How it had been removed from the hillside was a worrying mystery in its own right. The Turkish government had grudgingly allowed the International Heritage Agency to oversee the site’s excavation – but the night before the IHA was due to begin work in earnest, the entire hilltop was dug out and the vault removed. Since it weighed in excess of twenty tons, the effort needed to carry out the raid would have been phenomenal.
There were few groups in the world with the necessary resources . . . but the Chinese government was one of them.
‘You!’ Nina cried accusingly. ‘You stole the vault from Turkey!’
‘We did,’ Hui admitted. ‘After the IHA became involved, China, as the agency’s biggest source of funding after the US, was informed of what you had found. We immediately realised the crystals inside it were the same kind used by the Nephilim – but these were intact. We had to have them. So an operation was carried out to bring the vault here.’
‘Hell of an operation,’ said Eddie. ‘How would you even move that thing?’
‘Three heavy-lift helicopters were flown to Turkey by air freighters,’ said Wu. From her matter-of-fact attitude, she had been involved in the operation, perhaps even planned it. ‘Excavators broke into the outer vault, then the helicopters lifted it out. We had to rent a Russian freighter to fly it here; it was too big to fit into any of our own aircraft.’
‘And you did it all in one night. I’d be impressed, if I wasn’t appalled.’ Nina folded her arms. ‘This thing is dangerous!’
‘We have taken all possible precautions,’ insisted Hui. ‘And with the spearhead gone, it poses no threat. Let me show you.’
She went to the vault’s door. Nina followed her inside. One difference from her previous visit was instantly obvious: the crystals, then alive and glowing with earth energy, were now inert, dull and clouded.
Another was more alarming. Sections were missing, parts of the crystalline pillars running from floor to ceiling cut away to expose the metal behind. ‘What did you do?’ she demanded.
‘We used them to repair the damaged Nephilim artefacts,’ Hui replied. ‘Successfully, we believe, but we have been unable to test them.’
‘Why not?’ asked Eddie, entering behind them.
‘Because they haven’t got anyone with Atlantean DNA to activate them,’ said Nina in realisation.
‘What, out of every single person in China? I know it’s rare, but it’s still something like one person in every hundred, isn’t it? And China’s got, what, a sixth of the entire world’s population?’
‘The DNA profile is extremely rare amongst Han Chinese,’ explained Hui. ‘We are quite ethnically homogeneous. It is a strength that gives us unity – but in this case it hinders us. Other races in China may possess it in greater numbers, but this is a top-secret project. Even if we found someone with the DNA profile to channel qi, the only way to test it would be to have them try to activate a piece of Nephilim technology. That would require bringing dozens, even hundreds of civilians here. It is too great a security risk.’
‘So you decided to get me, huh? Great.’ Nina turned to exit.
‘That makes us security risks too,’ Eddie muttered as they left the vault.
‘I know.’
Cheng had not heard the exchange inside, and greeted the redhead with puppyish enthusiasm. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it, Professor? And we know how the Atlanteans got it to Turkey. The vault can levitate!’
‘And I can float on a cloud of my own farts,’ Eddie said sarcastically.
‘It’s true!’ Cheng protested. ‘The Nephilim records describe what they call vimanas. It’s an ancient Sanskrit word, it means—’
‘Flying machine,’ Nina cut in. ‘We know, we found one in the Vault of Shiva in the Himalayas. It was just a glider, though.’
He shook his head, eager to correct her. ‘No, no. The Hindus took the word from the Nephilim! It can also mean “flying palace” or “flying castle” – and the Turkish vault was one of them. The Atlanteans somehow flew it to Gobekli Tepe. The fortress we found in the iceberg might have got there the same way.’
‘So it really was a UFO?’ Eddie said dubiously. ‘As in, literally an unidentified flying object?’
Nina looked back at the vault, seeing it in a new light. ‘We have seen things levitated by earth energy,’ she said. ‘Big things, like the Sky Stone. That was the size of a house.’
‘The Sky Stone?’ Hui asked.
