Diggs gestured to a yarn of web between the pillar above Andrew and the roof.
"Oh, yeah, spiders. But bigger things, like rats or—"
"There's nothing to eat here, I guess," replied the taciturn man.
Anabia nodded. "I guess you could say that."
There was a foot of space between the edge of the opening in the floor and the ball. Since it was dark, no one had considered what material the ball was made of. Andrew braced himself and sprang forward, landing with one foot and balancing with the other.
Tami Capaldi shot her eyes and cringed against Anabia. Olivia held her breath. Her fists throbbed from the strain of watching Andrew endanger himself.
Andrew balanced on the ball. He went down in a crouch. His knees bumped and creaked, his eyes on the ball. He rubbed his palm on the surface of the ball.
"I think this thing is metal. Unbelievable."
He stayed that way for a moment and waited. Nothing happened. Olivia said, "Rodriguez?"
Andrew looked back at the old man. "Help me out here, Pops. What am I supposed to do?"
Rodriguez's hands flailed around. He blubbered.
"Maybe move it with the weight of your body," Anabia called.
Amid the noise and all the lights streaking across the court, there was the ball making its own humming. Andrew raised his hand. "Something is happening, guys!"
The ball started sinking. Down it went into the darkness and out of sight to be replaced with the yawning darkness before them.
Olivia seized Rodriguez's hand.
"What now!?"
"We follow the ball," the old man shouted back.
"Where? We don't know where?"
Roddy looked up at the replica of the court on the roof. He pointed at it frantically.
"The ball will open a portal, I think. We have to go to the snake place—"
"Shit, where exactly is the portal!"
But Olivia was dashing off in the direction of the snake place. At this intersection, Detective José Hanna had gone earlier. She stumbled twice as she went down the steps without her torch. Reno was in hot pursuit with a flashlight trying to light up the way for them both.
Running feet behind her reminded her of childhood hide-and-seek in an old house in Connecticut. Children running from the bogeyman's claws who was supposedly coming behind the children. They must hurry into a hiding place before the seeker's hairy hands, his sharp claws tearing through the dark, find their back. The only thing was, for little Olivia Newton, scrawny kid with the blonde ponytail, the knees that almost knocked when she stamped along the floorboards of the old house. The bogeyman wasn't just coming from behind her. He was seeping through the woodwork and filling up her whole world. Just the same way that this place filled her nose with disgust, corruption, and fear. And now it had taken his only family down under it, and she had no idea where he'd come out.
The team had only stopped at the inscriptions of a snake on the wall at that intersection. A new fear gripped Olivia's soul as she bounded down steps after steps that curved and broke after every flight of twenty steps. Down and down into the dark, she went. Cold air continued to fill her lungs until, at the last moment, her feet plunged into ice-cold water.
Olivia screamed in terror.
The others joined her. In the brightness of many torchlights, she saw not the bogeyman, but the black river that filled the earth.
Her heart sunk.
"What is this place?" she asked shakily.
Rodriguez was beside her, bright-eyed and even more terrified of the element before them than Olivia.
"I don't know, but I know this is not here. No, this is not here."
—
Agent Seth Kowalski finally found his way out of the maze, after hours of mad tramping. How he did it, he would never know. If he lived after this, he would stack this night in his archive of life experiences that he would always remember.
These nights never goes according to plan, his mind kept echoing. Words whose origin remained as hazy as his future after the Inca temple and her gold.
He must look terrible, he reasoned, as he dragged himself up on the hot grass outside the hole. He lay there for some time, eyes closed, the face of the harsh sun against his. The bastard Coleman made it seem like you could just come down here, dip your hand through this hole, and come up with a handful of kilos of raw, ancient gold. Stupid professors with the expectations of high school kids.
He opened his eyes and took on the blue sky, the puffs of white clouds, no birds. He struggled on his elbow and squinted at the hills, very green and quietly alive.
"No animals, not topside nor down below…" he murmured. "Fucking shithole."
He rubbed his finger through his hair. Sand sprinkled down his face. Some stayed on his lips. He spat them and sent smelly saliva flying into the beautiful grass.
He took his cellphone from his pocket and dialed his favorite number since the week began.
"I need one more contingent, one more, yeah," he said.
He listened to the crackling voice of his superior. He closed his eyes and listened with his head, not his ears.
"Listen, when they come out of here, I'm gonna be out here waiting for them, but I need men."
The voice asked what became of the previous ones.
"Let's just say they were expended in the process of delivering the job, okay? Just get me a few good men."
He clicked off. And went to lay down again.
He was hungry. Extremely exhausted. But I'll live, he preached to himself and smiled at himself homily.
—
Inconversable terror gave way to speechless wonder in a place that was out of this world than dreamlike for Andrew Gilmore. He was standing on the ball of steel the size of a small car, yet the ball slid on space, water, another metal surface, he was not sure.
He was not on Earth anymore, he was sure. This place was a hidden dimension under the earth. Here he was surrounded by the celestial heavens. It was a pitch-black night. All the stars and faraway galaxies he had only seen in glossy science books.
