The Chaos Spiral

By Adam Brackin

In the 1980s, Dr. Arthur M. Evans helped bring the discovery of Noah's Ark to the world, only nobody believed it. Thirty years later, he is an Oxford tutor who's sworn off adventuring… until his old archeology partner sends him new research and a dire warning. Meanwhile, his gifted sixteen-year-old grandson has started uncovering family secrets, which have caught the eye of an eccentric millionaire myth-hunter, an enigmatic man in a suit, and a Kurdish paramilitary group. Now hunted themselves, the Evanses have been thrust into an ancient quest that will connect lost places of the ancient world throughout a conflict-riddled Middle East primed for revolution. They have the chance to solve a mystery that will link Gilgamesh, Eden, Noah's Ark, and the Minotaur's Maze in ways that could change history forever. If they can survive long enough to prove their discoveries.

 

The Chaos Spiral is an intricately woven historical mystery: part action-archeology, part family adventure, part international conspiracy. To solve the mystery and save their lives as well as their teams', the Evanses must dive deeply into the world's oldest flood and creation myths, as told from four different traditions. They will travel from the dreaming spires of Oxford to the drought-parched Middle East during the tense preamble to the 2011 Arab Spring. The quest promises to take them to Ugarit, Antioch, Crete, not one but two alleged resting sites of Noah's Ark, and finally, just maybe, the shores of Eden itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: FAEROS Publishing
• Release date: Apr 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9781959544043

Book preview

Adam Doc Brackin

This book and its contents are protected under the copyright laws of the United States. All rights are reserved to the copyright holder(s). Distribution without prior written authorization is prohibited.

The Chaos Spiral © 2023 Adam L. Brackin

www.adambrackin.com

ISBN: 978-1-959544-04-3

FÆROS PUBLISHING

Austin, TX

This edition distributed through Draft2Digital

Cover & interior art by Randall Worley

FÆROS PUBLISHING is an imprint of Wootton Major Publishing, LLC

www.woottonmajorpublishing.com

For Ian

Author’s Note

The Arab Spring was a revolutionary wave of violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, and civil wars in North Africa and the Middle East. It began on December 17, 2010 with the Tunisian Revolution, which sparked a wave of upheaval through 2011 and beyond. The Syrian civil war, the Kurdish Spring, and the Iraq War would deeply change the modern Arab world. Many contested locations now lie in ruins, their people scattered across the world.

At the time of writing, many regions and borders in this area remain closed or disputed. There seems no end in sight to the power struggles being fought over these ancient lands. These places continue to ferociously guard the deeply significant mysteries that have lain hidden there for many millennia.

The following is a work of fiction set in the summer of 2010, just months before these lands slammed their doors shut to the west. All scientific studies, art, research, locations, and theories referenced herein, however, are a matter of academic record.

The Proto-Sinaitic alphabet is a variant of the Phoenician alphabet and a precursor to biblical Hebrew and perhaps all other Semitics. Like the Phoenician alphabet, the Old Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are consonants. The language is described as an abjad after its first four letters, a term coined by Solomon Birnbaum in 1954.

PROLOGUE

Ras-Shamra Ruins. Ugarit, Coastal Syria. April 2010. Aarons.

Self-proclaimed biblical archaeologist Wyatt Aarons had just started a video log on his little corporate laptop when muffled shouts from the guards told him something was very wrong. His blood ran instantly cold with the little echoing pops of gunfire from the maze of passages beyond. Far worse, only moments later the ruins went completely silent.

Aarons quickly and unceremoniously stuffed the papers and artifacts he had been working on into a well-worn leather satchel. Laptop abandoned, he hefted the bag to his bony shoulder, cringing a little at how the ancient tablet fragments clacked together amongst his dirty underwear. But there was no time to do it differently.

This was one of many linked chambers used in ancient times by the Canaanite kings as library storage. Once, this place had held hundreds of clay tablets, carvings, jars, and other things now long turned to dust. It was a complicated room, but not huge, and there was only one door. The portable lampstand the treasure hunter used to catalog his discoveries did not cast much light either.

One corner of the room had crumbled long ago in some forgotten disturbance. Aarons lurched towards this dark corner and ducked between two thick support columns. He cringed again as his pack smacked against one of the pillars, then plunged deeper into the shadows. He clambered up a pile of rocks and debris, dragging the bag behind him. He was no young man anymore, but decades of work in inhospitable areas of the world had kept him fit and wiry. Please, let it be enough, he prayed.

Effectively blind, his foot slipped on a loose stone. A small rockslide cascaded down below him. It sounded like thunder to his ears. A moment more and he reached the damaged ceiling. Angry yelling started from somewhere nearby. It was not English. Aarons hesitated for only a breath, then hauled the bag up. He rooted around and dug out a small leather-bound journal tied closed with a strap. His hand went back in for a small but sturdy red and yellow prepaid mailing envelope, one of several he kept for sending things back to the States. He shoved both deep into the leg pocket of his cargo pants, whispering a blessing upon whoever invented functional legwear. With a deep sigh of resignation, he flipped the pack closed and thrust it as far over the debris as he could reach. It vanished between the rubble and the edge of the mass of collapsed roof-stone. It wasn’t the best hiding place ever, but it would have to do.

Aarons half-fell, half-slid back to the floor. He patted the book through his pant leg, praying that he had not made a terrible mistake. No, he had to have faith. The tablet fragments were too large and fragile to mail to himself, but the journal...

Suddenly, the invaders were there. Even from the shadows, Aarons could see the three young men’s matching military garb. Camo pants and jackets, emblematic armbands of their faction, black masks that covered all but their eyes, and AK-47s older than any of them. Standard para-military garb in the Middle East. They spoke in the rushed and excited manner of adrenaline-fueled teenagers with machine guns and an agenda. This part of the world was filled with such lost boys. But they were still kids. It hurt Wyatt Aarons’ heart.

