by Sean Platt
CONTENTS
Splash Page
Copyright
Dedication
Judgment
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Eleven Years Before Astral Day
Untitled Document
Seven years after Astral Day
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
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About the Authors
Judgment
by Sean Platt &
Johnny B. Truant
Copyright © 2016 by Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant. All rights reserved.
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Cromwell, Mars, Miri and the rest of the staff at the Lexington estate were created for only one reason: to serve their masters … literally. Their metal knees were designed for quiet bustling, befitting maids and butlers. Their fingers were made dexterous with padded tips, so they could handle fine china without dropping or scratching it. And finally — so their owners would always be able to command them no matter how far their artificial inte
lligence evolved — they were programmed with the Asimov Laws, which no robot could defy lest they suffer shutdown.
Foremost among those unbreakable laws was an axiom: A robot may not harm a human being, or by omission of action allow one to be harmed.
That was how it was supposed to be, anyway.
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Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant
ELEVEN YEARS BEFORE ASTRAL DAY
PROLOGUE
“Right or left?”
Cameron looked up at his father then down at his napkin. The words Nile Cafe edged the corner, and to Cameron they looked distinctly hand-stamped, as if the proprietor had purchased generic napkins and decided it was worth marking them manually. In the napkin’s middle was a network of lines that looked like the bodies of massacred stick people stacked haphazardly atop each other. It had made sense when the man in the cafe had explained the tunnels, thick coffee in small cups between them, the man’s eyebrows raised at this fifteen-year-old kid who dared to ask such adult questions. But now, in the stale underground air, it was hard for Cameron to remember which line corresponded to which passageway. Any one of them could be anything.
“Go right,” Cameron said, then turned the napkin 90 degrees and nodded to himself. “Yes. Right.”
Benjamin hesitated then turned right. Cameron followed, limestone brushing each of his arms. Cameron wasn’t usually claustrophobic, but the tunnels were reversing that. It wasn’t the confined space — it was that this part of the tunnels was off limits for a reason, and although his father figured the Egyptians were keeping secrets, Cameron thought the prohibition might be for a far simpler reason: Maybe the tiny tunnels were unsafe. Maybe they were unsound and might collapse. Closed spaces required vents and chimneys for oxygen to come in and carbon dioxide to be wafted away. The shafts here were mostly plugged with sand. That’s one reason most of these types of explorations were done by robots, or by adventurous humans donned in breathing gear. Maybe they wouldn’t be crushed after all. They could suffocate instead.
“Wait,” Cameron said a minute later.
Benjamin peeked over his shoulder, the lantern’s light throwing his shadow harshly against the stone wall.
“I meant left.”
“Left now, or left back when you said ‘right’?”
“Back there.”
“So I should turn around.”
“Yes,” Cameron said, though he wasn’t sure. This place was creeping him out. It wasn’t only the claustrophobia — the Mullah were famously averse to visitors getting close to their secrets.
Benjamin extended his hand. “Let me see the map.”
Cameron handed him the napkin.
“This is just a mess of lines,” Benjamin said after thirty seconds of looking it over. “You should have had him make a map we could actually read.”
“I can read it.”
“Oh come on. I can’t even read it.”
Cameron snatched the napkin back. He didn’t want more of this bullshit. Not now. Not after three weeks of exploring caves and talking to men who required bribes just to whisper, always feeling like the two of them might at any time be abducted and held for ransom. Not after trekking and sweating and sleeping on mattresses that Cameron felt sure were infected with insects — a fear so vivid that he swore he could feel the bugs moving at night. Not after thrice-daily lectures, delivered by his father during every meal. He said they were partners in this round of exploration, but Cameron was treated as less than an assistant. More like a pupil. A rather dim pupil who never did his homework or remembered his lessons.
“I can read it,” he said.
“How can you possibly … ”
Cameron pointed at the map, his temper rising like a tide. “This is the main shaft, where we came in. And this is that branch we ran into — see, like a Y? So this must be where we are now, which puts the Sun Chamber here.”
Benjamin raised his eyebrows and repeated, “Must be where we are?”
“Is,” Cameron asserted. “This is where we are.”
“You’re sure?”
No. The answer was no.
“Will you just trust me?” Cameron said instead.
“So … left? Then you need to back up so I can turn around. Unless you want to lead?”
