by Erinn Price
I laughed, as he was more than likely right. “I think I will have a bath first, I feel a little bit grimy.”
“Enjoy, anything I have is yours. Please make yourselves at home. My wife and I will be back later, and we can tell you what we found, while we have supper.” Kharim said.
Kharim had shown us a great honour, welcoming us into his home so completely. I swore to myself that I would do everything in my power, to ensure that they would never regret aiding us. Matthew and I both bowed our heads in acknowledgement and respect. I contacted Scarlet and had her change the Taher’s pod order. When I told her to be careful and try to hide the change in the order, I got a “Duh!” response from Scarlet.
Both Kharim and Sara, would get state-of-the-art pods now and I also upgraded their starter virtual space. They would have far more design options for their personal virtual lounges, than with the starter package, which offered just two. I also increased the time dilation for their virtual space, to match that of the game. Now, when they went online, every four hours online would be the equivalent of one hour in real life. I started getting dizzy and disconnected immediately. Just that short and limited connection online, gave me a headache. I knew that for now at least, I had to not link to any networks. I had to trust the others to find the information we needed, while I took the time to recover. I will encourage Matthew to load all the data online and to do his research there. Time was of the utmost importance and with me currently handicapped, we had to make use of any advantage we could. The four to one, time ratio could prove invaluable, in getting the information we needed quickly. I considered going online, to request Scarlet to order three pods. The extra one for Matthew but had a feeling I would just get another “Duh!” from Scarlet. I was pretty sure my new sister would have thought of it.
I left the bathroom and found Matthew fast asleep on the one bed. The other bed had a set of clean clothing, underwear included, neatly folded on it. I could not remember him buying the underwear, but he must have during our train and bus hopping excursion. I grabbed the clothing and quickly changed into it. Sleep seemed like a very good idea and the bed looked very comfortable. I knew Matthew would wake me, if anything happened. I quickly got comfortable on my bed and fell asleep as well. I knew Matthew had to feel some measure of safety, or else he never would have allowed himself to fall asleep. During the day, while I had been forced to depend on him I had realised he took his job very seriously. Right now, his job was protecting me. If not for Matthew I would likely have been slightly panicking. I felt lost without my connections to my links and my network. It felt like a part of me was missing, like I was incomplete. I had not realised how I had come to depend on that connection. The only saving grace, was that I knew it was temporary and I still had a fragile link to the network. I could almost feel it, just waiting for me to fully link back to it.
Chapter 11
I woke up, to find myself alone in the room. I also noticed that it was light outside. Matthew must have decided that sleep was more important for me, than being woken up to discuss the Taher’s findings. I wanted to be angry with him but knew it had been the right decision. My head felt a lot better and I felt much less disconnected from my surroundings. I found a clean set of clothing on the bottom of my bed and quickly changed into it, before leaving the room.
“Ahh. You are awake, and likely very hungry.” I heard Sara say. “Come, have some breakfast and I will fill you in on what is happening.”
“Morning sis. How is your head?” I heard Scarlet say.
“Morning Sara, morning Scarlet. I will not say no to food and my head feels a lot better, thanks sis.” I answered both Sara and Scarlet.
“Good. It would be terrible if you did end up brain damaged, especially after I teased Matthew about that. He would not have let me live it down.” Scarlet said.
It sounded like she was more worried about what Matthew would have said, than me being brain damaged.
“Where is Matthew?” I asked.
“He and my husband have gone to the university. Kharim can get him into the restricted section and Matthew assured him, that he could make copies of relevant information without causing damage or it being noticed.” Sara said.
“How?” I asked confused.
“Oh, I changed his glasses to allow him to scan pages with it.” Scarlet said.
“I am surprised he went without me.” I said.
“He wanted to wake you, but I told him not to. He also only agreed to go, if I agreed to stay here to watch over you.” Scarlet said. “I must admit, I do like him a bit more than your sister’s boyfriend. Do you know he was very rude to our sister and forced her to kill herself, to escape out of a cage?”
“Matthew is not my boyfriend and by the sounds of it, this other guy is not much of a boyfriend to Alexis.” I replied.
Sara placed a plate full of food in front of me. “Matthew assured me you eat meat, so I made a favourite of mine, Beil Bel Basterma.”
Since it looked like egg and steak, I eagerly dove into it. “This is delicious.” I said, after swallowing my first bite.
Sara smiled and said, “Thank you.”
“Any idea when the men will be back?” I asked, after I had finished eating.
“No-” Sara began to say, only to be interrupted by Scarlet, “They just left the university, so they should be here soon.”
“I take it you found a place to begin looking for the book?” I asked.
“Yes, the myth talks of the fourth son of Ramses II, Setne Kham, finding the book. Khamweset was the fourth son of Ramses II, so seemed like a good place to start. Myth often has a basis in reality.” Sara informed me.
“From there, I assume they hope to figure out who Nefrekeptah was.” I said.
“Yes. We know Khamweset was real, so we are hoping that though the name Nefrekeptah seems fake, the story is real.” Sara said.
“Oh goodie. Seems the new pods are here.” Scarlet said, just as there was a buzz.
