The Atlantis Origins

by S. A. Beck

  Dr. Yamazaki stumbled, and Jaxon lifted her up and draped her over her shoulder like a sack of laundry.

  “When you shouted, ‘Close your eyes,’ I thought you meant the cops,” Yamazaki grumbled, rubbing her eyes.

  “Quite the opposite, honey,” Vivian replied as she ran right next to Jaxon, looking around nervously.

  Luckily, they weren’t far from the gas station. As they rounded a corner, they saw it just a hundred yards ahead, their two Land Rovers parked right next to it where they had left them.

  Good, Jaxon thought. We can drive off before the cops have recovered and disappear in the desert.

  Then they stopped in their tracks. A skinny young police officer appeared out of the shade of a nearby tent and stared at them, fingering his assault rifle.

  He had been left to guard the vehicles of the suspicious foreigners, and here were those same foreigners running down the street with two wounded and none of the officer’s comrades in view.

  He leveled his Kalashnikov at them and shouted something in Arabic. Vivian moved a hand toward her pocket, and he shouted again, jabbing his gun forward and then jerking it up twice.

  Everyone took the hint and raised their hands.

  Everyone except Jaxon. Gently, she set Yamazaki back onto her feet and started walking toward the policeman, her hands raised.

  The man shouted something at her.

  “Watch it, Jaxon!” Otto warned.

  Jaxon ignored him and continued walking forward.

  “Look,” she told the police officer, “I know you’re not at fault here. You’re just following orders and checking up on us. But I can’t let you detain us. In a minute, your friends will come.”

  Otto glanced back in the direction of the police station. No other cops were in sight yet. In fact, the street was now completely deserted. That left Otto feeling exposed.

  The crack of a rifle shot made Otto jump. He looked over at Jaxon, fearing the worst.

  She hadn’t been hit. She stood rooted to the spot, a thin cloud of dust dissipating just inches from her feet from where the cop had fired a warning shot.

  Slowly, keeping one hand in the air, she bent down and placed the other hand flat on the ground. The police officer stared at her curiously.

  It took a moment for Otto to figure out what she was doing. They stood at the edge of the gas station, where cars and trucks passed by all day. The ground was littered with oil stains, empty wrappers, and crumpled-up packets of cigarettes.

  There were also several seeds scattered around, probably dropped from some truck making a shipment to the market.

  The police officer stood right on top of a cluster of them.

  Those seeds started to sprout.

  At first, the officer didn’t notice. He gestured with his gun again and shouted something at Jaxon, probably ordering her to stand up. When she didn’t respond, he repeated the order, angrier this time.

  The shoots grew remarkably fast, lacing themselves around his boots and winding up his legs.

  He didn’t notice until they’d made it to his knees. Then the man shrieked in terror and yanked at his feet. He managed to tear one foot free, but the thickening shoots held the other fast. In his panic, he dropped his AK-47 and tugged at the shoots, trying to pull them away as they continued to grow.

  Otto sprinted for him.

  The man didn’t notice until Otto was almost upon him. The young policeman made a stumbling grab for his gun, hampered by the shoots that had now embraced his entire leg all the way up to his waist.

  The cop and Otto grabbed the gun at the same time. Otto yanked on it and managed to tear it out of his grasp, causing the man to fall over.

  “Good job, Pyro. Let’s get a move on.”

  Grunt ran past him with Yuhle in his arms, both men soaked in the scientist’s blood. Vivian came right behind him carrying Jaxon.

  Jaxon!

  “Is she all right?”

  “No time to tell, honey. We have to get out of here.”

  Dr. Yamazaki staggered after her, blinking and unsteady but obviously able to see a little.

  And that meant the officers back at the police station had recovered too.

  They’d be coming any minute, and they wouldn’t be firing warning shots.

  Chapter 15

  August 7, 2016, THE ROAD TO THE EAST OF OUALATA, SAHARA DESERT, SOUTHEASTERN MAURITANIA

  4:30 P.M.

