Free The Smithsonian Objective by David Sakmyster

THE SMITHSONIAN
OBJECTIVE
    A Morpheus Initiative Short
Story
     
    By David Sakmyster
     
    Variance
Publishing
     
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    Copyright © 2011 David
Sakmyster, Smashwords edition
    All rights
reserved.
     
    This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be
construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
     
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    Cover Illustration by
Stanley Tremblay
    Interior Layout by Stanley
Tremblay
     
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    Grand Canyon,
Arizona
    3:47 PM, September
12
     
    Near the summit of one of
the canyon's highest internal peaks, the seven-thousand-foot
geological marvel fancifully named The Isis Temple, Diana
Montgomery hauled herself over a jutting incline of red sandstone
slate, rolled onto her back and took a moment to catch her
breath.
    The ferocious sun simmered
in a cloudless sky and thrust the shadows of the canyon's cyclopean
inner structures over each other and the walls of the North Rim.
She gazed to the west, toward the peak of the striated plateau
called The Cheops Pyramid; muscles wincing from the six-hour
ascent, she took a deep breath and tried to sit up.
    She was close. Another five
hundred feet, according to the crude map she'd found in the
Smithsonian archives back in Washington. Almost there. Almost to
the cave. To the discovery of a lifetime. She just-
    Two thick ropes dropped
from above. Rocks tumbled free from the wall, shards of limestone
and shale shattering at her feet. And then heavy boots thudded onto
the ledge, and as she tried to move, two black-clad men withdrew
large automatic handguns and aimed them at her face.
     
    * * *
     
    She knew that finding the
map was a little too convenient. Especially given the explosive
nature of what she might discover up here.
    Two months ago, an
anonymous package had arrived at her office. Inside was a newspaper
article from the Arizona Gazette dated April 5, 1909, which detailed an explorer's
incredible archaeological find at the Grand Canyon. Also in the
package, the sender had included a series of letters to the
Smithsonian from interested researchers – all of which apparently
had gone unanswered, at least to anyone's satisfaction.
    She went to her boss,
Assistant Director Darien Simcoe, demanding to be shown anything
relating to the Gazette article. Seeing she wouldn't let it go, he
reluctantly retrieved an item from the archives on one of the
restricted sublevels below the Smithsonian. It was the journal of
one G.E. Kincaid, a freelance explorer, not officially on the
Smithsonian's payroll – although the Gazette had inferred that he
was.
    The journal mostly matched
the story in the Gazette, describing Kincaid's adventures along the Colorado
River . But the
final page, which wasn't in the Gazette , had a map detailing his hike
up from the river to this very monument, "The Isis Temple" – a
fitting name given what kind of artifacts Kincaid claimed to have
found there within a cave.
    But one final item in the
anonymous package had stood out from the rest, galvanizing Diana's
obsession. It was a sketch: a charcoal drawing on a loose sheet