“You should go hide, just in case.” Sara told me, “Leave the food, they will assume it is mine.”
I made my way to my room and then thought it would be safer in the bathroom. If they accidentally opened the bedroom door, then they would not see me. I heard noise coming from outside my window, which seemed strange as the entrance was on the other side. Then for a while there was no noise, till I heard doors down the passage opening.
“Two can go in here and the third in the room next door. You will need to move one of the beds in there against the wall. Sorry, but we were not expecting you to arrive so early.” I heard Sara say.
Scarlet had ordered three pods. Fortunately, Sara managed to cover the fact that she was only expecting two, very well.
“Just press the button to let me know you want to leave, and I will open the main gate for you.” Sara said.
I realised that the main gate had to be this side of the house. The gate Matthew and I had used yesterday, must be the side entrance or entrance for people and not vehicles. I waited for Scarlet or Sara, to tell me the coast was clear. It would be stupid to go out now and maybe run into a courier. Eventually, I heard the bedroom door open and Sara say, “They are gone, you can come out now.”
I walked out of the bathroom and followed Sara to the lounge. “Sit, make yourself comfortable, I will get us something to drink.”
I sat down on one of the lounge chairs and looked around. This seemed to be a more formal lounge than the other one I had seen, which had, had a television. This one had two desks on opposite sides and shelves containing books, running along one whole wall. On one table was various instruments that I could not identify from here, as well as some sealed containers. Another table was covered in a sheet and had what looked like cleaning equipment and items on it. I was sitting on a long sofa in the middle of the room, with two other long sofas surrounding an empty table.
“Here you go.” Sara said, as she handed me a tall glass filled with orange juice.
“Thank you.” I
said.
“You changed our order?” Sara asked me. “These pods look fancier than the ones we ordered. The system with them, also looks more advanced.”
“Yes. The pods and system will allow you to stay online for longer.”
“Thank you.” Sara said.
“You are very welcome, it is the least I could do, considering all your family is doing for me.” I said. “When my new pods are released, I will ensure your family gets the updated pods. They will allow Toby and you online for even longer. Monitoring you to keep you clean, hydrated and fed. You won’t have to worry about Toby being harmed by staying online too long.”
“That will help greatly, with both Kharim and me working, it is sometimes worrying what is happening back here. We have a person to watch him, but it is not the same.” Sara said.
“The updated system will allow you and your husband to continuously monitor the system and Toby yourselves, without having to be close. I am upgrading the internal security to be completely separate.” I said. My own problems with security at my apartment, made me realise that I needed to put completely independent security in my pods. Security, that no outsiders could hack or intercept signals from. I already have the structure worked out, I just need to get back to my lab to implement and test it. I can’t get online, but I can still formulate designs in my head and work out the details and equipment I will need.
Just then a bell rang and this one sounded different from the earlier one, when the couriers had arrived.
“Excuse me.” Sara said, and moved towards the end of the house Matthew and I had entered yesterday. From the timing, I would guess it was Kharim and Matthew.
“Morgan, it is good to see you up. How are you feeling?” Kharim asked, as he entered the room. Matthew followed closely behind him, and I saw he was carrying a few books.
“I am fine, thank you Kharim.” I answered, looking at Matthew I said, “I thought you were not allowed to take out those books, did you steal them?”
“No, I leave that type of thing to you and your sister.” Matthew answered smiling. “These are from the public section of the library and available to be checked out.”
“We were not sure if you would be able to go online. You and Matthew get to read through these while Sara and I will go check the online information we have.” Kharim said.
“An extra pod was delivered, Matthew can check the online sources with you and I will go through these. There will be more information online and the more we manage to go through, the better.” I said.
They nodded their agreement and made their way to the pods, while I stayed in the lounge. As one hour for me, would be four hours for them, they should cover a lot more ground than I could. Even so, I was grateful for the books. Matthew would have known that I would hate not being able to help and gotten me these books. To let me feel like I was being of some use. I soon found that reading tired me out and ended up just paging through the books, looking at the pictures. The books covered a wide period range. Since we were not sure which pharaoh to look at, it made sense to cover as many of the pharaohs round that time as possible. The myth did state that Khaemweset got the book from the tomb of the son of a King, several hundred years older than him. The fictious name of Neferkaptah was given to this son of a King, in the myths surrounding the Book of Thoth. Khaemweset later returned the book to where he found it. We needed to follow Khaemweset’s trail and find the tomb he found the book in.
I did not notice the passage of time, I had become so engrossed in looking at the different styles and artefacts found in various tombs. I had two books open on the table and was busy looking through a different one, when I heard a door behind me open.
“Evening Morgan. Scarlet reminded me that even though I would not need to eat, you would.” Sara said, “Kharim and Matthew should join us soon. Do you have any preference for dinner or can I order for you? There is a local restaurant that makes the best koshary.”
