Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story.
Chapter 1
"Hey, aren't you Ben Gates' daughter?" a starchy gentlemen asked.
16-year-old Charlotte Gates sighed, "Unfortunately," she mumbled under her breath, "Um, I mean yes."
"It's very good to meet you," he offered the hand not holding his champagne glass. Charlotte shook it reluctantly.
"You must be very proud of him," the man added, referring back to her father. Charlotte plastered a cheesy smile on her face, "Yes, I am."
"Have you seen the sights?" the man asked, sipping his drink. Charlotte groaned inwardly, he wasn't about to leave.
"Yes, several times," she replied, "You'd think that after seventeen years, people would stop asking these questions."
"What were they like?" he suddenly became interested.
"Lots of gold, museums, and security guards," she said dryly.
"Oh. You must get to travel a lot, your father being so famous and all," he said, changing the subject.
"Yes, I suppose you could say that."
He paused, "So what exactly is the history of the Knight's Templar?"
The dreaded history questions. "Well…" Charlotte saw her brother Thomas out of the corner of her eye, and began to cough loudly.
"Charlotte! There you are!" Thomas was suddenly by her side, "Are you alright? Perhaps you'd better sit down,"
"No! I'm alright," she said, playing along, "I think I'll just go get some water. It was nice to meet you, Mr…."
"Jones. And it was my pleasure." He strolled away to go speak with some more history fanatics. Charlotte made her way over to the punch table, Thomas by her side.
"why, why, why?" Charlotte mumbled.
"Why as in…?"
"Why does my father have to be one of the most famous treasure hunter when I am not interested one bit in history?"
"So that you could get to go to all of these lovely parties," Tom said sarcastically. "I don't think there is a single person that is not at least fifteen years older than us at this thing!"
"Charlotte! Thomas! How wonderful to see you!" A shrill voice behind them said.
"You spoke to soon," Charlotte grumbled through clenched teeth, she once again pasted a smile on her face. "Edith, how are you?"
"Oh I'm fantastic! Did you see my father's new show on the history channel? Its called Discovering America,"
"Oh that's original," Thomas mumbled. He stepped forward and kissed the top of Edith's hand. Sometimes Charlotte was jealous at how civilized her brother could act at parties.
"And what's even better is that daddy said that I get to guest star in one of the episodes pretty soon!0"
"Oh that's great Edith. I bet you're very excited," Charlotte said, counting the seconds until she left, which considering how scatterbrained Edith was, was going to be pretty soon.
As if reading her thoughts, Edith's face lit up, "Oh look there's the president, My dad wants me to ask him something, I'll be right back,"
As soon as she was gone Tom and Charlotte exchanged glances. "Run!" they said in unison. They had to the edge off the garden and sat by a fountain.
"How much longer? My iPod died an hour ago," Charlotte groaned.
"We could just take the car and go home," Tom said mischievously.
"No, remember last time we did that?"
"Of course, it was last week," Suddenly they heard the sound of a car behind them. They turned to see a dark blue Porsche, pull up. The tinted window came down.
"Bored out of your minds yet?" The president's daughter asked from the passenger seat. They all laughed and Charlotte and Tom hopped in the back.
"When did you get back from Russia?"
"Yesterday. We came home early because the president's daughter got sick."
"Oh, lovely."
Katherine turned around to face them, "Where are we going? Your house or mine?"
"Yours is a little bit easier to access right now without having alarms go off in your face. Dad refuses to give us the code." Tom pointed out.
"Of course, we could always call Riley, but that takes too long." Charlotte added.
"My house it is then."
A while later they pulled in to a private entrance at the White House. Katherine led the way through the winding corridors.
"I'm going to change," she said, stopping at her private suite, "Charlotte, you want to borrow some clothes?"
Charlotte nodded readily.
"I'll meet you guys down at the bowling alley," Tom said as they disappeared in to the room.
"I can't believe Felix let you skip the party," Charlotte commented as they slipped in to designer jeans and t-shirts.
"Yeah, but personally, I think he's almost as tired of them as I am." Katherine brushed through her hair quickly and swept it up in to a pony.
The girls threw their dresses aside and hurried down to the boiling alley in bare feet. Tom had already started a game when they got there. Several strikes later, both Tom and Charlotte's cell phones rang simultaneously. The twin siblings cringed.
