Umi stared at the computer screen trying to match pieces together from the various scanned fragments, but she felt her eyelids growing heavy and was grateful when her mother suggested that she call it a night. Her eyes burned from looking at the screen for so long and her body with stiff from sitting—either in her chair in the lab or on the scaffolding in the warehouse. She leaned on her mother's shoulder as they settled into the cab that would take them back to their hotel.

"Mom, I'm worried about Yugi." She said, sleepily.

"Hmm?" her mother responded, distractedly, more concerned by the notes in her hands.

"He said that Grandpa was hurt." Umi continued. "And he was going to some tournament or something to save him."

"Umi, if your grandfather or brother were in any sort of danger, don't you think someone would have told me?" Her mother's eyes never left the pages before her. Umi sighed, annoyed with her mother's lack of interest, though accustomed to it from so many years. When an ancient mystery was placed before her mother, little else mattered to her, including Umi.

Eventually the bumpy ride lulled Umi to sleep, opening her mind up to Neferet's memories once more.

She saw the blur of a joyous reunion with her brother far from the fighting at the palace. She felt the thrill of hunting with him on the shore of the Nile. She played with him and his friend, Mana, in the clear waters of the spring fed oasis. She felt the rush of power as his teacher and their father's close confidant, Mahad showed her how to harness her own ka to call forth monsters from the Duat. Her mother watched her grow and blossom at the secluded estate, safe from the fighting further up the river. It was a wondrous time for her, when she was becoming more than a girl but was not yet a woman. She began to see in her brother the man he would become, the man she was sworn to marry. But still, mostly she saw a goofy, awkward child playing at being king. Still, he made her laugh and had a way of bringing a smile to her face, even when she was gripped with worry over their father.

She also saw the worry grow on her mother's face and in the hushed tones in which the adults conversed. She watched her mother as she watched the horizon for any sign of her father, as she waited for any messenger. She noted the urgency with which Mahad worked with her brother to prepare him for the throne. But despite the worry of the adults, they never forced the children to let go of their innocence completely. It was a bright day with the sun disk hanging high in the clear blue sky when they finally received word of the pharaoh. The messenger rode swiftly through the desert sands, shimmering like a mirage. She scarcely believed what she was seeing could be real as she watched the lone rider growing larger and larger. Neferet hurried to the gates of the estate, her brother on her heels, reaching the egress as the rider was helped down from the horse and given water. Her mother was also quickly at the gate, demanding information from the rider.

"What news, messenger?" the queen asked as she pushed her way past the children.

"The Pharaoh…" he gasped. She felt panic rising in her gut as he took another sip of water. "The pharaoh was injured in battle. He survived and is recovering, but he lost his right hand, and the palace was taken. He is on his way here."

Her mother uttered a curse as she sighed in relief. Umi felt the relief coursing through Neferet. She looked at her half-brother, the boy who would be pharaoh. She knew that he was not ready to rule should anything happen to father. Her uncle would likely become his regent, and her mother had always told her that her uncle was not to be trusted. When her father and his entourage rode into the estate, the entire household was a mix of joy and worry. Umi could feel Neferet's fear as she looked at the bloody bandage around what was left of her father's right arm and her curiosity as she caught sight of the golden amulet that he wore around his neck. When he looked at her, she could tell that he was not only exhausted, but that his soul carried a heavy burden. Her uncle and her father's adviser Shimon rode with him along with a few others who had escaped. They all had a similar weary expression.

All except her uncle, that is. Her uncle seemed fresh and alert as he looked around the gathered members of the household. He smiled at Neferet in a way that made Umi shiver. She knew then that her mother was right; she should never trust her uncle.

The members of the court that arrived each carried a golden object. Despite the light the reflected so brightly from them, Umi could sense that they each had a dark core. She shrank back from her father's pendant as he tried to embrace her. She looked away from the pained look in his eyes. Her brother, on the other hand, drew closer to the shining pyramid.

"I am so pleased to see you all safe, my children, my wife." He said, touching each of them in turn. Umi felt Neferet jump at the touch. "And we have good news!" he continued, exclaiming now to the crowd. "Thanks to my brother's plan, we are now free from the invaders!"

A cheer rang out through the courtyard of the estate.

"But Husband, the messenger said that the palace had fallen." Her mother stated calmly with a touch of curiosity in her voice.

