‘Good to know,’ Cobb said as he grabbed the corner of the second page and flipped it over the first. As if by magic, the city doubled in size. ‘Every layer represents a significant passage of time. Battles were fought, and land was won. With each new regime, a new layer was added to the map. This explains the destruction and construction of landmarks and the use of multiple languages.’
Garcia snapped to attention. ‘I think I can help us with that.’
‘How?’ Jasmine wondered.
He reached out to grab the nearest corner of the map. Before touching it, he glanced at Cobb for permission. ‘May I?’
‘Of course,’ Cobb replied.
Garcia pulled the top layer of the stack, separating it from the pile. He pushed it to the far corner of the hi-tech table. Next he took the second layer and arranged it beside the top layer. He continued pulling sheets from the pile until the whole table was covered with the various layers of the map.
Sarah stared at him. ‘What in the world are you doing?’
‘Just a second,’ Garcia said as he hunched over his virtual workstation, typing furiously on the display. ‘I promise it will be worth your while.’
The group watched in confused fascination as his fingers flew across the glass surface, the rapid-fire assault of his hands occasionally punctuated by a swipe or a distinct double tap of his keyboard. They had no idea what he was doing, but his agility and intense concentration were impressive nonetheless.
‘Done!’ he boasted with a final tap of a key.
‘With what?’ McNutt asked.
‘With everything!’
Garcia pointed to the wall-sized video screen behind Papineau, which was now filled with a thumbnail image of every page of the map. Aligned along the left edge of the screen, the images were too small to be of any real use unless they were expanded to full size. For now, they served as a visual reference for the real focus of activity.
In the center of the screen, two windows displayed a flurry of movement. In the first, various sections of the map were being analyzed by an automated program designed to recognize letters within images. If one was found, it copied the letter to the second window where the program tried to identify the letter and language. Eventually words were formed, analyzed, and translated into English. With a touch of a button, Garcia could see the original letters, the language of origin, and even search for connections to other documents in the program’s extensive database.
Jasmine gasped as she moved closer to the wall. She reached out and touched the ancient letters as they were projected on the screen. ‘That’s amazing. Simply amazing. If I had been forced to translate those maps by hand, it would have taken weeks. Yet you did it all in a matter of minutes. I can’t thank you enough.’
Papineau nodded his approval. ‘Well done. Well done indeed!’
Garcia beamed with pride.
Though impressed, Cobb was more pragmatic than the others. ‘Where’d you get that? Did you design it yourself?’
‘I wish,’ Garcia admitted. ‘I tweaked some things to get it to run more efficiently with our hardware, but the program itself came preloaded with the table. According to the manual, it was created by the Ulster Archives — some research facility in Sweden.’
‘Switzerland,’ stated Cobb, who had been unaware of the place before his dinner meeting with Ulster.
‘Wherever,’ Garcia said. ‘The program didn’t come with a title, so I gave it one of my own. I call it: The Word Is Not Enough.’
Sarah rolled her eyes. This was the second time Garcia had named something after a James Bond film. In their previous mission, they had used a program called Goldfinder. ‘What’s with you and 007?’
Garcia shrugged. ‘I’m just a fan.’
‘Me, too,’ McNutt admitted. ‘I mean, what’s not to like? Fast cars, cool gadgets, and lots of loose women. Sounds like heaven to me.’
Garcia smiled knowingly. ‘Josh, if you think Bond’s gadgets are cool, just you wait. You’re going to love this…’
6
Garcia promised something cool — and he delivered.
The team watched in awe as the city of Alexandria rose from the tabletop like a ghostly apparition. An avid believer in the supernatural, McNutt slowly pushed away from the table, worried if he moved too quickly the poltergeist might attack him.
Garcia looked up from his keyboard and grinned. Only he knew how the illusion worked. ‘The city is exactly to scale. Or rather, it’s exactly what is represented on Jack’s map. The computer can’t tell the actual heights of the buildings, so those are approximated from the square footage of their bases and satellite imaging. If you give me more time, I can hack the city planner’s office and make things perfect.’
The others remained silent as the city continued to rise, layer after projected layer. But instead of sprouting from the bottom, structures now materialized in a wave around the perimeter of the city as it sprawled farther and farther from the center.
Sarah waved her hand through the projection, searching for a reflective surface, but her hand passed through the image. ‘How is this even possible?’
Garcia ignored her question. He was having too much fun blowing their minds. ‘What you see is a reproduction of modern Alexandria. The city as it exists today.’ He tapped a few buttons on his keyboard. ‘Now if we overlay the previous map, we get something like this…’
Several structures disappeared as others took their places.
Garcia glanced at Cobb. ‘If you’d like, I can keep going until we have every detail from every page of the map.’
Cobb nodded, his eyes never leaving the city.
Garcia entered a new command, and suddenly the holographic images intersected and overlapped in every conceivable way — similar to the chaos of earlier when they tried to view the document as a single map instead of separate maps. In many instances, whole buildings appeared to be consumed by larger ones like hungry nesting dolls.
Jasmine stared in disbelief. ‘This is incredible!’
Sarah was more flummoxed than impressed, and she didn’t appreciate the feeling. ‘Seriously, how is this possible?’
Garcia shrugged, revealing nothing.
‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll figure it out myself.’
He crossed his hands behind his head and smugly leaned back in his chair. ‘Be my guest.’
Never one to pass on a challenge, Sarah stood for a better look. ‘Under normal circumstances, light would need something to interrupt its path, like a screen or something. Otherwise it can’t be seen by the naked eye.’
‘True.’
She passed her hand through the image again, then watched Jasmine do the same on the opposite side of the table. ‘But there’s no screen here.’
‘Nope.’
She leaned to the left and then to the right, hoping to learn more. ‘For a truly three-dimensional hologram, you need something in the air — dust, water vapor, something — to reflect the light.’ She rubbed her fingers together. ‘But I can’t feel anything.’
‘If you could, you’d be the first.’
Cobb cleared his throat and tapped his watch.
Garcia got the hint and ended the game. He pointed to the air-conditioning vent above the table. ‘This room uses specially formulated air. Its molecular composition is designed to reflect certain wavelengths of lights. When used in conjunction with the appropriate laser, you’re able to do something like this.’
Cobb nodded knowingly. ‘It’s technology co-opted from the US military. The ability to project an image can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, it can fool the enemy into thinking our numbers are far greater than they actually are. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll be able to create a battalion of fake soldiers out of thin air.’