"Hello?" Charlotte picked up hers first.
"Where are you guys?" her mom's Saxon/German accent came over the phone.
"At Kat's…bowling."
"Again?"
"Yes."
Abigail sighed, "Finish up your game. We'll be over there in a few minutes."
Charlotte flipped her phone shut, "Mom and Dad are coming. We're supposed to finish up quickly." She said, turning to Tom. He glanced at the time on his phone.
"One o'clock. Not too late, I guess. We would have been waiting there for another four hours if we would've stayed."
Kat scoffed, "Who are you to complain? You're not one of the president's kids,"
"True," Charlotte said.
Tom sighed, "Fine you win," We finished up the game, Kat beat us, as usual.
"Tom! Lotte! You're parents are here!" They heard a deep British voice call.
"Thanks Felix!" They grabbed their stuff and said good-bye to Kat.
"See you….whenever," Kat yelled as they left.
They got in the car with a minor, heartless scolding from their mother and slowly made their way home. The lights were on inside as they pulled up to their large spacious mansion. Concern was not evident in Ben's face as he strolled up to the door and let himself in with the key.
"Riley?" he called, his voice almost echoing in the large foyer. He made his way down the hall past the living and dinning areas, through the kitchen, towards the back end of the house where the family room was. Through the double glass doors, Ben could see Riley lounged on the sofa, a full bowl of popcorn in his lap. A new horror flick was playing on the big screen TV, and evidently at one of the most intense parts. Ben plowed through the double doors and Riley jumped five feet in the air, screaming like a girl.
"Ben! What are you doing here--it's your house. Right," panting, he paused the movie and glanced at his watch, "You're early. It's only one-thirty."
"Sorry to interrupt you. What are you doing here?"
The rest of the family appeared behind Ben, slightly amused at the scene before them.
"I was bored. My TV's too small," he said simply, "Actually, I got back that analysis from that one guy in Africa…I thought you might want to take a look at it."
"And you couldn't fax or e-mail it over…why?"
"I already told you. I was bored and I like your house. And the security is a lot easier to bypass than at Buckingham," he got up from the couch and set down the bowl of popcorn, now cold, "Hey kids."
"Hi," Charlotte and Thomas said at once, trying to contain their smiles.
"I suppose you don't have room for me to spend the night in this gigantor house of yours?" He went on.
"What is this…a slumber party?" Abigail asked, one eyebrow raised.
Ben cut her off, "Yes. You can have your normal room."
Riley grinned, "Great! I'll go show you that stuff now."
Ben, Riley, and Thomas headed out of the room and towards the huge office further down. Charlotte rolled her eyes and turned to her mother, "Men and their treasure hunts," she groaned.
Abigail gave her a reproachful look and replied, "Sometimes I wonder if you're really our daughter," with that she turned, heels clicking, to follow her husband.
Charlotte sighed. Most days, she'd give anything to be a normal kid whose parents had normal jobs. Minus her friendship with Kat, there was hardly anything she enjoyed about being rich and somewhat famous. Yeah, the new gaming systems were cool, but she wondered what life would be like without all that. If she was a simple girl who went to school, chatted online with friends, and went camping on the weekends….not one who knew the Declaration of Independence backwards and forwards, and spent her spare time trekking through historical sites. It was too bad money couldn't buy what she wanted most.
But there was nothing she could do about it. So she flopped down on the leather sofa and pressed play to watch the rest of the movie.
In Ben's large office, that was decorated with antique's from all over the globe, the rest of the family was gathered around Riley's laptop.
"So what did Elliot find?" Ben asked.
Riley shrugged, "It's some old document, is anyone surprised, but its written some random language I don't know?"
"How old is it?" Abigail asked.
"I don't know, isn't that your job?" Riley asked, "Anyway it doesn't really help us as we don't know what it says,"
Ben scrolled down to the bottom of the document and clicked on the "translate" button. The text came up in English.
"What about your job?" He asked with a smirk. He started skimming the document.
"So have you finally found something worth tracking as Elliot said you would?" Riley asked sarcastically
"Possibly," Ben's face was skeptical.
Riley started to also scan the document eagerly at those words.
"What is it this time dad?" Tom asked, sounding bored, but inside is was bursting at the prospect of actually being with his father while he searched for treasure.
Ben grinned looking more confident. "Evidence of Atlantis,"