This one proved to be so resourceful, I cannot kill her now.
She will take me to the object my Master also seeks, and I will be redeemed.
Above the Grand Gallery, he managed to use the ancient ceiling’s darkness to creep in the shadows.
Who would this Neo be?
She is talking to him via her XGlass. He must be the one who helped her escape our grasp.
My Master never mentioned him, but that’s irrelevant now. I have to focus on reaching my target.
While Lydia was opening the secret tunnel, he managed to crawl behind the empty sarcophagus waiting like a predator to jump on and devour its weak prey.
He was mesmerized by the opening of the passage and understood his Master was right.
He was witnessing a miracle: I am sure that this will bring me so much closer to my quest for immortality.
◆◆◆
“Lydia, you must enter the passage now! You were followed. The proximity sensor activated and there is someone else in the room,” Neo bellowed.
Without flinching, Lydia turned and glided along in an acrobatic move that would have made even the most skillful gymnast envious.
In the next second, she had to again face the Assassin, who plunged towards the gap, trying to grab her.
It was too late, she only managed to catch a glimpse of his eyes.
The moment she retracted her hand that held the double pyramidion shard, the stones above the entrance suddenly reshuffled themselves, collapsing in a soundless Tetris style movement.
The builders must have installed a safety mechanism, Lydia said to herself, relieved, but then she realized it was only the beginning of her torment.
◆◆◆
§CHAPTER 52§
JUST BEFORE THE PROLOGUE
SHE ESCAPED again, how can this be?
I had her in my grasp, the Assassin thought to himself. His ego was bruised, having missed out on catching her again.
He pointlessly tried for several minutes to dislodge the collapsed stone wall, but nothing budged, not a millimeter.
I need to go back to the exit in case she finds a way out; my drone will spot her again.
I have failed the Phoenix again. For the moment, he doesn’t need to know anything. Next time I meet her, I will not hesitate, she will die.
He tried to hit the reshuffled stones again, but they didn’t move.
◆◆◆
“Lydia, are you okay? That was so close,” Neo said with worry with his voice.
“It was the same person again. He must be one of the Phoenix’s henchmen.”
“It’s incredible he managed to trace you even here.”
“I am sure he’s the one who murdered de Moncler.”
“The satellite connection is rather bad, I can barely hear you.”
“I am glad you now have the latest generation of XGlass. I managed to make some adaptations so we can stay in touch even if you are in one of the most remote places of the planet.”
“He remained behind the wall; I have to hurry and head up Neo.”
“All the stones are vibrating strangely. It’s like I am in a giant ticking time bomb.”
She was afraid that this newly formed stone passage would reposition back and the tunnel would start closing, squashing her to death.
Oddly enough, the polished stone of the tunnel was at the same angle as the one from the Ascending Passage, and it was not slippery.
She realized that the surface she was stepping on was carved with hieroglyphs.
“Neo, are you seeing the hieroglyphs on the floor? What do they say?
Neo instantly activated his translation algorithm voiced by Alexa:
“This is the final resting place of the seed of life, and only the worthy will be able to replant it and heal the suffering of the many. Behold the greatness of Atlantis.”
After crawling for more than one hundred meters, Lydia saw a large opening in front of her. And her mind frantically wanted to leave the narrow, dark space.
Could this be the Hall of Records that Cayce placed under the Sphinx or a place hiding a similar artifact as the one I found in the cavern underneath Berlaymont?
“Lydia, be careful. You might encounter some traps ahead. Please step forward carefully and use the shard as a compass and trap detector. Maybe it will vibrate when it detects another mechanism.”
The path was lit by the XGlass’ front flashlight. At least the air is breathable, thanks to the system of air shafts across the Great Pyramid, Lydia thought, comforting herself.
Just one more step and everything will be revealed.
She could have never imagined that her quest in helping de Moncler would bring her to the unexplored depths of the Great Pyramid, after reading so many books together with her parents in her early youth.
She stepped inside the room before her, and suddenly a massive stone slab closed behind, leaving her with an awful feeling that this was the end.
§CHAPTER 53§
19H37, PRESENT DAY
FOLLOW-UP TO THE PROLOGUE
LYDIA CONTINUED her descent into darkness sliding uncontrollably on the smooth surface, will I end up in a trap of spikes?
At least I won’t suffocate to death. The smell of honeysuckle was still around her, perhaps embedded now into her hair and skin, a reminder of how close she was to meeting her end.
“XGlass, diagnose the satellite connection,” Lydia quickly ordered.
“No satellite connection detected. Please try again,” informed Alexa’s familiar voice.
What she didn’t know was that Neo upgraded her new XGlass with an Iridium 9575 Extreme signal booster transforming it into the most weather resistant and reliable phone in the world. This upgrade offered pole-to-pole global voice, and the advanced weatherization technology gave it incredible resistance. With this device, Neo could see her location and track her with ease.
The XGlass flashlight revealed an end to the sliding corridor, so this is it, the end of my journey.