"And it had. But Akhenaden was able to conjure some magic that helped us turn the tide and win the day, my Wife." He took her hand in his remaining one and kissed it gently. "There will need to be repairs, of course, but the invaders are no longer a worry, my love." He kissed his Great Wife in full view of all. "So tonight, we celebrate!"

Umi's mother jerked her awake as the cab came to a halt. Groggy, she got out and stumbled her way to her bed.

"Shall I continue?" The voice of Neferet asked, annoyingly in her mind. Umi just wanted to sleep.

"Can we not? I'm tired. And these visions have been bad enough already to give me nightmares." She whined. The voice in her head chuckled.

"Very well. Perhaps a little something to help bring you good dreams, then?" The thought echoed through Umi's head as a pair of brilliant blue eyes dominated her memories. Umi fell asleep with a smile on her lips as she dreamed about what might have been had she said yes to dinner when those same eyes had asked her.

Yugi met Kaiba's eyes as he blocked their entrance to the castle. He still looked as arrogant as ever, but Yugi thought he saw something else, something desperate and scared behind the facade. It reminded him of what Umi had told him that night after they had first met in California, about Kaiba having a frailty that no one saw.

Yugi could see now what his sister saw in him, and had to admit that, despite his personality, Seto Kaiba was a handsome man. He shook his head to free himself of the thought. Throughout the day, he had caught glimpses of Umi's dreams as she slept halfway around the world. It did not happen often that her dreams clung to him so vividly, but it had happened before. And Seto Kaiba—or someone who looked like him anyway, had featured prominently in those dreams. Looking at the real one now was a bit unnerving for Yugi. The voice inside him stirred and Yugi let him take control.

"Yugi. You will go no further." Kaiba said, his eyes narrowing. Yugi saw the mask firmly in place, obscuring the vulnerability that he had seen earlier. It was now replaced by grim determination.

"Kaiba." His other self said. Yugi could feel that the spirit within was drawn to Kaiba with an intensity similar to his sister. It was a different sort of attraction, but he could not deny that it existed. It was like putting two magnets together—or mixing matter with antimatter. At any moment, the two would explode.

Yugi, himself, felt sorry for the billionaire as he thought Kaiba probably lived quite a lonely life. He had wanted to be Kaiba's friend, but the day his grandfather had been abducted had nearly ruined any chance he would give the young genius. Still, Umi thought there was something special about him, so he had not completely give up hope.

"You will duel me before you get a chance to duel Pegasus." Kaiba said, his voice as cold as ice.

"I don't have time for this. Stand aside." Yugi heard his other self say.

"You said earlier that everyone here has something to fight for. And I agree, though I would expect that to be a rarity. I, too, have a reason to fight on this godforsaken island, but I will not get that chance unless I defeat you first. And I will defeat you, Yugi."

"We shall see, Kaiba."

There was something different, Yugi thought, about how his other self dueled with Kaiba compared to any other opponent. It was more primal, raw and felt like two predators fighting over a kill rather than a civilized game between humans. Kaiba always seemed to touch a nerve that Yugi was not sure his other self could even identify. Yugi could not put his finger on it either, but he was scared that it would get them all in trouble one day. He just did not think that it would be today.

His other self had Kaiba on the ropes though the battle had been fierce. Kaiba took a deep breath and looked down at a locket that he wore around his neck. And then he walked backwards toward the edge of the parapet. Yugi stared in shock at the scene, barely registering what Kaiba had even said to his other self as he did so.

"Do it, Yugi! One more attack and you win! It's over!" Kaiba goaded from the ledge. Yugi could feel his other self steel himself, like a tiger ready to pounce on its prey. Grandpa's voice echoed in his head, trying to be a voice of reason. Even Tea tried to call out for the madness to stop. But his other self would not be swayed and prepared to attack, even if it would mean that Kaiba would take his own life. He tried to reign in his other self, to stop what seemed to be inevitable, but he lacked the strength. He reached, instead, for the first source of strength he had, for his constant companion no matter how far they were from each other. He reached out to the sleeping Umi. He could tell that she woke with a start, but as he drew on her spirit, he was able to overcome the other self within.

He collapsed to his knees, surrendering the duel as tears streamed from his eyes. He was not sad that he had lost, but rather was terrified at what he had almost done. He shook, weeping, as his friends came to comfort him. He could feel Umi's spirit trying to soothe him from afar as well. But he could not stop crying. It was over and he had lost. He had lost his chance to save his grandfather. But he could not have done it; he could not have allowed Kaiba to kill himself. Not when he knew that Kaiba, too, was fighting for those he loved.

