David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

She dug into her pockets, but the bellhop backed away. “No need for a tip, just doing my job. And frankly, we’re all a little relieved down in the mail room.”

“What for?” she asked.

The bellhop looked around nervously. “Well, strange thing about this delivery…”

Caleb noticed now that the box was wrapped up tight with non-descript brown delivery paper, but covered excessively with yellow wrapping tape.

“…it was dropped off at our cruise director’s office three years ago. Addressed to this here room number, but—and here’s where it got really weird—instructions were that it wasn’t to be delivered until this date, which was, as I said—”

“Three years later,” Nina robotically answered. She gently shook the box, eyeing it from different angles.

“Yup,” said the bellhop, edging out of sight. “Apparently paid quite a sum for the instructions to be followed directly, and claimed he’d know if we didn’t do as he said. And he’d know if we opened the box.”

Nina looked at him. And the bellhop shifted back into view, eyeing the box, then Nina. “I uh, well… some of us, we wondered what’s in there. And well, the fact that this room only today got sold was weird enough, and well…”

Nina slammed the door on him. Locked it and turned around, facing Caleb. She hefted the box.

Caleb raised the spear. “Need a box cutter?”

They sat on the bed, the box between them.

“Is this smart?” Caleb asked, spear point poised over a seam.

“What, using a priceless ancient artifact to open a delivery box, or just the fact that we’re even considering opening it at all?

“Yes,” Caleb said, trying to be confidently humorless. “And you know as well as I, that we’re far too curious as to who sent this, and what it is.”

“Go ahead,” Nina said, nodding. “Although I think we can already guess as to who sent it.”

Caleb started sawing, gently slicing through tape and cardboard, freeing one side, then the next. “You’re thinking it’s from Montross.”

Nina smiled. “And if so, it can only mean that he saw something. Saw that—”

“We’d be here at this time.”

“And,” Nina continued as Caleb set down the spear, parted the cardboard and paper folds and reached inside with both hands, “that we’d need whatever it is that’s inside there.”

With some effort, Caleb lifted the object, just about the size of a bowling ball, and held it up to the light. Held it up so both he and Nina could admire its intricate gold and silver inlays, its detailed carved symbols unlike any language they’d ever seen.

He turned it around and around, open-mouthed until finally, he set it on the bed.

“Apparently it’s a wedding gift,” Nina said. “Otherwise, I have no idea.”

“I was wrong before,” Caleb whispered. “About the Spear being the most ancient, priceless artifact in the world. Hell, it doesn’t even fit that description for this room.”

“So you’re saying…?”

“Whatever this is, I glimpsed two things while I was holding it.”

Nina met his eyes, then suddenly reached forward and grasped his hand. Caleb moaned, fell forward towards her and suddenly her lips were there, pressing fiercely against his. His mind was rocked, his senses flattened. Something passed quickly from his mind to hers, and just as quick–the kiss, the connection–was severed.

She was on her feet, holding her head, shaking it.

“A ranch in Montana. A beat up old tractor hauling up the fossilized bones of a triceratops…” She rubbed her eyes, even as Caleb, through his reddened ones, watched her with begrudging admiration. “Men in suits taking away that… thing… that had been inside the dinosaur’s ribcage. Took it… to the Smithsonian…”

“Where,” Caleb said, continuing the vision, “it languished in the forbidden archives until one Xavier Montross conned a beautiful employee to grant him access.”

“He stole it,” Nina whispered. “And the girl… I’ve seen her before. Xavier’s never quite forgotten her.” A smile formed. “He still… loves her. This… Diana. Diana Montgomery.”

Caleb picked up the globe. “Yes, well that may be. But he’s done us one solid favor here. No one will find us now, no matter how hard they look.”

“Why? What does that thing do?”

Caleb looked up at her. “The Morpheus Initiative spent years searching for Montross after he disappeared from Alexandria, but could never find him. Not even a trace, despite having the best psychics in the world.”

Nina just gave him a blank stare until Caleb palmed the globe in his hand like a basketball.

“He’s given us a shield.”

HAARP Facility – Gacona, Alaska

Alexander waited until his eyes adjusted to the darker interior of the control room before he allowed himself to take a breath. Whatever he was expecting, their entrance to the HAARP facility hadn’t been at all as he thought. It was rushed, just a quick ride down a descending ramp, past barbed wire fences beyond which the storming clouds obscured the sky and the mountains, leaving only glimpses of the sentinel-like radar arrays massed upon a field of unyielding ice.

The storm erupted just as they neared the facility, and Alexander had the impression that the station was alive, brimming with its own weather system, occluding itself with a mantle of impenetrable snow and ice. The winds swirled cyclonically, and the snowflakes seemed to be the size of baby rabbits, racing hell-bent around in a maelstrom.

And as much as the exterior was obscured, the interior was excessively bright. White walls, stainless steel doors and railings. Powerful lamps at every turn and glaring overhead bulbs seared at his eyes, eliciting smirks from his half-brothers, gliding ahead on their skateboards.

Isaac circled around and glided up on the other side of Alexander. “Don’t worry yourself about the tour,” he said in almost a gleeful whisper. “We won’t be here long enough to enjoy it, not us. Not you. Right, brother?”

Jacob’s skateboard slowed to a crawl, letting Alexander catch up. “Leave him be,” Jacob said. “Had a hard day, he has.”

“A hard couple of days, I’d say,” Isaac said. “Wandering in lost mausoleums and catacombs, getting shot at, avoiding deadly traps. Oh, and nearly buried alive under the ruins of the twice ruined Library of Alexandria!”

Alexander winced, looked down at his feet and clenched his fists.

“How tired you must be!” Isaac taunted, now from the other side, still riding circles around him. And even Jacob broke down, joining his twin in a little chuckle.

“Boys!” Calderon’s voice cut through the laughter. “Knock it off, we’re almost at the control room.”

“Just having a little fun, righto?”

Calderon leaned heavily on his cane, stamping it hard on the floor with every new step. And in his shadow, proceeding the two armed guards, Xavier Montross followed, head down. His red hair was in tangles over his face, still with the dust from the Cheops’ labyrinth trapped in the curls. He looked up once while Alexander glanced back, and they shared a mutual exchange: Hang in there, Montross seemed to say.

But when Alexander turned, he saw the two twins gliding together, making figure eights down around each other, across a huge circular floor and toward the waiting guards at a set of double steel reinforced doors, and his hopes fled.

This is it. And Alexandria was just the beginning. Montross is going to help them achieve his vision of the world’s destruction, and Dad –

He stopped, closed his eyes and focused. Drove his mind like a spike through time and space. Dad!