by A D Davies
Jules had been in hundreds of museums since leaving his final foster home. The Mongolian Natural History Museum wasn’t one of the most opulent, but it was far from the worst. Certainly not hinky. Some were little more than cabins or pop-up shops with a few bits of rock and the occasional sculpture. This was a proper museum, like a smaller take on the Smithsonian. Olde World–style architecture opened into a wide, breezy reception where Toby informed a woman at the desk that they were here to see Amir Fong.
She made a call.
They waited.
Behind the reception desk, the first airy presentation area spread before them, an effigy of Genghis Khan on horseback to greet them, his bow and arrow aimed to the heavens. A skylight bathed the scene in natural light. He was still revered even more than the way Americans remembered Washington and Lincoln; the British, Churchill; and South Africans, Mandela. Genghis had endured for centuries since the fall of the Roman Empire. This man’s influence was in everything here. No wonder he featured in the Natural History Museum and his own dedicated monuments; his legacy shaped this country and bestowed a sense of identity.
The sprinkling of tourists were foreign to the region. Chinese mainly. There was a handful of Caucasians, likely British or German, farther inside.
“Mr. Smith!” A Mongol man in an open-neck shirt and pinstripe trousers approached. When Toby accepted a handshake, the man said, “I am Amir Fong. Welcome to our proud museum. So honored to welcome our colleagues from Britain’s Natural History Museum. We are smaller, but yes, we have worked hard with others from your country. You know Arthur Jenkins? He said I should give you all the time.”
Toby introduced Bridget as Dr. Carson and Jules as Mr. Sibeko, and Amir gave Jules a somewhat startled look that morphed into a forced smile. Amir led the way with Toby up front.
Following, Bridget asked Jules, “What’s his problem?”
“Black folks ain’t exactly common ’round these parts,” Jules said. “Fong don’t look like he hates me, but a lotta attitudes in the region ain’t exactly progressive. Like the States in the sixties and seventies. It’s worse in Korea, but—”
“Keep up, keep up,” Toby urged them. When they did, it seemed Toby had suddenly learned to be brief in his chats. “I’ve explained to Dr. Fong what we are interested in and he—”
“Dr. Fong? Who is this?” Amir said, opening his arms. “Please. Amir. We are all friends, no?”
“Indeed.” Toby tilted his head as if about to doff a hat. “Amir thinks he may know what we are seeking to borrow.”
“Borrow?” Jules said.
Bridget squeezed his arm, firing Amir a big smile. As they turned, she whispered, “We ask for a loan first. Test the water. Then maybe we buy it. The less conflict the better.”
Rooms branched off this initial approach, some with art, others with ancient tools, some simply with information about the Mongols under Genghis.
“Hey,” Jules said. “Nice place you got here.”
“Thank you,” Amir said.
“What’s that?” He pointed to a five-foot sculpture of a warrior bearing a shield and spear.
“One of our lesser pieces, but interesting. From the sixteenth century, it is carved from flint. Not much flint is found here, and it is a very hard stone. It would take someone of great skill to produce this.”
They proceeded through the grand halls, each dedicated to a different period in Mongol history. Amir talked them through the reconstructed bones of a saber-toothed cat, a rhinoceros, and finally a woolly mammoth, indicating that his countrymen were working with the Russians on gene splicing in an attempt to re-create this creature with a helping hand from the African elephant.
“Resurrecting extinct creatures,” Toby said. “It’s something we’d all like to see, I’m sure.”
They entered the human history section, a smaller space with lower ceilings. Glass cases displayed models of men that had been found in mummified conditions amid the dry expanse of the steppes. Structures discovered beneath the sands followed, demonstrating that people here enacted burial ceremonies three thousand years before Thomas departed Jerusalem.
