Chapter 39 #2
“Historians wrote that the emperor so believed in the magical qualities of mercury, he started drinking a cup a day. Up until then, he’d been considered enlightened. And then—”
“He became mad as a hatter,” said Kai-wen.
“He ordered that his tomb have flowing rivers of mercury,” said Vivien, staring at the stone wall.
She thought of the last people who touched those rocks. Who created not just a wall but a huge dome, perhaps as much to keep the putrid emperor in, as the world out.
“When he unified all under heaven, more than seven hundred thousand convicts dug through three springs and replicas of palaces, and wonderful vessels, and other rare objects were created.”
They looked at Vivien, who was still staring at the wall. She then turned to them.
“That’s what the historian wrote thousands of years ago, describing the tomb.”
“You memorized it?” asked Kai-wen.
“Shi. Just as you memorized the recluse scholar book. Unintentionally, but through repeated readings.” She closed her eyes, and quoted, “Craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows which would operate automatically so that anyone who approached what had been excavated was immediately shot. Quicksilver was used to represent the various waterways, the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, and the great sea, being made by some mechanism to flow into each other, and above were arranged the heavenly constellations.”
“Crossbows?” asked Ming-na.
“Where better to hide than in a tomb no one dares enter?” asked Alice, speaking, it seemed, to the wall.
Then she grabbed the pickaxe and swung.
Ping! It dinged off the rock, sending what felt like an electrical charge up her arms. She dropped the tool.
“Fuck, fuck,” she sputtered, dancing around and shaking her arms. “Fuckity fuck.”
“Wait,” said Captain Hu. “If what you say is true, the terrorists must’ve made an entrance. Wouldn’t it be easier to find it?”
“The wall surrounding the tomb is more than six kilometers around,” said Vivien.
“And any entrance they created would hardly have a welcome mat. It could even be a tunnel, dug from somewhere in the terracotta pits. No.” She stared at the stones.
“Alice is right. If we’re going to get in in time, this is the only way. ”
“Please yourself,” said Hu. “But we’re going to search for the opening.”
He nodded to Corporal Song, who hesitated, knowing what his commander was actually doing.
They all knew.
He was running away.
Then Song joined his commanding officer, but not before taking his automatic pistol out of its holster. He paused a beat, looking at the other four. The two. Vivien and Alice.
Then, unseen by his boss, whose back was already to them, he made up his mind. He handed the gun to Alice. And then he followed his boss into the crowd of Terracotta Warriors.
Alice looked at the weapon. She’d never held one, never mind fired one. Could she?
She hoped she’d never have to find out. Though she suspected that moment would soon come.
Then, after tucking the pistol in her back pocket, Alice picked up her axe and hit the wall again.
Again.
And again.
“As mad as a hatter,” sighed Vivien and, grasping her own pickaxe, she too swung at the wall.
Soon the four of them were hacking away at the only thing standing between them and the tomb.
Huffing and puffing, as three of the four were well over sixty, they kept it up until, finally, one of the huge boulders shifted. A little.
They redoubled their efforts, frantic now. Time was not their friend. It was quickly deserting them.
President Pardington looked at the time.
No longer able to sit still, he began pacing the Oval Office, in a circuit familiar to almost every president. Around and around.
Twice he called his Secretary of Defense, who reported no progress in getting APAI out of their weapons system.
Also worrisome was that the chef, Chief Petty Officer Bahri, had not reported back.
In his Zhongnanhai office, Chen paced, back and forth, back and forth. Awaiting word from Liu.
“Mr. President, it’s time.”
Chen took a deep breath and nodded.
Liu looked at the time. It was forty-three minutes to eight. Chen would be on his way to the site of the parade and the reviewing stand.
They’d rifled Wang’s secret office and found nothing. Well, proof that he’d been siphoning off millions of dollars into a private offshore account. Enough to get him sent to a detention camp and hard labor. But not, Liu thought, enough to fund Pangu. That money was coming from elsewhere.
He’s lucky to be dead, thought Liu. He’d had a much more humane end than the one awaiting those in the camps.
He stood in the middle of the small shambolic room and looked around. Nothing. They’d found nothing about Pangu.
To create an APAI system that far-reaching, they’d need electricity, power, and lots of it. How could that be hidden?
They’d looked throughout China for the power source. Then, with satellites, they’d broadened the search globally.
Nothing.
It must have been cloaked. But how? How do you hide something that big? Over years?
The four stepped back and stared at each other, then at the rock they’d loosened.
Working desperately now, they clawed at the stone with their bare hands. Their fingers left bloody marks where their nails had been ripped away.
And still they scratched and clawed for purchase, desperate to dislodge a rock that had been placed there thousands of years earlier by people at least as desperate as they were.
And then it budged. An inch. Two.
In one final heave, they rolled it away, and out of the long-sealed tomb came a whoosh. A sigh. As though some great being were taking a breath.