Yet, this was Earth. It had to be because he could breathe; he could feel the fresh air caress his face, rustle his hair, and dry up his eyeballs. But where was this place on Earth?
And how did the ball move without turning on its body and throwing him off the uncertain darkness below? He dared even to look over the side. He was content with the joy of being alive. He realized too that he was not struggling to balance himself on the ball as it moved.
Here, the laws of gravity balanced off, entirely.
Then movement abruptly slowed but his own weight, and the relative force all around, that weird balance, kept him standing. He felt a sudden exuberance in his spirit. The ball stopped moving. He felt it elevate, or maybe the surrounding recede and fall below, he wasn't sure which.
A doorway was opening up ahead; he felt it rather than saw it because it was dark. The stars were gone; it was real Earth again.
The ball stopped moving. He waited. Meanwhile, new sounds like metals grinding against each other turned the dark into a factory yard. He was still enveloped in gloom. Underneath the hardware resonance around him, Andrew heard Olivia's voice, and a smile crossed his face.
He was alive. He heard the others, too, calling his name; Olivia was asking if he could hear her. He cupped his palm around his mouth.
"I can hear you!" he cried. "I'm here!"
The metallic sounds became worse, and he felt warm air around him. It must be an engine room. The Incas had made engines?
A glimmer of light oscillated to his left. Then it moved up to the top of his position. He frowned. It was like looking through glass. Only it was too dark to know if it was a reflection. Then he heard running feet, rushing water, and more hardware.
He heard a popping sound. Something breezed past his face. Then another behind him. The ball stopped.
Andrew reached out, but his hands grabbed black air. He inhaled, then he stepped forward. More steel bal
l, less steel ball, and then concrete. He was off the ball. He took more steps forward. His feet caught land, earth, concrete. It was a staircase; it smelled of decadence, dryness, and dust. The dust especially filled his nose. He stumbled on carefully with his hands outstretched, then he started crawling forward, for he sensed deep gorges on both sides of the stairs.
The floor leveled, and he saw lights ahead. And people.
"Olivia!" he called.
"Andrew! Where are you? We can't see you!"
He waved, "I'm here! Right in front of you!"
"In front of—"
Olivia must have homed in on his voice. The glare of several torches sought and found his figure. He waved.
Olivia's face glistened with tears, even from where he was, he could tell the woman had shed some tears for him.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
"No, I'm alright."
"Hey Andrew, we thought we'd never see you again, man."
He wasn't sure, but he thought that was Liam Murphy's impulsive voice.
"I can't come any further. There's a chasm here—"
"Yes, we see it," said Olivia.
The torches left his face and scattered over the space in the middle. He was struck with wonder. All of this under the ground?
Yet it was a narrow chasm. The depth was unknown, and there lay the danger. Andrew couldn't jump across it. He remembered his torch. What have I been doing? he chided himself.
Sending the light of the torch around the area, he made two discoveries: there were ledges of different levels across the chasm, some higher than the others.
Two, where he stood, was a long ledge. There was a shadow on the wall to the left, which may be an entrance. Good.
He called out the information to the team. Olivia and Miller said they now saw the ledges too. Rodriguez said he doesn't know if they did hold or not.
"Have you seen any sign of the detective?" Andrew called.
Olivia yelled, "No!"
"Alright, uh, I'm going to try to come over—"
"No, Andrew, we think you are on the right side. The treasure is that way."
Oh, that's reasonable. He nodded. Out loud, he called, "Okay, I'm going over there to see if there's a door."
"Okay."
The second after Andrew started walking off, the place came alive. That metal sound boomed and whined. Fire holders shot out of holes in the walls all over the place. Flames burst out of the tips and illuminated a large hall. The ledges moved on their own and bridged the chasm. Olivia and the rest of the team were able to walk over to join Andrew.
The walls were either plated with gold or painted so. There were huge drawings and inscriptions too.
Rodriguez was able to read a fraction of the writings.
"It says, Temple of the Earth God ActlCal, Protector of Women. Gerentes worshiped here, they worshiped the earth and—"
He stopped. A bashful look came into his eyes, and he smiled at Tami.
Tami was also looking at the inscriptions. She could read some of them too.
"They worshiped the bodies of the women they had sex with," Tami completed the old man's thought.
Liam said, "Their bodies? Hm, well, I worshiped my wife's body before we married. But she's mostly boobs and her face. Everything else's turned doughy."
"These women never changed. They were given special portions to make them stay fresh all the time of their service here," Tami elaborated.
Olivia hurried past them after Andrew.
Andrew had gone in the shadow of the entrance at the end of the corridor. More lights had come on along the way, and the whole place lit up beautifully.
When Olivia found him, he was standing before a steel vault.
He gave Olivia a solemn stare.
"This is it; I feel it."
"Yes."
The smell of death, the stench of it was strong here. But there was no sign of detective José Hanna until they heard someone cough further down the corridor. A metallic sound and José popped out on the floor from the wall there. He was holding his and neck and choking. He rolled on the floor and sucked a deep breath; he sat up and looked at Olivia and Andrew standing there.
