The Smithsonian Objective

Near the summit of one of the canyon's highest internal peaks, the seven-thousand-foot geological marvel fancifully named The Isis Temple, Diana Montgomery hauled herself over a jutting incline of red sandstone slate, rolled onto her back and took a moment to catch her breath.

The ferocious sun simmered in a cloudless sky and thrust the shadows of the canyon's cyclopean inner structures over each other and the walls of the North Rim. She gazed to the west, toward the peak of the striated plateau called The Cheops Pyramid; muscles wincing from the six-hour ascent, she took a deep breath and tried to sit up.

She was close. Another five hundred feet, according to the crude map she'd found in the Smithsonian archives back in Washington. Almost there. Almost to the cave. To the discovery of a lifetime. She just—

Two thick ropes dropped from above. Rocks tumbled free from the wall, shards of limestone and shale shattering at her feet. And then heavy boots thudded onto the ledge, and as she tried to move, two black-clad men withdrew large automatic handguns and aimed them at her face.

She knew that finding the map was a little too convenient. Especially given the explosive nature of what she might discover up here.

Two months ago, an anonymous package had arrived at her office. Inside was a newspaper article from the Arizona Gazette dated April 5, 1909, which detailed an explorer's incredible archaeological find at the Grand Canyon. Also in the package, the sender had included a series of letters to the Smithsonian from interested researchers — all of which apparently had gone unanswered, at least to anyone's satisfaction.

She went to her boss, Assistant Director Darien Simcoe, demanding to be shown anything relating to the Gazette article. Seeing she wouldn't let it go, he reluctantly retrieved an item from the archives on one of the restricted sublevels below the Smithsonian. It was the journal of one G.E. Kincaid, a freelance explorer, not officially on the Smithsonian's payroll — although the Gazette had inferred that he was.

The journal mostly matched the story in the Gazette, describing Kincaid's adventures along the Colorado River. But the final page, which wasn't in the Gazette, had a map detailing his hike up from the river to this very monument, "The Isis Temple" — a fitting name given what kind of artifacts Kincaid claimed to have found there within a cave.

But one final item in the anonymous package had stood out from the rest, galvanizing Diana's obsession. It was a sketch: a charcoal drawing on a loose sheet of paper showing Diana herself, an avid rock climber before her work at the Smithsonian became too demanding. In the sketch, she was on a ledge on the Isis Temple. But the oddest part was that there were two ropes ascending off the page.

At the time, Diana believed the artist had merely assumed she would need to arrange for experienced guides. But now, with the two military-attired men aiming a small arsenal at her, in almost the same pose as the picture, she knew differently.

Someone had set her up.

"Get on your feet, Ms. Montgomery."

The other man grabbed her under the arms and hauled her to her feet. She pulled free, spun around. "What the hell is this? Who are you?"

Her mind was racing. Maybe some of the wilder rumors she'd heard were true: that this whole area was off limits, ruthlessly protected by a government agency trying to hide what Kincaid had found out here.

The other climber — shorter, wearing glasses with mirrored lenses in which she could see her terrified face — shoved her against the hot rock wall.

"This is ridiculous," she spat. "I'm an associate of the Smithsonian Institution. I—"

"No, ma'am, you're not. Got a call from your boss yesterday, claiming you had stolen confidential museum property, that you were to be apprehended on sight."

Damn Simcoe. She hung her head after an upwards longing glance to where a small cave beckoned. What about that anonymous package? Was that Simcoe too? None of this made any sense.

Dejected, she headed to the edge. The soldiers put their guns away, secured their harnesses and prepared to rappel alongside her when suddenly another figure dropped almost silently behind them. Dressed in khakis, with a leather hat partially covering hair as red as the layers of shale behind him, the newcomer sprang up from his crouch and delivered a kick to the first soldier, sending him sprawling over the edge.

The other spun around, arms up in a fighting pose, but the red-haired man ducked a punch as if he knew exactly when it was coming, rose up and slammed a fist into the soldier's chin, knocking him back. His heels slipped off the edge and his arms spun wildly.

