Reece woke with a start, sweat drenching his body. He felt like his brain was being squeezed from inside his skull. Nausea caused bile to rise quickly up to his throat. Reece gagged. He barely made it to the toilet before vomiting his last meal into the stainless-steel bowl. Shakily taking a cup and filling it with water from the nearby faucet, Reece filled his mouth with the cleansing liquid. Once it had diluted the bile, he spit the now foul-tasting liquid into the sink.
Finding some long-expired aspirin, he threw four of the foul-smelling pills into his mouth and drank down the rest of the water. It tasted much better without the accompanying bile from his stomach. Then he went and sat back on the bed, cradling his head in his hands. He couldn’t help but chuckle despite the pain. He had received the message this time.
“I hear you loud and clear,” he called out loud, no idea if whatever was out there could hear him.
Luckily, the six weeks were almost up, and everything had been dealt with to the best of their abilities. Reece and Angel had spent almost every morning working on inspecting and distributing munitions, overhauling the ships that had been rescued from the ocean floor, and finally prepping the salvaged Sand Skimmers for their upcoming missions. Obviously, something powerful thought the preparations were all taking too long.
Still, they’d need the Sand Skimmers to reach their destination. Angel had worked on one of the vehicles before he became an astronaut, so he was able to show Reece how to inspect, maintain, and repair them. Reece had raised an eyebrow and pressed his lips together when he had first seen them, dragged up from the deep and still dripping ocean water.
They reminded him of a paddleboat, except these had hovering capability provided by four large fan assemblies. Each fan had three pre-fans or skimmers. Each rested on a different type of filter and continuously kept the filter’s surface clean, directing the different levels of offending particulates into an ejection port. This allowed for the turbofans to perform at peak efficiency with no gradual degradation unless a pre-fan failed. That’s why they had been engineered to be airtight, so sand or other matter couldn’t get in and cause them to bind up.
They were a bit of a headache to work on because of their complexity, so Angel and Reece had decided to work on them on and off for the entire six weeks. It made the monotonous maintenance bearable.
Reece finally finished going over the last Skimmer, lying flat on the mechanic’s crawler he had just used to check the vehicle’s underside and clean up all the sand build-up from its lower fan filters. He grabbed part of the frame and pulled himself out from under the Skimmer, the crawler’s wheels rolling easily over the carrier’s deck. Angel was waiting for him and offered him a hand up. Reece smiled and took the offer, letting Angel pull him to his feet.
“That the last one?” asked Angel, nodding his head towards the Skimmer.
“Yep, that’s it,” answered Reece, rubbing sand from his hands. “They were in surprisingly good condition. Even the batteries still have about eighty-five percent of their life left, on average. So, did you have any luck tracking them down today?”
“What, the twins?” replied Angel, cocking an eyebrow. “Of course. There are only so many places to hide aboard a carrier, even one as big as this one.”
Angel motioned and a pair of individuals stepped into his view. Though he had already met them once before, he was still stunned by how much they resembled the figures from his dream about the Sphinx-like statue. Especially now that he was up close, and his attention wasn’t so divided, he saw how striking their resemblance was. Their tawny-gold skin and blue-black hair could mark them as related, but they also shared identical irises, brilliant blue with silvery flecks and streaks of bright green. The young man was wearing pale green scrubs while his sister was dressed in form-fitting coveralls. A streak of grease across the young woman’s left cheek marred her otherwise gorgeous face. Since she was closest, Reece offered her his hand and greeting.
“Reece Danielson, well met,” he pronounced.
The instant she took his hand, relief flooded through him. His headache had finally abated, and if they could get moving soon, Reece hoped he wouldn’t have to experience another one. The lady’s pleasant manner also helped relax his nerves, something he instantly felt grateful to her for.
“I’m Masika, and this is my brother, Nephi,” replied the woman demurely, shaking his hand with a firm grip and impeccable manners. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“It’s nice to meet the both of you,” greeted Reece as he took the man’s hand and shook it as well. “It looks like I pulled you away from your duties. You have my apologies. Let me try to explain.”
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“No apologies are necessary,” replied Masika, her head shaking vigorously. “We all know what you’ve done for us, and we just want to help you any way we can.”
“Yes sir!” added Nephi. “My sister is right. You need it, we’ll do it. We’ve got your back.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” replied Reece, letting out a deep breath that he hadn’t known he was holding. “How would you guys feel about helping me with a little research first, and then accompanying me on a mission inside of Egypt. There is something there that we need to procure. It’ll assist us in this fight.”
