Jake Atlas and the Tomb of the Emerald Snake Page 7

  It made sense to go after midnight, when the crowds were gone and there were fewer guards. We prayed that the black suit had made the same decision.

  The road grew rougher as we drove between a clutter of mud-brick houses and corrugated shacks built between rows of stone tombs. Were people living in a cemetery?

  “The City of the Dead,” Sami explained. “Cairo’s population has doubled in the last forty years and now there’s nowhere left for people to live.”

  As I watched I saw children sleeping in beds with their parents. Others were awake, even though it was the middle of the night, playing football among the tombstones. A group of old men sat around a backgammon board. They all looked happier than my own family had in a long time.

  “Why can’t the city just grow bigger?” Pan asked.

  “There’s nowhere left for it to grow!” Kit replied. “You may have noticed, something’s in the way.”

  Three immense black triangles came in and out of view between the tombs. They looked like mountains. They must have been mountains – surely nothing that big could have been built by people.

  “The pyramids,” Pan breathed.

  She shifted right up to the window and stared. At the hotel with Mum she’d pretended not to care about the pyramids. Well, she wasn’t hiding it now.

  “Jake,” she said. “They’re massive.”

  “Even that’s an understatement,” Kit said. “There are three large pyramids on the Giza Plateau, the rock base on which they stand. The biggest, the Great Pyramid, is constructed of over two million stone blocks, each weighing at least two tons.”

  He sounded like a schoolboy, full of wonder. “I could talk all night about that pyramid,” he added.

  “But instead you’re going to rob it,” Sami muttered.

  Kit’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “We all have to work for someone,” he said.

  It was a strange reply. Was he referring to the lady I saw him speak to at the hotel?

  I shook the thought away. The only important thing was beating the black suit to the tomb and its mummy. Pan and I were supposed to stay in the van with Sami, but there was no way we were letting Kit go alone. I didn’t trust the guy one bit.

  “So how do we get to the pyramids?” I asked.

  “We can’t risk the main tourist approach,” Kit said. “Not with all our equipment. At best they’ll think we’re unlicensed archaeologists.”

  “At worst?”

  “Terrorists,” Kit replied. “We’ll take the Sahara entrance to the plateau.”

  “Sahara entrance?” I asked. “Is that a gate?”

  “No, it’s a desert.”

  We rode from rough track onto smooth sand. Behind us were neon lights and honking horns – the glare and roar of Cairo and Giza. Ahead was darkness, dunes and stars.

  We drove in a sweeping arc around the plateau until we reached an outcrop of rock. Spikes of sandstone jutted like dragons’ teeth from the desert floor.

  “We’re two kilometres west of the Giza Plateau,” Kit said, stopping the van. “Good enough for comms base, Sam?”

  “Good enough,” Sami replied. “I can also track your movements from here with a thermographic camera.”

  “All right,” Kit said. “Time for me to suit up.”

  Pan glared at me. If we wanted to go too, we had to do something about it now. I shifted in my seat and braced my legs.

  As Kit climbed into the back of the van, I kicked. The heel of my trainer slammed against his hand, and he screamed, then screamed louder as I booted it again.

  “I’ll kill you!” he screamed, so loud he sprayed me with spit.

  “It was an accident, I swear!”

  “It was not!”

  “Course it was,” Pan protested. “Jake slipped.”

  Kit groaned, clutching his damaged hand. “You’re both lying.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “It doesn’t matter now. We’re here and you have to get that mummy. Are you certain you can find the tomb with one hand? You’ve got no idea what’s in there, what traps or dangers.”

  Kit swore again, even louder. He knew I was right. Now we had to come.

  “Kit?” Sami said. “You can’t take them. You can’t.”

  “You’ve got spare suits?” Kit grunted.

  “Yes, but, Kit—”

  “Just hand them over, Sam. The kids are coming.”

  Pan nudged me and winked. And that was that – we were going on a treasure hunt!

  The suits were sand-coloured camouflage outfits and rubber-soled climbing boots. There were belts, too, but not just any old belts. These were made of some sort of lightweight flexible metal, with slots holding gadgets.

