Blueblood 3: The Others - 16. Amasis' City Evacuates

Now we risked usage but kept it at key times, but Mark was poised in front of a computer often watching this group move. Amasis was just…fascinated by the computer.

“This…” he pointed at the screen, “…isn’t magic?” He asked with a sound that it was incredible and had to be magic. “There is a magic window here. You see them, but they can’t see you. They are so far away! How can you do this?”

I nodded. “It is magic.” I smiled at Amasis. “It’s the magic of science.” I put an arm around his shoulder. “And I’ll be happy to explain, and I will, but it’s sort of involved and we don’t have time. So, yes, it’s magic.” I nodded.

Amasis nodded. “Just tell me, how can we see so far away?” He wanted to know.

I thought a minute how to explain simply. “There’s a magic eye in the sky that can see them. We see them through that.” I watched as he was very uncertain. “It’s not hard to understand, but there are some foundations you need to understand. You’ll get it. You’re a smart man.”

Amasis gave a shrug and nod. “I have a lot to learn.”

I smiled. “And you have friends that will help you,” I assured. “We won’t leave you, Amasis.”

He looked at me and now, I saw the emotion in his eyes. “For the first time in all the seasonal cycles, I believe you will be with me.” He said as he hugged me. “You are my friends. You and Colin and all the others. You are my friends.”

I nodded. “We are. In fact, I feel we’re family.”

Amasis smiled at that and nodded. “Not brothers.”

“Not brothers?” I frowned.

He shook his head as I saw a twinkle in his eyes. “I love you and Colin.” He explained. “I don’t remember a lot about my past and family, but I had a brother.” He said smiling. “I do remember not liking him at all.”

My eyes widened. “Why?”

“He was less intelligent than…”

He said a word and I heard a beep when the translator didn’t know a word. Usually, I just thought about the word in context, but…I tapped the translator. “I didn’t get that.”

He grinned. “It looks like a small horse. It is about this high…” he held his hand up about midway on his body.

I looked surprised at him. “I think you just called your brother an ass.”

Amasis shrugged. “If you say so.”

I grinned at him. “You know enough English! I bet you knew exactly what you were saying!” I shook my head. "No matter the language, there is always a word for people that are an ass."

Then he said in accented, but clearly English. “You prove?” He said and hurried down the corridor as he laughed. “He was ass!!” Again in accented, but clearly in English.

Stan also monitored the Internet to see if he could find out what was happening outside just ten to fifteen miles away. We didn’t dare start up Buddy here. The power drain and the signals we sent to the satellite would be too high and tell them exactly where we were.

The next sunrise came. George, Burke, Colin and I stood with Amasis on the hilltop above Amasis’ City. He had not ventured outside at all in nearly two thousand years! Not even at night. So, we took him out an hour before the sun would rise. Amasis was shaking as he was both excited and scared.

“You know I am just like you,” I reassured Amasis. “So are Colin, Burke, and George…all the ones you know are vampires. You feel it. We’re fine. It will tingle for the first few times, but it won’t hurt you.”

Amasis was beyond words at this point and just nodded. He reached out suddenly and grabbed my hand and in a whisper almost, he said. “I never dared to be out here.”

“We’ll be right here with you,” I said again. “If there’s a problem, we’ll get you back in. The tunnel entrance is right there.” I pointed on the hill.

He again didn’t say much but nodded, but his eyes widened with terror as the sky lightened.

The desert was in many ways beautiful with its own charms. Looking east, we felt the chill of air was changing to the desert heat as the sun was about to break the horizon. I knew Amasis was feeling it, but I looked as the first rays of the sun broke that rocky horizon and the first sunrise for him began. Just as with other vampires, as he began to cry. He grabbed Colin’s hand with his other. I knew he was feeling the tingle. He let go of mine a few seconds to rub his hand over his arm and body. He took my hand again. “Khepri.” He said reverently. “I thought I’d never see this again.”

Colin frowned whispering to Amasis. “I thought he was Ra.”

