One year ago
The Hand … was there any corner of the globe that this sadistic group of reptiles didn’t feel like they could treat as their own personal empire to conquer? Isabel had been here for less than a week before she had picked up their trace, well to her it was more of a rotten smell actually. They were surreptitious as always, but as easy to spot as they were lacking in the finer graces when it came to information gathering and surveillance. This same lack of grace transferred to their acquisition of items, instead relying on brute force. More than one time they had literally snatched their goal from Isabel’s hands, having let her do the hard work, and then resorting to what amounted to armed robbery to liberate whatever item they wanted from her. To be honest Isabel knew little of the Hand or their methods. She had no idea what their organization did … one thing was for certain though, unlike her they weren’t picking up these items for placement in a museum.
The museum in question was an extension of the Elektra foundation. Founded by the rich, some would say megalomaniacal, billionaire Tarven Natchios, and dedicated to preserve the memory of his lost wife, the Elektra Foundation was everything he could do for her in her death that he could not do for her in life. She had been a much younger wife, chosen primarily for her looks, but he had not counted on falling in love with Elektra. Even after doing so the love in his heart could not compete with the greed, at least not it seemed until Elektra had died a young death of an illness that should not have been fatal. This death though steeled Aristotle to what was really important. He grasped on to what he had left, but in this case it was only the whisper of a memory of something which might have been, and a daughter who would probably never forgive him for betraying her mother’s love. In fact, Isabel had never forgiven him, not because she was opposed to forgiveness, but because she had no time for her father. Her sole goal was the same as her father’s - to preserve the memory of her mother through the collection of a great center for learning, all in her name. She didn’t care about taking his money, that was only a means to an end. Isabel had been offered the role of curator, but she was uninterested. Directing the flow of items had all the intimacy of a memo. If she was to honour her mother’s memory, it would be by getting her hands dirty. This meant she was head of acquisitions, but unlike the people that worked for her, she was not just buying items from estate sales or surplus archaeological finds, she was finding them herself, and sometimes in not so easy to get to places.
It was really not so surprising that she was so good at this. One of the hallmarks of her childhood was the separation from her parents, courtesy of a father that didn’t know how to love and a mother who didn’t know how to challenge him. From the age of eight, it had been Isabel’s lot to live at a faraway boarding school. For the child who was very much her mother’s daughter, full of inquisition and curiosity, it did not take her long to figure out how to really educate herself. Isabel would live in a boarding school until she figured out what she needed to know, then she would make herself enough of a problem to be expelled in which case she got bounced to another country and a new challenge. By the time she was seventeen she had already lived in eleven countries, not counting where she was born, and the where she was raised, and along the way she had learned enough of everything which she needed. In Saint Petersburg she learned how to steal, in Singapore she learned how to fall from a roof and walk away, in Rio she learned how to make men do whatever she wanted, in rural Canada she learned how to live off the land without dying and in Japan she learned how to kill a man with her bare hands. Her university was the portrait of perfection which her younger years had never been. Despite her horrible record, money bought her way into , where she had excelled at mathematical history, which in simple terms is the use of mathematical cryptography to break languages and unlock mysteries of the past.
Despite being quite skilled at all these things, when she got to a country like she still faced a number of logistical problems. First of all despite that she was pretty good at keeping languages in her head from the places where she had lived, she had only a rudimentary of Lao, the local language. Secondly, as much as she could ever try she would never become any less of an attractive Caucasian women, which in most parts of the world turned heads and weren’t taken seriously. This meant that she needed help and finding help always invariably became an issue of money versus quality. The endeavor became even harder because she knew that whenever she talked to someone that the Hand would be right behind her, asking where she was going and what she was going for. To be fair though it was known around the world that if Isabel was going for something it was the worth going after. The items she found were often more than run of the mill treasure, they were items rumoured to be infused with ancient magics. She had to be extra cautious with these, she was after all a treasure hunter, but more so than losing treasure she didn’t want certain things to fall into the wrong people’s hands.
Still she was not sure why the Hand was here. This was a more run-of-the-mill operation, not so much going after an item in specific, but just a fact finding expedition deep into the Laotian jungle near the Chinese border. She was not guaranteed to find anything at all, let alone anything of value. Most of the potential guides she talked to basically confirmed this to her, adding in a bit of laughter for effect to intone that she would never make it out alive. It was hard to explain without being insulting that she was more afraid for the lives of the guides, but after a couple of days in the capital she had found at least a couple of men that seemed trustworthy and competent and could get her to where she was going.
Two weeks into the expedition the men knew that they had underestimated her. They were certainly being well paid for their efforts, but as with many guides they were not certain of the reasons for such an expedition. They had thought to lead her around on a touristic route and then go home early, certain that the bugs and the heat and the general lack of comfort would send her home. They had not really counted on her taking so much time, not in terms of moving slowly, but in terms of being meticulous, and they were now several days behind schedule.
Isabel had woken up on day 15 to find her guides gone. This was not exactly a surprise, it was not the first time that this had happened, and probably wouldn’t be the last. She had paid the men in advance, but only by one week, the remainder was supposed to have been paid after, but it looks like she got a week for free now. She did not mind as much, making her own trail was not difficult, just more time consuming as she had to make or break camp in the time she would usually be planning her day’s route. She was marginally more concerned about her own security now, three people was a lot more than one in terms of safety, and she would have to sacrifice sleep now, which would slow her down even more. She thought about calling off her expedition then and there, but there was no guarantee that she would get much farther the next time plus she liked the freedom of operating alone. Maybe not telling the guys was not such a good plan anyway, after weeks in the jungle she was expecting to run across a monastery with the next twelve hours or so. Generally these places are fairly accommodating of visitors, and they likely would have gotten a warm meal and maybe even a bed. All the better in a sense, with the guides gone she could play on their sympathies a bit better.
She had been left with essentially what she had been carrying. The men had not known about the pistol she carried with her – if they had they might have been tempted to take it when they left. Still she had basically all she needed, in addition to the pistol she also had a machete which would provide another makeshift weapon if needed. It was unlikely she would need to defend herself in such a way anyway. The proximity to the border made her safe. In most countries, the proximity would make this area a free-for-all, but no one it seemed wanted to mess around with the Chinese border. Getting caught on the wrong side could make for a significant deal of trouble. After another day of fighting through the jungle Isabel arrived tired and exhausted to the monastery in near pitch darkness. Most people had the concept that a monastery was some sort of fortress with tall walls and warriors ready to defend it, but in reality they were more just communal living areas. This one was built into a cliff face, well really more of a sequence of cliff faces, with a sort of flatter area in the middle providing the communal meeting ground and the location of the only manmade structure there, a simple dais where the leader of the group could provide some semblance of direction. Mostly the adherents were here because they had devoted themselves to a life of quiet contemplation though, and each therefore spent a majority of the time in their own personal caves, reading ancient texts by candlelight, or channel their faith through their hymns. It did not seem like a place that would be accepting of visitors, but the law of the jungle applied here as everywhere, if someone was lost or in need they were to be cared for.
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