The Midnight Auction / Season 1, Episode 6
Sealed Secrets Unearthed
Lot 47: The Sealed Reliquary. Contained within a sarcophagus of black basalt, origins traced to the Ptolemaic dynasty, circa 200 BCE. Unearthed in the shadow of the Giza Plateau under circumstances undisclosed. Contents classified as biological, non-human, potential for cellular viability undetermined. Sealed with mechanisms of unknown design, resistant to modern intrusion. Starting bid: seventy million USD. Provenance guaranteed, risk assumed by the buyer. Gentlemen, ladies—place your wagers on the forbidden. Decker’s voice rolls through the cavernous chamber like a tide, smooth and inevitable, carrying that edge of amusement that makes my skin prickle. I’m standing near the back, the air heavy with the scent of ancient stone and the sharp tang of sweat from the gathered crowd. The room—some kind of repurposed crypt beneath a derelict Coptic church in Cairo’s Old Quarter—feels like it’s pressing down on us, the low ceiling of rough-hewn rock slick with moisture. Torches, real ones, not electric, flicker along the walls, casting jagged shadows over faces I’ve come to recognize over these past eight months. Faces I’ve learned to read for tells, for danger. The heat is oppressive, even underground, a sticky weight that clings to my neck under the silk scarf I’ve tied to mask the pulse hammering there. “Seventy million,” Decker repeats, stepping closer to the sarcophagus on its raised dais. He’s...