  * * *

  Jaxon felt as if she lay drowning at the bottom of a deep, dark well. The warm water pulled her down, making her descend fast, as if she were more than sinking, as if she were being sucked under by a whirlpool.

  And yet she didn’t feel fear. It felt comfortable here. Quiet. Peaceful. She could see nothing, hear nothing, but she felt a deep sense of calm. More peace than she had ever known. She knew that she could reach her arms out and swim. She could kick her legs and try to keep afloat. She could fight the whirlpool if she wanted.

  But why? Why not just let it suck her down? There was no danger here. No pain. No worry. She felt herself sinking further, all thoughts fading as she surrendered herself to the pull of the whirlpool.

  Then she felt something else—a hand holding her own.

  Dimly, she saw Edward. He floated right next to her, but at the same time, he seemed immeasurably deeper in the water. She barely recognized him. He looked calm, happy, and a bit proud. Jaxon had never seen such a peaceful look on his face before.

  “I’m not lonely anymore,” he said. His voice sounded as if it came from a great distance. Beyond him, far below, she could see dim forms swimming in the deep.

  Jaxon tried to speak, but she couldn’t figure out how.

  Edward smiled at her. “I haven’t been lonely since I joined the Atlantis Allegiance. I finally got a family. It can be your family too.”

  Yuhle swam past them, pumping his arms and legs and heading for the surface.

  “Go join him,” Edward said, pushing her toward the surface and releasing her hand. “Thank you for being my friend.”

  Edward’s push sent her shooting up toward the surface of the water. As she passed Yuhle, she heard Edward’s distant voice call faintly after her.

  “Make this mean something.”

  Jaxon awoke to blinding light, deafening noise, and the rough impact of a car seat bouncing up and down underneath her.

  Otto was bending over her, pouring water down her throat. From the energy shooting through her body, she knew where the water had come from.

  She lay in the back of one of the Land Rovers as it sped over rough ground. She was tangled up with Yuhle, who lay covered in blood in the same seat. Otto stood above them, gripping the back of the seat to keep from falling over.

  As soon as Otto saw she was alive, he turned to Yuhle, opening his shirt and pouring water on the bullet hole in his gut. Jaxon almost looked away from the horrid wound, but then she saw the gaping hole close and fade. Jaxon’s eyes widened.

  Yuhle’s eyes went wide too. “Okay, maybe I do believe in miracles.”

  There was a loud crack, and a hole appeared in the rear window. An identical one appeared in the windshield. Otto yelped and got down.

  “Well, if you believe in miracles, how about you find us another one?” Grunt shouted from the front seat.

  The Land Rover swerved. Jaxon struggled to a sitting position and peeked out the rear window.

  Three jeeps pursued them across a barren plain, all painted in military colors and stuffed with policemen. The flare of an assault rifle from the lead vehicle told her this wasn’t going to be your typical pull-over.

  The second Land Rover was a bit ahead of them, with Dr. Yamazaki at the wheel. Jaxon caught a glimpse of Vivian poking her head out the window and tossing something. They sped past it, a little metal object that rolled in the sand. A flicker of brilliant light went off behind them. Another of Vivian’s flash bombs.

  The police jeeps swerved but continued pursuit.

  “Why didn’t it work?”
Otto shouted.

  “Only work close up,” Grunt said.

  Jaxon felt a sharp pain as Otto stepped on her leg in order to clamber into the front seat.

  “I’ll stop them,” Otto said.

  He rolled down the window, grabbed his Kalashnikov, and leaned out. There was a deafening roar as he fired at their pursuers with the gun set on full automatic.

  Grunt hauled him back in and slapped him upside the head.

  “Ow! What was that for?” Otto asked.

  “For shooting at innocent people, nitwit!”

  A bullet clanked off the rear of the Land Rover.

  “Innocent? You call this innocent?” Otto shouted.

  “That bullet in my belly didn’t feel too innocent to me,” Yuhle agreed, cowering on the floor. Jaxon noticed he had left a big smear of blood on her pants leg.

