The Forbidden Tomb

6

Garcia promised something cool — and he delivered.

The team watched in awe as the city of Alexandria rose from the tabletop like a ghostly apparition. An avid believer in the supernatural, McNutt slowly pushed away from the table, worried if he moved too quickly the poltergeist might attack him.

Garcia looked up from his keyboard and grinned. Only he knew how the illusion worked. ‘The city is exactly to scale. Or rather, it’s exactly what is represented on Jack’s map. The computer can’t tell the actual heights of the buildings, so those are approximated from the square footage of their bases and satellite imaging. If you give me more time, I can hack the city planner’s office and make things perfect.’

The others remained silent as the city continued to rise, layer after projected layer. But instead of sprouting from the bottom, structures now materialized in a wave around the perimeter of the city as it sprawled farther and farther from the center.

Sarah waved her hand through the projection, searching for a reflective surface, but her hand passed through the image. ‘How is this even possible?’

Garcia ignored her question. He was having too much fun blowing their minds. ‘What you see is a reproduction of modern Alexandria. The city as it exists today.’ He tapped a few buttons on his keyboard. ‘Now if we overlay the previous map, we get something like this…’

Several structures disappeared as others took their places.

Garcia glanced at Cobb. ‘If you’d like, I can keep going until we have every detail from every page of the map.’

Cobb nodded, his eyes never leaving the city.

Garcia entered a new command, and suddenly the holographic images intersected and overlapped in every conceivable way — similar to the chaos of earlier when they tried to view the document as a single map instead of separate maps. In many instances, whole buildings appeared to be consumed by larger ones like hungry nesting dolls.

Jasmine stared in disbelief. ‘This is incredible!’

Sarah was more flummoxed than impressed, and she didn’t appreciate the feeling. ‘Seriously, how is this possible?’

Garcia shrugged, revealing nothing.

‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll figure it out myself.’

He crossed his hands behind his head and smugly leaned back in his chair. ‘Be my guest.’

Never one to pass on a challenge, Sarah stood for a better look. ‘Under normal circumstances, light would need something to interrupt its path, like a screen or something. Otherwise it can’t be seen by the naked eye.’

‘True.’

She passed her hand through the image again, then watched Jasmine do the same on the opposite side of the table. ‘But there’s no screen here.’

‘Nope.’

She leaned to the left and then to the right, hoping to learn more. ‘For a truly three-dimensional hologram, you need something in the air — dust, water vapor, something — to reflect the light.’ She rubbed her fingers together. ‘But I can’t feel anything.’

‘If you could, you’d be the first.’

Cobb cleared his throat and tapped his watch.

Garcia got the hint and ended the game. He pointed to the air-conditioning vent above the table. ‘This room uses specially formulated air. Its molecular composition is designed to reflect certain wavelengths of lights. When used in conjunction with the appropriate laser, you’re able to do something like this.’

Cobb nodded knowingly. ‘It’s technology co-opted from the US military. The ability to project an image can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, it can fool the enemy into thinking our numbers are far greater than they actually are. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll be able to create a battalion of fake soldiers out of thin air.’

‘Correction,’ Garcia said. ‘Not out of thin air. Out of thick air.’

Cobb smiled. ‘Duly noted.’

‘Is it safe?’ Jasmine wondered. ‘We’re not breathing in air loaded with lead or mercury or something like that, are we?’

Garcia shook his head. ‘No, it’s perfectly safe. It’s a combination of—’

Papineau cut him off. ‘I think your word is enough for now. The exact nature of the chemical elements is not important. If Hector says it’s safe, it’s safe.’

Jasmine nodded. ‘If you say so.’

‘Soooo,’ echoed Sarah, who was still upset that she hadn’t been given enough time to figure out the device, ‘your toy is cool and all, but I don’t see how it’s going to help us find the tomb. I mean, a map is still a map — even if it’s in 3-D.’

‘Actually, it’s a lot more than that.’ Garcia extended his right arm with his hand facing up. Then he placed his left hand over his outstretched palm and slowly spread them apart. The movement, which looked like a gator’s jaw opening, caused the layers of the holographic map to separate. Just as the paper map had been divided into sheets, the virtual map was now displayed as a stack of separate levels.

‘Now watch this,’ he bragged.

With a simple twitch of his finger, the program cycled through the layers of the map. Choosing one at random, he reached out and flipped his wrist to the side. As if by magic, the entire map began to spin on a center axis.

McNutt grumbled, still unwilling to approach the table as the ethereal map floated in front of him like a creature from Ghostbusters.

Meanwhile, Jasmine was ecstatic. ‘Hector, this is amazing! Seeing the city presented like this provides so much more perspective.’

‘How so?’ Sarah asked.

