"Dad?"
"Don't listen," Xavier hissed and tugged at her hand. "We can't linger, not at this spot."
"But…" She thought of the legend of Tavwoats and shuddered with a sense of forbidden pleasure as she resisted Xavier's pull. But then her feet were moving, the sensation was gone and they were in an ascending passage.
Then she heard something that chilled her blood: voices behind her. And way back in the winding dark — flashes of distant lights.
"They're coming," Xavier said, just as his light stabbed through an arched doorway, reflecting back a vision of a golden plated wall chiseled with pictographs. She got a glimpse of something like a sarcophagus propped up in the corner, and a sense of a chamber cluttered with boxes, urns, pottery, chests…
And then they were inside the room and Xavier pushed her on ahead and gave her the flashlight as he dug into his pack. She saw a sleek gun appear in his hand as he knelt, waiting for their pursuers.
"How did they find us?" she asked.
"I'm afraid they must have seen us dive, then figured out the rest. They were prepared for everything. Ready to defend this secret with every available resource."
Diana aimed the light around the walls, trying to resist the temptation to study the hieroglyphics and gaze at the artifacts. Everything seemed genuine — but then again, appearances could be forged. But what possible reason-?
Gunshots roared behind her. A cry of pain echoed from the passageway. She dropped low and hugged the side wall as she shone her light back and saw Xavier leaning out. He aimed and fired again.
Then a voice called out: "Whoever you are, we only want the girl. Send her out and we'll let you walk."
"Fat chance!" Xavier yelled back.
Diana whispered to him. "I don't see an alternative. They've got us pinned."
He just smiled, then kicked his backpack over to her. "Look at my sketchbook. At the open page." She heard some muffled voices, and then the echoing voice:
"Have it your way. Our orders are that you don't leave here alive."
Diana found the sketchbook. Spirals on the top held together about a hundred sheets of thick drawing paper. But the one that it was open to was near the end — and it showed what looked like a collapsed cave tunnel, with a man and a woman standing calmly in a room behind the crumbled section.
She looked up sharply — just as a loud explosion rocked the tunnel. The chamber groaned and rocks fell from the ceiling, but then Xavier was there, his body on top of hers. The rain of dust and pebbles stopped, and he slowly eased off her, brushing back her hair.
"Okay?"
She nodded, then aimed the flashlight down the passageway — where the light stopped about halfway, at a mass of rubble. She could only guess at its thickness, but imagined they wouldn't be digging themselves out.
The horror of her predicament should have been crushing her, but then she realized why she was so calm. She held up the sketchpad. "You… saw this. That we'd be trapped, and yet you still brought me here."
He brushed himself off. Standing there in a beam of dust-filled light against a golden backdrop, he looked strangely god-like.
"Then…" she continued, "you're either suicidal, or…"
"Or," he said with a smirk, "I know another way out."
She heard him moving about in the chamber, making his way to the sarcophagus. "It's going to be a little tight, a nearly vertical ascent, but I left ropes, and…"
But she was still looking at the sketchpad, feeling an irresistible pull to know more about this man. To see into his thoughts, into his dreams. She gave in to her curiosity. And turned the page.
Her breath fled her lungs in rush. She was barely aware that he was talking, speaking about the age of these artifacts, how he had taken pictures down here and translated the hieroglyphics. She stared, letting the light in her trembling hand illuminate every finely-drawn line, every shaded limb, every single detail.
And then she realized he had stopped talking. He was right behind her.
"You weren't supposed to see that."
She swallowed hard, still staring at the incredible scene. The audacity, the sheer… "What is this? The future, or just your twisted imagination?"
"You weren't supposed to see that," Xavier repeated, his voice hollow as he contemplated the picture of the two of them, in this chamber. Their wet bodies pressed tight, facing each other, her arms wrapped around his muscular back, their lips locked in a fierce kiss…
"But I did," she said. "And I want an answer. Is this the future? Or has everything up to now been some kind of crazy, psychotic game?"
He took the pad from her, dropped it and let his hand linger just inches from her face, a delayed caress. "The future isn't set. I've managed to change my visions before. So, no — this isn't necessarily what's going to happen. You can change it. It's… your choice."
She shook her head in dismay, but couldn't pull her gaze from his. Still picturing that sketch, her breath quickened as she sought any way out of this, out of fate. She thought about the past decade, a whirlwind of work, advancing herself at the expense of every relationship. Her father being the first casualty, but leaving no room for anyone else to step in and share her world.
Dizzy, she tried to distract herself from the moment. "What… were you saying before? The translation of the hieroglyphics…?"
"You won't believe me," he said. "But when you get back to the Smithsonian—"
"I've been fired. They won't let me back in."
"They will," he said, "because you'll be bringing evidence back. Demanding to speak to your boss and the trustees. You'll be reinstated, but it still won't be easy. Not until you get access to the sublevels and the restricted archives where they've hidden the rest of what they've found here."
"The rest…"
"It's old, Diana. So very old. Everything down here… the chasm we passed… that's where they came from."
"They?"
"Originally. The Hopi have a legend, too. You know it — how the First People emerged from a great hole in the ground—"
Diana shivered. "The Grand Canyon…"
Xavier nodded, licking his dry lips. "The truth, Diana, the big truth that they won't ever let out, the truth that would shatter every notion of our origin and evolution… Is that we didn't come out of Africa. We didn't even start in Asia or anywhere in the Old World and then migrate west. No…"
"We came from… here?" She whispered it, barely believing it herself, not knowing what to believe anymore. Nothing mattered. Everything she had held sacred had just been incinerated in the course of an hour.
She leaned in and felt her arms encircling Xavier's neck. Felt her breath leave in a rush, mixing with his, as his lips parted and he bent down to meet her kiss. And then all her doubts and confusion were drowned in the bliss of passionate oblivion.
Xavier had flown her back on his private plane to avoid any lingering security that might be on the lookout for her. Then once in D.C., he had sent her on in a cab while he left on other errands, saying he would see her again later that night.
Amazingly, perhaps because Simcoe felt there was no rush, her credentials still worked at the Smithsonian's main entrance. The guard let her pass without a second look. She took the elevator and marched straight into Darien Simcoe's office. She knew he worked late most days, and sure enough, found him at his desk.
Except…
He was sitting in his chair, and at first it seemed he was asleep, mouth open. But then she noticed the spray of blood on the wall of diplomas behind him. On his lap: a gun, still warm, gripped loosely in his lifeless hand.