by Martha Carr
“What exactly are you getting at?”
“We, Earth humans, have regular contact with people from another world now, Oriceran. It’s not like people’s minds would be that blown if the government admitted there had been contact with another world besides Oriceran.”
Osiris meowed and leapt off the table, apparently bored with the human chatter and fake plastic mice.
Shay glanced at the cat and back at Peyton. “The fact that they are being so damned secretive means they’re worried about people panicking—the same people who already live in a world with necromancers and rusalkas. I know what I think that means.”
Peyton nodded slowly. “I know what I think, too. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that they’re worried about a War of the Worlds situation, and also worried that all our technology and magic might not be enough. The question is, do they even have any evidence to be worried over, or are they just being paranoid?”
Peyton clicked around on his desktop and brought up a fuzzy picture of the aluminum tooth-wheel. “If aliens showed up that long ago with this level of technology, even if they were the slowest bastards in the galaxy they’d be way farther ahead of us. We’d be like ants trying to win against humans.”
“But we don’t just have tech now, we have magic.”
Peyton shrugged. “What good is even the most powerful wand going to do if an alien mothership shows up and cracks the planet in half with a star-powered death ray?”
Shay stared at the image of the wheel, thinking through the possibilities. The memory of an earlier conversation in Russia with the rusalka floated back, unbidden.
There’s something I sense in you…a destiny, perhaps. Something great or something horrible, but still grandiose. I want to see where that goes, and I don’t think it ends with you being drowned in our local river.
The tomb raider chuckled. She’d believed Irina the rusalka had delusions of grandeur, but now she was letting them infect her own mind.
The truth of Project Ragnarok might be far more banal than she suspected, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep looking into it. Even if it didn’t even involve any dangerous alien invaders, the hidden knowledge and truth it represented called to Shay.
History should be about the truth, but we were wrong for so many years. Not only that, people made sure we were wrong by hiding the truth. Fuck the government. This time they don’t get to hide the truth, not from me.
Shay looked at Peyton. “Keep poking around, but be careful. I have a feeling that if we end up poking too hard, a group of Special Forces guys in ski masks will bust through the door and gun our asses down.”
Peyton swallowed. “Maybe…maybe it’s best if we leave well enough alone? We’re both trying to hide, after all. We don’t have to do this. I know it’s cool, but I kind of like continuing to breathe.”
“Fuck that. James was right when he goaded me into taking down the cartel. Sometimes you shouldn’t run. Sometimes you should charge in like a crazed rhino.”
“I don’t know if he’s a bad influence on you or a good one.” Peyton let out a nervous laugh. “Brownstone’s a badass, but even if he helps you, it’s not like you can take down the entire military by yourself.”
“I’m not giving up on this.” Shay stared Peyton down. “I’m also not gonna pull my gun and order you to poke around government systems. I’m just gonna tell you to grow a pair, but be careful when you do whatever it is you do. We’ve stumbled onto some major shit, and if we run away now, we might as well shoot ourselves, because we’ve already given up on living a life that means shit.”
Peyton sighed. “Guess getting shot in the head by some Man in Black trying to protect a secret is almost as good as dying in bed after a long and healthy life.”
Shay grinned. “Hey, as long I don’t die in my kitchen, I don’t care.”
20
Shay pulled her Spider through the open loading bay door into Warehouse Three. She waited until the metal door slid closed, killed the engine, and stepped out of the car.
This better not be bullshit.
Peyton stood behind a long table, holding up and inspecting a small drone. He had a satisfied look on his face. He set the machine back down and picked up a headlamp. There were several pistols and magazines next to a tactical harness.
The tomb raider marched over to the table and crossed her arms, waiting in silence for the man to speak. He hadn’t looked up since she’d entered the building.
“Wonder if I could add another sensor,” Peyton mumbled. “Wish there was some easy way to detect magic.”
Shay cleared her throat.
Peyton looked up. “Oh, hi. Didn’t hear you come in.”
“You didn’t hear the massive metal door opening?”
“No, I didn’t. Sorry.”
Shay sighed. “You sent me a text and said it was important that I come here ASAP.” She shrugged. “So I’m here. Now tell me why I’m here.” She pointed to the table. “You’re obviously getting my gear ready for a job, but you didn’t tell me about anything.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry for being so cryptic, I was working on something at the same time, so I was distracted when I sent the message. The short version is, yeah, I’ve got a new job lined up. I figured you needed a little something to soothe your ego and wallet after the whole debacle in Russia and Durand getting the better of you in DC.”
Shay slammed a hand on the table, shaking the guns and electronics on top. “What the fuck?”
Peyton held up his hands. “A poor choice of words. Please don’t harm the tech guy. If you do, you’re honor-bound to take care of my cat.”
Shay took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Ignoring all that bullshit, I thought I told you I wanted to concentrate on Durand for a while. And, yeah, because of DC and Russia. Just because he got the drop on me in DC doesn’t mean shit. I’m not through with him yet.”
“Sure, sure, but because I’m so awesome, I figured out how to make money and still point you at Durand. Or point him at you. However you want to look at it.”
