Treasure Protectors

Chapter 6

The Gates' siblings were silent as they made their way past the offices of the national archives. Bother we're dejected  and discouraged and all Alex wanted was a hard drink and a documentary. 

"If it's any consolation, you had me convinced." Riley tried to comfort them as they walked through the rest of the museum. They both looked at Riley with blank expressions.  

"It's not." Ben shot back. Alex paused for a second at her brothers response before giving him a sympathetic look and simply shrugging. She gave Riley a small smile before looking away. She appreciate his attempt at comfort and while the Gates' siblings knew it would be a long shot, they had hoped that someone in power would take them seriously. 

" I was thinking, what if we go public, plaster the story all over the Internet? It's not like we have our reputations to worry about. Although I don't think that's exactly gonna scare lan away." Riley mumbled the last bit, looking down.

"True. But people would think we're crazy. And crazy people get noticed a lot more." Alex rationalized. She shrugged quickly at the response Riley had given her, a wide eyed look that she had reacted to before she could decipher. 

"Years of searching, and I'm three feet away." Ben began speaking as he stopped the group and stood in front of the aforementioned document. "Of all the words written here about freedom, there's a line here that's at the heart of all the others. "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and provide new guards for their future security." People don't talk that way any more."

Alex searched for the line in the document, unable to find it before Riley started talking.

"Beautiful, huh?  No idea what you said." She cracked a small smile at the response. 

"It means, if there's something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action." 

"That's very noble." Alex responded as Riley stood up straighter. 

I'm gonna steal it."

" What?" Alex and Riley said together, confusion on Alex's face.

" I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence." Ben began walking away, leaving a speechless Alex and Riley standing in front of a document. Riley gave a small laugh before realizing Ben was across the room.

"He can not be serious." Alex exclaimed as they followed her brother. She hadn't expected a response from Riley but he had shrugged and mumbled something incoherent. 

"Ben, wait." Alex had called, trying not to grow attention to the trio and grabbing her brother's arm, leading him through security and onto the steps of the Lincoln memorial. 

"Ben? This is... huge. It's prison huge. You are gonna go to prison, you know that?" He had been silent until leaving the building, ensuring that they were alone before getting no verbal permission from Alex to critique her brother. 

"Yeah, probably."

" So that would bother most people." Riley mumbled ad Alex attempted to bite back a smile of course her brother would be unfazed by that aspect.

"Insane." She mumbled, turning away from the pair, her sarcastic laugh barely biting through the tension. 

"lan's gonna try and steal it. And if he succeeds, he'll destroy the Declaration. The fact is, the only way to protect the Declaration is to steal it. It's upside down."

"It sure is." Alex agreed.

"I don't think there's a choice." Ben replied, looking at his sister. She briefly nodded in understanding.

"Ben, for God's sakes, it's like stealing a national monument. Ok? It's like stealing him. It can't be done. Not shouldn't be done. It can't be done. Let me prove it to you." Riley had made a dramatic show of leading the siblings to his car to drive to the library. Alex could tell that Riley's big plan was to stay silent until reaching their destination but their 5 mile trek in traffic proved to be difficult to sit in silence. Alex had broken the silence by suggesting music as she rode shotgun. This had, of course, led to a long rant regarding the legality of stealing national documents in order to preserve them.

"And I only wanted to listen to Green Day." She had mumbled once her brother started pointing out the history of the state of Virginia and how any individual who cared about the country would try hard to preserve their history. 

Riley shushed Ben mid rant which, while Alex found impressive, didn't quite had the affect he through it was. Ben had given him a glare in response and continued his analysis on what would have happened if the constitution was missing, which Alex had lost interest in. 

"Ok, Ben, Alex, pay attention. I've brought you to the Library of Congress. Why? Because it's the biggest library in the world. Over million books. And they're all saying the same exact thing: listen to Riley." Alex cracked a smile as Ben looked with a lack of amusement. 

"What we have here, my friend, is an entire layout of the archives. Short of builders' blueprints. You've got construction orders, phone lines, water and sewage - it's all here." Riley pointed to  a page in the book he was holding, facing it towards Alex who nodded and smiled, humoring him in the moment. 

"Now, when the Declaration is on display, ok, it is surrounded by guards and video monitors and a little family from lowa and little kids on their eighth-grade field trip. And beneath an inch of bulletproof glass is an army of sensors and heat monitors that will go off if someone gets too close with a high fever. Now, when it's not on display, it is lowered into a four-foot-thick concrete, steel-plated vault... that happens to be equipped with an electronic combination lock and biometric access-denial systems." 

 Alex looked over at the pages Riley was presenting. None of the blueprints meant anything to her. But, Ben had a plan. He always did. And, she always followed him.

"You know, Thomas Edison tried and failed nearly times to develop the carbonised cotton-thread filament for the incandescent light bulb." Ben was met by questioning glances.

"Huh?"

"Edison?"

" When asked about it, he said, "I didn't fail, I found out ways how not to make a light bulb." But he only needed to find one way to make it work. "The Preservation Room. Enjoy. Go ahead. Do you know what the Preservation Room is for?"

"Delicious jams and jellies?" Riley deadpanned. Alex gave a short laugh. 

"That'd be nice." She responded as she leaned over Riley's' shoulder, searching the pages for any semblance  of understanding she could pick out. 

" No." Ben responded, unamused with his two companions, one of which was entirely unprepared for what came next. 

"That's where they clean, repair and maintain all the documents and the storage housings when they're not on display or in the vault. Now, when the case needs work they take it out of the vault, directly across the hall and into the Preservation Room. The best time for us, or lan, to steal it would be during the gala this weekend when the guards are distracted by the VIPs upstairs. But we'll make our way to the Preservation Room, where there's much less security."

He showed the duo a layout of the preservation room, noticing as his sister gave him a disbelieving look before returning her attention to the page. Even if she didn't understand half the words her brother said, she'd follow his direction. For her, there wasn't a choice between what was legal or illegal. Instead it was whether she was loyal to the only family who was there for her, her brother and grandfather, or not. She took a step back before giving her brother a silent nod. 

"Well, if lan... Preservation... The gala, huh? This might be possible." Riley mumbled. He continued to search through the pages no Alex could see the gears turning in his head. 

Ben looked at his two companions. He was waiting for them to find a way out. 

"Let's get started." Alex announced, walking away from the two men. They shared once glance before following after the girl who was already wary of their decision.