𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐖𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐓 ; ahkmenrah

twenty.

Ahkmenrah grimaces. "Too dark?" (It's widely known and acknowledged, reader, that Ahkmenrah is the king of dark humor.)

Larry stands up, looking around. It looks like he's searching for something. "Larry, what are you--?" Luna starts to ask, but he's already found it: a panel on the wall with a glass door.

Larry slams his elbow through the glass and Luna winces. He touches the screen inside, clicking different buttons until he finds the right one, the one that turns the fans off in the wing they're in.

Immediately, the quiet sounds of air die down, and it's completely silent in the vent. Attila bends down and shouts, "JEDO! OCTO!" as loud as he can into the vent, but there's no response. He looks up at Larry and Luna, shaking his head and shrugging.

"They could be anywhere between here and the intake vent," says Larry, kneeling down again.

Dexter, who's climbed off of Sacagawea's shoulder, scrambles over and drops into the vent, chirping loudly.

"What do you see, Dex?" Larry mutters, eyebrows knit together, the way they always do when he's planning something.

"You know he's a monkey, Lawrence," says Teddy, almost the way you might talk to a four-year-old. "He can't talk."

Larry looks up at Teddy, a look at realization on his face. "No, but he can fit." He looks over at Nicky and Luna, then sticks out his hand. "Nicky, give me your phone."

Nicky fishes in his vest pocket, pulling out his cell phone, and passes it to Larry. "Why?"

"For Dex."

"I don't understand one thing that's going on here," says Lancelot, speaking for the first time since they left his exhibit.

"Yeah, no, I don't, either." Nicky follows Larry away from the group. "Dad, what's going on?"

"I'm, uh, sort of set up to track your phone," Larry says, apparently searching for some sort of rope or belt to tie Nicky's phone to Dexter.

Ahkmenrah leans over and whispers to Luna, "What is 'tracking a phone'?"

"Well, cell phones, like mine--" Luna pats the phone in her jeans pocket-- "have a signal, and it bounces off towers that conduct electricity. That's how I can make calls and text on it. But there's a way to track them using that signal to see where someone is--or where their phone is, I guess."

"Ah." Ahkmenrah nods understandingly, although Luna's not really sure how much he understands. Sure, they've had movie nights and watched The Office together, and he's seen her texting Nicky or calling her parents, but it's probably very hard, being transported from the 1700s BCE to 1950, and then from 1950 to the 2010s. Luna can't even imagine the feeling of losing time.

"Dex, come here." Larry returns with a symbolic-looking cord--if Luna had to guess, she'd say Native American of some kind--and straps the phone to Dexter's back, tightening the cord around his stomach. "Thanks, man. All right, listen. I need you to go down there and find them, all right? Think you can handle it?"

Dexter, in a show of patriotism, salutes Larry, and Larry salutes back. "Good man. Stay safe."

Dexter turns and leaps into the vent, and the rest of them wait a moment before turning and following the little blue dot on Larry's phone. Larry and Lancelot lead the way, then Luna and Ahkmenrah, Teddy and Sacagawea, and Attila and Nicky, who's still offended by the fact that Larry monitors his phone, bringing up the rear.

"How long has it been since you've seen your parents?" Luna whispers, taking Ahkmenrah's hand again and leaning closer so that he can hear her. "Since you were here?"