  “Think of it from their point of view,” Grunt said, yanking hard on the wheel as bullets stitched a line in the sand just to their left. “All they did was stop some suspicious foreigners to check on them, and then they got blinded with flash bombs, punched, and some crazy girl worked some magic on one of them.”

  Grunt looked at Jaxon in the rearview mirror. “You okay, magic girl?”

  “The water saved my life.”

  “Mine too,” Yuhle said. “Now it’s Grunt’s turn.”

  “More like Yamazaki’s turn,” the mercenary replied, steering the Land Rover in a fast zigzag. “She’s kicking up enough of a dust cloud that I can’t see where she’s headed. Drives like a pro, though. Hope she sees some way out of this.”

  As if on cue, Dr. Yamazaki swerved hard to the right and disappeared between two rocky hills. Grunt followed, and they found themselves in a narrow valley littered with stones. Neither driver slowed, and Jaxon gritted her teeth as the Land Rover bucked and jounced. She heard rocks thump the undercarriage. One of those could pop a tire or burst the gas tank. She glanced back. The jeeps were following, but more slowly. One of the drivers pumped his fist in the air as if he was cheering. Did the cops know something they didn’t?

  Yes, they did. The canyon opened up on a dry wadi, a steep-sided riverbed that probably only saw water once every two or three years. It was about twenty feet deep and ten wide, and its walls were almost sheer. There was no way around it except back the way they’d come.

  Back in the direction of the police.

  But Dr. Yamazaki didn’t slow down. In fact, she sped up.

  “Aw, hell, she isn’t going to do that, is she?” Grunt said.

  “Step on the gas!” Yuhle shouted. “Don’t you remember your high school physics?”

  “I dropped out of high school!” Grunt replied. He stepped on the gas anyway.

  Jaxon gasped as Yamazaki took her Land Rover straight over the edge. It flew in the air, shooting like an arrow for the other side.

  She didn’t get to see if the scientist made it, because in the next instant, she and everyone else in their Land Rover were screaming their lungs out as they flew through the air.

  They landed with a hard jolt that slammed Jaxon head first into the roof.

  The Land Rover skidded and swerved. Grunt jerked the steering wheel as the vehicle drifted to the right, the slap, slap, slap of a burst tire telling Jaxon why.

  She looked behind. The jeeps had screeched to a halt at the edge of the wadi, a plume of dust enveloping them. There were a few muzzle flares as the police took blind shots at them, but none of the bullets came anywhere close.

  “Brilliant work!” Yuhle shouted. “Did you notice how the far side of the wadi was lower than the near side? That meant all we had to do was hit the gas and fly right over. We lost a bit of altitude, but we were going so fast, we landed on the ground of this side rather than crash into the cliff. Basic high school Newtonian physics, as I said. It’s a pity you dropped out, Grunt. You would have learned all about it. Where are my glasses?”

  “Here they are,” Jaxon said, fishing them out from below the seat. Both lenses were cracked.

  “Oh dear. Good thing I have a spare.”

  Yamazaki led them into another canyon, out of sight of the police. Grunt flashed his lights and leaned on the horn to get her to stop.

  “Help me with this tire, Pyro,” Grunt said, jumping out. “We got to get it changed and get out of here before Mauritania’s finest find a way around that wadi.”

  They both got out of the Land Rover.

  Yuhle leaned over to her, trying to see her through the cracks in his glasses.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, are you?”

  Yuhle’s shirt and pants were soaked with blood, and there were bloodstains all over the backseat and on her too.

  “Um, yes. I actually am. I can’t wait to analyze some of that water, assuming we have any left.”

  Jaxon and Yuhle got out of the Land Rover and stood unsteadily in the sun. Otto began to jack it up as Grunt retrieved a spare tire from the back.

  Yamazaki and Vivian got out of their vehicle.

  “Everyone all right?” Dr. Yamazaki asked.

  “Yeah,” Grunt said. “Where did you learn to drive like that?”

  Yamazaki shrugged, looking pale. “I didn’t. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “Well, you got a natural talent,” the mercenary said as he rolled the spare tire into position. “If genetics and biology don’t work out for you, you can have a great career in the Indy 500.”

