Hello! Welcome back! :)

Seven

To the Smithsonian!

"So there's nothing you can do?" cried Nick in disbelief that night as they arrived home. "They're gone?"

"I wish there was man, I'm telling you I tried everything. I called the board, I talked to McPhee. But they were shipped off this morning."

"This is a lot of food Dad," Nick commented while inspecting their take-out dinner. Then he grinned. "Did you see Natasha at the museum? Did you invite her for dinner?" he asked hopefully.

"Oh uh yeah I saw her but no Ed from work is coming by I thought I told you. We just have to go over a couple of work things."

"So you're working tonight?" Nick said in obvious disappointment.

"Hey I used to work every night, remember?"

"Yeah but that was when you had the coolest job in the world."

"Yeah well 'cool' doesn't pay for all your video games or whatever," Larry said as he went to go answer the phone which had begun ringing. He didn't recognize the number. "Hello?"

"Gigantor! It's me!"

Larry stopped. "Jed?" There were sounds of commotion in the background. "Jed, what are you doing? How did you dial the phone?"

"Long story!" cried Jed, sounding panicked. "That brazen little monkey stole the tablet and now we're in a world of hurt boy!" Jed raised his voice to be heard over the shouts and crashes.

"What's going on?" Larry demanded.

"Kahmunrah!"

"Wha - Kahmunrah?"

"Ahkmenrah's big brother, and trust me, he's not a friendly! Repeat, not a friendly! HEY!" Jed's voice broke off and joined the commotion then, and it sounded like there was a struggle taking place.

"Jed? Jed?" cried Larry, but the line went dead.

"What was that about?" asked Nick.

"I don't know." Larry sighed and then grabbed his car keys. "Come on, I'm going to drop you off at your mom's."

"What's going on Dad?" Nick asked as they left the apartment.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." They headed down to the parkade and to their car. "Here," Larry said, passing Nick his cellphone as he pulled the car out of the parkade. "Call Natasha."

Nick did so and dialed her number. "Hi Natasha, it's Nick," he said when she answered.

"Oh hi Nick, how are you?" she asked him.

Before he could answer Larry snatched the phone from him and held it up to his own ear. "Natasha? Hi it's me."

"You're not supposed to talk on the phone and drive at the same time!" chided Nick, but Larry ignored him.

"Listen, I have a huge favour to ask of you..."

Larry arrived in D.C. late the next morning. He headed straight to the Smithsonian.

"Okay buddy," he said, speaking into the phone to Nick. "I'm here."

"Have you found Natasha?"

"Not yet. Now McPhee said the Federal Archives are in the Smithsonian. So where exactly am I going?"

"That's the thing Dad, the Smithsonian is actually nineteen different museums all laid out around the National Mall, from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. They've got everything there, there's actually some really cool stuff."

"Nicky, please focus! Which museum are the Archives in?"

"Not in, under," Nick clarified. "It looks like in runs underneath the entire Smithsonian."

"So if Ahkmenrah's tablet's down there-"

"The biggest museum in the world is coming to life at night," finished Nick. "What exactly is your plan here Dad?"

"Don't worry about it."

"You have no plan, do you?" Nick said knowingly.

"Nicolas, I have a very good, highly-thought out plan."

"You have no plan."

"Yes, I have no plan. I'll call you when I'm in."

Arriving at the huge courtyard, he scanned the area for Natasha. After a few minutes of looking, he heard the call of his name.

"Larry!" There she was, approaching him.

"Hey, thanks for doing this," he said giving her a hug.

"Yeah, I care about these guys too." She hugged him back. "So what exactly is going on?"

"Uh, well," sighed Larry as they made their way towards the Air and Space building. "Dexter stole the tablet and brought the whole museum to life. Jed mentioned something about Kahmunrah-"

"Kahmunrah," she repeated.

"Yeah Jed said he was Ahk's brother or something. I was thinking you could tell me all you know."

She nodded. "Kahmunrah was Ahk's older brother, firstborn and rightful heir to the throne of Egypt, but there was a lot of favouritism in their family and their parents did everything for Ahk and ended up ignoring Kahmunrah, even passing over the throne to the second son. Obviously, that really angered Kahmunrah, and he was banished for making threats against the throne. Both he and Akh died at young ages when he waged war trying to reclaim the throne."

"Wow."

"Yeah. He was known for his short temper, greed, and violent tendencies. He was basically the opposite of his brother and, well, you know Ahk."

"So an angry, evil, grudge-holding ancient Pharaoh, great," sighed Larry as they entered the building. "Excuse me," he said to an employee who was leading a tour. "Could you tell me how we could get to the Federal Archives?"

The woman paused in her explanation to her tour group to answer his question. "Of course, just be a historical document worthy of storing for all eternity." She chuckled a little at their obvious confusion. "I'm just kidding. I'm sorry Sir but the Archives are underground and they're a secure area."

"Really, like totally secure? Okay, thank you." With that he and Natasha took off, wandering through Air and Space.

"So," she said. "How are we going to get down there? I guess avoid anyone in blue." She nodded to the security guards, easily noticeable in their royal blue uniforms.

