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sure of that? It’s more than just the prophecy, isn’t it?”
    “I dreamed it,” the Professor said, chuckling. “You
are
your father’s son, that’s for sure—an inquisitive mind and a knack for reading people.”
    Yeah, and I can tell he’s still holding something back
.
    “What is it?” Xavier asked him. “There’s something else.”
    It took a while for the Professor to speak, and when he did, his voice was soft. “I fear, Xavier, that your journey will be harder than most.”
    “So do I,” Xavier said, looking at the floor. “I’ve seen it in my dreams.”
    The others in the room were silent, their faces betraying their surprise and concern.
    “I know,” the Professor said.
    “You do?” Xavier replied, recalling his week of nightmares that hadn’t shared with anyone. “But you said we weren’t recording dreams anymore, that it wasn’t safe with all the prying eyes and ears focused on us now.”
    “True, but there are more ways that Dreamers can see,” the Professor said, “and you don’t get to be as ancient as me without getting a little wise.”
    “So, we’re leaving for Egypt,” Xavier said, certain now. He realized in that moment that he suddenly had great responsibility for what the group were about to do.
    We’re following my dreams
.
    The Professor nodded.
    “To stay with my father—he’s there now,” Xavier said. “Has been for a few days.”
    “Is that safe?” Cody asked the Professor. “Won’t people be expecting Xavier to be with his father?”
    “No one knows he is there,” Xavier said.
    “Xavier is right,” the Professor said. “His father has been preparing for us.”
    “Because of him—and because of Ahmed …” Xavier trailed off, then he understood. “That’s why they’ve been working there in Egypt all these years and it’s the reason behind all his work on the Dream Gate. That’s why we have to go there, all of us.”
    “Yes,” the Professor said, then turned to the others. “Dr. Dark is going to meet you in Egypt with representatives of the Enterprise.”
    “Is Egypt safe?” Zara asked.
    “I heard there were riots there,” Maria said.
    “And that millions are having nightmares,” Zara added.
    “There is unrest everywhere,” the Professor said, his voice tinged with concern. “But I promise you, every precaution will be taken to make sure you are all safe,” he added.
    “Where will you be?” Poh asked.
    “I will join you,” the Professor said, “but I have something else to attend to first.”

06
    ALEX
    Alex stood before a smooth stone wall. It was the size of the side of a house and blocked off the natural cave.
    Unlike the floor, this wall was not inscribed or carved at all. It was flat, straight and impossibly perfect, as though erected from a single slab of stone.
    Definitely not natural, then
.
    And it was not that thick. Banging on it with a rock in his fist, it sounded as though it was a stone drum, and Alex could hear the reverberating echoes on the other side.
    “Maybe it’s not a wall at all …” His eyes traced the edges, where it met the floor and the ceiling. “Maybe it’s a door.”
    You must be delirious now. A door—this big?
    “A door with no handle,” Alex said to himself after inspecting every corner and seam, “makes it a wall. A flat, thin wall, somehow brought here and placed in this cave … but why?”
    He looked around the decorated chamber one last time.
    So maybe it’s an entrance to something—built a long, long time ago, when this land was habitable
.
    Alex chuckled.
Too impossible, surely?
    As Alex re-packed his backpack, remembering what he’d learned about Antarctica in geography class and from Ahmed—that it had once been part of a larger land mass and had broken off from Africa and Australia. But that was a long, long time ago.
    “Maybe a boat was marooned down here once,” Alex said, taking a final glance at the carvings. “Stuck, like me, and they made this place.”
    Dr.