You've been tracking down a missing person, M.J. Young, which has turned into a more complicated case than you thought.  He did not fit the profile of someone who fled in the night being a rooted sort of person, nor did he fit the profile of someone who ticked off powerful mob interests in the New Jersey area being a Christian songwriter.  And while it was possible, your instincts just shouted that the wife and the other relatives did not do it although just to be safe, you'd checked over the backyard of his house for soft spots.

But he had vanished.

The only other oddity was that his microwave looked...exploded.  But lab tests showed that no C-4, no Semtex, not even any gunpowder was used.  A simple industrial accident.  It looked like perhaps amnesia after a head trauma, but curiousity got the better of you, and you looked into the accident.

Over the last year, there had been five similar accidents worldwide.  When you expanded it to electrical devices that used the same new fangled scriff tech, and added the last four years, the number jumped to twenty-two.

Twenty-two unexplained disapearances out of billions of people.  It was not much of a pattern, but your instincts shouted at you that the gold liquid in the little vial, and electricity had something to do with it.  So, curious, you hooked up a wire to the local power outlet, and poured the liquid onto your desk.

This should give you quite a jolt, you thought, but a singed finger would be a small price to pay for a clue.

The wire went into the tiny pool of liquid, and you touched it.

The jolt slammed you into the ceiling....

Your last thought was perplexed...

...But I only had a 120 volt current.  How did it pack so ...

=========================================================================

You wake.

You're on your back with your eyes closed.  The air is cool, and still with the smell of stone dust in the air.  A faint whiff of smoke touches your nose as well.

Cool stone is under your fingers.

Playtester

Hank sits up, rubbing the back of his neck.

If the head's still attached, it could always be worse.

Before his eyes can adjust, he's reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes and matches.  While fishing through his pockets, he sniffs the air.

People don't use all of their senses enough.  Especially the common sense.

The match flares revealing a stone hallway that slopes slowly to your left, and more rapidly to your right.  On the wall in front of you is an Egyptian style picture of a huge man in a boat with smaller men poling the boat.  The huge man is aiming a spear at an alligator.

The air seems to be drifting very slowly from right to left bearing with it the scent of woodsmoke.

You pull in a puff of smoke with your fingers shaking.  This was definitely not your office.  Although you do see a stapler from your office to your right, and a few other items as well.

PT

Hank takes another drag from his cigarette, again rubbing the back of his neck.

That liquid...that was more than 120 volts...but that liquid must've acted as some sort of super-catalyst...that explains me losing conciousness, but it doesn't explain where I am.

Hank examines the wall, holding the lit match in one hand, while tracing the lines of the painting with the other.  He stops at the man with the large spear.

If I was knocked unconcious, someone could have dragged me here.  But where is here?

Hank exhales again, watching the smoke curl and twist in the air, drifting off to the left.

Who would have taken me?  And even more inportantly...
His eyes drop to the ground.

Why would they bring along my stapler?
As the match burns to his fingers, Hank curses, wishing he'd remembered his zippo.   He lights another and gathers his things from the floor.

As he picks up his effects he looks back over his shoulder at the man with the spear.

"And you don't go anywhere."

He begins to follow the slope to the left.

You head on down to the left a short distance, and find a doorway to the right at the dead end, and a set of three stairs going down.  Once you enter, you see a sarcophagus in the center, and on each of the walls a picture showing one of the four elemental forces.  On the side that is filled with clouds and majestic figures in the clouds you see a faint crack of light.

Otherwise the room is very regular, and it has only one entrance.

PT

Hank looks at his cigarette.

Either this is a museum or a tomb.  Either way, it's probably not the best place to be smoking.

He field-strips the cigarette, crushes the cherry, and sweeping the ashes into his hand.  He then puts both the ashes and butt into his pocket.  He wipes the residue from his hand on his pants.

Sighing, he steps towards the sarcophagus, seeing if he recognizes any distiguishing marks or names.  Hyroglyphics aren't his forte, and without acess to a computer or a library, he doubts it will do any good.

"Well, Mr. Young, I hope you're faring better than I am."

He walks over to the clouded wall, hoping to see the source of the light.

Its a crack in the wall which leads to the outside through many feet of stone.  Its brilliant to the eye, and you can make out no sense of details in the slim crack other than a 'light yellow' and 'bright'.

The crack is, at its widest point, three inches, and its four feet long running vertically through a figure of a giant man or god.

