museum entrance and opted for the stairs up to the top of the fort section and base. He ran through puddles, his face turned against the driving rain. Before the entrance, he glanced up at the dizzying height of the pedestal, and again had a flashback to Alexandria, a vision two thousand years old, with Roman galleys assailing the structure’s base under churning storm clouds, a brazier of fire lit high above, and the huge mirror blasting a light through the gloom.

Inside, he emerged directly into the center of the structure, with metal mesh floors and a steep staircase bending around the central shaft supporting Liberty’s frame. He had a moment of vertigo and had to grab a railing.

“Tough climb,” said one of the park attendants, sitting at this ground level station and working on the newspaper’s crossword section. He was in his sixties with a gray mustache and spindly fingers. “Take the elevator if you like, gets you to her feet at least. Then you still gotta climb. You have crown access?”

Caleb flashed him his pass. “Yeah, I think I will travel in style as long as I can. But first, tell me. What do you know about the cornerstone?”

“Masonic dedication, all that Dan Brown stuff? Why, you think there’s some secret treasure stashed inside there?”

Caleb choked on a laugh. “Um, actually I’m a professor at Columbia. Just thought I’d do some research for a history class.”

“Yeah, it’s down there at the base. Hard to get to, especially in a storm.”

“And the box?”

“Sealed up good, from what I heard. But I’m sure there’s a way into it. I’d have to check with the director. Don’t get much questions about it, actually.”

“Is he here? The director?”

“At the administration office you passed on the way off the ferry. You should’ve probably set up an appointment.”

“Yeah, this was kind of last minute.” Caleb stood there, dripping, trying to decide what to do.

“So, you wanna go up, get your money’s worth? Least it’s not too stifling hot up there like normally. Usually a couple people fainting every day. Keeps me busy.”

Caleb started for the elevator, deciding to at least check out the crown while he had the chance. And he didn’t know how close Nina was. She might not have recognized him in his tourist disguise, but she would know where he was going. “Oh,” he called back. “One more thing. What’s below the base?”

“Under the old fort, you mean?”

“Yeah, ever been down there? I’m wondering about how far down it goes.”

“Just a storage level. Nothing else I’ve seen anyways or heard about. Why, you think maybe there’s some Nazi base down there or a secret government lab?”

“No, sorry.”

“Maybe the lair for the true shadow government!” The attendant was really playing it up, and becoming annoying.

Caleb wiped the rainwater from his face. “You really need to get out more.”

The guard shrugged. “A lot of time for thought in here. Time to wonder about all sorts of things.”

“Wondering’s not a bad pastime.” Caleb entered the elevator and let the attendant send it on its way.

“See you on the way down,” the guard called. “Unless the government assassins get you first and make it look like an accident!”

During the ascent, as Caleb marveled at the precision of the supporting interior structure of Batholdi’s design, he had a moment to think. He tried to find a way to refine the search, but kept coming back to the one thing that had stifled him before.

Find out what Patton had done with it.

He knew the general had secured it from among the treasures found defended by the Nazis in Nuremburg, knew that he had recognized it as something special, something powerful. And after researching it, he’d petitioned Eisenhower to keep it as a tool for America, but had his request denied. It was ordered back to Vienna to be displayed at its national museum. That was a request Patton refused, and secretly had a replica made of the lance, and that copy substituted in its place while the original found its way here. Somewhere…

Where? That’s when the visions broke down and he couldn’t find the right questions to probe. He had been asking what Patton had done with it, and that only led to visions of a ferry not unlike the one he had just taken, to Liberty Island where Patton remained on the boat, just nodding confidently at the results of his efforts.

Where was it? Caleb probed again, thinking. It had to have been handed off to someone he trusted. Someone who had access to the Statue. An administrator, an attendant, a worker… An engineer? Caleb thought again of the men he had seen working on the torch. Still, it seemed more likely that the cornerstone and secret box contained the prize, but not only was that too obvious, but discovery was too likely. If anyone decided to open it up for study, the anomalous weapon would cry out for explanation.

That tended to rule out the cornerstone, which left the crown or the torch, or some secret passageway to an underground complex, something unknown to the conspiracy-minded security guard downstairs.

The elevator finally slowed, then the doors opened and he emerged at the top of the monument’s base. Looking up at the winding staircase shaped like a double helix, he got dizzy all over again. Now comes the hard part. He really wished he knew if it was up there, or if this was all a waste of time. Time he didn’t have.

He looked down. People were starting to climb, a few who had braved the drenching rain. He lingered for a moment, and was about to turn away when he saw a flash of red, way down there.

She’s coming.

Before taking the stairs, Caleb glanced out the side exit to the viewing balcony. The day had turned a dismal shade of gray, with sheets of silvery rain pelting the platform, dripping down the exit’s frame and flooding in rivulets to overflowing drainage vents.

Up the stairs now. Ascending through the skeleton with its crisscrossing metal beams, Caleb marveled at the interior of the garment, the incredibly thin copper sheets joined by iron bars. Two stairs at a time he climbed, while he heard others coming down the other side of the helix, seemingly less taxed with the descent. Caleb ran, pulling himself along using the railing. He slipped as his sloshing sneakers lost traction at one point, painfully banged his right shin, then got up and kept moving.

Come on, he urged, trying to stimulate his powers during the physical exertion, and he was again reminded of that night in Alexandria when Nina had taxed him fully, exhausting his body to the point his mind broke free and soared.

Gasping for oxygen now, feeling the air thinning, his temperature rising, the muscles in his legs and arms taxed to the extreme. He dared to look up and saw he was only halfway to the top.

He tripped again, hammering his elbow on the cool metal and nearly banging his head against the side railing. And then he lay there, heart thundering and the back of his neck pulsing.

