Yugioh Blood Bullet Chapter 14

Chapter 14 (I DO NOT ON YUGIOH)
It was two days later that Yugi was scheduled to meet with the surgeon that would take care of his grandpa and it was the next day he was ushered into a thirteen hour surgery. The mean while Yugi was anxiously waiting for the results while working at the museum, he was completely on edge and Joey found his nerves amusing.
“Got a twitch there Yug?” Joey commented around a mouthful of a sandwich. Yugi’s Arabic reply had Atem’s eyes widening as he pounded at his chest after breathing in Mountain Dew.
“Yugi!” Atem admonished around fits of coughing.
Yugi gave him a rather unfriendly look, “Well it’s the fifth comment like that, anyways his feelings aren’t hurt.” Yugi said acidly, did he mention his attitude wasn’t the best at the moment because of his nerves.
“What, what did he say?” Joey asked not liking being left out especially since the two lovers were giving each other such intense looks. “Come on guys tell me!” he whined.
“Nothing!” they both said at the same time. “But seriously Yugi, you need to calm down, he’s going to be fine. We’ll leave for the hospital as soon as he’s out.” Atem reassured. Yugi only made a face that resembled an upset child before he returned to his notes. He muttered under his breath in Arabic as he scanned his notes then came across his little scribbled side note in hieroglyphics, he looked at it surprised not understanding why it was there. Then the part of his brain that translated the hieroglyphs kicked in and understood, it was a reminder to look into his bosses nervous actions and extreme security.
With his curiosity piqued he pulled up the list of artifacts that were coming in and out of the museum. They were scheduled to receive three statues of Anubis one made of pure onyx and gold, very valuable. He jolted down the information there then moved over to the list of artifacts meant to be moved on, several clay pots and weapons of Greek origin, he jolted down that information as well. He moved to the list of Greek artifacts on display and jolted down the information and compared the lists and something didn’t match up. He checked the dates on several of the objects and they matched up. Several tapestries and a valuable painting were moved to display the same day that several clay pots also scheduled to leave the same day to a different location appeared suddenly on the books. Yugi took the number of the museum that the said artifacts were to go to and wrote that down as well.
“Atem, who handles smuggling and black market things in the department?”
“Another department, I have a contact there, why?” Atem asked but didn’t get an answer as Yugi pulled on a pair of gloves and moved to several large clay pots sitting beside shipping containers. “Yugi what is it?” Atem asked again putting down his book and following his lover as Joey looked on from his seat. “Yugi?” he tried again but his lover was in that intense concentration that blocked out everything else. Yugi knelt next to a clay pot half his size and in very good shape, he squinted at it his face nearly touching it, then he gently rapped a knuckle on it. It made a muffled hollowed noise and Yugi’s eyes narrowed.
“Get my bag.” Yugi ordered, Atem made a face at the order but didn’t argue and retrieved the bag, if it had been anybody else he would have said something rude. But in Yugi’s case it was different, and he was sure he wasn’t exactly aware of it either. He laid the bag next to him and Yugi took out a scalpel and dish and began to scrap off the chips of paint and clay into the dish.
“Yugi, what are you doing?” Atem asked surprised that Yugi was damaging an artifact.
“Shhh.” Was the reply as he covered the dish and took out three more, one for each of the remaining pots. He scraped paint and clay from each and used a sharpie to mark which came from which, he gathered the dishes and stood heading over to another part of the room. “Watch the door for me.” Atem wanted to ask but had the feeling he wouldn’t get an answer, so he watched. Yugi searched the cabinets for different solutions and began to wet and separate them placing them on slides of glass, then under a microscope. His right hand groped for something on the table and recognizing the jester Atem retrieved the notebook and pen from Yugi’s desk and placed it within reach. There was a mumbled ‘thanks’ then the quiet scratching of pen on paper.
It was like this for an hour Yugi doing the same several tests on all four of the samples, before he went back over to the pot’s and tried to lift a lid from one and when t didn’t move he grabbed another tool rom his bag. A thin long one that had a flexible blade on the end and tweezers in the other hand. He slipped it under the lip of the pot and pulled something from under it and dropped that into another dish and returned to his test with liquids and microscopes. He labeled them and safely stored them away in his bag along with his tools before going back to his desk and picked up the phone dialing a number he had previously written down.
