The air in the Ministry of Antiquities conference room was a stark contrast to the thrumming energy of the Giza Plateau. It was cool, still, and smelled of old paper and expensive wood polish. Here, in this bastion of procedure and history, the world's encroaching madness felt like a distant, distasteful rumor.
Amira stood before a long, polished table. Gone was the dust-caked, grief-stricken young woman from the desert tent. In her place was Dr. Amira Khan, dressed in a crisp linen suit, her hair pulled back severely, her expression a mask of focused, academic resolve. The grief was still a furnace in her chest, but she had learned to bank its fires, turning it into fuel.
Seated before her were the three heads of the newly formed Special Antiquities Task Force, the very body mentioned in the confidential directive she remembered. The man in the center, Director El-Sayed, was a veteran of the Ministry, a man with shrewd, intelligent eyes and a face that had seen a thousand budget committees and a hundred political upheavals. He was the one she had to convince.
"And so," Amira concluded, tapping a final time on the holographic projection that displayed the GPR data, "while previous analyses dismissed this anomaly as a granite formation, the energy signature's unique refractory properties, when cross-referenced with the ongoing emissions from the pyramid, suggest not a solid mass, but a shielded, hollow structure. A structure that actively repels standard survey methods."
She had not mentioned her vision, not a word about the mental map or the feeling of her father being dragged beneath the earth. She spoke only their language: data, precedent, and logical inference. She was a scholar presenting a controversial but scientifically sound thesis.
A younger man on the panel scoffed. "A shielded structure? Dr. Khan, you are suggesting a technology that predates the pharaohs by several millennia. It is... fanciful."
"Three days ago," Amira countered, her voice cold and steady, "a beam of unknown energy shooting into space from a 4,500-year-old monument was fanciful. The world has changed, gentlemen. Our understanding must change with it."
Director El-Sayed had been silent throughout the presentation, his fingers steepled before him. He studied Amira, not her data. He saw the fire in her eyes, but it wasn't the wild, chaotic fire of hysteria he had been briefed to expect. It was a focused, controlled burn. It was the look of a person who possessed an absolute, unshakable certainty. In his line of work, that was a quality that was either immensely valuable or dangerously misleading.
"The resources required for such a deep-earth survey are considerable," he said, his voice a smooth baritone. "The political risk, should you find nothing but bedrock, is even greater."
"And the risk of doing nothing?" Amira challenged, her gaze unwavering. "The creatures that attacked us came from the sand. My father, the world's foremost expert on Old Kingdom geology, was taken. Is it not our duty to understand the source of this threat?"
The room fell silent. She had framed it perfectly. It was no longer the desperate plea of a daughter, but a matter of national security.
Director El-Sayed looked at the data one last time, then at the determined young woman before him. The old rules were breaking. Perhaps it was time to bend a few himself.
"I cannot authorize a full excavation," he stated, his words precise. "However, I can approve a priority-one 'Geological Viability Assessment.' You will be given a T-800 Mobile Drilling Unit and a support team of engineers and security personnel. Find me proof, Dr. Khan. Find me something tangible, and you will have all the resources you need."
The desert wind was cool as Amira stood by the coordinates she had marked on the map. In the distance, the golden pillar of the pyramid still defied the night. The rumble of engines grew, and a convoy of heavy military trucks crested a dune, their headlights cutting through the darkness. In the center, on a massive flatbed, was the T-800 drill, its tungsten-carbide head gleaming under the moonlight—a colossal, state-of-the-art spear designed to pierce the heart of the earth.
She was no longer just a scholar. She was the commander of a hunt. The map was