‘A meteorite found by the Atlanteans. Earth energy let it levitate against the planet’s magnetic field. Certain people, Atlantean priestesses, could also use it to channel and direct huge bolts of earth energy. They intended to use it as a weapon, but it went catastrophically wrong.’
‘How so?’ said Cheng.
‘Remember how Atlantis dropped into the sea?’ Eddie told him. ‘There you go.’
‘That’s what you get when you try to turn things you don’t understand into superweapons,’ said Nina. ‘Hard to think of a bigger example of hubris. Although people keep trying to beat it.’ She gave her hosts a pointed look.
Wu merely frowned in return. Hui, on the other hand, became defensive. ‘This technology has far more uses than weapons! It is a non-polluting source of power. No more coal, no more oil, no more nuclear. That is why we are so determined to unlock the past – to build a new future.’
‘With China controlling the technology, of course.’
‘If America had it, they would do nothing different. Nor would Britain,’ Hui added to Eddie.
The Yorkshireman snorted. ‘If we had it, I guarantee we’d hand most of it straight over to the Yanks in exchange for a better trade deal on haggis and strong cheese, then privatise the rest and flog it off for a tenth of what it was worth.’
‘This technology can change the world,’ Hui insisted. ‘If we can make it work. Professor Wilde, please hear us out. I am sure we will be able to convince you to help us. Not only for China, but for the rest of the planet.’
Nina did not answer, instead turning at someone’s approach: Colonel Wu, accompanied by two soldiers. He spoke to Hui and his daughter in Mandarin, then issued a command.
‘Come this way, please,’ said Hui, starting for an exit.
‘Where are we going?’ Nina asked.
‘To see the sarcophagus. To meet our . . . guest.’
‘That doesn’t sound ominous or anything,’ rumbled Eddie as they followed.
Colonel Wu led the way through a minor maze of corridors. He strode past a door, but Hui stopped at it, calling out to him. He gave her an impatient reply, but halted. ‘I wanted to show you this,’ Hui told Nina, entering a code to open the door. ‘It is our main archive.’
‘It’s very cool,’ Cheng added with enthusiasm.
Nina and the others followed them in. He was right; it was impressive. The archive contained bank upon bank of relics, presumably recovered from the buried Nephilim fortress. She recognised some immediately: fired clay cylinders inscribed with fine lines, the same kind of primitive audio media used by the Veteres.
Also on display were hundreds of clay tablets. Many were damaged, but still intact enough for her to make out what was written upon them. It was a mixture of languages; some were in the elaborate Veteres alphabet, while others used the more angular proto-Atlantean script cut into one side of the resurrection key. The switch between the two seemed to have taken place over a long period – some of the ancient records revealed intermediate states. The Nephilim had developed their own system of writing over time.
Eddie took an interest in something more sinister. ‘Ay up. They’ve got some of those spears over here.’
Nina came to look. The weapons were like those she had seen frozen inside the fortress’s armoury, long golden rods with seed-shaped metal pods on one end, carrying chains running half their length. One of the pods had been dismantled, the componen
ts laid out inside a glass case. ‘What are they?’
‘We call them qiguns,’ said Hui. ‘Somehow they release raw earth energy.’
Nina looked more closely at the pieces. Inside the golden cover was a fragment of crystal and a sliver of purple stone, contained inside a spiralling cage of dark metal. Ordinarily she would have been dismissive of Hui’s words, but she had just minutes earlier mentioned the Atlanteans’ attempts to do the same thing. ‘Are you sure?’
‘That’s what their own records say,’ Cheng told her, gesturing towards the tablets. ‘We don’t know how they work, though. We’ve never been able to activate them.’
‘But you’ve tried, eh?’ Eddie noted acerbically, moving on to examine a clutch of trikans. The golden discs had their long blades retracted, the oversized weapons stowed in their metal handgrips. ‘I bet Macy’d love to play with one of these.’
‘I’m glad she can’t,’ Nina replied. ‘She’d probably take somebody’s arm off!’
Colonel Wu gave a brusque command. Hui reluctantly ushered everyone back to the door. ‘The colonel wishes us to move on.’