Amasis chuckled and rubbed his and my hand over his face nodding. He held our hands too tight to let go. “He is…Ra-Atum-Khepri is his full name. Khepri is the name of the rising sun. Atum for the setting sun.” He said as more of the sun rose higher. He shook his head. “I wish Nabia had stayed to see this.”

Colin nodded. “I wish she had, too.” He let Amasis’ hand go and wrapped his arm around Amasis’ shoulders. “I’m so glad we can at least touch you now. I can’t do that with any other god.”

Amasis chuckled hearing it again. “We’re all the same, so why not?” He smiled. “I like being touched…” he looked from Colin to me. “…by friends.”

“I’m a big toucher, so get used to it,” I said with a smile.

The sun was rising more and I could see the tingling was becoming more…annoying to Amasis. I said we should go back in.

“There will be many sun rises for you in the future.” I chuckled. “You’ll see a lot of Atum and Khepri. I promise you.”

There was another giving Amasis a meal which he devoured quickly and was reaching for more. He smiled at Colin and me. “I have never…” he said chewing, “…or at least I don’t remember eating something this good!”

I chuckled. “There’s a whole world of tastes and flavors.”

Amasis shook his head. “I look forward to tasting it all!”

I went into the chamber where Stan was again hunched over a computer. Mark was standing behind him looking over his shoulder at the screen as Stan went through various emails. Stan was shaking his head. “There is nothing,” Stan said sadly. “If there is anything, it’s encrypted, but there’s nothing to find! Buddy is finding nothing to try to sift through.”

“There may be nothing,” Colin said sadly.

Mark shook his head. “Not that I can figure.” He said sourly. “I’ll bet my next paycheck those guys are connected with a nonpolitical group, but what group. I can’t say.” He turned to me. “The group feels less about a certain country.”

“Militia for hire?” I asked.

Mark nodded. “Most assuredly.” He looked at the images they got from all the members of this group.

I shook my head. “With no ideology or government backing, they are more dangerous.”

Mark nodded again. “They’re following a paycheck for a job to do. Laws and ethics are not going to be followed to get that job done.”

Stan let out another grunt and slammed his fists down on the desk. “This is so…frustrating!” He waved again at the computer. “Buddy can probably do it, but the speed for these laptops is limited. The file transfer and connection can work, but I would rather be in New York or England, using Buddy directly.” He waved at an image. “I have the face of one of them. Using facial recognition I might be able to find out who they are. This is too slow!”

Mark grinned and started squeezing Stan’s shoulders in a message. “Easy there, Lightning Man. It’s gonna be fine.” Mark looked at me again. “With no government backing and no political agendas, we don’t know how deep the pockets of the people backing them are. They could be well equipped, even better than we are.” He grinned. “Not that Holms' Laboratories is skimping on anything, but…”

“They could be well armed.” I nodded. “And we’re not.”

“Against vampires, we are.” Mark waved at the screen again. “Against them and guns…no.” He grinned at me. “They could have better computers.”

Stan lifted his head quickly as his eyes flew wide. “What!? No way! Buddy is the best! There is no system that can break in through his firewalls and encrypted files.” Stan looked at the screen again. “I’ll get this guy’s identity using the FBI and Interpol databases and whatever…he has to have a record.” He began typing again. “I’ll find him!”

Mark nodded at me and winked at me. “I know you can, baby.” He said giving Stan a quick squeeze on the shoulder for encouragement.

I chuckled at Mark and patted his arm. Leaning in so only he could hear. “Good motivating.”

Mark shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

Colin and I met with Willie and Alex. They had military backgrounds as we told them what was happening and understood the danger. Amasis and Amir were also there. Amir had a working knowledge of English, more than Amasis, but to make sure we were understood, we had Amir fitted with an earpiece and translator to convert English to his language and he told Amasis what was said.

Willie groaned as he and Alex went over what actions they should take. “The problem is the people of Amasis’ City. It isn’t that they aren’t willing to lay down their lives; they are going against men with guns…machine guns and bombs! They live outside, yes, but they are swords, spears, and brute force! We don’t have weapons for this!”