They left Air and Space soon afterwards and headed across the courtyard to one of the other buildings. They heard over the intercom that the museum would be closing in an hour.

They crossed the courtyard over to the Smithsonian castle. The sun had begun to set.

At the far end of the room sat an exhibit that immediately caught their attention.

"'The Gate of Kahmunrah'," Larry said, reading the sign.

"The tablet is the key," Nat explained. "He tried to use it to open the Underworld and take over Egypt."

"Nice," said Larry, leaning closer.

"Hey!" A sudden voice made them jump. They turned around to see one of the blue-clad security guards. "What are you doing? No touching."

"No no, I wasn't going to touch it," Larry began, but the guard cut him off.

"You were, I could tell. You know why? Cause I stand there and wait all day for some little girl like you to come and put her precious, nail-polished hands all over the exhibit."

Larry was a little taken aback. "Okay..."

"No touching."

"Okay, sorry."

"That's what this rope here is for," the guard said, tapping the thick rope that enclosed the exhibit. "No going over this line." He said this as though he were speaking to a little kid.

"I just wanted to look at it-"

The guard turned to Nat. "Hey lady, why don't you tell your boyfriend not to touch the exhibits, maybe he'll listen to you. This is a museum. Know what that means? No. Touching."

"He's not my boyfriend," Nat said. "Look-" She took Larry's arm, about to drag him away. This was only wasting time, time they didn't have. "We're sorry, we just wanted to look-"

"Well go ahead and see what happens when you touch it."

"Oh so you're threatening me now - Brandon?" Larry said, reading off the guard's nametag.

"It's Brundon," he corrected.

"Brundon?" Larry repeated.

"Never heard the name before?"

"No... Did they run out of 'U's on your nameplate maker?"

"I don't know did they run out of jokes at the interesting jokes store you shop at?"

"So are you threatening me - Brundon?"

"I don't know, am I?" He gestured to the flashlight stowed in his belt. This led to him and Larry discussing which model of flashlight they liked better, until he said, "alright do me a huge favour: shove your hands into your pockets, put your attitude way down, and also, be nice to people." With that he stalked off.

"Hey Brundon," Larry called, stopping him as he walked away. "So just to be clear, I can't do this, right?" He reached over the rope and laid his hand on the front of the gate.

"Okay, that's actually crazy," said Brundon, storming over and withdrawing his flashlight.

"Larry, we don't have time for this," Nat hissed.

As Brundon reached out his flashlight to Larry, Larry grabbed his arm and wrapped it around his head, putting him in a headlock. Nat gasped.

"Listen Brandon, you think you know what it takes to be a guard? Trust me, you don't even know the meaning of the word. I was a guard, and I have seen things you couldn't possibly imagine. Now drop the flashlight."

Brundon let go, releasing the headlock. Larry took his flashlight and twirled it around, before giving it back.

"We cool?"

"Yeah... That was actually pretty cool what you just did..."

"You were just doing your job. Now we've got to go." Nat followed him as he began walking away.

"By the way, you two make a cute couple,'' Brundon told them.

Both exchanged a glance before both began talking over one another. "Oh no, we're not, actually we're-" But they didn't have time to explain.

"Was that really necessary?" she hissed as they headed away.

Larry held out his hand in which he held Brundon's ID badge.

"Ah." She nodded, impressed.

They headed over to the authorized entrance, looked around to make sure no one was watching, and slid the card through the reader. There was a beep and a click, and the door opened.

They began wandering through the staff area, but not for long before a couple of guards rounded the corner towards them. They quickly ducked into a locker room.

"I've got an idea," she suddenly said, nodding to the locker full of blue security guard uniforms.

Larry quickly changed out of his suit and into a uniform. "Okay, now if anyone asks I'm here to make sure the shipment from New York arrives safely and you're the guard taking me around."

He nodded. "Good plan." They headed back out into the hall. Larry called Nick. "Okay buddy, we're in."

"Did you find Natasha?"

"Yeah, she's here."

"Hi Nick," she called.

"Hi! Okay great where are you?"

"Northeast corridor of the Castle, just off the Commons. I need you to talk us to the Archives."

"Okay, so at the end of the hall, turn right and there should be a staircase coming up on your left."

"Got it."

"Now it's kind of a maze down there, the underground tunnels connect a bunch of different buildings. It could get complicated."

"We'd better hurry, we've only got about half an hour till sunset," said Natasha.

Larry nodded and they entered the stairwell just as Nick had instructed. But when Nick tried to give them the next direction, the cell phone reception started to go fuzzy.

"Nick?"

"D-Dad... Can y-you... hear-"

They were cut off then by a door opening. They quickly ducked out of the stairwell.

Wandering down the hall they eventually came to a door with an Access to Archives sign. They went inside and Larry had to present Brundon's ID, imitating his voice as well for added effect. It must have been pretty convincing because the door clicked and opened, letting them through.

They were in.

I love it when Nick says 'the biggest museum in the world is coming alive' it always gives me chills! Haha thanks so much for reading, hope you're enjoying! :) Bye for now!