Damselfly (11 page)

She unlatches her box and sets out her brushes. “So you want me to go and ask him for it, right?”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s a lot.”

She sighs. “Lina, if I get caught, I’ll be fired. I was really lucky to get this job. I was unemployed for six months before I started working here. You don’t know what it’s like…”

“You’re right. I don’t. Because no one lets me out of here.” I gather my anger and try to stuff it down. I do feel bad for her, but I still need this favor. “I don’t want you to lose your job, Susanna. If you go during the date tonight, I’m sure no one will see you. Everyone important will be at the shoot.”

She nods slowly. “I guess so. All right.”

“Can I borrow your pen and paper again?”

“Sure.”

I write “Lightning Bug Juice” in Morse code and hand the note to her. She acts as though I’m handing her a venomous snake.

Two hours later, I’m fed, washed, dressed, and made up for my date with Crane. If Dr. Christiansen plans on recycling all of my construct dates with Jack, then I’m pretty sure what the next scenario will be.

The pyramids of Egypt.

Chapter 12

Our second construct date happened after a few more weeks of long talks in chat parlors and over instant messenger.

The sand swirled up from our feet when Jack and I loaded into the desert. I took one look at his mummy costume and burst out laughing. He put out his arms all stiff-like and shambled in my direction with a moan.

I took off running in the opposite direction and promptly tripped on a stone. I face-planted into the sand, and Jack started laughing so hard he collapsed onto the ground next to me.

“I’m not normally a klutz,” I insisted as he unwound his bandages.

“I know. That’s why it’s hilarious when your clumsy side makes an appearance.”

“I think you put some sort of mummy curse on me.”

“I think you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

I flung a handful of sand at him, but he dodged it with an elegant roll.

“Oh, look at you! Do you do martial arts or something?”

“Maybe,” he said with a grin. “It’s been a while though.”

“You’re just one surprise after another.”

“You too, Thumbelina.”

That name sobered me instantly, and he noticed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Let’s go see some pyramids!”

“I’ll race you.” He jetted off, and I quickly followed. Since fatigue and muscle aren’t a real factor in constructs, I won.

“Let’s go up!” I shouted back to him. We ran around the perimeter until we found a trail up the southwest side of the Great Pyramid. After twenty minutes of climbing, we weren’t anywhere close to the top so we decided to come down.

“We could just load at the top,” he said.

“Let’s go check out the inside first.”

We circled around until we found the entrance. The wind picked up as we crept inside the silent pyramid.

“I bet it would be really hot in here if this was real,” I said as we descended into the tunnel.

“Just turn off your air conditioning so you can imagine it better.”

“I don’t have any. Besides, it’s kind of cold here right now.”

“Really? We’re getting some record-breaking heat for October. I’ve been drinking water non-stop, and I haven’t had to piss all day because I’m sweating so much.”

“Wow, thanks for telling me, Jack!”

“You’re welcome.” He paused. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Yeah, I haven’t noticed you be quite so…open before.”

“I guess you bring it out of me.”

“Great,” I said, but I was smiling into the darkness.

I followed him down the tunnel into the Queen’s Chamber. “How do you know where you’re going?” I called after him.

“I’ve been to this construct before. I dig exploring old, historical places. Especially ones that are a little creepy.”

“How long did it take you to put together the mummy costume?” I asked with a snort.

“Not telling! Anyway, here we are.”

The Queen’s Chamber was a compact, stony cube.

“It’s really small,” I said.

“The King’s Chamber is bigger.”

“Typical.”

“Yeah, it seems odd to me though. If I believed I could have access to all my stuff and my wife after I died, I think I would want her buried in the same chamber. The way they have it now, they might as well be sleeping in separate bedrooms.”

It gave my stomach a bit of a flip to hear him talk that way. He’d never hinted he’d thought about having a wife in the future before. I rubbed my arms and focused my gaze on the empty stone container in the middle of the room.

“How come it’s empty?” I wondered aloud. “Was anyone ever buried here?”

“No one knows. Some people think Cheops and his wife were buried here and robbers plundered everything.”

“Plundered. That makes them sound like pirates.”

“Mummies, pirates, treasure… Pretty good movie material.”

“I think that’s already been done,” I said.

“Yeah, but all those things together?”

“Yep. Several times.”

“Well, shoot, there goes my career in screenwriting.”

We walked up to the King’s Chamber, which was not as large I’d expected. Its sarcophagus also sat empty. The room held nothing but sand and cobwebs.

“What a waste,” I said. “Hoarding all of those supplies in here, only to have them taken by robbers instead of going to someone who could have used them.”

Jack shrugged. “Yeah, but they believed they would need all that stuff.”

“I guess they were wrong.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, obviously they didn’t use it because it was here for the taking. Like Tutankhamen’s tomb where they found everything still intact. All the food—everything.”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe you use things differently in the afterlife.”

“If there even is one.”

He studied my face. “I think it’s real. Maybe not the way they imagined it, though. Did your parents raise you in any religion?”

I laughed. “No, not really.” I remembered my Russian mom and the cross she gave me. “A couple of my family members are Christians, but I think that’s it. Science is king where I live.”

“Would it bother you if someone you dated had their own faith?”

The question took me aback. Was he asking for a reason or to find out how I felt in general? “I guess it depends on the faith. I don’t think I could date someone who believed in Santa Claus…”

“I was raised as a traditional Lakota.”

“What does that mean?”

