“Oh no, oh no!” There are more outbursts of protest from everywhere in the shuttle.
“The floodgates are marked with four-color beacons, and your ID tokens will be scanned as you pass each one. It is recommended you stay close to your team members and work together. For each team with the most surviving members, you will get a cumulative score that will figure in the formula that determines your final Qualification standing. Therefore, it is in your best interest to keep other members of your team alive.
“Next instruction—once you have reached the last of the cavern chambers, which happens to be the central hub underneath Ancient Atlantis, you will need to rise to the surface through a wide tunnel carved out of an underwater mountain. The original tunnel opening is unfortunately many feet underwater. But we have retrofitted it so that it extends to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, and it is the last leg of your journey. You will go through the opening and rise to the transport shuttles that will await you.
“The final difficulty you will encounter will be in that major central hub cavern. That’s because every single team of Candidates from all the countries around the world will be converging into the same cavern. And the final sprint race for Qualification spots will happen there. Remember—only one half of you will Qualify. That means that you must move as fast as you can in those final minutes and fight for your place on the shuttles.
“Even if you arrive at the shuttle early enough, you will still be scanned at the entrance and allowed entry only if you have sufficient points—a minimum of 100 individual points plus a minimum average number for your entire team—the higher, the better. This team average number will include missing or dead members whose points will be subtracted as negatives and will bring down the team average. As soon as the last shuttle is filled to capacity, the doors will close and anyone not onboard will not Qualify. Which means that, a day from now, at eight PM exactly, the shuttles depart Earth.”
Pilot Radra pauses and then Pilot Ekit takes over. “Candidates!” he says. “Here is where I need to explain your team roles. All the Sections have been divided into four teams, A, B, C, and D, in order of achievement, as measured by points. And this determines your time of entry into the cavern system. Everyone on this shuttle is in team C. This means that you get to go in third in your Section. The first team A has an hour advantage over every one of the rest of you. Then comes team B with a half-hour advantage, then you, then team D that will go in half an hour behind you. Once we set you down in the entrance chamber, you will wait your turn.”
“But that’s unfair!” a girl in front of me says. “Even if we move as fast as we can, those other teams will still get to the central hub ahead of us, so what chance do we even have?”
“It’s true, you will be in a later floodgate ‘lockout wave’ than teams A and B.” Ekit acknowledges the girl’s statement. “However once you’re in the central hub, you will be surprised how much time you can make up in the struggle to advance to the surface.”
“This sounds absolutely horrendous,” another girl says. “What if we fall off the hoverboard, or get hurt, or get stuck in some awful dark tunnel?”
“Then you die,” Ekit says. “Sorry.”
“Oh, wow. . . .” The girl is rendered speechless.
A few seconds pass and Radra speaks again. “We are now about to return to Earth at your designated entry point. Everyone, brace for transitional gravity.”
And in the same instant we start to fall. . . .
I close my eyes and keep my head turned straight ahead as vertigo renders me close to passing out. Fortunately it lasts only a few minutes. The sensation of falling ends, and then the shuttle hull seems to absorb and then resonate with a heavy impact that sends the hull lights flying even more rapidly. Meanwhile, the sensation of motion is changed, thickened somehow. . . .
“We have now submerged underneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere off-shore between Jacksonville, Florida and the former location of your long-flooded ancient Florida Keys,” Radra announces.
And for about a minute more we move at a vague angle through what we have been just told is the thickness of water, until the shuttle lurches sideways then slightly up, and finally comes to a hover stop. The golden threads of light stop pulsing around the hull walls, and the musical hum fades into dead silence.
We sit, frozen in our seats, breathing faintly.
Pilot Radra gives us a moment to recover and then speaks again. “It is now nine-thirty AM Eastern, local time. We have lost two hours due to time zone transition from Colorado Mountain time. However, it has been accounted for—the exact starting times at all international points around the Atlantic have been synchronized. You all have 34 hours to complete the task. The clock starts now.”
“This is a tough moment of decision, Candidates.” Pilot Ekit speaks to us, as he disengages his seat harness. “It’s the point of no return. As soon as you step outside into the network entrance cavern, you will have formally agreed to proceed with the Finals competition. You forfeit your lives and your choice in the matter. However—right now is the time to Self-Disqualify. If you genuinely feel that you are unable to compete in this Final Test, it is not a reflection on you. You have the right to give up. Simply remove your ID token and press the recessed button on the back. Then, remain in your seats and wait. You will be returned back to the National Qualification Center and discharged to go home. There is no shame in it. But please note that you may not Self-Disqualify once you step off the shuttle. Unlike the Semi-Finals, we have no means of rescuing you from the middle of the tunnel system once its sequence is activated, so if you get in trouble, you will not survive.”
He pauses, and the silence in the shuttle is overwhelming.
It occurs to me, everyone here, including me, is considering this option . . . considering whether to give up now or proceed into living hell.
So easy to just give up.
Press a button and go home.
I shudder, taking a deep breath. And then I think of Mom and Dad, and the asteroid flying through space on its way to burn us alive.