Umi woke suddenly and from a deep sleep. For a moment, she did not recognize the hotel room that had been her home for the last two weeks. She heard her brother calling to her, desperate for her. She reached for him and felt as he latched onto her spirit and pulled her along with him. The darkness that surrounded him had grown, but once she was with him, it withered from their light quickly. She felt Yugi gain control over the darkness and push it back, but she could also feel his fear, like a tiny black seed within sprouting to life. She stayed with him as best she could, wrapping her spirit, her light around his heart.

"I couldn't stop him." He murmured, more to himself than to her. "He would have killed him."

Umi could feel the saddness within his spirit, the shock and the fear of what almost happened.

"But we stopped it, Yugi." She soothed. "We stopped it."

She could still feel him trembling.

"I'm scared of him, of my other self." He admitted. "I'm scared of what he might do." Umi did not want to admit it, but she was scared, too. The darkness that had grown around her brother's soul, that he wore like a cloak frightened her. She had no way to knowing its intentions, but she was thankful that Yugi also saw it as something outside himself.

"I am with you, little brother, whenever you need me." She tried to hold on to him as long as possible, but she could feel the darkness stirring once more, angry with defeat. As its presence grew, her ability to merge with her brother's spirit waned and she slipped back into herself.

She spent a fair amount of time that morning trying to reconnect with Yugi. She could sense his fear and disillusionment through the shadows that surrounded him, but she could not break through to him. Eventually, her mother called her to head out for the day where she would spend much of the day staring at rocks. She sighed, thinking about being out in the desert and exploring the tombs, or working with the various teams to set up equipment for excavation. She missed being out there, but her mother's work this trip had kept her tied to the archives, and as such, Umi was also tied down. Not that she did not enjoy the challenge with which she was presented or think that it was not important, she did, but she longed for the sun on her skin and the smell of the Nile at dusk. Neferet, too, longed to be free from the hallowed halls of learning to which she had been confined.

Umi sat heavily at her computer terminal and booted up the machine. She had managed to complete the scanning of the large stele she had been assigned before they had left that night, but she would now have to piece the individual scans together to create one complete image. It was not much different from building a robot in CAD, but it was tedious work to get everything perfect.

Neferet kept trying to jabber at her as she worked, but Umi kept shushing the ancient spirit. She just wanted to be done with this project. She hoped that if she finished this quickly, she might be able to convince her mother to take a trip up river to Karnak—at least for a weekend. She hoped that a trip to the ruins might help ease her mind and lay the visions to rest. She stared at the screen until her eyes grew bleary from the glare and she could no longer ignore the constant blabbering of Neferet in the background. The digital version of the tablet was nearly complete when she pushed her chair back and decided to stretch her legs. She strolled through the labs and the corridors that led to various other conservation projects aimlessly, but found herself once again standing before the stele. It was as if she had been drawn in by it, like a moth to a flame. She was not sure if the tablet was any safer for her than the fire was for the moth.

"I need to tell you more." The voice within whispered. Umi sighed as the visions took hold once more.

She had just returned from the temple and could feel a small smile dancing on her lips. She knew that her father had given his permission once, and only once, for her tryst with Seto, but he had not bargained on how deeply they were attracted to each other. It was more than attraction, she thought, there was a connection that they had felt long before they had given into their physical desires. But once the flood gates had opened, their desires consumed them. Every meeting held some secret touch or a shared look that felt so natural and so needed that they could not deny it. It was as if they instinctively knew the every move of the other. Every time she saw him, it was like spring time. And as the newly installed Wife of the Gods, she saw him quite a bit. With the upcoming festival to ensure a fruitful harvest, she knew that she would be called upon to play the role of Nut—the sky goddess, who in her union with Geb brought forth the entire world. She secretly hoped that he could be her Geb. The Gods knew they practiced enough for the roles, she thought chuckling.

"Neferet." Her father called to her as she traipsed down the corridor. He motioned for her to walk with him as he headed back out to the courtyard. "My dearest daughter, your brother will return soon."

"This is wonderful news, Father." She smiled up at him.

"The two of you will celebrate your union at the upcoming festival. You are aware of your role, yes?"

She nodded, trying to hide her disappointment.

"Good. Afterward, you will be his wife. You must do for him, as your mother has always done for me." He said, his voice showing that he expected her to already understand.

"Offer him guidance and counsel? Or continue the dynasty? Or both, Father?"