As it was in the days of Noah...

One intruder planted himself in the only doorway. The other two split and began a careful search of the room, rifle barrels probing the shadows behind the supporting colonnade on each side. Aarons’ heart banged in his chest and his mouth tasted of coppery fear. He was quickly running out of options. He was pinned, so any advantage the dark corner was giving him would only last a few more seconds. 

One man passed close enough to the lampstand for Aarons to see the details of his armband. He recognized the symbol instantly: a black raven. It was a symbol he could never forget, and it could only mean one thing: This was personal. They had come for him.

His cold fear ignited into hot anger.

At that moment, deep within the mound of Ras-Shamra, Wyatt Aarons knew what God had led him there to do. And no bloodthirsty revolutionaries with a vendetta were going to stop him from doing it.

Aarons picked up a small stone and threw it across the darkness towards the lamp. He missed, but the stone cracked against the far wall and bounced a few times. All three men whipped their heads towards the noise and away from his side of the room. It was enough.

He burst from the shadows flailing like a frightened animal, knocking the nearest soldier onto the dusty floor. He spun past the second before any of them realized what was happening. His attempt to wrench away the man’s large weapon failed, but he found himself in the narrow passage beyond the chamber regardless.

Aarons kept going.

A hail of gunfire echoed behind him, drowning out the confused and angry shouts of the men. Pieces of the ancient stone wall broke away and bits of flak stung him in the shoulder and arm.

He did not stop even when he emerged into the hot, moonlit ruins. The Syrian night hit him like an oven. Too dry for sweat, and not so much as a Mediterranean breeze this night. Even the stones remembered the day’s inferno. Aarons knew these twisting trenches and roofless rooms better than anyone. The chances of outrunning his assailants outright were slim. It would be even worse above the half-excavated city, assuming he didn’t run into any more of their brothers on the way out. No, he’d stay in the sunken moonlit hallways and find another way. He darted through a narrow passage and ducked behind fallen columns. Several minutes later, he had worked his way out of the labyrinthine complex.

Aarons made a beeline for the silhouette of trees that marked the edge of the tiny town called Burj al-Qasab. He plunged into a real alleyway as soon as he was able, sticking to the shadows as he wove his way through like a thief. He didn’t stop until he finally collapsed against the wall which held the town’s only mailbox.

He glanced at the red Syrian Post box with Arabic and French translations. Completely useless of course. Syrian mail wasn’t very reliable, and all packages had to be assembled in front of a postal officer. But next to it was the shiny new courier drop box that would save him. He had arranged for this private box to be picked up every week by an international shipping company based out of a less paranoid part of the world.

The scrapes where the flak had grazed him ached. His arm had gone numb and his other hand was beginning to tingle too. He gently touched his shoulder, the sharpness of sudden intense pain surprised him. His hand came away entirely too bloody. He looked closer and immediately understood. Between the adrenaline and the darkness of the night he simply hadn’t recognized the bullet wound for what it really was.

A wave of dizziness passed over him. One side of his shirt was soaked with the sticky redness.

Oh. Time for a new plan then.

Wyatt Aarons wasn’t worried. He was chosen, and he’d been delivered this far. He was months, perhaps weeks away from solving the single most important archeological mystery in the history of the world. And if there was one thing that Wyatt Aarons knew, it was how to improvise. A plan began formulating in his mind. He knew just the man for this job. Aarons just hoped his old friend would be more open-minded and forgiving than his pursuers. He gave it about even odds either way.

He emptied his pockets and stumbled towards the mailbox.

Praise God. Miraculously, he still had a pen.

I

M40 Motorway. Buckinghamshire, England. David.

David Evans stared out of the bus window, his heart pounding for more reasons than he could count. Unfamiliar cars and trucks zoomed by on the wrong side of the freeway. This was the M40 Motorway, and the Airline Coach was the easiest way to Oxford from Heathrow Airport.

Motorway? Coach? Yes, he was in England, a parallel world. And he felt excited, nervous, and completely alive!

Except that everything possible had gone wrong. His grandfather, Arthur Evans, was supposed to have picked him up over an hour ago at the airport, but hadn’t shown up. If that wasn’t trouble enough, David’s phone had stopped working as soon as he left America behind. The mobile phone company had promised his international plan would work automatically, but the not-so-smart-after-all-phone had gone deaf and dumb when he got here. It informed him:

No Service

Here! Here was England. And that was unimaginably amazing.

Being without social media or texting felt incredibly weird. David was truly alone, and completely winging it. But then, what in the last few months hadn’t felt weird since that letter from Oxford? He’d first applied to the University Fine Arts Program to study digital photography over a year ago on kind of a whim. But he remembered the day his letter had arrived like it was still happening.

David was roleplaying with his friends around the dining room table when the doorbell rang. In an era when nobody rings doorbells anymore, it startled them all out of their goblin battle. David doubtfully opened the door. The mail carrier needed a signature for certified mail.

That sounds like fun, she said, looking past him into the large dining room.

"Yea, we’re trying out Pathfinder, he blurted. The scenario is pretty epic so far, but I’m pretty sure our wizard is going to get clobbered before he gets anywhere near the center of the Labyrinth. His throat went dry. Why had he said that? When he got nervous, David’s imagination always took over for his brain. There were plenty of geek girls in the universe, but the mail carrier was probably not one of them. Um, it—it’s a game, he tried to explain. Like... Dungeons and Dragons?"

Neat. She winked at him and tore the signature slip away. I’m jealous. D&D just hasn’t been the same since Fourth Edition.

David clenched his eyes closed and grimaced as he shut the door. He’d been out-geeked by the mail girl! Well, maybe it was for the best. She was too tall for him. Most girls were.

He stared blankly at his friends in the other room shaking dice and howling at some good—or really bad—roll. The guys were the same sort as him, though they were all older, and definitely shaggier. He’d always had older friends. They had beards. He had an electric razor he used about once a week. That was just the way it was.

