David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

“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.”

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 lightsblazed 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 looklike 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.”