Colin grunted understanding, but Amasis held up a finger. He began in broken English. “You don’t.” He said slowly. “I may.” Then he began in his own language. “We have raided many groups…warriors and others. A treasure was not our only plunder.” His eyebrows waggled and he motioned for us to follow him.

We followed him a good way through the tunnels until at last, we came to a chamber we would never have found without him.

“These were taken over the years,” Amasis said waving at the many boxes and containers. “I wasn’t sure what they were, but I kept them. Fearing they could be dangerous, I kept them away from the people.”

Now Alex and Willie were looking at guns and a lot of munitions. The labels were written in several languages. Some were old and I thought they were from World War II. There were other crates and boxes that were newer from more recent conflicts.

“There is a good supply of guns,” Willie said. “They need to be cleaned.” He said picking up a gun I was sure was a rapid-fire machine gun.

Colin opened a crate and stepped back instantly in fear. “Devon, look at this!”

I walked over to the crate. This was clearly marked. “This is C4! This is a powerful explosive!”

Colin nodded. “This amount of explosives could level the whole mountain!” He smiled at my surprised expression. “I’ve seen my share of movies. I know what Hollywood says can happen.” He looked at Willie. “Can we use this?”

Willie and Alex looked at the crate which was packed with quite a number of the explosives. “I don’t know how to use this,” Alex said and Willie shook his head.

I smiled. “I bet Chuck, Mark, and Shelly know how.” I shook Amasis’ shoulder. “And I bet Stan could help create the detonators.”

Amasis’ eyes became confused. “I do not know…detonator.”

I chuckled. “A big bang!” I said using my hands to show the blasting. “We can make it a big bang!”

Amasis was nodded, but it was still not clearly understood. He may not have known “bang.”

Colin smiled. “We can put some at the tunnel entrances and blow the whole tunnel.” He looked at me and frowned. “I know you want to save these people. I know you don’t want to destroy this city, but…”

“Yes.” I agreed reluctantly. “But we need to tell Amasis. He must understand and know what the consequences are.”

Colin looked at Amasis who was trying to understand what we were saying. “I guess you need to tell him. He’ll listen to you.” Colin put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re not blowing up the city, just the entrances to it.”

“You think,” I said. “This could cause the whole mountain to come down.”

Colin nodded. “It could, but it would be protected if we block the entrances.”

“We’re really going to do this?” I asked no one in particular.

Colin didn’t like saying it, but… “I don’t see another choice. Those men will find their way down here. Everything will be lost when they do. Alex, Willie, Mark, Chuck and Shelly will set up the C4.”

I looked at Amasis. “We need to talk,” I said and led him back out of the storage chamber to catch him up with all of it. Gunpowder, explosives and what we hoped to do and he needed to understand and approved of in a few days.

I explained about the explosions and gun powder and touched lightly on ballistics and the destruction that the C4 could wield. Amasis listened but was having a hard time accepting the scale of destruction.

“You’re talking about the power of a god!” He said as he stood and began thinking and working it out in his mind.

“Yes, I suppose I am.” I stood up and looked at Amasis. “They are just tools. They can do good things, too: make big rocks into smaller rocks. Unclog a river or…the can make tunnels made of rock collapse.”

He looked around the chamber we were in and I knew he was thinking of the surrounding city. “We will get the people out first?”

I nodded. “Absolutely. We don’t want to hurt anyone. You know that.” I touched Amasis gently. “You will be with us.” I sighed. “There will be more you will see that you won’t understand, but Colin, me and the others will be there to help. I swear.” I smiled. “You’re almost done with the serum. George will be able to make something that can slip under your skin. The pain will go away and you can be outside all day.”

Amasis nodded as he smiled at that. “It’s worth losing this to be able to do that.”

The trick with satellite images, you had to move a satellite to where you want to see. That was a major production, we didn’t try that. We used a satellite in a rotating orbit and we only got images so often, but often enough to keep tabs on where this militia was. Suddenly we heard Stan let out a shout of victory.

