Martha leaves the room to inform the team of the plan and James takes his turn watching the dig site, so I go to an empty bedroom. I wish I could sleep, but I have a task that can’t be put off any longer. I look at the small data device which holds Jocie’s final message to me and sigh. For all of her faults, Jocie had become special to me, and in her last days I got to see just how beautiful she was on the inside. Watching her message will feel too much like saying the final goodbye I never got to say before she died. I don’t want to do it.
I place an unregistered com in my ear, and instruct it to interface with the screen in the room and display the video file from the device. It prompts me for a password; so I say aloud:
“The boy in the armor, he is my core.
Without Him I wouldn’t be me anymore.”
The password is accepted and Jocie’s face appears on the screen.
“Hello, Professor.”
Jocie smiles and I reflexively smile back at her.
“Tomorrow we go back in time and since you’re watching this, I’m thinking it didn’t go so well. Let’s see: I think the story I like is that my beauty drove the locals mad with lust and they dragged me away. You and Thomas, of course, fought valiantly and when it was obvious you would win me back, the local king killed me rather than letting another man have me. I could have played that scene perfectly.”
Trust Jocie to desire a dramatic death. I’m sure the way she actually died would be a major disappointment to her.
“But since you’re watching this, you made it back and I’m dead. I’m using this message to tell you all the things I should have told you before I died. I need to say that the last few months have been the best of my life, thanks to you. Henry gave me access to the Bible so I could study for the mission and even though I don’t understand all of it, I understand enough. I’m leaving on this mission not just to represent the Christians; I’m going as a Christian, even if it’s just a little spark of one. I’d rather have a little spark of Christian than a raging fire of atheist.”
Your time with her was not wasted after all, Cephas.
“I’ve come to realize that I never had any real friends in the world, other than you; so I’m leaving you all the money. I trust you more than anyone to do the right things with it.”
“Doing the right things brings me to the topic of doing the wrong things. I’ve done a lot of wrong things, Cephas. I’m ready to repent, but tonight I hope I did the wrong thing one last time for the right reasons. Henry came to my room to see me off. He saw Thomas first, and then you, and he was super drunk when he got to me. I gave him even more to drink, and I slowly got naked and got him to talk and talk. Never mind the details.”
Thank you, Jocie. I’d rather not have that image in my head.
“Did you know his family manipulated the Jews and Muslims to start the Final Holy War? They’d hoped to have it all blamed on the Christians, but it didn’t work out that way. It was Henry’s grandfather who proposed the genetic studies to make a selective toxin to kill Arabs and give it to the Israeli military. They even knew it would kill Jews and Arabs alike, and never told the Israelis.”
I knew it, but how to prove it?
“The Corps is working on a new genetic toxin, Cephas. All samples and knowledge of the original toxin were destroyed a century ago by international agreement, but somehow Henry found it again. Henry knows that lots of young Christians are living off the grid. If the Travelers Initiative fails to get the result he wants, Henry’s next plan is to release his new toxin and kill the Christian children.
One hundred and fifty years ago, they made a toxin that would attack people with a certain gene. Genetic therapy has come a long way since then; so this time he has a toxin that will kill anyone who doesn’t have a specific gene. The toxin will look like some new disease, which will force everyone to be vaccinated; but in reality the vaccine is a genetic therapy that gives you a gene that neutralizes the new toxin. Young Christians living off the grid will have no way to get the vaccine without exposing themselves. Then when they die, it’ll just look like part of a horrible natural disaster.”
He’ll wipe out millions. It’s a Christian genocide.
“I hope I can be forgiven for everything I’ve done; but, again, I hope - just this once - I did the wrong thing for the right reasons. All that remains to say is I love you, Cephas, and on some level I think you love me too. I guess I’ll see you on the other side.”
I can’t help it. Tears start rolling down my face and I sob a little.
She blows a kiss to the camera. The screen goes black - then springs back to life.
“There was one other thing. It may be nothing. Henry was drunk and goofy, and not making much sense. Every time I’d try to ask him more about the vaccine, he would start laughing about ‘the tail’ like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard. He wouldn’t say anything more about it; he’d just say ‘the tail’ and burst out laughing over and over.”
The message cuts out again and this time stays dark. I hear a rustling sound behind me and turn to see that Martha had entered the room at some point, without being noticed. I make no secret of drying my eyes.
“How long have you been standing there?” I ask.
“Long enough to feel like a fool for being jealous of her. Long enough to think that if you can reach someone like her with the message of Christ, there’s hope for everyone. Long enough to be scared.”
“The message is unlocked. Send an encrypted copy to the Zip, Aislin and Garai. You should also assign people at Bethany House to scour all the public medical databases as information becomes available, and another to study how to make vaccine for ourselves.”
Instead of setting herself to the task, she closes and locks the door.
“Is everything alright?” I ask.
“No, it’s not. I don’t trust Garai about much, but he was right about one thing. You know more than you’re telling everyone, including me. And don’t give me the excuse that it’s just hunches, because James told me you think this mission is going to go wrong.”
I don’t reply.
“You don’t have hunches, Cephas. You see things we can’t see and you put the pieces together. You see the hits before the punch is thrown. You know what you’re walking into, and you’re going to just stand there and take the hit again.”
“I’ve pieced together some things about what we’ll find under the Sphinx tonight, but no man knows what the future will bring.”
Unless, of course, he’s already traveled to the past once to collect those pieces.
She stares at me until her eyes begin to water up.
Martha’s chin hits her chest and she begins to sniffle.