"Smelled smoke, tweren't no campfire either. Good tobacco."  You hear a voice with a touch of whiny, self-justifying to it from the hallway.  There is a bit of Brooklyn in the voice.

PT

     Hank ducks behind the sarcophagus.  He feels in his jacket pocket for his pistol.

With your pistol held under your jacket, you slip behind the sarcophagus.  A couple people walk in.

"See, Lenny. No one's here."  The bored drawl sounds more than bored. It sounds resigned to fate.  "We're locked in, and no way out. Preacherman's praying ain't going to save him either, and neither will your imagination."

"I'm telling you Rich, I smelled smoke. And where there's smoke, there's fire."  The original Brooklyn accent comes through, but the man sounds baffled."

PT

Hank holds his breath, his own heartbeat thundering in his ears.  The gun is cold in his hands.  He'd only fired it once before.  He was a cop then.  He could never be a cop again because of it.

He slinks down a bit further hoping Lenny and Rich are about as perceptive as they appear.

Not the best situation, being stuck here with two strangers, not knowing where here is.  Given the fact that I don't know how I got here, I doubt startling two strangers is the best move. 

There's something else.  The stapler is heavy in his pocket.

Of all the things to bring with me, why a stapler?

He lays there, waiting to see if Lenny and Rich leave.

A missing Christian singer.  A pack of cigarettes.  My Gun.  A stapler.  Ulyssess never had it so good.

"All right, Rich, you're right. Sorry I bothered you.  Its just..."

"Just what?  Nevermind. I know, its a hard row to hoe, but things be what they are.  Too bad too...found that disk. Could have been famous."

You hear them turn and walk away.

"Maybe thats it."

"What?"

"We're cursed, the gods, you know, Set or someone...."

"Pul-lease, Lenny, die with a little dignity okay?" You hear the drawling man laugh.  It turns bitter at the end, and nothing more is said as the two walk up the hallway back the way they came.

PT

Well, I don't know about any sort of god curses.  Set...set...wait!  Egyptian.

Hank stands up and creeps towards the door.

He said they were to die with dignity.  Could it be they're trapped here as well?  I hate doing this but...

Hank swings out into the hallway, drawing his gun.  He points it at the two men.

"Alright, fellas, we seem to be in an awkward situation here.  I don't want to shoot you, and I have a pretty good feeling you don't want to get shot.  So why don't you just tell me where I am and why I'm here.  While you're at it, you can tell me the way out of here.  This way nobody has to do what they don't want to.  Make sense?"

The shorter fellow lurches about, and looks at you absolutely petrified.

The other man moves more slowly, or seems to, but he's facing you almost as quick as the other and his hand is resting on the handle of his low-slung pistol hanging off his hip.

"Its, its..."

"Quiet, Lenny. I'm going to answer your questions, and then you're going to put that gun down."  His voice is very mild, but you're positive that was a death threat you heard in Rich's voice.

He studies you a second, and then nods.

"Sir, you're in the Pyramid of Arunthet, north side secret corridor.  As to why you're here, I'm going to assume you offended your confederates, and they dumped you here.  The way out is over there..." He points past his shoulder, behind him, with his off-hand.

"Yeah, out through a five-ton block of rock." Lenny babbles.

"What I can't figure is how they got you in here without us noticing. Were you sleeping in that crypt thing back there?"

Rich seems genuninely puzzled.

PT

Hank lowers his gun.
No need to take this gun business any further than it needs to go.

"Well, that makes two of us that has no idea how I got here.  As far as offending my confederates goes, the only confederates I know of haven't done much in almost two hundred years.  The only pyramids I know of, other than that snazzy one in Vegas, are in Eqypt."

Hanks pauses a minute, looking around the room.

"Please tell me I'm not in Egypt.  Or Vegas for that matter."

"You're in Egypt all right.  But Vegas, you mean Las Vegas, I mean I heard about it, but I don't think they had any pyramids."  Lenny replies quickly.

"You speak strangely, sir. The confederates in crime outside this pyramid who sealed us in are who I speak of.  I don't understand two hundred years ago...that would be seventeen ten, and I don't recall any noted confederates then.  I think that was after the Glorious Revolution, but I'm not a scholar of history to keep all the dates correct.  I'm just a cowboy out to see the world."  Rich speaks much more slowly.

PT

Hank rubs the back of his neck with his free hand.

