Free The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03) by David Sakmyster

Alexander pulled away, wiping the dust and the tears from his face. "Come on Dad, we've got to help him."
    Caleb nodded. "You're okay?"
    Alexander tried to smile. "No. But hey, we're Keepers , right?  Comes with the job."
    "It's why they pay us the big bucks."  Caleb stood, rubbing Alexander's hair. "But soon, we'll talk. About her. About Xavier and those twins. About everything."
    "How are you, Dad?"
    "What?"
    "Well, you just found out your old girlfriend's still alive. And she's pissed at you, and you've both got twins you didn't know you had. Doesn't that change things?"
    "It does. And I can't… Can't even imagine what Nina's going through now. To know they took her children, kept them from her."
    "From you too."
    Caleb squeezed the flashlight tighter. "But that's it. I don't know what they did to them. How they were raised. What they're like."
    "I think I do," Alexander said. "I've seen them a lot. Thought they were just part of my imagination. Imaginary friends to help when I was lonely. But these playmates, they were always mean to me, even in my dreams. They're not nice."
    Caleb lowered his head. "I know. But they're young. They haven't been with their real parents yet."
    Alexander started walking down the shadowy corridor. "Well," he said, "you better hope you get to make an impression before they meet their mom. Then, it's all over."
     
    #
    "Where are we?" 
    Alexander shined his light around like a light saber, trying to ward off the darkness. He couldn't tell how large this chamber was, but it had to be huge. Couldn't see the walls anymore, and the ceiling—if there was one, was way up high, beyond the reach of his beam that just faded into the hungry darkness. There was something in the center of the room, another massive block or pillar of some kind. Caleb was shining a light at it, inside a square-shaped opening in which there was something that looked like a chair. Carvings and symbols far stranger than mere hieroglyphics adorned the sides.
    Caleb moved forward into the structure. He turned and gently sat in the stone chair.
    "Dad, wait."
    "It's ok. It's not trapped."  Caleb looked around, and Alexander had the impression that his dad was sitting in a cockpit of sorts. Except there was nothing else in there except a slot, a groove in the arm of the chair, by his right hand.
    "Its…  different," Caleb said. "I believe we're directly under the main pyramid. And this…"  He looked up, then shined his light up there, and Alexander understood. The interior of the pillar, or shaft, was hollow.
    "What do you see?"
    "Nothing. It just goes up straight."  He turned off his flashlight, closed his eyes. "Hold on, I'm getting something, seeing more of it…"
    Alexander closed his eyes, reached out into the darkness as if to pluck his father's vision like a piece of fruit. Absently, he switched off his own flashlight. And now in complete darkness, a new light sparked behind his eyes.
     
    #
    A man sits where Caleb had been. This one is dressed in full Egyptian splendor. Colorful breastplate, long golden skirt. Bracelets, necklaces. A crown with two asps in its center. Except he's glowing, with arching tendrils of electricity or plasma pinwheeling over his body and arcing about the interior of the shaft.
    Clutched in both hands is a familiar item:
    The Emerald Tablet.
    Then there's a sound, a grunting, then a low moan as the Pharaoh sets the edge of the Tablet against the slot in the chair, and eases it down. There's a massive sound, a piercing pitch that compliments a deep rumbling vibration.
    The chamber fills with light—hot, intense white light, energy great enough to tear flesh and bone apart and pulverize every cell, and yet…  The king is unscathed. Still sitting calmly, head back, mouth open. It's as if he's directing the energy. Focusing it, sending it up. Up the shaft, and out.
    A flash and Alexander's mind is outside-
    -the great Pyramid. Alone on a lush, grassy plain. Dawn, and the sun is just