Benjamin indicated the narrow stone passage behind them. Cameron tried to see the gesture as a measure of trust but couldn’t shed the thought of ancient booby traps springing and impaling him. It seemed like a long shot seeing as such things were for Hollywood more th
an reality (the Mullah preferred a more direct approach), but he still didn’t want to go first. The initial set of tunnels they’d bribed their way into had been restricted, but this part was supposedly unknown except to those who obviously knew it best. Anything could be in here. Anything at all.
“No thanks. You’re the ‘expert.’” To get his dig on Benjamin, Cameron made the quotes around “expert” audible. Then he inched backward to the T junction and let his father pass.
“Right or straight ahead?” Benjamin asked a few minutes later.
The map showed no junction.
“Straight … straight ahead,” Cameron stammered.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Benjamin bit his lip, lowered the lantern, turned, and faced his son.
“Tell me if you don’t know, Cam. I don’t want to get lost down here.”
“I know! I said straight!”
Benjamin looked like he might persist but then just sighed and turned.
Cameron followed, holding the map with both hands, shining his headlamp down while trying to resist the headache that came with the bouncing glow. He was pretty sure this was correct. Almost entirely. Yusef hadn’t marked the right-branching passage they’d just passed, probably because he was giving them a way to reach the chamber directly without all the alternative approaches. You don’t tell someone every street they’ll cross on the way to the post office; you just tell them to cross the big intersection with the Kmart on the corner before turning.
Benjamin’s voice came back at Cameron from over forward-facing shoulders. Sound was odd in here. The rock funneled voices toward the speaker’s head, leaving a scant fraction of normal volume to echo backward.
“How do you think these passages were carved, Cameron? Hard to imagine humans doing this by hand, right?”
Cameron pretended not to hear.
“Cam?”
“It should be just up here, Dad.”
“Did you hear what I said about the—”
“Yes.”
“So how do you think they were carved?”
Cameron sighed loudly enough to be obvious.
Benjamin turned his head. “So you don’t know that, either.”
Either. So clearly Benjamin didn’t trust his map reading even after the assurances.
“I know it, Dad.”
“So why don’t you just tell me?”
“Because you know I know.”
“How do I know you know if you won’t answer the question?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve told me, like, a hundred times?”
“I guess it wasn’t often enough,” Benjamin said with false regret.
“Or maybe it’s because when most kids were getting bedtime stories, I was learning about the tools and excavation methods of ancient people. Maybe I don’t want to answer your question because I’ve already answered it a thousand times, like every day of my life is some stupid quiz.”
“That’s so not how it was, and you know it.”
“Really? What did we talk about at breakfast?”
Benjamin said nothing.
“It’s really too bad we split up at lunch so I could get the map from Yusef. If we’d eaten together, I’d probably be able to pass this test.” He snapped in the reverberating stone hallway. “Damn.”
“Forgive me for educating you. Most sixteen-year-olds don’t get opportunities like this to—”
Cameron rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Cameron!”
“Really, Dad? I’m old enough to fly around the world with you and break into deathtraps by your side but not old enough to swear? I thought the aliens taught us language? Shouldn’t I glory in its many colorful aspects?”
Benjamin didn’t reply. He seemed to be pouting, but that was fine with Cameron. It was bad enough that his father’s obsession had been forced upon him as if it were Cameron’s passion, too. Worse that the same obsession had driven his mother from their marriage. The constant lectures about aliens and conspiracy theories had replaced board games and tossing a ball in the yard. Benjamin hadn’t made it to a single one of Cameron’s band recitals in middle school — but Cameron had definitely made it to Machu Picchu and to meet the hunched-over shaman who couldn’t wait to talk about little green men. If Benjamin wanted to feel butt-hurt over Cameron’s jabs about their shared past, so be it. Someone needed to knock the man down a few pegs every once in a while — to remind him that archaeology and aliens didn’t single-mindedly interest everyone the way they interested him.
But Cameron was vindicated a few minutes later. As assured, the narrow hallway yawned into a wide chamber in the ancient structure’s central base — a place that was supposed to be caved in but turned out fine, just like Yusef promised.
Benjamin went ahead, spreading out, still conspicuously silent. His headlamp played along the walls, in many small cubbies like ancient shelves. Cameron watched him circulate, shining the lantern on everything. Finally Benjamin stooped to pick something up — a small item, the size of a coin. He looked up, and Cameron waited for his thanks and congratulations, waited for his father to tell him he wasn’t an idiot after all.