What was that all about? one of the guys called over. Strike out again?

David ignored the jab. It’s from Oxford University, he said with mock-ceremony and his best fake English accent. He tore it open as he returned to the table and froze. I—I guess I got in.

There had been a video interview and a million other steps afterward. The big thing was that while he had gotten in, it was under conditional status, pending a formal final interview in August. It technically meant they could still turn him away if they wanted, right at the start of term. He had no real backup plan and nowhere to live yet, but he tried not to think too hard about it. He had the whole spring and summer to figure it out. No pressure!

But then... spring betrayed him. The whole thing was a fuzzy time-lapsed blur. David got his passport, a bank card, and a one-way ticket. Everyone congratulated him, sent him money, and his mom even threw him a going-away party the likes of which the old Evans house hadn’t known in two generations. That’s when he’d been given his new smartphone. The best ones had full-sized touchscreens and HD cameras now, and his parents had splurged on the top of the line.

An investment in his education, his mom said. His dad hadn’t even complained about the cost much. It was an amazing gift. Third gen and a full thirty-two gigs of space. It did nearly everything his expensive camera gear and laptop could do, and people were making more and better apps every day. 2010 was a good time to be alive.

At some point, his mom made arrangements with David's Grandfather Evans. He was some kind of professor at Oxford, but the man was pretty much a complete stranger to David. He was an aloof family legend. The hermit, the scholar, the mysterious ex-adventurer, and world traveler. David imagined he was going to like the old man. The few short conversations with him had given David the impression that Dr. Evans was clearly brilliant if a bit scatterbrained. And now David was going to live with him for a few months until, his mom had said, You can get yourself established. Whatever that was supposed to mean. David’s imagination ran wild with what might lie ahead. Excitement mixed with fear, mixed with mystery.

Almost the first thing he’d done was google his grandfather’s name to see if there was anything about his mysterious archeological career or maybe a more current picture. The results had been weird—down the rabbit hole weird. He’d swiped down past stuff about ancient civilizations, labyrinths, and other myths. He tapped through a few of the hits without really reading them, then closed the browser. Clearly the wrong Arthur Evans, but it had made for a fun status update.

My Grandfather Evans is so mysterious that the Internet thinks he discovered Minotaurs. Can’t wait to meet him.

David sighed as the bus zoomed along on the wrong side of the highway. His mind was wandering again. Grandfather Evans hadn’t shown up in London. David had sat in that terminal for an hour, constantly scanning the room for a vaguely familiar nose or set of lips. He’d fought the urge to go outside and look around for Big Ben. And he’d even grabbed photos of the pigeons who had snuck inside the terminal. Go birds!

Finally, before one hour became two, he’d gone rogue.

First, it had been a visit to a money changer for some fake-looking British Pounds. Then, resolving to spend some of this Monopoly money, he strode up to the bus terminal ticket counter and bought a ticket for the next coach heading to Oxford. Adulting complete, he’d ordered a tea from the coffee shop, savored the irony, and waited for the bus in style.

Now, looking out the bus window, he watched a comedically small car zoom into the fast lane on the wrong side. Who knew what adventure lay ahead? It could be literally anything. Obviously, he’d have to find his grandfather and figure out why he hadn’t shown up at the airport. Maybe figure out how to get his phone working and try to call him again? Barely two hours in the country and he already had two quests. Excellent.

On a whim, he pulled up the photos on his phone, scrolling till he found the series he wanted. Supposedly, pictures of David being held by his grandfather when he was a baby existed, but his mom hadn’t been able to find those pictures anywhere. So, David had extended the search for family photos to a place he was forbidden to open: the family’s antique leather steamer trunk stored in the attic. The one he’d always thought of as the Mystery Chest. But all he’d found there were even older Polaroids—photos of a much younger Dr. Evans from his archeology days. These pictures were on David’s phone now.

He hadn’t told his dad.

His parents rarely fought, but the worst time David could remember had been something about that old chest and Grandfather Evans. David had sneakily rummaged in that trunk off and on for years. It was full of cracked and faded photos of people he didn’t recognize. His favorite had always been a cigar box full of sepia images of some lady in front of things like Egyptian ruins, old airplanes, and mountains. She looked like Amelia Earhart or Carmen San Diego or somebody. The name Judi Bell had been scrawled on the box, but he had no idea who the woman might have been. He’d always liked the unusual spelling of it though. The Mystery Chest was full of bizarro stuff like that.

As the bus zoomed along its way on the wrong side of the road, David smiled at the digital versions of those faded Polaroids from the Mystery Chest. One showed a group of men at an archaeological dig in the 1980s. There was a hill behind them with white lines crisscrossed on the ground for some archeological purpose. He zoomed in on one man with his arms crossed and his foot on a small rock. It was a little blurry, but he could still make him out. He was short like all Evans men, but basically a slightly different model of his dad all the way down to the scowl. On the back of the photo, one word had been scrawled:

DOOMSDAY

So weird.

With London well behind him, David checked his phone’s settings again. Oddly, even though Heathrow didn’t have Wi-Fi, the bus to Oxford did. More backwards, and worth a try! He logged on easily and a few dozen notifications popped up on his screen. He started by sticking his earbuds in and hit play on an audiobook he’d been listening to. Then, pulling up a messenger app, he settled into his seat to chat with his friends for the next hour. They must be wondering what had happened to him, it was nearly nine o’clock in the morning!

But strangely, hardly anyone was on. He refreshed the app once before it hit him. The phone had magically adjusted the time to the correct local one, six hours ahead of Dallas to Greenwich Mean Time. Actual GMT.

Time Zone: (UTC +00:00) London

Everybody he knew was asleep, except for a few extreme night owls. To them, it was still only three in the morning. Because, duh. But he didn’t feel tired at all. What was all this stuff about jet lag then?

