David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

“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.

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.