The Swimsuit Contest
by Andrew Mason aka Dr. Amazing

This is a work of fiction.  Tombraider and Lara Croft are both trademark and copyright of EIDOS Interactive and Core design.  All other characters are copyright of the author.

            This story contains violent and sexual content and is suggested for mature readers (18 and over).
            Comments, complimentary or critical, can be addressed to: dramazin@alphalink.com.au

She began eating, finding the food to be delicious.

            “Good eh?” said Crombie.  “I always hire a good cook on any of my digs.”

            “Tell me about this dig, Crombie.  What did you find?”

            “Fascinating dig!  It’s all underground, as you know, and the amount of labour needed to build the complex, the effort in bringing the material from the mainland, it’s astonishing.  We knew this site had to be of major importance to the Cadachacs.  We started burrowing in.  It took over a year, going softly, softly, as you know we must on such a precious site.

            “Then we came to dead end.  The main corridor led directly to a huge stone barrier, obviously designed to keep us out.  We had a problem.  We had to get rid of the stone, but not damage the surrounding architecture.  I called in the company’s engineer, who’s helped me on other sites.  He discovered that the stone door had descended from a recess above where it stood, and the simplest way to solve our problem was to raise it back into the recess and wedge it there.  He designed equipment to achieve this and a few weeks later we were able to access the hidden room.”

            He paused, looking at the intense expression on Lara’s face.  “What do you think we found?”

            “An altar?”

            Crombie laughed.  “You’ve been around haven’t you?  Yes, an altar.  A sacrificial altar.  It’s magnificent Lara, wait ‘til you see it, but that’s not all.”

            “No?”

            “The room was full of skeletons, dozens of them.”

            “Sacrifices?”

            “No, they were all clustered around the door.  My guess is that the stone door came down too soon and sealed them all in there.”

            “There’s no lever to operate the door from inside?”

            “No.”

            Lara pondered this but kept her thoughts to herself.  The stone door must have been designed to keep someone, or something, inside the altar room.

            “Then the natives started getting restless,” continued Crombie.

            “What do you mean?”

            “The designs on the walls frightened them, I believe.  Wait ‘til you see them Lara.  They’re magnificent!”

            “Are you suggesting that your workers understood the designs?  How could they read a language that’s been dead for centuries?”

            “It’s not a written language Lara.  It’s like the Bayeaux Tapestry, in stone.”

            Lara’s eagerness to enter the site lifted a notch or two.  “What does it show?”

            Crombie sat back with a contented smile on his face.  “You’ll see soon enough.”

            Lara contained her exasperation with difficulty.  “This is childish.  Why not tell me now?”

            “I don’t want to scare you away,” he replied with an evil smirk.

            “The only thing that will scare me away is your vulgar behaviour.  Tell me this then, what upset your crew?”

            “This is a religious site of their ancient culture and some of them are upset that we’re disturbing it.  The mutilation of the monkeys is clear evidence that at least one of them still has some faith in that religion.  Then they started falling ill, with fevers and chills, and I called in a doctor from the mainland.  He took the affected men back to a hospital in Lima and checked them for malaria, dengue fever, god knows what else.  He could find nothing wrong with them.  My belief is that they just decided they didn’t want to work on the site any more.”

            “Have you brought new men in?”

            “No need.  Once we were into the altar room there was little physical work left to do.  I’d hoped that our monkey-killer was among the men who left but your find today puts paid to that.”

            “How many Peruvians do you have left on site?”

            “A dozen.”

            Crombie offered Lara post-dinner drinks but she declined.  She did not want to spend a moment longer than necessary in his presence.  He actually tried to kiss her good-night as she was leaving but she fended him off and left his hut.

            The sun had set over the dig site and the area was lit by lamps standing around its perimeter.  The Peruvian guards still stood at the entrance, so a nocturnal visit to the Cadachac temple was not possible.

            She looked at the stone gateway that was still closed to her.  Tomorrow she would see the altar that Crombie had described.  She wondered if the uneasiness she felt was justified.  The site had already been explored.  No-one had died, excepting some monkeys.  What was there to be uneasy about?

            ‘I’m probably still nervous about the shoot,’ she thought, then turned back to her hut.

            Inside the hut Lara found Maia sitting cross-legged on her bed, completely naked, a small candle burning in front of her on the room’s only table.  Her eyes were closed and she was softly chanting a mantra.  Lara decided she was becoming immune to Maia’s eccentricity, since the whole weird scene seemed entirely normal to her.

            Lara undressed and took to her bed.

            Early the next morning in Chifley’s hut, Jason was fussing over Lara’s hair when Chifley entered.  “I’ve talked it over with Crombie and we’ve decided to do the beach shots tomorrow and get all the ruin shots today.  I’m afraid your session will be the last Lara.”

