Those who know the mythology of SG1 have probably figured out Carlos' secret by now. Please don't tell the others, not yet.
The first game I played through was Tomb Raider: Underworld. That's my Lara (plus a fair bit of the movie.) Hard-edged, elegant, a thrill-seeker, a professional. And this chapter, I'm going to see if I can't find a little of her softer side. Or at least sow some self-doubt.
As usual, I imply no rights to any properties commercial or otherwise, and intend no criticisms in the fictionalized presentations of any real cultures, people, or places.
Cairo: 30°3′N 31°14′E
"I'm digging in the dirt, to find the places I got hurt…"
It dawned on Lara just how clever the chosen meeting place was when her cab reached the private bridge of Grand Hyatt Cairo. The sweeping curve of the hotel, and the shining tower beside it — barely a year old — sat proudly at the northern tip of Al-Roda island, which nestled along the shore of the Nile as it passed through Cairo. Armed guards from the hotel stopped every car, and guests were further greeted by a walk-through metal detector. It formed part of what was like a gated community diffused across Cairo; the various mechanisms the held the monied and the foreign visitors apart from the unwashed horde.
It also made a very effective neutral ground. The Falcon had no doubt set those thugs on her, and he had to be aware that she'd figured that out. So it was smart thinking to meet in a place where a third party held the upper hand. And all the guns.
On the ground floor of the Hyatt was one of that high-profile chain of music-themed clubs and diners; the Hard Rock Cafe Cairo. Rock music played loudly over the sound system; at the moment it was canned, and appeared to be Peter Gabriel. Above the main dining area hung a 1957 Cadillac once belonging to President Nasser — presumably not the armored one he'd had made by Hess & Eisenhardt. Also among their collection, apparently, was a jacket from ZZ Top and a body suit with strategic tassels once worn by the pop singer Madonna.
The cover was a hundred pounds — Egyptian, that is, which worked out to around ten pounds sterling. It had probably been a mistake to tie their currency so tightly to the American dollar. But then, Lara felt unfamiliar stirrings of nationalism at her own people's refusal to go over to the Euro. That cover didn't include bar, of course, and the rates were considerably higher during iftar.
The man who wished to see her was dressed in the same conservative western-style clothes of half the developed world; slacks and a button-down white shirt. His sole concession to style was a closely-tailored leather jacket.
Lara herself was wearing what she thought of privately as "shovelbum chic"; a peasant blouse with a little neck embroidery over twill slacks with walking boots and a sun hat. But they were still overdressed by the usual standards of the Hard Rock Cafe; as the clientele were mostly younger tourists and expats, shorts and t-shirts were the uniform of the day.
"Lara Croft." The man stood to greet her. Lara saw his nostrils flare in surprise a long moment before he decided to let the expression pass to his face. "Well, well, well," he said.
"I look taller in pictures?" Lara said.
"Heh." The man shook his head. "Oh, really. This is just perfect. The Tears of Horus, eh?"
"The trilithon at Senam Bu-Samida," Lara replied, probing back.
His expression changed. She had the sense she'd missed the expected reply. "Well," he shrugged. "I guess that makes another mystery about you, Lady Lara Croft."
Lara was a little annoyed at the dismissal. "A match for the mystery about you, Juan Carlos Halcon? Or should I be calling you 'El Halcon'?" She hadn't meant to reveal that so early, but she couldn't help it.
"'Carlos' will do just fine, my lady. Let us be friends." He saw her to her seat, and sat himself. "You and I are much alike; archaeology is our religion."
"Does everyone in Cairo have to quote that movie?" Lara rolled her eyes.
"Oh, I'm that transparent, am I?"
"Carlos, you are a looter. I've heard of 'The Falcon,' all right. You've made quite a reputation over just a few years. Derring-do and narrow escapes, ransacked shrines, running gun battles, temples set on fire."
"You leave a similar record behind yourself, Lara Croft."
"I do it for the archaeology, Carlos! Not for the fame and fortune. What I find, goes into museums. I work to help humanity learn more about its past. I don't work to give rich men something to show off in their private collections."
"Oh, really? Can you look yourself in the mirror and claim you don't enjoy the thrill of the chase?" Carlos smiled broadly, but without rancor. Then he turned more serious. "You are a killer, Lara. We recognize that in each other."
"Only when there is no choice." But Lara couldn't meet his eyes.
