The Book of the Dead (15 page)

J
ay Lipper, computer effects consultant, paused in the empty burial chamber, peering about in the dim light. Four weeks had passed since the museum made the big announcement about the new opening of the Tomb of Senef; and Lipper himself had been on the job three weeks. Today was the big meeting, and he had arrived ten minutes early, to walk through the tomb and visualize the setup he’d diagrammed out: where to lay the fiber-optic cables, where to put the LEDs, where to mount the speakers, where to float the spots, where to put the holographic screens. It was two weeks before the grand opening, and an incredible amount still had to be done.

He could hear a medley of voices echoing down the multi-chambered tomb from somewhere near the entrance, distorted, mingled with the sound of hammering and the whine of Skilsaws. The teams of workmen were going flat out, and no expense was being spared. Especially
his
expense: he was charging $120 an hour, working eighty hours a week, making a fortune. On the other hand, he was earning every penny of it. Especially given the clown the museum had assigned him as cable-puller, duct-taper, and all-around electronic gofer. A real knuckle-dragger: if the guy was typical of the museum’s tech staff, they were in trouble. The man was so buffed and toned he looked like a brick of meat, with a bullet head that contained about as much gray matter as a spaniel. The man probably spent his weekends in the gym instead of boning up on the technology he was supposed to understand.

As if on cue, the clown’s voice rang down the corridor. “Dark as a tomb in here, hey, Jayce?” Teddy DeMeo came lumbering around the corner, arms full of an untidy bundle of rolled electronic diagrams.

Lipper tightened his lips and reminded himself once again of that $120 an hour. The worst of it was that, before he’d gotten to know what DeMeo was like, Lipper had unwisely mentioned to him the massively multiplayer online RPG he was involved in:
Land of Darkmord
. And DeMeo had immediately gone online and subscribed. Lipper’s character, a devious half-elf sorcerer with a +5 onyx cape and a full book of offensive spells, had spent weeks organizing a military expedition to a distant castle stronghold. He’d been recruiting warriors—and suddenly, there was DeMeo, in the character of a slope-faced orc carrying a club, volunteering for military service, acting like his best friend, full of asinine questions and stupid off-color jokes and embarrassing him in front of all the other players.

DeMeo came to a halt beside him, breathing hard, the sweat pouring off his brow, smelling like a damp sock.

“All right, let’s see…” He unrolled one of the plats. Naturally, DeMeo was holding it upside down, and it took him several seconds to right it.

“Give it to me,” said Lipper, snatching it from him and smoothing it out. He glanced at his watch. Still five minutes before the curatorial committee was due to arrive. No problem—at two dollars a minute, Lipper would wait for Godot.

He sniffed, looked around. “Someone’s going to have to do something about this humidity. I can’t have my electronics sitting in a sweatshop.”

“Yeah,” said DeMeo, looking around. “And will you look at this weird shit? I mean, what the hell’s
that?
Gives me the creeps.”

Lipper glanced over at the fresco in question, depicting a human being with the black head of an insect, wearing pharaonic dress. The burial chamber was creepy: walls black with hieroglyphics, ceiling covered with a representation of the night sky, strange yellow stars and a moon against a field of deep indigo. But the truth was, Lipper liked being creeped out. It was like being inside the world of Darkmord for real.

“That’s the god Khepri,” he said. “A man with the head of a scarab beetle. He helps roll the sun across the sky.” Working on the project had fascinated Lipper, and he’d delved deeply into Egyptian mythology over the last several weeks, looking for background and visual cues.

“
The Mummy
meets
The Fly
,” said DeMeo with a laugh.

Their conversation was cut short by a rising hubbub of voices as a group entered the burial chamber: the man in charge, Menzies, followed by his curators.

“Gentlemen! I’m glad you’re already here. We don’t have much time.” Menzies came forward, shook their hands. “You all know each other, of course.”

They all nodded. How could they not, having practically been living together these past few weeks? There was Dr. Nora Kelly, someone Lipper could at least work with; the smug Brit named Wicherly; and Mr. Personality himself, the anthropology curator, George Ashton. The committee.

As the new arrivals talked briefly among themselves, Lipper felt a painful dig in his ribs. He looked over to see DeMeo, mouth open, winking and leering. “Man, oh man,” he whispered, nodding at Dr. Kelly. “I’d climb all over that in a heartbeat.”