Groaning, he opened his eyes…

And looked down at himself… wearing dark blue coveralls. A tool belt… and holding a leather satchel, with something inside wrapped in several layers of leather padding. Ascending these very stairs. Nervously gripping the satchel tight.

A flash and a rumble of thunder. Caleb felt the statue sway in the storm winds. He held both railings to steady himself, then pushed himself upward. One glance down sent him to hugging the far side of the stairwell, and for a second he again felt like Demetrius, the first librarian of Alexandria, during his tour of the Pharos. Keep going, almost there. He thought about his other boys, the twins he’d never seen. They were up here just a day ago. Searching for the same thing. Searching for the spear, to keep it out of his hands.

So they knew, or at least had the same sense that it wasn’t in the cornerstone or somewhere underground.

It had to be up there. The certainty fueled his muscles and he climbed again. Rounding another bend, then another. One more tentative glance down, and his heart leapt. Nina emerged from the pedestal entrance, flanked by three men in dark suits. All of them looked up at once.

And Caleb’s breath fled in a rush. This was it. He could still make it, assuming he could find and extract the spear quickly, then make it back to the descending staircase when it split at the crown and then get back down before they saw him. He rushed up the remaining flights, calling on every ounce of energy. Finally, he reached the last bend and then he was into another separate staircase leading up to the crown.

Now completely gassed, he joined a half-dozen people under the white ridged interior of her skull. Several viewers had climbed to the walkway and were gazing out the windows over the harbor and looking up to the torch. The temperature up here was twenty degrees hotter even than the interior at the base. Sweltering and oppressive, the sweat was dripping off him. He flung off the hat, figuring it was useless now. And he turned his attention to the crown, the spikes especially–

-and had a glimpse of men standing outside in bowler hats, wresting a new spike in place, replacing a damaged section.

Too early, he thought. But it showed him that they could be hollow, and easily contain something. Where did that worker hide it? Come on, show me!

A few other people were looking at him funny. Someone asked if he was okay, another told him to sit and rest. But their voices had faded, along with their images, and he had shifted back, back… almost seventy years.

The man in coveralls…

Heading up a ladder, with the heavy satchel over his shoulder. Climbing the narrow, tight rungs, climbing…

Into the arm!

Caleb pushed away from the concerned person bending over him. “It’s in the torch,” he muttered. “I’m in the wrong place. Damn it!”

“This is the crown,” said the man, and Caleb focused and was surprised to see it was the Asian tourist from the ferry. “Hi there, you bought that extra ticket. Sorry it was such a bad climb, but you’re here. You made it!”

“No,” Caleb whispered, trying to stand. “Have to get to the torch.”

“The torch? No way, wish we could, the view would be sweet, but it’s been closed to the public since 1916. Some kind of attack on munitions plant nearby. The explosion damaged the arm and the torch, and no one’s been allowed in since.”

Caleb shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Where’s the ladder?”

“Back down a bit, I guess. I saw it and took some neat pictures. You have to cross over a narrow walkway, then climb up through the arm. It looks really tight. And dangerous.”

Nodding, Caleb patted the man’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t expect otherwise. Thanks.” He stumbled for the descending stairs.

“But there’s no way you’ll get in,” called the tourist. “If you need to see the torch so bad, why not just go to the museum lobby? The original one’s down there…”

Caleb froze. The pounding of steps below, on the ascending stairs, was getting louder. Nina was closing in. His head snapped back. “The original? How long ago was it moved?” He cursed himself for being so careless. A quick review of the history on the statue’s website might have told him all this.

The man scratched his head and looked at his wife, who had just now come down from the observation area. She met his questioning eyes. “The original torch? I remember—the changes made to it by that sculptor—the one who designed Mount Rushmore…”

“Gutzman,” Caleb said, recalling the man working on the torch, retrofitting the windows with amber.

“Yeah, him. The glass windows he put in? I guess they leaked or something. Water and snow got in and corroded the torch and parts of the arm over time, so they decided to replace the whole thing. What’s up there now is a gold-plated, solid structure facsimile.”

“Right,” said the husband. “And they shine the huge spotlights on it from the base, and it lights up nice now. No need for interior lamps.”

Caleb’s head throbbed. “What year? When did they move it?” Was it after Patton’s man came up here?

“Oh,” said the woman, “not too long ago. I think during Reagan’s term. Part of his public works improvement project, and…”

But Caleb didn’t stay to listen any longer. He was racing down, heading for the lobby.

The narrow steps made it difficult, but after first checking to make sure he couldn’t see Nina anywhere down there, he went as fast as he could, but quickly caught up with other people moving very slowly. He squeezed around them wherever possible, but other times had to complain that he was about to be sick and they had to move aside or face the consequences. Soon he was back at the pedestal. Outside, the rain was still falling in torrents and the sky had darkened. The elevator was nowhere to be seen.

But he wasn’t waiting for it anyway. He made his way to the stairs and flew down, finding his energy getting better as the heat and altitude decreased. These stairs were much wider, with plenty of room to race by stragglers. He wondered how far back Nina was. Surely they had found he had slipped by them. Hopefully she may have been sidetracked at the torch, and had gone up there to check.

He could imagine a Hitchcockian scene if he had stuck to his original plan. If it hadn’t been for that couple and their information, the torch might have been his last stand—or more likely—fall.

Now he had a chance. He was almost there. Rounding the last bend, then onto the main floor, past the attendant still sitting with his crossword puzzle. He looked up, recognition in his eyes. “Oh, it’s you! A pretty lady was down here a short time ago, looking for you. Figured you wouldn’t mind, so I told her.”

“Thanks,” Caleb said in a muffled voice. “No time to chat, but if she comes back this way, can you stall her for a few minutes?”

“What? Why?”

“Assassin,” Caleb said, running for the next stairs, heading to the museum.

