Lost Empire (Fargo Adventures 2)

Selma pointed the remote at the LCD, and a moment later a Google Earth-like overhead image of Chicomoztoc Island appeared. The camera zoomed out to encompass the nearby isles and the bay itself.

Selma pressed another button.

Slowly at first, then gaining more speed, the image began to morph as a time line at the margin counted backward in ten-year increments. Sea levels rose and fell; coastlines retreated and expanded; jungles thinned and thickened. A column of smoke drifted across the bay, followed by a second.

“Hold,” Sam called, and Selma paused the animation. “Volcanoes?” Remi nodded. “Looks like it.”

Selma hit Play again. Water levels rapidly rose and retreated. And then land began moving.

“There it goes,” Remi murmured.

“Can you slow it down, Selma?” asked Sam

Selma touched a button on the remote.

The screen’s time line read 782 A.D. The animation slowed to one-year-per-second increments. Sam and Remi watched, transfixed, as the horns of the bay gradually began rising from the sea and crawling toward each other as all the islands in the bay except Chicomoztoc disappeared beneath the surface. By the time the time line reached the year 419 A.D., the bay had become landlocked. All that remained was a lone island, shaped like the flower-shaped cave in the Chicomoztoc illustration, in the middle of what had morphed into a lake.

“No wonder that otherwise marshy piece of land in the middle of Lake Texcoco looked so appealing to them,” Remi said. “They were coming home.”

SAM AND REMI thanked Selma and returned to the solarium.

“Which one do you want to do first?” Sam asked.

“Which what?”

“Which excavation: the outrigger on Madagascar, Chicomoztoc Island, or the Shenandoah? Once we make the announcement, I suspect it won’t take long for expeditions to begin forming. I’d like to think we’ll have our first pick.”

Remi thought about it a moment, then shrugged. “You?”

Sam smiled. “Each one has its appeal.” He dug into his pocket and came up with a quarter. He made a fist and placed the coin on top of his thumbnail. “Two tosses. We go with the winner?”

Remi nodded.

Sam Fargo flipped the coin and it twirled skyward.