“I got him!” Stan said coming over quickly carrying the laptop. “I got him! He’s Yuri Smirnov,” he looked up, “he was named after vodka? Or that vodka was named after his family?” He shook his head. “He’s thirty-six and boy…” he chuckled, “this guy was not a nice person.”

Colin nodded. “Did you expect him to be?”

Stan just let that go. “He’s Russian by his daddy, but Ukrainian by his mommy. He was born and raised in Kiev. Educated in Moscow and joined the military there. He’s freelanced since he left the service.” He shook his head reading. “He was questioned about some…activities that were basically war crimes.” He hit a button and showed us the screen. He smiled. “This Delkenzie program worked well with the Russian language. It read through that pretty easy.”

Colin chuckled. “Well, Mitch did say that Russian was a bitch for him. It was one of the first languages the program learned to read and translate for him.” He looked at me. “Something about their alphabet drove him crazy.”

Stan nodded. “Well, this guy is definitely is a gun for hire. I’m doing a search now to find out more.”

We gathered again in the dining chamber. The thing was, now, Amasis was dining with us. On food! He was proving to have nearly as good an appetite as Colin!

Willie chuckled as Amasis was enjoying his dinner. “George, I think you created a monster.”

George grinned as he looked over at Amasis. “Let the man enjoy his meal. It’s been a long time since he’s eaten!”

“When are you inserting the disc?” Colin asked smiling at Amasis.

“Tonight,” George said looking at Amasis. “Amasis, the pain will stop from now on.”

“As long as you stay on the serum,” I stressed to Amasis.

Amasis nodded. “The pain the last two days wasn’t long. I’m just…” he waved at what he was eating, “…not believing how good this is!” He looked up at us. “I think you need to move those chariots from the above tunnel entrance. You should take it to one of the villages. Not Amir’s village, but one of the others. We’ll hide them there.” He took a deep breath. “And…I need to tell the people what’s going to happen. I want to be sure everyone is out of here before you do…that big boom.”

Colin nodded and looked at the others of our team. “That means, you all pack and be ready to leave.”

“We’ll be ready.” Mark nodded.

George created the disc using Amasis’ blood and inserted it under his skin on the back of his arm. Colin and I were there as this last step was done.

Amasis sat up looking at the site where George had inserted the serum disc. “That didn’t hurt at all.” He touched his own arm. “I still don’t have any feeling yet in my arm.” He smiled at George. “You are a good doctor.”

George smiled and bowed slightly. “Thank you.”

Amasis now had a dark covering of hair seen without his headdress and that was growing and it was getting soft now. He rubbed his own head. “Well, I guess I need to address the people soon.” He said to Colin and me.

I nodded. “And we need to find you some clothes.”

Amasis looked down at his kilt. “Why?” His hand went to his headdress.

Colin chuckled. “People don’t wear that too much out there. I’m sure between all the other men, we can find you something.”

Amasis nodded and then shrugged.

Stan shook his head at the images he got from the satellite. “They’re not giving up.”

“They’re not hurrying down here,” Colin said looking at the image as well.

Stan nodded. “Because they don’t know where Amir’s village is! It’s not on any map.” He said. “The only signal being fed to and from the satellite now is this one. Those other signals stopped. It’s a big empty desert and they only know approximately where to look, but not exact. They are getting closer.”

“How long?” I asked and saw Stan’s eyes grow. “Just guestimate.”

Stan thought. “A few days?”

Colin nodded. “We need to get everyone packed and able to leave.”

The largest chamber was the temple to hold everyone at once. I frowned when I saw the people gathered. They had numbered in the thousands or so I was told. There were a few hundred, but not the numbers that used to be. Amasis got up on the raised portion of the temple as people looked at him and spoke to each other. I didn’t need the Delkenzie program to know they were talking about how different Amasis looked. Gone was his kilt, he wore jeans and a t-shirt with mountain boots and he removed the ball cap that said Mets. Amasis raised his hands and they stopped talking.