He smiled down at her.

"You always were a quick one, Neferet, my jewel. He will need your mind as much as your womb. Perhaps more so."

"I am ever ready to be of service to my pharaoh." She could feel sadness gripping her heart. With her brother's return, she would no longer be free to let the days slip away as she had been, laying in the arms of her lover.

Her father beamed at her with pride before striding purposefully down the corridor. Umi could feel the heaviness within Neferet's heart as if it were in her own.

"So what happened?" She asked the spirit as the scene faded from her eyes and she stared at the image of the priest carved in the stone. Umi was certain that the priest in the carving was also Neferet's lover, Seto. The priest's blue eyes seemed to merge with another pair that haunted her own memories. She was shocked by how similar the two men were, and how they even shared a name. She wondered if the Seto she could not get out of her head was connected to the one that Neferet had fallen for so long ago.

"Does talking to the stone help you decipher its meaning?" A voice said from behind her. Umi jumped, not expecting to be caught staring.

"Oh, Ms. Ishtar. I'm… sorry. I… yeah, I guess it does." Umi said quickly, trying to cover her embarrassment. The artifact director smiled a smile mysterious smile.

"I wanted to check on your progress." She said, stepping into place beside Umi. "And, please, call me Isis. I'm not that much older than you."

"Oh, alright. Um. I've finished scanning the stele, but I've not finished piecing everything together. The computer was straining my eyes, so I took a break and wound up here." Umi found herself rambling nervously in the presence of the other woman's calm demeanor.

"Excellent." She stood staring at the stone for a long moment. Umi shifted uncomfortably beside her. "Your mother tells me that you have a knack for the ancient languages."

"I… well, I've been accompanying her on excavations for the last ten years. I was bound to pick up something along the way." Umi admitted. Truth be told, she had always found the hieroglyphs and hieratic texts found in the tombs and workers' villages as easy to read as English. It was like part of her knew the language. Thinking about it now, she realized that it was likely Neferet doing the translating.

"Can you read me the stone?" Isis asked, never taking her eyes from the earthen slab.

"Uh, sure." Umi looked closely at the engraved shapes that made up the words and began translating. "The pharaoh faced his loyal priest, but this time in conflict with him…"

"I did not ask for a translation." Isis interrupted. "Read the stone. This part here." She pointed to a space right above where the damage had been done. Umi looked at the other woman's profile. She seemed confident that Umi could do what she asked. It would not be the first time she had done so, but now, something about her calm, knowing, manner, made Umi nervous.

"Alright." Umi took a deep breath and turned her focus to the text before her. She read the words as they came to her. Isis looked at her as she stopped. "I, uh… I can't go on. I've reached where the stone is broken."

Isis nodded.

"Tell me, Umi. What do you know about reincarnation?"

"Well, about as much as anyone, I guess. I'm supposed to believe in it—Mom taught me Buddhist teachings, including reincarnation—but I'm not sure what I believe. And how can we really know what happens after death. I mean, what evidence do we have for any of it?"

Isis smiled.

"And yet, here we stand, in front of a five thousand year old stone carving of someone who looks suspiciously like someone you know. A friend or cousin maybe? No, your brother." She smiled at Umi's look of disbelief. "What if I told you that the story on this stone was about to play out once more?"

"I would say that you've probably been in the desert too long." Umi replied. Isis chuckled.

"That may indeed be true, but it does not change the facts. We are on the cusp of darkness, Umi. And this stone is a map of sorts. And you… you hold a key, but I am not yet sure if you will help to bring the darkness or the light."

"And how do you know this?" Umi asked suspiciously. Isis touched the golden choker at her throat. It was dominated with an eye of Wadjet, though it was not a typical depiction of the eye. The center of the choker seemed to glow briefly.

"My necklace has… great powers. It can show the future, and the past, though you seem to not need its powers in that regard."

"I… see." Umi tried to sound diplomatic, but she did not believe what the other woman was telling her. Necklaces that show the future? She thought. What insanity… Umi sighed as she looked at the image once more. The more she looked, the more the man in the carving called to mind her brother. She wondered what he was doing and how his tournament was going. He had given her quite the scare this morning. Gingerly, she reached out for him, only to find that he seemed fairly relaxed and more determined than before. Whatever had frightened him, it seemed to have subsided.

"So, if this necklace of yours does what you say it does, what is the future that you see?" Umi asked eventually.