  Jaxon stood next to Yuhle, trying to piece together what had happened. Had she really seen Edward?

  Yuhle shook his pants leg, and a bullet fell out. He picked it up and gaped at it. The nose was flattened, and the entire bullet was caked in blood.

  His blood.

  He turned to Jaxon, his face pale. “That’s quite a memento. Excuse me while I go behind that rock over there and throw up.”

  Yuhle disappeared behind a nearby boulder, leaving Jaxon alone. She listened to Yuhle’s retching for a moment and then called out, “Yuhle, did you see him? When you were unconscious, did you see him?”

  “See who?” Yuhle asked, his voice weak.

  Jaxon paused, uncertain. “Did you see anything?”

  Yule staggered back into view, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Why would I see anything? I was unconscious and dying. So were you. We told you not to overtax your powers, although I must say it was impressive.”

  The truth of what she had experienced welled up in her—the vision, the words Edward had said, Yuhle passing up to the surface of the water, and Edward pushing her to follow. Jaxon broke down sobbing.

  Otto hurried up and put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. We made it.”

  Jaxon shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?” Otto asked.

  “Edward,” she sniffled. “Edward’s gone.”

  Chapter 16

  August 9, 2016, AN ABANDONED FIELD OUTSIDE MARRAKECH, MOROCCO

  10:05 P.M.

  * * *

  They all broke in the end. Edward was no exception, although he fought like a true soldier. He was weeping and hysterical when the name “Timbuktu” finally slipped past his lips. Isadore had reassured him then, telling him he had done well, that he had lasted longer than many trained killers she had tortured.

  She didn’t tell him this out of sympathy, because she did not allow herself that emotion. She told him out of respect for his strength. The man deserved to go to his grave knowing he had stood tall in the last moments of his life.

  Then she ordered Brett to continue the torture. By that point, he had shouted himself hoarse, so she had Brett give Edward little slaps. Not too hard, just constant, like the infamous Chinese Water Torture where drops of water hit the prisoner’s forehead for hours on end until they broke. Edward was strong enough he might resist that, so slapping, that personal touch, was much more suited to his type of weakness.

  They had been through many hours together, and Isadore had learned many things about the hacker. She knew when he t
old her about Timbuktu that she was finally getting to the truth, but she had Brett slap him for the rest of the evening to make sure. It was always good to be sure.

  Edward never changed his story until he died of a heart attack just after dawn.

  So now Isadore knew where the Atlantis Allegiance was headed. She had arranged her flights and would be in Timbuktu within twenty-four hours. Brett would come with her to act as bait. Considering Jaxon and her friends were going overland through some of the most barren terrain in the world, Isadore and Brett would probably get there before them. Good. It would give her time to set up.

  In the meantime, she had another duty to perform.

  She stood in the middle of an empty field under cover of darkness, far beyond the last agricultural settlement on the outskirts of Marrakech. A small grove of olive trees stood nearby, keeping them out of sight of a distant road. She used a shovel to dig out a grave for Edward.

  Brett stood beside Edward’s body, not far off. She could have told him to dig the grave. With his tireless strength, he could get it done much quicker. She could even have browbeaten Amir and his two flunkies into doing it. Instead, she had them on lookout. Isadore didn’t mind doing the work herself. There was honor in burying a fellow soldier, even if he had been an enemy one.

  She had already made it a couple of feet down. She’d give him another foot and then cover him up with stones. There were hyenas in this part of the world, and Isadore didn’t want them to get to his corpse.

  Over the scrape of her shovel, she could hear Amir and his friends grumbling to each other. Their Arab sense of honor had been upset by the previous evening’s events. While they were perfectly happy to torture an equal, picking on someone they saw as a weakling made them look weak themselves.

  Let them grumble. They weren’t around for Edward’s last hours. They would have seen that he had strength that outshone all their swagger and cheap posturing.

  Isadore finished the grave and dragged Edward’s body into it. In lieu of a coffin, she had wrapped him in a sheet. She stood over him for a moment, thinking of some appropriate last words.