“We found many, many items under Gandan monastery,” Amir espoused. “Beautiful jewelry and vases predating the Ming dynasty. Not as well-crafted but functional. This, for example.” Behind another glass pane, recessed into the wall, a two-foot tulip-shaped vase rotated slowly on a plinth like a potter’s wheel, a linear pictorial story playing out in a brown spiral over its cream surface, boats swamped by giant waves as people herded animals and carts onto larger ships. “We have other items from the same era. A painting on a slate tablet shows a king facing the waters, but it is too faint to see under normal light.”
“Every civilization has its flood myths,” Toby said.
“Like Noah,” Jules added, preempting another story. “Atlantis, Ozymandias, yeah, every place that gets flooded thinks the whole world’s underwater.”
“And this,” Amir said, halting at a window into another recess, “is the item you asked me about. The Ruby Rock bangle.”
Perhaps it was his poor personal health over the past day or so—erratic eating, little water, cramped quarters—but Jules didn’t take in what the man said right away. It was a dreamlike moment, something he was certain happened but evaporated in a mist of words. It wasn’t until he noticed Toby and Bridget transfixed by the display that he snapped out of it. “Are you serious? It’s just on display? Here?”
Amir nodded several times, pointing. “Yes, yes. What else would we do with it?”
Jules stood behind Toby and Bridget. “Ain’t in a vault or safe or... ?”
The shelf built into the wall laid out an eclectic mix of wearable items: buttons, bronze bracelets, a jeweled brooch. Each bore a small plaque stating its origin and provenance, labeled in Mongolian and English.
The C-shaped stone bangle lay on its side, its plaque declaring it an early example of Mongol ingenuity, chipped and dull but plainly crafted by the hands of man. It was smaller than Jules’s item, but not by much, and held a deep-reddish color rather than his mother’s green one. As he swayed side to side, light caught the flecks, giving the impression that it sparkled. Again, dark-red rather than green.
“How come it’s just out in the open like this?” Bridget asked.
Amir drew a crafty smile from his lips, reflected in the spark of interest in his eyes. “You know it is different, don’t you? This is why you want it.”
Toby faced him. “We would very much like to borrow this. For further examination. Any discoveries we make, we will share credit with you, fifty-fifty.”
Amir shook his head.
Jules paced slowly.
This was their usual approach, it seemed. Ask for loan, get turned down, start bribing, then offer to buy it for a ridiculous sum. Half a million dollars was a lot to a museum such as this.
On the off chance they didn’t succeed, Jules noted the windows high up by the ceiling were large enough to crawl through, and on the way through the other rooms, he’d spotted several motion sensors. Sure enough, this room possessed them too. The cabinets and glass panes appeared to be double thick, each with a fixed contact pad on one corner. The display with the Mary bangle was protected by four contact pads, one on every corner.
With just a single contact, a laser cutter allowed a thief to open a hole at the opposite end without the sensors picking up vibrations. Assuming he could access the building and take the corridor’s motion detectors offline, even the steadiest laser wouldn’t breach the glass without alerting security.
Back to the trio discussing the bangle, Jules heard another refusal. “I am sorry, Mr. Smith, but even for a hundred thousand dollars... What is so important about this? Why must you have it?”
They’d played their hand too soon. Time was ticking by, Valerio on his way.
“He ain’t biting,” Jules said.
Amir glanced at him, mouth closed tight. “Correct. Perhaps we can arrange for some other items�
�”
“Why?”
“Why? Because it is precious and you are insulting us with your money.”
“I’m sorry, Amir,” Toby said. “We do not intend any disrespect, but we have reason to believe this bangle may be connected to a civilization in the Middle East, something that—if we can prove it—will give you even more prestige.”
Once more, Amir shook his head, hands clasped before him. “May I invite you to my office for some tea?”
Jules focused on the bangle, his fingers splayed on the glass.
“Please do not touch that,” Amir said.
“Why is this display alarmed better than the others?” A glance at Amir revealed the curator was taken aback by the question. “You won’t let it go for a hundred grand, probably not the full five hundred we’re willing to go to, right?”
