‘Any idea what the hidden treasure is, or if it’s present?’
I watched as Sam raised an eyebrow at Tyler. It was a stupid question and he had almost certainly ruled themselves off the team. Every egg had been crafted to contain a unique treasure. When the jewelled egg was open, something special was hidden inside. A portrait, an automaton, a jewel, a toy; all in miniature. No two were the same.
‘If we knew what the treasure was, Curator Jones, then we’d know what the egg was, wouldn’t we?’ asked the chancellor in an openly mocking tone. ‘I think you need to spend a bit more time in the library and not the gym. Yes?’
I looked at Sam’s impassive face. As captain, it was his place to comment and discipline his curators, but the chancellor outranked him. Still, it was an unnecessary rudeness both to Sam and Tyler. Not that I cared much for Tyler.
Ignoring the interruption Sam cleared his throat and dismissed the room, reminding all of us that an hour in the gym was as important as an hour in the library and that neither should be neglected.
As we left, Tyler barged past us, and the four of us headed out into the sunshine and down to Snaps, our favourite riverbank bar. There was always a lovely breeze at this time of day, and they served a mean Melon slushie.
We pulled up our chairs and relaxed in the shade. Out on the river a few teenagers were playing on the hover punts, trying to goad the crocodiles for a bit of sport, but these crocs were old and sleepy and used to the irritations of children. Occasionally, one would snap its jaw, causing the kids to scream with laughter, and their mothers to come down to the edge to admonish their children. It was mean to torment the crocodiles; even if they fell off their boards, their exo-suits would bubble up and protect them from drowning, or falling, or being bitten in half, or any one of the myriad ways in which children tried to kill themselves.
I remember playing with the crocs as a child, but when we did it Ramin and I both switched off our exo-suits. Where was the fun if there was no risk? Shortly after that we'd been reassigned schools to a place more suitable to our skills and attitudes. The Library of Alexandria.
‘So, an egg!’
Paul looked as excited as I felt. The last egg hunt had involved an exploding tanker, and the one before that had taken part during the fall of the Berlin Wall. Fun times.
‘Which teams do you reckon they'll pick?’ We were both in with a chance. No one could step within seven days of their last step; it was a simple safety protocol. For the next week none of us could be considered, but on day eight we'd be eligible. So long as we weren't then assigned to another retrieval. We discussed it for a while, all agreeing that we hoped the Fabergé Event spun out slowly. It would be just our luck if it sped up.
Clio sipped on a cucumber smoothie and asked the boys why there had been no mention of their mission in the weekly briefing.
They looked at each other and shrugged. ‘We've been instructed not to discuss it with anyone.’
We both smiled at them, our eyebrows raised in matching expressions.
‘Yeah, okay, fair enough.’
They looked at each other and nodded. ‘It's not like we weren't going to talk to you about it.’
‘Yeah, I mean Sam practically said “Talk to no one about this. Except Neith and Clio”.’
‘Yeah. I mean, he didn't say the bit about you two out loud.’
‘No, not out loud as such, but yeah, reading between the lines.’
‘Exactly, Sam could hardly expect us not to talk to you two about it.’
This was interesting. Clio sat forward. ‘So what happened?’
‘We were stepping over to pick up Rembrandt's “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”.’
‘Oh ho, you got that one? Was it a total nightmare?’
The Q Field had a programmed list of lost items from Beta Earth that were available to claim. It was a long list, and it would randomly generate the next lost treasure to go and track down. There were generally three or four a week, sometimes as many as ten. It could be a painting, a book, even a plant. There was no rhyme or reason, but when the stars aligned, we were to go and grab it. Honestly, I suspect it’s more complicated than when the stars align, and I know we had to study it for five years in high school. Ultimately, the most I understood, I mean really understood, was that when we were told to jump, we stepped.
Rembrandt’s sea scape was one of the larger items on the list. It had been stolen in a raid on the Gardner Museum over fifty years ago, along with a collection of other works of art. Most were in private collections, but the Rembrandt was so large that the thieves had been unable to fence it quickly and storage had been an issue, so they burnt it. Philistines.
A quantum slot had opened up and a team were tasked to go back and grab it before it was burnt. These sorts of extractions were always tricky, as you had to ensure that the involved parties. i.e. the idiots burning the art, couldn't know that the painting hadn't actually burnt. We had a range of tactics to ensure the timeline remained stable. Early attempts of “Shh, don't tell anyone” failed massively and prompted a slew of alien visitation reports on Earth Beta. It was all a bit embarrassing. Now we relied on sleight of hands, auto-suggestion, and good old drugs. “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” was almost two metres tall. That was going to require some manipulation. Plus, a fire was always tricky to fake.
‘What did you go with, drugs or a dummy?
