Down among the dead with the dust and decay of millennia, the boys smiled and looked up at their father.

“Remember boys, always pay attention to the details of your surroundings,” said David Prometheus to his sons. “You’ll never be disappointed when you really look at something.”

Jeff looked at the boys and rolled his eyes again.

“Doctor Prometheus, I really don’t think this is the best place for your kids,” he said.

At this, Pol glared at him, his pale blue eyes like knives. He clenched his jaw, while his identical twin Cass made a face and stuck out his tongue. Neither liked being told what they could or couldn’t do…but then, neither do most two-year-olds.

Their father just smiled at Jeff.

“Mer wasn’t feeling well, so Pol and Cass get to come with me. Besides, how many boys get to watch their father work an archaeological dig in Egypt?” David said.

“And, remember you don’t have to be so formal,” he continued. “Call me Dave.”

“Out here in the field, we’re all the same, just a bunch of kids digging in the dirt and playing detective with mysteries that are thousands of years old,” David said.

Jeff didn’t answer. He just shrugged his shoulders and grunted. If Dr. David Prometheus wanted to bring his kids down into these tunnels and be called Dave, there was nothing he could do about it. He was just a grad student, so he knew enough to shut-up and do what he was told. Not that David had ever belittled him, quite the contrary, both of the Doctors Prometheus joined in on even the most menial work and always included him in dig planning sessions. They were annoyingly wonderful people.

Jeff noticed the boys quietly jabbering back and forth to each other. They seemed to be larger than most two-year-olds that he had been around. He had never believed in all that crap about twins having a special connection or their own language, but after observing Pol and Cass for the last six weeks, he was beginning to think there might be some truth to the stories after all. It seemed like they were actually communicating.

Jeff liked the boys more than he cared to admit probably because they were so different than other children he had encountered. Thinking back, he hadn’t seen either of them cry or throw a tantrum since he had joined the dig nearly six months before. They were quiet and well-behaved, sure, but there was something else about them. Jeff noticed it the first time that Dr. Prometheus…not David, the other one…Meredith…had brought them along to a museum where she and her husband were doing some research. When they walked in, holding their Raiders of the Lost Ark sippy cups, they had been jabbering back and forth to each other and then just stopped. They carefully bent down and set their sippy cups on the marble floor in front of them, being very careful not to spill a drop of juice, and stood back up. Then, both of them looked…really looked…around the main hall of the museum like they were taking everything in and cataloging it. Jeff remembered the wonder writ large on those little faces and couldn’t help smiling at the memory.

Jeff looked up to see David smiling at him, and he realized that he had been smiling at the boys.

“Amazing, aren’t they.”

“I guess,” Jeff said and shrugged, but at that moment, he sure wished he could remember his father describing him like that.

“And here we are,” David said.

A wall of dirt and sand blocked the tunnel, which was wide, about fifteen feet, and tall, about nine feet.

David stood in front of a smaller opening that had been started decades before and then abandoned after only a couple of feet. It didn’t look so much like another tunnel as just a slightly wider stretch of the existing tunnel.

Recent work in the Giza Necropolis focused on the Pyramids, but the Sphinx had always held a certain fascination for David. So, here they were in one of the oldest tunnels in a site near the Sphinx.

“All right, let’s get our gear,” David said as he slipped his black backpack off his shoulder and placed it on the ground.

“Mer and I think that it should be right around in here,” David said to Jeff.

“At least that’s what six years of research is telling us.”

Jeff started to grab his tools out of his messenger bag when he saw both boys perform the same motion with their little packs.

Chuckling to himself, he pulled out his brush and trowel and joined David as both started to carefully pull the dirt from the wall.

Jabbering away at each other, the boys dug with their small shovels in the floor of the tunnel.

Minutes passed and the jabbering stopped.

It took David a second to realize that the boys were being quiet….too quiet. He turned and saw his sons standing, looking at him, and pointing at something in the dirt.

“Dad!” Pol and Cass said at the same time.

Jeff turned from his work at the sound of their voices.

“Well, what do we have here?” said David.

“It looks like you boys have found something.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

Both boys beamed with pride.

Jeff saw a something metallic in the ground. It was about the size of a large coin with a dull silver coloring. There appeared to be some kind of glyphs barely visible on it.

Jeff saw David move toward his sons, and then he noticed that the tunnel seemed brighter.

Then, he heard the boys begin to cry.

“What in the world?” said David.

Then, he shouted, “Get them out of here now!” and turned back toward where he and Jeff had just been digging.

Jeff ran to the boys.

Light filled the tunnel and parts of the ceiling began to fall in large chunks.

The air was thick with dust and heat.

The light was so bright that Jeff had to shield his eyes.

As he bent down to grab the boys, a large chunk of the ceiling fell and struck him on the back of the head. He fell to hands and knees.

Jeff shook his head and tried to stay conscious.

He blinked and saw David move away from he and the boys.

He blinked again and David was barely visible from the light that flooded the tunnel.

He tried to blink again, but his eyes wouldn’t open. His legs and arms gave way, and he passed out.

Pol and Cass screamed, “Dad!”