The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03) (11 page)

#

A man sits
where Caleb had been. This one is dressed in full Egyptian splendor. Colorful breastplate, long golden skirt. Bracelets, necklaces. A crown with two asps in its center. Except he's glowing, with arching tendrils of electricity or plasma pinwheeling over his body and arcing about the interior of the shaft.

Clutched in both hands is a familiar item:

The Emerald Tablet.

Then there's a sound, a grunting, then a low moan as the Pharaoh sets the edge of the Tablet against the slot in the chair, and eases it down. There's a massive sound, a piercing pitch that compliments a deep rumbling vibration.

The chamber fills with light—hot, intense white light, energy great enough to tear flesh and bone apart and pulverize every cell, and yet…  The king is unscathed. Still sitting calmly, head back, mouth open. It's as if he's directing the energy. Focusing it, sending it up. Up the shaft, and out.

A
flash
and Alexander's mind is outside-

-the great Pyramid. Alone on a lush, grassy plain. Dawn, and the sun is just emerging over a thick forest in the east, past the width of the Nile. There is a deep, lush jungle where the other two pyramids should be, and the causeway leading up to the Sphinx has been neatly landscaped, the trees and bushes pared back from the great marble stones. And the Sphinx itself—different. Its head is larger, leonine, and proportional to the immense body; it faces the rising sun, and its eyes hungrily follow the dawn.

But then the golden capstone above the smooth, reflective walls of the Great Pyramid begins to glow. Brighter and brighter. Turning from gold to silver, blindingly bright.

And then a beam stabs out, straight up and out, thrusting into the azure-violet sky…

…arcing toward a single pinpoint of reddish-white light. A faint star.

A planet.

"Mars!" Alexander whispered as he came back to the present. Caleb's light was back on. His father rubbed his eyes, and cautiously traced the slot with his index finger. "Did you see it?"

"I… saw something. A man where you're sitting. Putting the tablet in there, and then directing some kind of light beam out the top of the pyramid, toward what I think was Mars."

Caleb cocked his head, looked sharply at Alexander. "You really...?"

"Didn't you see it too?  You've got to believe me. It was a long time ago, had to be. Only this pyramid and the Sphinx were there, but Egypt wasn't a desert. There was a jungle, and-"

"I believe you."  Caleb leaned forward, rubbing his head. "I don't want to believe you, but I do. There have been a lot of crackpot theories about this site, this pyramid. I never gave much thought to some of the more outlandish ones, like that the Great Pyramid was an ancient power source, or a weapon used by extraterrestrial 'gods' in their own petty wars. But now..."

"But now it doesn't seem so… crackpotty."

Caleb smiled. "Nice word, Alexander. No it doesn't, but I didn't see all that. I saw something else, I was focused on the man."

"The Pharaoh guy?  What about him?"

"It seemed," Caleb said, "he wasn't really there."

Alexander blinked, trying to recall what he'd seen. The man sitting there, holding the tablet. All that heat and power passing into him, through him. "Oh."

"Yeah," Caleb said. "I think that was just his projection, whatever it is Montross learned how to do."

"And Grandpa."

Caleb nodded. "But somehow, while in that out of body phase, he could still touch the Emerald Tablet. Move it, insert it." 

"Like I was able to move the lever under the Sphinx!" Alexander's eyes shined with the memory.

Caleb nodded as he shined the light into the groove, trying to see anything down there. "And that's the key, I think. To what the Emerald Tablet can do. It interfaces with consciousness, or our souls, or something. One and the same and phased together with the spirit, the Tablet's full power can be consciously controlled, wielded."

Alexander whistled. "So what did I see them attacking?"

"I can't say, yet. But I don't think it helps us now. This… place. This facility is dormant. I can feel it. Even if we brought the Tablet down here, I think they—whoever they were—Thoth's enemies maybe, dismantled the core. Maybe it was in some ancient war, something that turned this lush land into a desert. Whatever it was, this facility, this pyramid, is nothing now but a tomb. Our tomb, unless we can get out."

"Perhaps," said a new voice. "I can be of assistance."

#

Alexander spun around,
fumbling with his light. Shining it this way and that, finally zeroing in on the presence: back at the passage entrance that led into this chamber. A lone figure stood there.

It took him a moment to see that it was a woman. Someone in a long gray cloak. Actually, he realized, a
sari.
Draped over her shoulder and wrapped around her body. She had short hair, white, and her face was beautiful despite its age.

"Easy," Caleb whispered. "I think I know her, but how-?"

"-Did I find you?"  The woman approached, her own flashlight aimed down, a large maglite beam glinting off the solid floor and making it seem like she walked on a star. "I got a call from your very concerned sister."

"Phoebe!"

"She was fine when I talked to her. In a helicopter, heading towards some mission for your American friends."

"What friends?" Alexander was rubbing his head, shining his light from the newcomer to his father.

