The Official Matthew Reilly Homepage

PART 2
THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
Chase walked around the glass-encased mine entrance, evaluating it with a cool gaze.
    'Teotihuacan structure,' she said. 'Late fifth century.'
    'Correct,' Breslin said.
    'Design is similar to that of some of the gold and diamond mines on the outskirts of the main metropolis in Mexico,' she said. 'I assume you've encountered booby traps.' Teotihuacan mines often featured elaborate traps as a deterrence to thieves.
    'Yes, we have,' General Haynes said.
    'But this baby's a long way from home…' Kenny G said.
    'Yes.' Chase rounded on Haynes. 'Although it would help if we had some idea just how far from home we are.'
    Haynes eyed her carefully, then said, 'Nevada. We're in southern Nevada.'
    Kenny turned to Chase. 'Could be Xutu.'
    'What's Xutu?' Breslin asked.
    'It's a legendary Teotihuacan prison,' Chase said, 'reputedly built in the desert far to the north of the main city. The Teotihuacan version of Alcatraz. Legend has it that Xutu was also filled with lethal booby traps, and-at its lowest levels-was patrolled not by human guards, but by animals.'
    'Animals?'
    Kenny said, 'Most likely domesticated American marsupial wolves. Although-'
    'The thing is,' Chase said, 'Xutu could just be a myth. Talk of it only arises from the disputed translation of a handful of glyphs in Teotihuacan.'
    The lab technician arrived from upstairs with Chase's computer gear. Her laptop was connected to a device that looked like a police radar gun: Kenny's image scanner.
    Chase looked expectantly at Breslin and Haynes.
    'Okay. So what do you want us to do?'
    Haynes said, 'We want you to go down into the mine, and using that little database of yours, open up its biggest secret.'

ENTRY
The door to the Lexan-glass airlock surrounding the mine entrance opened with a loud hiss.
    Chase and Kenny stood before it, now surrounded by eight fully-armed soldiers-their escort-whom Haynes merely said 'were from Delta'. Their leader was a lieutenant named William 'Tank' Kowalski.
    A long length of nylon rope was also now tied firmly around Chase's waist, connecting her to Kenny.
    'Buddy system,' Kowalski had said as he'd tied the rope around her slender hips.
    Chase had noticed that all the Delta men were joined together in a similar way, tied off into pairs. She wondered why.
    The airock swung open, and a knot of apprehension materialised in her throat. She swallowed it. She was frightened, but her curiosity had got the better of her. She wanted to know what lay inside this mine.
    And with that, they entered the airlock, and disappeared inside the ancient mine.

THE WELL-SHAFT AND THE LONG STONE
The first thing Chase saw were four close stone walls and a hard-packed earthen floor. In the middle of the dirt floor, however, was a dark circular hole, into which hung a knotted rope.
    Following the Delta men, Haynes and Breslin, she climbed down the well, aided by the knots on the rope.
    The walls of the shaft were perfectly sheer, and dripping with moisture. Every brick was set flush against the next. There was not a fingerhold to be had up its entire cylindrical length.
    Which was odd, Chase thought. Most Teotihuacan mines allowed easy access to and from the digging levels.
    After about sixty feet of climbing, she came to the bottom of the well-shaft, and found herself standing in a stone corridor that was perfectly square in shape.
    Battery-powered lamps sat on the floor, bathing the tunnel in spooky diffused light.
    Kowalski stopped Chase from stepping any further down the corridor.
    'Whatever you do, don't step on the long stone.'
    It was then that Chase noticed the tunnel floor in front of her. It was made up of hundreds of small flat floorstones. One stone, however, stretched for the entire width of the hallway-a long, wide rectangular slab. Beyond it was a doorway leading into another passageway. If she hadn't been forewarned, Chase would almost certainly would have stepped on it.
    Everyone leapt over the long stone. When they were all safe on the other side, Kowalski turned to Chase. 'Want to know why?'
    'Okay.'
    The lieutenant raised his gun and fired a single shot into the long stone.
    The bullet sparked off the stone--
    --and then with shocking suddenness, a large square section of the ceiling rushed down from above them and banged down against the long stone, before retreating quickly back into the ceiling, leaving the tunnel silent once more.
    Chase was stunned.
    It had happened so fast! It had looked like a piledriver of some sort, an enormous stone mechanism designed to flatten the unwary soul who stepped on the long stone…or maybe just flatten that person's legs.

