“We have to assume that because of the extremely fertile volcanic soil that covered Atlantis and the bountiful ocean that surrounded it, the pieces were in place for humans who could reap the food supplied by both sources to develop quickly. It also benefited from the warming effect of the Gulf Stream, making it temperate year round. I believe the first civilization of mankind arose on Atlantis.
“It did not last long before the Shadow appeared. I think the Shadow attacked Atlantis because it sat on top of this crack, almost a direct pathway to the power inside the planet. The thing that made the land so bountiful also doomed it.”
Dane thought about that. He thought the explanation was off in some way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
‘’The Ones Before helped the Atlanteans in their battle against the Shadow. We’ve seen how the minds of special people, people like you, can re-direct power, although the cost is high, resulting in transformation ill a pure crystalline skull.
“The ancient ones of mankind fought a war that spread around the globe until the very existence of life was threatened. And in the climactic battle, the ancient ones, with the aid of the Ones Before, stopped the Shadow--but at a high price. Their home of Atlantis was destroyed in a cataclysm of fire and earthquake. The resulting tsunamis touched every shore on the planet with such devastation that the legend of the Great Flood was written of both in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Old Testament of the Jewish people on the other side of the world.
“The survivors, in a handful of ships, scattered to the four winds and planted the seeds for future civilizations to arise thousands of years later, what we call the modem world. The Atlanteans stopped the Shadow but lost their civilization and their home in the process. This is something we would like to avoid.
“Since the destruction of Atlantis, the Shadow has kept a presence on our planet via gates. Sometimes these gates expanded, such as in A.D. 800 when the capital city of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia was swallowed up by such a gate--the one at Kol Ker which you entered. But always the gates shrunk back in size or even disappeared for years on end. So infrequent were the Shadow’s actions that man knew so little of it, that places where gates sometimes opened were viewed more as mystical places, such as the Devil’s Sea off the coast of Japan or the Bermuda Triangle. Even Atlantis faded into the fog of myth.”
There was a pause in the recording. Dane glanced out of the cockpit. They were still over the Pacific, heading to the West at supersonic speed.
“A major problem is that we are not sure exactly who the Shadow is or where they—or it-come from. We know you found human bodies inside the Valkyrie suits, but that could simply mean the Shadow has recruited humans to do their dirty work. If the Shadow is human, another Earth time line attacking our time line, the issue is how did they attain such a mastery of nature? It is obvious that the Shadow is an enemy that has a grasp of the true nature of physics that is far ahead of ours.”
Dane rubbed his forehead as he scrolled down the screen, looking at formulas and data Ahana had placed in the computer. He knew he needed to understand as much as possible, but he was finding some of this hard to absorb. Especially as Ahana now tried to give him a primer on the cutting edge of physics.
“Muons are part of the second family of fundamental particles which we know little about. Most of what we deal with in our world is in the first family, consisting of electrons, up-quarks and down-quarks. The second family consists of muons, charm quarks and strange quarks. And all these things are not single dots, according to string theory, but there a tiny, one-dimensional loop that is vibrating, which gives it several characteristics, which allows us to merge relativity and quantum mechanics.”
There was another short pause, then Ahana’s voice came through again.
“Let me explain this to you more simply. We have a problem with our theories of physics. Relativity explains things ell for large matter but doesn’t work at the smallest levels. Quantum physics works well at the smallest levels, but not at Quantum physics works well at the smallest levels. But not at what we call a unified-field theory that explains everything. We think string theory is it.
“Power is the key to all of this. We know the Shadow likes to draw power from this side, whether it is in the form of radioactivity as they did at Chernobyl, or from the planet itself along the tectonic plates, one of the greatest, if slowest, powers on the planet, as they recently tried to do through the Nazca Plain.
“There are four base forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetic power, strong, and weak. For electromagnetic power the force particle is the photon. For gravity it’s postulated that ere is a particle called the graviton, but ,again, only because of effect, not that we’ve ever seen one. For strong the particle is the gluon. And for weak we have weak gauge bosons.
“Professor Nagoya believed the Shadow could manipulate the strong and weak forces. We can do so, too, but only crudely. A nuclear weapon explodes when we split atoms and the strong forces are released. When uranium decays in a reactor we are using weak forces. Professor Nagoya believed the Shadow could manipulate strong and weak forces like we use electricity and that is how they were able to a certain extent extend portals across parallel worlds and times.”