"Perhaps it would be better to show you the past that is leading to this future?" Isis offered. Umi could feel Neferet vibrating with curious dread. She could tell that the spirit wanted to know more, but that she was also afraid of something. Isis raised her hands to her necklace and a light emanated from it as before. Umi blinked against the brightness of it, but when she was able to focus she saw familiar buildings now in ruins. Temples which had once been shining beacons of the Gods' love were now dull and lifeless. Even the usually bustling streets of the city seemed dead. Umi was overcome by an immense sadness as Neferet took in the vestiges of the once grand city.

"What is this place? Or rather, what happened to it?" She asked Isis.

"The darkness rose against the pharaoh. He could not stop it from taking over the city, but he did stop it before it consumed the entire kingdom. The cost was great, however." Isis explained, cryptically.

"What was the cost?" Umi asked.

"His soul, or part of it, was trapped in the pendant he wore. It was the only way to trap the darkness." The scene shimmered and they stood once more before the stele.

"Where did the darkness come from?" She asked. Isis studied her for a long moment.

"No one knows for sure, but I suspect the battle depicted here played some role."

"Can't your necklace tell you?" Umi asked. She could tell Isis was growing annoyed with her questions.

"I cannot always control the visions it shows or the extent of those visions. And often there are other players involved, other incidents that I cannot see."

"Like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle."

"Excuse me?"

"By observing one thing, you cannot observe another, basically. I mean, it's primarily used to describe an electron's velocity and position, but it seems to make sense with this too."

"I… see." Isis replied, her gaze returning to the stone before them. "Anyway, I believe that the visions you have are probably better than the ones the necklace shows me."

"What do you mean?"

"Your visions. The ones that the spirit within you lets you see."

Umi looked at her stunned. She had not told anyone, neither her mother, nor Yugi—though she suspected that he knew, about the whispers she had had ever since she was a child. The whispers had grown to a fully sentient spirit within her recently, but still she had not told anyone about it for fear of appearing, well, nuts.

"Trust the spirit, Umi, and the visions she shows. It will help you to unlock the doors that Pharaoh needs opened in order to find his path."

Umi sighed.

"Everyone keeps telling me that I am some sort of key, but no one tells me what I'm supposed to unlock. It's really frustrating, you know." She said as much to Neferet as to Isis. She hoped for someone, either of them to give her some answers, but she was met with silence.

Yugi laid on the bed in the posh room he had been given inside the castle. The duel they had watched between Kaiba and Pegasus had unnerved him. He knew that Pegasus had the Millennium Eye and that it allowed him certain abilities, as he had demonstrated with his grandfather. What had shocked him the most was how easily Kaiba had capitulated on his request to use the duel disks. It had not seemed like the Kaiba he knew, giving up so easily. But then, Yugi wondered, how well did he really know Kaiba at all?

He tried to sleep. It was growing late and the duels would start early enough tomorrow. But the look of utter defeat on Kaiba's face as Pegasus absorbed his soul haunted him. He realized that Kaiba had lost to Pegasus the moment he had walked into the building, but watching as he fell inch by inch further into the abyss with every counter move made against him, broke Yugi's heart. He wondered if their positions had been switched, and it was Umi's soul that he was fighting for, if Yugi would have felt as desperate. Fighting for his grandfather was difficult enough, but Umi was a part of him in a way most others could not imagine.

"Partner, that will not happen." His other self told him confidently.

"How can you be so sure? Kaiba was so certain…" Yugi could hear the worry within his voice.

"Kaiba did not have what we do."

"Still…" Yugi started. He did not know how to say what he wanted. He pulled his knees to his chest and reached for his sister's mind. She was busy, so he pulled away quickly, not wanting to bother her.

"Though it was very sad to watch." The spirit admitted. Yugi nodded.

"We will just have to do our best to save them too." Yugi added, feeling a ripple of agreement through the spirit. He did not know if he could do it and he desperately wished for Umi's resolve, or at least her comforting presence. He laid down once more and reached out to her again. He could tell that she was highly focused on whatever it was she was doing. She seemed annoyed, but Yugi could not quite reach through to her enough to figure out why. He had found even reaching her at all a much more difficult task since he had completed the puzzle. It was harder for him regardless, so he tried to make up for it with the frequency of these little brushes. He liked knowing that she was there, even if they found it more difficult to talk like they once did.

"You should get some rest, partner." The spirit said. He was trying, but sleep still eluded him. The spirit settled down quietly into the puzzle and left Yugi to his own thoughts.