“Hello, this is the Curator of the East Europe National History Museum.” A Male voice said on the other side.
Yugi had to take a second before he forced his mind into English. “Sir, this is Dr. Yugi Mouto from the Domino City Museum. I was calling to inquire about a few artifacts that were sent to you.”
“Of course Dr. Mouto, may I ask which artifacts you are looking for.”
“Yes, it says in my system that your Museum received three wood Egyptian boxes the last week. I was wondering if they have arrived there and been authenticated yet.”
“Alright, let me see.” The man said and the sound of keys tapping could be heard. “I’m sorry Dr. Mouto but your system must be mistaken, we never requested any Egyptian artifacts in the last six months. And there are no records of receiving any wooden boxes or anything from Japan, let me call down to the work rooms they may have not entered them yet.” There was a click then Yugi was treated to awful holding music.
“Yugi what is going on?” Atem demanded again he had a suspicion of what was going on but wasn’t sure.
Yugi opened his mouth to reply when the man was back. “I’m sorry to say that there has been nothing of what you asked about coming through or from Japan at all in the last year. What is this about?”
“It is nothing to worry about, my system must be glitching, thank you for your time and help.”
“You’re welcome, have a good day.” And he hung up.
“Are you going to tell us now?” Atem asked again.
“Sorry yes. I thought about this the other day, my boss has always been an ass but his reaction to you and Joey being here was a bit extreme. And it got me thinking about his security, and how it’s a bit over the top. And even though I have a doctoral degree in Archeology, he never lets me authenticate any of the artifacts, always has the interns do it. I only take care of translations of text and scrolls, if there something on an artifact that needs translating I always get pictures never the real thing. I just got me thinking that it was strange and so I looked into it myself and I found something off.”
“And what is that?” Joey asked listening this time.
“That those…” he pointed to the clay posts with a pen, “are not artifacts, someone went through a lot of trouble to forge, document and make those clay works look ancient. But Ancient clay pots don’t have spin wheel marks on them or Acrylic pain with an acid wash afterwards, or gorilla glue.”
“There faked, but why?” Atem asked.
“The pots may be fakes but what’s inside them is not.” He pulled out two different dishes. “When I pulled out the slice of glue under the lid, I also accidently cut a bit of fabric on the inside. That fabric is made from woven goat hair died with natural accruing dyes, in this case indigo, just like a Greek fifth century tapestry scheduled to be put out on display tomorrow.” Yugi pulled up a picture of the tapestry.
“But how are they going to show it if it’s in a clay pot?” Joey asked confused.
“Exactly Joey, how will they when those pots are scheduled to leave in the morning.”
“There smuggling artifacts out and replacing them with replicas.” Atem said and pulled out his phone. “Good job Yugi, maybe you should give detective work a try.”
Yugi laughed, “What are you saying I already am, I just do my work in the past not present.” Atem smiled at that then began to talk seriously with someone on the other end of his phone.
Atem closed his phone and smirked at Yugi, “It seems you’re not the only one that’s been suspecting that this place has been involved with smuggling, my contact over there has been looking into it as well. He’s meeting us as soon as your shifts over, he’ll probably want your results and lab notes of what you found and he assures me that your name will be left out of it, so your job’s safe.”
Yugi snorted in disbelief. “He’ll know right away who the snitch is, I’m the only one here that hasn’t ever touched these artifacts until now. It won’t be hard to figure it out from there but it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?” Atem asked all curious.
“I’ve decided to go to Egypt, to accept Arthur’s offer to lead his expedition.” Yugi said quietly as he shuffled his things around and made copies of his notes.
“You have?” Atem asked surprised a whisper of sadness caressing his heart.
“Mostly, I-I was going to talk it over with you first.” Yugi stuttered nervously pointedly not looking at his lover in the eyes. “I-if t-this thing between us is r-real, I d-don’t want to just take off without hearing how you felt about this first. I-I mean I could be gone a long time.” The sadness was chased away by a thick warm feeling as Atem realized he had made a major step in their relationship if Yugi was trying to work him into his life.
“Alright, why don’t we talk about it when we get home, for now why don’t we head to the hospital, your grandfather will be out of surgery soon.” He suggested.
“I have another three hours of work left, but I probably won’t have a job tomorrow so why not.” Yugi replied cheerfully and packed his things, following the detectives out of the room.