max_epper | (no subject)

When he gets home, Doris is practically waiting for him. She sees the box in his hands and instantly forgets whatever she was going to say.

"Max?" she asks in a quizzical voice. He never brings his work home if he can at all help it. And given the call he made earlier today...

Max, meanwhile dumps the box on the couch. "Hmmm?"

"What's this about Max? You call to tell me we're having a dinner guest on an afternoon's notice, and now you're bringing work home?"

Max smiles gently at his wife. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you that this might happen. I wasn't sure when he'd get here, though. Jack's come from Australia to help me," he says, watching as her eyes widen at the last statement. "Yes," he continues, "it's about that. Hence why we couldn't talk when he came to see me at work."

Doris settles down on the couch and flips open the lid of the box. "So, are you actually going to tell me any details about that?" she asks, looking at, but clearly not understanding what the stuff inside the box is.

"Well, given I expect it is going to come up at dinner, yes."

Doris looks shocked for half a second, her eyes flickering between the door to the kitchen where the tourtière sat, cooking steadily, Max's face and the box of stuff he'd brought back with him.

"Okay," she says after some time.

Doris gets up, heading back to the kitchen to finish up the preparations. Max meanwhile, sets to getting things out of the box and into place for later on. After a little while, he joins her in the kitchen to assist with the preparations. It's comfortable, and the two of them have developed a good routine out over the years.

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Jack turns to look at where Max is pointing, nods his head and collects it. He can't, however, resist looking inside the box before he brings it back to Max.

When he hands it over, his eyes are wide.

Max smiles as he takes it out of his protégé's hands. Well, Jack isn't technically Max's protégé, but...

He settles the box down on the table and begins lifting some things carefully, reverently even, out, laying them on the table with great care and attention.

By the time Doris walks back in, he's basically done. There's a mix of things on the table, from photographs to a couple of books (very well read, by the looks of it), to what looks like a couple of chunks of rock, to some old scrolls.

Doris just stares.

"Okay," Max begins. "It's time to talk about this. It's time to talk about my research, what it means, the implications for the world around us and what we're going to do about it." He's mainly looking at Jack for the last comment.

Jack settles down at the table, shifting his chair around towards Doris, she doing the same, such that Max could talk to the pair of them more easily.

"Go on then," he says, eying a thick hardbacked book entitled 'When Men Built Mountains: The Pyramids'.

"Okay," Max says, noting Jack's interest. "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Tell me what you know."

Doris starts, "The Pyramids, The Hanging Gardens, the Alexandrian Lighthouse. What are the others? Wait, The Colossus, that's one isn't it?"

Jack nods, before reeling off the list, ticking them off on his fingers as he does so, "The Great Pyramid at Giza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Lighthouse at Alexandria and the Colossus of Rhodes. What of them?"

Doris looks down as Jack reels of the list, pleased she got more than half of them. Max, meanwhile, simply nods.

"They are the key. So to speak. These seven were identified by Callimachus of Cyrene in his text..." he lets himself trail off there, allowing Jack the opportunity to fill in the title.

"A collection of Wonders from around the world?" Jack offers uncertainly.

Max nods. It's not quite the exact title, but it'll do.

"These days, it's perhaps more simply known as the Callimachus text. Now, this was no idle list. This was a very deliberately put together list. There were other monuments just as impressive, yet Callimachus chose these seven, and only these."

Which, of course, leads to the obvious question, which Doris dutifully supplies. "Why?"

Jack has a slightly different question to ask. "What's the connection? And how does this relate to, Tartarus?" he says, trying to remember his briefing materials.

Doris looks curiously at Jack, wondering where he got his information.

Jack shrugs at her. "I've had a half briefing from my CO, but I'd sooner hear it all from the expert, than rely on second hand information."

Doris nods, and Max continues.

"The questions are related. But, in order to do so, I need to explain some things that are a completely different topic. So, we'll leave this discussion of the Wonders for now. Tartarus, is a sunspot."

Max taps the book Jack had been looking at carefully. "There's a more complete description in this book, but for now, it will suffice to say that it is the hottest spot on the Sun's surface. In 14 and a bit years, we will be witness to the second great turning of the sun. Something that has not happened for 4,500 years."

Jack's eyes narrow. He studied Egyptian history too closely not to know those dates. 2570BC was the completion of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Which later was described as a 'Wonder' in a 'not-an-idle' list. It's too close to be a co-incidence, isn't it?

"How many years, exactly?" he shoots at Max.

Max bites his lip carefully, doing the maths in his head.

"The best estimate would be that it's been approximately 4,560 years since the previous one. Before that, we see another cycle. Floods. Across the world. In 15000BC, 10500BC, 6500BC. Every 4,500 years or so."

Jack stares at Max, his mouth half open. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Doris is doing the same thing.

"Every four and a half thousand years. And then nothing. Because Giza?"

"It's never been conclusively proven, but..."

He reaches and grabs a photograph, handing it to Doris, who studies it before passing it on to Jack.

Jack studies the photo for some time, before speaking.

"I'm gonna need to brush up on my Egyptian," he mutters, before looking up. "I presume you have a translation."

"Cower in fear, cry in despair,
You wretched mortals
For that which giveth great power
Also takes it away.
For lest the Benben be placed at sacred site
On sacred ground, at sacred height,
Within seven sunsets of the arrival of Ra's prophet,
At the high-point of the seventh day,
The fires of Ra's implacable Destroyer will devour us all."

Jack stares, processing that statement in the context of their discussion.

"Remind me. The Benben?"

"Another name for the capstone. The bona fide Golden capstone of the Great Pyramid, which vanished in antiquity. On another note, Ra's Destroyer is the Egyptian name for the Tartarus sunspot, and indeed, it is preceeded by another sunspot by exactly seven days. Hence, Ra's Prophet."

"Okay... Do we know when Ra's Prophet is due?"

"As it happens, we do. The Vernal Equinox, 2006, 20th March to be precise."

"Okay. 15 years. So, how do we go about averting this global flood, or the fires of Ra's Destroyer, or whatever you want to call it?"

Even as he says it, he knows that there's an obvious answer...

"We find the Benben," Max replies.

Doris has been watching this exchange with interest, but it's not until now that she speaks up again. "How? You said it was lost in antiquity."

"No, I didn't. I said that it vanished in antiquity. Not that it was lost. Just because something has vanished from public view, does not mean that knowledge of it has been lost."