Lipper glanced away, rolling his eyes.

“Well!” Menzies turned to address them again. “Shall we do the walk-through?”

“Sure thing, Dr. Menzies!” said DeMeo.

Lipper gave him a look he hoped would shut the moron up. This was his plan, his brainwork, his artistry: DeMeo’s job was rack-mounting the equipment, pulling cable, and making sure juice got to all parts of the system.

“We should start at the beginning,” Lipper said, leading them back to the entrance with another warning side glance at DeMeo.

They threaded their way back through the half-built exhibits and the construction teams. As they approached the entrance to the tomb, Lipper felt his annoyance at DeMeo displaced by a growing excitement. The “script” for the sound-and-light show had been written by Wicherly, with various additions by Kelly and Menzies, and the end result was good. Very good. In turning it into reality, he’d made it even better. This was going to be one kick-ass exhibition.

Reaching the God’s First Passage, Lipper turned to face the others. “The sound-and-light show will be triggered automatically. It’s important that people be let into the tomb as a group and move through it together. As they proceed, they’ll trip hidden sensors that in turn start each sequence of the show. When the sequence ends, they will move to the next part of the tomb and see the next sequence. After the show ends, the group will have fifteen minutes to look around the tomb before being escorted out and the next group brought in.”

He pointed to the ceiling. “The first sensor will be up there, in the corner. As the visitors pass this point, the sensor will register, wait thirty seconds for stragglers to catch up, and start the first sequence, which I call act 1.”

“How are you hiding the cable?” asked Menzies.

“No problem,” broke in DeMeo. “We’re running it through black one-inch conduit. They’ll never see it.”

“Nothing can be affixed to the painted surface,” said Wicherly.

“No, no. The conduit is steel, self-supporting, only needs to be anchored in the corners. It floats two millimeters above the surface of the paint, won’t even touch it.”

Wicherly nodded.

Lipper breathed out, thankful that DeMeo hadn’t come across as an idiot—at least not yet.

Lipper led the party into the next chamber. “When the visitors reach the center of the God’s Second Passage—where we’re standing now—the lights will suddenly dim. There will be the sound of digging, furtive chatter, pickaxes striking stone—at first just sounds in the dark, no visuals. A voice-over will explain that this is the tomb of Senef and that it is about to be robbed by the very priests who buried him two months before. The sounds of digging will get louder as the robbers reach the first sealed door. They’ll attack it with pickaxes—and then, suddenly, one will break through. That’s when the visuals start.”

“The point where they break through the sealed door is critical,” Menzies said. “What’s needed is a resounding blow from the pickax, a tumble of stones inward, and a piercing shaft of light like a bolt of lightning. This is a key moment and it needs to be dramatic.”

“It
will
be dramatic.” Lipper felt a faint irritation. Menzies, while charming enough, had been intrusive and meddlesome about certain technical details, and Lipper was worried he might micromanage the installation as well.

Lipper continued. “Then the lights come up and the voice-over directs the audience to the well.” He led them through the long passageway and a broad staircase. Ahead, a new bridge had been built over the pit, broad enough to hold a large group.

“As they approach the well,” Lipper went on, “a sensor in that corner will pick up their passage and begin act 2.”

“Right,” DeMeo interrupted. “Each act will be independently controlled by a pair of dual-processor PowerMac G5s, slaved to a third G5 that will act as backup and master controller.”

Lipper rolled his eyes. DeMeo had just quoted, word for word, from Lipper’s own spec sheet.

“Where will these computers be located?” asked Menzies.

“We’re going to cable through the wall—”

“Look here,” said Wicherly. “No one’s going to drill any holes in the walls of this tomb.”

DeMeo turned to him. “It just so happens that a long time ago somebody
already
drilled through the wall—in five places! The holes were cemented up, but I found them and cleared them out.” DeMeo crossed his muscled arms in triumph, as if he’d just kicked sand in the face of a ninety-eight-pound weakling at the beach.

“What’s on the far side?” Menzies asked.

“A storeroom,” said DeMeo, “currently empty. We’re converting it to a control room.”

