The Last Empress of Mars

Outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada - Present Day

Heading for Costa Rica was not on Felicity´s agenda for this Thursday morning but she had been worried sick after not hearing from her grandfather for several days, she felt it was an urgent matter to seek him out and make sure he was okay and she had started to make travel arrangements when that heartbreaking call came in. The American Embassy in San José called to inform her that her grandfather had died and the worst part, that he had been found murdered! She would soon likely be, the only person other than his murderers who had any inkling of the reasons behind this apparently non-sensical crime. Before that fateful call came in, she had imagined he might be languishing in a jail unable to contact her or the outside world, or even worse, in a hospital in critical condition since it was not his modus operandi to be out of touch for so long. As his only family, she had become accustomed to having him run off across the world on a moment’s notice but he had always remained in contact and checked in every other day at least. A PhD in Archeology graced his office wall but more than an academic, he was an adventurer and a dreamer at heart. In particular, he was a treasure hunter and had gained international fame for some of his amazing finds. However, lately, he had been more secretive than usual and appeared nervous about someone or something. Felicity had tried to pry some information from him, which she had always been very successful at in the past since he had passed on to her his deep passion for archeology, history and lost treasures, but this time he would not reveal anything at all, claiming it was better for her not to be involved at this stage of the game and it was this extremely unusual attitude on his part that had her most worried when he had broken contact so abruptly. Adding to the mystery was the small sealed Chinese box and a diary which he had given to her a few days earlier with explicit instructions that the box should be opened, and the diary read, only in the case of his death. Curiously enough, finding wealth had never been the reason for her grandfather’s treasure hunting, as he came from a very wealthy family. He did it for the challenge and for the satisfaction and sheer thrill of finding what nobody else had been able to find and in the process, he had discovered