Diana watched open-mouthed as the newcomer stepped right up to the flailing soldier, placed a finger on his chest, smiled and pushed.

She scrambled to the edge and looked down to see both men dangling sixty feet below, spinning wildly, slamming against the rock wall and bouncing off.

A hand gently caught her shoulder. "Come on," he said, with just a touch of urgency. "That won't stop them long."

Diana shot to her feet, met the man's piercing blue eyes, then glanced up to the cave. "Were you…?"

"Up there? Yeah, hiding since last night, waiting for them to make their move."

"Great, then you can get me back up there? We can—"

"Sorry but that's not where we're going."

"What? But the map…" She paused. Could she trust someone who appeared all of a sudden, dressed like Indiana Jones minus the whip? "Wait, who the hell are you?"

He continued smiling, and the sun sparkled mischievously in his eyes as he slipped a large waterproof backpack off his shoulders. He proceeded to extract several expandable metal rods and unravel what looked like the fabric of a parachute. "My name's Xavier Montross. And I sent you the package."

Diana stared at him. "You? Then—" She stopped talking as soon as she focused on what it was he was busy assembling. "What the hell is that?"

"Hang glider."

She took her eyes off him long enough to look down the sheer cliff wall. One of her attackers was still out cold, dangling in the winds. The other, his face bloody, was climbing swiftly, fixing her with a vile look.

"We don't have much time," Xavier said.

Diana shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers."

He stopped assembling the triangular apex and the handles. "All you need to know, Diana Montgomery, is right here." He reached into his backpack one more time and retrieved a sketchbook. Flipped to a dog-eared page, ripped it free and showed her the charcoal drawing:

An image of her likeness, standing at a podium before a rough outline of an audience. News cameras. On a table sat a collection stones and urns with clear Egyptian hieroglyphics.

"What is this?" she asked, just as the wind whipped the page out of her hands and sent it soaring over the canyon's deep, shadowy abyss. She thought for a moment, even as she saw the rope at her feet moving, the peg shifting with the climber's weight as he ascended. "Wait. That drawing — the one you sent me. It was exactly what just happened."

"So?"

"So, you knew they'd be here. Maybe you're Simcoe's man, or you're working with these thugs and—"

Xavier shook his head as he put away the sketchbook and zipped up the pack. "The answer is much less credible, and yet perfectly simple." He bent down, extended the hang glider's wings and attached a harness to his back.

"What could be simpler?"

He grinned. "I can see the future."

In the ensuing seconds, Diana couldn't recall the actual events that led her to leap off the six-thousand foot high ledge with a man she had only just met. But something about his obvious belief in what he was saying led her to strap herself in and wrap her arms around his chest just as she heard the grunts of the soldier reaching the top.

And then she was flying, soaring out into thin air. As they launched themselves out over the majestic gorge, the sublime beauty of this natural wonder worked its magic and calmed her nerves. She relaxed her hold on his broad chest, loosened her legs from his, then gasped as they made a turn around the temple and angled down toward Cheops' Pyramid.

She thought she heard gunshots behind her, along with a cry of frustration, but then they were descending, weaving slowly left and right, swooping through the rainbow of geologic strata along the canyon walls. Past promontories and spurs, peaks and plateaus she had only dreamed of climbing one day.

"Where are we going?" Her voice carried, echoing off the sandstone towers.

"Marble Canyon," Xavier said, turning his head. Somehow, his hat remained in place. "You were duped, Diana. The map was a fake."

"How could you possibly know that? Oh wait — right, you're psychic."

The glider caught an updraft that took them past another towering mesa dotted with sycamore brush and rebellious pines. "I knew it was a fake because I've seen the actual entrance. I saw Kincaid, just as he found it."

Diana laughed. "Really? What are you going to tell me now, that you're over a hundred years old?"

"Don't be silly. I said I saw it, not that I was there." They rounded the mesa, coming close enough to reach out and almost touch its crumbling shale façade. "I'm what you would call a 'Remote Viewer'. I've always been able to see things, glimpses of other times and places. Mostly in the future, but sometimes, if I focus enough on the objective, I can see into the past as well."

