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Museum.”
    Mallus shook
his head. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. I will be taking the document
with me this evening, and a final donation to the Anthropology Department will
be made in the morning. I’m quite prepared to make a personal donation to you,
too.”
    It was
Patterson’s chance to shake his head.
    “I won’t be
bribed, Mallus.” It had taken considerable effort to setup the laboratory
environment required to open the ancient papyrus, and he wasn’t about to give
it up without a fight. Even more so considering the level of secrecy he had
been forced to keep during the long years it had taken for the document to
finally be laid bare. “This papyrus is perhaps one of the most finely preserved
outside of Egypt, and it does not belong in your private collection.”
    Mallus walked
up and down the room before standing to face the nervous-looking scientist.
“I’m going to be completely honest with you, Henry. You know this isn’t about
the papyrus; it’s about where it leads. I want to start planning excavations in
Egypt; dozens of people digging up the desert to find it. That’s the prize, and
that’s what I’m interested in. Now, I’ve got a feeling that when they do find
it, there’ll be a lot more work, and what we’ll be looking at then will be far
more interesting than some ancient treasure map.”
    “So this is
all about money?”
    Mallus looked
down at the floor, for the first time in Patterson’s eyes looking lost for
words. “No,” he said quietly. “No, I have a feeling there’s something more
important here. Something that could change everything.”
    Patterson
looked at him with interest. “Like?”
    He looked up,
the confident businessman Mallus gone, replaced with an anxious Seth. “I just
have a feeling,” he said. “We can work on this together, Henry. I’m not bribing
you. Just let me take my papyrus back and I promise I’ll bring you something so
big you’ll forget the damn thing ever existed in the first place.”
     

Chapter 4
     
    Gail woke with a start.  
    What a strange dream , she thought. She
had been standing on the top of a cliff overlooking a vast plain. Running
through the middle of it was the river Nile. Suddenly, the ground had shaken
beneath her and a huge glass tower erupted into the sunlight. Up, up it had
risen until it must have touched the very edge of the atmosphere. Its base
filled the plain, bridging the gap between the Nile and the cliff on which she
had been standing.
    The smooth walls
of the tower had reflected the surrounding cliff-top and the rising sun behind
her in perfect detail. It had however been unsettling that the only thing they
didn’t reflect was her.
    Awake now, she
fancied she could still feel the humid air of the desert on her skin, and
touching the sheets realised they were damp with sweat. She rubbed her eyes and
checked her tablet sitting on the bedside table: three minutes to six. Barely
dawn.
    George lay
sleeping beside her, his pyjama top was twisted round so that half the buttons
were on his back.   In her still-sleepy
state she couldn’t quite work out how that was possible, so she decided to think
it through while she went downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water.  
    On her way
back she stopped in front of the video wall.   It was certainly good fun to play with, and the novelty had not yet worn
off.   She picked up the remote from the coffee
table and shook it.   The wall came to
life and she quickly pressed the mute button; the system came with an
incredibly powerful speaker setup that Gail could not see a use for in her
normal-size home. Unlike George whose exact words were “It’s like being at
Wembley!” to which Gail had shouted “What did you say?”
    She tilted the
remote on its side, and an Internet browser appeared next to the news
presenter. Her thumbprint on the remote automatically logged her in to her
social feed, which came to life with pictures and videos from her friends