"Let me get this straight, I'm in Egypt, it's 1810, and you're a cowboy?"

Perhaps the air in here is getting thin.

Hanks stops a moment, then reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes.

"You gents, smoke?"

He offers a cigarette to Lenny and Rich.

"You folks wouldn't happen to know a M.J. Young, do ya?"

"1810, I wish. No, its 1910." Rich sighs.

"Yeah, Rich here is The Last Cowboy.  And of course, you're in Egypt.  South of the Pyramids of Giza we discovered the Arunthet Pyramid after a sandstorm blew a dune away."

"And then someone locked us in, and nearly caved in the tunnel on us." Rich adds taking your cigarette.  He examines it with a wondering glance which Lenny repeats as Rich whips a match out of pocket with the kind of whipsnap speed and grace that catches your eye.

Both light up.

"M.J. Young, no, don't recall such a name.  I knew a Robert Young, a train engineer up in Jersey, and a Keith Young, but he was sent up to Sing Sing for counterfeiting."  Lenny adds relaxing a bit.  You can tell by his new-found calm that he's been craving his nicotine.

Rich just shakes his head 'no'.

PT

1910...these guys are serious.  Probably best to play along for now...

"Well, sirs, I guess then the trick would be to get out of here.  But I'm going to assume you already tried that."

Hank begins to walk back towards the room from which he came.

"I saw light this way.  If there's light, then there might be a way out.  By the way, the name's Hank."

 Hank extends his hand in greeting.

They shake.  Rich's hand is covered with callouses, and Lenny's is clammy.

You lead them into the sarcophagus room, and point out the crack.

"Yeah, without this crack, we'd all be dead.  It broke when the caprock got shoved into the entrance.  It provides much of the air we need.  There is another crack somewhere, but we haven't found it.  Its in the Main Chamber with Charles and Antonio, I think."  Rich says.

"I think we could have survived without this crack.  The other one would have provided us enough air.  Maybe those outside didn't mean to kill us, just lock us up until they sold something."  Lenny objects.

Rich scoffs.

You can see the crack goes through at least two yards of rock.

"Lenny, maybe not everyone on the outside was in on it, but whoever drove that bulldozer was trying to kill us.  Probably for that big circle plate legend has the map to Atlantis on it."

"Gold. They're going to melt it." Lenny grunts.

PT

Hank stops in mid-inhale.

"Wait a second...you guys have a map to Atlantis?"

Now I know they're crazy.

They both nod.

"Yeah, its in the Main Chamber."  Lenny says.  "Its huge.  We pried it off this wall."  He points to the wall of the Sarcophagus Room that is covered by mountain ranges and Egyptian figures.  The cracked wall has air clouds.  And the other two are fire and water.

You can see where a yard wide circle indentation was in the wall.

They start talking about Atlantis, and about various artifacts they had seen that were from Atlantis.  They quote Plato and Herodotus and Julius Caesar and ...Merlin.

They talk about how the planet Venus came to raze the planet Earth, and Atlantis thought it could defend the planet with their mindpower, but they failed.

"That was the First, or depending on how you count it, the Third Cataclysm.  Getting kicked out of Eden, and the twisting of the tongues at Babel was the first and second.  The Second or Fourth is generally considered to be Noah's Flood." Rich speaks.

"Yeah, my pastor used to warn us that if we didn't live godly, and stop stealing candy from the Jewish delis that we'd end up like Atlantis."  He cracks an irreverent laugh at the thought, and then looks about him in the present. "Come to think of it, he may have had a point."

A man with a thick chest, and a strong accent sticks his head in the door.  He gives you a broad smile.

"I knew I heard three men talking. My hearing is very good. I am Antonio."  He says the last like someone famous might say "I am Cher, or I am Brad."

PT

"Hello, Antonio.  I'm going to guess that you don't know the way out of here either."

Hank offers Antonio a cigarette.

"Smoke?"

Hank turns to the others.

"I'm not big on symbolism, but if I'm not mistaken, we have water, air, earth, and fire.  That's the four elementals.  We have a room with the elementals painted on each wall, and one dead guy smack in the middle of it all.  Any idea whose in here?"

Hank knocks on the sarcophagus.

"I do not smoke. I am an opera singer.  My voice is liquid gold.  I came here with the expedition to find my muse, and I find her, but alas, death catches me too."