"Okay, so you believe you can whatever — remote-view things. Why all this? Why'd you send me that package?"

"Because I knew you'd come, but not for anything so trivial as recognition or fame."

Diana's lips, already cracked, opened and the dry canyon air rushed in.

"You're here, Diana Montgomery, because of your father."

How the hell could he possibly know about that?

"You got your love of climbing from him," Xavier said. "But after your mother died, you drifted away. Hadn't seen your father in years until you found out he was here, giving climbing tours. Two years ago, right after he emailed you that he had something important to show you, something you of all people would appreciate, he died from a fall."

Diana was speechless. She still recalled the day after the funeral, the day she had come out to the area north of the Phantom Ranch, to a slope where they had found his body. She'd searched, but no one claimed to have been along with him on the ascent, and no one saw a thing.

It was a mystery still gnawing at her two years later when that package arrived, hinting at a find in the same area where her father had died. It didn't take a genius to put the pieces together. Her father had been after the same thing. Only now, it was starting to look like he was murdered because of it.

Still reeling from their landing along the banks of the raging Colorado River as much as from Xavier's incendiary revelations, Diana somehow wasn't surprised to see a sturdy raft ahead, laden with supplies.

Xavier untied himself from the harness and quickly discarded the glider into the river. "I've been practicing out here all summer." He gave her a wink and tipped his hat. "Waiting for you."

She put her hands on her hips. "All right, spill it. So you're going to tell me that what Kincaid supposedly found out here is the real deal, and that the Smithsonian is covering it up — and killing anyone who stumbles on the secret? What is it, that we had seafaring Egyptians who made it across North America thousands of years ago, found this canyon and stashed some goodies in the caves?"

Xavier adjusted his backpack and headed toward the boat. "Not at all. I'm going to tell you something far more controversial."

"What the hell could be more controversial?" Her words echoed like pinballs between the narrow canyon walls.

The brim of the hat lowered as he turned toward her. "The truth, Ms. Montgomery."

They navigated the rough rapids and finally arrived at the fabled Redwall Cavern. Diana studied the yawning, shadow-rimmed entrance. It would fit Kincaid's description — of a cavernous interior that could potentially hold thousands of people. "This is it?"

"No. An entrance was here. But not anymore. Your boss's predecessors made sure that the tunnels accessed by Kincaid near the back of Redwall Cavern were demolished. Sealed up forever."

"Then where…?"

Xavier steered them around a bend, leaving the cavern behind. They sailed into slanting shadows as the dizzying rock walls turned a shade of purple, as if welcoming royalty. "Do you know the native Ute myth about the origin of the Grand Canyon?"

Diana thought for a moment, recalling it. "Yes, of course. A wise chief was so overwhelmed by the death of his wife that he couldn't be consoled until a god named Tavwoats offered to prove to him that she had gone on to a happier land. But the stipulation was that the chief had to promise to never again seek that magical trail to the land of the dead. The chief agreed, and Tavwoats rolled a great ball of fire across the desert, and as it spun, it parted the earth and mountains and made a path to the land beyond death. He guided the chief through this massive canyon until they came to the Spirit Land where the chief saw his wife was happy, and he saw no more reason to mourn."

Xavier pulled the boat up to a jutting formation of red sandstone marked with deeper hues of purple. He dropped the anchor, then uncovered a tarp in the boat, revealing scuba gear and two air tanks. "And then what did that pesky Tavwoats do?"

Blinking at the tanks, Diana struggled to answer. "Not trusting the chief to honor his vow, he caused a massive river to flood over the trail, obscuring the path forever."

Nodding, Xavier pointed to the gear. "Forever's just about up."

After swimming carefully through a descending passageway, completely dark except for the murky light from Xavier's underwater flashlight, they emerged through a curiously circular aperture into a small cave.