“We believe in a Great Spirit and in respecting nature. It also means I went to the dances and ceremonies.”

“That sounds kind of cool.” I lapsed into silence, thinking about it. “I don’t know if I believe in a god or not. Or a goddess. No one here really talks about it.” I shrugged.

“Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure either.”

“Maybe we’re not that different, after all,” I said with a smile. His worry melted into a boyish grin.

“I guess not,” he said. “I just wanted to ask.”

So now you can ask me to be your girlfriend?
I held my breath and half-hoped he would.

“Want to see the grotto?”

I bit back my disappointment and smiled. “Sure.”

I followed him down the winding tunnels to a small room full of strange round formations. Minerals crusted the walls.

“There’s a well right over there, so watch your step,” Jack said as he pointed to a hole in the floor. “But this here is what I want to show you.” He jerked his head toward a tunnel.

“Where does it go?”

“Absolutely nowhere.”

“I don’t believe it. This is a pyramid! It has to go somewhere.” I wished I could transform to my real size and fly along the passageway. Then I noticed the mischievous grin on Jack’s face.

“I thought you might say that,” he said. He handed me a spare flashlight and a chisel. “Want to do some exploring? You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“I definitely want to check it out. But will it work to chisel through since this is just, you know, a construct?”

“I’m not sure. Let’s find out.” He bent down and began to squeeze into the narrow space. “You coming?”

I was already close behind him. We crawled for what felt like miles before we hit a dead-end. Jack ran his fingers along the edges of the wall. “Anything look funny to you?”

“I see light coming through,” I said. “Hammer your chisel right there.”

He wedged the chisel into the crack and brought the hammer back. “Might want to scoot away. I don’t want to accidentally clock you in the head with this thing.”

I obliged, and he drove the hammer into the chisel. The stone along the edge cracked and splintered before crumbling into sand. He pressed his hand against the remaining piece and
pushed.

An avalanche of bricks tumbled into the next room.

A room.
I held my breath as we crawled through the entrance and stood up.

“Am I really seeing this?” I asked, turning in circles. The chamber was small but lined with elaborately painted sarcophagi. “No way.”

Jack chuckled and ruffled the dust out of his hair. “You can say that again.”

“How can this be here? Without being discovered? Or, since it’s in the construct, maybe it’s been discovered? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know, but I want to check out the coffins. Can you give me a hand lifting this lid?”

“Should we really look inside? I feel kind of weird about doing that.”

“It’s just a construct, remember?”

“I know, but still…” I slid my fingertips into the groove where the lid and the base of the sarcophagus came together.

“One…two…three!” We lifted together and liberated enough dust to suffocate ourselves. I coughed out of habit as we set the lid on the ground, even though I obviously wasn’t breathing anything but perfectly dust-free air.

As the dust cleared, we crept up to the edge of the coffin. A shriveled, human-shaped mass of cloth lay in the shadows.

“Is that what I think it is?” I whispered.

“I’m going to check the lid for an inscription. Should have done that first.” He panned his flashlight across the top and found some faded hieroglyphics. “I wish I could read those.”

I was still staring at the face. The features were intact, although they reminded me more of burnt leather than human skin.

Jack made a faint moaning sound, and I whirled around. “Jack, are you okay?”

He looked completely fine. “What do you mean?”

“You made a noise.”

“No, I didn’t.” Then his mouth dropped open, and he pointed over my shoulder.

I already knew what I was going to see, and I couldn’t breathe or move. After several agonizing seconds, I forced myself to face the mummy. It was slowly unfolding its arms and starting to sit up.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I hissed. I sprang backward and grabbed one of the bricks we’d knocked out of the door and threw it at the mummy’s head as hard as I could. The mummy shuddered as its head snapped to the side, then it fell into the coffin in a soft shuffle of bone and skin and cloth.

“How the hell did that just happen?!” I stared at Jack, fully expecting to see him wearing the same panicked expression.

Instead, his mouth was twisted into an I’m-trying-really-hard-not-to-smile sort of face.

“You!” I squealed at him. “This was your idea, wasn’t it?!” The adrenaline was draining away, leaving me with a bad case of the shakes.

A short laugh escaped. “I’m sorry, Lina. Don’t hate me!”

The mummy costume, the fake room… I groaned. I should have known. “You stinker!”

His eyes crinkled up as the laughter took over. “You—you should have seen yourself! You almost took its head off!”

My breaths were coming in short gasps, and I started hiccoughing. My chest began to tighten, and the familiar drowning sensation of an asthma attack expelled all of my anger.

“Jack,” I gasped. I wanted to tell him I would be right back, but I couldn’t speak. My hands fumbled up to my face and I pulled off my halojector. Medicine. Where was my medicine?

I spotted my handbag sitting next to the front door and flew over to it, knocking several pictures off of the wall in the process. I opened the tin, broke the capsule, inhaled.

I sank against the wall, breathing hard as the vise around my chest began to loosen. My pulse increased as the medicine entered my bloodstream, and I trembled all over, exhausted from the rush.

I could hear Jack’s muffled voice through my halojector, but it took me a few minutes to steady my breathing enough so I would be able to tell him what happened.

When I put the halojector back on, I found that Jack had loaded us just outside the pyramid.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as soon as he saw my avatar moving again. “I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea it would make you so upset.”

“I’m not upset, Jack. It was my asthma. Sometimes the adrenaline makes me breathe extra-hard and that can trigger an attack. It wasn’t your fault.”