His voice has a quality to it, a roundness, and force, and precision.  He ripples out a few wordless notes that shiver the dust floating in the air, and leave you with your chest very faintly vibrating in sympathy with his voice.

"Alas, I cannot sing at full volume. We fear those outside will do us in for sure if they realize we live.  But before, I Antonio, the world's greatest tenor dies, I swear to you, I will sing one last opera."

He pauses from his finger shaking proclamation.

"How did you get in here?"

Rich replies to your question.

"The Pharaoh Arunthet.  He's thought to be the guy that drowned in the Red Sea when Moses and the Israelites crossed over.  The Egyptians recovered his body, and stashed it here.  We got some nice bits of gold, but nothing big, and no body.  We think the original masons must have looted the body and dumped it somewhere before they closed everything up.  So we were robbed thousands of years ago."

He helps you shove the lid aside.  The cavity goes down into the mound about a foot.  It shows no sign of having been used.

PT

At least we have a place to put Antonio if he starts singing.

Hank points at Rich.

"Rich, right?  Listen, you seem to know your way around this place pretty well.  So I take it you've been here some time.  Did you guys all come together, or did you just wake up here like I did?"

Hank begins pacing.

"Here's the deal, I'm here looking for someone.  Well, I'm not exactly looking for him here, but while looking for him this is where I ended up.  I have no idea how I got here, I'm not even sure exactly where here is. I know, I know.  I'm in the Pyramid or whatever.  The point is, I was in the United States looking for this guy, when all of the sudden I pass out and wake up here.  Though, I guess I could ask for worse company, I'm really in no hurry to make use of that sarcophagus there.  I also know that you guys have probably tried to find every way possible out of this place, and if you were successful, I doubt we'd be having this conversation.  Although my head is swimming right now, logic still tells me that if I was able to get in here somehow, there has to be a way out.  So the trick is finding how I got here, and there has to be a way out."

Hank stops a minute.

"When you were talking a second ago, about Merlin and Ceaser, the flood, all that.  You mentioned a map.  Was that a map to or of Atlantis?  Even more importantly, can I see it?"

"We, that is the Museum Head, Doctor Conway, the Lady Eleanora, Von Draken, Mark Smith who's our construction engineer, Poor Tom Sailor--Draken found him dead in his tent--committed suicide--gambling debts, Lenny Vouskilla...."

"That's me." Lenny chimes in.

"Antonio Villaregra came in a bit later after performing in Cairo for a week."

"Sold-out crowds, but I forced myself to go on the stage. The spark, the vision, the muse she had left me."  Antonio mutters darkly as Rich continues.

"Reverend Charles Larkin, our minister and also chief draftsman, and me came up the Nile on the Bonaventure, and then took camel to Arunthet Province where we met the other six not counting Antonio, and hired native guides and workers to take us to the pyramid.  Mark's dozer was the worst.  He had to take it apart and have camels tote the whole thing by pieces."

"Hey man, if you can get us out, I'll name my firstborn child after you.  As soon as I get married." Lenny replies to you as you pace.

Rich shakes his head, and then Antonio takes your arm.

"Come, yes, Rich, we lost it, but think, Charles..."

"Of course. I'll get it, Charlie is scared of small spaces." Rich starts to leave the room.

PT

   Hank follows Rich, pushing his hair back on his head.
   "Rich, this is going to sound kind of strange, but when you arrived here, what happened to you just before found yourself trapped.  I'm a bit confused, and to be honest, I'm not all that used to being confused.  I fully plan on getting out of here, but I think I need to figure out exactly how I got in here in order to that."

"Lenny insisted that we three come down, and see this golden circle thing that had been found.  So, we got excited.  It seemed the others had already seen it.  We ran down here.  Looked, and found where the circle had been.  Heard the dozer, and thought nothing of it.  Had a smoke before heading back up.  Heard the dozer way too close, got worried. Came out to see what was going on, and saw the capstone being shoved into the tunnel by the dozer.  We were too late.  Then the whole pyramid shook.  We dodged rocks falling from the ceiling for a bit.  I think the guy who was driving the dozer wanted to crush us under the rockfall.  We let him think it had succeeded.  Thats why we don't yell for help.  It might be a good guy who hears us, but if its a bad guy, we're toast.  As to how you got in here, I figure someone hit you in the head, doped you up, and put you in the sarcophagus to die with the rest of us."

PT