He closed the app and looked out the window at a squat little catering truck. It had a strange-looking phone number with too many digits written on the side. An alien language. The phone numbers here were backwards too. He took a picture of the truck and posted it to Twitter. His tweets were picked up by Facebook and reposted there for him automatically.

Greetings from backwards England. My phone is on strike, but buses have Wi-Fi #thestruggleisreal

He emailed his mom to let her know he’d landed and that all was well just in case she didn’t see his post or if his dad missed the joke. She’d get one or both in the morning. Till then, he was on his own. No need to worry her with the details.

He went back to his audiobook and watched the cars go the wrong way on the freeway for the next hour. Yep, England was backwards. And David was loving every fantastic backwards second of it.

II

Mansfield College. Oxford, England. Arthur.

Dr. Arthur Evans, tutor of ancient literature and languages and Oxford University fellow, fumbled with the buttons of his brown sportscoat. He quickly crossed the meticulously manicured circular green of the Mansfield College courtyard, hoping no one would notice. The strictly enforced rule was that one wasn’t permitted to walk on the croquet field except when playing a game, but Evans was in a rush, and most students were gone for the summer anyway.

It was imperative that he make it to the train station before the tourists from London arrived and crowded out the streets in their typical summer droves. He had no idea how early that might happen on a May Saturday in Oxford, despite having lived there for most of his life. It was his habit to sleep in on Saturdays, and he was a creature of deep habits. He glanced at his wristwatch and noted the time.

Good lord, it was nearly ten? Not good. It encouraged him to pick up the pace.

Evans was generally spry and in far better health than most Texas-born men in their mid-sixties. But Evans’ bones still ached when the temperature dropped. Summer or not, Oxfordshire was much closer to the Arctic Circle than the U.S., and it was still a bit chilly in the mornings yet. Especially when it was cloudy, and it was always cloudy in England. Evans had never managed to fully acclimate to English mornings. Reading late and sleeping in was Evans’ idea of a life well-lived.

Abandoning his jacket’s impossible buttons, Evans straightened his muffler, reset his fedora, and tried to focus. This morning was a highly unusual situation that would not be solved by his usual rituals and stubbornness. That was why he’d dug out his personal key to the garden gate and cut across the college grounds instead of going the long way around the block. He puffed towards the porter’s lodge by the front entrance, grumbling at the memory of the phone call some months ago that had started all of this.

It was the ringing that startled Evans awake. His hand shot out to search the bedside table for his glasses or the phone, whichever his fingers should happen to find first. The phone won, but not until after he knocked a short stack of books to the floor. Squinting at his antique alarm clock, he noted the time as just past 4:00 a.m.

Groggy and quite unused to rude midnight calls, he hauled the receiver up to his ear and grunted a monosyllable. As a long-time widower who had permanently taken up residence in England many decades ago, he had no idea who might be trying to call him at such an impossible hour.

Hello? a faraway voice asked.

Hello, this is Arthur. He yawned, scratching his chin through his gray beard. It was time for a trim again.

Yes, Arthur! This is Karen, can you hear me?

I suppose so. Sorry, who is this? It was an American accent. Woman, obviously.

Oh Arthur, thank goodness I finally got through. It’s Karen Evans, Joe’s wife. Her slow and annunciated voice was far away, but his tired brain forced the pieces together. Karen Evans? Ah yes. His daughter-in-law. Something must be deeply wrong. Had someone died?

Listen, I apologize for the late hour there, we have been trying to reach you for a few days now. It keeps saying your voicemail is full and we weren’t able to leave any messages.

Messages? He blinked. Oh, I don’t really do messages. This line has voicemail? Odd.

Oh, I see. Okay, Arthur. Was she laughing? Evans straightened his wool pajamas and wiggled himself into a better position.

Listen, Arthur, we have some good news!

News? What news?

The details followed. To Evans, the information sounded incoherent. There were random detached facts about somebody’s grandson and some kind of visit to England. The university was involved. No one had died.

Thank you for telling me, he managed, noting that he also sounded rather detached himself.

Actually, Arthur, that isn’t the whole reason I’m calling. Karen suddenly sounded different. Was she nervous? He disliked talking with nervous women. They made him, well, nervous also. We were hoping that David could stay with you for the summer? There was an awkward pause. Evans waited it out.

Who the devil is David?

Suddenly it clicked, and he realized what Karen was talking about. For a moment it was 1976 again, and Evans was a fresh widower with a six-year-old son Joseph and an offer to stay on at Oxford as a tutor. He’d made the difficult decision to place Joseph in an American boarding school then, but his boy had always been quite smart, and the issue had resolved itself. Maybe the Boarding Academy would take little David too? It felt like a lifetime ago. Someone else’s lifetime.

Karen was saying something about colleges and interviews in August, then a question he didn’t catch.

Arthur? Are you still there?

What? Yes. Blast it, Karen, I’m not sure what you expect from me. It sounded more selfish than Evans had meant it to. What I mean to say is that I haven’t talked with Joseph in...

The reality startled him as he realized he didn’t know how many months, or perhaps years, it had actually been. He and Joseph had voiced their differences over the years, but Karen tended to tamp that down. The fact that they would foist their son off on him for a summer after all this time had never occurred to him. He started again.

I can’t take care of a little boy Karen. I’m a cranky old man. I live in an efficiency behind one of the Colleges, for goodness’ sake.

Arthur! She was no longer laughing, and she was most certainly not nervous. David is coming to Oxford for college! He’s been accepted into a bachelor’s program to study art. He’s nearly seventeen. He will be having his final interviews with some of the colleges and needs a place to stay while he’s there. We want you to show him around, not adopt him!

There had been more to the call, and others after that. During the next months, Evans ate much crow and promised to behave himself. It wasn’t often that he lied to women, especially those he truly liked, but sometimes one had to make exceptions to these things.