  “It’s a titanium utility belt,” Sami said, helping me strap mine on. “The tomb hunter’s best friend. Each of yours carries water, a flick knife, climbing clips, flare gun, smoke bombs, compressed oxygen breathing tube, one hundred volt compact drill. It also has a built-in bungee cord.”

  “Bungee cord?” Pan asked.

  “There’s a night vision rifle scope in mine,” Kit boasted.

  Sami had bandaged Kit’s injured hand, but he was still able to use the other to slide the gadgets from his belt. He slipped something else from its slot, a slim metal pick with prongs at the top. “This is a skeleton key. It opens any door, anywhere. Especially the door to adventure.”

  Kit’s belt was engraved with his initials, DKT. Dr Kit Thorn. Who gives themselves an initial for doctor?

  “What are these?” I asked.

  From my belt I slid a pair of what looked like wrap-around sunglasses, except they were clear, like glass.

  Sami took them and raised them as if they were a holy relic. The old guy was purring now, delighted for the chance to explain.

  “These glasses will give you night vision,” he said. “They have an in-built thousand-lumen torch for virtual daylight, a two-way microphone for comms, augmented reality sensors, thermal imaging and a microlens camera for super high-definition photos. I’ll set up a 6G network to link directly to them. I can send anything you need to see to the lenses. They have eye tracking and speech recognition, so whatever you want them to do, just say. Say ‘zoom’ for telescopic vision, ‘torch’ for light, ‘thermal’ for heat vision, and so on. You’ll find there’s not much these glasses won’t do.”

  “Will they save our parents?” I asked.

  “No, that’s your job. But they’ll help.”

  “What do you call them?” Pan said.

  “Liquid Crystal Field Sequential Colour System Optical Head Mounted Displays. Or LCFSCSOHMDs, for short.”

  “Can we call them smart-goggles?” I suggested.

  “But…”

  “Smart-goggles it is,” Kit agreed.

  Sami didn’t look pleased, but there was no time to argue. He pushed a black earpiece into my ear, another into Pan’s. “I’ll talk to you on these comms buds. They have reverse microphones, so I’ll hear your replies from up to five kilometres and through most surfaces.”

  I was struggling to take all of this in. Even our camouflage suits seemed special, as if they were sewn from air.

  “What is this suit made of?” I asked.

  “BioSteel,” Sami replied. “Ultra-lightweight body armour. It’s twenty times stronger than Kevlar, but light as cotton.”

  “How is that even possible?” Pan asked, feeling the coat of her suit.

  “It’s fascinating, actually,” Sami replied. “Goats are genetically engineered to produce the chemical constituents of spiders’ silk, which is—”

  “Enough of the science,” Kit interrupted. “It’s tomb-hunting time.”

  He slid the van door back. It was the middle of the night, but the air was so hot it felt as if Kit had opened an oven.

  “Follow my steps,” he said. “Move fast and stay low. There are armed security guards all over the plateau, so be alert. Radio silence until we reach the Great Pyramid.”

  “Wait,” Pan s
aid. “What was that about armed guards?”

  But Kit was already off, moving fast and low across the sand.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Sami said.

  Pan and I glanced at each other. We could let Kit go alone. Maybe we’d even slow him down and ruin his chances of finding the tomb before the black suit. But Kit was a professional thief. We couldn’t be sure he’d really give up the mummy for our parents. We had to go with him.

  I thought again about Mum and Dad, imprisoned somewhere, terrified. The last time I saw them, Mum had been sobbing. I swore I wouldn’t let that be the last time I ever saw them – not as long as I could do something about it. I looked at Pan and her eyes told me the same thing.

  “It’s tomb-hunting time,” she said.

  17

  We were thirty levels up on the Great Pyramid when I was spotted by one of the security guards and shot in the back of the neck.

  At least that was what it felt like, until I realized I’d just torn a muscle in my shoulder. My grip slipped on stone. I cried out, fell back to the narrow ledge and only just managed to stop myself from tumbling the rest of the way down.