He burst through the lobby doors, emerging on the second level. A walled railing overlooked the floor and entrance to the museum…

Where the original torch stood in the center of the foyer.

A circular bronze railing set it off from public access, and a park attendant leaned against the railing by the main entrance, ready to answer questions or point tourists in the right direction.

Caleb stopped for a moment at the upper railing, studying the torch. He let his gaze quickly take in the details: the oxidized copper lattice-work, an intricate pattern making up the torch support; the weather-worn cylinder supporting the brilliant amber window-set flame, appearing windblown and magnificent, glowing with a comfortable internal radiance. It rested on a four-legged stand, keeping it several feet off the ground.

Caleb shut his eyes, trying to pick up the vision where he had left it. The worker, ascending the ladder…

Nothing but the doors opening, a mingling of voices. Then–

He’s out, emerging through the cylinder, taking a moment to glance over the side, down to the enormous head and crown, and further down to the other arm, cradling the tablet…

And then he kneels and chooses a spot, selecting one section of the artistic railing design, one of the metal bars interspersed between the curved trellises. And he begins to unscrew it, using a heavy wrench from his tool belt. When it’s free, he carefully places it in his satchel and removes something of a similar size. Unravels it from its leather garment, and holds aloft an almost identical bar, down to the knobs at the ends and in the middle. He unscrews the top and looks inside, verifying that the hollow cavity is filled with its prize… and then he screws it back in and sets it in place. When he’s done, his eyes focus and the great Tablet held in Liberty’s other arm is in direct sight, a straight line almost, to the object he just placed in the torch.

It was symbolic and fitting, Caleb realized, coming out of the vision, clearing his head. He wasn’t sure if Patton or this aide understood the spear’s true potential, but it may have worked on their minds, setting up the symbolic relationship. But they hadn’t counted on technology advancements, and the bad luck of leaky craftsmanship.

Caleb moved down the steps quickly, then walked around the torch, studying it.

“Can I help you?” asked the attendant, noticing his interest. “This is the original–”

“Torch, yes I know. I’m just looking for something…” He stopped, studying the layout of the windowed flame, recalling how it looked in his vision. Then he took two steps to his right and looked straight ahead. The bar in front of him…

That was it. But how could he get it?

The attendant shifted, and was now talking to a group of wet newcomers who were complaining about their treatment in the security line and the fact that they didn’t know they needed to reserve crown tickets ahead of time.

Seeing his chance, Caleb bent down, reached over the railing and gripped the bar. As the argument heated up, he twisted. One direction, then the next. It barely budged. He glanced at the door to the statue’s interior climb, expecting it to burst open any minute with his pursuers, then looked over to the crowd at the door, and now a line behind them, shouting to move so they could get out of the rain.

Screw it, Caleb thought. He vaulted the railing. Balancing on his left foot, he raised his right and aimed. Then sent his heel down, kicking hard at the top of the bar. It broke free with a piercing Crack!

The attendant spun around just as Caleb wrenched it free, and without checking inside the shaft, he ran for it. Hurdled the railing and raced for the stairs. He’d never make it through that crowd and back past security. His only chance was to run into the museum or back into the monument, ditch the bar and hide the lance under his clothes and then try to blend in with the crowd and get out the back stairs. Up and to the door.

“Hey!” the guard gave chase while shouting something into his walkie-talkie.

Caleb reached for the door, flung it open—and stopped short.

Nina was there, alone and out of breath. Sweat caked on her glistening skin. She reached into her purse and pulled out a gun, aiming at his head.

“Stop right th—” the attendant flew around the corner, only to be stopped by a bullet into his shoulder. He spun around and fell back down the stairs. And only then did the gun’s retort sound in Caleb’s ears. She was using a silencer, but it was still loud enough. Maybe not to draw a crowd, and if the guard hadn’t alerted security yet…

Caleb’s eyes widened. He held the bar in both hands like a weapon, and as he trembled he could feel something rattling around inside the hollow space.

Nina cocked her head, staring at it. “Congratulations. Just like old times, wouldn’t you say?”

“So now what?” Caleb asked. He looked behind him, waiting. “Why didn’t you shoot me?”

The pounding of feet on stairs, and then three men in suits rounded the corner. Nina held up her free hand in a fist. “Under control,” she said. “Fan out into the lobby. Stop anyone from following us.”

“But—” one of them started, only to be silenced by a deadly look. They passed by, and then Caleb found she had grasped his hand and was pulling him back, back up the stairs.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Shut up, and follow me. We’ve got no time to argue.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. This…” He raised the bar, “Isn’t going anywhere.”

Nina stopped after taking one step up the next flight. Her grip was fierce, and yet intimate. “Caleb. You touched me, and I saw…” Her eyes faltered, the cold melting away.

“What?”

“I’m probably going to get killed for this, but I’m going to help you. Because I believe what I saw in your vision.”

Caleb narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, well I still don’t trust you.”

“And also, because if that bastard thinks he can keep my—our kids—from me for all those years, and then act like a hero for reuniting us, he’s got another thing coming. I was only biding my time until I could shoot him in the back of the head, but you’ve shown me that if he gets his hands on this thing, then it’s all over and I won’t have my chance.”

Caleb squeezed back. “Okay, but…”

“Shut up and stop thinking for a minute. Come on, they’re coming.”

He chased after her, still dragged along by the hand. “Where are we going?”

They burst out into the now familiar floor, the start of the climb. Not again, he thought, rushing up the steps behind her. He glanced back and saw the crossword-loving Dan Brown fan smiling up at them, nodding his appreciation of their reunion. Nina let his hand go and tapped at a device set in her ear. She muttered something lost in the pounding of their feet on the stairs.