Amir stared at the floor, his hands still clasped. “The item was gifted by the monks under the condition that it must always remain.”
“Oh, that’s it!” Jules spun, a light flaring inside himself. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You’ve seen what it can do.”
Toby stepped back, wetting his lips. Bridget’s eyes flicked between the men. Amir swallowed.
It was a moment of calm, where tension flowed out of Jules, and he sensed the same in the group, where all subterfuge suddenly ebbed away.
“Fine, follow me,” Amir said.
Bridget rarely gloated. She thought it unbecoming of a lady, especially one raised with southern manners and a conscience that dictated respect for others’ feelings. However, being right about Jules was something she wouldn’t easily let drop. He wasn’t simply a free-running, arrogant, self-obsessed weirdo; he really was able to relate to people. He had read Amir and bonded with him through honesty and openness, unlike herself and Toby.
Amir led them through a series of halls and corridors, ignoring the displays now. “We restored Gandan monastery in 1990, but the work started in 1987, checking foundations, make sure we do not destroy anything important or desecrate ground. I was part of the first team.”
Amir unlocked a door marked in both Mongolian and English with “Staff Only Please.” Bridget followed him through, Toby and Jules at the rear.
“A monk presented us many items, but this batch of treasure, it was recovered from a section the head priest swore they did not know existed. It was only because our team checked the old foundations. But this one item, the bangle you want to take, it was glowing.” His speech patterns had sped up, which he must have sensed as he now slowed again. “Only one monk could make it light up, though. A young man, recently accepted into the order. When anyone else holds it, nothing. Just a rock.”
Bridget searched for anything in Jules’s expression, but nothing changed.
“Something in the oils?” Toby suggested. “The hands secrete differently depending on the circumstances.”
Amir took them down a tiled corridor, voices echoing. “We could never replicate it. Only that one boy. We even cut a tiny slice away with a laser to test. We aged the bangle to between 50,000 and 30,000 BCE.”
“No,” Jules said. “You mean 5000 and 3000 BC. You added a zero. And an E.”
“No,” the curator answered firmly. “I did not add a zero.”
“Or an E,” Toby said. “‘BCE’ is the non-Christian abbreviation. ‘Before Common Era.’ Not ‘Before Christ.’”
Bridget calculated the math in her head. “The oldest jewelry like this is seven thousand years old... 5000 BC Mesopotamia.”
“What’s the big deal?” Jules asked. “The rock alone is real old. Don’t mean the actual jewelry is the same age, does it?”
“Actually, no,” Amir said. “The jewels you see inside the stone, the minerals it is made of... all the same age. A compound. Man-made. Not occurs in nature. Wide margin of error because we could not fund more research, but much older than it should be.”
“Impossible,” Toby said. “These cod-scientific theories have been debunked multiple times.”
“What theories?” Jules asked.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Will it take long? Cause, we’re on a clock, but we don’t know exactly what time we need to be outa here, if you get my drift.”
“Okay, the abbreviated version is the CliffsNotes history of humankind. Like Bridget said, the first civilization as we know it—towns, social structure, jewelry, trade—emerges from the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 4000 BC, or 6000 YA.”
“‘YA’ meaning ‘years ago,’” Bridget explained. “We use that instead of BC and BCE for really deep in the past.”
“Thank you, yes, 6000 years ago. At 10,000 YA, agriculture develops. At 12,000 YA, European and African man makes it to what we call the Americas. At 30,000 or maybe 35,000 is cave art. At 70,000 YA was the Toba catastrophe—”
“I read about Toba,” Jules said. “Everyone nearly wiped out by a supervolcano.”
“We think the population dwindled to as few as ten thousand human beings. Early humans, not as we see ourselves now. And the only way they could have survived is to evolve, either through interbreeding or working things out where necessary. For hundreds of years. Thousands, actually. By 50,000 YA, we suddenly start making clothes from animal hide, burying the dead with ritual, and hunting with weapons designed specifically for that purpose.”
