Lost Papers

On assignment in Egypt, digging for lost relics. Actually papers that hold the key to the design of some new device that will bring an infinite water supply to the world. We have uncovered a dig site of the man, who two hundred years earlier had attempted to build it, but been killed before construction could begin.

Meanwhile, my friend is bleeding to death from a gunshot wound to the chest, a bullet he took to save the project leader. Tourists are gathering, at the doors to the holding/excavating structure we have built for ourselves, they are so thick, like mosquitoes, we can't go out, for fear they'll stick their foot in the door.

Another friend and employee of the dig asks if we can get some hot chocolate, you know the instant kind, she hasn't had it in years at this point, it's 30 dollars a box. She tries to get outside, feet and hands lodge themselves in the opened door crack, I have to throw myself out there to stop them from proceeding in.

I'm stuck now, outside, sand clouds billow like sheets drying on the line, in the distance, coming toward us.

Night. The disgruntled right hand man, the brain of the project, exits through a secret tunnel in the side of the building, plops down in an underused, and tourist-free, tent. I follow him, he's angry about not receiving enough credit, nor pay for this world changing project. He falls asleep on a bench in the tent, his hand comes to rest on a handle buried in the sand. Inside are the lost papers.

News reaches the compound quickly, and the papers are discreetly transported to a sub basement within, so the brain can look them over. Turns out the tent was built on the site of the original crew's quarters. Doesn't explain why the sand didn't completely bury the trapdoor, as sand has a propensity to do, especially after a hundred years, like so many sheets on a made bed.

My friend is bleeding on the hallway floor leading to the sub basement. There are a couple of medics working on him, but they're no doctors. I sit holding his hand, as they try to decipher the meaning of the lost papers, now found. I tell him about it, whisper that we found it, that we are going to build it, he doesn't want to hear about that, he asks me to tell him something personal, so I tell him about all the movies we can make after he gets better.

The papers attract the tourists. They don't need an opening anymore, they force their way in, looking for proof. As they flood the hallway, the lights dim, to discourage them from walking down dark hallways. Trapped in a sub basement, the project didn't assume they would have to spend time deciphering the many diagrams, notes, and blueprints of the original project leader. Guess they leaked the news too early, how are they ever going to get out of there?

I tell my friend that the lights are dimming as a preventative measure, and it's not him, not his vision going dark or anything. My friend was a musician. What was he doing here, working on this project?