Shay stepped away from the table and nodded slowly. “Okay, now I’m listening. Note that I’m the kinder, gentler Shay. I didn’t even pull my gun.”
Peyton smiled, but it looked forced. “I found a collector of rare art who is interested in Pre-Colombian-contact art. He’s interested in you recovering a solid gold Inca figurine for him, and he’s willing to pay a million dollars.”
“I’m liking the sound of this. Go on.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped until he located a picture of what looked like a stylized golden jet fighter. “This was created six hundred years ago, and, well, you can see how modern it looks.”
Shay tilted her head back and forth to examine the picture from different angles. “Could be a coincidence. Maybe it’s some Inca’s funky version of a bird. I’d hate to see some alien grab a Cubist painting and think that’s how things actually look on Earth.”
“Sure, but a lot of people think it’s not a coincidence. They used to say it proved alien contact, and some people even claimed they did the calculations involving a larger scale model of the design, and it was aerodynamic and would fly with appropriate thrust.”
Shay nodded. “Okay. Interesting.”
Peyton put his phone down. “Once everyone found out about Oriceran, they just assumed the ancient airplane was related to them.”
“And how do we know it’s not? Not saying I won’t go after it for a million, but Durand might not be interested in this thing at all.”
“People assumed, but they didn’t check.”
Shay arched a brow. “And you did?”
Peyton nodded. “I haven’t found anything from an Oriceran source or related sources that mention them using anything that looks like this, and when you think it about it, it doesn’t even make sense. A planet of magic users isn’t going to run over to Earth and teach them about technological jet fighters.”
“You make a g
ood case.”
Shay had long since passed the point of reflexive skepticism when it came to anything related to ancient aliens. Even ignoring everything she’d learned about Oriceran and aliens between James and the government searches, her previous tomb raids had involved her recovering things like activation artifacts for ancient Indian floating palaces. There was nothing too outlandish to dismiss out of hand anymore.
Those truths didn’t mean every artifact hunt would lead her to new history, but if she had to bet, she’d bet on weird aliens or Oricerans more often than misinterpreted ancient art. Still, a few details remained unclear about the current job.
She pointed at the phone. “You have a modern picture of the thing, which means someone already has this. I think it’s better if I try to avoid jobs that involve me having to fuck with people who already own something unless I have a damned good reason beyond money. I’m a tomb raider, not a cat burglar.”
The morality of that type of artifact retrieval was still an open debate in her mind, but, at the minimum, she liked James’ policy of only taking things from people who tried to kill him first. Fair and simple.
That policy also had the advantage of reducing the number of people, particularly law enforcement, who might come after her. Her recent if indirect brush with the FBI and LAPD AET served as a reminder of the dangers of enemies who didn’t have to hide in the shadows.
Peyton looked to the side and nodded. “Oh, yeah. My fault for not being clearer. The client already has this one in his collection, but he’s got a line on another one. Different design. Longer wings, and different shape. He’s dubbed it ‘the Bomber.’ The client also got his hands on an old map from some nineteenth-century English explorers who were checking out rumors of Inca artifacts in the mountains of Ecuador.”
“Ecuador, huh?”
Hitting a place where she could at least speak the language was always welcome, though she lacked any real contacts in the country. Given the way Peyton was acting, she doubted it’d be a problem.
“The map had a lot of holes,” Peyton continued, “but there was enough information on the image they sent me to point me the right way. I’ve already done some analysis based on aerial surveys and satellite data, and I’ve found a suspicious site just begging to be checked out. It’s sitting there singing, ‘Come and get me, Shay.’”
She frowned. “Mighty convenient that no one has checked out the site before and found the figurine, don’t you think?”
Peyton shook a finger. “But that’s the thing. Even with the map, I had to do a lot of algorithmic imagery analysis to find the possible site. If you didn’t already know exactly where to look, there would be no way to find it. No one’s just going to stumble onto it.”
“So we’ve got the location… Wait, if there’s a map, and explorers already visited there, why didn’t they already recover the Bomber?”
“Lots of rumors about guardians, and a note on the map that when translated talks about scaly demons who eat men.”
Shay chuckled. “At least they aren’t frog-men. Any notes or rumors about these scaly demons being immune to guns?”
“Not that I’ve read.”
“What about Durand? Find anything about him moving on the object?”
Peyton sighed and shrugged. “I’ve been trying to track him, but it’s gotten a lot harder since he knows about you chasing him, so I have no idea. But the client only came into possession of this map within the last week. It’s not like even if Durand heard about the artifact that he’s had tons of time to get down there and find it, and that’s assuming he actually has access to the map and the resources to figure it out.”
“The asshole has the United States government behind him. I’m guessing there are more than a few imagery analysts working for Project Nephilim and Project Ragnarok. If we have an advantage, it’s not gonna be in our ability to decode shit. We just got lucky with the symbols and the phrase because we had more samples than they did.”
