Avril shook her head. “All records we have say there is absolutely nothing left of London. It was one city that was bombarded very hard in the last days of the war.”
“Xi’an Museum in New Beijing in the Northern Federation,” Gunn snarled.
Avril considered for a second. “We’ll put it on the list, but it’s unlikely to yield anything interesting.” She looked at Nik. “Dr. Phoenix, I’d really appreciate your ideas.” She smiled. “May I call you Niklas?”
Not many people called him Niklas. Eos and his brothers, sometimes. But Nera always called him Niklas. “Nik’s fine.”
“Nik.” That earned him another wide smile. “Any ideas?”
“Most museums supposedly evacuated their prized pieces well before the final destruction of Earth. Anything of value was taken away on ships.” He tried to hide his smile. “And we know the legends and rumors of where those artifacts were stored. In places like Star’s End.”
“Lucky bastard,” Gunn muttered under his breath.
“My brothers and my sister-in-law—” he speared Nera with a look “—with some help, found the stash there.”
“It was a marvelous find,” Avril said. Her gaze turned inward. “Just a shame the final fragment of the Mona Lisa was missing.”
Nera raised a brow at Nik. “Yes, a shame.”
Nik knew exactly where the Mona Lisa was.
“You think all Earth’s treasures were shipped away?” Avril asked.
Nik shook his head. “Unlikely. My research indicates some countries were holding out, especially with their smaller or less-popular museums. They were hoping the war would end, preferably with a peaceful solution.”
Gunn snorted. “That didn’t work out so well for them.”
“No.” Nik was hating Gunn even more. “Billions of people perished. The Northern Federation and the United Countries of the Americas launched terrible attacks. They used new nuclear technology that mixed anti-matter bombs with nanotechnology.” He shook his head, thinking of the wanton destruction. “It rendered most of the planet uninhabitable, and the radiation is still at very high levels, even now. Billions died. Men, women, children, gone.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Nik cleared his throat. “Those who hadn’t left the planet any way they could, and weren’t annihilated in the bombings, would have survived a little while longer. Suffering from radiation sickness, they had to find a way to survive the shutdown of life as they knew it—no power, no manufacturing, no medical help. And a nuclear winter would have set in. Most people wouldn’t have had the skills to grow their own food…and nothing would have grown, anyway.”
“Poor souls,” Avril said.
“The last record of anyone coming near Earth was a ship from the Australia II colony. They detected no signs of human life, but couldn’t land…the radiation was at a level they couldn’twithstand, and they didn’t have the tech back then to survive it. After that?—”
“Humanity looked outward,” Nera said. “To the rest of the galaxy. They colonized new worlds, and over time created new languages, new religions, new ways of life, and carried out new atrocities.”
Nik studied her impassive face. So damned beautiful and so hard to read.
“So, Nik, what’s your recommendation on where we should look?” Avril asked.
“New York.”
“What?” She looked taken aback. “There are solid, confirmed records it was evacuated early. The main museums were emptied out, or artifacts were moved to other museums around the country or shipped off-planet.”
“The inner city, yes, but not in the suburbs. I’ve found snippets from records that say there were some, certainly smaller, but quality museums in the suburbs that never moved their collections.”
“Okay.” Avril nodded. “That does sound promising.”
“Come on.” Gunn shot to his feet. “I want to see a big payday here. I don’t want to dig around in the ruins of some family homes.” He threw his hands up. “I want gold, and silver, and gems. I don’t want damn shards of dinner plates or kids’ toys.”
“That kind of stuff is just as important historically,” Nik said. “There is still so much we don’t know about the final years on Earth.”
“Just can it, High-and-Mighty Phoenix. No one gives a fuck about history.” He made a scoffing noise. “The Institute, most of all.”
“You’re mean, sloppy, and lazy, Gunn,” Nik said. “I don’t really care what you have to say.”
