They must have been moving it from room to room, he thought.

As he was walking down a particular corridor deep in the temple, he stopped halfway down and faced the wall. With his fingers, he gently felt over the stone and smiled to himself.

Ah, they didn’t find this room.

He ran his fingertips over the carving of a snake until he got to the eye, and with a little bit of force, he pressed the eye into the wall. The wall opened up, revealing a secret room entirely blanketed with a thick layer of dust.

He walked to the right, and on a stone counter were some knives, a blow gun, and some darts, all made of obsidian. He picked up the darts and walked over to what looked like a dried-up fountain protruding from the center of the wall. He pulled down on a stone lever; a cloud of dust billowed toward him from a hole in the top of the fountain, followed by a florescent green liquid which came streaming out of it. He took the darts and held them under the stream, filling the hollow cavities.

He set them back on the counter and returned to the fountain. His wounds were still painful, and some were still bleeding slowly. He extended a hand into the stream of liquid, collecting some in his cupped palm, and then carefully applied the liquid to each wound. It burned at first, but then the blood stopped flowing and the skin around the wounds sealed together. The liquid was healing each one within seconds. When he was finished, he walked over to what looked to be an ancient bed. The mattress had almost completely rotted away, leaving scant remnants on the stone frame. He wiped away the dust and bits of mattress and lay down on the bare stone. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking. Despite the rapidity of the healing process, he was still not quite fully recovered. It had been a long night, and he felt exhausted. Without realizing it, he fell asleep. It felt as though his eyes had only closed for a second when he awoke to sounds coming down the corridor. There were people in his temple—trespassers.

“Time to show these unwanted guests whose house they have invaded,” he hissed quietly as he arose and gathered his weapons.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

Wilson reluctantly opened his eyes. The alarm clock read 6:00 a.m. He stared blearily around his room, and then he got up and dug around in his closet for some clothes. After brushing his teeth and washing his face, he felt a little more awake and headed to the kitchen to grab a quick bite to eat. As he did so, the ring he was wearing started to vibrate. He flipped his hand over, palm side up, and touched a small sensor. A holographic display shot out from the bottom of the ring and over his palm. Kristen’s face appeared on the screen.

“Hi,” he said.

“Just making sure you are on your way. We’re leaving in less than ten minutes,” Kristen said. “Are you still in your kitchen?”

He glanced at the small digital clock on the microwave which read 6:52 a.m.

“Oh suck!”

“Seriously? Hurry up!” Kristen urged impatiently, and the holo went dark.

Wilson scrambled to gather his things and made a mad dash to his car. He pulled into the campus parking lot at exactly 7:00 a.m. and saw several students climbing into three high-capacity vans with the college logo on the side. He parked his car next to them as Kristen, looking thoroughly annoyed, approached.

“You’re late,” she said sharply.

“No, I’m not. It’s exactly seven. I’m right on time.”

“We’re supposed to be leaving at seven, and you’re a teacher—you should be early.” She glared at him disapprovingly. “We didn’t know where you were, so we had a student bring the other van up. We have you in this one,” she said, indicating the nearest van.

A very handsome man with light-brown hair walked up to them.

“So are we all ready to go then?”

“I guess so. Just follow behind me,” said Kristen.

“Hi, Kyle,” said Wilson.

“Hey,” he replied.

The rest of the students climbed into the vans. Wilson climbed into the driver’s seat of the nearest one. He looked out the window, and suddenly the whole world seemed to slow around him.

She was tall with long chestnut-brown hair and jade-green eyes. She glanced back at him just before climbing into the back of Kyle’s van. He quickly looked away and shook his head a little to bring himself back to reality.

“Okay,” he said to the students in his van. “Here we go.”

Kristen’s van took off first, followed by Kyle’s, and then Wilson’s. Wilson looked in the rearview mirror at the students. There were three girls and four boys in his group. He recognized a couple of them from his biology class.

“Carrie, James, I didn’t know you were into archaeology,” he said.

James just shrugged, but Carrie smiled and said, “I love learning about everything I can, especially when there are big discoveries made in the area.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Wilson. “What’s your favorite subject?”

“Actually, I love them all, but I really love learning about how things came to be—history, government, philosophy . . .”

“So I bet you’re pretty excited about this trip then, huh?”

“Oh yeah! Did you know Isaac was the nephew of both King Montezuma I and of Chimalpopoca?”

“I think I heard Kristen say something about that once—I mean, Professor White. That’s pretty cool though.”

