Chapter 3: The Base
     “Well, Elizabeth,” said Sam, “your day’s about to get weirder.  Rose, if you please.”  Rose raised her hand, and Elizabeth’s head floated out of Sam’s hands and positioned itself in front of Rose.  Sam opened his coat, and the other parts of Elizabeth floated out of his pockets and positioned themselves in their proper places under her head.  Sam walked over and ran his hands over the joins, and piece by piece, Elizabeth once again became whole.
     “Here you are,” said Sam as he handed Elizabeth her clothes back.  “You can go ahead and get dressed again.  Keep the protection suit on, though.  You might still need it.”
     “Why?” asked Elizabeth.  “What’s going on here?  And where the hell are we?”
     “Wade, that’s your cue.”
     “Yeah,” said Wade.  “I’ll take it from here, Sam.  First of all, we are currently located in a sort of alternate dimension.  Whenever a magician makes something disappear, and I mean for real, this is where it ends up.  While we’re in here, nobody out there can get to us without using the same method I did, and even if they did, there’s a very slim chance they’d end up anywhere near us.  As for what’s going on, we are here to keep you safe and prevent the disc from falling into the wrong hands.”
     “Just what do you know about the disc?  I’ve never seen writing like that before, and I can’t understand why it hasn’t deteriorated after being on the seafloor for centuries.”
     “We don’t really know too much about the disc,” said Rose.  “We don’t even know who made it.  What we do know is that it was being kept in the Library of Alexandria for study and safekeeping.  The ship you discovered was the last one to leave Alexandria before the library was destroyed in the late first century BC, probably by people who were trying to get the disc.  The disc is one fourth of a talisman that bestows almost unlimited power upon the bearer.  The four pieces of the talisman contain a little bit of magic in them individually, but the disc contains more than any of the other three.  We think that whoever is looking for the pieces has already found one or two of them, but if they were to get a hold of the disc, their power would multiply tenfold.”
     “Who?  Who is looking for the disc?”
     “We don’t know,” said Wade.  “We’ve only ever met their low-level henchmen.  None of them have known who they were working for.”
     “Anyway,” said Sam, “we’ve spent enough time in here getting to know each other.  Wade, let’s head back to the van.”
     “Got it.”  Wade made a gesture at the gateway that led into the alley, and the image faded into the interior of some kind of laboratory.  The four of them walked through the gateway and into the facility, whatever it was, where Elizabeth saw someone else in a chair waiting for them.  When his chair spun towards them, she was startled to see a man who looked just like Sam, except not blind.  
     “Oh, good,” he said.  “I was starting to get worried.  Is this Dr. Peyton?”
     “Yep, we got her, safe and sound,” said Sam.  “Dr. Elizabeth Peyton, meet Steve, my brother.”
     “Pleasure, Doctor,” said Steve as he shook Elizabeth’s hand.  “Welcome to the Mystery Machine.  That’s what we call our little bus here.”
     “Well, that’s what he calls it, anyway,” said Sam.  
     “Bus?  What is this place?”
     “It’s our mobile headquarters.  It’s got lab space, bunks, surveillance gear, everything we need on four wheels.  Now, we’ve got to get to your boat in a hurry, so come on forward and give me directions.”  She followed him down the narrow aisle in the middle of the lab, and at the end she saw a small room with a large window, a wheel, and two seats that looked, sure enough, like a truck cab.  She sat down in the right-hand seat and guided Steve through the streets of Alexandria to the pier where her research vessel was berthed.  
     “Well, here we are,” she said.  “The disc’s in there.”
     “We’re here, everybody!” Steve shouted back to the others.  He got up from the driver’s seat and headed back to a desktop screen, where he pulled up a computer-generated image of the surrounding area.  Small green dots floated through the streets in random patterns.  
     “What’s this?” said Elizabeth.  “You’re not tracking everyone around here, are you?”
     “Sure are,” said Steve.  “Some fancy electronic footwork by me, some psychic mumbo-jumbo from my brother, and we’ve got real-time surveillance on every human brain within 500 yards with a rough idea of their intentions.  Sam, Wade, Rose, looks like you’re good to go.  No black hats in the vicinity.”  He picked up a headset.  “Comm check, Steve.”
     “Wade.”
     “Rose.”
     “Sam.”
     “Coming in five by five.  Bring me back something nice, will you?”
     “That’s the plan,” said Sam.  “Elizabeth, after you.”
     Elizabeth stepped out into the bright Mediterranean sun and led the trio on board her research vessel.  They followed her past the confused faces of Elizabeth’s team of grad students and junior researchers and into her private office.
     “It’s just in here, in my desk drawer.”  She opened the desk drawer containing her safe.  “Hang on, let me get my key.”  She began to fish in her pockets.  
     Back in the lab, Steve saw something on his screen.  He quickly spoke into his headset.  “Uh-oh, guys, we got a problem.”
     Sam’s, Rose’s, and Wade’s hands went to their ears.  “Whatcha got, Steve?” asked Wade.
     “I’ve got five black hats inbound on your location.  You got five minutes, tops.”
     “Damn it, Steve,” shouted Sam, “I thought you said the area was clear!”
     “It was!  They just popped in there!”
     “Okay, team, let’s move,” said Wade.  “Sam, guard the door.  Rose, get the disc.”
     Rose strode over to the desk and reached into the drawer.  Her hand passed effortlessly through the door of the safe.  In moments, she stepped back from the desk with the disc in her hand.  “Got it.  Let’s get out of here.”
     The four of them rushed through the boat’s passageways as fast as they could.  They rushed down the ship’s gangplank and headed along the pier towards where Steve was waiting in the van.  As they reached the door, Sam stopped in his tracks.
“Guys!  We’ve got trouble!”  He spun around, his cane at the ready.  Wade, Rose, and Elizabeth followed suit.
     Behind them, they found five men that had just come from around a corner.  
     “Oh, shit.  Everybody scatter!” said Wade.
     Five automatic weapons were drawn, and five triggers were pulled.