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“While you are looking for the Gear, we will be holding the fort, this is how to say it, yes?” Gabriella added.

Lora nodded. “Antarctica is notoriously unreliable for satellite and phone connections. We will have Gabriella and Arianna with Eva at the base to keep us in contact with Jedi, the Professor and the Director.”

“What?” Eva exclaimed. “I have to stay there too?”

“Eva, you’ve been in enough danger recently. It makes no sense to have you out in the field unless you really need to be. Sam needs to find the Dreamer, and the Gear.”

“OK, I guess,” Eva said, begrudgingly. “When do we head for Antarctica?”

“They’re readying the jet now, refuelling and doing flight plans,” Lora replied. “We’ve got another two Guardians and two Agents with us. They’re organizing supplies for us. We’ll leave as soon as they return.”

“Where do you get supplies for an Antarctic expedition at such short notice?” Eva asked. “Wait, why am I even asking? They’re buying stuff from the Save The World store, right?”

“You’d be surprised,” Lora said with a grin.

XAVIER

“Seriously, there’s nothing to worry about,” Xavier whispered to Maria as they followed the rest of the last 13 into the Professor’s office. “It’s not like we’re in trouble. Remember, we’re the good guys.”

“I want you all to pack,” the Professor said to them, “and to be ready to leave the country.”

Maria looked at Xavier with a questioning look.

“Leave the country?” Rapha repeated.

“Yes,” the Professor replied. “After dinner tonight, you will all leave here—under the radar, of course.”

Xavier nodded. Looking around at his last 13 companions assembled in the Professor’s office, he knew Maria was anxious. She’d been having bad dreams all week, just like he had. Cody seemed calm. Rapha was nodding, thinking about what was ahead. Issey still seemed half-asleep. Zara looked nervously at the other faces in the room. Poh was smiling and gave Xavier a thumbs-up as he caught his eye. Xavier grinned in return.

He looked out the windows. The view was familiar now—the UN security cordon remained, circling the perimeter of the campus. There’d been no further security breaches at the Academy and it almost seemed like the UN guards were there mainly to keep the world’s media at a distance. The interest in the last 13, and the fate of the world, had unsurprisingly not diminished in the slightest. If anything, it had only grown in intensity. More news choppers circled the sky, skirting the no-fly zone established over the campus grounds.

“You will be leaving with Phoebe,” the Professor explained further. “Under the cover of darkness, you’ll slip through the cordon outside.”

“But I thought we needed to stay here, together, for the race?” Xavier asked.

The Professor nodded his head. “Yes, that is true. But I have decided, in consultation with Lora and the Director of course, that the Academy might not be the best place for you at this point.” The Professor gazed out the window at the helicopters and media camps set up in the distance. “There are only two Gears left to find. It won’t be long before we will have to leave—to go with Sam to find the Dream Gate. I fear if we wait till the very last moment to make our move, we will find it impossible to make the journey alone.”

“So where will we go?” Zara asked, still looking nervous.

“Everyone in the world knows who we are,” Rapha added.

“Don’t worry, there is someplace safe,” the Professor replied. “I know, after everything you have witnessed, especially in these last few days, it may seem as if we have no one left to trust. But we still have friends on our side. The most important thing, above all else, is that we must make sure the last 13 are prepared for when the time comes to assemble the Bakhu machine.”

“Prepared?” Xavier asked.

“Yes,” the Professor said, “I know that all of you must be there and ready, right at the end.”

“Are you talking about the prophecy?” Xavier said. On the wall, next to where he stood by the windows, was a printout of the Dream Stele hieroglyphs. A translation was written underneath:
Dreaming of their destiny, Minds entwined, thirteen will be. Falter not, the last cannot fall, Or Solaris shall rule over all. One by one each shall unveil, A Gear they need so to prevail. Dream a path through time and space, There to find the sacred place
.

Something about it bugged him. But what? He remembered the night at the museum, when he’d seen Sam and Lora in police uniforms, before he knew about all this, how his father’s sponsored exhibition of antiquities found by Dr. Kader had been attacked by Egyptian Guardians. He stared absently at the words.

“You mean the prophecy, saying that the last 13 will come together,” Maria said.

“That’s right,” the Professor said, standing next to her and Xavier. “All of you—and the two we don’t yet know the identity of—will be there at the end.”

Xavier stared at the English translation words of the prophecy. Then the hieroglyphs.

“Xavier?”

“Professor—you said, ‘I know that all of you must be there’ …” He looked up to the old man. “What makes you so sure of that? It’s more than just the prophecy, isn’t it?”

“I dreamed it,” the Professor said, chuckling. “You
are
your father’s son, that’s for sure—an inquisitive mind and a knack for reading people.”

Yeah, and I can tell he’s still holding something back
.

“What is it?” Xavier asked him. “There’s something else.”

It took a while for the Professor to speak, and when he did, his voice was soft. “I fear, Xavier, that your journey will be harder than most.”

“So do I,” Xavier said, looking at the floor. “I’ve seen it in my dreams.”

The others in the room were silent, their faces betraying their surprise and concern.

“I know,” the Professor said.

“You do?” Xavier replied, recalling his week of nightmares that hadn’t shared with anyone. “But you said we weren’t recording dreams anymore, that it wasn’t safe with all the prying eyes and ears focused on us now.”

