He grimaced. “Shit, the websites talked about that, too.”
She laughed. “Okay, bad word choice, but you know what I mean. Don’t let it get to you. If anything important comes up, I’ll let you know.”
Trust me, James. I’m hiding this for your own good. You aren’t ready for the weight of knowing about all this government alien program shit.
James grunted. “If you need some ass-kicking help on a raid, you know you can ask me.”
“Yeah, yeah, but if I get too used to dragging your ass along I’m gonna get sloppy.”
“Just saying.”
Shay patted James on the shoulder. “Not to mention, a lot of times tomb raids require finesse. I love you, but you have the finesse of rabid junkyard dog.”
“Ass-kicking doesn’t require finesse.”
“Tomb raids aren’t usually about ass-kicking. It’s not always about just killing the first warlock you run into. Besides, you know what they say.”
James frowned. “What?”
“’Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’”
Shay leaned over and stared at Peyton’s screen. Dozens of file names filled it, but they all looked like gibberish to her.
“What am I looking at?”
“Other files I found on government servers,” Peyton explained.
Osiris lay on the table right in front of the mouse. He watched his owner move it back and forth as if plotting to attack the peripheral.
“And what’s so special about these government files? Lists of politicians’ favorite porn or something?”
Peyton chuckled. “I think seeing that would scar me. No, it turns out there’s more to Project Nephilim than what I originally found. It also turns out the only reason I could even get those files is that they weren’t as protected as they could have been.”
“Seriously?”
“I think they’re not as important as other stuff. Lower priority.”
Shay blinked. “Wait, a secret government alien research program is not as important as something else?”
“Yep. There’s another project, in addition to Houdini and Nephilim. Something else they seem to be dumping even more money into. Project Ragnarok.”
“Ragnarok? Is Durand attached to that project as well?”
Peyton nodded. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I did find a few records that indirectly link him to Project Ragnarok. I’m also guessing the project name isn’t all that random.” At Shay’s raised eyebrow, he held up a hand. “Not saying they are planning the death of the Norse gods or something, but what if they know more about this alien stuff than we think? What if the Nephilim stuff was just some low-end work they shoved off for deniability? Or maybe they’ve figured out more since those Nephilim reports were submitted.”
“What exactly are you getting at?”
“We, Earth humans, have regular contact with people from another world now, Oriceran. It’s not like people’s minds would be that blown if the government admitted there had been contact with another world besides Oriceran.”
Osiris meowed and leapt off the table, apparently bored with the human chatter and fake plastic mice.
Shay glanced at the cat and back at Peyton. “The fact that they are being so damned secretive means they’re worried about people panicking—the same people who already live in a world with necromancers and rusalkas. I know what I think that means.”
Peyton nodded slowly. “I know what I think, too. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that they’re worried about a War of the Worlds situation, and also worried that all our technology and magic might not be enough. The question is, do they even have any evidence to be worried over, or are they just being paranoid?”
Peyton clicked around on his desktop and brought up a fuzzy picture of the aluminum tooth-wheel. “If aliens showed up that long ago with this level of technology, even if they were the slowest bastards in the galaxy they’d be way farther ahead of us. We’d be like ants trying to win against humans.”
“But we don’t just have tech now, we have magic.”
Peyton shrugged. “What good is even the most powerful wand going to do if an alien mothership shows up and cracks the planet in half with a star-powered death ray?”
Shay stared at the image of the wheel, thinking through the possibilities. The memory of an earlier conversation in Russia with the rusalka floated back, unbidden.
There’s something I sense in you…a destiny, perhaps. Something great or something horrible, but still grandiose. I want to see where that goes, and I don’t think it ends with you being drowned in our local river.
The tomb raider chuckled. She’d believed Irina the rusalka had delusions of grandeur, but now she was letting them infect her own mind.
The truth of Project Ragnarok might be far more banal than she suspected, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep looking into it. Even if it didn’t even involve any dangerous alien invaders, the hidden knowledge and truth it represented called to Shay.
History should be about the truth, but we were wrong for so many years. Not only that, people made sure we were wrong by hiding the truth. Fuck the government. This time they don’t get to hide the truth, not from me.
Shay looked at Peyton. “Keep poking around, but be careful. I have a feeling that if we end up poking too hard, a group of Special Forces guys in ski masks will bust through the door and gun our asses down.”
Peyton swallowed. “Maybe…maybe it’s best if we leave well enough alone? We’re both trying to hide, after all. We don’t have to do this. I know it’s cool, but I kind of like continuing to breathe.”
“Fuck that. James was right when he goaded me into taking down the cartel. Sometimes you shouldn’t run. Sometimes you should charge in like a crazed rhino.”
“I don’t know if he’s a bad influence on you or a good one.” Peyton let out a nervous laugh. “Brownstone’s a badass, but even if he helps you, it’s not like you can take down the entire military by yourself.”
“I’m not giving up on this.” Shay