As Evans slipped through the door to the mailroom which served as Mansfield’s porter lodge, the more technical aspects of the arrangement slipped away. They were replaced by the task at hand. Simply, he was supposed to be in London right now picking up David and he was terribly late.

Understandably, Evans had experienced difficulty getting to sleep last night, so he had taken his phone off the cradle. Then this morning, his typically reliable alarm clock had failed. So, he’d accidentally overslept like any other normal Saturday. Realizing it, he’d tried to call, but the boy hadn’t answered his phone. Evans wasn’t sure what else to do. Thus, this was no normal Saturday. It was a fiasco.

Good morning, Professor. The first-shift porter clearly didn’t know Evans that well. He was young, red-haired, and spoke with an Irish lilt, a testament to the truly international flavor of the twenty thousand plus university students here.

Just a tutor, Evans said automatically. Not a professor. Oxford was a college town to be sure, but a deeply medieval one, and many traditions remained. One did not study for a degree at Oxford University as much as read for one. To that end, things worked very differently overall. Per tradition, only the heads, chairs, and deans were called professor. Evans had never quite achieved that level of prestige, though being an Oxford don in any form was nothing to sneeze at, certainly.

Certainly, Dr. Evans. My apologies, the college porter said with a chipper smile. If you are looking for your post, the morning delivery hasn’t come yet, but you do have a package that’s been here a few days.

The young man set a small red and yellow mailer covered with stickers and stamps onto the platform of the Dutch door that separated them. He was clearly happy to be rid of the thing. He hopefully eyed the overstuffed mailbox behind Evans’ shoulder where the seasoned tutor directed his University-related mail so that he could check it at his leisure. Or ignore it entirely, as he more often did.

What? Oh, yes thank you, Evans replied. And call me Arthur, please.

He absentmindedly picked up the heavy-duty envelope but forced himself to stay focused on why he was there. Evans was perfectly aware he had never quite mastered the art of polite English conversation. Try as he might, it was hard to shake the deeply rooted American spirit in him. His grandfather had been a man of culture from Hertfordshire, greater London to be precise. But Arthur M. Evans had been born and raised as a second-generation Texan in the family’s old modern-style house near Dallas that Joseph and Karen now owned.

Some said Evans was a brilliant lecturer who knew the ancient world like he’d been born there. Others, that he was anything from absent-minded to rude. But the truth was, Dr. Evans just didn’t feel like six and a half decades on this planet was long enough to understand how individual people could be so inconsistent and emotional all the time. Case in point, when his young wife had died unexpectedly in the mid-70s, he’d simply poured himself into his work and never looked back. Such a course of action seeming the sensible thing to do. And Joseph had certainly been no worse for it.

Evans still missed Elisabeth dreadfully. Sometimes he could almost see her there, walking with him in the ancient streets of Oxford as she had so many years ago. Her, never aging or growing older than her mid-thirties, while he passed into his fourth, fifth, and finally sixth decade. He was hardly recognizable to himself in the mirror anymore. Elisabeth Evans was the only one who had ever really understood him. She had also understood his love for all people in general, and his difficulties with individuals in particular. The very idea of meeting Joseph and Karen’s boy made him twitchy.

The boy! No distractions, he reminded himself. He cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up to his nose. Actually, I was wondering if you could tell me when the next train to London runs? I’m supposed to pick my grandson up at the airport this morning, and I think I may be running late. It was a polite lie of the English variety. He knew darn well he was late. He was also grumpier than usual, and he was trying to compensate.

Certainly, Arthur. Might I recommend one of the Airline coaches instead perhaps? They leave every thirty minutes on the hour and half past, so it’s easy to predict, and they are direct to Heathrow. The porter looked unfazed by the urgency of the situation.

Evans set the package he was holding back down on the Dutch door ledge and looked at his watch again for emphasis. The porter eyed the mailer dubiously, then grabbed the bus schedule from his wall and scanned it.

Though I suppose if you make haste, one will come through High Street in just a few minutes. It’s the second stop on the line.

Evans hadn’t thought of that! He didn’t hesitate. Turning to go, he began a Thank-you-very-much, but the porter cut him off.

Sir, your package?

Evans quickly shoved the thick envelope into his coat pocket, ignored the man’s further protestations about the rest of his mail, and hurried out the door.

He momentarily considered grabbing his bicycle from among the dozens on the rack by the gate but dismissed it. Aside from the difficulty getting it onto the bus with him, if he cut through the Turf Tavern to St. Helen’s Passage he might just—but no, the Turf wouldn’t open till when? Eleven? He’d have to do Radcliffe Square and hope the tourists hadn’t taken it over yet. He began to jog briskly down Mansfield Road towards Broad Street.

It had only taken the Texan transplant a few days to learn to navigate Old Oxford, but even after decades of living there, Evans still discovered new shortcuts and passageways from time to time among the innumerable lanes and courts of his little medieval town. Ducking down New College Lane to the twisting Queen’s Lane walking path wasn’t particularly difficult or hidden, even the tourists sometimes knew to do it. It was the quickest way to High Street at this time of day. Or so Evans hoped. If he hurried, he could be at the High Street bus stop in less than five minutes.

Evans hurried.

III

International Waters, Pacific Hemisphere. 35,000 ft., Eastbound toward Los Angeles. Mel.

When she was in Beijing, Melanie Chen sat in the most powerful office in one of the world’s largest corporations. Mel was one of the ten richest women in the world, but she rarely thought about it that way. She avoided going to Beijing as much as possible, and very rarely ever sat in that office. Mel much preferred the office she took with her, in a jet that was in every way that mattered an identical twin of the American president’s Air Force One.

It was in this mobile office above the clouds, that Mel Chen thumbed on her monitor and cued up the reports waiting for her. It was her habit to watch these while she drank her tea. She ceremoniously selected and measured an appropriate variety for the antique teapot that was often part of the little ritual. Mel always prepared her own tea. It helped her think.