“True, but there are more ways that Dreamers can see,” the Professor said, “and you don’t get to be as ancient as me without getting a little wise.”

“So, we’re leaving for Egypt,” Xavier said, certain now. He realized in that moment that he suddenly had great responsibility for what the group were about to do.

We’re following my dreams
.

The Professor nodded.

“To stay with my father—he’s there now,” Xavier said. “Has been for a few days.”

“Is that safe?” Cody asked the Professor. “Won’t people be expecting Xavier to be with his father?”

“No one knows he is there,” Xavier said.

“Xavier is right,” the Professor said. “His father has been preparing for us.”

“Because of him—and because of Ahmed …” Xavier trailed off, then he understood. “That’s why they’ve been working there in Egypt all these years and it’s the reason behind all his work on the Dream Gate. That’s why we have to go there, all of us.”

“Yes,” the Professor said, then turned to the others. “Dr. Dark is going to meet you in Egypt with representatives of the Enterprise.”

“Is Egypt safe?” Zara asked.

“I heard there were riots there,” Maria said.

“And that millions are having nightmares,” Zara added.

“There is unrest everywhere,” the Professor said, his voice tinged with concern. “But I promise you, every precaution will be taken to make sure you are all safe,” he added.

“Where will you be?” Poh asked.

“I will join you,” the Professor said, “but I have something else to attend to first.”

ALEX

Alex stood before a smooth stone wall. It was the size of the side of a house and blocked off the natural cave.

Unlike the floor, this wall was not inscribed or carved at all. It was flat, straight and impossibly perfect, as though erected from a single slab of stone.

Definitely not natural, then
.

And it was not that thick. Banging on it with a rock in his fist, it sounded as though it was a stone drum, and Alex could hear the reverberating echoes on the other side.

“Maybe it’s not a wall at all …” His eyes traced the edges, where it met the floor and the ceiling. “Maybe it’s a door.”

You must be delirious now. A door—this big?

“A door with no handle,” Alex said to himself after inspecting every corner and seam, “makes it a wall. A flat, thin wall, somehow brought here and placed in this cave … but why?”

He looked around the decorated chamber one last time.

So maybe it’s an entrance to something—built a long, long time ago, when this land was habitable
.

Alex chuckled.
Too impossible, surely?

As Alex re-packed his backpack, remembering what he’d learned about Antarctica in geography class and from Ahmed—that it had once been part of a larger land mass and had broken off from Africa and Australia. But that was a long, long time ago.

“Maybe a boat was marooned down here once,” Alex said, taking a final glance at the carvings. “Stuck, like me, and they made this place.”

Dr. Kader would know
.

Alex swung his pack over his shoulders and pulled the straps tight, then zipped up his snowsuit and headed for where the daylight was creeping in the mouth of the cave.

“That … will … do it.”

Alex sat down to test his handiwork. On the exposed side of the mountain he’d stacked some blocks of snow and ice against the wind. It needed more height, but he hunkered down, too tired to do more work now.

Alex pressed the emergency button on the GPS locator and hoped that it would work. He pulled out the flask that he’d tucked between his suit layers, sipping the snow that had melted from his body warmth. Only a few drops fell into his dry mouth. He shook it over his mouth, hoping for a little more, but there was none—it was still packed with snow from the last time he’d stopped and refilled it. The hike up the mountain had taken two hours and he’d drunk the last of his water in the ascent.

He pulled the tin cup from his pack, crammed it full of snow and placed it over a chemical fire cube sitting on the metal stand.

Alex looked around. He was on top of the first ridge of the mountainside that soared up next to the thermal valley, almost directly above the cavern he’d sheltered in. He could not see it for low-lying fog, but the sea was somewhere to the north, over the flat expanse of snow and ice. Behind him the mountains grew taller, rocky and craggy and frozen, impassable to an amateur with no climbing equipment.

He sat, tapped the GPS unit, and rattled it next to his ear.

“It’ll work. Has to work. They’ll find me.”

It was cold and windy sitting there. He re-built the snow wall to be as high as his head, so the wind whipping along from the west wouldn’t cut into him, making him even colder. He fashioned a domed roof from smaller packed bricks of snow. He ate his last biscuit and checked what he had left. Two powdered soups, tea bags, a tube of sweetened milk, a small packet of crackers and a tin of sardines.

Eurgh
.

Alex didn’t like sardines. He didn’t like any creature that you had to eat whole, like mussels or oysters, or bugs and insects for that matter.

“But, if I’m still out here tomorrow,” he said, checking his tin cup full of snow over the broken chemical block that was now glowing hot, “I’ll eat them. Nibble the sides.
Maybe
.”

He checked the radio again. There was nothing but static. He looked up at the mountain behind him.

Maybe I should go higher, get better reception?

It’ll have to be tomorrow … too tired … and it’s too windy
.

He checked the wall of his snow cave and hunkered down. He flexed his fingers and toes, then pulled the hood further down over his face. He already missed the warmth of the rock cave.

Whoever built that place was way smarter than me
.

SAM

Outside by the plane, the Guardians and Jabari finished loading the Academy’s new plane.

Technically
, Sam thought, the aircraft wasn’t
new
.