“Mummified!” Shrieking, Nefertiti pulled against her bonds, pushed against the table, wished to any god that the marble slab wasn’t quite so cold! “Help! Akhenaten! Ankhes! Even”-- she coughed-- “Nicky! Just somebody, help me!”

“Oh, that will be quite enough of that.”

A cosmic torch was lit and the room exploded in a fiery blaze. Well, actually the lights had just been flipped on, but it was all the same to Nefertiti’s bruised head.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have hit you that hard,” Joann Fletcher was saying to herself, her voice muffled by her surgical mask while her hair remained frizzy and free. She was organizing different surgical instruments on the strange, metallic table that Nefertiti was laying on. Well, not exactly laying on… “You’re beginning to bruise a bit. But the darkening of your skin should help conceal that.”

“The darkening of my skin?”

“Part of the desiccation process, you understand. You should end up a lovely golden brown--”

“I’m not a frickin’ turkey!”

“--but I’ll have to make you look a little more gray-black if I want to achieve that neglected, three thousand year-old look.” Humming softly to herself, Joann consulted the list held in her gloved hand, measuring it against the ingredients stacked messily on the stainless steel counter at her back. “Let’s see… natron, linen, resin, onions--”

“But I hate onions!”

“But I need them for your eyes. You see, the mummy of Ramses IV… or was it Ramses V? Oh, hell, maybe it was the VII…”

Onions in her eyes? Nefertiti couldn’t stand that thought anymore than she could stand the darned things in her rings. Desperate to avoid at least some indignity, she cried out, “They give me terrible halitosis!”

“Halitosis?” Joann echoed, her eyebrows raised. “Somebody must have found her thesaurus.” She paused for a moment, considering. “Oh, very well, no onions for you then. We wouldn’t want you to have bad breath on August 17th.”

“August 17th, August 17th,” Nefertiti chanted angrily. Glaring at her keeper, she cried in her most British manner, “What the bloody hell is so fascinating about August 17th?”

“My dear Nefertiti, don’t you read the Novel Boards? If you did, you would have found a link telling of my great discovery. Having gone to that link, you would know that August 17th is when my special is going to air on the Discovery Channel, and I shall reveal my discovery to the world!”

“But what does that have to do with me? What is this ‘great’”--Nefertiti managed quote marks with her restrained fingers--“discovery?”

“Why, you, of course!”

“Me?!”

“What could be a better ratings grabber than the mummy of the most beautiful queen to have ever ruled Egypt? Wife of the Heretic King, mother of six princesses, high priestess of the Aten’s new religion of light--”

“Tell them I built the Pyramids or that I refined quantum physics, and I’ll kill you.”

“Rather the opposite, I’m afraid. I still need your mummy, remember?”

“I’d really rather not.”

Reaching for an obsidian blade, Joann continued on happily, “I must say that you were a hard catch. Thutmose went along so quietly, I thought that maybe I could work your family’s gentle nature into my narration. Then again, Tiye did require a few cracks from the bullwhip…”

“Thutmose and Tiye?!” Nefertiti cried, disbelieving. “My first love? My mother-in-law? Well, never mind my mother-in-law, but little Thutmose? Him, too?”

“’Anonymous Young Boy’ and ‘The Elder Woman’ are what they are politely known as nowadays,” Joann informed her matter-of-factly. “We scholars can’t argue over your identity unless you’re anonymous. You shall be ‘Younger Woman B.’”

“And you shall be D.O.A, unless you release me N-O-W!”

Joann’s eyes frowned over her mask. “My, my, such a temper. I’ll have to narrate that you were a red-head, too.” With dainty slowness, she removed a portion of the sheet, revealing Nefertiti’s left flank. Ink pot and brush in hand, she began to map out the embalming incision. Nefertiti was infuriated, aghast, terrified--and laughing herself silly.

Oh, Aten, why did you have to make me ticklish?

“How charming,” Joann cooed as she finished dotting the eyes on her smiley face. What Nefertiti didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “I’ll have to mention your carefree spirit as well. I hope that the special has enough time, otherwise we might have to do a whole series. I’m worthy of a series, I think. What’s Bob Brier got that I ain’t got?”