I’ve come this far, and I simply cannot give up now. Besides, Gracie and Gordie and George might need me in this thing. Not to mention, Logan, and Laronda and the rest of my friends. After all, we are a team.
. . . You matter to him, Lark . . .
And he might need me.
I blink, and then begin to unbuckle and get up, together with the rest of the Candidates who make the choice to keep going.
Laronda and I both stand, and we move toward the hatch exit, where the line is forming and the two Atlantean Pilots are handing out our gear and hoverboards.
“I’m so gonna regret this,” Laronda mutters.
“I already regret this,” I reply with an exhalation of breath.
Curious, I glance around at the shuttle to see if anyone stayed behind.
Sure enough, there are at least three people I can see, sitting motionless in their seats. One young boy is crying. Another girl looks like she is in shock. Their ID tokens are no longer lit.
One boy gives me a glance of despair as I pass by him and his lifeless token.
They have chosen, I think. It’s their free choice, to die here on Earth, with their families, later. At least they don’t have to go through the nightmare Finals now.
A fair choice.
And then I turn my back on them and share a look of sorrow with Laronda.
Moments later we’re at the doors, and receive our hoverboards and supplies.
“One Yellow Quadrant net weapon, one hoverboard,” Pilot Radra tells me. “Flashlight, flares, and food are in the backpack. Good luck, Candidate—may you Qualify.”
I nod silently, receive my stuff, and go down the shuttle stairs after Laronda.
Cold, musty, damp air hits us. We emerge into a place for which I have no words.
First, eerie, greenish-blue light, a general glow, and twilight.
When they said huge cavern, they mean
t it! Holy lord, this is immense!
The Candidates crowding ahead of us stand on a slippery cavern floor with smooth water-eroded rock formations jutting out all around us. The cavern is at least three hundred feet across, likely more, because the chamber is segmented into lesser ones in all directions, and the ceiling overhead is covered with descending stalactites hanging like icicles of ancient sediment.
The floor of the cavern ends about fifty feet behind us, and there is an expanse of lapping ocean water. The large transport shuttle hovers partially over the water and over the floor, since there is really no place for it to set down, even if it had to—good thing it does not.
Since we are apparently well underneath the ocean, the light does not shine from the water which appears black as ink. The only source of light in the cavern is the plasma lights on the underbelly of the shuttle. They are the ones creating the eerie glow and casting shadows.
No, I take that back. . . . As I glance directly ahead, the cavern wall reveals a row of four-color light beacons, six in total, spaced three feet apart. They appear to be attached to the walls, but if you observe closer, they are actually installed in a horizontal line to the bottom half of a vertical lift-gate.
“Attention, Team USA, Fourteen-C!” Pilot Ekit says loudly, using a voice amplifier, as he stands at the shuttle doors. His voice sends up immense echoes that resound in the cavern. “On my count, I am now activating the tunnel gate system! Water will begin to flow out as soon as the gate opens, so get up on your hoverboards now or prepare to be drenched if you’re still standing on the ground. As soon as the gate opening is of sufficient height to allow you through, do not waste time and enter the tunnel. Fly as fast as you safely can, until you see the next row of six beacons. That would be your next floodgate. Wait for it to open, then repeat.”
As we scramble to voice-key our hoverboards, Pilot Radra’s disembodied voice sounds from the amplifier, since she is still inside the shuttle. “Please be aware there is no other light inside the tunnel system, except for the beacons to mark each gate. Use your flashlights wisely. Also, do not get distracted by any seeming detours, and stick to the main tunnel. Yes, there are off-shoots, and you do not want to take them, because they are not a part of the main system. Always stick to the biggest tunnel and cavern.”
“Finally,” Ekit says, “if you must rest or stop, do it only when you get to the next closed floodgate. That’s the only place you can be certain you are not losing precious time. Rest and eat as you wait for that floodgate to open, in the few minutes you earned by moving fast.”
Pilot Ekit ends and then disappears into the shuttle. The rung ladder retracts and the hatch closes behind him.
Sickening tension starts the pulse racing in my temples. I sit down on my hoverboard, straddling it, and quickly open my backpack to find the flashlight. Everyone else is also feverishly rummaging through theirs. . . .
A disembodied voice sounds through the amplifier, echoing through the cavern. “And now, good luck, Candidates! The next shuttle carrying Team D is waiting to enter after us, so we must vacate the cavern. Beginning gate sequence count now . . . One . . . Two . . . Three.”
And suddenly a low rush of water comes from ahead of us, as the horizontal lift-gate parts and the top portion starts rising slowly, with a dull sound of rock grinding against rock.
Black churning water enters the cavern and in seconds the floor is covered. We are all hovering, and those of us with feet dangling low, feel the spray against our legs. . . .
“Oh, holy Jesus!” Laronda cries, as she lies forward on her belly, gripping the hoverboard close to her with both arms, clutching her flashlight in one hand, while her backpack sticks up like a small lump from her back.
I’m lying on my own board right next to her, still zipping up my pack, and then quickly pulling the two straps through my arms to adjust it tightly on my back. I loop the lead cord from my flashlight around my right wrist, and clutch it in my trembling fingers.