“Anything you need, sir,” replied Masika. “Where do we start?”
“Follow me,” instructed Reece, leading them back below deck and to one of the smaller conference rooms on the carrier. “Oh, and please stop calling me sir. I’m not that old and I’ve been told that I’m getting younger every day.”
Inside, he had laid out a detailed map of Egypt and a series of monitors with information on pyramids that he had discovered on the remaining links of the ‘interlink’. There were still over a dozen satellites transmitting, years after their design life had expired. Amazingly, the carrier’s satellite comms set-up had been paying off in dividends. Reece recalled working with Micah and the rest of Ground Control to stay connected, though with sporadic success. Now, they had a fully functioning satellite feed from every server farm still operational and connected to the ‘link’. After shutting the door behind them, he took a hard look at them both.
“Everything I say has to stay in this room,” stated Reece seriously. “Do I have your word on that?”
“Of course,” They both answered at once. “We’ll say nothing. After all, people bring about their own undoing through their tongues.”
“Nice. I like that,” said Reece. “So, we’re looking for a fragment of an ancient relic that is being kept within a Sphinx-like structure. Please don’t ask me how I know this, but you two are the keys to unlocking it.”
The twins both glanced at each other, something unspoken passing between them. The brother cocked his head and the sister nodded. Then she looked back at Reece.
“We may have an idea on the ‘how’,” said Masika. “The ‘where’ may be a bit more problematic.”
“Oh? What do you mean?” asked Reece, intrigued.
“Well,” chimed in Nephi. “There are old stories that the parents of our village used to tell their children, sometimes as bedtime stories. We even had lessons in school about the various legends and fables of our ancestors. We think maybe these lessons were more about instructing everyone on what to do if something like all of this happened, rather than just interesting stories to make learning history more fun for children.”
“So, we have a good idea of what will be required of us,” added Masika. “The tricky part is going to be finding it. We have a rough idea, but the Order was swarming all over the place when we were there last. If they found it, I doubt they’d leave it unguarded.”
“Well, despite that, you’ve both made me feel a lot better about our chances now,” replied Reece, smiling warmly at the two of them. “If you two are required to open it, then they wouldn’t risk any harm coming to you. Most likely, they’ll try to turn you to their cause, just like they attempted to do to me a long time ago.”
Reece noticed that the twins stiffened at the unpleasant notion, so he added, “Don’t worry, we won’t let that happen.”
That seemed to calm them down a little.
“Okay, we’ll hold you to it,” stated Masika, nodding slightly.
“By all means,” replied Reece. “Now, how are you two on Sand Skimmers?”
The twins both laughed, confident smiles appearing on their faces.
“We used to race them, you know...before,” answered Nephi. “Believe it or not, we went to the Egyptian Nationals twice in a row.”
“I’m liking our chances better and better,” said Reece, smiling widely at the pair of twins who kept on impressing him. “We leave first thing in the morning. Does that work for you two?”
They both nodded, their smiles matching the one on Reece’s face. He took each of their hands and shook them vigorously.
“I’ll let you two get back to what you were doing,” said Reece. “I’ll see you on deck at O five-hundred.”
They nodded again before heading back below decks. It took the entire conversation to pick up on it, but they did have a slight accent, somewhat harsh on certain words, but endearing, nonetheless. Reece glanced over at Angel, who had stood silently through the short conversation. He had a little smile on his face.
“What?” asked Reece, sensing his friend found something amusing.
“It looks like you have a couple of firecrackers on your hands,” he replied. “Have fun with that.”
“Oh, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reece replied, smiling wickedly in return. “You’re coming with us.”
Angel’s smile quickly faded. “What are you talking about? I need to stay here and look after the community.”
“Bullshit,” laughed Reece. “If I’m going to get sand all up in my crack, then so are you. Besides, we need our best on this one. If there’s going to be a strong Order presence, I don’t want to be caught unprepared.”
“Fine,” sighed Angel. “But you’re buying the next drink if we ever have to buy drinks again.”
“Fair enough,” replied Reece, sticking out his hand.
Angel took it and the two shared a firm handshake before Reece let go and slapped Angel on the back. “Okay, let’s go get something to eat. We need to get some rack. O-five hundred comes early.”
While the two men walked down to the galley, Reece noted how quiet the carrier was now that eighty-five percent of the community was currently residing in Madagascar. Reece was glad that the community had decided to settle there for a time, but Reece imagined it would only be temporary. He figured that the people had really liked the community they had made for themselves back in Florida, New Hope. But a lot needed to happen before they could return. Tomorrow was just the beginning of setting things right again.