The Stone of Babylon

Too Early to Celebrate

“Now you can pour us some champagne!”, I said proudly, stepping away from my desk. “We are – finally – out of the debt and safe from any kind of financial abuse by the ones skilled in the ancient art of tax collecting!”

Ginger squealed, grabbed my ‘favorite’ oddly-shaped mug, and ran into the small, makeshift kitchen to comply. I could hear her blabbering joyfully about stress relief and smiled. She was adorable, but too sweet and by the book. She did, however, keep this place running smoothly when we were on the missions, so none of us really complained.

“Gee, Rona, I thought champagne was too fancy for drinking ‘from the skulls of our enemies’...” A roar of laughter came straight from the kitchen, making me giggle as well. I looked up, towards the office door, in the direction of the deep, melodic voice of my brother. I ran to his embrace, almost making him fall due to impact.

“Tell me you have some good news, too”, I practically begged, moving myself a step away from him.

“Well, I did get us a new job...”, he started and looked at Ginger.

“... but you’re not gonna like it”, she sighed and handed me my skull-shaped old mug. The thing was hideous even when it was brand new, and it annoyed me as hell, but I kept drinking from it. My college roommate gave it to me as a present for the last birthday I celebrated with her. It was sort of a joke, she had seen it online and bought it ‘just to have something until the real party after graduation’. The real birthday party never came. She died in a terrible car accident shortly after not even graduating from the college and the ugly mug was the only thing I had as a memory of her, so I cherished it dearly.

I ignored both of them for a few seconds, sipping my champagne, feeling utterly lost in my thoughts and unwanted memories – he was right, it did taste weird – before I actually managed to ask who our client was.

“The WIC.”

His face was too serious to pass it as a joke. Ginger was also looking slightly uncomfortable, shifting in her chair. So, she did know who our client was and decided to keep quiet about it. Nice. You just got yourself some negative points, cheater.

“No way”, I shook my head. “Not gonna happen.”

“Look, Sis...”

“Stop it right there, Richard”, raised my hand trying to make my point, without showing hove furious I really was with the idea. “I think I was pretty clear when I said that I did not want any-bloody-thing to do with the WIC!”

“They just want you to...”

“I-do-not-care!”, I was barely in control. My hands were shaking, and I wrapped my palms around the mug trying to calm myself. “I do hope, however, that you did not say yes to whatever the weasels proposed.”

My brother gasped and crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head, but did not step away. He was not going to give up and it only made things worse - it fueled my anger up to the boiling point.

“We could use some money”, Ginger tried timidly. Why the hell did she have to take his side?

“And they could use an excuse to finish the job!” I snapped. “There are two more Maroons left standing.”

I bit my tongue the moment I said it, but it was a way too late. Richard’s face turned pale and his jaws clenched. He was breathing heavy, trying to calm himself, still looking straight into my eyes.

“That was too damn rude even for you, Sis”, he finally managed to whisper.

I brushed my forehead and sighed. Yes, it was. My brother was not an i***t, and he certainly did not need the reminder of what happened, so if he considered working for the WIC as an option, then I might at least listen to him. I had been so stressed up for days, I was not thinking clear any longer. And now I also felt bad. Besides, the accident happened more than fifteen years ago. Things did change. A lot. And have been changing ever since, but...

“Things do change”, my friend intervened, and I flinched realizing that I must have said it out loud. “But it is not why we want you to take a look into this.”

That definitely caught my attention. I looked at my brother and then at Ginger. There was something more than pure annoyance with my words in their stand. Almost as if they were excited. What a....? I took my chance and nodded.

“Ok, I can promise to listen to your – or their – proposal, but nothing more than that”, I put my mug down. “And, Ging, do we have some coffee? I desperately need coffee, this thing tastes awful.”

She ran back into the kitchen, making her excitement more obvious. I raised my eyebrow and looked at Richard, hoping for some explanation, but he was not paying attention to us. He moved to a coffee table, and set there with his big, gray backpack placed in his lap. He was roaming through it frantically, pulling out papers and folders. Ok, that was awkward, I stared at pilled up documents and photos shocked. He’s too tidy for this mess. But he started reorganizing them right away, so I shrugged and decided to sit and wait for both coffee and him finishing his, well whatever he was doing.

A mug of freshly brewed coffee suddenly appeared in front of my face. A thin tail of vapor rich in aroma danced briefly in front of me and then disappeared pulling my eyes along with it towards Ginger.

“I hereby summon the almighty goddess of investigation, rightful ruler of the tomb raiders, protector of the mischiefs and ...”