Up two more flights, and then–

Gunfire roared and echoed back and forth inside the stairwell. Something struck the underside of the platform below his running feet. Another shot punched through the wall to his left. Nina squeezed off two blind rounds, hoping to slow them down.

“Calderon’s men,” she yelled back. “My escorts. Must’ve realized I turned on them.”

“Or maybe,” Caleb said, wheezing. “They got new intel. From the twins.”

“Cocky kids, Caleb.” She flashed him the start of a smile. “And creepy. Definitely missed out on years of discipline.”

“Something to remedy if we make it out alive.” He leapt up three stairs to catch up. They were nearing the pedestal top, and he could hear the rain and rumbling thunder, broken by another gunshot that went wild. “And how exactly are we getting out?” He stopped at the top of the stairs, doubled over and feeling the start of a cramp.

But his attention remained fixed on the view out of the tunnel to the exterior, where he saw something that wasn’t there before.

“Is that a ladder?”

Nina turned back and hauled him up by his sleeve. “Helicopter. Pilot’s loyal to me. Had him circling. Then just told him where we’d be coming out.”

“Wait. I am not–”

Another gunshot, one that cracked the glass around the elevator cage. Calderon’s men were right around the bend.

He took off, passing Nina who had dropped to a knee and squeezed off three more rounds, one striking home as the first man ran into view.

Heading for that shaking ladder, he couldn’t tell if it was on this side of the balustrade or outside, with one hundred and fifty feet separating it from the base. He started to slow down just as he hit the rain, but then felt a hand on the back of his shirt, drawing him backwards, slowing his momentum, and then she was sling-shotting past him. She had hooked her gun under her belt, and like a gymnast, used her hands to vault up onto the slick stone wall and still in a crouch, she pushed off.

Nina launched, swan-like, into the air just as a lightning bolt ripped across the gray-black clouds. She caught the ladder, swung all the way out and then back, gripping it with one hand and using her weight and momentum to propel it back, right to the edge of the wall…

Where Caleb, seeing her intention and realizing he only had one chance at this, vaulted up as she did—and then just reached out and grabbed the rungs beneath her. He hooked an elbow around one rung, and his knees around another, leaving his left hand free to grip the bar and his prize.

Two gunshots roared in his ears, Nina firing on the men who darted into the passage. But Caleb couldn’t look to see the result. The helicopter swung away, and he was soaring out into space, pelted with stinging missiles of rain, completely drenched and hanging precipitously to a slippery ladder far above the ground. Then they were over the churning waves.

And only later did he realize he was laughing, his emotions overwhelmed. He looked up, seeing Nina climb into the helicopter, and then he raised the metal shaft, shaking it victoriously in defiance of the lightning-rippled storm.

11.

Mount Shasta—Stargate Facility

“Two space programs?” Orlando asked. “You mean us and the Russians?”

“No, I mean a public one and a secret program. The Russians,” Diana said, “were in on it. We may have been Cold War enemies to all other purposes, but once the early probes got out there, once the Russians shared with us what they found on the far side, well… after that point we were really all on the same side.”

“Just not as far as the public knew,” Temple said. “Tell them about the Brookings Report.”

Diana nodded. “The Brookings Institution, a Washington DC think-tank, put together a report entitled The Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, commissioned by NASA and delivered to Congress in 1961. It talks about the need for research into a lot of areas of space exploration, but the explosive section that has gained the most attention is the part called Implications of a discovery of extraterrestrial life.” She took a breath, then turned to her notebook and read a passage. “Page two-fifteen. While face-to-face meetings with intelligent extraterrestrial life will not occur within the next 20 years (unless its technology is more advanced than ours, qualifying it to visit Earth), artifacts left at some point in time by these life forms might possibly be discovered through our space activities on the moon, Mars, or Venus.”

“Cool,” said Orlando. “How did I miss that?”

“Too busy with video games?” Phoebe quipped.

“Page two-fifteen and two-sixteen,” Diana continued, “go on to talk about the consequences of such discoveries. They cite cultures that have disintegrated when faced with unfamiliar and more advanced societies, resulting in a breakdown of values, and sometimes complete destruction of the people itself.”

“And,” urged Temple, “what was the recommendation of this section, on the question of such a discovery and its implications?”

Diana smiled. “The only logical one. They posed a question that might shape policy. How might such information, under what circumstances, be presented to or withheld from the public for what ends?”

“Withheld,” Temple said, “being the key word.”

Orlando nodded. “So they were scared shitless out of what they found up there, and for our own good decided to hush it up.”

Diana clicked the button and started the presentation. “After seeing these images, I can’t say as I blame them. Not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

Photos started playing across the screens. And Phoebe and Orlando moved to the edge of their seats, open mouthed. “And you got these…”

“Through great difficulty, and danger,” Diana said.

Orlando was rapt with interest, barely taking a breath as he watched the images—impossible sights of things that looked like domes set in the sides of craters, then long, straight walls that went on for miles, casting enormous shadows. Tall, glass-like spires, transparent, set in groups around octagon-shaped structures. Something that looked like a castle, gleaming half-covered in the shadow of a lunar crater. A glass-like tunnel stretching many miles, connecting the rims of two craters.

Diana continued, “Astronaut Gordon Cooper went on record, and then recanted, that all the missions had been followed by UFOs, discreetly, and the astronauts had instructions on how to react, what to say as to alert Mission Control, and yet not alarm anybody. They had code phrase, little jokes like ‘There’s a Santa Claus sighting out our port window.’”

“Nice,” Orlando said in a whisper, still gazing at the pictures. “So if I tried to RV these things, could you give me coordinates?”

Diana shook her head. “You don’t want to try that. Colonel Temple will tell you why in a moment. Just let me wrap up, as you’re looking at all this… All these things that if they got out—and some of them have, the less obvious ones that they didn’t censor in time—NASA would just claim they were tricks of light and shadow. Sunspots.”