This provided a perfect juncture for the waitress to come by. Fortunately for all concerned, the canned music had not moved to anything the staff might feel obligated to sing along to. The menu selection was wide, but their speciality was American-style fast food; Lara opted for a burger. With her metabolism and lifestyle, fatty foods were hardly a problem.
The best part — some would call it the saving grace — of the place was the view of the Nile. Fellucas sailed like agile swans below their tall triangular sails, steering about the sleek powerboats and the barges with washing strung on lines. The fountain in the middle of the Nile sprayed water into the air, not of course illuminated this early in the afternoon, and Cairo stretched out across the far shore, vanishing into the ever-present smog.
Civilizations had rose and fell along the fertile banks of this great river. 20,000 years ago people were trading down the length of it, marking the value of their goods on wooden tally sticks. Egypt was birthed in the cycle of flooding that brought life-giving water to the plains. The Romans fought for, and eventually retreated from, the upper Nile, followed by other empires — French and British among them. Chinese Gordon fought the Mahdi upstream from here, where the Blue Nile met the White Nile, and Kirshner came back through a few years later. Monty had pushed Rommel back just West of here, at El Alamein, giving Churchill the excuse to announce the war had at last reached "…the end of the beginning."
It was a heady history. Lara felt, at that moment, a rather odd longing for traditional fieldwork. For sitting in the dirt over long hot days, sharing both the drudgery and those tiny treasured moments of discovery with your team mates. Of course the field was changing rapidly, had been even when she was a student. GPS and software logging programs that had all but made traditional grids a thing of the past. And the new computer power meant that statistical and contextual analysis, synthesis and reconstruction and simulation, took a larger and larger role. But archaeology still moved today as it had for hundreds of years; on underpaid students sifting through piles of dirt.
She sighed, tried to bring herself back to the present. The music had moved on to a new selection, a rather lugubrious bit of prog rock. "No one knows who they were or what they were doing. But their legacy remains hewn into the living rock...Of Stonehenge. Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell…"
Tacked to the wall above Lara's head, amid the other music memorabilia, was a red electric guitar donated by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. A Squier Standard Strat, she noticed with amusement. She couldn't fault their economy.
"How is your food?" Carlos asked, being conciliatory.
"Authentic," Lara replied tersely. It sounded kinder than it was. And she damned Carlos for being able to get under her skin so easily. And for slipping so quickly into the role of someone she could have this sort of conversation with. He'd sent killers after her. He'd been involved in the bombing at Sotheby's. He was exactly the wrong kind of person to ever let one's guard down around!
"All right, Carlos," she said at last. "Why don't you tell me something I don't know?"
"Why should I?" he asked pleasantly.
"I'll tell you something you don't know."
"Try me. I'll let you know what it is worth."
Damn him, he was controlling the conversation again. Lara managed her temper with difficulty. "KV63," she said. "I found something there, a small black object, like a cobra folded into a zed."
"A zat'nik'tel." The name rolled off the man's tongue. "A useful toy. That wasn't my exchange, by the way. That was a freebie. So what else did you find in the second chamber?"
"A broken canopic jar. Nothing else obvious. I didn't have a lot of time to search."
"Ah. And who has these artifacts now?"
"I kept the snake. Everything else will have to remain until Dr. Schaden's team gets in there. I wouldn't expect them to move before next season at the earliest."
"Well." Carlos sat back, satisfied. "That was useful to me. So I will trade you with another name. Crystal Palace."
"Crystal…I assume you don't mean in Hyde Park."
"Don't think London, Lara. Think…Colorado."
Lara's bags were packed. It was time to clear Cairo. But she was a little reluctant to follow the lead Carlos had presented to her. What was in it for him?
The Tears of Horus. There was something about the falcon jars she was missing. Right, then.
"Alister, Zip, I'm widening the search," she said into her secure VOIP connection. "I'm linking you to the Sotheby's auction site. I want you, Zip, to do an image search. Gather any matches you can find to this artifact; current, old depictions in books, anything. Alister, I want you looking again for any reference to the Tears of Horus."
Lara closed her case with a snap, picked up the laptop bag. "There's something rather chilly about this artifact, gentlemen. I have good reason to believe the Tears are some sort of trap. A gift that harms the recipient."
"A Trojan Horse, eh?"
"Perhaps. Aside from not being Greek, or horse-shaped, or large enough to fit armed men inside. Aside from being not at all similar, that is."
"I…I'll get right on it."
