Oracle

by David Wood

  The restriction did not bother Jade in the slightest. She felt the group’s excitement catch fire within her. Even Dorion’s strange manner seemed irrelevant. “Then let’s get started.”

  This is why I love being an archaeologist.

  TWO

  Jade watched as the Jeep rolled across the nearly empty gravel parking lot where she had made her own arrival only a few days earlier. She checked her watch. The Laco 1925 Navy Classic sported a big white face with easy to read numbers, sort of like a miniaturized wall-clock. Given her jet-setting lifestyle, she didn’t own a lot of prized possessions, but this was definitely one of the few things that she always kept with her. It had been a Christmas gift from Maddock, a German watch from a German watch shop. Maybe Maddock was gone, but she still clung to her memories of that magical Christmas in Germany. They visited the Cologne Cathedral to get a peek at the bones of the Magi inside the Shrine of the Three Kings and ended up tangling with a branch of the Dominion called Heilig Herrschaft. She had invited Maddock’s partner and best friend, “Bones” Bonebrake and his sister, Angel, to join them and….

  And now Maddock and Angel were together.

  I should get a new watch.

  It was too late in the afternoon for more tourists, which meant the Jeep probably belonged to the man she was waiting for. When the vehicle finally stopped, she rose to her feet and stretched, shrugging off the muscle soreness of long hours of physical labor in cramped conditions.

  The job of methodically digging out the exploratory shaft by hand, while physically taxing, had been the perfect distraction from her emotional turmoil, and as she got closer to the vertical tunnel, her growing anticipation made even the aches and blisters seem irrelevant. Now that the shaft was finished—a slot in the surrounding lava matrix that was just barely large enough for her to crawl through—she was eager to move on to the next phase of the investigation. With a final standing cat-stretch to work out the last of the kinks, Jade started out across the parking lot toward the newly arrived Jeep to meet the man who would make that possible.

  The passenger side door opened and a fit, and not altogether unattractive thirty-something man got out. His dark hair was shorn close in a military buzz cut, which instantly made her think about Maddock, but she pushed away the impulsive comparison.

  Lots of guys were ex-military. No reason to hold that against him.

  “You must be the robot guy,” she called. Acosta had made the arrangements while her head had been, literally, in a hole. He had decided to bring in an American, both to help preserve site secrecy and to meet specific technical challenges, but Jade couldn’t recall if the administrator had mentioned his name.

  The man flashed a disarming smile and stepped away from the Jeep, extending a hand. “And you must be Lara Croft, Tomb Raider.”

  “Wow. Never heard that one before.” Strike one, thought Jade.

  “Kidding,” the man hastily said. “I’m Brian Hodges, the robot guy. I’ve heard a lot about you, Dr. Ihara. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  Jade weighed his response, wondering how it was possible that everyone she met had heard so much about her. Strike two, she decided. And he’s not really that good looking. “Have you got the robot with you?”

  “It’s in the back.” Hodges paused a beat, then nodded toward the Jeep. “I think you already know my partner in crime.”

  Jade heard the driver’s door slam and was just turning to greet the vehicle’s other occupant when a familiar voice froze her in mid-step. “Hey, stranger.”

  Jade stared in disbelief at the tall lanky form of Pete “Professor” Chapman. “Oh, hell no.”

  Professor affected a mock pout. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

  “No. No way. This isn’t happening.” Jade shook her head and spun on her heel, already mentally constructing the rant she would drop on Acosta’s head like a ton of bricks.

  “Jade, wait!”

  Something about Professor’s tone stopped her, but when she turned back around and faced him, the acid bubbled up again. “Why are you here?”

  He shrugged. “Why not? We make a good team.”

  She shook her head again. “We made a good team. Then you quit and joined…his team.”

  Deep down, Jade knew her accusation was not entirely fair. Professor had started out on his team—Maddock’s team—long before Jade knew either man. Maddock and Professor had gone through SEAL training together and served in the same unit for several years. Even then, he had been “Professor”—always ready with some bit of obscure trivia, but in the years following his term of military service, he had gone on to earn several degrees and had actually taught for a while. Institutional learning had not been a good fit for the former Naval SpecWar shooter, and so he had jumped at the chance to work with the archaeologist ex-girlfriend of his old swim buddy. Jade had welcomed his professional expertise on the Yonaguni investigation, but if she was honest, she had to admit that the real reason she had hired Professor was the chance to get close to one of Maddock’s old friends, and maybe figure out a way to win back her former lover.

  It hadn’t been one of her better ideas.

  Ultimately, the association had indeed brought Maddock back into her life, but not in the way she had expected. Maddock had gone back to work for the government as part of a secret group, informally called the Myrmidons—a reference to the deadly warriors who had fought with Achilles in the Trojan War—dedicated to rooting out the Dominion’s influence. Following the events at Yonaguni, Jade and Professor had both been invited to join the Myrmidons on a permanent basis. Although Jade despised the Dominion, the idea of working with Maddock had been too much to deal with. Professor however, had accepted the offer, citing some nonsense about the greater good, and that had been the end of their partnership.