Peyton stuck out his lip and looked down. She’d poked his male ego, but she didn’t give a damn. If Shay could acknowledge that Marcus was better at parkour and that Durand had at least a few skills that were better than hers, Peyton could deal with the fact he wasn’t the only person in the country with decent research and computer skills.
Shay pointed to a shelf on the other side of the room. “Pack some jammers. Can never be too sure.”
“You’re going to take the job, then? I think you should, but I can’t guarantee Durand will show up.”
“It’s an easy million if he doesn’t, and if he does, it’ll be a nice bonus.”
“I already booked you a flight. Supersonic down to Quito. Leaves tonight.”
“You were that certain I’d take the job?”
Peyton shook his head. “I was certain you’d want to take any chance to screw with Durand, even if it was a small one.”
“You’re right.” Shay grinned. “Look out, Durand, this time I’m getting there first.”
21
Shay slipped on her backpack, slammed the door of her rented Wrangler, and groaned. A mountain loomed over her, its peak disappearing into the thick clouds. Boulders and smaller rocks littered the ground in uneven piles. The way her Wrangler had bounced on the way up the mountain, she was surprised there weren’t even more.
Looking at satellite photos hadn’t prepared her for the extreme angle of the mountain.
Better than swimming to the bottom of some freezing lake.
This wouldn’t be a leisurely hike, but a climb with full gear to a cave that might be hundreds of feet up. She needed to verify the cave’s location before she bothered climbing anywhere.
Shay pulled out her phone but had no signal. Given that she was in the middle of a bunch of mountains, she wasn’t suspicious or surprised. Cell towers had limited range. Satellites were impressive feats of engineering, but they still needed line of sight to work.
She brought up an app to scan the local frequency ranges. No indication of any artificial jamming. Nature was her only enemy at the moment, not a government stooge. That gave her some time, at least, even if she didn’t relish the climb.
The physical challenge was one thing, but not all physical challenges were interesting. Obstacle courses and parkour offered variety that climbing a nearly-sheer cliff couldn’t provide.
“Guess it can’t all be fun and shooting,” Shay muttered.
Her trip to the back of the Wrangler netted her a drone and her AR goggles.
A few minutes later, the drone hummed to life, the feed connected to her goggles. She piloted the drone, her stomach knotting as her brain adjusted to her eyes seeing the ground shrink even though her body didn’t move. While she didn’t always use the direct feed because of the feeling it gave her, it offered her a better inherent sense of distances and proportions.
Two hundred and fifty feet up, Shay found the cave. Too round, too perfect. Even if she hadn’t been looking for a figurine allegedly inspired by aliens—if not outright made by them—she would have suspected the cave wasn’t a natural formation.
Shay cycled from the visual band to IR. The display remained blue and black, with no current or residual heat signatures. Durand hadn’t gotten here ahead of her this time.
Doesn’t look like any scaly demons are hiding in there either. Those Brits shouldn’t have let themselves be scared off so easily.
The drone maneuvered deeper into the cave, and Shay switched back to the normal camera mode. She activated the main light on the drone, keeping it a foot under the low, smooth roof of the cave. Loose pebbles and stones lay on the floor, but there were no footprints. Ten feet inside, dramatic proof of something unusual appeared in the form of a solid-gold door.
The door gleamed under the drone’s light, and there was a small flat panel where a handle might usually be.
“Huh. Guess there’s no getting around just going up there, but at least I know there’s something there.”
Shay flew the drone back d
own and landed it next to the Wrangler. It was time for the annoying part of the job.
After grabbing a helmet with a headlamp from the SUV, she fished her rope and climbing supplies out of her backpack. She needed to find someone to supply her with a levitation ring for the next time she found herself in this sort of situation.
Stupid gnome. I’d ask you, but you’re barely at your shop these days. Your cousin has probably moved to Mars by now because he figured out that Peyton was sniffing around.
“How the hell did the explorers even find this place? Use some magic they didn’t admit to on their map? At least that means Monsieur Artiste Spécialiste de la Récupération won’t be able to reach it.”
The tomb raider smiled. There were no other vehicles in the area, and no other lines or any evidence that anyone had been to this part of the mountain in years. Her drone survey had proved no one else was around, human or monster.
Ha. You don’t even know about this artifact, do you, Durand? Talking all that shit about me being a rookie, but I’m about to grab an alien artifact, or at least proof of aliens, and your precious Nephilim and Ragnarok assholes don’t have a clue.
The smile left her face, and she sighed. She still had to climb the damned mountain.
“Good thing the stupid figurine is small,” Shay muttered to herself. “And I wonder how they even got up to this cave to put in the door? Maybe the aliens put it in.”
The tomb raider kept putting one chalked hand in front of the other as she ascended the steep face of the mountain, anchoring her rope as she went. Her rented Wrangler looked like nothing more than a blue shadow far below her feet. It was only thirty more feet to the cave.
A stiff breeze blew, and Shay took a deep breath. She didn’t fear heights, but her stomach tightened when she looked down.
Shay reached the cave’s ledge and pulled herself up and over.
Good news is at least the climb down will be easier. Thanks, gravity, for not always being a bitch.