§CHAPTER 54§
LYDIA TRIED to slow down her descent, but her hands and even nails were not particularly useful on the slippery walls.
Suddenly she landed smoothly on another floor. At least solid ground, she said to herself.
The floor seemed to be made of the same basaltic stone as the door; only in the middle, there was a large ankh symbol molded from metal that looked to be gold but with a strange glitter generated by its high purity.
It’s the same ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol that I saw under Berlaymont in Brussels. The symbol of life itself.
This ankh had a perfect cross shape, with an oval loop in place of an upper bar.
“Lydia, you survived,” Neo said.
“Are you wounded? Where are you?
“I am fine Neo. I thought I was falling to my death and that I’d never hear your voice again.”
Lifting her eyes from the floor, she noticed a shimmering violet light coming from the wall in front of her, which started to pulsate, lighting up the entire room.
“What is that on the wall? Is there a strange light coming from there?” Neo asked curiously.
Approaching the wall, Lydia noticed a vial like structure under the form of a glass ankh incorporated into a metallic structure with a violet shape-changing fluid shimmering inside.
The ankh vial was floating in between two mini-pyramidion stones that were attached to the wall. Its lower end was engulfed in a strange metal, similar to diorite, an iron-like alloy originating from a meteor that likely crashed on Egyptian soil.
“Lydia, I hope it is not linked to another trap. The XGlass sensor didn’t detect any specific anomalies, but this doesn’t mean there are not any.”
“What could the contents of the vial be?”
Lydia carefully checked the structure of the ankh vial and its surroundings for any warning hieroglyphs, but there was nothing.
“I wonder how many millennia this artifact has been waiting to be discovered after probably
being placed here by Jesus Christ himself,” Lydia exclaimed, elated by the incredible discovery.
Reaching towards it, she touched the metallic structure, which was slightly cold, and removed it from the magnetic field of the two pyramidions.
Nothing happened. There was the same eerie silence, but the air seemed fresher now as if someone suddenly added a bit of ozone.
She knew that feeling and could even sense its pungent smell; a memory from her childhood ozone generator that she kept in her bedroom.
“Neo, I am out of ideas as to how we are going to exit this chamber. Maybe you have something in mind?
“I believe you are located above the Grand Gallery. I am sure there is a way to exit the pyramid and its secret vault.”
“I think I had enough archaeological adventures for a lifetime,” Neo said with a distorted voice.
“Lydia, the satellites are repositioning. Our connection might be interrupted again.”
“Hang on a moment,” Lydia exclaimed.
“There is an inscription on the backside of the metallic ankh. I think it is written again in Aramaic like one we found on the Berlaymont Pyramid when we retrieved the first mini-pyramidion stone.”
“Can you translate the text? It is considerably longer, and I do not know where to start.”
“Approach the artifact to your XGlass, I need to take a high-resolution picture,” Neo gently instructed.
Lydia complied and noticed that the fluid was changing colors now from deep violet to a darker purple.
“The algorithm is processing the translation. Here it is.”
The pleasant voice of Alexa was always soothing to Lydia because it resembled her mother’s voice a bit:
“Here is the secret vault of old days. In Gethsemane, you’ll find the tree of life, and as you plant this seed, if the secret word is chanted, eternal life shall be forever yours.”
“Neo, I think I lost the connection again. Neo?” Lydia shouted.
After some crackling noises, Neo’s voice came through. “Yes, Lydia, the satellites repositioned. The signal now has maximum strength, and there is more to the translation:”
“If you remove the potion of the Gods, you have two sunset cycles before the Grail will be destroyed.”
“Amazing, these are such precise instructions.”
“Time flowed differently back then. Ancient people were not as obsessed as we are with the measure of time.”
“Everything is so relative when it comes to time.”
“I just hope forty-eight hours will be enough to accomplish our mission,” Lydia explained.
“The inscription mentioned the Aramaic words:
Which translates to holy cup, but the algorithm cross-referenced the internet and came up with the Grail term.”
“Could it be that we are holding a version of the mythical object?”
“The inscription makes a clear link between the seed, the potion of gods, and the Grail.”
“All elements converging into a unique location in the Gethsemane garden.”
“However, there are so many trees in the garden. Could it be possible for one to survive for millennia?”
“We’ll need to have a precise satellite mapping of the garden to see what remains.”
“Great. More traveling. We first need to go to Greece and then Israel.”
“My interpretation is that the contents of the vial will become unstable and be destroyed after two days. We need to move extremely fast.”
“But first things first. How am I going to escape the pyramid?”
“There are no cracks in the walls. They seem all made from the same block.”
“Isn’t it great? I’m trapped inside a basalt box, but where is the exit? One thing is sure I cannot go up via the ceiling.”
“Lydia, the golden ankh on the floor, did you try to move it?”
“Sometimes, the Gods of Egypt were depicted by holding these objects in their hand as a device that could manipulate life itself, giving them the power to reanimate the dead’s souls in the afterlife.”
