Yeah, it can get worse. A whole lot worse.
Chapter 3
My hands felt clammy as I shimmied down the rope into the dark abyss. I smelled muck. Tasted musty air.
My legs slid into cold liquid. My boots touched stone. I let go of the rope and moved out of the way, splashing through the two-foot deep water. The rope twisted as Beverly grabbed hold of it.
I took a flashlight out of my satchel. I pointed its pale beam around the space, past a pair of noisy pump hoses. Like the slab that had covered it, the shaft was roughly ten feet long by ten feet wide. The remnants of a steep half-landing staircase clung to its walls. Most of the steps had crumbled to dust and rubble.
A tunnel, lined with stone, ran to the east. Eight feet inside the tunnel, the south wall had collapsed into a giant pile of stones and mud.
Water splashed. Rubber soles thumped against rock. I didn't bother turning around. "What do you make of it?"
"Looks like you were right." Beverly turned on her flashlight. "We've got bubbles and froth along the south wall. A separate channel must connect this place to the river."
"Can you seal it without damaging the stonework?"
She grinned. "What do you think?"
Beverly had spent several years in the Marine Corps as well as at a private military corporation named ShadowFire. During that time, she'd mastered numerous skills, including construction work.
"Get to it then," I replied. "The pump hoses should be finished soon. I'm going to have Dutch send down the buttresses so I can start shoring up these walls."
She ventured into the tunnel for a closer look. Meanwhile, I tilted my flashlight around the shaft. The stonework was simple, not exactly a masterpiece of ancient architecture.
My beam wavered a bit and I clutched the flashlight with both hands to steady it. But it didn't help. My heart beat faster as I realized it wasn't the beam that was wavering.
It was the stonework.
Chapter 4
The ceiling quaked. Dirt dropped onto my head. Warily, I looked around. Numerous buttresses and supports were now in place. But the walls and ceiling continued to crumble anyway.
I rolled the wheelbarrow deeper into the tunnel, guided by light emitted from a battery-operated, freestanding fixture. The water was mostly gone, thanks to Beverly's temporary concrete dam and Graham's pumping apparatus.
I stopped next to a mound of mud, dirt, and stones. Then I stabbed a shovel into the obstruction. I attacked it for several minutes, loading the debris into the wheelbarrow. Ever so slowly, the mound began to shrink.
I'd insisted that Miranda and her colleagues remain on the surface during the salvage operation. Part of me was concerned for their safety. But mostly, I worried for their sanity. Between the shuddering tunnel and our hurried efforts to save it, they would've lost their minds.
I worked at a frenzied pace. Staving off a total collapse was our best possible outcome. But in order to do that, I needed to remove the debris. Then I could shore up the other end of the tunnel as well as the connected chamber.
"I don't like Miranda."
I cringed as Dutch Graham's voice echoed loudly in the tunnel. He had buckets of charm and charisma. But those gifts were often tempered by sheer obliviousness.
Still, I gave him virtually unlimited latitude. These days, he was the closest thing I had to a father. Hell, he was the closest thing I had to a family member.
"She's not so bad," I said.
"She's got a giant stick up her ass."
Graham was an old-time explorer with an almost magnetic attraction to danger. He was the last of an earlier generation when the adventure counted for more than the science. He'd racked up an incredible amount of battle scars in his career and these days, was forced to make do with a patch over his right eye as well as with a mechanical left leg. Nevertheless, he was still the feistiest man I'd ever known.
Although his days of exploration were largely behind him, he found plenty of time to embrace his other passions. He possessed an almost demonic thirst for wine, women, and poker, not always in that order. It was little wonder his former colleagues called him El Diablo behind his back. They meant it as an insult. Graham, however, considered it a compliment of the highest order.
Many months ago, he'd set up a new business venture in the field of cryonics. It was called CryoCare and he'd spent a lot of time and energy getting it off the ground. But he'd found time to join me on Miranda's salvage job. Good thing too. He had an uncanny knack for fixing and repurposing broken-down pieces of machinery.
The ceiling shook with the force of an earthquake. "Where's Eve?" I asked.
"Still in the truck."
"Get her down here," I replied. "Now."
"How the hell am I supposed to do that?"
"Use Miranda's tractor. The digging bucket can act as a crane."
As Graham hobbled toward the shaft, I thrust my shovel back into the pile. I proceeded to clear debris for several minutes.
Salvage work was similar to treasure hunting, but with a few added benefits. For one thing, it was perfectly legal. Also, it didn't require intensive research. One just had to show up and start digging. Finally, it was capable of providing a fairly steady stream of income. Treasure hunting, in contrast, was boom or bust.
Usually bust.
But salvage work had its drawbacks. It was labor-intensive. Income, while steady, was capped. And it required working as a hired shovel rather than for oneself.
My shovel struck a hard object. Kneeling down, I picked up an old knife. The top half of its blade had been snapped off. The initials W.H. were carved on its handle.
As I stood up again, I noticed something curious. Someone, presumably W.H., had etched markings onto the wall. They consisted of a large circle surrounded by dozens of vertical lines. An X was hidden within the lines.
I studied the picture for a few seconds. Unable to make sense of it, I returned to my work. The pile shifted under my shovel. Stones and chunks of dirt poured from the top like a mini avalanche.
Light from the freestanding fixture spilled into the rest of the tunnel. My hands started to sweat as I got my first good look at the main chamber. It was a large room.
Large and empty.
Treasure hunters?
The knife and etch marks backed up that theory. But my brain refused to accept it. If treasure hunters had looted the tomb, they would've tripped the flooding mechanism long before Miranda's excavation.
Strange shadows flitted along the rear wall. I squinted. The wall wasn't flat. Instead, it seemed to jut into the chamber.
Is that …?
A slow smile creased my face. Miranda wasn't going to leave the tomb empty-handed after all.
Not when there was a giant stone sarcophagus waiting for her.
Chapter 5
Time, according to modern thinking, was a linear process. It did not begin nor did it end. Instead, it moved, always forward, at a relentless pace.
Scientists measured time by tracking cesium 133 atoms as they transitioned from a positive state to a negative one and back again. And even that wasn't good enough for the eggheads. They continued to seek a more perfect form of measurement. But for all their efforts, scientists didn't really understand time. They didn't know how it worked. And that was why they'd failed to notice the disturbing truth.
Time, for some inexplicable reason, had slipped out of its natural cycle.
Carlos Tum ignored the ruckus arising from the ground. He paid little attention to the nervous archaeologists or the barking dogs. Instead, he tilted his face toward the sky. Beads of sweat rolled down his face as he contemplated the blazing sun.