  She couldn’t really fault him for making that decision. The Dominion was a real threat. Their most recent campaign had resulted in thousands of deaths. It was, quite literally, a war and Professor was, first and foremost, a warrior who had sworn an oath to defend his country. She knew it was petty to be mad at him for making that choice—for choosing to fight the good fight—but it felt more like he had chosen Maddock over her, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

  Professor cast a quick glance at Hodges before returning his attention to Jade. “Will you give me five minutes to explain? I’ll buy you a coffee.”

  Jade sighed. Prof wasn’t such a bad guy, and he certainly didn’t deserve to be recipient of her Maddock-focused ire. “Fine. Five minutes.” She looked at Hodges who had been watching the tense exchange with rapt interest. “I’m curious to know how you ended up with the robot guy.”

  Professor nodded. “Brian, give us a few?”

  “Take as long as you need, Pete. I’ll be here with the gear.”

  Professor turned back to Jade. “So where’s a good place to buy a girl a cup of joe?”

  Jade just shook her head. “Screw that. I need a shot.”

  Professor slammed his glass down and grinned in triumph as the smoky liquid blazed a trail from his gullet to his belly. Jade, who had taken only a small sip of her mezcal, merely regarded him thoughtfully as she rolled the half-filled shot glass between a thumb and forefinger.

  “Beats the hell out of sake, doesn’t it?” she remarked. “But you’re supposed to sip it, not shoot it like an American.”

  Professor glanced around the little hole in the wall Jade had brought him to. Make that “hole in the ground.” The restaurant had been built—if that was the right word—in a deep cave grotto on the edge of the archaeological site. In fact, the terrace where they were now sitting overlooking the gaping cave entrance was built on the flanks of one of the lesser pyramids. As one of the few restaurants actually operating in the archaeological preserve, never mind the unique experience of dining in a cave, it was a natural place for tourists to congregate, and the establishment was bustling with activity.

  “Well, I am an American,” he
said finally.

  She shrugged and took another sip, appearing to savor the agave liquor. Professor savored the view. With her athletic but nonetheless very feminine physique, lustrous black hair tied in a long braid draped over her right shoulder, and exotic Hawaiian-Japanese features, Jade Ihara was a feast for the eyes.

  Maddock, how did you let this one slip away?

  He knew the answer of course. Looks weren’t everything, and he knew from personal experience that Jade was…what was the term? High maintenance?

  That was putting it mildly. Jade could be downright bitchy at times, and he had more than once gotten exasperated at her incessant mooning over Dane Maddock. Still, she was smart, tough and beautiful, and it was only her history with Maddock that kept him at arm’s length.

  When he had first started working with her in Japan, it had seemed inevitable that she and Maddock would get back together—Jade had a way of getting what she wanted—and Professor had known to leave well enough alone. A cardinal rule of the SEAL teams was that you didn’t screw around with your swim buddy’s girl; combat and love triangles were a bad combination. Unfortunately, by the time he’d figured out that Maddock definitely wasn’t going to be in the picture, he was already in the friend-zone. That had made his decision to accept Tam Broderick’s offer to join the Myrmidons a lot easier, but Jade, for all her flaws, had stayed in his thoughts.

  She set her glass down and made a point of looking at her watch. “Okay, Prof. The clock is running. Five minutes to explain just what the hell you’re doing here.”

  “Oh, Jade, I’ve missed you.” He wagged his head, but then became more serious. “You could be in danger here.”

  “Danger? From who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  She shook her head. “Not this time. There aren’t any mystical relics here, no magical alien artifacts. This is just straightforward archaeology. There’s no reason why the Dominion would have any interest in what’s happening here, ergo I’m not in danger.”

  “I can think of two reasons why you’re wrong.”

  “Do tell.”

  Professor decanted another portion of mezcal into his glass. “What do you think you’re going to find in that chamber under the pyramid?”

  Above her almond eyes, Jade’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “How did you even find out about that? It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “It’s very hard to keep secrets these days.” He took a sip, and then repeated the question. “What do you think you’ll find?”

  She shrugged. “Probably a tomb. If the chamber served a ceremonial function, it wouldn’t have been sealed off in antiquity.”

  “Whose tomb?”

  “How should I know?”

  “The ancient inhabitants of the city built one of the largest structures in the world over that tomb. I’d say the person buried there must be pretty important, don’t you think?”

  “You’re wasting time. Get to the point.”

  “The point, Jade, is that you seem to have forgotten about one of the most important aspects of Mesoamerican culture, something that Dominion is likely to be very interested in. Quetzalcoatl.”

  Jade’s frown deepened. “Quetzalcoatl the Aztec god? What’s he got to do with anything? The Aztecs didn’t show up in Teo until almost a thousand years after the pyramid was built.”

  “Worship of the feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerica goes back a lot further than the Aztecs. But as I’m sure you’ll remember, in some myths, Quetzalcoatl is often described as a bearded white man who brought great wisdom to the ancient people who once lived here.”

  Jade rolled her eyes. “Please. I know what comes next. Quetzalcoatl was actually Jesus Christ, bringing the Gospel to the heathens of the Americas. No one believes those old stories anymore. It was just Spanish propaganda designed to convert the indigenous people.”

