I look up at the peak of the fairly simple yet amazing piece of hardware, "Is that just a normal pulley system rigged to the top?" I was expecting something a little more modern and ingenious to be honest.

The pulley system is the same one you would find anywhere in the world except, this one is built to handle our gauge of cable, which is really thick. The overall design is basically the same though.

"Yep," Kane says. "Why mess with what works? Mankind has been using these for thousands of years and they almost never fail."

"Almost?" I say. He had to say almost.

"Well, nothing's perfect," he says with a shrug.

"Thanks for the rea.s.surance, bud."

"Look, you dying here and now doing what you love is better than slowly rotting away in a hospital somewhere waiting for Thanatos to come calling!" Kane snaps.

I give him a shrug of my own, accepting his simple yet deep philosophy. Then I playfully ask, "Who's Thanatos?"

"The Greek G.o.d of death. The Reaper," Kane answers.

I'm about to ask how he knows who the Greek G.o.d of death is, but I guess it really doesn't matter.

My silence puts him on the defensive, "I'm not just the muscle, you know! I read and research stuff too."

Now I'm laughing, "No one said otherwise, man."

"What's so funny?" Nicole asks. She must have arrived while I was mid-giggle.

"Nothing," Kane says sharply. "We almost ready?"

She pats her thighs, and not in a s.e.xual way either. She has two guns strapped to her legs, each in a customized holster, perfect for a quick draw.

Kane's eyes light up at the sight of the weapons, "You any good with those-"

Twin pistols snap up towards his face and load with a click, held firmly in each of Nicole's steady hands.

"s.h.i.t!" Kane yells tripping backwards and falling on his b.u.t.t. Normally a man with his background wouldn't even flinch because of something like that, but I don't think he was expecting her to be able to handle them as expertly as she just did. Even I twitched and they aren't even pointed at me.

"Nicole, please," Dad says coming up from her left and Omar from her right.

Kane relaxes, but is visibly embarra.s.sed. He leans onto one elbow and looks up at me.

I'm doing my best not to crack up and burst out laughing at the man.

"Ruger SR22, lightweight and dependable. These bad-boys hold ten rounds each and come with something a little extra..." Twin beams appear on Kane's chest as he lay p.r.o.ne on the ground, "A little modification to help with the aiming. Not that I need it." She holsters the boys and helps Kane up.

Kane dusts himself off, "d.a.m.n woman, who are you, Lara Croft?"

I can tell by the blank look on her face that she doesn't get the Tomb Raider reference. Apparently Kane sees it too.

"Aw, never mind," he says a little frustrated. "So, is that a yes? We're ready to get a move on?"

"As ready as we'll ever be," Omar says obviously a little disheartened.

"I believe we can begin our journey to the center of the Earth," Dad chimes, in quoting the t.i.tle of his favorite cla.s.sic novel. There even seems to be a little more pep in his step than normal.

"You feeling alright, Dad?" His mood change catching me off guard.

He smiles at me, "With everything that has happened I completely forgot why I got into Archaeology in the first place."

"The chicks?" Kane jokingly says getting a laugh out of me and Nicole.

"Why yes, Kane. Harrison's mother was a beauty like none I've seen since. A real treasure. But, that's a conversation for another day."

It's the first time I've heard Dad call Mom by the nickname he gave her. They met in grad-school on a sponsored dig. He said he found "his treasure" that day and it stuck.

"Alrighty, Mr. Kane lead the way," I say.

"Yes, Sir!" He mockingly answers with a salute and grabs hold of the cable extending into nothingness. He sighs and looks back at the rest of our party, "Down the rabbit hole?"

He gets a nod of encouragement from everyone and grabs his carabiner climbing clip. He clips it onto the cable and quickly re-explains the proper repelling technique he went over earlier.

"Don't forget your gloves either. You'll have zilch for skin after this if you forget them." Then under his breath he says, "Let's do this," and leaps into the realm of the unknown.

22.

The ear piercing scream made me flinch and almost fall when I touched down. Kane led the way with Dad, Omar, Nicole and finally myself bringing up the rear.

The plan was for everyone to land and disconnect from the cable, each of us would then fan out and draw our weapons, covering the next person. Only we didn't plan on landing on a pile of mangled corpses...I didn't see that coming.

When Nicole landed and moved to cover my approach, she tripped and stumbled on what appeared to be someone's crushed sternum.

Now, she's kicking and thrashing, eyes wide in fright...not that I can blame her.

"Nicole, you're fine. Breathe," I say trying to get her under control.

What's left of the rib cage is stuck around her ankle and won't come off, even with all the dancing she's doing. It ain't budgin'.

"Gahhh. Okay. I'm fine, I'm fine," She finally says calming her nerves. She re-aims her Ruger, obviously embarra.s.sed and not in the mood to hear about it. What's even more impressive is that she's almost back to her cool, calm, and collected self...even with part of a dead body still attached to her foot.

"Okay. Lights," I whisper and draw my gun.

