The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03) (3 page)

Phoebe paled, her mouth opened. "Yes, of course. What remote-viewer with any skill wouldn't try to get a glimpse into that kind of thing?"

Orlando glanced at her sharply. "You have?"

She nodded slowly, meeting his confused stare.

Orlando shrunk a little. "I mean, I assumed you just…"

"Didn't care?"  Phoebe raised her voice over the engines. "These are the most important world beliefs, the driving forces behind civilization, wars and everything for thousands of years. Billions of people believe one thing or another—and are willing to kill for those beliefs—all based on ancient events that supposedly happened but can never be verified. If we can go back and see those things first-hand, we can
know
. Actually, truly know. Forget the debate between science and faith."  Her eyes glassed over, swelling with a wall of pain. "Of course I looked.
Tried
to look."

"But..." Orlando leaned tentatively holding her hands.

"Let me guess," Temple said. "You saw nothing."

"Not exactly nothing," Phoebe replied, a little bitterness in her voice. "More like-"

"A soft blue light. A hazy fog?" Temple's smile widened.

Phoebe stared at him. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Because such things—certain things like that are being
shielded."

"How can that be?" Orlando asked. "And by whom?"

Temple continued grinning at them like a schoolboy with a naughty secret. He held up a finger. "Shielding, we've found, is something that's either being consciously enacted and continuously enforced—as it is in our case to cover ourselves, through great effort. Or in cases like these critical faith-based concerns, it may part of a collective will, that enough people, many of them with unknown psychic talents, are directing their thoughts so much on the present unknowable, unprovable
faith
, that they have managed to retroactively go back and shield the actual events in an impenetrable veil."

Orlando merely blinked at him, as if he had sprouted a second head with a gibberish vocabulary.

"I don't buy it," Phoebe said.

Temple shrugged. "Doesn't matter. It is what it is. Our own RV members have experienced the same denial as you have, almost as if something…" he waved his arms. "…out there doesn't want the truth to be known. Some of our members have even gone so far as to suggest certain nefarious elements have shielded these ultimate answers, so as to perpetuate the multitude of religious beliefs."

"Why would they do that?" Orlando asked as he held his stomach while the helicopter lurched and dipped again.

"Why not?" said Temple. "If these other forces wanted humans to remain deadlocked, ever at each others' throats, never advancing in harmony, never speaking the same tongues…"

Phoebe nodded. "Like the Tower of Babel story. Scatter the people, keep them at odds through different tongues and beliefs. My brother Caleb's always on about that theory too."

"Yep," said Orlando. "Except he thinks we all had these abilities long ago, and that language wasn't necessarily the spoken one, that instead we all had some kind of telepathy and clairvoyance and everything, and the tower symbolized our progress."

"Until the gods came and knocked it down and 'confused our tongues'," Phoebe said.

Temple shrugged. "Whatever the case is, we're working on it. Among other things, and… we need you."

Phoebe glanced at him suspiciously. "That's why you rescued us?  Because what? You want us to join you, work for you?  Doing what?"

"Doing what you're doing. We've been following you, secretly cheering on The Morpheus Initiative."

Orlando struggled to follow all this. His head was pounding and his throat was parched. "What the hell for?  And why, if you've got psychics, didn't you come to us before?  We could have used you."

"You were doing fine on your own. And if you found out about us, you would have also found out about
them
. And that would have derailed your search for the relics."

Orlando shook his head. "Relics, plural?  Do you mean the keys?  The other tablets?"

Temple shook his head. "Nope. There are only two relics of power that our enemies seek. One is the Emerald Tablet, which they now possess."

Phoebe leaned closer. "And the other?"

Temple sighed. "For that, I'll let you use your powers. On the plane ride back to America. We'll have time for that, and for planning. They don't know exactly where it is, but I'm guessing you two can succeed where they failed. Ask the right questions, and find it. And give us the chance to stop them."

"But, Caleb and…"

"They have their own path to take. One that will intersect with ours in time."

Orlando frowned. "And you know this by… what this 'Dove' said?"

"Exactly. Now, enough talk, we're approaching the airport."

Orlando's stomach lurched as they descended, but he was determined to sound like he was in control, despite not once feeling that way since the limo had overturned. "Wait, tell us this at least. Who the hell are you guys?"

Temple stood and bent forward to answer. "Years ago, Phoebe, you and your brother did us a great favor, ridding our organization of its corrupt leader. Since then, I've taken his place, done what we've needed to do, what we were able to do with limited resources in response to grave threats—so many that we've countered and continue to monitor. I hesitate to tell you, because we were responsible for what was done to your father, and what happened to your mother, but I promise you, now we're more alike than you know."

"I had a feeling," Orlando said, "even though it was before my time."

Phoebe gulped, her heart catching in her throat. "You're-"

Temple nodded.
"Stargate."

2.