If the Shadow could control such forces, Dane wondered, why did it need to attack other time lines for power, water, and people?
“There have been scientists who’ve theorized that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, existing side by side, to speak, in what is called the multiverse.” Dane heard Ahana sigh before she continued. “The fundamental problem with trying to understand the universe is that we don’t really I know how it started. If you view time as a line, and we are currently at the right-hand end of it, the universe began at the left-hand end, and that formation might rely on cosmological evolution that is outside the scope of even the deepest theory we can come up with.”
In other words, Dane thought, we don’t know much of anything about what was going on. That brought up the issue Ahana had mentioned earlier--if the Shadow was human, how had it gained this knowledge? Or was the Shadow some alien life force far advanced of mankind?
Did it matter, though? Dane wondered. Nagoya and Ahana’s theories and research had so far yielded little practical information.
Dane took the headphones off and closed the laptop. Science didn’t have the answers. He was going to have to trust the visions and the words he heard. So far they had steered him correctly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Taki felt a spasm of pain pass down the middle of his skull. It was so intense that at first he thought he’d been struck in the head and he brought his hand up, expecting to see it covered in blood. But his skin was intact. The pain was inside.
He blinked. Trying to clear his head. and the pain abated, but he couldn’t see clearly. This had happened before. He sank to his knees and closed his eyes. He cleared his mind using the discipline of the samurai training.
He saw what he needed to do. His heart swelled with pride. It was a great honor to be entrusted with such a thing. He glanced over at Earhart, who was sleeping not far away. He knew if he woke her, she would argue with him. She would want to take his place or have him use one of the two suits they had. But he knew she could not take his place, and he knew she needed the extra suit. They had waited a long time at the Inner Sea for someone to come through, then reluctantly returned to camp. One of the problems with the visions they had from the Ones Before was that the timing of events was rarely locked down. Someone would come, of that Taki had no doubt. But when was more of the question.
He quietly walked over and picked up the metal case holding the skulls. Then he left the camp, making his way to the Inner Sea. When he arrived, he was not surprised to see Rachel leap out of the water and land with a splash. Taki couldn’t miss her, and he turned to the right, walking down to the shoreline. Following her as she led him. Until she halted.
He held the case hold
ing the rest of the crystal skulls in both hands as he walked into the slimy water of the Inner Sea. When the water reached his chest, he paused as Rachel raced about him, cutting a tight circle in the water. He held the case above the water. His lips were moving as he repeated the prayer his mother had taught him, the one that helped a small child be brave when it was dark and the wind howled outside.
His skin tingled and his hair stood upright. The air in front of him flickered, and then suddenly, a black column four feet wide appeared. Taki didn’t hesitate. He moved forward into the portal.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BOULDER, COLORADO TERRITORY: 10 MAY 1876
He was known as the Mountain Madman in town. In a mining town full of many strange characters, such a distinguishing moniker meant one was indeed far from the norm.
Bouyer didn’t care what the people in Boulder called him. He only went down there every three or four months for ammunition and other essential supplies. So far he’d made seven trips. It was closing on two years since he’d left Denver after his vision. He’d found the spot he’d “seen” relatively easily: a small cave at the base of the middle Flatiron in rough terrain.
At first he’d camped there, expecting something to happen at any moment. But as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, he’d realized that the vision hadn’t guaranteed a time. He went to work and built a small cabin outside the cave. He hunted for food and did some trapping so he could trade m town. And most of all, he waited. Through two brutal winters, the searing heat of summer, lightning storms and flooding creeks, he waited.
Whenever he went into town he also checked on the latest news. 1875 had been a year of turmoil. Another Army expedition had confirmed the finding of gold in the Black Hills. The government tried to buy the land outright from the Sioux, an offer that was soundly rejected. Then the government did the inevitable, opening the land to whites, breaking their own treaty. To make the area safe, a proclamation was issued ordering all Sioux to report to reservations by 31 January, 1876. Any who did not would be considered hostile.
General Crook, a renowned Indian fighter, had attempted a campaign in the winter of 1875 to 1876, but the Army found these northern plains more brutal than those in the south and managed only to scatter one village before the cold sent them back to the warmth of their forts.
Now with spring, there were rumors of military movement against the Sioux. Bouyer knew the storm clouds were gathering, yet he also knew he had to stay in this place until whatever he was waiting for occurred.
Bouyer walked back and forth along the base of the massive rock face of the second Flatiron. Sheer rock angled up for more than three hundred feet. Before pointing a jagged edge into the sky. Boulder was several miles to the east, on the edge into the sky. Boulder was several miles to the east, on the edge spot.
