DeMeo came to a halt beside him, breathing hard, the sweat pouring off his brow, smelling like a damp sock.
“All right, let’s see…” He unrolled one of the plats. Naturally, DeMeo was holding it upside down, and it took him several seconds to right it.
“Give it to me,” said Lipper, snatching it from him and smoothing it out. He glanced at his watch. Still five minutes before the curatorial committee was due to arrive. No problem—at two dollars a minute, Lipper would wait for Godot.
He sniffed, looked around. “Someone’s going to have to do something about this humidity. I can’t have my electronics sitting in a sweatshop.”
“Yeah,” said DeMeo, looking around. “And will you look at this weird shit? I mean, what the hell’s that? Gives me the creeps.”
Lipper glanced over at the fresco in question, depicting a human being with the black head of an insect, wearing pharaonic dress. The burial chamber was creepy: walls black with hieroglyphics, ceiling covered with a representation of the night sky, strange yellow stars and a moon against a field of deep indigo. But the truth was, Lipper liked being creeped out. It was like being inside the world of Darkmord for real.
“That’s the god Khepri,” he said. “A man with the head of a scarab beetle. He helps roll the sun across the sky.” Working on the project had fascinated Lipper, and he’d delved deeply into Egyptian mythology over the last several weeks, looking for background and visual cues.
“The Mummy meets The Fly,” said DeMeo with a laugh.
Their conversation was cut short by a rising hubbub of voices as a group entered the burial chamber: the man in charge, Menzies, followed by his curators.
“Gentlemen! I’m glad you’re already here. We don’t have much time.” Menzies came forward, shook their hands. “You all know each other, of course.”
They all nodded. How could they not, having practically been living together these past few weeks? There was Dr. Nora Kelly, someone Lipper could at least work with; the smug Brit named Wicherly; and Mr. Personality himself, the anthropology curator, George Ashton. The committee.
As the new arrivals talked briefly among themselves, Lipper felt a painful dig in his ribs. He looked over to see DeMeo, mouth open, winking and leering. “Man, oh man,” he whispered, nodding at Dr. Kelly. “I’d climb all over that in a heartbeat.”
Lipper glanced away, rolling his eyes.
“Well!” Menzies turned to address them again. “Shall we do the walk-through?”
“Sure thing, Dr. Menzies!” said DeMeo.
Lipper gave him a look he hoped would shut the moron up. This was his plan, his brainwork, his artistry: DeMeo’s job was rack-mounting the equipment, pulling cable, and making sure juice got to all parts of the system.
“We should start at the beginning,” Lipper said, leading them back to the entrance with another warning side glance at DeMeo.
They threaded their way back through the half-built exhibits and the construction teams. As they approached the entrance to the tomb, Lipper felt his annoyance at DeMeo displaced by a growing excitement. The “script” for the sound-and-light show had been written by Wicherly, with various additions by Kelly and Menzies, and the end result was good. Very good. In turning it into reality, he’d made it even better. This was going to be one kick-ass exhibition.
Reaching the God’s First Passage, Lipper turned to face the others. “The sound-and-light show will be triggered automatically. It’s important that people be let into the tomb as a group and move through it together. As they proceed, they’ll trip hidden sensors that in turn start each sequence of the show. When the sequence ends, they will move to the next part of the tomb and see the next sequence. After the show ends, the group will have fifteen minutes to look around the tomb before being escorted out and the next group brought in.”
He pointed to the ceiling. “The first sensor will be up there, in the corner. As the visitors pass this point, the sensor will register, wait thirty seconds for stragglers to catch up, and start the first sequence, which I call act 1.”
“How are you hiding the cable?” asked Menzies.
“No problem,” broke in DeMeo. “We’re running it through black one-inch conduit. They’ll never see it.”
“Nothing can be affixed to the painted surface,” said Wicherly.
“No, no. The conduit is steel, self-supporting, only needs to be anchored in the corners. It floats two millimeters above the surface of the paint, won’t even touch it.”
Wicherly nodded.
Lipper breathed out, thankful that DeMeo hadn’t come across as an idiot—at least not yet.