Everyone cracks open their own glow sticks and throws them ten feet in front of themselves. A circle of orange illumination appears around us, a veritable light show in the dark s.p.a.ce. What we see is both horrifying and confusing.

Bodies. Maybe a half-dozen or so of them-could be more-but the parts are everywhere. It would be almost impossible to tell exactly how many there are even if we did try to piece them back together and count. It looks like a tornado hit them and tore them apart or like what would happen if you fell from...

I look up, "No way."

"What?" Omar asks, visibly twitching in fright.

I look at Kane who understands, "You don't think?" I say pointing up.

He answers, "The missing Special Forces team. Ho-ly s.h.i.t. Well, that solves one mystery."

"They must have found this entrance and then got hit by a storm. You said there was one the night they went missing, right?" I ask.

He nods.

"Well, it looks like you're not the only one to literally stumble upon the trap door," Nicole says. "Thank goodness your dad was there to catch you."

She finally removes the remnants of the long dead soldier from her boot and kicks it aside with a clatter and pulls out an LED flashlight clicking it on. Next, Nicole unfolds a strap and slides it onto her head like a sweatband. It kind of looks like she's wearing a miner's helmet-only without the helmet itself. We all follow suit and have a look around.

"Question," Dad says. "How did the trap door reset itself and close the last time it opened?"

"Not sure. Maybe there's a timer, or a pressure plate?" I reply. "Doesn't really matter right now either way."

"What happens if the door tries to close while we are down here? Omar asks. "We'll be trapped."

"It won't," Nicole says matter of fact. "I'm confident that the truck's cable is too thick for that to happen. We should be fine."

Should, I think. I really hate that word.

"Yep. d.a.m.n. It's definitely them," Kane says. He's kneeling beside one of the more intact bodies inspecting the remains. "Still doesn't make sense though."

"What doesn't make sense?" Dad asks looking over Kane's shoulder.

Kane continues, "How do some of the best soldiers in the world fall down a hole that you and Hank survived?" He stands, "I mean, at least one or two of them should have survived, right?"

I shrug, "Ancient b.o.o.by traps aren't exactly my forte." It's a great question though. How did I survive the fall, but none of these highly trained professionals could? Unless...

"You don't think the storm the day they went missing had anything to do with it do you?" I ask Kane.

"You never know. It can get pretty ugly, pretty quick, out here. All that would have needed to happen was for one guy to trip the trap and the wind and sand would do the rest."

"One-by-one they would have plummeted to their deaths," Nicole says adding to the already cheerful mood.

There's a long silence. The kind that isn't peaceful by any means, the straight up creepy kind.

"You guys see this?" Omar asks.

We all turn to find him staring straight up.

I join him and have a look myself. The hole we repelled through is actually a perfectly cut vertical shaft. Our twin beams of light gleam off the bronze colored surface of the walls. We look at each other in awe.

"Um, Dad," I say not taking my eyes off the shining shaft. "You need to see this."

Multiple sets of feet make their way over to join Omar and me.

"Is that...?" Dad asks.

"Orichalc.u.m," I say. "And I wouldn't be surprised if the entire 1,000 foot distance is constructed of it."

"Why do you say that?" Omar asks.

"Because, why only build the last few feet out of it? I suspect whoever built this place had the means and the knowledge to do basically anything they wanted at the time."

More silence follows our first of what I think will be many amazing discoveries.

"Um, guys...check out the rim of the shaft," Nicole says.

"What the h.e.l.l language is that?" Kane asks.

Around the rim of the vertical exit-of which we now stand ten feet directly beneath-is writing etched into the orichalc.u.m plating. We all gather around and shine our lights up at it.

"Dad, Omar, you're up," I say.

"It kind of looks like Greek to be honest," Dad says. "But the wording isn't right. The nouns and verbs almost look out of order, but not."

"Sort of like Yoda, right? All backwards and stuff?" Kane asks.

"Trust in the force you must," I say in my best Yoda impression.

My dad looks over at us with that huh face, like we actually said something that was right. He nods as if contemplating it, "You two may actually be on to something there, even if your imitation of Yoda is terrible." Nicole laughs at Dad poking fun at Kane and me.

"These aren't the droids you're looking for," I say waving my hand in front of Kane like a Jedi, attempting to control his mind.

"That's Ben Ken.o.bi, man. Not Yoda," Kane says slapping my hand away, laughing.

"I know. Still funny though."

Dad continues with his explanation over the laughter, "Now that I've reread it a few times, it certainly does look like Greek, but written in an old fashioned verbiage."

"Like some versions of the Bible?" Nicole asks.

"Exactly! Like if you read the King James Version versus the New Living Translation. Two different translations, but both with the same story."

"Or like some poetry," Kane states firmly.

We just look over at the big guy like he just spoke Russian or something.

"What? I'm more than just a pretty face you know," He responds.

"Wait, older than Greek? That's one of the oldest written languages in history," I say a little shocked.