“It’s a period of time called ‘the Great Leap Forward,’” Bridget added.
“The fastest increase in brain size, breeding, and societal advancement ever seen in a creature,” Toby said. “In evolutionary terms, it’s the equivalent of someone physically transplanting the brains of monkeys with the brains of slightly dim modern humans. The crackpot theory is that there were highly advanced civilizations pre-Toba. With electricity, massive ships, sprawling cities, but Toba forced them to breed with the dumb ape descendants in order to survive. Nonsense.”
“But Toby,” Bridget said, “we’ve found things older than six thousand years.”
“Not this complex. Tools that suggest an older sophistication, in isolation, microliths, weapons, not... jewelry.”
“Whatever the conventional history,” the curator said, “it is the result that came back to us. I offer no theory on Atlantean or Annunaki or whatever conspiracies are fashionable on YouTube. All we know is this item is very old and possesses properties only one man so far has been able to activate.”
“Yet it’s on display,” Toby said.
“To hide it would draw attention. More tests. The government will come, ask questions. Soon, they find out about the monk who made it glow.”
“Who is he?” Jules asked. “Can we meet him?”
“Sadly not.” Amir halted at a thick steel door with a keypad, out of place in this old building. “He died four years ago. Cancer. Very sad.” Amir took a moment, then clunked the handle down and opened the door. “But he has family—brother, sister, nephews, nieces. We will not expose family.”
A back room greeted them, plain, narrow, seemingly a stud partition, with only a cart on wheels equipped with precision tools and white cotton gloves. Amir produced a key ring with three small keys, disarmed the security via a fingerprint, and unlocked a thick panel in the wall.
He donned a pair of gloves. “Which one of you is the special one?”
Toby turned away from Jules. Bridget cast a quick glance his way.
Jules said, “I don’t know about special, but I made a rock do hinky stuff before.”
Amir peered out through the display case before reaching in and lifting the stone artifact. He held it at chest height. “Tell me, if I release this to you, what will you do with it?”
“Make it safe,” Bridget replied. “Make sure the wrong people don’t get ahold of it.”
To Jules, Amir said, “Show me.”
Jules reached out. Fingers extended. An inch away, a static charge shot out into his palm, and he snatched his hand back. “Ow.”
“I feel it.” Amir beamed, eyes wide. “It trembles.”
<
br /> Jules made contact again, the red sparks flashing between rock and skin, a more active reaction than the Aradia bangle, which had simply lit up. Jules pressed on, grasped the item, and it calmed, the deep-red flecks emanating a muted glow. In daylight he would struggle to see it.
Everyone concentrated on the sight before them. The vibration was obvious and grew more intense the more Jules wrapped his hand around it. He ran his finger along the inside, smooth like his mom’s, and the vibration eased. That inner section showed no flecks.
“It’s the metallic flakes that react to my touch,” Jules said.
“Not only your touch. When the boy monk tested it with us, we found it reacts badly to liquids. Mostly water. But especially to salted water. The less pure, the more the bangle repels it.” Amir delicately moved it away from Jules. “You see how special this is.”
“We are willing to compensate you,” Toby said. “Our euros convert to a half a million US dollars.”
“This item holds more value than simple cost. I am sorry, Mr. Smith, Dr. Carson, Mr... I am sorry, I do not think I got your name.”
“Sibeko.” Jules watched the bangle as Amir replaced it in the cabinet, locked the door, and rearmed it.
Jules was already mapping out his plan to return later. He knew his access point, and he knew how to get into this room. The panel would require either a lot of technical work or a directional charge and a clear escape route that would lend more to speed than stealth.
One way or another, Jules was getting that bangle.
But right now, Toby played the diplomat. Shaking hands, rueful smiles, outwardly friendly. No one spoke as Amir escorted them out of the room and into the back corridor. In the main hall, they passed the display cabinet, slowing to observe it a short while longer before moving on to the woolly mammoth section.