He thought about his grandfather, so ruthlessly taken from him in order to force him to play this ridiculous game. He had no desire for glory or praise. He knew he was a good player, but the quest for lauds was just not in him. He would never have considered entering a tournament unless there were higher stakes at play. Unfortunately, Pegasus had seen to it. He wondered if his grandfather was in any pain; he was curious as to whether he felt anything now that his soul was trapped by magic.

Eventually sleep took him, but his dreams haunted him with thoughts of his grandfather. And now the faces of the Kaiba brothers were added to the mix. Mokuba's eyes were sad as they looked at him, pleading for help. The elder Kaiba's face was proud, unrelentingly arrogant despite defeat. Yugi wondered if the brothers had been reunited wherever they were now that Pegasus held their souls, but he doubted that Pegasus would be so kind. In his dreams, his grandfather begged to be released, as did Mokuba. Kaiba just stared at him defiantly, daring him to win, to do what he could not. The dreams left his sleep fitful, but he woke determined to succeed at all costs.

Umi rubbed her eyes as she continued to stare at the computer screen. She had left the warehouse in frustration after she could no longer get answers from neither Isis nor Neferet. Every time the spirit tried to connect with her, she pushed it away and tried to focus on the work of piecing the tablet scans together. Other scanned fragments were being processed through the algorithm that she and her team at school had made, but she felt the tablet deserved her full attention. But staring at it only made her think more of her brother and the battles he was facing. She wished suddenly that she was with him, or that she had at least been able to visit him before she had made her yearly pilgrimage to Egypt with their mother. The feeling gnawed at her with every move of the mouse, with every click, with every breath. She hated that he had to face this without her, even though she knew that he had to.

The swirling of the digital pieces as she moved them around and clicked them into place was mesmerizing, but it also allowed her time to think. She needed to see him, but she was scheduled to return directly to California from Egypt and school would start too quickly afterward to make a second trip anywhere. She realized that she also needed to see him sooner; that waiting would only complicate matters.

She saved the files she had been working with and shut down the machine, packing the laptop in her bag to take back to the hotel. Her mother had already left for a dig up river and would not return for the next three days. She only hoped that her mother had left her with enough resources to do what she needed to do. In the cab ride back to the hotel, Umi tried to figure out what she would tell her mother. The ride seemed shorter than normal and she was walking into the lobby long before she had fully hashed out her plan. One of the desk attendants calling her name brought her attention to the world around her.

"Ms. Umi." The young man said. "We received a message for your mother, but she did not give us forwarding information while she is away. Can you take it for her?" He held out a small slip of folded paper.

"Sure. I'll let her know." She tucked the paper into a pocket before heading up to her room. She immediately turned the laptop back on and went to look for the credit card her mother had left her for emergencies. As she pulled the small plastic rectangle from the room's safe, she felt a nagging feeling, drawing her attention back to the folded paper in her pocket. She looked over it carefully as she walked back to the computer.

"Ms. Muto, We are calling to let you know that your father-in-law has been hospitalized. He is in a coma with no apparent underlying cause. We do not know when or if he will awaken. As his power of attorney we need you to contact us as soon as possible…" She stopped reading as she began searching for flights home.

"Damn, Yugi was right. I knew he was right. Mom should have listened to me." She muttered to herself as she scrolled through the available flights. She could not find any flights available to book immediately, so she called the airport directly. The attendant she spoke to managed to get her on a flight that left in four hours with a layover in Abu Dhabi. The cost was outlandish, but she did not expect otherwise for a last minute flight. She quickly emailed Isis that she would continue working on the tablet project and email her the results before she packed her passport, laptop and some clothes. She stuck the credit card in her wallet, hoping that her mom would not mind her absconding with it. She quickly dashed off a note to her mother explaining what was going on, or at least doing so to the best of her ability. She would figure out how to get back or home later. She just needed to get back to her family now and with any luck, she would be there in roughly twenty hours. Once she was packed, she headed out the door and hailed a cab.

"Where are you going?" the voice echoed in her head. She could feel anger rippling through her as Neferet protested.

"So now you talk to me?" she muttered harshly beneath her breath. She glanced at the rear-view mirror, hoping that the driver had not heard her.

"We can't leave now. The tablet…"

Umi looked at her bag, reminding the spirit that she had spent the last day and a half scanning the tablet. She put headphones in her ears and turned her music up loud enough to drown out Neferet's disapproval.