"I think your presence there is why I'm still alive," he wheezed.
He picked himself up and staggered over.
"This place is something, huh? It keeps changing. It is this one minute and another the next minute. You guys notice that?"
Andrew shook his head. So did Olivia.
"Well, one time, I walked in here, and then I wanted to call you guys, and then the whole place is different, making all those noises. I thought I was in outer space. I saw—" He shivered.
"Well, never mind."
Andrew stared at him with a knowing little smile. The man nodded. There was a hammer on the floor. Andrew picked it up, "Coleman's, perhaps?"
"Yeah."
The rest of the team came in. There was an argument with old Roddy. Reno took the rear, and the fright on his face was what made Olivia conclude they were really at the right spot.
Reno hung away alone. He did not cover his nose like the others were doing.
"Can we get this over with? I'm gonna puke my breakfast," Liam complained.
Anabia asked if he'd had something to eat since they arrived.
Diggs and Miller found the blocks in the wall. These were different because they had symbols on them.
"We should try it," said Diggs, "like the other ones. Should work."
Miller agreed.
They pushed in unison. A popping sound and something in the door snapped, or it may have given way. The vault moved and opened on creaking hinges. There was a small sound like a gas explosion and fire holders fed by a supply of gas lighted inside the vault behind the door.
Tami balked and stepped back from the hot smell of putrefaction. Only the boy Reno walked into the vault while the others dealt with their gut movements.
Olivia saw an expression on the boy's face that she didn't understand. It looked like elation. That mark on his face gleamed with capillaries in the light. At that moment, he looked much older and something else.
Reno looked at her and said with a broad grin, "Look at all this gold. So much gold!"
The team was recovering from the stench and coming over. Given the things on the floor that Reno had walked past.
There were two bodies on the floor. One was clearly Coleman, and the other must be Uzo, Olivia thought.
The bones now showed through the melting flesh. What remained of the two people was the smell and sticky, greenish soup in the soiled clothes.
White-faced, Detective José crouched by the bodies and stared.
"Your case is closed," said Tami.
He looked up at her. "And dinner at Dolo's stand is open."
The woman smiled.
Miller said, "Guys, let's get these things and get out of here."
"Wait!"
They turned to Olivia. She was standing at the spot where a gold bar was missing. She was looking inside the concrete shelf there.
He pointed at the bodies on the floor. "They didn't kill themselves. This place killed them. They died here. Right, Reno?"
"I don't know. The vault was locked."
"That's the point. You didn't see because the vault killed the duo and locked itself up again. Look at the floor right there, all around. Those pockets of holes, like the trap out in the maze. See, they are on the roof too. I see one on the shelf here. That's how Coleman and the boy died."
Andrew said, "Olivia is right. We will all die here if we just up and grab the gold off the shelf."
"So what, are just gonna leave without the gold?" Liam asked.
"There's got to be some way," murmured Diggs.
Olivia asked if anyone knew what could be done.
"Rodriguez?"
The old man shook his head.
"The espantago," Reno whispered.
Andrew looked at him sharply. "The demon?"
"Yes. Uzo said so. He sai
d the demon can see when you take gold."
Anabia laughed. All eyes riveted on his face, scared eyes. He apologized.
"I don't want to sound insensitive or anything, but everything that's happening right here in this temple is ingenious science at work. Science, that's what it is. Simple. Everything is connected, in the wall, the floors, the roof. Triggers were everywhere. Triggers that were set off by human impulses. I believe we will take everything out if we do it the way a, what're they called, the Gerentes. Yeah, the way the Gerentes do it."
The doctor got their attention now.
"What are you suggesting?" Olivia asked.
"How do the Gerentes come in here and take the gold back to the owners?"
Blank faces stared at the doctor. Olivia said no one alive could say for sure.
"Why did Andrew go through all that weird experience riding that ball around then? Or how did the detective here pop out of the wall, or how did he get there? I don't know, but I suspect that if a Gerente came in here, he'd just be like any of us. Or they'd end up like—"
He waved his hand at the dead bodies on the floor.
"Except."
Anabia Nassif went to the door of the vault and pushed it shut. The mechanism in the steel clanged. The rest of the team reacted fast.
"Are you crazy!?" Liam screamed.
Olivia and the rest bolted for the steel door. But there was no handle, they discovered. There was that block in the wall beside the door, though. But in their rush, they missed it. Anabia simply pushed it, and the door popped open again.
Tami giggled with tears in her eyes. The rest joined her.
"Do we have the stuff to take all this in?" Anabia asked.
Diggs opened his tool bag and removed a sack. He dropped it on the floor.
"This should take enough for us all."
Olivia stared at the shelves, arms akimbo. There was no way they could take it all. The treasure in the temple would fill up a truck.
"Each one should take how much he or she can," she announced. "I'm taking five bars."
Each one started helping him or herself to the collection. Some were not bars, melted and shaped into animal effigies. Reno picked up two bars and stood off the shelf. Diggs filled his leather sack halfway. "An extra for the team," he said.
The Inca Temple Page 19
