Recipe for Adventure Pt. 03

"I have, one of them calls itself Fetch. I am glad you don't condone such things."

I slipped the Elder Sign on my right hand and we drank a toast of brotherhood. The minister touched the two stones on the side of the crest and it flipped over showing a diamond encrusted V for Van Dekker. I couldn't help but smile. The men excused themselves and left me alone with the one they had addressed as Grandmaster. We talked until dawn and I learned the ways of silence. He told me I was a welcome sight better than my distant relative. We parted company at dawn and I returned to the girls. They were still up and eager for news. I told them I had just come into an unforeseen inheritance. I showed them the ring and they both whistled. When they began to ask questions I shook my head and began packing my clothes for the last leg of our journey. They followed suit and never uttered another question about the ring or my inheritance. We were the first downstairs eating breakfast when the others slowly arrived singly or in pairs. After breakfast we headed out back to the parking lot. The trucks were parked out back and appeared unmolested. The soldiers saluted and gave us directions to the docks where our vehicles would be ferried down the Nile as far as Luxor.

I thanked the captain and shook his hand. We all piled into the trucks and headed off. I was humming a little tune as we drove to the dock. I let the pros drive the truck onto the flat surface of the ferry. We all gathered together for a last minute brain storming session. The energy among the group was electric. The view from the river was awe inspiring. The landscape near the river was green but just beyond the desert quickly took hold. It was a harsh existence but it made the people here strong and single minded. I settled into a spot and spent a few hours examining the cube. While Carol's A.I. worked on the characters I tried to get a feel for the people that made it. I turned it over and looked at it from various angles. It was during one of those moments of clarity that I wondered if this had any ties to the monolith back in Arkham. I called Carol over and she appeared with two dishes of food in hand. I took one and asked her if her A.I. could display the cube scans. She nodded and tapped a button on the side of the watch like device. The avatar appeared and I nearly spat out my food.

"Really," I said and she giggled.

"My uncle has always been a fan and this was the first actor he had seen play the role. Shall I ask him to display the cube?"

"Yes please," I asked and took another bite of food.

The avatar disappeared, hovering in the air a hologram of the cube. I had it alter the tilt of the image so that we could see the image with one of the corners dead center. I asked to have the characters displayed in bright blue, nothing. I could make no rhyme or reason to the letters and was disappointed. However, the avatar took over and it began rotating the cube at different angles and points of view to see if there was any correlation or hidden meaning without any success. The A.I. appeared once more and asked Carol if he should continue to seek for hidden meanings within the text of the cube. She agreed it was worth following up on. The avatar smiled, tossed a portion of the incredibly long scarf over his shoulder, reached into his coat pocket and offered us a gummy bear from a white paper bag. With that the watch went dark and I couldn't help but smile at Carol.

"How the hell did you manage to get that one?" I asked.

"Uncle Terry scanned every episode and captured body language, voice inflections and repetitive actions. That just happens to be a pretty popular one. I changed it to gummy bear since no one knows what a jelly baby is."

"That is just too damn cool," I said and she nodded.

"If he comes up with anything I'll tell you," Carol said and we ate in silence as the sun set and the stars came out.

I saw Felicia several times walking around the ferry checking to make sure everything was okay. She winked at me but I could tell she was in her element. The lean muscular former detective prowled the decks like a great cat in search of a meal. I checked on the students and they were thrilled and we shared life experiences and what we hoped to find. I was asked a couple of times if I really lived in the old Pickman house. I nodded and they asked me if it was haunted. I told them I hadn't seen a single ghost. I did leave out the ghouls and the mummies of the victims of a demonic cult in the basement.

"If we do find structures there," one of the students said. "They could be the oldest ever discovered. Ten meters down places it around twenty thousand years or so. What do you think professor?"

"We will have to date any artifacts we find to be sure but I agree ten meters down places them around the end of the last ice age." I said and they all got excited again. "We just have to hope this isn't some crazy natural formation."

"We won't let you down Professor," one of the female students said smiling. "We are all going to make you proud."

Two days later we reached the city of Luxor. We were all stunned at the mix of modern and old world. We docked and drove off the ferry eager to be on our way out into the desert to the dig site. We were stunned when we were guided to the airport. I was alarmed and feared that for some reason our dig had been cancelled for some reason. I wasn't the only one rocking in their seat as our small caravan pulled onto the tarmac. I spotted the C130 aircraft and its open back end. There were already vehicles secured inside. I cursed a blue streak as we drove up and disembarked the trucks. My team was alarmed as well and I held up a hand to keep them silent. We were in sensitive waters at the moment and I waited for the boom to fall, it didn't. Carol squealed when she saw the tall long haired man step out from the back of the aircraft.

"Uncle Terry," she cried out as she launched herself into his arms.

"Hello pudding," he replied watching her go scarlet with embarrassment. "You must be Doctor Donahue."

"A pleasure to meet you," I said and shook his hand. "Pardon me but what the hell is going on?"

"Last minute negotiations with the Egyptian government," he said. "We are going to take this big boy here to the dig site so we can offload all the trucks and equipment. Sorry if this caused you any alarm. There is something else you need to know, but let's talk about that in private."

"Okay, no reason to panic everybody," I said addressing the team. "Our ride is here, we are going in style."