            Lara shrugged.  “I suppose that’s what Christina wanted,” she asked.

            “No, it was Crombie who insisted on that.”

            Lara was puzzled by that.  “Perhaps he’s lost his eagerness for me.  Is he going to be there?”

            Chifley looked awkward.  “I’m afraid so.  He says he has to be there to protect the site from our depredations.  I usually insist on privacy for my shoots, but he does have the power to veto the whole show so I had no choice.”

            “I don’t blame you for this Peter, so don’t fret so much.  Anyway, it’ll give me a chance to look around the island.  How long do you estimate the first three girls will take?”

            “One or two hours each.  I’d say we’ll need you no earlier than two p.m.”

            “Plenty of time.”

            “And please, Lara,” whined Jason, “no swimming.  Your hair, it’s perfect now.  We don’t want to have to start again.”

            “I’ll try to be good Mum,” teased Lara, then returned to her own hut.

            She donned shorts, T-shirt and hiking boots then set off into the jungle.

            She wasn’t sure what she hoped to achieve but she felt the need to escape the confines of the camp.  If she waited all morning for her photo session she would only become nervous and she preferred action to waiting.  She always had done.

            Having set off with no particular destination, she decided to seek out the highest point on the island.  She had seen a small range of hills to the north of the dig site when in the plane so she headed in that direction.  The foliage was thick but not so thick that she could not push her way through it.  As she moved away from the site she began to hear the monkeys that Crombie had spoken of, and it only occurred to her now that she had neither seen nor heard any at the dig site.  This perplexed her.  Any animal could be shy when encountering man for the first time but the dig had been here for three years and monkeys were naturally curious creatures.  She had never known them to stay so far away from any other jungle site she had been involved in.

            She reached the hills and climbed to the top of the nearest one, where she found a small clearing.  This gave her a good view of the site, only a few kilometres away.  She sat on a fallen tree and looked down at the site, wondering what she was doing out there.  ‘I must be stir-crazy,’ she thought, though she was glad to be away from the bitchiness and general madness of the models and their entourage.

            This was one of the stranger adventure she’d embarked on.  Everything felt strange, skewed.  She felt like she was here under false pretences.  She was playing the uncomfortable role of a swimsuit model and she was visiting a site that had already been explored.  Instead of travelling alone she was accompanied by eight people she had never met before and, with the possible exception of Chifley, hoped never to meet again.

            That last thought puzzled her.  Did she want to see him again?  Since his first brash arrival at her home she was forced to admit that she had come to like him.  He had been unfailingly polite and helpful, even chivalrous on her behalf, and though she needed no-one to look out for her she was grateful that he was around.  He was definitely the best of a bad bunch, and compared to the lascivious bastard that was running the dig he was a bloody saint.

            In the distance she saw him emerging from the Cadachac entrance, with Christina behind him.  Even at this distance she could read their attitudes.  Christina stood with her hands on her hips, doubtless complaining about something to do with the shoot.  Chifley stood with his hands outstretched, in an apologetic, placating posture.  Lara wondered how he put up with Christina’s posturing and whining.  Her own patience would have been exhausted long before now.

            She imagined giving Christina a sharp jab to the nose and found the image very satisfying.  When she tried to imagine Chifley doing it she just couldn’t see it.  He was too much the gentleman.

            She watched Christina stomping off in a huff, then watched Maia arrive for her turn in the caverns.  She glided past the irate Christina, past Chifley, and through the entrance.  Chifley’s posture suggested he was a little puzzled; he even scratched his head for a moment to confirm the impression.  Lara wondered if Maia had said something weird to confuse him, or if his bafflement was simply from her strange, dreamy manner.

            ‘Chin up, Peter,’ she thought.  ‘One down, three to go.’

            She decided she’d best return to the site, allowing Jason and Carla time to prepare her for the shoot.

            She had to admit, it was pleasant to have someone else braid her hair.  Jason had begun complaining about her ‘foolish jungle romp’ the moment he saw her, then set about ‘repairing the damage’.  She was sitting in his hut, with his hairdressing equipment on the dresser in front of her.  He had not stopped talking the entire time, but she had stopped listening several minutes ago.

            Carla arrived with her make-up kit and started her work.  Lara closed her eyes and silently prayed.  Her nervousness was starting to return.

            “Now that’s odd,” said Carla.

            Lara opened one eye.  “What’s odd?”

            “No, not you dear, you look lovely.  It’s just that the rouge I had planned to use for you has, well, vanished.”

            “Horrors!” teased Jason.  “Call Sherlock Holmes.”