Mel was the CEO of a corporate empire bigger than the gross domestic product of most countries. But one small slice, a wholly-owned subsidiary called Mao Sien, was the only real thing she cared about. The rest bored her immeasurably. The name basically meant Adventure Company in English, her little joke. Its purpose was one thing and one thing alone: To pursue various para-archaeological ventures that no other institution would have dared waste time or money on. Melanie Chen found, bought, and sold true-myths and miracles wholesale. This was her true passion. To find the lost cities of the world, the legends, the impossible places, and things hidden in the depths and buried long ago.

She smiled to see that Wyatt Aarons’ weekly status report was up first today. It was late. He hadn’t sent one for almost two weeks, the first reports he had ever missed in his time with the company. It was unlike Aarons to miss his camera time. The file called to her, but her tea was ready. She poured the piping hot Da Hong Pao from the old vessel into a matching cup.

Oolong-style teas are not particularly uncommon. But according to one legend, the mother of a Ming Dynasty emperor was cured of an illness by a certain tea, after which he sent great red robes to clothe the four bushes from which it originated. Recently, one of Mel’s teams had confirmed that some of these original gnarled and twisted bushes still grew on a rock in the Wuyi Mountains, reportedly dating back to the even earlier Song Dynasty. Mel had paid upwards of $35,000 American for this particular batch. While admittedly delicious, what she truly savored was the taste of the legend. It was superb.

Mel never shied from using her massive leverage and resources to get what she wanted. She hired away the best of the best in every imaginable field. She even had employees from unorthodox disciplines like paleo-archeology, forensic geology, and epigenetics. By side-stepping the normal categories, she had successfully plowed past government roadblocks, academic peer review, and popular opinion. Mel found and conscripted those individuals able to connect the dots between presumed fiction and actual historical finds. These individuals were her human computers.

In this same way, Mel had finally snagged Wyatt Aarons, the charismatic and—in certain circles— famous biblical archeologist. And one of her favorite human computers to keep tabs on. Aarons was a one-man team, not including his locally hired guards. He had never quite fit into the Mao Sien family dynamic, but she had still watched every one of his reports personally from day one. She loved his silly southern drawl and his ridiculous snow-white van dyke beard and handlebar mustache. But truthfully, Mel deeply admired the man for his decades-long track record of finding unfindable religious relics and doing the seemingly impossible. He had done it for over a year now under the Mao Sien banner. In fact, it had taken her that long to finally convince him to build a proper team moving forward. That team was scheduled to meet up with him this week, as it happened. Yes, he was coming around.

Mel frowned. Something was strange about this video. She noted the urgent tag one of the handler techs had placed on the file for her and double-checked the date stamp. The video had been processed today, but the raw data was recorded over two weeks ago. This was last week’s report, but something had delayed it. She took the teapot to her glass-top desk and hit play.

Mel watched the recording, poured herself another cup of Da Hong Pao, then immediately watched it again. The third time, she picked up a stylus and took notes, embedding them in the file. She transcribed with care the details of Wyatt’s words to the camera, the precise timestamp of the off-camera gunshots, and even the length of the dead air before the three masked gunmen entered the far end of the room and started their search. She slowed the feed down and looped the video. In quarter speed, the wild-eyed Aarons flung himself out of the room, physically shoving the men aside. The militants shouted and gave chase, and the ancient room emptied.

Mel considered the fact that the rest of the file was nothing but an empty room. A few hours of nothing, according to the tech’s notation. The loop started again, Aarons bursting from the shadows as before. Hours of an empty room obviously meant that the recording had not been turned off. She wasn’t surprised given what was on it. Then, after the battery of the archeologist’s laptop ran down, it would have shut itself off abruptly without uploading anything to the satellite. Plus, there was a lot of stone in those ruins. Aarons had been forced to take the laptop to the excavated parts for the internal sat-phone modem to connect, then wait for the upload to finish.

What did not make sense was why she now had the video at all. It was likely that the next time it powered up, the computer would have automatically connected and uploaded the file. But who had plugged it in and turned it on? And from where? Certainly not from the depths of the palace ruins. She took a sip of her tea.

There were several possibilities, but none of them were very encouraging. If the gunmen had come back for the laptop, it had been later. Many hours later at least. That didn’t make sense. If Aarons had escaped, come back later, charged the laptop, and sent the file; then why had he not contacted her, requested extraction, or sent an addendum to the file? Wyatt Aarons would have reported in. She already knew he hadn’t, but she double-checked the logs to be sure.

Nothing. No, this file’s late and automatic delivery seemed more like an accidental upload of some incompetent thief due to the failsafes built into her software. Wyatt Aarons was missing, or worse. She had to consider the very real possibility that her man was captured or lying dead somewhere in coastal Syria. What had the invaders wanted? Clearly not research. A high-profile kidnapping? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d dealt with that. It never ended well for the kidnappers. Who were these men? And why no ransom demand?

She opened a communication window and waited for the video chat to connect with one of her people on the ground. Tie me into the human resources database index.

Which one? The heavily accented man on the other end replied, barely glancing up. Mao Sien employee? Master holdings Employee?

No, she said flatly, I want everything. Build me a Boolean index. But kindly save me a step and set up a filter on your end first. Flag anybody who has ever had any connection at all to Mr. Wyatt Aarons of the Ras-Shamra dig and prioritize by that.

The man snapped to attention. Yes, ma’am. His eyebrows told her that he was pleased and intrigued by this order. Rarely did she request such a large and tricky search, but her people liked a challenge. If they didn’t, she didn’t hire them.

The window disappeared. Behind it, the loop of Aarons wrestling past his assailants still played. She watched his mop of white hair and ridiculous Dr. Livingstone khaki uniform disappear up the murky stairway in jerking slow motion. The dark man with the distinctive para-military garb slowly rotated away and fell to the ground.