Lipper cleared his throat, forestalling any more interruptions by DeMeo. “In act 2, visitors will see the digitized images of the robbers bridging the well so they can break the second sealed door. A screen will lower on the far side of the well—unseen to the visitors, of course. Then a holographic projector in the far corner will project images of the robbers in the passageway ahead, carrying burning torches, breaking the seals of the inner door, smashing it down, and heading for the burial chamber. The idea here is to make the visitors feel like they’re actually part of the gang of robbers. They’ll follow the robbers into the inner tomb—where act 3 begins.”

“Lara Croft, watch out!” DeMeo said, looking around and laughing at his witticism.

The group entered the burial chamber, where Lipper paused again. “The visitors will hear things before they see anything—breakage, shouting. As they enter this end of the burial chamber, they’ll be stopped by a gate, here. And then the main event begins. First, it’s dark, with frightened, excited voices. Then more smashing and breaking. A sudden flare, and another, and the torches are lit up. We see the sweaty, terrified, avaricious faces of the priests. And gold! Everywhere, the gleam of gold.” He turned to Wicherly. “Just as you wrote in the script.”

“Excellent!”

“As the torches are lit, the computer-controlled lighting will come up, dimly illuminating parts of the burial chamber. The thieves will shove off and smash the stone lid of the sarcophagus. Then they’ll hoist up the top of the inner sarcophagus—the one in solid gold—and one of them will leap in and begin ripping off the linen wrappings. Then, with a shout of triumph, they’ll hold up the scarab and smash it, thus breaking its power.”

“That’s the climax,” said Menzies, breaking in excitedly. “That’s where I want the peal of thunder, the strobes simulating flashes of lightning.”

“And you’ll have it,” DeMeo said. “We got a complete Dolby Surround and Pro Logic II sound system and four Chauvet Mega II 750-watt strobes, along with a bunch of spots. All controlled by a twenty-four-channel DMX lighting console, fully automated.”

He looked around proudly, as if he knew what the hell he was talking about instead of, once again, quoting verbatim from Lipper’s carefully designed specs. God, Lipper couldn’t stand him. He waited a moment before resuming.

“After the light and thunder, the holographic projectors will switch back on, and we’ll see Senef himself rise from the sarcophagus. The priests will fall back, terrified. This is all meant to be in their minds, what they imagine, as was written in the script.”

“But it will be realistic?” Nora asked, frowning. “Not hokey?”

“It’ll all be 3-D, and the holographic images are a bit like ghosts—you can see through them, but only when there’s strong light behind. We’ll manipulate the light levels very carefully to exploit that illusion. Some of it’s video-based, some of it C.G. Anyway, Senef rises, violated, and points a finger. To more flashes of lightning and thunder, he speaks of his life, what he has done, what a great regent and vizier he was to Thutmosis, and of course, this is where you slip in the educational stuff.”

“Meanwhile,” said DeMeo, “we’ve got a 500-watt Jem Glaciator hidden in the sarcophagus, pumping out an awesome ground fog. Two thousand cubic feet a minute.”

“My script doesn’t call for artificial smoke,” said Wicherly. “This could damage the paintings.”

“The Jem system uses only environmentally friendly fluids,” Lipper said. “Guaranteed not to chemically alter anything.”

Nora Kelly was frowning again. “Forgive me for raising this question, but is this level of theatricality really necessary?”

Menzies turned to her. “Why, Nora! This was your idea to begin with.”

“I was imagining something lower-key, not strobe lights and fog machines.”

Menzies chuckled. “As long as we’re going this route, Nora, we should do it right. Trust me, we’re creating an unforgettable educational experience. It’s a marvelous way to slip a little learning to the vulgus mobile without them ever realizing it.”

Nora continued to look doubtful, but said nothing further.

Lipper resumed. “As Senef speaks, the robbers fall to the floor in terror. Then Senef melts back into his sarcophagus, the robbers vanish, the holographic screens retract, the lights come up—and suddenly the tomb is as it was, before the robbery. A museum exhibit once again. The gate slides back and the visitors are free to tour the burial chamber as if nothing had happened.”

Menzies raised a finger. “But they will do so having gained an appreciation of Senef and been entertained in the process. Now for the million-dollar question: can you finish by deadline?”