"Not important now," said the woman as she took a moment to shine her light on the central apparatus, following the shaft upwards to where her more powerful light caught it merging with the precipitous ceiling. "I can't believe it. This really exists."

"Who are you?" Alexander asked, but then his eyes adjusted, and he saw her more clearly, not as a ghostly goddess of the abyss, but as flesh and blood. He had seen her before, on rare occasions when all the Keepers would gather. When Lydia and Uncle Robert would send him off to play (or learn) in the upper levels of the Alexandrian Library while they met and decided the fate of the recovered scrolls. "You're-"

"Rashi Singh."  Caleb stood and bowed to her. "Keeper, this was too dangerous, you coming down here. And how did you even bypass the guards up there?"

There was a gleam in her dark eyes as she spoke. "Herodotus. The lost chapters. Deliberately cut from his
Histories
, preserved and sent away, according to his notes, because the priests at Thebes demanded that what he had seen below the Pyramids be kept secret."

"I must not have seen that scroll," Caleb said excitedly.

"You were too busy," Rashi replied, "apparently with your own secrets."

Caleb let that slide. "So Herodotus was down here. He had spoken of legends about a labyrinth."

"Hints, myths. The priests allowed such talk."

"So the lost chapter had a map?"

Rashi pulled out an iPhone and turned it so Caleb and Alexander could see the screen, where there was a scanned image, a hand-drawn pyramid, and a series of tunnels and chambers sketched beneath it. "It did, one that showed several other exits, including the one at the Cairo Museum."

"Uncle Montross!" Alexander perked up.

"I believe he's been captured," Rashi said quietly. "But you knew that already. I assumed he was your decoy, and you hoped to find one of the other exits."

"That was the plan," Caleb said. "But first, this…" He motioned to the central chamber. "Did Herodotus mention what this was?"

Rashi shook her head and raised the phone, scrolling over on the screen. "It's drawn here, and Herodotus relates in his scrolls that he has heard only half-whispered legends, rumors that it might have been a place of defense, a way for the king to send his divine wrath against any adversary, anywhere on the earth. Or in the sky."

"A weapon," Alexander whispered.

The Keeper stared at the chamber, moving closer and stooping so she could look inside. "Herodotus claims even the priests had lost all wisdom about its true function, and any clues had now been transformed into unrelated ritual and half-remembered purpose."

Caleb nodded. "Then we're done here. I assume you got in through the more distant entrance point. From what I had RV'd, it was northwest of the city, not far from the Nile."

"Yes. But come along quickly. Before they brave the traps to search for you. And before they once again try to RV you—and perhaps see us."

Alexander shifted. "Maybe they've already done it and they're waiting by the exit like they were at the museum."

"Maybe," Caleb said. "But hopefully they didn't ask the right questions and only got that hit for Xavier. But you're right, they'll be trying again soon. I just hope Nina's preoccupied and her kids… I mean our kids… aren't that focused."

"We'll have to take that risk," Rashi said. "Now come on, I have a boat and a crew standing by to take you."

"To where?" Alexander asked, giving one last look to the chamber, imagining himself in there, sitting at the controls, with godlike power dancing from his finger tips.

The Keeper smiled. "I have a feeling you're going to need our help once more. We're going to Alexandria."

8.

They landed at the Bamian airstrip, one and a half miles from the town, and an armored convoy waited for them. A contingent of NATO forces, Marines and CIA operatives, almost forty men, armed to the teeth, gathered in their vehicles and took off as soon as Temple herded Orlando and Phoebe into the third jeep and gave the order.

Looking pale as he slipped into a flak jacket two sizes too large for him, Orlando tried to sound jovial. "Just like Saigon, eh Phoebe?"

"Knock it off with the
Die Hard
quotes," she snapped as Temple helped her into her vest. "You weren't even in diapers, much less junior high."

"Yeah, knock it off. We're losing the element of surprise."  Temple pointed through the front windshield. The huge sandstone cliffs loomed ahead, pale blue in the pre-dawn shadows. Venus kissed the peak's crown, then Phoebe watched the morning star disappear in the sand and dust from the lead jeep's spitting tires. And then the first glint of the sun's rays touched the upper edges of the mountains.

Phoebe craned her neck to see better. The western niche in the cliff was achingly empty. And far to its right, the other one, smaller but just as lonely. Already plans were being made by several archaeological preservation societies to rebuild the statues, but the region still wasn't safe. Not yet.

She looked ahead grimly and found her heart racing as they came to a sliding stop in a cloud of dust. To her left and right, the other members of the convoy were leaping out of their vehicles, rushing toward a cave entrance.

"Let's go," Temple said, slipping on a helmet and fixing Phoebe's, switching on the maglite at its center.

Orlando held up his bare hands. "Where's my gun?"

"You're just an observer," Temple said, kicking open the door and leading them out. "If we get to the point where you need to shoot something, we're already dead."