A new detail caught her eye. She paused the video and zoomed in on the image of a bird the man wore on his shoulder armband. Adrenaline surged through her. The legend was true then! Mel needed no image search to confirm what she already knew about that emblem. Even in the washed-out colors of this grainy low-light pixelated image, she recognized a black raven on a red and white background when she saw one. These were no ordinary guerilla freedom fighters then. And they were quite far from home.

When in doubt, always rely on the human computer.

Excellent, she said aloud, then drank off the last of her costly tea. Perhaps we can kill two birds at once then.

Her monitor chimed, signaling that the connections she had requested were available. She now had access through her array of private satellites to the massive index of persons of interest her people maintained and curated for times like this.

Even with the limitations she’d set, the POI list was massive and growing exponentially. A decade ago, a similar search would have taken hours, even from the mainland. She loved technology. She swiped through a few of the top names but nothing interesting jumped out at her immediately. She needed a way to narrow the search.

She adjusted tactics and opened a little spider program some of her best IT people had recently coded up for her. Every second of every day, humans uploaded more information to the internet than existed in the American Library of Congress. Something was out there that would lead her to Aarons.

Correction: Someone.

Mel needed a new human computer. Someone with the right connections, history, and knowledge to get inside Wyatt Aarons’ head and track him. To see what nobody else could. It might be anyone, but it had to be just the right someone. She entered her new variables and ran the program. This part might take some time. Humans could be slow. She could wait. The entire internet was working for her now.

IV

Holywell Street. Oxford, England. Arthur.

As Evans rounded the corner past the King’s Arms Pub onto Catte Street, he could already see crowds gathering in front of Oxford’s iconic Radcliffe Camera for the first walking tours of the city. Worse, it looked like another blasted street fair was happening down Broad street. Tents lined the road below the high and intricate façades of pale-yellow Cotswold limestone.

Evans sighed. He was surrounded by bumbling bodies in tourist garb taking bad photographs, and he only had a few short minutes left. Public transit did not wait for anyone in England. Evans needed that shortcut right now. His eyes shot to the old Hertford skyway that joined two parts of Hertford College at the second story. He grunted and darted under this Bridge of Sighs, as it was often called, and on through to New College Lane. The narrow and twisting passage was little more than a cobblestone alleyway so he risked a jog, listening for any bicycles that might come his way. Huffing down the path, he congratulated himself for successfully avoiding the circular Rad-Cam’s crowds.

Many things in the old city had secret nicknames. Well, open secrets at least. And Evans knew most of them. As a tutor, he had held contracts with many of the autonomous thirty-eight colleges and six permanent private halls nestled in among the twisting stonework passages of the medieval college district. He had been variably employed in every corner of his city at one time or another. But, knowing his way around its mazelike alleys and hidden paths was a plus for other reasons too. He was now making record time to the High Street bus stop, so that was something.

A horrible thought occurred to Evans. He would likely be spending his afternoon touring a curious teenager around his city instead of his usual habit of spending Saturday reading at the Ashmolean museum. When they inevitably came walking back this way, would the young man care that the Hertford Skyway was referred to as the Bridge of Sighs because of its supposed similarity to the famous Ponte dei Sospiri in Venice? He doubted it.

Perhaps the lad would be more interested in a related funny story, like the legend that many decades ago, a survey of the health of students was taken, and as Hertford College's students were the heaviest, the college closed off the bridge to force them to take the stairs, giving them extra exercise. Thus, the pun in the name. Evans tried to imagine young David laughing at his joke, but realized he had no idea what the boy even looked like, having not seen him since he was a baby. Well, except for Karen’s regular holiday cards, but whoever made a study of those? He managed a vague image of his son Joseph at about the same age. No image of David came.

Besides, Evans knew from personal experience that if the Hertford College bridge was not used, the students actually climbed fewer stairs, so the legend had to be false. Or was that his rational academic mindset making him stuffy again? Maybe he would skip that part. Or, he could just explain it. That’s what tutors did after all, did they not? Engage in the ancient art of explaining things? He sighed, picking up the pace.

He considered other possibilities for entertaining the boy. Perhaps the old Oxford Castle on the hill? Historians had made a discovery recently, adjusting the age of the fortress’s old Saxon tower. The scandalous date possibly eclipsed the age of the Saxon tower attached to St. Michael at the North Gate—currently considered the oldest in the city. Evans’ best friend Father Matthew had been cordially doubtful. And Evans had been cordially doubtful that the discovery at the fort would have any impact whatsoever on ticket sales of the St. Michael tower admission, or the adjoining gift shop which the church also oversaw.

Yes, Evans could start with the Saxon Tower at St. Michael, and give David one of the best views possible of the old city proper. Also, Matthew’s church was the current City Church of Oxford. That counted for something, right? Fascinating trivia. Best of all, Matthew would let them go up without paying like the tourists.

Oh, but the tourists. No, not the tower. At least not on the weekend. Perhaps that Harry Potter walking tour they give? Ugh. Same problem. Besides, he never read modern children’s books and wouldn’t be a very good companion to the boy, he feared. Evans was floundering.

Part of the problem was that despite his four decades living in Oxford, Evans had never properly played tourist. He’d been far more interested in the ideas of the people who had lived, studied, and died here. Philosophers the likes of Thomas Hobbes, Walter Raleigh, and John Donne. Some of the great writers like Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift. And who could forget the influence of revolutionary poets like Oscar Wilde and Percy Shelly? Not to mention the scientists. Edwin Hubble and Richard Dawkins had challenged whole paradigms of thinking that had simply been accepted as unshakable before they’d come along. Even opposites like Margaret Thatcher and Michael Palin had walked these streets as students. Yet, despite Evans’ decades of access to the great libraries here, he’d barely scratched the surface of these more modern minds. No, his mind thrived in the libraries and museums of his ancient city. Who had time for tourism?