“Pretty cool? It’s one of the biggest discoveries of our time! It was believed that his brother, Huehue Zaca, had only two sons—Tzontemoc and Huitzilatzin. To find out he had another that fled the Aztec Empire and started his own civilization up here is pretty amazing.”

“Wait, his name was Wee Wee?” one of the guys in the backseat asked, chuckling.

“It’s pronounced ‘weh’ as in wet, but it’s spelled H-U-E.”

“So, Cale, why are you coming along if you teach biology?” asked James.

“Professor White asked me to chaperone,” answered Wilson.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Professor Cale?” asked Carrie.

“Sure,” he replied.

“Are you and Professor White, like, a thing?”

All the students were paying attention to the conversation now.

“Professor White and I are really good friends,” Wilson replied. “We’ve known each other since high school. She is actually the one who got me the job out here.”

“So there are absolutely no sparks whatsoever?” said a girl in the back a little snarkily.

“I don’t know if I want to answer that question, especially since there are a lot of people in this car I don’t even know,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m Jessica. This is Sarah, Brad, and Sam,” said the girl in the back, gesturing to the three sitting next to her. She then looked over at the boy sitting next to James. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“I’m Matt,” he said.

“Well, now you know all of us, so spill it,” she said to Wilson.

“Oh really? Just like that, huh?” Wilson said.

The students just sat in silence, awaiting his response. The awkwardness forced him to speak again. “Kristen and I are just friends, and I would hate for anything to ruin that.”

“So there is something there!” Carrie exclaimed, followed by some quickly stifled giggles from Sarah and Jessica.

“What? What makes you think that?” he replied.

“I see the two of you together all the time, and I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Also, anytime someone says ‘I would hate to ruin our friendship,’ it means they have thought about it,” said Carrie.

Wilson huffed, looking bemused and a little uncomfortable.

“I’ve noticed the way she looks at me too, but I don’t think we would work as a couple, and I think she knows it. She’s more like my sister.”

“I think you guys would be great together. Just look at the two of you,” said Jessica.

“What do you mean ‘just look at the two of you’? And how would you know anything?” he said.

“It’s just that . . . well . . . you both have a very similar look.”

“A similar look?”

“Well—I mean . . . uh . . . whatever, I’ll just say it. The two of you are some of the most beautiful people I have ever seen. Don’t take this the wrong way, but the two of you attract attention, like, a lot of attention. It would be a crime to not be together.”

All the students stared at her, surprised and impressed by her tenacity.

“What? Don’t tell me you all haven’t been thinking it,” she said to the group.

“We wouldn’t dare say that to a teacher though,” said Sarah, giggling nervously.

“Well, I’m flattered. Thank you,” said Wilson, fighting to keep his voice even and struggling not to laugh at the awkwardness. “But there are a lot of beautiful people out there, and there is more to life than just looks.”

“You’re both into science,” said Carrie.

“She’s into it quite a bit more than I am. In fact, she bores me a lot of the time. Just don’t tell her I said that,” he added quickly, his face starting to turn a little pink. “Sorry, but I think this conversation is getting a bit too personal to be having with students. Besides, we’re getting close. See? There’s the canyon.”

The ground dropped down to the left of them as they drove along the edge of the canyon wall. Up ahead was a small mountain sitting on the edge of the cliff. The road curved to the right, following the base of the mountain. Traffic slowed as they approached a section of road blocked off by several police officers. The students all stared out the windows.

“What happened?” asked Sarah.

“It must be a really bad car accident,” said Brad.

“I don’t think so. I don’t see any cars,” said Wilson.

“Maybe they already hauled them off,” suggested Brad.

“There’s no glass or debris either,” said Carrie.

“But there are skid marks. Look,” said Matt as he gestured up ahead of them.

The marks looked like they had been scratched into the road by something metal.

“There’s some blood too.”

He pointed at the end of the marks.

“Eww!” Sarah and Jessica both said as they looked away.

“It’s just a little bit of blood. I’m sure whoever it belongs to is fine. Right, Mr. Cale?” said Carrie.

“Well, a person can still die even after only losing a little bit of blood. And there are a lot of cops around,” he replied.

The students all craned their necks as the vans drove by, but there wasn’t anything else to see.

“So someone did die?” asked Jessica once they were on their way again.

“The heavy police presence indicates a very real possibility. I feel sorry for the person’s family if they did,” said Wilson.

Silence filled the van again until Wilson saw more police up ahead.

“What is it this time?” he asked out loud to himself. This statement caught the attention of all the students. “More cops,” he explained. “The two incidents must be related. If that is the case, this could be really bad.”