“Swamp gas,” Orlando offered with a grin. When Phoebe frowned at him he said, “It’s what UFO debunkers here have been offering as an excuse for UFO witnesses for years. Kind of a running joke.”

“Anyway,” Diana continued. “The timeline, and real history of the space program kind of goes like this. We had a pretty good idea, before we sent humans up there, that they’d find something. There was enough visual confirmation from probe flybys that there would be evidence. It didn’t look like a full-fledged civilization or anything, but possibly as the Brookings Report theorized, we’d find remnants of a lost civilization, and possibly something that would explain the moon’s mysteries and the unanswered questions about our own evolution and history.”

Phoebe scratched at the goosebumps on her arms. She offered a wan smile to Aria who still seemed lost and bored, playing now with her water glass.

“So we went there,” Diana continued, “but found it wasn’t quite… deserted. Something kept tabs on our mission. Followed, observed. But refused to acknowledge repeated attempts at communication. Radio signals didn’t work. Then we tried light. That was the deal with the mirrors. Light pulses aimed with larger mirror arrays. Kind of a Morse Code. But no response. Imagine the buildup, the suspense, and then… to be ignored.”

“Like a nerd trying to get the attention of the head cheerleader,” Orlando said, trying to smile at Phoebe and lighten the mood. “Disheartening.”

“Next, in following missions, NASA had their team try to investigate some of these unusual sites up close. My guess is they hoped to discover something, some leftover technology perhaps that could be used. A lot of areas could be accessed, where we got to explore ancient walls, towers and cathedral-like ruins, all empty. But some areas, it seemed, were off limits. Especially in areas where there were entrances. Tunnels, caves, openings in the deeper craters. The lunar modules would break down, equipment would just stop when they got to a certain distance. Nothing worked. Cameras included.”

“Just like…” Phoebe pointed back behind them. “The door?”

Temple nodded. “Go on, Diana.”

She took another sip of water. “So we were left with the conclusion that there is a remnant of an advanced race out there, either living as some suggest, or possibly artificial…”

“Robots?” Orlando asked. “Makes sense. Ruled by logic commands. Maybe only to observe and document, but not interact?”

Diana nodded. “That’s a thought. Or else it’s a small contingent of the former civilization, staying behind to protect something. And apparently… to watch. NASA even took to calling them the Watchers. They’re observing us, that much is clear… but not much else. Possibly, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, they may abduct our citizens covertly, experiment on them…”

“And on cows,” Orlando added. “Don’t forget the poor cows.”

“And monitor our technological advances,” Diana said. “Strange lights and un-trackable objects have been seen in greater abundance over military installations and nuclear facilities.”

“As if,” said Temple, “they’re gauging our strength, growing more interested as we come closer to the ability to destroy ourselves and our world.”

Phoebe scratched her head. “Ok, I’m still not sure I believe all this, but what’s the status quo? That a secret group among our leaders really know and are keeping the truth from the rest of us? That ETs are here, but their motives are totally unknown, and they don’t seem hostile, that they’re just a bunch of voyeurs?”

Diana smiled. “Not far off. We know we can’t touch them technologically yet. But that has only fueled research like you wouldn’t believe. Look at all the advances in technology and weaponry since the sixties. SDI—Star Wars—being the latest.”

“I thought we all learned Star Wars was a big waste of money,” Orlando said. “That it couldn’t shoot down any missiles effectively.”

“What if,” asked Diana, “its name was actually spot-on? What if its purpose wasn’t as defense against a terrestrial enemy?”

Orlando blinked at her, then nodded. “So what, the Russians pretended to be all angry about it, but really they were on board, trying to help create some sort of defense?”

“Against an inscrutable and unpredictable enemy that could attack and wipe us out at any moment. Yes.”

“But it was scrapped…” Orlando said.

Temple smiled. “More like replaced. And in secret, with a new technology.” Then his face fell. “A technology that we recently learned, may have been subverted to other uses.”

He let that hang in the air. Orlando was rubbing his temples, trying to massage away the confusion. “Wait, back on Star Wars, if I recall correctly, many of the scientists who worked on it wound up dying mysteriously.”

“That,” said Temple, “was when we learned of the Black Lodge. Of Senator Calderon and his Marduk cult.”

“How do they fit in?” Phoebe asked.

“In Nazi Germany, Hitler sought out legends of an advanced race living inside the earth, a race of supermen with great longevity and heightened psychic abilities. Missions were sent to the Arctic and Antarctica looking for a way inside the earth at the poles. Teams went to Tibet, trying to find the mystical home of these… Custodians.”

Phoebe gasped. “I heard that name. In Afghanistan, the tunnels. I saw… I thought I saw a city. And a robed man who called it…”

Temple’s eyes widened. “Shamballa?”

Phoebe nodded. “What does all that have to do with the Moon, and ETs and…”

“And Mars,” Orlando said. “This all started with Mars, or have we all forgotten that? What about the Face? I’m assuming NASA did some cover-up job there too, and wasn’t too happy about all the attention.”

Diana smiled. “That almost blew everything wide open. Fortunately they were able to airbrush and doctor later photos to try to dissuade everyone, but still… there were too many other anomalous structures in the Cydonia vicinity. Pyramids, walls, geometric angles and ratios between the enormous constructions.”

“So what’s there?” Phoebe asked. “Same deal as the moon—ancient ruins, nobody home?”

Diana shook her head. “Oh no, it’s a little more complicated than that. Whatever’s there is different. More aggressive and defensive. We’ve lost probe after probe. The Russians had their mission blown out of orbit as it neared the moon, Phobos. A craft-like object was seen streaking out of a crater and heading for the probe right before it was lost.” She sighed. “Investigators have repeatedly asked why we don’t just send a lander down to Cydonia to answer the question of the Face and pyramids once and for all, and NASA has cleverly dodged such requests by stressing their process, and looking for water in other areas, and throwing off attention by all that fuss about microbes in a Martian meteorite, but the truth is—we can’t go back to the Cydonia region because they won’t let us.”