"How did you find this place?" she asked after spitting out her regulator. She wore just her shorts and a tight tank top, and Xavier was now shirtless, wearing only the boxer trunks he had on under his khakis. He again slung his waterproof backpack over his shoulders.

"Told you, I'm a—"

"Remote-viewer, right." Diana stepped gingerly onto the cold rock as Xavier's flashlight beam bounced around over the cavern's narrowing walls, illuminating a tunnel stretching into the darkness.

"Come on. They've probably found our boat by now."

"What?"

"Hurry, we're almost there."

For a moment, Diana just stood there shivering, terrified suddenly to take another step. But then his hand found hers, their wet fingers closed, entwining, and he gently pulled her alongside him.

The next few minutes might have been hours. She couldn't be sure of anything. She imagined they were descending, step by step, toward the ruins of some ancient subterranean city, and at one turn she had the sudden conviction that they stood at the edge of a vast, yawning cavern. Xavier's light speared out, stabbing into the impenetrable gloom. She felt a breeze wafting up from below, carrying the scent of something nostalgically sweet, and she thought she heard a sound like waves thrusting against a glassy shore.

She desperately wanted to find a trail, make her way down there and dive into that sea. She heard whispers, contented and pure, and could have sworn one of them sounded familiar.

"Dad?"

"Don't listen," Xavier hissed and tugged at her hand. "We can't linger, not at this spot."

"But…" She thought of the legend of Tavwoats and shuddered with a sense of forbidden pleasure as she resisted Xavier's pull. But then her feet were moving, the sensation was gone and they were in an ascending passage.

Then she heard something that chilled her blood: voices behind her. And way back in the winding dark — flashes of distant lights.

"They're coming," Xavier said, just as his light stabbed through an arched doorway, reflecting back a vision of a golden plated wall chiseled with pictographs. She got a glimpse of something like a sarcophagus propped up in the corner, and a sense of a chamber cluttered with boxes, urns, pottery, chests…

And then they were inside the room and Xavier pushed her on ahead and gave her the flashlight as he dug into his pack. She saw a sleek gun appear in his hand as he knelt, waiting for their pursuers.

"How did they find us?" she asked.

"I'm afraid they must have seen us dive, then figured out the rest. They were prepared for everything. Ready to defend this secret with every available resource."

Diana aimed the light around the walls, trying to resist the temptation to study the hieroglyphics and gaze at the artifacts. Everything seemed genuine — but then again, appearances could be forged. But what possible reason-?

Gunshots roared behind her. A cry of pain echoed from the passageway. She dropped low and hugged the side wall as she shone her light back and saw Xavier leaning out. He aimed and fired again.

Then a voice called out: "Whoever you are, we only want the girl. Send her out and we'll let you walk."

"Fat chance!" Xavier yelled back.

Diana whispered to him. "I don't see an alternative. They've got us pinned."

He just smiled, then kicked his backpack over to her. "Look at my sketchbook. At the open page." She heard some muffled voices, and then the echoing voice:

"Have it your way. Our orders are that you don't leave here alive."

Diana found the sketchbook. Spirals on the top held together about a hundred sheets of thick drawing paper. But the one that it was open to was near the end — and it showed what looked like a collapsed cave tunnel, with a man and a woman standing calmly in a room behind the crumbled section.

She looked up sharply — just as a loud explosion rocked the tunnel. The chamber groaned and rocks fell from the ceiling, but then Xavier was there, his body on top of hers. The rain of dust and pebbles stopped, and he slowly eased off her, brushing back her hair.

"Okay?"

She nodded, then aimed the flashlight down the passageway — where the light stopped about halfway, at a mass of rubble. She could only guess at its thickness, but imagined they wouldn't be digging themselves out.

The horror of her predicament should have been crushing her, but then she realized why she was so calm. She held up the sketchpad. "You… saw this. That we'd be trapped, and yet you still brought me here."

He brushed himself off. Standing there in a beam of dust-filled light against a golden backdrop, he looked strangely god-like.

"Then…" she continued, "you're either suicidal, or…"

"Or," he said with a smirk, "I know another way out."

