The Smithsonian Objective (3 page)

"We came from… here?" She
whispered it, barely believing it herself, not knowing what to
believe anymore. Nothing mattered. Everything she had held sacred
had just been incinerated in the course of an hour.

She leaned in and felt her
arms encircling Xavier's neck. Felt her breath leave in a rush,
mixing with his, as his lips parted and he bent down to meet her
kiss. And then all her doubts and confusion were drowned in the
bliss of passionate oblivion.

* * *

Washington,
D.C.

The Smithsonian
Institute

September 13, 7:30
PM

Xavier had flown her back
on his private plane to avoid any lingering security that might be
on the lookout for her. Then once in D.C., he had sent her on in a
cab while he left on other errands, saying he would see her again
later that night.

Amazingly, perhaps because
Simcoe felt there was no rush, her credentials still worked at the
Smithsonian's main entrance. The guard let her pass without a
second look. She took the elevator and marched straight into Darien
Simcoe's office. She knew he worked late most days, and sure
enough, found him at his desk.

Except…

He was sitting in his
chair, and at first it seemed he was asleep, mouth open. But then
she noticed the spray of blood on the wall of diplomas behind him.
On his lap: a gun, still warm, gripped loosely in his lifeless
hand.

She stood there a long time
before finding the courage to move to his desk to see what was
lying there, inside an open manila file marked
CONFIDENTIAL.

It was a catalog. A listing
of the contents of
Archives – Sublevel 5,
K-L.

About the middle of the
first page, her vision snagged on it:
Kincaid's Cave. Locker 23-893. Combination 343212.

Gooseflesh ran down the
back of her neck. Did Simcoe have a change of heart? Maybe he saw
her on the entrance video feed, coming in brazenly with a leather
satchel full of… something, and decided to end it for himself
before she could expose him.

But… something didn't feel
right.

She shook it off. She had
an opportunity here. Xavier had been clear – what they took from
the cave was nothing definitive. Easily dismissive as a forgery.
The only real evidence was locked away in the Smithsonian's secret
archives.

She made her
choice.

* * *

Sublevel 5

At times during the
descent, she was sure she was being followed. Shadows on the
stairwell above her, darting out of sight when she looked back. But
curiosity won out over caution. She made it to the sealed door on
Sublevel 5, tried her handprint on the scanner and for some reason
she wasn't surprised that it worked. She opened the
door.

As she stepped inside,
motion-sensing halogen bulbs illuminated an enormous warehouse
floor with shelves twenty feet high, their contents locked away in
boxes behind metal bars.

Drifting through the aisles
as if in a dream; she eventually found herself before locker
23-893. It was the fourth shelf up, about at the level of her head.
The compartment had a digital screen and a number pad.

At a scuffling sound behind
her; she turned, holding her breath, but saw nothing.

Calming her nerves, she
turned back and typed in the combination. The grate popped out,
then the locker slid down.

She was about to open it
and reach inside when she heard it again: a grating metallic sound
from the next aisle. She dropped low and slid along the shelving
for several steps before skidding to a halt.

There was a face staring at
her through the bars.

Blue eyes. Red
hair.

Xavier grinned as he bent
to an empty shelf where they could see each other clearly. "Did you
find it?"

Diana was too stunned to
answer. A hundred connections slid into place all at once. Then she
said it: "You… you killed Simcoe."

His grin never
wavered.

Fighting off a fresh wave
of nausea, she continued. "You left the catalog for me to find,
after what? Forcing him to show it to you and then extending my
clearance to the sublevels?"

Xavier shrugged, but still
said nothing.

She knelt on the floor now,
her mind spinning with everything that had happened since he
dropped to her rescue, and now she fought the crushing realization
that he had been four moves ahead of her the whole time.
"Why?"

He raised his right hand.
In it rested something a little smaller than a bowling ball. It was
silver-plated, covered with crisscrossing lines etched with strange
runes. Just looking at it made her head swim. "This, he whispered.
"The contents of locker 21-432."

"What is it?"

"Something I need," he
responded cryptically. "Something more important than you can ever
guess. It was relegated here, suppressed without further study,
simply because of where it was found."

"Where?"

"On a Wyoming cattle ranch
in 1923; discovered under thirty feet of topsoil and inside the
ribcage of a fossilized Triceratops. The implication of course
being that whatever advanced civilization made this thing – it
coexisted with the dinosaurs. Over seventy million years
ago…"

Diana said nothing for a
moment, refusing to even acknowledge the impact of what he had just
said. Finally she said, "So you used me. Because… because… you saw
it here and needed my access?"

He nodded. "See, you're
getting this now. Yes, I saw this sphere. Dreamed of it many, many
times. Knew I was meant to find it, and I knew I could get you to
help me."

"The Kincaid article. The
Grand Canyon. My father…" She slumped to the floor.
"Everything…"

Xavier's hand appeared
above her, his arm extending through a gap in the shelf. At first
she thought he was trying to grab her hair or pull her up. A part
of her wanted him to. Needed him to. Despite everything.

But then his hand
opened.

And a single folded sheet
of paper descended toward herand settled on the floor by her
face.

"Look at that," he said in
almost a whisper. "when you're settled down. When the turmoil and
thrill of what's to come gives you a moment's breath. And when that
day arrives, make your choice. You can change the future, or
embrace it. Either way, I'll be waiting."

As his footsteps echoed
down the lonely corridor, past the suppressed relics of a forbidden
age, she somehow found the energy to touch the page and hold it up.
In a sketch just as beautiful in its contours of light and shade,
he had drawn a vision of the two of them together. Holding hands,
facing a sun rising over a desert-like mountain scene.

A vision that despite the
excitement of everything she'd discovered, and the fear of what was
to come, still brought tears to her eyes and a smile on her
face.

Thank you for reading The
Smithsonian Objective! If you enjoyed it, please check out The
Pharos Objective, available in paperback and ebook at

Smashwords

Amazon

Nook

and keep your eyes open for
The Mongol Objective, coming late 2011 from David Sakmyster and
Variance Publishing.