The Cydonia Objective

And then she was there, in the cockpit, looking backward.

Ah. Phoebe. Orlando. There you are. And who’s that with you?

She snapped out of it just as quickly. “Never mind,” she called over to the agent. “You have your orders. Discontinue the terrorist threat, but keep this area secure. Say that there’s still concern for a bomb or something. And keep everyone out until Mason Calderon gets here.”

With my boys, she thought, suppressing a rising excitement, finding herself tempted to peer into their lives. Now that she knew they were there. Now that she knew what questions to ask.

I’m a mother…

Twins.

She could hardly wait to see how they had turned out.

#

Back under the Sphinx, Nina stood before the obsidian door, the one that had slammed down on the hapless Commander Marcos, crushing him in half. His gruesome body still lay there, his left leg and arm splayed out, half in and half out of the mysterious chamber.

Her men had already removed the other body—that of Robert Gregory. One-time keeper and leader of the Marduk Cult. Commander Marcos had shot him in the head after his failed bid to pass beyond the Obsidian Door. Mason Calderon had suspected it wasn’t Robert who was fated to enter the lost chamber. The prophecy called for one of three brothers to be the one to find the way inside and claim the contents of the iron box—the translation of the great Emerald Tablet, now in a pack over Nina’s shoulder.

She could feel the Tablet’s power, vibrating up her arm, calling out to her and to the keys beyond this door. Keys made from the same material as the Tablet, keys that had been secured by great conquerors in history. Cyrus the Great, then Alexander, then passed on to Genghis Khan who had entombed himself with two of the keys, protecting them from the likes of Robert Gregory and Mason Calderon. Until The Morpheus Initiative members found their way down into that nearly impregnable tomb, bypassed the Khan’s defenses and took the keys.

But now they were trapped behind the door under the Pyramids. Caleb, Alexander and Xavier. Trapped… but not without their own resources. Nina had glimpses of other things beyond this door: a long passageway through the darkness, converging with a shaft under the Great Pyramid. Some kind of path used in an ancient initiation ceremony. And beyond that: further labyrinths, multi-level chambers, grottos, winding staircases leading nowhere, tunnels ending in deadly traps and rooms where one false step would lead to eternal imprisonment behind walls of stone.

She smiled, knowing that the three of them would have their hands full, but given their experience, most recently with Genghis Khan’s elaborate tomb defenses, and earlier, with the diabolical traps under the Pharos Lighthouse, they would survive.

Only two questions remained: Where would they emerge, and could Nina’s agents be ready to capture them?

Being Xavier Montross’s companion and aide for over two years, Nina knew first-hand the man’s resourcefulness, and his uncanny ability to foresee danger to himself—and avoid it. She didn’t relish the task at hand, but at the same time, Mason Calderon had made it clear: capture of Caleb and the others was secondary to the main objective. They had to acquire the tablets of translation. And she was reasonably sure Caleb hadn’t been able to open the iron box, despite the keys.

No, the tablets were still there, in the room beyond the door. Waiting for her and her boys. She would get those tablets. Soon. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to tie up loose ends at the same time.

There was still the little matter of revenge. Despite the revelation that he was the father of her twins, it didn’t change the fact that Caleb had left her to rot. So many years in a coma under the old Stargate facility, where doctors had tended to her and even delivered her babies all while she was unconscious and possibly deliberately drugged to remain in that coma.

Caleb could have found her. Should have. If he hadn’t been swept away by another woman. Lydia Gregory, Robert’s sister. Another Keeper. Another traitor. She had died—good riddance—after Xavier stole the Emerald Tablet and set off Caleb’s defenses under his own lighthouse basement in Sodus Bay. Lydia had been caught in the inferno, incinerated while Xavier escaped.

Nina still felt the smug satisfaction of that retribution, but now… She was a mother. And things were different. Did she still want to kill Caleb? She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling now, realizing the impotency of his own powers. To think, he hadn’t even considered that Nina was alive, much less pregnant with his boys. She almost giggled with the thought of how his mind must be in turmoil. His place in the world upturned. His responsibilities in flux.

Let him stew, she thought.

And then she realized she had time before Calderon got here. Before she could see her own flesh and blood.

Time.

Time to peek in on Caleb. And on her boys. And possibly, if the visions allowed—her new master.

She took a seat, cross-legged on the cold granite floor beside the dead body of Commander Marcos. Prepared her breathing, relaxing herself until feeling a tingling sensation rushing from the base of her spine outward toward her fingers. And then she reached for the dead man’s hand, finding and needing a connection to something, his lingering force. Willing from the dead flesh a host of memories, experiences and more.

There was so much to see.

#

Commander Marcos looks away from the mirror, finished with admiring his chiseled features. Turns to the wizened older man in the shadows. Notes the same rugged confidence, the silvery-gray hair slicked back over a lupine face with deep-set blue eyes.

Mason Calderon rises and steadies himself against a sudden shifting of the floor. They are on the sea, rocking with the waves. Calderon leans on a long cane with a gold handle featuring a scaled dragon speared through the throat with a lance. “Soon, my friend. We will be home at last. Rid of this world…” He looks down at his body. “And these… ornaments. For good.”

Marcos bows, then fixes his attention on the head of Mason’s cane, the golden staff. “Then do we still need the other item, the relic the twins are seeking?”

Mason takes his time in answering. “We only need to be certain of its whereabouts—and then protect it from falling into our enemy’s hands. Until we are done. After the translation—after the formula has been obtained and fed to our brothers in Alaska—then it no longer matters what our enemies have. They’ll be powerless to prevent our ascension.”

Nodding, Marcos walks to the only other visible object in the shadowy room. A window. And beyond: waves. Dark water with turbulent crests, and farther away—the glinting lights of a massive city, a skyline punctuated by immense towers and bridges.

And the shadowy form of a single backlit behemoth. An immense statue holding aloft a massive torch…

#

Nina’s mind moves on.

Two infants swaddled and brought humbly before the man she recognizes as George Waxman, who peers at them with concerned but distant consideration. “These ones will have great power,” he says. “Twins are always stronger psychically, but these—sons of two powerful clairvoyants…” He makes a clicking voice with his tongue. “Keep them here, under observation. When they grow older, I will decide what to do with them.”

#

The scene shifts, and two young boys, maybe five years old, race big wheels across the polished floors of a great mansion. Blond-haired, both of them wearing matching blue suits, they race around great marble pillars, laughing and screeching until the huge doors burst open.

Mason Calderon stands there, hands on his hips. Dressed in a tuxedo. “Isaac. Jacob. Stop at