Storm looked at Katie, then at the human-shaped pile of rags in front of him, trying to imagine what this king’s world had been like and what kind of troubles he had faced. What would this king have felt about something like the Medina Society, a group that believed in killing and maiming to achieve its goals? He probably wouldn’t have blinked an eye. Brutality was the norm back then. Power was taken by force. The losers were killed or enslaved. It was only modern humans who were supposed to be more evolved.
Katie was talking about the various scientific processes that would soon be applied to the mummy when Storm interrupted her.
“You’re pretty geeked on this Egypt stuff, aren’t you?”
She stopped herself, then smiled. “Yeah, I really am.”
“How did that happen to a girl from…I’m guessing Missouri?”
“Kansas, actually. But you’re on the right track. I grew up in this little farming town in Kansas where nothing ever happened and all anyone ever talked about was the weather, how the weather compared to what it had been in the past, and what that might mean for the corn crop. Oh, that and college basketball.”
She laughed at herself and continued, scanning the walls as she spoke. “When I was seven, my parents took me to this traveling exhibition of Egyptian treasures that had somehow meandered its way to a museum in Kansas City. That was the first time I had ever really been confronted with the idea that there were these people who had lived a very long time ago in a very different place, that they had created this remarkable civilization, and that they had invented so many of the things we now take for granted. It seemed so exotic, so wonderful, so foreign in the best way. And it just fired my imagination.
“I started studying everything I could about it and never really stopped. Any time I had a project in school, I would find a way to make it about Egypt. I majored in archaeology with a minor in Egyptian Studies as an undergrad, then went on and got my graduate degree, then my doctorate. In some ways, the more I learn just makes me want to know that much more, and I…I’m sorry. This is really boring, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” Storm insisted. “One of the reasons I decided to come work for i-apple was that I loved the passion people like you — artists, archaeologists, museum curators — have for their jobs. I would otherwise be a soldier of fortune, a hired gun who worked for whatever company offered the biggest paycheck. At least this way I work for people who are doing things for a higher cause.”
Even though Storm said it to maintain his cover, there were pieces of his own truth hidden within the words.
Katie turned and looked at him with two big, blue eyes. “You’re really going to help us, aren’t you?”
“I’m certainly going to try,” he said.
She hugged him with her whole body. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
He hugged her back, feeling the parts that had been made hard by her work and the parts that stayed soft. Her contours seemed to fit nicely into his. He didn’t really think she was a terrorist.
Which might have made her a perfect one.
CHAPTER 20
A SECURED ROOM
illiam McRae came to slowly, with the same sense of dread he had felt every morning for, what, three weeks now? Four?
He was starting to lose track. When he was first abducted, snatched by a group headed by a man with a wine stain on his face and a gun on his hip, McRae had assumed his captivity would be brief. He thought he would either be killed, or released, or his ransom would be paid.
Instead, they had drugged him, keeping him in a narcotized stupor for perhaps several days. He had the sensation of almost constant motion, like he was being moved somewhere. Sometimes the movement would stop and he would think: okay, now the end is coming. Then it would resume. He often heard an engine. He thought, perhaps, it was a generator. Maybe they were somewhere off the grid, and the engine was what supplied them their power. Or maybe this was a large vehicle of some kind. It was all so disorienting.
Once he recovered from the effects of the sedatives, they put him to work, making it clear to him that they would hurt him badly if he refused. He had not yet tested them on whether they’d carry out this threat.
It never occurred to him that his captivity might stretch this long, that he would start to get confused about the passage of time to the point where he could no longer reliably say what day of the week it was. The things that used to anchor him to time — the busy retiree’s schedule of volunteer activities, the weekly rhythms of the things he and Alida did together, the calendar in his office, and the cell phone in his pocket — had all been taken from him.
In truth, he had not been badly treated in some ways. His confines were comfortable. His bed had a pillow-top mattress and clean, fine sheets that were changed every few days. His “cell,” such as it was, was a windowless interior room, yes. But it had plush carpeting and its own en suite bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet. It also had a small sitting area, where he took all his meals.
He was given clothes that fit him well. If he ever needed something, there was an intercom in his room. He could press the button anytime, tell the guards what he needed, and someone would fulfill the request. When he had discovered a mild allergy to one of his pillows, it had been removed, and he had received prompt medical treatment for his discomfort. He was being well fed, even overfed, by food that was delicious and nutritive.
The trade-off was that they were working him constantly. Every day after breakfast, they led him from his bedroom, across the hall and to the left, to his workshop. It was also windowless. He was kept under constant guard and made to work all day and into the evening.
After McRae had made the first laser for them, he thought he was done. He actually had stalled on the work a bit, thinking that when it was through, he was through.
Then they came back and said: build another one.
Then another.
At first, there was a part of him — the scientist in him — that was thrilled by the work. He had always theorized that given enough promethium, he could make the most powerful laser the world had ever seen. But because promethium had always been in such miniscule supply, with no hope of getting more, it remained nothing more than a theory.
Getting to put it in practice was satisfying, even as he fretted over what they might be doing with the weapons. He kept thinking they would soon run out of promethium — where were they getting so much from, anyhow? — and that when that happened he would get a rest.
It was just getting to be too much. He was not a young man anymore. They brought people in to help him with some of the more physical tasks, but some of it was still up to him. His hands, which had a tendency toward arthritis as it was, were getting sore. He worked each day well past the point where his fingers literally ached.
His body was just out of whack. He missed his daily jog, not only for the physical release it gave him, but also for the mental health aspect. The jog centered him, soothed him, made him feel healthy, and released all those wonderful endorphins in his bloodstream.
The absence of the jog, on the other hand, had been a disruption. He wasn’t sleeping as well at night. He was more irritable. The windowless rooms were getting to him. His body craved the fresh air and the sunlight.
More than anything, he missed Alida. He missed her companionship, her steady good cheer, her laugh, her smile. He missed the way she smelled when she came in from gardening, like soil and sweat. He missed talking to her about his work, something that had started long ago and had become an ingrained part of their marriage. He found himself pretending to have those conversations with her, almost because he couldn’t process information himself without thinking of how he’d explain it to Alida. She wasn’t just his ghostwriter. She was his muse.