They resumed their trek through the underground complex, reaching another room. One half was a laboratory, computers ready for a new round of scientific analysis, and a large high-definition screen on one wall; the other was a glass-fronted isolation compartment containing the canted sarcophagus. Numerous cameras and sensors overlooked the crystal coffin from a lighting rig resembling that of an operating theatre.
The colonel spoke to Zan, the translator nodding obsequiously. He collected a laptop, which he plugged in on a bench at the armoured glass wall. ‘He is going to test our translation program,’ Hui told Nina.
‘I thought you said it worked?’
‘It does – based on the records we found. But we need to know if it will work with a real Nephilim subject.’
Nina stared at the shadowy giant behind the crystalline cover. ‘You want to wake him up? Rather – you want me to wake him up?’
‘You can do it, Professor,’ said Cheng. ‘You powered up the fortress in the iceberg, so you must be able to do this as well.’
‘It’s not whether I can do it that matters, it’s whether I want to do it!’ she objected. ‘For one thing, this guy’s been frozen for over a hundred thousand years – his body might be preserved, but for all we know, his brain’s turned to mush. For another thing, I really don’t like being used. Sorry to be blunt, but for all your talk about changing the world for the good of humanity, I still don’t trust you.’
Her hosts’ expressions darkened, none more so than Colonel Wu’s; his understanding of English was apparently better than his ability to speak it. The only exceptions were Cheng, who seemed mortified at the criticism, and his mother, now pensive. The colonel was the first to respond. ‘Professor Wilde,’ he said, voice stern and utterly cold. ‘You will use key to wake the creature.’
‘I will not,’ she replied firmly.
The commander scowled, unused to direct disobedience. His daughter spoke for him. ‘If you do not do it voluntarily, we will make you.’
‘What’re you going to do, drag me in there and force my hand onto the key?’ said Nina. ‘That might start the process, but it won’t finish it. If it’s anything like the vault from Turkey, getting it to do anything more than power up takes an active effort of will – I have to control it, guide it with my mind. And y’know, I need to be in a good mood to do that.’
‘Like emptying the dishwasher,’ Eddie noted from beside her.
‘So not helping.’
Wu was unimpressed. ‘Then we will force you to cooperate.’
Eddie sighed. ‘Let me guess. Torture? Been, seen, done. Won’t be the first time – and I’ve got the drill scars to prove it.’
‘We do not need to torture you. We have something more effective.’
She spoke to one of the soldiers, who went to a door across the lab. He entered, speaking briefly to another man, then they both came back out – with someone else between them.
Macy.
The breath froze in Nina’s throat at the sight of her daughter. ‘Oh shit. No,’ she gasped, gripped with terror.
Eddie’s response was more vocal, murderous rage in his eyes as he spun to face the Wus. ‘If you hurt her—’
‘That is up to you!’ the younger officer barked. ‘Do as we say and nothing will happen to her.’
Macy’s expression as she emerged had been one of relief at seeing her parents, but it now turned to confusion and alarm. Her toy trikan was in one hand; she clutched it more tightly. ‘Mom? Dad? What’s going on?’
‘What are you doing here, Macy?’ Nina cried. ‘Why aren’t you with Olivia and Holly? Are they okay?’
‘Yeah – of course they’re okay,’ was the bewildered reply. ‘What do you mean, what am I doing here? You told me to come!’
Nina ran to Macy and hugged her. ‘Oh my God, my God! I didn’t tell you to come here! I wanted you to stay in New York, where it was safe!’
Eddie joined them, fists clenched and giving Macy’s two escorts a glare that promised instant and painful retribution if either interfered. Both men retreated, slightly. ‘What did you do to her?’ he snarled at Wu.
‘Nothing,’ the Chinese woman replied. ‘She came with the permission of her guardians. Lam Chi,’ she glanced at the man in civilian clothes who had been with Macy, ‘met her at the airport and travelled with her.’
Eddie’s gaze snapped to him. ‘Did he hurt you?’ he asked Macy, straining to control his fury.