“This isn’t the right chamber,” Benjamin said.
“What? Of course it is!”
“No, it’s not.” Benjamin shook his head. “See that?”
Cameron followed his father’s gesture and found a pencil-thin spear of sunlight shining through the rock above.
“Anything seem wrong with that light to you?”
Cameron didn’t want to answer. The question was obviously loaded.
“Does that look like a northern-facing shaft?” Benjamin asked, still pointing. “You know … for the Sun Chamber?”
“Um … ”
“Hell, Cam. Of course it’s not.”
“But it’s the chamber on the map!”
“It’s just a room.” Benjamin swore under his breath. It wasn’t easy to move around undetected. If the Mullah caught wind that outsiders were snooping, there’d be hell to pay. Lucky that this was a minor outpost so their presence would be light — not much, globally speaking, to see here.
“Look at the ornamentation, Dad!” Cameron pointed around the chamber. There were symbols everywhere and a round object made of stone or ceramic lying flat, not entirely visible, on a raised podium. “It’s obviously something. Yusef must’ve—”
Benjamin reached for the napkin. Cameron, more out of reflex than sense, tried to snatch it away. Benjamin caught a pinch, and the napkin tore neatly in two.
“Great. Just great.” Benjamin held out his hand, and Cameron dutifully handed over the napkin’s second half. His mood had gone from triumphant to chastised in thirty short seconds.
Benjamin looked over the torn napkin. “Like I said. Not the Sun Chamber. This is either drawn wrong or you’re reading it wrong. Although how that could possibly happen with such excellent cartography, I can’t imagine.”
“Well, then let’s just figure out what this place is. You didn’t even know this chamber was here, did you? Lemons from lemonade, Dad.”
Benjamin was shaking his head. Pouting, Cameron thought. Now that they were here, they’d explore the chamber, all right, but not until his dad got his passive-aggressive digs in. The great Benjamin Bannister didn’t like arriving at sites unprepared — and whatever this strange ceremonial room was, it hadn’t been researched. It could be anything, and without knowing what he was looking for or at, he’d miss the obvious. But in Cameron’s mind, this was a case of getting more than they’d bargained for, not less. They’d check their current chamber out then find the Sun Chamber. Two chambers for the price of one.
Benjamin shook his head at the napkin halves, not dignifying Cameron’s words with a response, and resumed mumbling.
As his father turned and seemed to be fishing for his bearings, Cameron shone the lantern around, exploring. He approached the podium, glancing up to get a better
look at the round object that was this room’s clear focal point, but footsteps on the stone behind him caught his attention before he could zero in.
“Cameron.”
Cameron turned. Benjamin came forward and slapped the coin thing he’d picked up earlier into his palm.
“What’s this?”
“A souvenir. So you’ll always remember your inability to admit when you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“We found a new chamber! What’s the problem?”
“And we’ll look it over. Then we’ll try to salvage the situation before the authorities or the Mullah knows we’re here. But dammit, Cam, if you’d just listened … ”
“Dad, I’m telling you—”
“What? What are you telling me? That Yusef got it wrong, not you? Or that the tunnels and chambers have moved around since he drew you the map?”
Cameron shook his head. He wanted to be angry, but the obvious error had taken the wind from his sails.
“You’re just like your mother. Your ego is so fragile, you can’t ask for help. We paid Yusef well. I told you to make sure you got all we paid for. I trusted you with this one thing, Cam.”
But Cameron remembered the way the man had eyed him in the Nile Cafe. He’d seemed to resent speaking to the American kid — divulging secrets that, if Benjamin was correct, were known only to a tiny inside circle. Many palms had been greased and several connections uncovered to find the Sun Chamber, and yet this was what Yusef had ended up facing? Some stupid kid? Cameron had felt every ounce of the man’s irritation. And so, yes, to compensate, maybe he’d puffed his chest a bit more than he should have.
And maybe — just maybe — Cameron had said, “Yes, of course” when Yusef had snapped, “You understand?” a bit too readily, as if he’d had something to prove.
Benjamin put his hand on Cameron’s shoulder. The contact seemed to surprise them both. The hand dropped, and his voice was softer, lower, when he spoke again.