The soldiers drove the trucks into the belly of the massive aircraft. We took up our places and strapped in. The whine of the hydraulics was loud as the back end of the plane rose and with a loud clang shut and sealed. We could hear the engines start and then the movement as we taxied for takeoff. Ears popped as we lifted off and reached altitude. I worked my jaw and waited for us to reaching cruising altitude. Terry brought us up to the cockpit as the plane headed southwest. It took us an hour to reach the Toshka Lakes. It was a water project being conducted by the Egyptian government to help the nomadic people and take back a small portion of the desert. The pilots then turned northwest and told us to return to our seats. We dropped down and prepared for landing. The hard packed earth would act as our landing strip. It wasn't the smoothest landing but we reached the earth without mishap. The flight saved us hours of travel we would have been forced to endure overland. The plane came to a halt and the as the engines died down as the ramp was lowered once more.

"We're here," Terry said as he led us down and out of the aircraft.

"Someone's been busy," I said looking at the already erected base camp.

This was when Terry pulled me off to the side and told me the news. The latest satellite scans had found something else beneath the earth. I stared at the photo and scratched my chin. When I asked what it was he shrugged. Whatever it was, was deeper and could be a small meteorite or something else. It was the possible reward of something else that had swelled interest in our dig site. While we worked on unearthing the spiral formation of buildings they would be digging for the mysterious anomaly on the scan. Could the two somehow be connected or was this just a huge coincidence? There was only one way to find out. Terry and I turned when we heard the commotion at the rear of the plane. My jaw dropped open as the imbedded news crew began setting up their equipment. I looked at Terry and he explained how good positive publicity could be for me and my team. I reluctantly agreed. Tessa Zemanova was the tall leggy reporter and she approached me with her ever present camera man in tow.

"Before we get started," I said holding up my hand and she sent the camera man away. "Do you have any idea the conditions you are going to be getting yourself into?"

"This is my fifth time being imbedded for a story. I've spent three tours in war zones all over the Middle East and one in Eastern Europe. I can handle myself and so can my crew."

"Impressive, just don't get in our way and I don't want this turning into a tabloid piece."

"My career has been one of clear cut reporting," she replied. "I am here as a favor."

I nodded and shook her hand. I didn't have a choice so I did my best to try and ignore her and the damned camera. Terry showed us all the toys he had brought with him among them two digging machines. They were going to be beta tested out here in the middle of nowhere. They were solar powered and run by A.I.s that were specifically programmed to carefully remove the earth until we reached a depth just above the largest of the buildings. Once we reached that depth the students and I would take over. To be honest I was a little concerned that we could reach that deep by manual labor alone. The diggers were removed from their crates and set loose. There was a short pause as they linked up with their GPS and then one began digging while the other sought out its niche at our base camp. The hard packed earth proved no hindrance to the machine and we all watched in fascination as it began to chew up and spit out the dirt with ease. It quickly lost its novelty. We had at least a week until we reached the point where we could take over.

"Speaking of beta testing," Terry said taking out two boxes. "I wonder if you and Felicia can put these through their paces." He opened one of the boxes and it appeared to be a man's watch but I knew better. The casing was some sort of dark nonmetallic material and was stamped with an Egyptian ankh on the top. "They are water proof, shock proof and highly resistant to temperature extremes. The metamaterial should repel any dust or sand that tries to sneak its way in as well. What do you say?"

"To be honest, when I saw that Carol had one I was a bit envious. I'll return it after... oh it's a permanent test then."

"Yeah, here let me run you through the basics real quick." He said as he strapped it on my wrist.

Ten minutes later I had it running like I had owned it for months instead of just minutes. I ran down Felicia and told her all about the device as I slipped it on her wrist.

"You know I don't even own a laptop," she said as I powered it up for her. "I don't have a social media presence whatsoever. Maybe someone else can..." I held up my hand and told her the things it could do to make her more effective. "Fine, but if I don't need it someone else is getting this."

Once she learned it was practically a portable CSI lab she was hooked. I giggled as I made my way over to the tent that Tessa and her crew were set up in. My first on camera interview was done the second night of our dig. It began well enough with all the questions I expected but when it slowly steered away from our work here I threatened to make this my first and only interview. I knew that Felicia's presence was somewhat controversial but it had no bearing on the dig or its work. Tessa smiled and finished the interview with questions that were about the dig and what I hoped to find. I told her the configuration of the buildings was highly unusual and if we did find any artifacts it would give us a window into their culture. Once the microphone was removed I went to command center and looked over the latest satellite image. There was a little more detail in what we were calling the temple. It was the center of the complex and the largest. Logic screamed that it was either a temple or the equivalent of a chief's long house. I was itching to get into it. I wanted to see what these people were like.

"How was the interview?" Terry asked as he stepped into the tent.

"I suppose it could have been worse," I replied frowning.

"It's only for a few more days," he said. "Once the digger hits the right depth she'll fade into the background. You'll be too damn busy to even notice her."

"I wonder what they were like," I muttered.

"Way ahead of their time," he said. "If this dates back as far as everyone expects it will rewrite history."

"Thank you Squiggles," I said and smiled.

I went into an edited version of everything I knew about the man. I left out anything that would be considered alarming or out of the norm. I think that Terry knew I was redacting Squiggles' background but went with the flow anyway. I left him to stand around with my crew and watch the digger chew up the packed earth like it was nothing. Every hour or so it would stop and we would perform a cursory check to see if there was anything in the ejected material that required our attention, there wasn't. It was going to be a long week. So while I watched the earth, Carol watched the stars and Felicia watched everything and everyone else.