Temple stood up, looking grim. “And this is where it all comes together. Where you fit in, why we need you. Calderon and his team… they’re the inheritors of Hitler’s Black Lodge. They found what Hitler had been looking for. Made contact with these Custodians—or one branch of them. What appears to have happened is that whatever great war raged in the heavens millions of years ago, the most recent was waged between bases on the Moon and Mars.”

“Thoth and Marduk,” Phoebe said. “The moon was Thoth’s…”

Temple nodded. “And Mars belonged to Azazel, Marduk, Apollo. Call him what you will. What we’re talking about here is more likely a group of beings rather than an individual. Factions with a common purpose. But yet, that was our conclusion too, that the faction most concerned with humanity, the ones who believed—according to all the myths—that we could aspire to their level, they’re the ones on the Moon. And some are here, apparently, in Tibet and possibly we hope, here in Shasta. They’re the Watchers. Watching over us but not really getting involved.”

“The Custodians,” Phoebe whispered. “But… the one I saw… he said they needed us. To save them.”

“The war has begun again,” Temple said. “If it ever really ended. Many times before, Marduk’s followers have attempted to wipe out humanity. The Flood. The Tower of Babel. I’m sure if we keep looking, other disasters might be pinned to them.”

“The Black Plague,” said Orlando, then shrugged. “Just a thought.”

Temple nodded. “And each time, apparently at the last moment, these Watchers intervened. Giving Noah warning, saving a select few here and there. Secreting away knowledge of the world—astronomy, farming, maybe even genetic material. All so they would be able to restart civilization in new places after the devastation had subsided.”

“Which,” Phoebe said, “explains a lot of the sudden appearances of civilization in areas like Egypt and Peru and others.”

“So how does the Tablet fit in?” Orlando asked. “And why does Calderon need it?”

“That,” said Temple, “is your objective number one. Probe the Emerald Tablet and question its relationship with Cydonia. There’s something there. What it is, we’re entirely in the dark about.”

Diana cleared her throat. “We know Mars once had a thriving ecosystem, a habitable environment, before its devastation. And now, knowing what we know about the real history of Earth, I believe we’re in a position to answer one of the great mysteries of evolution. Where we came from, and how we ‘evolved’ so fast, without a discoverable missing link.”

“How?” Orlando said, then trembled.

“Wait,” said Phoebe. “A cataclysm on Mars. The red land that sunk. Out beyond the Pillars of Hercules.” Phoebe looked at Diana and saw the agreement in her eyes. “That’s where Plato put it.”

“Put what?” asked Orlando

Diana smiled. “Atlantis. I believe Mars was Atlantis, and it’s why no one has ever found it.”

“Looking in the wrong spot,” Phoebe said. “But so many legends speak of it. Mayans, the Phoenicians, a lot of cultures, not only associated Mars and the color red with war and violence, but with their origins. Egypt, with its ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ land. The lower world, or the Underworld being red… The place where they came from. The place…” She gasped.

“The place where they would go again. Once they died.”

She stared at Orlando. “Oh my god.”

“What?”

Temple frowned. “What are you thinking?”

Phoebe closed her eyes. “I’m thinking I’m nuts to say this, but it might explain it all, especially what Calderon is after.”

“What?” Orlando asked again, insistent.

“What’s the great mystery of many religions, and especially Christianity?”

Orlando shrugged. “The resurrection?”

“Close,” Phoebe said. “How about this—that in order to receive eternal life, what do you have to do first?”

“Besides all that, do good deeds, give to the poor and believe in Him?”

“Think more obvious,” Phoebe said. “First, before your soul can live forever, you have to die.”

“Die…” Orlando’s eyes clouded. “Oh, I get it.”

“Explain please,” Diana said, leaning forward. “Does this have to do with the Emerald Tablet?”

“Oh yes,” Temple said. “If it’s truly the Tablet of Destiny, like in the Babylonian creation epic, then it has the power of the universe. A power to harness energy and create a weapon. Maybe it’s been used in the past like upon Mohenjo-Daro.”

“And in the Great Pyramid,” Phoebe said at once. “I think Thoth had it, and used it as a retaliation or preemptive strike, maybe on the remnants on Mars, or somewhere else here, as the two sides squared off over our fate.”

“But the Tablet has another power,” Orlando said.

Phoebe nodded. “For eternal life, you need to die first… but I’m guessing that first, you need to be prepared. Ready, like all those instructions on the walls of the Pharaoh’s tombs. They were trying to give the soul directions, a way to get somewhere and be reborn. But to do that…”

“You had to have control over your soul.” Orlando’s eyes flashed. “The Emerald Tablet—it somehow acts to free your consciousness from your body. And keep it under your control.”

“I know,” said Phoebe, “my dad could do it. Even after he died, he kept appearing to us. And Xavier… it seems he learned how to leave his body for a time.”

“And now,” said Temple, “Calderon’s got it. Maybe he plans to use it just for himself, but my guess is that he’ll extend that ability to people in his cabal, his lodge or whatever. And then, with HAARP as his tool and the Tablet’s power to enhance its ionizing beams…”

“He’ll destroy the Earth,” Orlando whispered. “I wondered why he would just commit suicide, just for revenge—and wipe us all out. But now I know.”

Phoebe nodded. “Wow, just like those Heaven’s Gate cultists back some years. They killed themselves and hoped their spirits would hop aboard some passing spaceship on a comet.”

“Looks like they may have gleamed a bit of the truth,” Orlando said.

“Or at least, what Calderon believes is the truth.”