Nina Osseni delivered the last instructions to the squad of men at her command, then looked up toward the flickering lights of the helicopter several hundred feet over their heads. "Is that one of ours?"

"No ma'am," said the lead agent. "Air support pulled back after you landed. Should we open fire?"

She narrowed her eyes. Directly under the craft now, she took a deep breath. Let her body relax, her mind unhinge for just a moment… 

And then she was there, in the cockpit, looking backward.

Ah. Phoebe. Orlando. There you are. And who's that with you?

She snapped out of it just as quickly. "Never mind," she called over to the agent. "You have your orders. Discontinue the terrorist threat, but keep this area secure. Say that there's still concern for a bomb or something. And keep everyone out until Mason Calderon gets here."

With my boys,
she thought, suppressing a rising excitement, finding herself tempted to peer into their lives. Now that she knew they were there. Now that she knew what questions to ask.

I'm a mother…

Twins.

She could hardly wait to see how they had turned out.

#

Back under the
Sphinx, Nina stood before the obsidian door, the one that had slammed down on the hapless Commander Marcos, crushing him in half. His gruesome body still lay there, his left leg and arm splayed out, half in and half out of the mysterious chamber.

Her men had already removed the other body—that of Robert Gregory. One-time keeper and leader of the Marduk Cult. Commander Marcos had shot him in the head after his failed bid to pass beyond the Obsidian Door. Mason Calderon had suspected it wasn't Robert who was fated to enter the lost chamber. The prophecy called for one of three brothers to be the one to find the way inside and claim the contents of the iron box—the translation of the great Emerald Tablet, now in a pack over Nina's shoulder.

She could feel the Tablet's power, vibrating up her arm, calling out to her and to the keys beyond this door. Keys made from the same material as the Tablet, keys that had been secured by great conquerors in history. Cyrus the Great, then Alexander, then passed on to Genghis Khan who had entombed himself with two of the keys, protecting them from the likes of Robert Gregory and Mason Calderon. Until The Morpheus Initiative members found their way down into that nearly impregnable tomb, bypassed the Khan's defenses and took the keys.

But now they were trapped behind the door under the Pyramids. Caleb, Alexander and Xavier. Trapped… but not without their own resources. Nina had glimpses of other things beyond this door: a long passageway through the darkness, converging with a shaft under the Great Pyramid. Some kind of path used in an ancient initiation ceremony. And beyond that: further labyrinths, multi-level chambers, grottos, winding staircases leading nowhere, tunnels ending in deadly traps and rooms where one false step would lead to eternal imprisonment behind walls of stone.

She smiled, knowing that the three of them would have their hands full, but given their experience, most recently with Genghis Khan's elaborate tomb defenses, and earlier, with the diabolical traps under the Pharos Lighthouse, they would survive.

Only two questions remained:  Where would they emerge, and could Nina's agents be ready to capture them? 

Being Xavier Montross's companion and aide for over two years, Nina knew first-hand the man's resourcefulness, and his uncanny ability to foresee danger to himself—and avoid it. She didn't relish the task at hand, but at the same time, Mason Calderon had made it clear: capture of Caleb and the others was secondary to the main objective. They had to acquire the tablets of translation. And she was reasonably sure Caleb hadn't been able to open the iron box, despite the keys.

No, the tablets were still there, in the room beyond the door. Waiting for her and her boys. She would get those tablets. Soon. But that didn't mean she couldn't try to tie up loose ends at the same time.

There was still the little matter of revenge. Despite the revelation that he was the father of her twins, it didn't change the fact that Caleb had left her to rot. So many years in a coma under the old Stargate facility, where doctors had tended to her and even delivered her babies all while she was unconscious and possibly deliberately drugged to remain in that coma.

Caleb could have found her. Should have. If he hadn't been swept away by another woman. Lydia Gregory, Robert's sister. Another Keeper. Another traitor. She had died—good riddance—after Xavier stole the Emerald Tablet and set off Caleb's defenses under his own lighthouse basement in Sodus Bay. Lydia had been caught in the inferno, incinerated while Xavier escaped.

Nina still felt the smug satisfaction of that retribution, but now… She was a mother. And things were different. Did she still want to kill Caleb?  She couldn't imagine what he was feeling now, realizing the impotency of his own powers. To think, he hadn't even considered that Nina was alive, much less pregnant with his boys. She almost giggled with the thought of how his mind must be in turmoil. His place in the world upturned. His responsibilities in flux.

Let him stew, she thought.

And then she realized she had time before Calderon got here. Before she could see her own flesh and blood.

Time.

Time to peek in on Caleb. And on her boys. And possibly, if the visions allowed—her new master.

She took a seat, cross-legged on the cold granite floor beside the dead body of Commander Marcos. Prepared her breathing, relaxing herself until feeling a tingling sensation rushing from the base of her spine outward toward her fingers. And then she reached for the dead man's hand, finding and needing a connection to something, his lingering force. Willing from the dead flesh a host of memories, experiences and more.