"Me too, Lara. If it is on the web, it will be in my hands."
There was an unexpected interruption. A polite and very old-fashioned cough. "Pardon, my lady. That item Zip is looking at now; that is the Greek gift you are speaking of?"
"Winston? Yes, certainly. Why…have you seen something like it in father's collections?"
The aged servant moved into the camera pick-up. Lara was startled and dismayed by the expression on his face. Guilt. Guilt, fear, and overlying all of that, a terrible sorrow. "My lady," he said. He had to stop for a moment, recover himself. "I think it is best you return home. At once."
"General, we have a problem."
"Major, problems are what the Air Force pays me to have."
"Sir, the T Tauri anomaly. It's made it all the way to Sky and Telescope."
"Tauri? That's what the Goa'uld call us, isn't it. Major, why don't you come in, sit down, and start from the top."
Major Samantha Carter came in, sat down, and started from the top. "T Tauri is a class of variable stars, sir," she said. "Variable stars are incredibly important to astronomy. The mass/period relationship of the Cepheid variables allowed astronomers to construct the first cosmic distance ladder, and realize we were living in one galaxy among many. I'm sorry if this is too basic for you, sir."
"Go on," General Hammond said good-naturedly.
"Astronomers have been calling it the T Tauri anomaly after Sarah Chen at Keck first spotted the problem, but it is with other variable stars, particularly the SX Phoenicis variables, that it has become obvious to a growing group. Now that it has hit the popular science press, I'm not sure anyone can stop it."
"Major, the problem?"
"Sorry, sir. The better-behaved variables are driven by an internal resonance. They change in brightness in an extremely regular way. That's what made the Cepheids so useful as a standard candle. Sir, the nearest SX Phoenicis is well outside our solar system. We are jumping in time. That causes a visible break in the light curves coming from the star. It was only a matter of time before astronomers compared notes and realized they were seeing the same breaks in multiple cases."
"I see. I'd better make a few calls, then. How long do you think before this becomes public knowledge?"
"It already is," Carter had on her earnest face — the expression she got when she was following the science too closely to step back and look at the consequences. As the General watched, she caught herself at it, and shook her head in chagrin. "Right now, it is passing from being known as an academic curiosity among astronomers, to being a cool new thing known among geeks. The trouble with something like this, is, it doesn't take any sophisticated equipment to map the light curve of a variable star. Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered the mass/period relationship in 1893, working from photographic plates."
"So it could spill over into the regular news outlets at any moment. Or remain a curiosity for a while longer," Hammond said. "Thank you, Major. If there is nothing else, I'd better get started on those calls. Before I have to start answering them instead."
Surrey: 51.15°N 0.25°W
His parents had never read Orwell: they considered him a dangerous radical. Winston Smith was in college before he discovered the character who shared his name, and he was rather bemused by the discovery. His parents were of the generation that returned to personal service as the highest possible calling. To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, they took pains to pick up the aitch their forefathers had once dropped. Tugging the forelock was optional but recommended.
Winston had however grown with the times. He fully supported and had a healthy interest in his employer's profession. He wasn't a bad amateur archaeologist himself — as well as being a dab hand with the shotgun (a talent he'd proven on more than clay pigeons). Throughout all of this, however, he was still the consummate manservant, the Bunter to Lara's Lord Whimsey, a valet that Bertie would trade Jeeves for, a most admirable Crichton (though quite without the latter's ambitions).
Lara was also just as happy he preferred not to travel. It was a perfectly equitable arrangement for the both of them; he kept the household in order, kept the boys out of trouble, and otherwise managed her affairs while she was off adventuring across the world. And on her rare sojourns home, he doted on her and she let him.
But she'd never seen him like this. His hand shook as he brought out the Scharzhofberger Trockenbeerenauslese and the two glasses.
Every year she would come home as close to the winter solstice as was practical. And on that first night home she would drink the toast. Once, she shared it with her father. Now there was but a symbolic drop in his glass as she drunk alone. It was a family tradition. They'd started the year after mother's death. Even then, her father was increasingly distant. Not in emotion; he held her close with a sort of desperation on those rare times they had together. But he was so driven in his search, he could barely spare more than their yearly toast. That made it even more precious to her.
She had continued the toast after he vanished in Cambodia. She realized now she wasn't entirely sure why she had done so. Winston had merely shown up with the Scharzhofberger on that first anniversary, and she had let him guide. He must have seen she needed this symbolic link to her parents, this annual wake. And she did need it. She needed that time to unwind and reflect. It was the only time of the year when she could really stop and think about what sort of woman she was now. And whether her father would have approved of how his daughter had turned out.