She shook her head. ‘No, he looked after me on the plane. Dad, what’s going on? Why were you so surprised to see me?’
Nina gave Wu a hostile look of her own. ‘I think we’re owed an explanation.’
Wu seemed about to refuse, but her father said something to her with a small shrug. ‘Very well,’ the major said instead. ‘I will show you.’
She logged into a computer. ‘Here,’ she said, gesturing at the large wall screen. ‘Watch.’
The screen lit up. Nina saw . . . herself.
The frozen image appeared to be from a computer’s webcam, her other self looking directly into the lens. Inset into one corner was a smaller picture of Macy; it was a recording of a video call. Nina didn’t recognise the background. It looked like a hotel room, but not one she had stayed in recently. Confused, she watched as Wu started playback.
‘Hi, honey, it’s me,’ said the Nina on the screen. ‘Are you okay?’
The inset Macy replied with a smile. ‘Yeah, Mom, I’m fine. What about you? Are you in New Zealand now?’
A pause, longer than Nina would have expected to allow for transmission delay, then her doppelgänger spoke again. ‘No, we had a change of plan. We discovered something amazing – in China.’
‘China? What did you find?’
Again there was a slightly over-long pause before the reply. ‘I can’t tell you over an unsecure line. But it’s amazing. Daddy and I want you to fly here and join us. We’re going to get a friend of ours, Lam Chi, to meet you—’
Wu paused playback. ‘We convinced your grandmother to let Macy go with Lam.’
Nina was still staring at the frozen image. ‘That’s not me. It’s not me! I never said any of that.’
‘But it was you, Mom,’ said Macy with rising concern. ‘I talked to you, I could see you! I even spoke to Dad, too!’
‘It wasn’t us, love!’ Eddie told her, before turning back to Wu. ‘What the bloody hell is this?’
‘CGI,’ Wu replied. ‘Computer graphics, the latest deepfake technology. Professor Wilde is famous enough for there to be large amounts of reference material that an artificial intelligence program used to replace another person’s face with hers. Her voice was also simulated on the supercomputer at this base, all in real time.’
‘I’m not famous, thou
gh. You couldn’t have done that for me.’
‘We only needed to fake your voice, and we had enough recordings of you to do so.’
‘What recordings?’ Eddie demanded, only to notice Cheng looking ashamed. ‘You were taping me on your bloody laptop, weren’t you!’
‘I didn’t know it would be used for this,’ the young man replied quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’
Nina turned away from the screen. ‘Okay, so . . . you’ve got us,’ she said, defeated. ‘Now what?’
Colonel Wu pointed at the shape inside the sarcophagus. ‘Now? You wake it up.’
24
Nina heard her own breath hiss inside the tight-fitting rubber face mask, sounds from outside muffled by a thick neoprene hood. Her captors knew the sarcophagus contained a lethal gas, and since they needed her alive – for now – they had taken steps to ensure she stayed that way.
They had not given her a fully sealed hazmat suit, though. She needed to touch the resurrection key with her bare hand. As Eddie had angrily pointed out, if the poison was absorbed through the skin, she was screwed – along with the entire Chinese plan. But the protest had been to no avail.
The key itself was heavy in her hand. She regarded the inset stone and crystal, then looked back through the glass wall. Eddie and Macy stood beyond the barrier, watching with deep worry. They were under guard, a loose semicircle of armed men around them. Also observing were the two other family pairings in the lab: father and daughter, mother and son. The Wus looked on with stony dispassion, while the Huis at least appeared concerned.
Major Wu Shun spoke into a headset, her words inaudible through the thick glass but instead crackling in Nina’s left ear through a small receiver. ‘The door is secure. Take the key to the sarcophagus.’
Nina knew that only her eyes were visible behind the mask. Nevertheless, she tried to give Macy as reassuring a look as possible before turning away.
The sarcophagus stood before her, fourteen feet of precious metals and strange crystal. Even with the amount of light upon it, the figure inside was still indistinct, somehow menacing despite its stillness. ‘Put the key in the recess,’ Wu ordered.
The Resurrection Key Page 25
