Timeline 2: A Blast form the Past
(Do you like the title? I knew you would! Eh… well I don't own timeline or any of its characters, reference, etc are all property of Michael Crichton, who I greatly thank for his theories used in this story)
Chapter 1: A Normal Day
Outskirts of Southern Cairo Present Day
Dr. Mohammed Ilsad woke early that morning; he sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes. The clock's blue illuminated face read '09:34' and reminded him that there was a new temple to explore. The temple seemed to be built in the river, but built using the same methods of baking the mud bricks in the sun. Today was the tomb opening as digging up the entrance had taken a week or so. Mohammed was nervous; this would be his first great discovery! Imagine the tour buses in a hundred years time, telling school children that Dr. Mohammed Ilsad's team had found the oldest pyramid in history. He took a deep breathe and went to wash his face. The bathroom was across the room in his apartment which was only a five minute drive to the excavation site. Mohammed stared into the mirror and saw the face of a tired, worn out 32 year old man. He had a girlfriend back in Israel but his lifework was here in Egypt. After he had dressed and eaten breakfast, he called 'Pharaoh's Cab' taxi firm and set off to the unearthed pyramid.
Heliopolis Present Day
Rick Gardnett owned a gift shop beside one of the many temples to Ra in Heliopolis. He had copies of ancient Egyptian inscriptions from the tombs. He had friends at all levels in the Egyptian National Heritage Society and had live updates from the tombs every morning to check for damage on the walls. This was part of the contract he had signed with the Heritage Society's President; he could copy inscriptions free of charge as long as he monitored some of the inscriptions. Rick had always admired the ancient Egyptians since he had heard of them at a school trip. He was seven at the time and the nice tour lady was leading them from the Inuit exhibition into the Ancient Egypt exhibition when he caught a glimpse of this blackened figure wrapped in bandages with its coffin in a glass case. He had asked why they had a sculpture made out of charcoal in their museum and made his classmates laugh but the lady smiled sweetly and said, "That's not burnt firewood, which was a real person. They were mummified. That means they turn them into 'canned human'!" One little girl said
"I think this one must be out of date"
The tour lady laughed, "Yes you're right, and this man is out of date by 3000 years. Isn't that a long time?"
She slurred the word 'long' to give it more meaning and then began to tell the group how ancient Egyptians would first remove the organs and put the lung, stomach, liver and intestines in canopic jars and fed the brain to the cats as they thought it wasn't important. Robbie, the trouble maker, in our class wanted to say something but he caught Miss Geneva's look and remained silent. Rick would never forget that day, the day his life was planned. And back in his little shop he was listening to the radio while the air-conditioning was thankfully blowing cool air onto his face. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was time to check the walls. He closed his shop so he would get peace although he knew that it was off peak and he wouldn't get many customers and above his little shop was a room full of monitors funded by the society linked to special scanning equipment including a special sensitive X-ray real-time scanning machine and a laser mounted on a tripod that can scan 360 degrees for minute imperfections. Today was a normal day like any other Rick thought, he jumped in fright at the alarm system of the laser. It indicated that something had been changed on one part of the wall. He turned to the monitor and made a proper scan to compare it but he really didn't need to…It was clear even to an ordinary tourist how may have come the day before and to someone who could read ancient Egyptian, like Rick, would have seen it saw exactly the opposite of what it said yesterday. As soon as the scans came in and were digitally compared and the X-ray had been used, that then Rick decided to pick up the phone and speed dial the Society, there was a female voice that answered in Arabic, she said "Hello this is the Heritage Society emergency line please state your name or otherwise please hang up"
Rick replied, almost stumbling over his words, "Rick Gardnett"
The President was straight on the phone not wanting to hesitate, "Yes what happened? Is this an emergency?"
Rick took a deep breath, "Someone has changed history"
End of Chapter 1