            “It’s not much of a mystery,” said Lara, closing her eyes again.  “You discussed with Christina what colouring you’d be using?”

            “Why, yes,” said Carla, waiting for Lara to say more.  When she remained silent, Carla began to understand what she meant.  “That horrid woman!  Madre de dios!  I don’t know why no-one has killed her yet!”

            Lara smiled, knowing that Carla, also, would continue to tolerate Christina’s selfishness.

            “Don’t worry, dear,” continued Carla.  “You can probably do without the rouge anyway.  Taking Christina’s rouge would sabotage her, but it won’t make much difference to you.  Your colouring is fine on its own.”

            ‘It is probably the most feeble attack ever attempted on me,’ thought Lara, finding that, if anything, Christina’s subterfuge made her feel more relaxed.  ‘Perhaps I thrive on adversity,’ she thought.

            An hour later she walked through the stone entryway for the first time.  She wore a bathing robe over a pale blue bikini which Chifley had suggested she wear.  She was accompanied by Jack, the wardrobe man, who had brought her the message that the photographer was ready for her.

            The guards did not smile as she passed, which was unusual in itself.  Wearing as little as she was she’d have expected some sign of interest, but they behaved as if they saw her every day.  She had not spoken to any of the Peruvians working for Crombie and she wondered if she should have.

            “Que pasa?” she asked one of the guards.

            He did not reply, merely nodded toward the depths of the corridor, urging her to move on.

            Cassie emerged from that direction and walked up the sloping corridor to Lara.  “That is, without doubt, the weirdest place for a photo shoot,” said Cassie, her face troubled.

            Lara did not ask what she meant, she was eager to find out for herself.  She descended into the Cadachac temple.

            The corridor was lit by standing lanterns and Lara was disappointed to see only bare stone walls.  She wished she could have been the one to walk this corridor for the first time, descending into the unknown.  Nevertheless she could feel her pulse quicken as she walked.

            There was a confusing network of tunnels and several bare rooms which might have housed hundreds of people below ground.  Jack was able to guide her to the heart of the complex but she wished she was alone, to explore the complex at her own pace.  Wall decorations had been limited to the inner chambers, which they reached after a few minutes.  A central circular room led to three other corridors.  Ahead of her was a brief walk to the main room, where she could see Chifley waiting.  She waved to him then explored the other two corridors.  Jack stood with his hands on his hips, wondering what she was up to.

            Each corridor led to small antechambers, each decorated with impressive stone murals.  The walls had been carefully restored and the painted stonework was still bright and vivid.  The room to the left showed hundreds of peasants working at various menial tasks, farming, woodcarving, tree-felling and the like.  The men and women wore plain tunics and many of them were seen carrying offerings toward a structure on the other side of the room.  Approaching it she saw that the structure was a representation of the stone entrance of the temple.  Standing before the entrance was a man in a bright, multi-coloured tunic, with an expression of rapture on his face.

            This made perfect sense to Lara.  This chamber was the waiting room for the common folk, the cattle herded to the slaughter.  They were doubtless promised eternal life by volunteering for the sacrifice.

            The second antechamber was for the priests conducting the ceremony.  It was larger than the other chamber, with the pantheon of Cadachac gods displayed on the walls.  She did not recognise any of the creatures depicted, most of them hybrid creations, half-man, half-animal.

            Her eye was drawn to the depiction of a man that dominated the opposite wall.  He wore a long ceremonial robe but it did not conceal the deformity of his body.  His back was bent, one leg shorter than the other.  A hump twisted his upper spine and his spindly arms held onto a staff, more a support than a ceremonial sceptre.

            She wondered who it was and why he was given such prominence.  She doubted that the Cadachacs would worship a god so unlike the others shown, so she assumed it was a real man she saw depicted.  She guessed that he was the designer of the temple or the religious leader of the Cadachacs, or both, to warrant such a show of respect.

            “Are you comin’ lady?” bellowed Jack from the doorway, oblivious to the history that surrounded him.

            She studied the walls for a few moments longer, more to annoy the boorish fellow than to gain any new insight.  She then shrugged and accompanied him to the room that she had waited so long to see.

            It was far bigger than she had expected.  It was shaped as a circular auditorium,  stones forming a series of rings, acting as both steps and seats, leading down to the sacrificial altar.

            “Oh!” she gasped, amazed despite all she had seen before, in sites all over the world.

            “Very impressive,” said Crombie stepping out of the shadows near the entry corridor.  He was watching her avidly and she was not sure whether he referred to the ancient theatre, or to her.

            “Come with me,” said Chifley sharply, stepping past Crombie. His clipped speech and the set of his shoulders indicated that he had lost all patience with the archaeologist.  He took Lara’s arm and guided her down the steps to the altar.

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