‘ATTEMPTED BREAK-IN AT THE TOKYO MUSEUM! STRANGE EVENTS AFTER HOURS CONFUSE POLICE'
In the early hours of this morning, a gang of thieves broke into the display of Egyptian artifacts due to be unveiled at the Tokyo Museum today. Rumors of gunfire and strange events fuel speculation amidst the police capturing two of the gang members without incident when they investigated the alarms. When asked if anything was missing, the only reply the lead investigator gave was that until the investigation is complete no word will be given as to if anything of value was stolen.’
Lead Story, Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper
“Well, that could have gone better” Michiru muttered to herself as she came down to breakfast the morning after the museum caper. After she and Haruka got clear of the museum, Haruka drove her home and then went back to her own home. She managed to get in without waking her father up and went straight to bed to try and sleep off the results of the fiasco earlier that night. ‘Hmm, what smells so good?’ she thought as she got a whiff of cooking food from the kitchen. ‘Mmm, cooofffeee…’ she thought as she entered the kitchen to get a cup of that most necessary of elixirs.
Hotaru was already up and cooking breakfast when Michiru walked in, barely awake. Her dad was already up and gone to work, so Michiru poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to drink her coffee and try to wake up.
“Good Morning!” Hotaru chirped. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”
Michiru took a sip of her coffee and muttered something that came out sounding like “Urrgmff” as her mind tried to fully wake up from a lack of enough sleep. Her mind grew clearer as the coffee worked its wonders on her, and she took more notice of her surroundings. As she drank her first cup of coffee she went over the events of the past evening. ‘What did the Cult of Tanis want with the Jewel of Karnak? There must be some connection with their past activities, but what? There was nothing in my books to suggest what the Jewel could be used for; looks like the time for a trip to the library.’
By the time she finished her first cup of coffee she was awake and took more notice of her surroundings, and in particular the food Hotaru was cooking. By the time Michiru had poured her second cup of coffee, Hotaru announced, “Breakfast’s ready!” and put the bowls of food on the table. They both sat down to breakfast.
Elsewhere, others were pondering the same issues, but from a different perspective.
‘At least I got away from that creepy undead cat’, the young and internationally renowned archaeologist Aino Minako thought as she drank her coffee in her apartment while reading the morning paper. The reports of the theft at the Tokyo Museum had caught her eye as she ate her first real meal since returning from the disaster in Africa. The past few days since escaping from the tomb beneath the sands had been harrowing. Not because of any physical danger; as an archaeologist, Mina was used to living in rough conditions on digs in remote wilderness areas. No, what made the trip harrowing was the undead cat she had accidentally unleashed that had somehow followed her no matter where she went. ‘Hopefully switching from the flight from Sumatra to the slow boat to Hong Kong threw that… cat off my trail and I can get some rest.’
As she read the lead story, a frown developed on her pretty face. ‘Can’t the museum keep the artifacts I find for them safe for even one month while I’m gone? Don’t they know what I went through to find the Eye of Karnak?’ Thinking back to the dig in Egypt where she found the Eye of Karnak and fought off the cultists seeking the Eye as well, she remembered an old carving that had held the key to finding the Eye. Something about…
Finishing her coffee and paying for it, she quickly returned to her room and ransacked her luggage. ‘Where are those notes? Where… ah, there it is.’ Retrieving the battered notebook, she thumbed through her notes to what she was looking for. ‘Here it is, and I was right. That old inscription did mention another artifact connected to the Eye of Karnak. The lost Sword of the Phoenix; according to this… that could be bad. Didn’t Tokyo University have that on loan from the British Museum?’ Just then, a voice that Mina hoped to never hear again spoke from the window of Mina’s apartment. “Princess, you still have a duty to the Silver Millennium.”
“Yahhgg!! I thought I ditched you in Sumatra! Get away from me, you undead cat!” Mina screeched and slammed the window closed. This was bad for the cat perched on the windowsill, as Mina’s apartment was on the 28th story of the building. Mina then took a moment to recover her wits, and then returned to her notes. If she was right, the Eye of Karnak and the Sword of the Phoenix should never meet.
The morning ritual for Haruka was quite different. Her house was a couple of small rooms over the garage where she worked as a mechanic and racer. The arrangement worked quite well for her, as it enabled her to pull off her disguise as a boy in order to race for the owner of the garage as an assistant grease monkey and backup driver. Her morning consisted of guzzling down a couple cups of coffee along with some cereal (either cold or microwaved oatmeal) and then getting into costume as the boy Haruka. This was not too difficult, which was good as Haruka had work to do down in the garage sweeping the floor and getting the garage ready for the day’s work on the customer’s cars as well as on the race cars.
“Hey, Boss, any way I can get the day off the day after tomorrow?” Haruka yelled at the chief mechanic over the noise of the garage. “My girlfriend wants to see a movie.”
Without lifting his head from the fuel control module he was working on, Haruka’s boss yelled back, “We ready for the race this weekend, boy?”
“We are,” Haruka yelled back. “How about it?”
“Just this once, boy, and you had better be ready for the race yourself. We can’t afford any screw-ups out there.” The last was offered as a bit of a joke, as Haruka had never let the team down out on the track and the garage owner knew it.
“You won’t regret this, boss! Thanks!” Haruka replied and went back to finishing up her work cleaning up the garage ahead of the day’s work.
The garage phone then rang. The garage owner answered it, and then yelled, “Hey, Haruka, it's your girlfriend!” Haruka dropped the broom she was using to sweep the garage and practically teleported to the phone.
“Hey, what’s up? I was able to get the night off the day after tomorrow so we can go see that new movie.”
Michiru said “Sorry, but the movie’s off. How about a trip to the Tokyo University Egyptology exhibit instead? Some… mutual acquaintances of ours will likely be there as well.”
Without missing a beat, Haruka replied “Not a problem. It’s a date; I’ll see you at school.”
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(Posted Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:41)
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