‘Within each layer there are noticeable developments, but the distinct layers appear to match perfectly with the changes that the city has undergone throughout the years. Hector, take us back to the bottom layer, please.’

Garcia did as he was told.

‘The first layer represents the first three hundred years of the region. We know during that era the city was divided into five districts, or quarters, named after the first five letters of the Greek alphabet.’ She pointed to the model. ‘Look here and here. See how the city appears to be broken into five distinct regions. It’s exactly what we would expect to find. Each subset of the populace had its preferred area, much like you’d find in cities today.’

‘Flip to the next layer,’ ordered Papineau, who approached the table. It was his way of not only urging Jasmine to continue but to see if her theory was correct.

Jasmine studied the map, looking for clues. ‘Notice the difference? Now the borders between the regions have all but disappeared. The neighborhoods have been intertwined, a likely result of the newer Roman occupation and the conflict with the Ptolemies who sought to regain the land under their name. Please, keep going.’

Garcia flipped to the next map. The third level was almost incompatible with the previous version, as if the entire city had been razed and reconstructed.

Jasmine smiled, knowing that a complete transformation had taken place.

Papineau knew it too. Now convinced that Jasmine’s theory was accurate, he urged her to continue her narration.

She happily obliged. ‘Alexandria was nearly erased during the Kitos War. It was rebuilt under the direction of the Roman emperor Hadrian. His city stood until 365. On July the twenty-first of that year, the city was wiped clean again by the tsunami that Jean-Marc mentioned earlier. What wasn’t destroyed by the flood — the so-called pagan temples — was torn down thirty years later when Christianity took hold of the city.’

Garcia turned to the next map.

‘The Muslim conquest of Egypt changed the landscape yet again. It was the last major upheaval of control in Alexandria until the Ottoman reign of the fifteen hundreds. After that, the remaining redevelopment of the eighteen hundreds and nineteen hundreds was limited to localized damage inflicted during various battles and skirmishes.’

Garcia flipped back to the modern city as Jasmine finished her lecture.

‘With these maps, we can trace the entire evolution of Alexandria from its inception to its current layout today.’

‘And most importantly,’ said Garcia, who was quite content working in the air-conditioned mansion, ‘we don’t even have to go to Egypt.’

Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘I guess that means your table is going to magically find the treasure and beam it here like something from Star Trek?’

He rubbed his chin in thought. ‘Maybe.’

‘Now that would be cool!’ McNutt blurted. It had taken a while, but he was finally warming up to the table. ‘Where did you learn how to do all of that?’

‘All of what?’

McNutt tried to replicate some of Garcia’s hand gestures, but he looked like the town drunk trying to learn sign language. ‘That wizard stuff.’

Garcia laughed. ‘I was still working for the FBI when they introduced this system. It just so happens that they chose the Miami field office for the pilot program. That meant I was one of the first people in the entire bureau to get my hands on this technology. No pun intended.’

Garcia brought his palms together, thrust them into the hologram, and then pulled them apart like he was playing the accordion. In response the image expanded, revealing a level of detail that was truly phenomenal.

‘I fell in love with the program almost immediately. I started putting it through its paces, seeing what it could really do, and it never let me down. But the bosses up the ladder couldn’t figure it out. They were too set in their ways. They were convinced that corkboards and slideshows were better methods of processing information. Freaking dinosaurs, if you ask me.’

Jasmine mimicked his gestures. ‘How does it work?’

Garcia pointed up. ‘There are motion-capture cameras mounted in the ceiling that monitor your movements. The computer translates certain actions as specific requests. That information is conveyed to the various lasers that actually draw the map. They adjust the image accordingly.’ He moved his hand like he was spinning a globe, causing the image to twist on its axis. ‘It’s very intuitive.’

Jasmine reached out and grabbed the map, bringing the hologram to an abrupt stop. She smiled like a kid who had just learned how to ride a bike.

Garcia beamed with pride. ‘Ten years ago it was cutting-edge science reserved for government entities. Now they’re using the same basic tech in video game consoles. Granted, they have more limitations than this, but the concepts are the same.’

Enjoying his moment in the spotlight, Garcia reached down and plucked a building from the map. Then he cocked his arm and threw it toward McNutt. ‘Catch!’

Still trying to wrap his head around the technology, McNutt wasn’t sure if the building would shatter on impact if he didn’t catch the hologram, so he gave it his all and jumped high into the air — only to topple over his chair and crash to the ground.

The profanity that followed made Jasmine blush.

Meanwhile, Garcia yanked his hand back as if he were playing with a yo-yo. The flying building suddenly stopped in midair, reversed course, and headed back toward Garcia, who caught it and placed it back on the map with a huge grin on his face.

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh.

McNutt continued to curse as he pulled himself back into his seat. It took him a moment to gather his senses. ‘What happened?’

Papineau answered drily. ‘You missed.’