Sir Alfred Winnipeg sat in his library, staring at the clock that loomed large over his mantlepiece. The pendulums swung in time with the seconds, ticking down to his safety.

The mummy swore that it would have its revenge on those that dare desecrate his tomb before the stroke of midnight one year after they entered that musty, cursed chamber.

And now, one year later, Sir Alfred alone remained of the party of six. Sir Lawrence and Professor Humphrey had been found by Professor Humphrey’s secretary. Their mouths were still stuffed with the strips of natron-encrusted linen bandages that had caused them to suffocate. Ettlesby, Sir Lawrence’s butler, had flipped his motorbike into a ravine. The only evidence of foul play was a mummified humerus found wedged in the spokes. The two Egyptian workers, Moeris and Amenophis, who had opened the door of the tomb had their skulls cracked open by Canopic jars.

Sir Alfred didn’t believe in the reports. He hadn’t looked on the scenes of the accidents himself (and he was sure that they were accidents) and, as he always said, he didn’t believe what he couldn’t see with his own eyes.

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“So, Henry, there’s the field. Here’s your hoe. Get to,” said Farmer Roger, pointing out across his field. A September fog had settled over the broken, scrabbly stalks of corn, and Henry shivered inside of his jacket as the cool droplets seeped in his collar and his cuffs. They used their fingers to pry open the spaces between his buttons.

Henry needed the money that Farmer Roger had promised him for helping to turn the fields, but as soon as he took his first footstep into the mushy ground, he wondered if he’d have to spend all of the money on new boots. After a half a dozen strides he was significantly taller from the accumulated mud, and Farmer Roger had disappeared behind him in the fog. The only shapes that he could see were the scarecrows in the field. Their tattered clothes waved in the breeze.

But, Henry realized after a moment, there wasn’t any breeze.

He set to work to keep his mind off of the sudden terror that crept into his jacket faster than the fog had. For a time, all he could think about was the thud of his hoe into the ground and the heat of his muscles keeping out the chill.

When he stood up to stretch his back, he saw that one of the scarecrows was gone.

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Hannah and Rachel arrived at Cheswick Labs. The complex was built on huge tract of land out in the New Mexico desert. The building itself sprawled in a way that only architects without a sense of scale could produce, but it was dwarfed by the size of the open quarry next to it. A dozen of the buildings could have fit inside the pore scraped into the earth and barely covered the acreage at the bottom. The sense of scale continued with the massive wind turbines stretching across the horizon, spinning in the breeze. Thick cables ran this way and that over the desert floor like extension cords beneath holiday decorations.

Hannah and Rachel glanced at each other. The wind turbines made sense. Cheswick Labs had a reputation for being a world leader in cutting-edge energy sources. The quarry was another matter.

“Maybe research on geothermal power?” Rachel asked, unloading her camera gear from the trunk of their car.

“Could be. If so, it’ll help the story. I don’t think that anybody has mentioned Cheswick researching geothermal power before.”

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“I have asked you two here because you are like sons to me, and I trust only you with this embarrassing task,” said Don Johnson (born Donald Johnson, now Don of the Johnson family) to the two men standing before him, “I understand that a gentleman by the name of Lawrence Mills has been intimate with my wife.” Don Johnson set down his cigar into the ivory ashtray close at hand and leaned his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers. His heavy eyebrows and nose worked with the bare lightbulb overhead to cast shadows down his face. The cherry of his cigar glowed in his black pupils. It was cold in the meat locker, and so his breath condensed, making him look every inch a vengeful devil.

Which would be a comparison that he would enjoy.

“Although my wife has been a terrific slut about town, I cannot stay mad at her. It is these stronzi, these teste di cazzo, these…” he trailed off.

“These assholes?” asked Tricky Finger Jimmy, looking up from playing with his tricky finger.

“That’s what I said. These assholes seduce her. They have their way with her. And then they leave her. I have tried to take care of them personally, but it is too much. I have to ask you to step in because I have a dentist’s appointment this afternoon.”

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Shillindoor the Barbarian adjusted his cummerbund, took a sip of his tea, and turned to Mr. Thistlewall.

“It is indeed a fine day outside,” Shillindoor the Barbarian replied, daubing the corners of his mouth with his napkin after he’d set his teacup down on its delicate saucer.

Mr. Thistlewall beamed. He turned to his companion, Mr. Corneeps, in whose sunroom they were enjoying brunch.

“I told you that I could turn him from scruffy malingering barbarian to gentleman!”

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“Sir, I’ve finished the blueprints for the support frame that you assigned to me,” Francine said.

“Good, good.”

There was an awkward pause while CEO Soren Soresgard smiled at her from behind his desk, his eyes inscrutable behind the sunglasses that he wore at all times. Francine could see the reflection of his desk lamp in their lenses, round and puffy like beetles squatting over his eyes, accompanied by the demonic red points of the clock radio that read “12:05.” Just after high noon, and his office was darker than a cave.

“But I don’t understand what the purpose is…” Francine said.

Soren continued to smile.

“If I knew what the frame was to support, I might be able to foresee any structural problems,” she said. She’d been preparing for this for months. She loved her job. Soren treated his employees with the utmost respect and always deferred to them on all matters in their field of expertise. The only flaw in his benevolence was if people asked him questions about what they were working on. He doled out details like other company owners doled out money – as little as necessary to get the job done.

But Francine was an engineer, and that made her prone to questions. Important questions. Life or death questions, if it came down to it. Structures could collapse, and especially enormous structures like this appeared to be from the loads that her support frame would bear. For any other boss, she’d never have done her work with so little information. It was dangerous, separate engineers designing discrete sections of a building. The engineering department already had a better idea about the scope of the project than anybody else, even the accountants that Soren broke up into batches scattered around the world, all of them speaking different languages and only communicating to each other through spreadsheets.

“Francine,” Soren said, his smile never cracking, “you know better than this. I would hate to dismiss you. You’ve done such exemplary work, all of it quite top-notch.”

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