She heard him moving about in the chamber, making his way to the sarcophagus. "It's going to be a little tight, a nearly vertical ascent, but I left ropes, and…"

But she was still looking at the sketchpad, feeling an irresistible pull to know more about this man. To see into his thoughts, into his dreams. She gave in to her curiosity. And turned the page.

Her breath fled her lungs in rush. She was barely aware that he was talking, speaking about the age of these artifacts, how he had taken pictures down here and translated the hieroglyphics. She stared, letting the light in her trembling hand illuminate every finely-drawn line, every shaded limb, every single detail.

And then she realized he had stopped talking. He was right behind her.

"You weren't supposed to see that."

She swallowed hard, still staring at the incredible scene. The audacity, the sheer… "What is this? The future, or just your twisted imagination?"

"You weren't supposed to see that," Xavier repeated, his voice hollow as he contemplated the picture of the two of them, in this chamber. Their wet bodies pressed tight, facing each other, her arms wrapped around his muscular back, their lips locked in a fierce kiss…

"But I did," she said. "And I want an answer. Is this the future? Or has everything up to now been some kind of crazy, psychotic game?"

He took the pad from her, dropped it and let his hand linger just inches from her face, a delayed caress. "The future isn't set. I've managed to change my visions before. So, no — this isn't necessarily what's going to happen. You can change it. It's… your choice."

She shook her head in dismay, but couldn't pull her gaze from his. Still picturing that sketch, her breath quickened as she sought any way out of this, out of fate. She thought about the past decade, a whirlwind of work, advancing herself at the expense of every relationship. Her father being the first casualty, but leaving no room for anyone else to step in and share her world.

Dizzy, she tried to distract herself from the moment. "What… were you saying before? The translation of the hieroglyphics…?"

"You won't believe me," he said. "But when you get back to the Smithsonian—"

"I've been fired. They won't let me back in."

"They will," he said, "because you'll be bringing evidence back. Demanding to speak to your boss and the trustees. You'll be reinstated, but it still won't be easy. Not until you get access to the sublevels and the restricted archives where they've hidden the rest of what they've found here."

"The rest…"

"It's old, Diana. So very old. Everything down here… the chasm we passed… that's where they came from."

"They?"

"Originally. The Hopi have a legend, too. You know it — how the First People emerged from a great hole in the ground—"

Diana shivered. "The Grand Canyon…"

Xavier nodded, licking his dry lips. "The truth, Diana, the big truth that they won't ever let out, the truth that would shatter every notion of our origin and evolution… Is that we didn't come out of Africa. We didn't even start in Asia or anywhere in the Old World and then migrate west. No…"

"We came from… here?" She whispered it, barely believing it herself, not knowing what to believe anymore. Nothing mattered. Everything she had held sacred had just been incinerated in the course of an hour.

She leaned in and felt her arms encircling Xavier's neck. Felt her breath leave in a rush, mixing with his, as his lips parted and he bent down to meet her kiss. And then all her doubts and confusion were drowned in the bliss of passionate oblivion.

Xavier had flown her back on his private plane to avoid any lingering security that might be on the lookout for her. Then once in D.C., he had sent her on in a cab while he left on other errands, saying he would see her again later that night.

Amazingly, perhaps because Simcoe felt there was no rush, her credentials still worked at the Smithsonian's main entrance. The guard let her pass without a second look. She took the elevator and marched straight into Darien Simcoe's office. She knew he worked late most days, and sure enough, found him at his desk.

Except…

He was sitting in his chair, and at first it seemed he was asleep, mouth open. But then she noticed the spray of blood on the wall of diplomas behind him. On his lap: a gun, still warm, gripped loosely in his lifeless hand.

She stood there a long time before finding the courage to move to his desk to see what was lying there, inside an open manila file marked CONFIDENTIAL.

It was a catalog. A listing of the contents of Archives — Sublevel 5, K-L.

About the middle of the first page, her vision snagged on it: Kincaid's Cave. Locker 23-893. Combination 343212.