This trilateral sign represented a string of three consonants, n-h. Incorporated in words like mirror and life.
“You remember, I mentioned there were some wild theories that the Pyramid was, in fact, a powerplant to produce piezoelectric energy from the granite found in the King’s chamber.”
“Archaeologists found that there was a water well shaft in front of the pyramid which was used to pump water inside it.”
“The water could have been used as a cooling agent and reactive for the mixing of sulfuric acid with a salt mixture of ammonium chloride and zinc chloride via the shafts of the Queen’s chamber.”
“They even found traces of those elements there.”
“What if the ankh is just a door or a piece of the powerplant’s mechanism?”
“I remember that the Coptic Christians created from the ankh the crux ansata; a figure with a circular loop rather than oval one, and used it as a variation of the holy cross.”
“But look at the oval; there are two parallel loops,” Lydia exclaimed excitedly.
“That’s it. I know how it works.” She started to hover the ankh vial around the two loops.
The floor slowly but soundlessly opened, replacing the ankh’s second loop with a dark void.
Peering down, she could spot something glittering in the dark.
“There appears to be some kind of golden ledges fixed in the stone, a sort of staircase. Oh, Neo, if you’d only knew how much I hate darkness.”
“From my triangulation, you must be just above the beginning of the Grand Gallery.”
Lydia tucked the ankh artifact into her ergonomic backpack, thinking already of a plan as to how she was going to smuggle it out of the country.
“Don’t forget that your follower must still be somewhere lurking in the shadows.”
“You need to climb down carefully.”
Lydia started her descent again.
◆◆◆
§CHAPTER 55§
THE ASSASSIN pondered his next move in darkness.
I feel our path will cross again, and I’ll not hesitate.
She will need to exit the Pyramid, but where?
I need to change my plan and intercept her inside the pyramid, not in the open, because she might elude me again.
“From all the points, all the exits are passing via the Grand Gallery.”
“I’ll have to wait here,” he muttered nervously.
“Sir!”
“Sir, the pyramid was evacuated; you cannot stay here,” one of the guards shouted.
“I am sorry, I got lost. Where is the exit?” the Assassin asked.
The guard didn’t manage to answer. The Assassin already had his hands wrapped around his head, and with a swift movement, he broke the guard’s neck.
His dead body started rolling down, and when it finally stopped, his big brown eyes fixating on the face of Lydia, who arrived at the end of the staircase and was peering down from above.
When touching the last stair, a trap door silently opened below her, and she wondered where this new path would lead.
The Assassin came down and started to drag the lifeless body, trying to find a way to discard it.
“What should I do now Neo? He will see me if I try to come down,” she whispered, trying to control herself and stop trembling.
“Try to distract him by throwing something into the well shaft to make him think there is something there.”
Lydia reached for her backpack and took out her apartment key from the front pocket. The key had a strange blade shape typical of the Fichet brand.
Next to her, there was a part of the wall that looked cracked. With the sharp edge of the key, she tried to silently detach a small piece.
It was not easy as she had to hold herself with one hand on the golden step and with her feet against the tunnel’s wall.
If something fell onto the floor, she would have alerted her chaser, or even worse.
Luckily, the piece of stone easily detached, and after closing her knife, she looked down and calculated the trajectory of her throw. The stone swirled in the air and rolled in the ascending passage at the end, hitting against the rusted metallic fence of the well shaft.
§CHAPTER 56§
THE ASSASSIN MOVED at lighting speed. He knew that this noise must have been triggered by his target.
He followed the sound much like a nocturnal creature would have done with its prey.
She saw him passing underneath her almost at inhuman speed, and she tried not to flinch being perfectly camouflaged by the darkness of the corridor above.
Arriving at the metallic gate of the well shaft, the Assassin found himself puzzled; how did she manage to go down with the door closed?
I should have heard the metallic noise, but again she proved to be so resourceful. Maybe she even has military training.
Another noise from down below in the shaft triggered his attention. It was the stone reaching the bottom.
I must go down; she is there, and almost effortlessly, he dislodged the metallic door.
One second later, he realized that while she was climbing down, maybe there was another way to stop her.
He went back and grabbed the body of the guardian. Holding him by the feet, he let the body tumble down the shaft, generating a muffled sound.
Then he quickened his pace and started to climb down into the darkness of the shaft.
Lydia knew that now was her golden opportunity to escape; she skidded down and jumped, her rubbery sports shoes perfectly muffling the noise of the impact.
The Assassin was too far away, and she remained unnoticed. Treading carefully, she climbed down into the Ascending Passage, and with her last bit of energy, she tried to exit as quickly as possible.
Finally, she arrived at the exit, which was still guarded by the police.
“Madame, are you okay?” asked a young Egyptian policeman.
“Yes, I am fine now. I was hit by a scared tourist who was trying to leave, and I lost consciousness.”
The Jesus Christ Cypher Page 13
