YES, I AM AWARE THAT QIN SHIHUANG'S TOMB WAS DISCOVERED IN 1974!! Oh, and sorry if the China shown in this story is REALLY modern, but I went last year and most of the landscapes are from what I remember. Oh yeah. DISCLAIMER: I wish I owned Indiana Jones, Shorty, Marion, Willie, Dr. Henry Jones Sr., etc. but I don't! This is all for fun cuz you don't have to pay to read this.
It was the end of the school year, and Dr. Henry Jones Jr. was incredibly bored. Since the war was pretty much over, Hitler and his crew were more concerned with keeping the territory they had than collecting artifacts of power from across the globe. Although that was good for the rest of the world, it left Indiana Jones out of a job. Until he got the telegram from Marcus Brody. After fighting his was through crowds of female students "turning in papers" and forcing his office door closed, he saw the envelope on his desk. "MEET AT MY HOUSE STOP BRING SUITCASE STOP SURPRISE 7:00 STOP."
As Indiana packed his suitcase, he wondered what Brody had meant. He smiled as he gripped the handle of his bullwhip, and settled the rest of his usual gear into the suitcase. He grabbed his hat and ran out the door. He was late. As usual, he had needed to sneak out his window to leave his office. Unfortunately, the throngs of female students had anticipated this move. This time, he really was trapped. And he couldn't really shoot holes in the students, like he could a Nazi soldier. So he had to wait until the school closed. At 6:30.
As he ran into Brody's home, he ran into his father. "Dad!" Indiana shouted. "Marcus didn't tell me you were gonna be here!"
"Umm… Junior?" Dr. Jones, Sr. looked awkwardly at the floor. But Indiana had already pushed his way past his father into the next room. And stopped dead.
There, sitting on Brody's couch, were Marion and Willie. Both were looking very angry. Indiana stepped back into the other room.
"Way to warn me, Dad."
"Sorry Junior. I tried." He looked apologetic. Suddenly, Shorty ran into the room. Followed by a very worried-looking Sallah and a jumpy Marcus.
"Looks like you got some girl trouble!" said Sallah as he slapped Indiana hard on the back.
"No kidding. Sorry I invited both of them before you got here. I just thought they would… get along?" Marcus looked very embarrassed.
"Hello Doctor Jones." Shorty looked subdued and worried.
As soon as Indiana poked his head back around the doorframe, he was greeted by twin glares of icy cold proportions. He nervously sat between Marion and Willie on the couch as the rest of the men filed in and chose spots in chairs around the room.
"So…" Marion said, "Who do you like better? Me… or her?"
"Yeah!" added Willie. "So who is it, Indy?"
"Well…" Indiana thought for a moment. Then, with a great big grin, he said, "That Austrian Nazi." He winked at his father. "Remember, Dad?"
Henry Jones, Sr. blushed crimson and sank into his chair. The rest of the company looked at each other, confused.
"a-HEM. Now, the reason I have asked you all here is because… well… there's been a discovery in China. I think Shorty should tell the rest of the story." Marcus gestured to Shorty, who started speaking.
"It's really about my girlfriend. She was talking about how she was going on this dig with her father, who's a Chinese archaeologist, and she was talking about a farmer had discovered this life size terra cotta warrior. The part I think you would be interested in, though, was the part about Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb. Supposedly it was guarded by all kinds of booby traps, like mechanical cross bows and pits full of stakes and stuff."
"Great. Pits full of snakes. And sinking roofs with spikes sticking out. And doors that lock. Great." Shorty had Indiana's full attention, but Willie and Marion were getting more nervous as Shorty spoke.
"But the really exciting part is this. This is all according to Sima Qian, who was a historian who lived about 500 years after Qin died. But he said that there was a model of the whole empire made of copper, with rivers of mercury, and that the Emperor was in a full jade suit." As he explained this, Indiana could almost envision being in the tomb and bringing back the artifacts, the grave goods, the Emperor himself – all to museums around the world. "But Maya (that's my girlfriend's name) and her father disappeared three days after the excavation started. They had just uncovered a sealed stone door."
"What we think happened," continued Marcus, "was that Hitler found out about the reason for all the protection of the tomb. Supposedly, Qin found the elixer of immortality. And he thought that Maya and her father knew about the elixer. Or where to find it."
"Nazis? I thought we got them all?" Indiana Jones looked slightly confused.
"Well, this is supposed to be classified, but Hitler and a bunch of his most trusted soldiers escaped."
"But how do we know that the Nazis are involved?" asked Marion. She and Willie had been looking at each other suspiciously. But they figured that they were both going on the expedition with Indiana whether he liked it or not, so they had better mend their quarrel now.
