'Passengers, could you please fasten your seat belts, it will only be for the duration of take off. Came the static voice over the microphone. 'There is one one thing you must understand before we land in Peru, Lance.' said Ben, deadly serious.
'Hmm?' Asked Lance, looking up from his book, Homeland by R. A. Salvatore.
'Nothing is illegal in the town we're going too. Callao is a port riddled with drug dealing, black markets and corruption. Some of the people we're going to meet are going to have ....unsavory.... backgrounds. I ask you not to be prejudiced. In my travels I have found that backstreet thieves and thugs can be the most loyal of friends, if you pick the right thieves and thugs... some are just.... bad to the bone.'
'Okay.....' said Lance, not knowing what to think. 'the bad people that you told Nathaniel you were running from, do they live in this city?' asked Lance, tentatively.
'Oh, no, Lance. They live very far away, and are a lot worse than the people you'll find in Callao. Don't ask any more question about this trip until we've met my friend.'
'Okay.' said Lance, A little deflated. 'Your friend, who is he?' asked Lance, not sure if this classified as questioning the trip.
'His name is Lakune, and he has a major in ancient history, focusing on the Egyptian, Greek and Roman empires. There are many things that he contributed to the database about them.'
'For example?' asked Lance after a pause.
'Ohhhh, you know. Little things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the tomb of Tutankhamen, Tomb of Genghis Khan, Tomb of Imhotep. Little things like that.'
'Woah. But I thought the locations of the tombs of Genghis and of Imhotep were unknown.'
'They are -to most-, only he and a few of his inner circle know the locations of them.
'And we're going to meet him, that's why we're going on this trip?' asked Lance, suspicious about the no-question rule. Ben's eyes slipped away from his.
'Yes. I thought you'd be interested in meeting him. No more questions.' He was lying, Lance could tell. Ben's eyes slipping away from his like that, and who buys two plane tickets for Peru just to introduce his son to a college professor and exclude his second son, saying the trip was too old for him? And then there was the perplexing presence of Scar, why was he coming?
Lance let it go for the moment, and went back to his book. Lance read a lot and he knew a masterpiece when he found one. Lance thought this book, Homeland, was on-par with Tolkien's LOTR. It was truly amazing. In what seemed no time at all the plane had landed and Lance was walking to a hotel on the outskirts of Lima.
In their room was freshly-washed towels, soap and a tiny panther figurine that Lance found. Examining it closely, Lance saw that it was made of a lustrous material, but not a normal material, obsidian perhaps. 'Hey Dad have you seen this?' called Lance, wondering if Ben had dropped it. Ben walked into the room and instantly his face turned from jet-lag to a look of apprehension and even fear of this tiny figurine. Ben snatched the figurine from Lance, masking his fear quickly, but not quickly enough. Lance saw it, and wondered what inspired it. It was just a small figurine, albeit made of an unusual and unknown material. Lance swayed his arm back, just a tiny bit, so the figurine was out of Ben's reach by centimeters.
'What is it?' asked Lance.
'It's none of your business and highly dangerous, thats what it is. NOW GIVE IT TO ME!' shouted Ben, flustered by the appearance of this figurine.
'Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was so important to you.' said Lance meekly, handing over the figurine. Ben, jolted to his senses by the meek and apologetic tone of his son, regretted his shouting.
