Prompt: The map is wrong

“Where is it?! It should be right here! But there’s nothing…” Kevin growled and stormed, stomping around the thin ridge overlooking the mountains east of Novosibirsk. He drained the last of his canteen and threw it against the ancient Jeep.

Inessa ignored him, idly twisting her long braid and studying the holomap, tilting it up and down until she matched it to the view from the ridge.

Kevin continued ranting. “Four hundred thousand pesos, and what do we have to show for it? Seven months of planning, weeks on that hellish ship, and for what? Nothing?”

Inessa made no response, gazing out to the west of the ridge, following their route back down into the valley toward Kazhak territory. With typical Argentine arrogance, he converted their hard-earned and quickly spent lira and roubles into the currency of his youth. Most of it had gone to line the pockets of officials from the port along their arduous route to the mountains. If they didn’t find what they were looking for, there was no way they could safely make the return trip.

She stared back at the map while she searched her eidetic memory for everything her father had taught her about the lost Alexander scroll. She had only seen the scroll once, when he first brought it back from the excavation near Kabul. Carefully rolling it onto his home lab bench, Papa had pulled her up on his lap to see the stiff, yellowed parchment.

“Look, Inessa. Here’s the route everyone knows that Alexander took through the south.” He traced the route, his finger hovering above the map. “But this shows his route north of Mongolia. Just think, he could have made it all the way to the Kara Sea! What if Alexander had seen how big the world was beyond the Caucuses?” Papa swung her up as he stood, carrying her out of the lab and up to bed.

“Tell me a story, Papa,” she begged as he tucked her in. It was their nightly ritual, even before Mama left. He laughed and kissed her forehead, tracing Alexander’s route over her bedspread as he told her about the conqueror’s adventures in the wild northern world. It made her giggle to think of the southern Caspian Sea resorts that way.

Thinking of those bedtime stories, Inessa looked at the holo map again, then out past the northern mountains.

“It’s not here,” she said in quiet realization.

Kevin stopped his ranting long enough to sneer. “Oh really? Well, glad you noticed that. Your precious maps are freaking worthless…”

Inessa shook her head and pointed north. “It’s not here, at Novosibirsk.” She pointed to the holo map, drawing a line with her finger hovering above it. “Novosibirsk is too new. It was built in the late 19^th century. We have to go farther north. Alexander’s Gate is at Seversk.”

Kevin recoiled. “Through Tomsk? You want to go through the old nuclear center? Are you insane?” He picked up his canteen and threw it in the back of the Jeep. “I should leave you here and forget about this whole crazy thing.”

“You could,” Inessa said calmly. She knew him with a twin’s intimacy. “But you won’t. You want to know if Papa was right as much as I do…”

Dogs in house	Houdini, Brindle
Time writing:	~1 hour, with some initial research
October word count:	18,750