“So we’ve got to stop them,” Phoebe said. “But how? He’s got the Tablet. Probably the keys and the translation as well. They could be on their way to Alaska now. We’re out of time.”

“Not necessarily,” Temple said. “There’s still Mars. If you can find out what’s there, maybe it’s something we can use or threaten Calderon with.”

“And if we can’t?” asked Phoebe. “Don’t they have shields there? I’m guessing they do.”

“Yes,” Temple said. “But you’ve shown you can get past them by looking for creative end-arounds. I trust you.”

“Not to sound like a broken record here, but what if we can’t?” Orlando asked.

Temple’s expression turned rock-hard. “Then we can only hope for aid from an unlikely source. That the Watchers get off the sidelines and rejoin the fray.”

12.

Gacona, Alaska

Alexander awoke with a start and a popping in his ears. Yawning, he looked out the window, taking several moments for the vast expanse of white to register as snow and ice.

“We’re over the Yukon,” one of the twins said. Alexander let his vision linger on the sprawling ice-capped mountains draped in wispy clouds. The sky was a stark but dull metallic blue; the sun somewhere low beyond the range of jagged peaks. Finally he turned his face away and looked at the boy standing in front of him.

They were on some kind of fancy Learjet. Alexander hadn’t really paid attention when they’d boarded. He just knew it was sleek and narrow, with wide leather seats and TVs and a lot of leg room. But he’d had little time to appreciate any of it, as they lifted off quickly from Alexandria, and then someone gave him a drink of water that tasted funny, and as the twins looked on from across the aisle, giggling, he dozed right off, unable to even hang onto any coherent thoughts.

All he knew now was that he was alive. Safe for the moment, but everything had changed. Their enemies had the Books of Thoth and the Emerald Tablet—the ancient relics he had sworn to protect. Some Keeper he turned out to be. Probably the shortest tenure of any of them throughout history. And now, he very likely was going to preside over their extermination.

But then he had a more sobering thought. That it wasn’t just going to be the Keepers. What was done to the Library—as awful as it was—that was just a taste of what would happen if Calderon and his followers succeeded.

Sleep was troubling and anything but restful, full of fiery cataclysmic nightmares, shifting earth, exploding volcanoes and rivers of lava. Clouds of ash hung low in the sky, huge fissures opened in the ground, swallowing up entire cities; seas boiled and monster waves crashed over the world.

He shook the visions away, then yawned again, popping his ears. “We’re descending?”

“Yep,” said the twin stood in front of him, just standing there like a bemused spectator at a zoo. He was nibbling on a Snickers bar.

Alexander frowned at him. “Jacob?” It wasn’t easy to tell them apart, especially when they dressed the same. Now they wore baggy jeans, hi-top Nikes and long-sleeve navy-blue shirts. But Alexander had spent some time studying the twins. Jacob seemed to be a little neater, his shirt tucked in, his hair combed back, while his brother’s appearance was more ruffled. Isaac sat in his seat, playing a Nintendo DS, grinning as he energetically twisted his arms and mashed the buttons with his fingers.

Calderon was in the back, sitting opposite from Xavier Montross, who seemed to be fast asleep. Or drugged, Alexander thought. Two of Calderon’s goons sat on either side of Xavier, arms crossed, eyes straight ahead.

Alexander craned his neck to see what Calderon was holding, and he let out a gasp.

“The Emerald Tablet,” said Jacob. “Yeah, he’s been studying it, meditating and stuff for about two hours.” It was resting on the senator’s lap, and he seemed to be in a trance. His palms gently rubbed the Tablet’s outer surface, fingertips moving slowly, tracing unseen words and signs. Tiny flickers of green sparked off his skin and fizzled in the air.

“My brother and I are next,” Jacob continued.

Alexander turned his attention away. “Next?”

Jacob took a seat beside him, crossing his legs and leaning forward. “Our dad—stepdad, obviously—said we need to learn its secrets after he’s done. Us, and the other members of…” He trailed off suddenly, catching himself.

“Members of what?” Alexander asked. “Oh, your special cult that wants to destroy the world?”

A light shined in Jacob’s deep brown eyes. “More like remake the world.”

“And how are you going to do that? By first killing everyone else?”

Jacob smiled. He glanced over to Isaac, who was still deeply involved in his game, the headphones crackling with explosions and violence. “You’re special, Alexander. Maybe when you see what we can become, what we’re meant to be, you’ll accept that. And then maybe we’ll accept you. You’ll be one of the saved.”

Alexander shook his head. “I don’t understand any of this. And I don’t think you do, either. You’re just being used. And that Tablet…” He glanced back at Calderon.

“Come on, Alexander. Don’t be like that. We’re brothers, the three of us. Part of an ancient prophecy. Even you have to see that we’re special. Chosen.”

Alexander glanced out the window, seeing the mountains in clearer detail. “If that’s true,” he said. “I wish we were never born.”

Jacob eyes hardened. “How can you say that?”

“Let him whine,” said another voice. The headphones were off, and Isaac was sitting up, stretching. “Our little brother doesn’t have any sense of purpose. He can’t dream big, like you and me, Jacob.”

Alexander turned away again, flushing.

“Doesn’t even have any real talent, I bet.” Isaac leaned forward, his coal-black hair flipping over his eyes. “Didn’t see us coming, did you brother? Didn’t see your lighthouse burning up. Or,” he said, chuckling, “your mom…”

“Shut up,” Alexander said. It was just above a whisper. He was gripping the chair’s armrests. Legs tensing.

“Or what?”

Jacob held up a hand. “Isaac, leave him alone. I think he’s had a bad week.”

“Awww.” Isaac leaned back and put his feet on his twin’s chair. “Suck it up, little brother. It only gets worse from here.”

Alexander gave them both a glare, full of hate. “Stop it. Don’t talk to me anymore.”

