The vault door closed just two days before the first bombs fell. Deep, hypersonic craters formed by kinetic orbital cannons peppered the land with scars. Thankfully the Alps, remote as they were, suffered minimal bombardment.
Cindy assumed the apocalypse would be louder, but buried so deep in the mountainside, it wasn’t exactly a surprise everything remained so silent… As silent and still as a tomb, which in a way, it was. Not an individual’s tomb, of course, but a tomb to the Old World… A tomb filled with countless priceless relics from those who could afford to store them.
She stared at a nearby shelf, where four nearly-cubic boxes had been stacked.
Four Surviving Copies of the Original Magna Carta
Policy number: 015333461
Policy holder: Royal British Trust
Cindy’s eyes glazed over the writing, but her mind refused to take in any of the information. It didn’t matter. She just wanted an excuse to wander the endless corridors. She felt dazed.
“There you are.”
The voice caused a shiver to run up her spine. She quickly turned, and upon seeing her boss, gave a deep bow.
“Miss Darla.”
The thin, smartly-dressed woman frowned. “You realize that you’re still an employee, yes? End of the world or not, there are still duties you must fulfill.”
“Of course. I just thought it would take a bit longer before I was needed.”
Miss Darla’s lips grew thin. “Sadly, the first damage has been discovered. Come.”
Cindy quickly followed her boss.
…
Even in its damaged state, the golden object was beyond beautiful. It stood about five feet high and roughly eight feet long, though resting regally on a large stone slab, it looked far more imposing. The back side of the golden reliquary had been smashed, with the broken pieces gently resting around it.
“This is the Shrine of the Three Kings.” Miss Darla said, passing Cindy a rather large notebook. Opening it, she found it contained countless descriptions, measurements, scans… Even the exact grain sizes and alloy percentages and lattice imperfections of every metallic section of the object were included. With that notebook, a steady hand, and countless man hours, it was possible to perfectly recreate the shrine.
“You know the kings who brought the gifts to Jesus?” Miss Darla asked.
“Yeah.” Cindy nodded.
“Well this box contains their remnants… Or it did, before those asses at Grubenhatch Movers got their hands on it.” She shook her head. “Hope those bastards were the first to die… Anyway, I need you to fix the thing.”
But looking at it, Cindy could already tell that repairs would be nearly impossible. The wood was far too old, the gold leaf too gentle. Any mends would be easily spotted.
“Can’t do it?” Miss Darla asked, seemingly reading Cindy’s mind.
“Not unless you want our client realizing we damaged it in the first place.” Cindy replied. “Catholic Church, right?”
“Who else?”
Cindy swore. Perhaps she could fudge the work if it belonged to the Orthodox, but the Catholic Church was far too detailed, and if any institute was geared to survive the calamity, it was the Vatican.
“So it can’t be mended?” Miss Darla asked.
Cindy shook her head slightly.
“So a full rebuild job, huh?” Miss Darla asked.
Cindy gave a small nod.
“How long?”
Cindy gently touched one of the inlays on the box. “With a team of twenty, it’ll be five years, bare minimum.”
“We’ll have time.” Miss Darla said. “Thankfully the library has more than enough bones from that era to replace what those Grubenhatch bastards misplaced. Just make sure the wood matches. The Forger we have working on the Key Marco Cat didn’t use old enough wood… Had to redo it, and now we’re low on mangrove lumber from the 1600s.”
Cindy nodded. When Miss Darla left, she, Cindy, took the notebook and headed to the Wood Library. Row after row after row, stacked so high as to be beyond visibility, were logs of every type of wood from every era. She studied the details of the wood in her notebook, then looked back out at the endless warehouse. She sighed. It was going to take a long time to repair.
As she scoured the wood in the appropriate section, she wondered if the Church would care that their precious treasure had been replaced. Certainly the bones of the saints were irreplaceable in theory.
…But legally, the Church knew the policy. They read the document. They saw the fine print. They knew that their insured items could be partially or fully replaced in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
Cindy imagined a congregation hundreds of years in the future, with people gathered around the golden box she was about to rebuild. The faithful would live their lives believing they were revering the bones of an early church martyr. Their kids would believe the same. In the distant future, when carbon dating had been rediscovered, some skeptic would cast doubt on the veracity of the shrine. The bones would be tested, their age would reveal them to be contemporary to that of the Three Magi, the skeptic would be left dumbfounded, and the Church’s faith justified.
They’d test the wood. They’d test the metal. Thanks to the foresight of the Insurance Agency’s actuators, every section would pass the test… The correct wood, the correct metal, the correct time period.
And why not? Pulling an aged plank of Oak from the ‘1150-1200’ section of the library, Cindy knew her forging abilities were so great that none would ever know. The bones had been lost to the chaos of the world, the structure itself destroyed, but when the first tepid survivors crawled out from their bunkers and filed an insurance claim, the Church would receive exactly what they’d given. They’d graciously take the shrine, presumably place it in a newly built church, and restart where the middle-ages left off.
Faith or not, they’d never know they were honoring a fake. She’d fool the Church, fool centuries of faithful adherents, and maybe even fool God Himself.
But that was for the future. She trudged back to the box and sighed. It was so delicate and detailed. She still had a lot of work ahead of her before she’d be able to fool anyone.