It was a true conundrum, but it would have to wait. He had arrived. Evans emerged from the alleyway and spotted the bus already parked a few lampposts down. He was too late! With mere moments to get aboard, Evans discarded whatever decorum he was still trying to preserve and waved his arms, yelling to the driver to wait for him.

Everyone on the sidewalk stopped and stared at the crazy old American as he flailed past. He ducked his head and charged forward, his coat flapping back and forth as he ran. Something in his pocket slapped against his upper thigh, but he didn’t stop to think about it. With adrenaline pumping, Evans grabbed the exterior handrail and flung himself into the doorway of the bus. He’d made it!

The driver’s seat was empty. A few of the passengers stifled a giggle or two, but Evans just leaned against the inside steps red-faced and uncomfortable.

A long moment later, the driver stepped in behind him with a wry smirk and a wink. Need a lift on the coach mate? he asked with that special breed of gravelly sarcasm reserved by London cabbies and airport bus drivers in an otherwise extremely polite society.

Uh, yes, thank you, Evans muttered between breaths. He searched his wallet for a fifty Pound note while the man used the onboard kiosk to print a ticket receipt. Evans snatched his round-trip ticket and headed towards a seat in the back where he could disappear.

Excuse me, a young and clearly American voice behind him called out. Grandfather Evans? Evans turned. A young man of about his same height stepped into the bus and eyed him questioningly.

The teenager had on worn tennis shoes and faded blue jeans, with a tee-shirt sporting some kind of Asian cartoon character. Over this was a light blue hooded jacket, unzipped. In one hand, the youth clutched an ultra-modern cell phone. His other hand was tightly tucked under the straps of a fat backpack slung over his shoulder. A white headphone cord extended from one ear to a clip, then over to the phone. The other one dangled nearby. Other than his brown curly hair needing a trim, he seemed a fairly clean-cut and typical all-American kid.

There was no mistaking it though, if the slight Texas accent hadn’t given it away, the young man had Karen’s piercing green eyes. And like a ghost from Evans’ past, the boy was every bit the spitting image of Joseph as a teenager. He looked more like one of Evans’ students than the kid he had been picturing. Regardless, this was most certainly David.

Evans must have gaped like a fool as he sized the boy up, because after a moment the teen followed up with, I’m sorry, but you are Arthur Evans aren’t you sir? I recognized you from your archeology pictures. The teen motioned with his phone hand, apparently showing him something. Indeed, the screen was lit up with some kind of old photo. Returning to the front of the bus, Evans recognized the photo immediately. Though cropped, it was a picture that had been taken of him at his old Turkish research site in the early 80s: a past life that he had long ago abandoned and thought successfully buried. This teenager must have been born a solid decade and a half after this picture was taken, yet his comfortable familiarity with its existence made Evans squirm.

Suddenly Evans felt like an old man staring through a window in time. Though he would have preferred better words, he fell back on one of his automatic catchphrases instead. Pleased to meet you, I’m Arthur. He extended a hand, but David didn’t have one free, so Evans simply clasped the boy on one shoulder. A gesture he’d used on many a student at graduation, or after notice of their successful exam marks.

Um, okay Arthur. I’m David.

They stood awkwardly for a moment, Evans unsure what to say next to his new ward. The entirety of the English language had momentarily left him.

David rescued him. We should probably get off the bus?

As they stepped out, Evans noticed that the crowds had taken over everywhere now. He supposed it didn’t matter which way they went. They would all be equally horrible and would just have to deal with it.

It occurred to Evans a few minutes later, that the driver had kept the rather substantial change for the ticket he had needlessly purchased. It was clearly the beginning of a dreadful day.

So, yea, I’m sorry I couldn’t call you, my phone stopped working when I landed, David said as they hurried through the canyon of medieval façades.

Phone? Oh, quite right. I suppose things are different on this side of the pond. Though, I don’t really do technology or the cellular phones. I have enough trouble keeping to my business without all that nonsense. Evans stopped walking. Wait a tick, where is your luggage?

David swallowed a grin. I don’t have any bags. He shrugged his overstuffed backpack onto the ground. Just this.

Evans grunted in approval and relaxed a bit. He straightened his coat and turned on his heel toward a stone archway that led away from the street. The boy hefted his bag and tried to follow.

Oy, watch it! a local woman protested as he nearly clipped her baby stroller with it.

Sorry! David called to her and put his backpack on properly. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and matched Evans’ pace as best he could. The woman mumbled something about American tourists Evans didn’t catch. He sighed and slowed his walk for David to catch up, but the boy was standing stalk-still.

Wow, David breathed, eyes filled with enchanted wonder. That’s the Rad-Cam! Hey Arthur, is this Radcliffe Square?

Evans lifted an eyebrow. This often happened when people saw one of the iconic places in Oxford for the first time. They had slipped from the medieval storefronts where the busses landed, into a wide yellow courtyard of dreaming spires with its ornamented cylindrical reading room squatting in the center. The boy had done his homework then, good.

Evans smiled weakly and darted forward, hoping to find a quick reprieve from the massive crowd that constantly moved and swirled around on the uneven cobblestone streets and narrow passages. Yes, it is, He called back. If you ever get lost, just ask for it and then head north. My flat is just up the road there.

David still didn’t follow though. He turned instead to look at the thirteenth-century tower sculpted spire of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. The pictures on the internet just don’t do this place justice! the boy declared, then in complete disregard of his statement, like the tourist that he was, he held his phone high to take quick pictures of everything himself. Evans closed his eyes and sighed as people pushed past him on all sides.

"Is your, uh, flat where we are going?" David asked, finally trotting up beside him. He was clearly amused by Evans’ use of the English word for an apartment.

Oh, good lord, no, Evans proclaimed. The pub and a pint first, I should think. He could already see the corner of the King’s Arms. He