His grin widening, Isaac shrugged at Jacob. “Another threat, brother. I don’t think we like his tone.”

Alexander leaned forward. “I’ve already killed a man during this ‘bad week’. Don’t push me.”

Jacob and Isaac both stared at him. “You?” Isaac cut off his laugh when he saw Alexander wasn’t backing down.

“Shot him in the head,” Alexander continued. He never blinked.

Jacob’s mouth hung open until Isaac slapped him on the shoulder. “Huh. Maybe we should give that a look-see. Make sure the brat’s not lying.”

Jacob nodded.

“Besides,” said Isaac, “it would be cool to see someone get shot in the skull.” He gave Alexander a begrudging look of modest respect.

“You ever killed anyone?” Alexander asked, still feeling cocky even though his heart was thundering. His ears popped again, and he winced with the sharp pain.

Jacob looked down, but Isaac smiled and rubbed his hands together. “May 5^th, last year. Seattle. Check it out while we’re checking you out.”

Alexander met Jacob’s eyes, and the silent twin gave a slight shake of his head in warning. His lips moved, forming the word “Don’t…”

Alexander trembled, tried to listen to the advice but it was too late.

Some kind of ceremony, people with robes and holding candles. A dark, shadowy chamber, with a circular—or octagonal—rim of marble pillars and some kind of black altar in the center. A man wearing silver shackles and a white robe with lunar designs on it topples over as the crowd of ram-headed spectators cheer.

Two boys stand over the gagged man who’s bleeding from his skull as the boy—a leering, dancing youth dressed in red and wearing a horned mask—dances on his feet; he’s holding a gold-tipped spear, preparing for another jab.

The captive tries to wriggle away, but there’s some kind of barbed-wire netting caught around his legs and pinning back his arms. A thrust, and the golden point comes back red after puncturing the man’s lungs, between two ribs.

Another cheer, and then a man with a familiar cane steps out of the shadows. “Very good. Now it’s your brother’s turn to finish the battle.”

The boy lowers his head and grudgingly hands the lance over to the other boy, who reluctantly takes it.

“Finish the re-enactment,” Calderon urges, raising his cane as the multitude begins to hum and chant incomprehensible syllables.

Feeling the eyes of everyone upon him—especially those of his brother—the boy steps up, raising the spear with both trembling hands. He meets the agonized eyes of the sacrifice. Chooses his spot, hoping for a clean kill, and closes his eyes before he wills his arms to strike.

A gasp and a shrieking cry of pain.

Laughter.

Isaac’s mask is off, and he’s barely able to contain his glee, pointing…

The spear point is stuck in the captive’s breastplate, just under the throat. He’s missed the heart completely.

Jacob lets go, turns and drops to his knees. Bile rushes up out of his mouth, soaking the floor. Calderon shakes his head, then nods to Isaac who moves in. He puts his foot on the captive’s chest, pulls out the lance, then quickly drives it in, lower and to the right, spearing the heart and ending the man’s cries.

Jacob crawls away, into the shadows where he curls up, safe in the darkness.

Alexander lurched back in his seat with a sudden jolt. Turbulence.

Isaac was back in his seat, cross-legged. Eyes closed. Remote-viewing with a smile on his face. But Jacob looked ashen, staring at Alexander. “You saw…?”

Nodding, Alexander glanced away, out the window to the snowy terrain rising up to meet them. “Why… what was that?”

“A re-enactment,” Jacob whispered. “Marduk and Tiamat. The whole planetary war thing. Everyone has to do it, our stepdad said. And… it was supposed to prepare us for what we needed to do.”

“What—to kill a lot of people?”

Jacob gave a weak nod.

“But you… you’re not like your brother.” Alexander took a breath, and with it, found some hope. “This doesn’t have to happen. You can help us.”

Jacob shook his head. “It’s already done. It’s over.”

“No,” said Alexander. “Our dad’s still out there. He’ll figure out a way. He’ll stop this.”

Jacob looked down, then back to where Calderon had just now opened his eyes. He was exhaling calmly, but his eyes shone with an emerald tint. “I’m not sure I want to. You don’t understand what we can become…”

“What?”

“Don’t you get it? It’s what we were meant to be. It’s what we were promised.”

Alexander frowned, trying to remember his dad’s lessons. The stories and myths.

With a little enthusiasm returning to his voice, Jacob said: “We’ll be gods.”

“I’m a kid,” Alexander said quietly, fixing Jacob with a cold stare. “That’s all I want to be.”

Calderon slipped the tablet back in the leather case on top of the translation tablets, then raised his cane and nudged Xavier, who didn’t move. His eyelids were rapidly flickering.

“Look sharp, boys!” Calderon called. “The HAARP facility is standing ready for us. We’re landing in ten minutes. And then…” He turned his gaze out the window, looking out of over the expanse of the polar realm, and Alexander imagined he considered himself observing the whole world.

A grunt, then a familiar voice filled the cabin.

“Don’t celebrate yet,” said Xavier. He was blinking, rubbing his eyes. “I just popped in on my half-brother.”

Alexander saw Calderon’s shoulders tense. He gripped the cane with both hands. “And?”

Xavier flashed Alexander a smile of reassurance. “And it seems, dear Caleb has found it.”

“No… Nina should have stopped him by now.”

A shake of his head, and then Xavier gave a light chuckle. “Seems old flames have been rekindled. And Lady Liberty has given up her deepest secret.”

“The spear…” Calderon almost choked on the word, then reached for his cell phone.

Xavier nodded. “Yes, call in your troops. Alert Homeland Security, and hope he hasn’t already booked a flight. Because he’s got it.”

Alexander’s heart was pounding, his throat tight with excitement and hope.

“And,” Xavier continued, “he’s coming for you.”