The Cydonia Objective

“Under the old fort, you mean?”

“Yeah, ever been down there? I’m wondering about how far down it goes.”

“Just a storage level. Nothing else I’ve seen anyways or heard about. Why, you think maybe there’s some Nazi base down there or a secret government lab?”

“No, sorry.”

“Maybe the lair for the true shadow government!” The attendant was really playing it up, and becoming annoying.

Caleb wiped the rainwater from his face. “You really need to get out more.”

The guard shrugged. “A lot of time for thought in here. Time to wonder about all sorts of things.”

“Wondering’s not a bad pastime.” Caleb entered the elevator and let the attendant send it on its way.

“See you on the way down,” the guard called. “Unless the government assassins get you first and make it look like an accident!”

During the ascent, as Caleb marveled at the precision of the supporting interior structure of Batholdi’s design, he had a moment to think. He tried to find a way to refine the search, but kept coming back to the one thing that had stifled him before.

Find out what Patton had done with it.

He knew the general had secured it from among the treasures found defended by the Nazis in Nuremburg, knew that he had recognized it as something special, something powerful. And after researching it, he’d petitioned Eisenhower to keep it as a tool for America, but had his request denied. It was ordered back to Vienna to be displayed at its national museum. That was a request Patton refused, and secretly had a replica made of the lance, and that copy substituted in its place while the original found its way here. Somewhere…

Where? That’s when the visions broke down and he couldn’t find the right questions to probe. He had been asking what Patton had done with it, and that only led to visions of a ferry not unlike the one he had just taken, to Liberty Island where Patton remained on the boat, just nodding confidently at the results of his efforts.

Where was it? Caleb probed again, thinking. It had to have been handed off to someone he trusted. Someone who had access to the Statue. An administrator, an attendant, a worker… An engineer? Caleb thought again of the men he had seen working on the torch. Still, it seemed more likely that the cornerstone and secret box contained the prize, but not only was that too obvious, but discovery was too likely. If anyone decided to open it up for study, the anomalous weapon would cry out for explanation.

That tended to rule out the cornerstone, which left the crown or the torch, or some secret passageway to an underground complex, something unknown to the conspiracy-minded security guard downstairs.

The elevator finally slowed, then the doors opened and he emerged at the top of the monument’s base. Looking up at the winding staircase shaped like a double helix, he got dizzy all over again. Now comes the hard part. He really wished he knew if it was up there, or if this was all a waste of time. Time he didn’t have.

He looked down. People were starting to climb, a few who had braved the drenching rain. He lingered for a moment, and was about to turn away when he saw a flash of red, way down there.

She’s coming.

#

Before taking the stairs, Caleb glanced out the side exit to the viewing balcony. The day had turned a dismal shade of gray, with sheets of silvery rain pelting the platform, dripping down the exit’s frame and flooding in rivulets to overflowing drainage vents.

Up the stairs now. Ascending through the skeleton with its crisscrossing metal beams, Caleb marveled at the interior of the garment, the incredibly thin copper sheets joined by iron bars. Two stairs at a time he climbed, while he heard others coming down the other side of the helix, seemingly less taxed with the descent. Caleb ran, pulling himself along using the railing. He slipped as his sloshing sneakers lost traction at one point, painfully banged his right shin, then got up and kept moving.

Come on, he urged, trying to stimulate his powers during the physical exertion, and he was again reminded of that night in Alexandria when Nina had taxed him fully, exhausting his body to the point his mind broke free and soared.

Gasping for oxygen now, feeling the air thinning, his temperature rising, the muscles in his legs and arms taxed to the extreme. He dared to look up and saw he was only halfway to the top.

He tripped again, hammering his elbow on the cool metal and nearly banging his head against the side railing. And then he lay there, heart thundering and the back of his neck pulsing.

Groaning, he opened his eyes…

And looked down at himself… wearing dark blue coveralls. A tool belt… and holding a leather satchel, with something inside wrapped in several layers of leather padding. Ascending these very stairs. Nervously gripping the satchel tight.

A flash and a rumble of thunder. Caleb felt the statue sway in the storm winds. He held both railings to steady himself, then pushed himself upward. One glance down sent him to hugging the far side of the stairwell, and for a second he again felt like Demetrius, the first librarian of Alexandria, during his tour of the Pharos. Keep going, almost there. He thought about his other boys, the twins he’d never seen. They were up here just a day ago. Searching for the same thing. Searching for the spear, to keep it out of his hands.

So they knew, or at least had the same sense that it wasn’t in the cornerstone or somewhere underground.

It had to be up there. The certainty fueled his muscles and he climbed again. Rounding another bend, then another. One more tentative glance down, and his heart leapt. Nina emerged from the pedestal entrance, flanked by three men in dark suits. All of them looked up at once.

And Caleb’s breath fled in a rush. This was it. He could still make it, assuming he could find and extract the spear quickly, then make it back to the descending staircase when it split at the crown and then get back down before they saw him. He rushed up the remaining flights, calling on every ounce of energy. Finally, he reached the last bend and then he was into another separate staircase leading up to the crown.

Now completely gassed, he joined a half-dozen people under the white ridged interior of her skull. Several viewers had climbed to the walkway and were gazing out the windows over the harbor and looking up to the torch. The temperature up here was twenty degrees hotter even than the interior at the base. Sweltering and oppressive, the sweat was dripping off him. He flung off the hat, figuring it was useless now. And he turned his attention to the crown, the spikes especially–

-and had a glimpse of men standing outside in bowler hats, wresting a new spike in place, replacing a damaged section.

Too early, he thought. But it showed him that they could be hollow, and easily contain something. Where did that worker hide it? Come on, show me!

A few other people were looking at him funny. Someone asked if he was okay, another told him to sit and rest. But their voices had faded, along with their images, and he had shifted back, back… almost seventy years.

The man in coveralls…

Heading up a ladder, with the heavy satchel over his shoulder. Climbing the narrow, tight rungs, climbing…

Into the arm!

Caleb pushed away from the concerned person bending over him. “It’s in the torch,” he muttered. “I’m in the wrong place. Damn it!”

“This is the crown,” said the man, and Caleb focused and was surprised to see it was the Asian tourist from the ferry. “Hi there, you bought that extra ticket. Sorry it was such a bad climb, but you’re here. You made it!”

“No,” Caleb whispered, trying to stand. “Have to get to the torch.”

“The torch? No way, wish we could, the view would be sweet, but it’s been closed to the public since 1916. Some kind of attack on munitions plant nearby. The explosion damaged the arm and the torch, and no one’s been allowed in since.”

Caleb shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Where’s the ladder?”