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!
An arm on his shoulder pulled his vision away from a swirling pool of turquoise, complete blue in all directions. Alexander turned, and the hooded, owl-like eyes of Mason Calderon bored into his brain, and for a heart-stopping moment, Alexander feared Calderon could slip inside his mind and see what he himself couldn’t. That he could find Alexander’s father, and then it would all be over. His one, last chance. The only hope.
For all of us.
“What’d you go looking for, boy?”
Jacob and Isaac braked their skateboards, then kicked them up together, ending the ride. Alexander saw them out of the corner of his eye, but couldn’t pull away from Calderon’s gaze. “I…”
“Oh, leave him alone,” Montross’ voice came from the side, soft as a welcome breeze on a humid day. “Of course he’s looking for his father.”
Calderon blinked. “And? Did you see him?”
Alexander shook his head slowly. “Nope. I felt… blocked, like a wall was in the way.”
Something grumbled in Calderon’s throat. “Or a shield?” His eyes darted away, landing on Montross, who just shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Montross waved his hand toward the doors, and then pointed to the satchel over Calderon’s shoulder. “You have what you need. Caleb and Nina are too far away to be of consequence, your enemies cower in their tunnels, realizing there are no safe havens. The prophecy’s fulfillment is mere hours away.” He smiled broadly, stretching out his arms. “And you’ve got me at your side.”
Calderon thought for a moment, then gave a slight bow of his head. “True.” His grip loosened on Alexander’s shoulder, and a gentle push turned him around and sent him toward the doors.
“Inside, now. Time to see what this facility is truly capable of.”
Struggling to stay on his feet, still fighting the recurring splotches of blue walls in his mind’s vision, Alexander stumbled on ahead after his laughing brothers. Never feeling more alone, or lost. In a daze, he looked up, past the blinding lights, to a railing where armed military personnel patrolled the hallways outside the offices.
And for just a gleaming, hopeful moment, he thought he saw the afterimage of a woman, not unlike his mother, leaning over, smiling at him…
And he clung to that hope with all his strength. That maybe he wasn’t so alone after all.
Keeping an eye on Alexander, but feeling at least he was safe for now, Montross entered the control room and found it just as he had envisioned.
“Been here before, I take it?” Calderon was watching Montross’ reaction as the doors closed and the great chamber lit up.
“Never in the flesh.”
Montross let his eyes roam about, following the thousands of wires, ventilation tubes and piping snaking around the corners, connecting to various refrigerator-sized servers and computer banks. A glass-walled office overlooked the main floor, reached by a platform elevator.
“Of course,” Calderon said. “I assumed as much. And we never had the luxury of the Afghans and their Shield. Or, I presume, our friends in the revived Stargate Program, with theirs.”
Montross gave him a quick look, then continued his visual tour of the chamber. He took in the apexed ceiling, a hundred feet above, the sheer metal walls inclining to a point, leaving a gap straight above a device on the floor–a massive throne-like contraption that looked like it could fit a person after they had ascended the nine steps into the machine’s ‘seat’. The arm rests were enormous, and the one on the right supported a pedestal–with a slot wide enough to insert something the size of the Emerald Tablet.
“There it is,” Calderon whispered, leaning forward with both hands on his cane. At his back, the twins had gathered, at last showing some reverence. They had left their skateboards outside and now stood, heads bowed as if in prayer.
Isaac glanced sideways, first at Jacob, then past him and behind Montross, where Alexander seemed to be shrinking, trying to find a shadow. “Magnificent, eh brother?”
Jacob couldn’t help himself, he was grinning ear to ear. “Think we’ll get to try it out?”
“Could be fun,” Isaac said. “Me first though. I got me a list of cities I’d like to crush. Like Godzilla, Tokyo will be first. Then, I never liked Paris, so snotty. And…”
Alexander felt a lump in his throat. “No. This has to stop.”
Jacob shot him a confused glance, while Isaac merely chuckled. “The sad, motherless crow wants to fight destiny.”
“Not destiny,” Alexander said softly. “Insanity.”
Isaac took a step toward him, hands balling into fists. But Jacob was there in an instant, restraining his twin.
“Boys,” snapped Calderon. “Stand aside, and be quiet until you’re needed.”
After glaring at Alexander, who refused to back down, Isaac turned away and grumbled, “If we’re needed.”
“Now,” said Calderon, pivoting on his cane and facing Montross. “To work, my friend. We have an ancient enemy to eradicate. One that has slumbered too long in the glow of false superiority.”
Montross kept his attention on the central device, even as he noticed the workers above; through the windows, he could see them getting ready, industriously running about preparing the equipment and calibrating the arrays. “And just how do I fit in? And Alexander? The boys?”
Calderon gave a wolfish smile. “Alexander’s here just as insurance. So you don’t get any funny ideas of being a hero. My boys… well, if they’re needed, if you can’t do what we need, then they may step in.”
Montross gave a little laugh. “They didn’t do so well at Liberty Island, if I recall.”
Calderon shrugged. “They came through when needed at Cairo.”
“But Alexander succeeded first.” Montross sent an admiring look to his nephew, where the boy still looked hopeless and lost by himself, keeping his distance from the central machine.
“So let me guess,” Montross continued. “You need me to access the machine and interface with the Emerald Tablet and use its power to enhance this facility’s weaponry.”
“In a nutshell,” Calderon said, stroking his cane’s dragon tip. He pointed up at the windows. “First, my team is cracking the code, translating the instructions on the Tablet from the cipher we retrieved, thanks to Thoth and his box of secrets.”