  “Some people still believe.”

  “Like who?”

  “The Mormons.”

  Jade’s mouth was open to reply, but then she closed it and sat back.

  “Not officially,” Professor continued. “Not anymore at least, but for decades it was an article of faith in the LDS Church that the legends surrounding Quetzalcoatl were evidence that Christ once visited the Americas. And I don’t need to remind you that the Dominion has expressed a keen interest in some of those more antiquated bits of LDS folklore.”

  Professor knew that Jade had first-hand experience with this subject; a few years earlier, her first encounter with the Dominion had seen the group infiltrate a Mormon sect in order to locate Biblical artifacts concealed in the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola.

  “I’m not suggesting that the chamber is going to contain the remains of Quetzalcoatl or Jesus Christ,” he continued. “All I’m saying is, the Dominion might believe that, and if they do, then you can bet they’ll be watching to see what you discover.”

  Jade processed this for a moment. “Okay. You said two reasons.”

  Professor nodded his head in her direction. “You’re the other reason.”

  “Me?”

  “You’ve foiled their best laid plans a few times now, Jade. They aren’t likely to forget, and they certainly aren’t going to forgive.”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “So that’s how you were able to act on this so quickly; been keeping an eye on me. Well, I appreciate the concern, but you can go back and tell Maddock that I’m a big girl. I don’t need protecting.”

  Professor felt a twinge of irritation at her assumption that he was acting as Maddock’s lackey. “I’m not here to protect you,” he replied, speaking slowly to avoid letting any bitterness creep into his tone. “I’m here because if there’s even a chance the Dominion might show up, I want to be ready to crush them.”

  She flashed a sardonic smile. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

  “Damn it, Jade, make up your mind,” Professor snapped. “Which is it? Do you want someone watching your back, or not? You can’t have it both ways.”

  Jade’s lower jaw shifted slowly to the left, as if biting back a scathing retort. When she finally spoke, her voice was low, smoldering with pent up anger, but she didn’t address the subject directly. “What about your friend, Hodges? Is he really a robot expert, or is that just cover?”

  “Brian knows what he’s doing,” replied Professor with equal intensity. “He got his training in Naval EOD. He also hates the Dominion more than you and I put together. His wife and baby daughter died at Norfolk.”

  Jade blinked. The mere mention of the Dominion attack on Norfolk, in which thousands had died in a catastrophic tsunami wave, triggered by an ancient Atlantean device, seemed to have broken through her tough girl facade. Then she shook her head, dismissively. “Well, it’s probably not going to matter. What I’m really going to need is someone who can drive a robot into that chamber. Like I said, there’s nothing here that’s going to be of interest to the Dominion. It’s just straightforward archaeology.”

  Professor raised his glass again. “Well, here’s to straightforward archaeology.”

  THREE

  Jade stared at the strange looking bundle of metal rods. “That’s a robot? It doesn’t look anything like WALL-E.”

  Hodges grinned. “Some of them do, but in order to explore a vertical shaft, we need a unit that can climb walls. That’s why I brought Shelob here.”

  “Shelob. Cute.” She took a step back, giving him room to assemble the robot, but Paul Dorion quickly occupied the space she had vacated.

  “How does it work?”

  Jade had not seen the particle physicist look so excited since the discovery of the hidden tunnel, though in truth, she had not seen much of him or Sanchez in the past few days. They had made themselves scarce while she had been laboring to dig the exploratory shaft, probably afraid that she would put them to work.

  Hodges seemed only too happy to share. “Most wall climbing robots use suction cups or magnets, but those won’t work here. The stone isn’t
magnetic and it’s too porous for a suction cup to adhere. I designed Shelob to work in chimney shafts and inside wet walls where the surface material would be unpredictable. Like her namesake—”

  “I’m sorry, her namesake?” inquired Sanchez.

  “Shelob is the giant spider from Lord of the Rings,” supplied Professor.

  Hodges nodded. “That’s right. She’s got eight fully articulated legs—two sets of four—which can extend in any direction. One set of legs will extend out to brace her in place between opposing surfaces while the other set reaches up or down, taking a step as it were. When those legs are braced, the other set disengages and takes the next step.

  “Watch this.” Hodges slipped on a headset microphone. “Shelob, run diagnostic.”

  The metal rods abruptly unfolded from the thorax, which looked sort of like a tool box with a GoPro attached to one end, and began whirring and rotating until they made contact with the stone floor. The movements were mechanical and jerky, but it nevertheless looked very much like a silvery spider, though instead of a silk thread, it trailed a length of black coaxial cable that connected to a spool which was in turn hooked up to Hodges’ laptop. The display screen showed the view from Shelob’s camera. The robot went through a series of maneuvers, scuttling around chamber as if exploring.

  “The legs can telescope out like the adjustable legs of a camera tripod,” Hodges said, “for a total reach of just over eight feet, which should be just about perfect for your tunnel.”

  As if on cue, the robot’s legs began to lengthen, shooting out to their full length until it more closely resembled a daddy-longlegs than a spider, which in Jade’s opinion did nothing improve its appearance.