"My lady." Winston's voice was steady. There had obviously been more than one sleepless night for him since he had asked her to return, and he had used the time to arrive at a place where he could tell her, almost dispassionately, of the crime he had colluded on with her father. "There is a step in the toast you never observed. It was a secret Richard kept. He meant it as a gift to you, when he realized you had begun the first steps along the same path as he."
He stopped. For a moment he seemed to break through the guilt he was carrying, and he almost smiled. "Your father could not have been more pleased that you followed in his footsteps," he said. "For all that he tried to protect you when you were younger, he respected the commitment he saw in you. If he were still here today he would be very, very proud. And that is why he wished you to have every advantage he had."
There was a hidden panel above the fireplace. Of course there was. Some ancestor of hers had been entirely too fond of secret passages and hidden panels. Where some family might have been satisfied with a priest's hole for emergencies, hers had added more hinges and traps than the Winchester Mystery House. She'd spent more than one rainy day searching the estate for such. Her father took a childish delight in the things himself, and added several of his own. It was bad enough one of them could mutter, "Put the candle back!" and reduce the other to tears of laughter.
Lara should not have been surprised by what Winston brought out of hiding. A small black container with a falcon motif. The broken upper half of the third Horus jar.
"According to the legends, the Horus Draught gave increased strength, endurance, and resistance to disease. Whether this was true or not, his yearly draught had not harmed him. He placed me into his confidence, and we…" his voice broke at this point, "…we began to give it to you."
"Winston, please," Lara went to him. "It did not harm him, and it has not harmed me. I'm not…I can't say I'm happy that father would do this without telling me…but I accept that both of you meant well."
She wanted to say more. She wanted to give him the forgiveness he needed. But this…this changed everything. She needed space to think. She couldn't trust herself to speak, and was forced to merely nod towards the door. Winston, as ever the perceptive servant, withdrew. And she hated herself a little more. This was far, far worse than that one time when she was a child and had locked him into the walk-in freezer. She had never forgiven herself that, and she might never forgive herself this moment, either.
The library was one of her favorite rooms; smaller and more intimate than most in the Abbingdon estate, with a muted parquet floor and walls entirely the color of the old books which filled every square inch that wasn't door, the Sienna marble fireplace, or the tall windows that let in natural light.
But at the moment, she found it stifling. The red Nigerian goatskin of the original 1782 chairs was usually comfortable, but not at this moment. She jumped back to her feet, strode across the room, flung open the French windows and leaned against the Parisian cast-iron rails of the small balcony.
The fresh air helped. The greenery of the West Garden helped more. Lady Gwendolen had done good work, when the big restoration of the grounds of Abbingdon had happened in Victorian times.
Lara knew her own modifications to the venerable building were sometimes looked at askance, especially by preservationists. Upon reflection, the floor-to-ceiling glass panels that walled off Zip's "batcave" of computers and electronics from the rest of the parlor was a mistake. She'd been misled by the way the similarly odd juxtaposition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid had somehow not clashed in its setting of the Cour Napoléon of the Louvre Palace.
Pyramids again. And she was avoiding thinking about the Tears of Horus.
She had been cheating. Through all of those daring escapades, through all those narrow escapes, something had been pulling for her. When she matched strength and skill against a fencer in a friendly match or a gunman in a deadly duel, she was being helped by a chemical boost. She was a steroid abuser, a doper. It didn't matter that she hadn't known. She had done it, she had taken the unfair advantage, and that meant all her accomplishments were less than they seemed.
She'd taken so much pride in being faster, stronger, than anyone else around. Of doing gymnastics tricks others could not dare to. Of being the one that was still clear-headed and able to lend a hand with a heavy pack when the mountaineering expedition was well above the death zone.
She'd thought this was the product of her harsh training regime and the way she continually pushed herself to do more. She thought that these were all earned skills. Now she had to confront the idea that this might have been given to her.
She needed action. She needed movement. She spun on her heel and headed down towards the large and customized gym, practically shedding her travel clothes as she walked.
Out of all the facilities offered in the connected set of rooms, the aerial equipment was her favorite. But she couldn't trust her head at this moment. Better to work a little closer to the mats. Among the various upkeeps Winston managed was to bring a professional route-setter in for the climbing wall installed along the Eastern end of the largest of the rooms; the one with the atrium and skylight, with the trapeze and slack line high overhead.