Nefertiti couldn’t help herself; she had to say it. “Better hair.”

Beneath the her mane’s frizzy shadow, Joann’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Just for that, you don’t get any anesthetic.”

“You silly tart, we don’t even have anesthetic.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right. Well, then, enough chatting. Time for the cutting!”

“No!” Nefertiti gasped as Joann reclaimed the obsidian knife from the table and approached her grinning flank. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“But of course I do! First I disembowel you, dessicate your body and your organs for seventy days--“

“Help!”

“--reciting the proper spells and incantations--”

“Somebody!”

“--pull your brain out through your nose before pouring in hot pitch--”

“HELP!!!”

“--and then I wrap the whole and--Aaiieeeh!!!!” Joann squealed as she was knocked to the ground, sending the obsidian knife flying. There were ropes, commands, an exuberant cry of “Hold on to her, mate!” as one khaki shadow assisted another in top-jaw-roping the lab-coated creature that they had just wrestled to the ground. More khaki figures moved in to assist, tugging the kicking scholar into a box specially made for her safe transport. Ropes were cut, the lid was slammed in place, and Steve Irwin stood to talk to the viewers watching live from home.

“Crikey, was she a hard one to track down!” he exclaimed exuberantly, wiping the sweat from his brow. “If you’ve been watching Croc Hunter Live, you know that we’ve been tracking this woman through post after post, but meeting with plot and environmental conflict at every turn! You see, when there aren’t enough reasonable explanations for certain historical events, scientists tend to take things the wrong way, leading to a distortion of the facts, a whole lot of writer’s block, and the extinction of endangered, historical characters. That’s why feral archeologists are one of the worst enemies of natural Role Plays. But I am the friend of the R.P.! I love the R.P.! Feral archeologists a have their place, but not here. We’ll move this one back to a lovely museum in the British Isles, where she can continue her natural activities without harming any more RP’s. I tell you what, it’s amazing that I made it here at all, bein' that that funny lookin’ bloke shot me with the stun gun and all. Luckily, my best mate Sui was there to sound the alert!” Affectionately, he hugged the little black dog at his side. “My wife Terri came and found me, resuscitated me, and we were able to continue on our journey. As for this sexy sheila on the table there, she will be released and returned to her own environment, safe from harm and Discovery Channel specials. After all, we all know that Animal Planet is the place to be! Well, it’s been an adventure, following the 'Trail of the Rogue Scholar.’ Don’t forget to join us next time, when we go after the very elusive and dangerous--danger, danger, danger!--nicholi maniacus reevimus. Until then, G’Day, mate, and remember: Crocs rule!”

“You’re leaving me?” a bewildered Nefertiti called out after the train of zoo keepers carrying Joann’s box. “You’re just leaving me here like this?”

Flashing a goofy grin her way, Steve assured, “No worries, mate. That bloke over there will let you out.”

“What bloke? I don't see--Bob Brier?!” she gasped as he stepped away from the box and came toward her, a bathrobe already in hand. “What are you doing with the Croc Hunter?”

“He liked my pants,” Bob explained, motioning to his habitual khaki slacks. Grinning in the same goofy manner, he gave Steve a high-five and a “Crocs Rule!” before each went their separate ways. “He’s actually a very fascinating fellow! Very adventuresome. I imagine that that is what Thutmose III must have been like on his military campaigns.”

Nefertiti groaned as he lifted her up from the bed, having cut her bonds with the obsidian knife. “No more imaginings, please. But thank you for saving me from being mummified.”

“The least I could do,” Bob smiled happily. “The mother of the beautiful but sadly forgotten and misused Ankhesenamun, Great Royal Wife of the Heretic King--”

“Don’t start,” Nefertiti growled.

“Not to mention the fact that she would have botched the mummification process completely. You only leave the body in natron for thirty days, not seventy. Wrapping is what takes up the remaining time. And she didn’t even mention the placement of the amulets. Over 140 were found on the body of Tutankhamun, alone, and--hey, I didn’t know you had a tattoo.”