  “Jake?” Sami’s voice in my comms bud was urgent. “Jake? Oh my God, you’re dead.”

  “He’s not dead,” Pan said, although she’d not actually checked. She scrambled up higher, gripping the coarse sandstone blocks. “But he will be if he keeps making so much noise.”

  I kept climbing. Pain rippled down my arm, but I managed to restrict my noises to grunts and gasps. From the desert this had looked like an easy climb up stone steps. Up close it was more like rock climbing.

  Each layer was at least three feet high and eroded by five thousand years of wind and sandstorms. Some of the ledges had worn smooth, so there were no edges to grip. Others had crumbled to sand. Even with Sami’s BioSteel gloves and climbing boots, we kept slipping.

  We rested for a moment on a ledge, catching our breath. I looked down for the first time and couldn’t prevent another frightened yelp from escaping. My stomach somersaulted and the ground seemed to race up at me. The pyramid was so steep it was almost vertical. People had died falling down the thing before climbing it was banned.

  “Guys?” Sami said, his panic ringing in our ears. “Is someone hurt? Why have you stopped? I can hear wheezing.”

  “Just resting, Sami,” Pan said.

  I pressed my back against the ledge and tried not to look down again. Ahead, the lights of Cairo spread as far as we could see, pulsing like a sea of lava. It was hard to believe that was the same chaotic place we’d raced around all day. It seemed calm, peaceful even.

  I slid my smart-goggles from my belt and slotted them over my eyes. Digital information appeared around the edges of my vision – the air temperature and altitude. Pinprick dots hovered over far-off features, with labels naming mosques and marketplaces.

  “Zoom,” I said.

  My view catapulted me from the pyramid across the city, picking out details on buildings several miles away. I blinked and the view returned to normal.

  “Smart-goggles doesn’t cover it,” I muttered. “These things are genius.”

  The information changed as I shifted to look across the Giza Plateau. The other two pyramids – one almost as big as the Great Pyramid, the other smaller and a little embarrassed-looking because of it – were surrounded by ruins of temples and low, flat tombs. At the edge of the plateau, a huge lion-shaped statue – the Great Sphinx – kept watch across Cairo.

  “It’s amazing,” Pan breathed.

  I’d never been that interested in the stuff that Mum and Dad taught, but this was incredible. I remembered how excited Mum had got just talking about these monuments. I wished she were here now, and Dad too, telling us all about the pyramids. I’d listen, and care.

  Pan looked across Cairo, the city lights reflecting off the lenses of her goggles. “Mum and Dad are out there somewhere,” she said.

  “They’ll be OK, Pan.”

  “No, they won’t, Jake. They’ve been kidnapped. They’ll be terrified. They’re not like Kit or you.”

  Me? I wasn’t exactly an action hero. I was about to say so, but Pan looked away, hiding her face. Was she crying?

  “You said I hate them, but that’s not true.”

  “You’re angry they sent you to that school,” I said. “But why? It’s where you belong.”

  She shot me a look, but saw that I wasn’t teasing. “I thought it made me a freak. That I’d get … you know.”

  She’d feared she’d be bullied even more than at her last school. But I remembered the excitement in her eyes when she’d cracked the papyrus puzzle at the hotel. Was she finally beginning to realize that having a mind like hers was a gift?

  “I wish I was gifted,” I said. “I’d tell everyone.”

  “You are gifted. You know that, right?”

  I laughed. “I’m failing almost every class, Pan.”

  “I don’t mean at school. You just have this skill of knowing what to do when dangerous things happen. You make plans when everyone else panics. Remember in the museum? You were the only one thinking straight.”

  “Yeah, and look what happened. I smashed up half the place.”

  “You got the papyrus. That’s what happened.”

  She looked at me, and part of me knew she was right. I did have a strange ability, but I wouldn’t call it a skill. Skills were good things. The dumb things I did caused trouble and upset people, especially Mum and Dad.

  “You think we’ll ever see them again?” Pan asked.

