Name:Felix Richardson
Occupation:Equipment Tech
Institution:Field Museum, Chicago, IL
“Rafa.”
“You know anyone else here?” He chomped into the empanada, staring at Rafa and waiting for an answer.
Rafa glanced in Miri’s direction, this time catching her staring back at him before she quickly looked away. “Not really. You?”
“Nah. Though my boss back at the Field Museum is friends with the leads, Dr. Mejía and Dr. Matthews. He talks about them all the time. Can’t believe I’m going to get to work with them. It’s going to be fucking sweet.”
Rafa hadn’t been given the names of the project leads in advance, otherwise maybe he would have looked them up whenhe’d been researching the Moon City. Now he regretted not insisting on more details from his boss when he’d practically pushed him out the door on this job. Everyone was talking about Drs. Mejía and Matthews like they were a couple of celebrities.
“What’s the deal with those two?” Rafa asked.
Felix cleared his throat. “They’re, like, the most famous archaeologists in the world right now. Did you hear about that dig gone to shit down in Mexico about a year and a half ago? It was all over the news. With the smugglers and the ancient remains of that Aztec warrior?”
Come to think of it, Rafa did remember hearing about it. He’d been on assignment at the time in northern Nova Scotia, so he hadn’t gotten deep into the press, but he recalled thinking it sounded pretty wild.
“Yeah, that was them. And Dr. Mejía is a total babe,” the other guy said.
Rafa raised an eyebrow.
“Real professional,” Rafa said, wrinkling his forehead. The man’s face turned bright red. If he was looking for others to engage in locker room banter, Rafa wouldn’t be one of them.
“Everyone, everyone,” Anissa said from the front table. “I know you are all ready to hear more about the assignment from the project leaders. They aren’t here at the moment, but they’ve sent a recording that I’m going to play for you now.”
Rafa glanced over at Miri, catching her gaze for a fraction of a second. His cocked head and lifted brow asked the words his lips could not:Are we pretending like we’ve never seen each other before?But her expression gave no answer.
Her eyes fixed to the screen along with everyone else’s, determined not to give him any clues, and he sighed internally. Guess he should probably pay attention, too.
“Good evening, team. I’m Dr. Socorro Mejía and this is my partner, Dr. Ford Matthews…”
Hmm.A rather attractive duo stared at them from the video, and now Rafa understood everyone’s obsession—Dr. Mejíawashot. Smokin’ hot. And he wasn’t embarrassed to admit it, but Dr. Matthews was pretty fucking good-looking, too.
ButRafa’smind was still focused on a certain pair of sapphire eyes.
“You’re probably wondering where we are, and we’ll get to that shortly. But first, we want to explain a bit more about why you are here,” Dr. Mejía continued. “The twelve of you have been selected to comprise an expedition team to search for the Cidade Perdida da Lua—the Lost City of the Moon.”
A few hushed murmurs carried among the group. Interesting. Guess not everyone knew about the assignment in advance.
“We assume everyone has at least heard of the Cidade da Lua, but in case you haven’t, here is a primer,” Dr. Matthews said. “For centuries, explorers all over the world have searched for this fabled ancient land. No one knows its exact location, but according to the stories, the Moon City is located somewhere in the Amazon. Legend says that the city glistens under moonlight.
“The earliest accounts of the Moon City date back to the early fifteen hundreds. It was a city full of riches—precious metals, gemstones, ceramics, and textiles. The people who lived there flourished in the mid-to-late fifteen hundreds but abandoned the city without reason or explanation and fled to nearby lands. Possibly descendants of the Inca, or even the ancestors of the Yanomami or Kayapo. No one knows—”
“Because,” Dr. Mejía cut in, “no one truly knows whether the Moon City existed. We want to be clear: this expedition could end up a bust…”
Yeah, especially if Rafa was able to succeed. He’d heard these stories, too, from his father.You must protect it, son. You must protect the Cidade da Lua and your mother’s legacy.
His father’s voice echoed in his head, warning him of the desecration of the holy city if the Western world got its hands on it. The city had been abandoned for a reason—to protect its riches from the invasion of the Spaniards. To protect it from people like Mr. Larity, Dr. Mejía, and Dr. Matthews. He couldn’t let them destroy it. But more importantly, he couldn’t let his father down.
It had always been only the two of them. Rafa and his dad. His father had shared his fascination with archaeology and his penchant for world travel with Rafa at an early age, even pulling strings and getting him the job atGlobal Geography, a dream job by any journalist’s standards.
He’d been to more than one hundred countries. Seen the Seven Wonders of the World. Some more than once. Marveled at the earth’s beauty. Almost cried the first time he watched the sunset in H? Long Bay, Vietnam. And for years, it seemed he’d hit the career lottery. Whowouldn’twant to do all these amazing things?
But as Rafa’s frequent-flyer status ticked up, his enthusiasm for being a world traveler slowly ticked down. For every country he’d visited, he’d had to miss a friend’s party. For each expedition he’d gone on, he’d had to cancel a date. He lived out of suitcases and subsisted on microwave dinners and takeout on the rare occasion he was off-assignment. When it was all said and done, the only person he ever had to come home to was his father. And even then, with all his father’s philanthropy endeavors and various boards and committees, half the time when Rafa came home, he didn’t even havehim.