The gate opening grows larger and it is now at least three feet up. Water continues rushing into the large cavern, creating a fall, and all around, the echoes mingle with the sound of singing voices keying hoverboards and directing them forward.
I throw wide glances around to see who else is here with us, looking for other familiar faces. After all, we’re supposed to be a team. In the low flickering light of many flashlights, it is hard to see who’s who.
“Okay, go! Go!” a boy near the front cries, because there’s a traffic jam up ahead. Teens lie flattened on hoverboards, ready to burst forward as soon as there’s enough clearance between the top and bottom portions of the lift-gate.
And then they begin to move. The front-most Candidate in line sings the “go” sequence and his board springs forward and disappears into the maw of darkness over the churning black waterfall. Immediately two more hoverboards go in after him, and then it’s an endless stream of Candidates and hoverboards, taking the entrance two and three at a time. . . .
We rush onward like desperate salmon swimming upstream into the great unknown. There are about one hundred of us in Team USA Section Fourteen-C, judging by shuttle capacity. We come from all Four Quadrants, so the majority is unfamiliar to me.
Laronda and I are somewhere in the middle of this chaotic lineup. When our turn comes, I take a deep breath and sing the hoverboard sequence, feeling cold air and wet spray hit me as I pass the gate, hovering about ten inches over the rushing water. My token flashes momentarily as I get scanned. I glance to my right, and there’s Laronda, flying next to me, clutching her board for dear life.
“Hang on tight, girlfriend!” I yell out to her, as the stale ancient air of the tunnel whooshes past us.
“Oh, yeah, mama!” she yells back. “You and I are gonna be flying out of here in no time!”
The first few minutes are the most intense. We have to get our bearings and navigate the tunnel that is generally circular, with a dripping ceiling. The whole thing’s hewn of rock that has been smoothed by centuries of water, and feels intensely claustrophobic—and I’ve only been in it for about two minutes.
The fact that there are other people with flashlights, flying ahead of us in a vague formation of about two or three people per row, makes it a little easier. They are basically lighting our way.
“Watch out! Big rock thing ahead!” someone yells several rows before us. We see hoverboards swerving, right and left and then the rock is right there, a half-formed stalagmite rising up from the tunnel floor, that must have developed over the eons since the tunnel was first built. Water is churning on both sides of it as it flows around it.
We go around it, singing the correct bypass sequence, and continue forward.
“Anyone know how fast we’re going?” a girl’s voice sounds behind us. “Because we have to go at least 30 miles an hour—”
“Yeah, yeah, we know, bitch,” a familiar hard voice retorts several hoverboard lengths ahead.
It’s Claudia Grito.
Oh, great. I am stuck in a narrow tunnel deep underneath the ocean in the same damn team as the bruja from hell who hates my guts. . . .
Next to me Laronda grimaces and throws me a look. She’s not a big fan of Claudia either.
“Seriously, how fast are we all moving? Anyone?” a guy says from further back behind us.
“Thirty-four miles an hour, according to the speedometer on my GPS, a worthless piece of crap that died two minutes ago,” another boy replies up in front. “Happy now?” And I recognize the sarcastic voice belonging to Derek Sunder.
Oh, no, Derek. . . . Why, lord, why?
“Well, now we know how badly this road trip’s gonna suck,” Laronda mutters.
We keep moving forward in general silence, except for the sound of cold air whistling past us, and the water flowing a few inches below, then a few feet below. The deeper we go, the less water there is, until the tunnel is nearly drained completely.
And then we come to the second closed floodgate. The six b
eacons glow with what feels like holiday cheer in this damp awful place. We arrive, gather in close formation, hovering in place, crowding forward, some of us closer to the ceiling, others near the floor.
And now we wait.
We know that as soon as the water has left the current tunnel chamber entirely, only then will this new gate open, releasing its water and starting the process again.
About five minutes later, a now-familiar, slow, deep sound of grating stone comes, and a thin horizontal slit appears in the floodgate as the top begins to rise.
Immediately water gushes forward, and we move back a bit, letting it drain away until there’s room to enter.
“Well,” a Candidate boy says with a snort. “One gate down—or should I say, up—and only about a billion more to go, till Bermuda, baby!” And he plunges forward into the newly revealed tunnel.
We follow after.
About five hours and ten floodgates later, we have fallen into a boring routine. We fly in formation, maintaining an even speed of about 30 to 35 miles an hour, having now learned our pace and familiarized ourselves with our “neighbors”—or at least their feet and the backs of their hoverboards. We have also come to expect a floodgate about every fifteen miles.
An eternal drip-drip of water comes from the ceiling upon our backs and our heads, and soon we are as thoroughly drenched as if we had been swimming. There’s also a slow leaching weariness in my limbs, and I know Laronda and others around me are feeling it too. . . . It seems like no big deal, but just try lying on your stomach on a hard surface for five hours, without moving hardly at all, while clenching a stiff board underneath you, all your muscles tense and constantly in a state of alertness.
Eventually you go numb. . . . Every limb feels atrophied. Muscle groups ache, itch, tingle, you name it. Everything becomes unbearable. Crap, everything just hurts.
[Atlantis Grail 01.0] Qualify Page 61