“I told you over the last few days, I begin a new chapter in my life soon,” Amasis said, but this time, there was sadness clearly in his voice. “I have lived down here a long time.” He smiled. “I knew your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.” Now that there was the moisture in his eyes, I saw the tears come down his face. “I have loved all of you. I would not be here if you had not been here to care for me. You worshiped me as a god. I am no god.” He stopped and caught himself. “I owe all of you everything. I am so grateful to each and every one of you.” He looked at the temple and now he was crying more. “I’m not going forever.” He looked over at Amir. “My son and I will be starting a life in the outside world.” He said raising his arm to Amir who came and stood beside him. “This will also be a time for each of you to start a new life. I hope the little I gave you...” He smiled. “My treasury has some things left. I gave each of you something from that.” He said. “It’s not a lot, but I’m told the gold alone will be enough for you to start that new life.”

Mark came running in the temple. “They are in Amir’s village!” He shouted. “It won’t be long before they find the tunnel entrance!”

Colin jumped up beside Amasis. “Sorry.” He said to Amasis. “People!” He said and the translator said it in their language. “The men are coming. You need to leave now! Go out the other two tunnels! You can go to the other village after we do…this thing we must!” He waved again. “Go!”

Amasis also said go in their language and now the people started to hurry out, not screaming, but very frightened.

Colin and I rushed over to Mark. “Where are Gabriella and our mother?”

Mark worked on a device he held. “They are already heading down the tunnel to the other village where the vehicles are.” He held the device up to Colin. “This is a remote.” He said. “I rigged it to detonate all the C4 at once in an area.”

I smiled. “Wow, you knew how to do that!?”

Mark grinned. “Like I tell Stan, I’m not just a pretty face.” He held the device that looked like a cell phone. One of those flip phones. “Enter 111 and hit Send 1, Send 2, Send 3 and Send 4. Send 1 is Amir’s village tunnel.” He smiled. “And then…” he threw his hands away. “…boom!!” He frowned. “There was enough C4 to cover the entrances of the tunnel a good way on all four tunnels.”

“Four?” I asked.

“The one we came in is to be blown as well,” Mark said. “It’s the one not connected to any village.”

Stan came over quickly. “The cameras we set up…they are getting closer!” He pointed to the screen as the men were looking in the tunnel. “They found the tunnel entrance!”

Colin grabbed my arm. “We need to go.”

What was interesting was Stan looking at his computer as he hurried with us down a tunnel.

Amasis was pulling on his jeans. “How do you men wear this?” He pulled on the crotch again. “The undergarment pinches!” He stumbled lifting a foot. “…and these sandals!” He said in disgust.

I chuckled. “We just got used to it,” I said to him with a shrug. “And those are boots, not sandals.”

Amasis frowned. “They are pains!”

Stan looked startled. “They’re coming in the tunnel entrance!”

Colin stopped and held his hand out to Stan. “I see you have the camera set up, did we rig the speakers?”

Stan nodded and pointed to the top of the screen. “Here’s the microphone.”

“Enter here and you will die,” Colin said. “You have sixty seconds to leave.” What they heard was in Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic and the local dialect. We saw the men stop and look at who was speaking and didn’t proceed further. “This is no idle threat!” Colin said and did a count down and when he dialed the 111 and hit send 1. We were miles away down a tunnel, but noise travels. At the speed of sound, we finally heard the blast! And the cave itself shook only the tiniest bit. Amasis looked back surprised at the blasting sound with wide eyes. The camera quit sending the image.

“Come on!” I said to Amasis pulling on his arm. “This is going to go boom, too!”

We made to the end of the tunnel and out to the village. They were right when they said it was a village of mostly tents. No real permanent buildings. There were the camels a few children or young adults tending them and a goose or something.

Colin hit a few keys and saw the people were out of the other tunnel and hit the buttons and that camera quit sending images. He hit the other code and the tunnel we just left had a deafening blast. I could hear the crumbling of rock as the tunnel walls were collapsing. He hit one more…we all looked at the mountain in the distance and heard a more distant blast like a volcano erupting with one single blast.

Amasis looked horrified as he watched everyone cower. So, did he.