“Evening Sara, and koshary will be great. Thank you.” I said. Glancing out of the window, I noticed that it was indeed getting dark. The house AI must have been monitoring and increasing the lighting without me noticing. I had forgotten that the others would not need to stop to eat. They would have gotten nutrients through the pod system, thankfully Scarlet had thought of it. Which was strange considering she did not need to eat at all, but with her determination to look after her ‘big sister’, I suppose she would consider everything that could affect me negatively.
“You look comfortable.” Matthew said, as he joined me in the lounge. “What is koshary? Sara asked if she could order that and I agreed, but I do not know what it is.”
“If you like rice, pasta, garlic, don’t mind chilli or spicy tomato sauce and like fried onions, you will like it.” I told him. I had looked up what type of food I could expect in Egypt, while on the boat and koshary was one of the typical Egyptian foods.
“Sounds good.” Matthew said, just as Kharim and Sara joined us.
“The food should take forty-five minutes to an hour.” Kharim said. “I suggest we begin to discuss what we found and then we can narrow down the research after dinner.”
“I found twenty-eight possible targets.” Sara said, “Based on the wording of the myth and the time period.”
“I found twenty-three.” Kharim said.
“I found fourteen.” Matthew said.
“I have three.” I said. “Khufu. I think one of his grandsons, Bikheris, could have been Neferkaptah. Then Tutmose I and lastly Akhenaten.”
“I have Tutmose I, but not the others.” Kharim said.
“Same.” Both Sara and Matthew said.
“Tutmose I was obvious because of a mention I found, which suggested Neferkaptah was the son of Amenhotep I.” Kharim said. “I think that we will find most of the same names on our lists, but I am very interested in how you came by Bikheris and Akhenaten.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“The pictures of Khaemweset, reminded me of ones I had seen of Khufu. The style and the way he was depicted, looked the same as an ivory head of Khufu.” I pointed out the pictures I was referring to. There was a statue of Khaemweset and a head of Khaemweset in one book and a picture of the ivory head of Khufu in another. There are very few pictures of males, especially royal males with their heads shown like that. Mostly they have ornate headdresses on. “Also, there is very little known of Bikheris, he seems to just disappear. Many later believed that he was fictitious.”
“Okay, I can see why he should be considered, the facial features are very similar. Even pictures of Tutmose III, have slight differences that could mean they are actually Tutmose I. Looks like someone wanted to confuse people concerning Tutmose I.” Kharim admitted. “Tell me why Akhenaten.”
“Mainly because of what I saw in my grandfather’s tomb. But also, because I think several hundred years was actually 70 years. Then, there is the fact of the new religion that he tried to establish and the new art style. The fact that he was all but removed from the history books, and his temples destroyed, makes me suspicious. He was referred to as ‘the enemy’ by Ramses II. If his son Khaemweset informed his father that he wanted to research Akhenaten because he thought he had the Book of Thoth, I doubt his father would have let him. Or else he did not want people to know that Akhenaten had the book, so he ordered his son to hide where he got it from. Imagine the uproar if it became known that Akhenaten had the Book of Thoth. People would begin to think Amarna and the new religion were tied to the Book of Thoth.”
“That would explain the fictitious name and other details, they were thrown in to hide the truth.” Kharim said thoughtfully.
“I must admit the son of Khufu and Akhenaten, sound more promising than any of the links I got.” Sara said.
“Without comparing the pictures, I would not have looked at one of Khufu’s sons either. I only thought of Akhenaten because of my grandfather’s tomb.” I admitted. Akhenaten was also a figure shrouded in mystery, no one knew much about
him, yet he was surrounded by well-known historic figures. It is believed that he was the father of Tutankhaten, who later became Tutankhamun. His wife was Nefertiti, who helped him with Amarna and the religion of worshiping just Aten, instead of many gods. Nefertiti is one of the most famous women in history, yet her husband is relatively unknown. There is speculation that Akhenaten was not Tutankhamun’s father, but with the way Akhenaten was removed from history, it was difficult to separate truth from fiction.
“I am dying to ask about your grandfather’s tomb. From Scarlet I gathered it was in Egypt, but I have to admit that I have not heard of any foreigners having tombs in Egypt.” Kharim said.
“It is a long story, but he did a royal family a great service and they permitted him to be buried in their family tomb.” I said.
“I would suggest then, that tomorrow you and Matthew go visit those three tombs and see if there is anything there.” Sara suggested.
“Akhenaten’s tomb had never been found, neither has Bikheris’s.” I said.
“The story says that his family was buried with him. For Akhenaten, maybe look in his son’s tomb, Tutankhamun. For Bikheris, I would say look in Khufu’s tomb. The head you linked to Khaemweset came from there, so it seems like a good place to look. Amarna also seems like a likely place.” Kharim said.
“Would it not be better to do some more research?” I asked, “I do not see how we could find anything in the actual tombs as they have been cleared out and the objects placed in museums.”
“Sara and I will continue to do research. We will also try to track down any artefacts taken from those tombs. We should be able to narrow down our lists further, so if Khufu and Akhenaten turn out to be false trails, you will have other places to search.” Kharim said.
Just then the doorbell rang, and Sara left to go get the food. “Let us move to the dining area.” Kharim said. He then led us down another passage into a large, open dining room.