  I wanted to say yes, but I couldn’t. The black suit had the same clue to the tomb. He might be there already.

  “Not if we sit around here,” I said, helping Pan up. “Come on, we’re falling behind.”

  We already were behind. Despite his injured hand, Kit was thirty levels higher up and climbing fast. We gulped water from our canteens, and kept going.

  The lights from below grew dimmer and the stars got brighter. Dry wind whipped our backs and swept sand under my smart-goggles, stinging my eyes. Even beneath my gloves, blisters formed and burst on my fingers.

  By the time we caught up with Kit, my arms felt like blades of fire. Tears streaked my cheeks through a layer of sand and stone dust.

  Kit helped me up to the ledge. He barely seemed out of breath.

  “You guys OK?” he asked.

  I grunted yes, which was a lie, but he didn’t sound like he cared anyway.

  We’d reached the one hundred and eightieth level of the Great Pyramid, but any joy I might have felt was replaced by terror as I dared another glance down.

  Oh my God, we were high.

  I pressed myself tight against the blocks. It was as if we were on a window ledge high up a skyscraper, being battered by wind.

  I’m not really scared of much – but I can’t handle heights. Kit didn’t seem at all bothered about being so high up as he crouched and brushed away sand to examine the sandstone ledge.

  “If I read the clue correctly,” he said, “and I always read clues correctly, the entrance to the tomb should be somewhere on this level.”

  “Kit?” It was Sami, panicking again in our comms buds. “Kit, there’s something else.”

  “A problem?”

  “I’m looking at your thermal images. I see the three of you as orange blobs high on the pyramid. But there’s another blob, about halfway down. It’s moving slowly, stopping every few levels, as if to hide.”

  “One of the guards?” Pan asked.

  “No,” Sami replied. “I’ve got them all marked on my screen.”

  “It’s the black suit,” I said.

  Kit looked at me, eyebrow arched. We all knew it, so why bother pretending otherwise? The black suit was here, but that was the best news we could have had. We were ahead of him.

  “We have to hurry,” I said, “and find the entrance to the tomb.”

  We shuffled along the ledge, leaning into the stone as much to stop ourselves
from falling as to search for the entrance. This ledge was narrower than most. Its stone blocks were covered in chips and scratch marks, as if someone had gone at them with an ice-pick.

  I’d been so scared of the height that I hadn’t noticed my own excitement. The lost Tomb of Osiris. It was close. The thought made me almost as breathless as the climb. Goose bumps prickled my skin.

  “One of these blocks must be hiding a secret passage,” Kit called. “Look for symbols or levers – anything that might suggest an entrance.”

  The author of the “Tomb Robber’s Tale”, Ipuwer, had found the entrance. We had to put ourselves in his head, to try to think like he had when he was up here three thousand years ago.

  “How would Ipuwer have known where the entrance was?” I called.

  “Most likely from an ancestor of a pyramid builder,” Kit said.

  “So the builders left a mark up here?” Pan asked.

  “Unlikely,” Kit replied. “The tomb entrance would have been secret, to protect it from thieves.”

  “So Ipuwer knew only what we know,” I said. “That the tomb entrance was somewhere on this level. He’d have examined all these blocks, hacked at them, searched for the way in.”

  “That’s why the stones here are so chipped,” Pan added, finishing my thought. “It was Ipuwer, looking for the entrance.”

  “But they’re all marked like that,” Kit said. “No way to know which one hides the entrance.”

  “There is,” I replied. “Because Ipuwer hid the entrance. He went in and came out. He can’t have left the tomb open, or it would have been found by now. He must have resealed it. So we should look for a block that’s far less chipped than the others.”

  “We’ve already seen it!” Pan said. “It was back here.”

  We started to shuffle back, but Kit didn’t follow. He stood on the ledge, staring. I thought at first that he’d found the entrance because he looked so astonished. But he was staring at us.

  “My God,” he said. “It really does run in the family.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing. Where’s this block?”

  “Here,” Pan called. “This one here.”