Gooseflesh ran down the back of her neck. Did Simcoe have a change of heart? Maybe he saw her on the entrance video feed, coming in brazenly with a leather satchel full of… something, and decided to end it for himself before she could expose him.

But… something didn't feel right.

She shook it off. She had an opportunity here. Xavier had been clear — what they took from the cave was nothing definitive. Easily dismissive as a forgery. The only real evidence was locked away in the Smithsonian's secret archives.

She made her choice.

At times during the descent, she was sure she was being followed. Shadows on the stairwell above her, darting out of sight when she looked back. But curiosity won out over caution. She made it to the sealed door on Sublevel 5, tried her handprint on the scanner and for some reason she wasn't surprised that it worked. She opened the door.

As she stepped inside, motion-sensing halogen bulbs illuminated an enormous warehouse floor with shelves twenty feet high, their contents locked away in boxes behind metal bars.

Drifting through the aisles as if in a dream; she eventually found herself before locker 23-893. It was the fourth shelf up, about at the level of her head. The compartment had a digital screen and a number pad.

At a scuffling sound behind her; she turned, holding her breath, but saw nothing.

Calming her nerves, she turned back and typed in the combination. The grate popped out, then the locker slid down.

She was about to open it and reach inside when she heard it again: a grating metallic sound from the next aisle. She dropped low and slid along the shelving for several steps before skidding to a halt.

There was a face staring at her through the bars.

Blue eyes. Red hair.

Xavier grinned as he bent to an empty shelf where they could see each other clearly. "Did you find it?"

Diana was too stunned to answer. A hundred connections slid into place all at once. Then she said it: "You… you killed Simcoe."

His grin never wavered.

Fighting off a fresh wave of nausea, she continued. "You left the catalog for me to find, after what? Forcing him to show it to you and then extending my clearance to the sublevels?"

Xavier shrugged, but still said nothing.

She knelt on the floor now, her mind spinning with everything that had happened since he dropped to her rescue, and now she fought the crushing realization that he had been four moves ahead of her the whole time. "Why?"

He raised his right hand. In it rested something a little smaller than a bowling ball. It was silver-plated, covered with crisscrossing lines etched with strange runes. Just looking at it made her head swim. "This, he whispered. "The contents of locker 21-432."

"What is it?"

"Something I need," he responded cryptically. "Something more important than you can ever guess. It was relegated here, suppressed without further study, simply because of where it was found."

"Where?"

"On a Wyoming cattle ranch in 1923; discovered under thirty feet of topsoil and inside the ribcage of a fossilized Triceratops. The implication of course being that whatever advanced civilization made this thing — it coexisted with the dinosaurs. Over seventy million years ago…"

Diana said nothing for a moment, refusing to even acknowledge the impact of what he had just said. Finally she said, "So you used me. Because… because… you saw it here and needed my access?"

He nodded. "See, you're getting this now. Yes, I saw this sphere. Dreamed of it many, many times. Knew I was meant to find it, and I knew I could get you to help me."

"The Kincaid article. The Grand Canyon. My father…" She slumped to the floor. "Everything…"

Xavier's hand appeared above her, his arm extending through a gap in the shelf. At first she thought he was trying to grab her hair or pull her up. A part of her wanted him to. Needed him to. Despite everything.

But then his hand opened.

And a single folded sheet of paper descended toward herand settled on the floor by her face.

"Look at that," he said in almost a whisper. "when you're settled down. When the turmoil and thrill of what's to come gives you a moment's breath. And when that day arrives, make your choice. You can change the future, or embrace it. Either way, I'll be waiting."

As his footsteps echoed down the lonely corridor, past the suppressed relics of a forbidden age, she somehow found the energy to touch the page and hold it up. In a sketch just as beautiful in its contours of light and shade, he had drawn a vision of the two of them together. Holding hands, facing a sun rising over a desert-like mountain scene.

A vision that despite the excitement of everything she'd discovered, and the fear of what was to come, still brought tears to her eyes and a smile on her face.