“I hate this,” she says. “I hate that we’re not free to live our lives as we choose. I hate secret missions and being team leader. I just want it all to end. Every day I review private videos that Four intercepts before they get suppressed or edited. For weeks now, the message from all over the world has been the same: ‘We love you, Cephas.’ I thought my role was to train you and to protect you, but every time I see those videos, I ask myself the same selfish question:. What about me? When do I get to love him?”
I walk to her and stand so close that our noses are almost touching.
“Right now. Your turn is right now. For this moment, there’s no Four and no Elders. Forget about assassins, secret missions and holy wars. For this moment, I’m yours - and yours alone. Say what you think and how you feel, and I’ll do the same.”
She hugs me tightly. I understand how she feels. I want the world to shrink down until all that’s left is the two of us, holding each other forever.
“Okay. Here goes. I need you to know I’m not acting the part of your student anymore and the real me isn’t that perfect. Sometimes I get jealous, like I did over Jocie and Amelia. Sometimes I get mad when you’re not perfect either. Mostly, I get scared about being in love because there are so many people who want to kill you, and you’ll die if you think it’s the right thing to do. I’m all those imperfect things, but this is the real me and I love you. I just hope you can learn to love the imperfect me as much as you did the actress.”
I resist the urge to kiss her and continue holding her.
“Your turn,” she says.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world. I got to fall in love with you twice. You’re afraid that the actress will continue to overshadow the woman I’ve come to love. I’ll admit you were a master at hiding your identity when you were my student; but I need you to know that through the deception, it was still your soul that was shining through to me. It was always you, and I love you more now than ever before.”
She squeezes me tighter, like she’s trying to hold onto the moment with her arms.
Geoff knocks on the door to discuss the plan.
“My moment is over, isn’t it?” she says. “I’m the team leader again, and the world is just as it was before.”
My world will never be like it was before sharing that moment.
“Feel like blowing up a time machine, team leader?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
****
In 2025, the “Princess Chamber” was opened to the public through a narrow staircase about fifty meters in front of the Sphinx’s right paw. When the new passageway was unearthed in 2032, a new, wider stairway was placed right between the Sphinx’s paws. For a couple of dollars, tourists loved having their pictures taken right there, between the paws, as if they had just emerged from some dangerous archeological expedition. The truth is the chambers were all rather boring; only their location in the shadow of the Sphinx made them a tourist attraction. Just four years later the Final Holy War erupted, and for many decades afterwards, nobody came at all.
At a few minutes after two o’clock am, our group converges between the paws of the Sphinx and steals its way down fifteen meters of stairs carved into the sandstone. We’re amazed to find no security cameras - just an iron-gate and padlock that both look like they’ve been standing guard here since the stairs were carved in 2032.
“I have some ancient technology to match the ancient lock,” Alfred says.
He takes a small foil package out of his pack and applies some sort of loose putty to the lock.
“Everyone look away. This will be bright for a few seconds.”
Alfred touches the putty with a thermal igniter. Even turned away, I have to close my eyes to preserve any night vision. There’s a hissing and popping sound that lasts for only a moment, followed by a loud clang as the ancient lock hits the bottom of the gate. When we all look back, we see the burning paste melted through the top of the padlock, ending its guard duties permanently. Alfred swings the gate open, with a creak.
We all pass through and close the gate behind us, and start to descend using just one faint red light each to keep ourselves from stumbling in the darkness. We look like five demented lightning bugs swaying back and forth down the stairs. After another ten meters of carved stairs, we’re deposited into an ancient hallway, carved long before Christ walked the earth. Now we dare to turn on brighter lights. The hallway is very plain and narrow, being just wide enough to pass single file, and then only by turning our shoulders sideways.
“Geoff and James, the Princess Chamber should be that way,” I say, pointing to the left. “Take a quick look; then meet us in the chambers down here.”
With Alfred leading the way, the rest of us head down to the small chambers that were unearthed later on.
“So you think there are more chambers down here that the public doesn’t know about?” Alfred asks.
“That’s my theory.”
We reach the end of the hall and enter the first of two small chambers.
“When they unearthed these two chambers, they were filled with the usual burial items, but there was no mummy. The hieroglyphics say she drowned in the Nile; so everyone concluded her body was lost. But I think these are just the initial chambers to a larger crypt.”
The small chambers have some modern reproductions of ancient artifacts to give the tourists something to look at, and bright modern frescos painted on the walls that mimic ancient drawings. There’s even a small metal plaque bolted to the wall commemorating the filming of some modern horror movie involving mummies, and its equally forgotten sequel.
Jocie would have loved that we’re on an old movie set.
“What are we looking for?” Martha asks.
“I don’t know. Any sort of handle or pressure plate that could open a hidden door.”
“This area is an old tourist trap and movie set. How could something like that have gone unnoticed?”
“Actually, I think it was overlooked because they made it into a tourist trap. In the 2020’s and early 2030’s, the Egyptian economy was in a shambles. They were doing anything they could to bring tourists and make money. They protected the major antiquities, but minor sites like this were sold to the highest bidder.”
The ceiling in the second chamber is only about two and a half meters high, so I can reach the top of the wall. I feel and tap my way along the wall, hoping to hear a hollow space or find a misplaced crack. When I reach the spot on the wall opposite the entryway, my hands find a rough spot where the wall isn’t perfectly smoothed.
Why are the walls so smooth? It’s because this is modern plaster installed for shooting the movie - not the original surface.
The rough spot is near the ceiling. The guy who plastered the room knew nobody would ever notice if he got lazy near the top. The original sandstone is almost visible through the thin plaster and I can feel some ancient carvings. The plaster flakes away in chunks, until I can read:
“Oh, no.”
The words escape from my mouth before I can stop myself.
Why, Lord? Why would you ask me to do this?