* * *
They rode home, heads together over her tablet as Tesla stood guard. Louise’s spider had found a dozen photographs taken of Dufae’s chest. It matched her CGI sketch perfectly. The pictures were dated from last year. The text explained that the chest had been discovered in the basement of the Louvre. It was labeled “unidentified block of unknown wood with possible Elvish runes” with a side note that it had been donated to the museum in 1897.
On that site there was nothing else about the chest but there were hundreds of other photographs of objects found around the world at various museum and private collections. The common dominator was that they were all suspected of being from Elfhome prior to the first Startup.
“We were right that it must have been common for the elves to travel to Earth,” Louise said.
“But it doesn’t explain why they stopped,” Jillian said impatiently. She pulled out her tablet and started to follow trails of data. “Okay, where is the box now?”
“All these objects are part of a crowd-sourcing project. Oh! The irony!”
“What?”
“All these objects are linked to Dr. Forthwright,” Louise said.
“Forthwright? Our character?”
“No, the woman we based him on.” They’d changed the woman’s name to hide the fact that they’d raided her personal computer three years ago. Because they often played Forthwright opposite of Prince Yardstick and Director Maynard of the EIA, it felt weirdly sexist to keep the one non-ninja scientist female since they had made the character both extremely nearsighted and often clueless. It was like they were saying somehow that women shouldn’t be intelligent. They’d changed the sex as well as the name of the anthropologist. “Dr. Cassie Banks.”
“Okay, that’s a weird coincidence.”
“Dr. Banks has a sister that works at the Smithsonian. While doing inventory on objects in storage, her sister found a vase labeled ‘Jefferson’s Chinese Vase’ with what appeared to be Elvish runes. She sent photos of the vase to Dr. Banks, who recognized the mark. It’s a stamp that elves use to identify the clan and household who made the item.”
“Jefferson’s Chinese Vase?” Jillian said.
“Maybe they thought the Elvish Runes looked like Chinese characters.”
“They don’t look anything like Chinese!”
“The vase was last cataloged in 1912. They didn’t have the Internet and translation software.”
“It’s the Smithsonian!”
Louise chased data to answer the question instead of theorizing. “They’ve since verified that it did belong to Thomas Jefferson. It was anonymously donated to the Smithsonian in the 1898 by someone claiming that his grandfather had stolen it during the Civil War when the Confederates seized Monticello. At the time, they had no way to establish authenticity, so they left it in storage.”
Jillian growled and focused back on her tablet. “But what about the box?”
“All the photos are part of a crowd-sourcing project Dr. Banks started with curators from around the world. They searched their museum storage facilities for buried Elfhome artifacts. Oh! The porcelain vase was thought to be Chinese because of its age. The method of creating porcelain wasn’t introduced to Europe until 1712…”
“What about the box?” Jillian cried. “I don’t care about the freaking vase!”
“I’m looking!” Louise scanned ahead faster. “All the pieces were gathered into one exhibit and it’s touring! Currently it’s in, oh god, Australia!”
“You’ve got to be kidding! Paris is at least just on the other side of the Atlantic.”
Louise found the exhibition site and then a list of dates and cities that it expected to hit. “It’s coming to New York!”
“Oh, boy, is it ever.” Jillian tilted her tablet so show an article titled: Secret Treasures Opening at American Museum of Natural History on June Fourteenth! Sign Petition Now! “This site is run by Earth for Humans; the same group that’s holding the protests against the expansion of the quarantine zone around Pittsburgh. The exhibit has their panties in a knot.”
“June fourteenth! That barely gives us any time. We need to save the babies before the end of June.”
The box had been given the name “Louvre morceau de bois” and careful non-evasive investigations had concluded that the box was solid Elfhome ironwood. The runes were being considered magical in nature but so far the type of spell hadn’t been determined.
Jillian started to bounce in her seat. “Oh, Lou, this is so cool! They have no idea what it is! They don’t know it opens! The nactka are still inside.”