“Just give me my damn coffee and no one gets hurt!”, I grabbed the mug from her. Richard put the documents down and started laughing earning some dagger stares from me.

“I feel offended, Gingie”, he faked being hurt. “If she is so glorious, what does it make me?”

“My sidekick”, I spit out and took a sip of coffee. Ginger’s sweet, melodic laughter filled in the room, making us both laugh in return. There was no way you could stay serious if you heard her. It was so pure, joyful and endlessly contagious.

“Not funny, girls”, my brother finally caught his breath again, his face still being red. “Gingie,... “

“Stop calling me names, and I’ll be happy to make you a coffee lord, too”, she replied.

“But she also has a nickname for you!”, he protested.

“Hers I like”, she declared dead serious. Being blond, she was always mocked about her name and it took me a real effort to convince her that calling her Ging had everything to do with us being close friends and nothing to do with her wrong hair color. She stopped complaining when I said I could relate since my raven black hair is not actually maroon either.

I reached out and grabbed one of the top files.

“Ok, kids, that’s it. We have some work to do. Or at least see if we are going to do it.”

Their faces went straight back to serious and focused, with that little sparkle of excitement evident again. I tried to focus on the content of the folder in my hands, but I kept staring into the green and gray logo of the WIC printed on every page. I sighed and refocused myself on Richard, asking him to give me some introductory briefing.

“As you could see it’s about that new stone artefact, they found in the Middle East...”

“The so-called New Rosetta Stone?”, I grimaced. He nodded and leaned forward to grab a photo of a stone plate with symbols written all over it. It did resemble the famous three language stele but ...

“It’s a fake, everyone knows that”, I shrugged.

“Except from conspiracy theorists and that ancient alien lovers, yeah”, Ginger intervened. “But the WIC still wants you to find the proof.”

I started to laugh but abruptly stopped seeing their very serious faces.

“They have top archeologists”, I sighed, “and several hundred other relevant scientists at their disposal, who have already proved the stone inscriptions were done at the same time, using the same technique, but coming from different development periods of the languages used. So, unless you can find a way to put together the symbols of the Shang people from 3rd millennium BC, Biblical Hebrew from let’s say approximately 600 BC, and what they claim to be the Vincha symbols from 5th millennium BC – they’re pretty much right. It’s a fake. No logic in combination itself not to mention... Moreover, it seems that the text is not even the same.”

“Yeah”, Richard said. “That’s exactly what I told them.”

Now, I was more than intrigued. Of course he would have told them, probably far less politely than I just did, but they still managed to persuade him to take the job. I straightened my back and asked trying not to sound overexcited and too much interested:

“So would you be kind enough to finally tell me why they need the tomb raiders, scavengers or underpaid treasure hunters?”

He pulled out the magnifying glass from his backpack and handed it to me.

“Look carefully.”

And I did but could not find anything I had not already seen. After several minutes of letting me struggle, my brother sighed and pulled out a 3D printed copy of the stone.

“It’s small scale but it is still visible if you look close enough”, he said.

I turned my attention to the stone plate copy in front of me. Still nothing. I ran my finger on top of it, highly frustrated. Nothing. I turned it to side and around and I was about to snap at Richard for making me waste my time when I caught it. A small, manmade c***k nested among other cracks in the thin side face of the stone. Barely visible. And then I caught another one. And another one. I stood up and took some paint from my desk and few printing papers.

“Rona, what... ouh”, they tried to protest simultaneously.

I applied a thin layer of color on the side face of the stone copy and pressed it against the paper. Richard tried to protest but I hushed him saying its removable and, after all, it was not the real thing. He watched me curiously while I repeated the process for all sides. We got ourselves fresh coffee while we waited for the paint to dry. When I decided its dried enough, I pulled out a red marker from my desk and sit back to do some circling. Few minutes later we were staring in the series of dots and dashes, carefully hidden among the coarse shapes of the stone sides’ surface.

“It looks like a pattern”, Ginger whispered.

“It sure does”, I confirmed. “I’m not sure we have them all... but...”

“... but you would definitely like to see the real Stone of Babylon”, my brother said, finishing my thoughts. “I knew that there are some signs scattered around the edges but I must admit I did not expect so many of them.”

Ginger leaned over the papers and observed them carefully. She finally shook her head and said:

“Do we know what it is? A map of some kind?”

“I don’t think it’s a map. It looks more like some kind of a key”, Richard replied.

I slid my fingers over the imprints on the paper.

“It’s not a key. It’s some kind of... door. A gate...”

Their raised their heads and their eyebrows. Ging was the first to break the silence:

“The gate to where?”