The Oracle Code by Charles Brokaw Page B

felt certain the writing went back to first century AD. And it gave him hope that he might uncover something extraordinary. As to the identity of the foreigner, the text had said that the man was from the country of tall people.
    Macedon was an abridgement of the Greek word makednos and the Indo-European root mak . Both of those, as Lourds had explained, confirming what Boris already knew, meant tall, long, slender, or highlander. Or all of those things.
    And now, here he was, at a crossroads.
    “Maybe we should go back. Whatever was left here might have gotten taken a long time ago. This thing the delivery guy brought here a couple thousand years ago, it could have been stolen.”
    Boris looked at the young man.
    Evan folded his arms and looked sullen. “I’m just saying, is all.”
    “We’ll go back soon,” Boris said. “We have three passageways ahead of us. The text translation suggests that the cargo was delivered here. Pick one of those passageways, we’ll explore, then we’ll go back to camp.”
    “Cool.” Evan pointed. “The one on the right.”
    “Of course.” Boris promptly started down the one on the left. Boris had heard so many inaccuracies from the young intern that he’d felt more certain choosing the opposite.
    ***
     
    A quarter mile farther down the tunnel, the distance measured by the Leica 764558 Laser Distance Meter that Boris had bought when he’d received his new funding and which he used religiously, the tunnel came to an end in a pile of fallen rock.
    Boris sighed in frustration. The new passageway had borne tool markings, and he’d grown hopeful that there would be something to show for his time and effort.
    Evan summed up their experience in one word. “Bummer.”
    Boris turned to shoot the younger man a baleful glare but stopped as something in the ceiling gleamed. He lost the gleam as his flashlight swept the passageway. Slowly, he brought the flashlight back around in what he hoped was the same kind of arc.
    Boris’s flashlight beam cut across the bright surface again.
    Evan leaned against a wall. His backpack thumped against the stone, and it sounded hollow. He stepped away from the wall in surprise. At the same time, Boris spotted the flash again. He trained his flashlight on the shiny sliver and knelt. His fingers picked at the thin, uneven edge he found there.
    Evan knelt beside him. “What is it?”
    “It looks like a coin.”
    “Someone dropped a penny in the wall?”
    “I don’t know.” Boris pulled the messenger bag strap over his head and placed it beside him. Rummaging inside, he took out a small rock pick and banged at the wall around the coin. The stone was surprisingly soft and gave way at once.
    A moment later, the silver coin tumbled to the floor.
    Awed by what he saw before him, Boris put the pick aside and picked up the coin. The silver coin was about the size of a dime and bore the profile of a man wearing a tight-fitting helm. On the other side, a man seated on a chair held out his hand and clutched a spear in the other.
    “What is that?” Evan peered over Boris’s shoulder.
    Exasperated, Boris turned on the young man. “If you’re going to create a game that is going to hold the attention of a world of gamers and you’re going to use your knowledge of history to do it, you should know what a drachma is.”
    “I know what a drachma is.”
    “What?”
    “A Greek coin. Percy Jackson uses them to call the Greek gods.”
    “ What ?” Boris couldn’t believe his ears. Then he held up his hands. “Never mind.” He picked up his messenger bag, took out a ziplock baggie, and dropped the coin into it. “For your information, that drachma is a coin minted in the time of Alexander the Great. You do know who that is, don’t you?”
    “Of course. King of Macedon.” Evan had slumped back into sullen.
    “Stand back over there. Out of the way. And hold that flashlight on this wall.”
    Evan moved back and held the flashlight steady.
    Excited again,