Even Zip had tried his hand at it once (Alister refused to stir from his reading chair) and was surprisingly agile. Perhaps one day she'd get him out to the range as well and show him the right way to hold a pistol.
Lara picked a route at random. It started with an undercling, but after a couple of reachy moves offered a dyno off a pair of nubby crimps. Someone had been paying attention to her climbing style. The dyno was all the way to a shelf that seemed to call for a mantle; there were no feet available for this part of the route.
Her concentration wasn't in it. Usually, she could count on physical activity — particularly climbing, riding, or shooting — to put her in a focused zone where the rest of the world fell away. It wasn't happening today, though. She misread the route, tried to lean off a nasty little gaston, found herself on an off-foot and then blew the foot change.
She peeled from four meters up and there wasn't enough time to straighten up. She hit the mat at an awkward angle and rolled hard on her left trying to take up the impact. The world went grey for a moment. She stayed as she had fallen, waiting for the spinning to stop. She didn't seem to have damaged anything, at least.
Technique. She'd misread the route, and tried to bully her way through on strength. She looked back up. What she should have done, is stay on the off foot and flag with her right, and that would have kept the gaston at a positive angle.
She was already back on her feet and back on the route before the metaphorical shoe dropped. Skills. Training. Whether she had chemistry putting some extra muscle behind it, you couldn't solve a 7a bouldering problem without knowing how to drop-knee. And the same applied to fencing or shooting. Mere chemistry didn't teach you the prise de fer, or to squeeze the trigger during the natural pause between breaths.
And no-one was born equal anyhow (with the possible exception of Monozygotic twins). One had the genetic lottery of one's own birth, plus the inheritance of one's line. And her line had always been marked by physical prowess.
Nor had it ever a problem to her to make use of technology in her work. She was entirely happy to bring a pair of match-grade magnums with custom-fitted grips to bring to bear against some poor Moro with but a traditional barong knife to his name. Her high-tech equipment, her wealth itself, was also a gift had been given.
So even if the Tears had given her an extra edge, she had still done that training. She had still chosen to take those risks. Her physical accomplishments rested as much on trained skill as they did on natural talent, and that skill was earned. She didn't have to like it, and she was still extremely wary of whatever the hidden downside of that Greek gift was, but she could accept it and move on.
She topped out and down-climbed in an easier spot, this time landing lightly on the mat. Winston — his timing impeccable as usual — entered with a towel and ice water.
She took the glass with a thankful look and drained it. Then held his eyes with her own. "No more secrets," she said firmly. She needed to say no more than that.
Well, except for one thing. She smiled, suddenly. "I always wondered about the Scharzhofberger. So it wasn't just that father thought an excessively sweet riesling would suit a young girl's pallet. He was counting on that well-known petrol note to hide the taste of the Horus Draught."
Winston smiled properly then, his face relaxing. "As much as I admire the work of the elder Egon, I am afraid the '51 TBA was not one of his best. But your father had two cases of it in the cellars."
Upon reflection, the glass wall really didn't do anything for the room. Other than keep the rest of the house free from the incessant humming of computer fans and the frequent beeps of routers and whatever else Zip had in there. There was enough plugged in (and Zip had a laissez-faire enough attitude towards proper power distribution) the annex also seemed to always smell of ozone.
It was also possible the partition wall was the only thing keeping Zip's Post-it notes from escaping. They crawled all over the main workstation, and, oddly, clustered in one corner of the room, forming a crude spiral on the floor that ended in a singe discarded tennis shoe.
The other thing Lara couldn't figure out is why Alister ended up there so often, considering he was much more at home with books and manuscripts.
"Alister," she said without preamble, "I've got something that seems down your line. Crystal Palace. What do you know about it?"
"Built for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Architect was the head gardener for Chatsworth House, also designed Birkenhead Park. Was moved a couple times and eventually burned down."
"Not the one in Hyde Park," Lara said. "Think Colorado."
"Colorado?" Zip had been listening with bemusement. "Colora… Awe, hell no!"
"Zip?"
"You guys! Queen Victoria this and Tutankhamen that. You've got to meet the modern age. The Crystal Palace is what some people call The Mountain." The others looked blankly at him. "As in SAC. Oh, please tell me, you are not going to try to sneak into NORAD next!"