THE PASSAGEWAY OF ANIMALS
They pushed on, heading deeper into the ancient mine.
    They entered a long extra-narrow passageway that they could only pass through single-file-indeed, it was so confined, their shoulders brushed against its uneven rocky walls.
    Carved animal heads lunged out from the walls on either side of them. Sinister alligator heads, snarling snakes, and some older creatures: a woolly mammoth, a sabre-toothed tiger. There was even one statue that looked like an enormous wrinkle-snouted rat.
    'What the hell is that?' one of the soldiers said as he bumped up against the giant rat's bared fangs.
    'Megafauna,' Chase said. 'Overly large prehistoric mammals. Every continent had them, but most died out with the arrival of man about 10,000 years ago. Mastodons in North America. Marsupial lions in Australia. Some species survived until quite recently. For example, this species of giant rodent-rodentus carnifex-is known to have lived in the fourth century A.D. Not surprising, really, rodents are the most resilient animals on earth.'
    'A giant rat…' the soldier frowned.
    'Sort of. Carnifex was six-feet-tall and partially bipedal. It was carnivorous, and in appearance, kind of like a cross between a rat and a velociraptor-long tail, powerful hind limbs, fast mover. The Teotihuacans sometimes used them as guard animals, but mainly they were used for bloodsport-they'd put two carnifecia in a pit and bet on the outcome.'
    'Basically, cockfighting with big rats,' Kenny G said.
    'Oh.'
    After they'd passed through the ultra-narrow passageway, Kowalski demonstrated its secret. He touched a small floor panel with his foot. There was a four second delay…
    …and then suddenly the narrow passageway's floor-the whole floor, about fifteen yards of it-just dropped away on a hinge, revealing a ten-foot-deep pit beneath it filled with viciously-sharpened wooden stakes.
    Kowalski pressed the floor panel again the hinged floor rose back up into place, resetting itself.
    'Ouch,' Kenny whispered.

THE SPIRAL RAMP
They came to a spiralling ramp that curved downward, bending around and out of sight. A rivulet of condensation ran in a trickle down its moss-covered floor.
    An imposing stone statue glared down at them from an alcove at the top of the ramp. It was basically just a seven-foot-tall head, the face of an angry god. Long lethal-looking stone spikes jutted out from the face's cheeks, nose and brows.
    They headed down the slippery spiralling ramp, slowly.
    Kenny G walked beside Chase. 'Did you see that whiteboard upstairs?' he whispered.
    'Uh-huh.'
    'See the part about the Visitor's Stone.'
    'Yes.'
    'What do you think?'
    'It's possible. It would fit the legend.'
    The legend of the Visitor's Stone was a famous one in Mexican lore. Teotihuacan myth had it that at the height of their power, the Teotihuacans were visited by a strange otherworldly individual. He bestowed upon the Teotihuacans a single gift, a sharp pointed pyramid-shaped piece of silver stone.
    Legend had it that this stone-known as the Visitor's Stone-possessed incredible properties. When dipped in water, it would bestow upon that water the gift of life…eternal life. Whoever drank the water would live forever.
    But the lure of eternal life proved too much for the Teotihuacans, and they descended into infighting and murder. And so the stone was taken to a most secret location-a secure place far far away from the city-and hidden there, never to be found again.
    'Do you think the Stone even exists?' Kenny asked.
    'I don't know,' Chase said. 'But it would seem that if it does, the American government wants it.'

THE BELLY OF THE MINE
After about three storeys' worth of downward circling, the spiralling ramp levelled out at an L-shaped corner, which opened onto a long square tunnel.
    The wall facing the ramp was heavily battered and crumbling, as if it had been pounded repeatedly with a sledgehammer. Large chunks of broken stone lay everywhere.
    Chase, however, didn't notice them.
    She only had eyes for what lay at the end of the new tunnel that branched off to her right. At the far end of it, she saw an enormous beautifully-crafted archway.
    Strangely, however, the ceiling of this tunnel was made up of a grid of wide square-shaped alcoves. A lone object leaned against the wall halfway down the tunnel-a six-foot-tall golden cage, covered in broken cobwebs.
    'It's okay,' Kowalski said. 'Just don't step on the farthest edges of the floorstones.'
    Chase did as she was told, careful to step only in the exact centre of each floorstone. By this stage, she didn't even want to know what surprises lurked in the shadowed alcoves in the ceiling.
    When they reached the decorated archway at the end of the tunnel, she gazed out through it.
    And her eyes widened.
    'Oh…my…Lord…' she breathed.

THE UNDERGROUND KINGDOM
It looked like a cathedral, a spectacular subterranean cathedral.
    A gigantic cavern, at least a hundred feet high.
    And standing proudly in the exact centre of this enormuous underground space, was a beautiful freestanding pyramid.
    It was about eighty feet high, flat-topped and tiered, and it was surrounded by a wide glistening moat that was fed by a gentle waterfall at one end of the cave.
    Chase's eyes, however, were drawn to a flat tier halfway up the pyramid.
    While the rest of the building was made of densely mortared stone, this section was constructed of glistening black obsidian-just like the tablets.
    A set of stone stairs built into the side of the pyramid led up to the black tier.
    The tiny figures of Chase and Kenny, Haynes and Breslin, and their military escorts crossed the moat surrounding the pyramid via a long granite bridge. Then they climbed the great building until they came to the obsidian tier.
    There they found a wide stone doorway, also constructed of glassy black rock. Even the large rectangular stone filling the doorway was a glistening black.
    And on the floor in front of the doorstone, arrayed side-by-side in a neat line, lay five carved rectangular slots-each the size of a hardback book. In the middle of each slot was a raised stone carving in the shape of a + sign.
    'Looks like your tablets fit here,' Chase said.
    'Yes, we know,' Haynes said. 'But it would seem the order in which they are placed is crucial. That was another painful discovery.'
    Chase exchanged a look with Kenny.
    Leonard Breslin stepped forward. 'What we would like you to do, Jessica,' he said, 'is figure out the sequence to the tablets, and open this pyramid.'
    Chase and Kenny immediately started examining the mysterious entrance.
    Breslin and Haynes moved a short distance away, watching them work. Then Breslin whispered casually to Haynes: 'Once they've opened it up, kill them...'