"Her letter to me." Shorty pulled a binder out of his backpack, which had been sitting next to his chair. "It's in a code we used when we would write notes back and forth to each other in class. It may not seem like it though."
Indiana read the note aloud. "Dear Shorty, I am in Shanghai. We are going to drive to the site tomorrow. I can't wait to see Qin's tomb. Father was hired by some men who wanted to begin excavation of the tomb immediately. He wanted more help, but they said they had their own men. They have an awful lot of noisy cars with blacked-out windows. Father tells me it is to protect the artifacts. I hope you can convince your mom and your friends to let you come. I know it will be a real adventure. Love, Maya." He paused for a second. "Shorty, there's all these numbers and words at the bottom."
"Yeah. That's the code." Shorty replied.
"1(all)2(all)3(all)4(vip!dngr+ngsws)5(4!!,9-12)6(all)7(h379!)8(7,8). What's that mean?"
"Means…. 1(all) means that the whole first sentence is important. So the first three sentences are important. 4(vip!dngr+ngsws)… that's harder. Vip! means very important. So Maya must have wanted us to know her father was hired by these people. Also, she thinks they might be dangerous. But I've never seen the plus sign before in our letters. And the plus sign arms have little dashes on them."
"Oh crap. You mean like this?" Indiana Jones was immediately alert. He grabbed a pencil and drew a swastika on a corner of the note.
"Yep. Just like that." Then the realization of what had happened hit Shorty. "You don't think…"
"Well, who else could it be? Shorty, we have to leave now." Indiana was packed and ready to go. (begin humming Indiana Jones theme song here)
"You are NOT going anywhere without us!" Marion and Willie jumped up at the same time.
"Shorty is under my custody, and I say that you have to take Marion and I if you want to take Shorty." Willie had adopted Shorty after they had saved the Shankara stones.
"You have got to be kidding. Marion, remember? These guys are crazy!"
"So? I can shoot a gun better than you! And I would have been just fine if you hadn't shown up!" Marion was very angry. After Indiana had gotten her bar in Nepal burned down by a bunch of Nazis, she had never let him forget that they were tracking him, not after her.
"Alright. Fine. You win." Indiana held up his hands in defeat. "But I'm going at my pace. I'm not slowing down."
"Well, what about me, Junior?" Henry Jones, Sr. looked at Indana.
"DAD! Remember that last time? You said 'I think they are trying to kill us.' I said, 'Funny. It happens to me all the time.' You just get in the way, Dad. And I can't risk losing you. Again." Everyone started at Indiana.
"a-HEM. Well. Now that we've settled that, Indy, I have the plane tickets right here. There's one for you, and Marion, and Willie, and Shorty."
(hum Indiana Jones theme music and envision the little red line thingy going from New York to Spain, then Nepal, then Beijing.)
As Indiana stepped off the plane in Beijing, the first thing that hit him was the heat. The second thing that hit him was a passing rickshaw. After untangling himself from the enraged driver, with Shorty translating, "All I'm gonna say, Dr. Jones, is that he just insulted your mother… And father… and dog. Oh… and… HEY! Mister!" Shorty continued with a babbled stream of Chinese until the rickshaw driver picked up his cart and rolled away.
"What'd you tell him?" asked Willie when they had gotten away from the airstrip and were walking through an open air market.
"Umm… Just that we worked for… Remember that guy you were working for? Yeah, him. And that guy would come after him if he didn't leave us alone."
"Oh." Willie was confused, until she remembered when she had danced at the Obi-Wan.
"Well, come on! We have to find a way to get to Shanghai, then to Xi'an." Indiana headed off towards the edge of town to try to find a driver or car to take them.
"Indy!" Willie ran towards the rapidly retreating figure. As the group caught up to him, he looked slightly annoyed.
"What?"
"There's somebody following us. Western clothes. Khaki-olive color."
"Don't tell me they've found us already." Indiana took off towards a large crowd, trying to blend into the surrounding mass of people.
"Doctor Jones! The best way to escape would be to go into a temple! They are always crowded and the police get angry if Westerners try to force their way in!" Shorty pulled the group towards the nearest temple, which was already thronged with people. Most of the crowds hardly noticed the extra four bodies being pulled away towards a large procession, full of people following a white limousine.
The man threw his hat on the ground in frustration, knowing he could never force his way through that crowd. The hat was quickly trampled underneath the feet of another crowd. But another man picked it up. He looked at the innocuously colored hat. It was now the same color as the dirt around it. But when he brushed it off, he saw the red, white and black of the Nazi symbol. He frowned, and put the hat in his pocket, and strode briskly off in the direction he had come.