Bouyer paused in his pacing as storm clouds appeared over the top of the Flatirons. Afternoon thunderstorms were common in the spring, and he paid it little mind. That is until a lightning bolt hit the middle of the Flatiron. Spraying chips of rock down on him.
Bouyer staggered back into the shelter of a pine tree as another bolt struck the rock face. He felt it, the power, the nearness of something. Finally, was all he could think.
In front of him. At the very bottom of the Flatiron, a black circle appeared on the rock about six feet around and pitch black, a darkness that Bouyer didn’t want to go near. He waited as lightning crackled all about. Thunder reverberating off the Flatirons and echoing all around.
A man stepped out of the circle, a man who had been through a gate of fire, his body burned, blistered and savaged by the gate. In his hands was a singed metal case. Bouyer felt his stomach heave as he saw that the man’s eyes were blinded, partially melted from whatever he had experienced. He couldn’t imagine the pain the man must be in. Bouyer had seen captives burned at the stake in Indian camps, but this was far beyond that.
The man held up the case in his hands. Bouyer reached out and took it. The man went to his knees, lifted his head up to the rain that was just beginning to fall, as if the drops were soothing to his burned flesh, then collapsed, dead.
Bouyer knelt next to the body, putting down the still warm and smoking case. Bouyer noted that the man’s eyes were narrow. Was he a Chinaman, like one of those working on the railroad in the east? Where had he come from?
Bouyer turned from the body to the case. Whatever the metal was, it had been partially melted and warped. The latch to open it didn’t work. Bouyer pulled out his hatchet and went to work, cutting through. As he worked, the storm passed and the sun broke through the clouds. After many strokes, the blade bounced off something hard. He saw the glint of crystal. He uncovered a skull, then another. Eventually he extracted eight from the case.
Bouyer stood, looking at the eight crystal skulls reflecting the sunlight. He turned to the body and picked up the smaller man. He carried the body to his cabin and placed it inside. Then he started a fire in the Center of the small room. Bouyer went back out and watched as flames engulfed the structure. Then he loaded the skulls, adding in the one he’d already had, into a pack and tied it off on his horse. He mounted the saddle, turned the horse toward the north and set off.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LAKE BAIKAL, RUSSIA: THE PRESENT
Dane looked down as the F-14 banked and began descending. He could see a lake below so long that the north and south ends extended over the horizon. Lake Baikal, where the Shadow was still drawing fresh water. As they got lower, Dane could see that the water level had dropped significantly, at least two hundred feet.
A small city was to the left, and the pilot headed them toward a runway at an airfield on the edge of it. As the wheels touched down. Dane could see a Land Rover racing down the runway. When the plane came to a halt. The pilot opened the canopy. The Land Rover pulled up and a door opened. An old man with a long white beard climbed out and waited as Dane climbed out of the plane.
“Mister Dane, welcome to Russia. I am Professor Kolkov.”
“Foreman sends his greetings,” Dane said as he shook the professor’s hand.
Kolkov laughed. “Foreman. Quite a character. We’ve chatted many times but never met face to face. We averted many a disaster for our countries working together.”
“Now we have another one,” Dane said.
“The latest reports from our people monitoring the radioactivity from Chernobyl are not encouraging,” Kolkov said. “Moscow will be covered within four days.”
“Is the equipment ready?” Dane asked.
Kolkov turned to the east, in the direction of the lake. “It Was brought from the salvage people who worked on the Kursk.” He paused. “You do know that sinking was not an accident.”
“A gate?”
Kolkov nodded. “Over the years we’ve lost five nuclear submarines to the Shadow. The reactor is taken, the ship sinks, and many brave sailors die.”
They got in the Land Rover and Kolkov began driving. Dane asked the question that had bothered him on the flight while reviewing Ahana’s data. “Why does the Shadow need our nuclear reactors? According to Nagoya, the Shadow can manipulate forces we can only theorize about.”
In response, Kolkov pointed toward the front of the Land Rover. “One day we will run out of petroleum. We will still have the technology, but without the fuel, it will be worthless. I suspect the Shadow exhausted its natural resources and is using its technology to come to our world to replenish them.”
“Who do you think the Ones Before are?” Dane asked.
Kolkov shrugged. “Perhaps rebels among the Shadow?”
“Why don’t they help us more directly? This vision-and-voices thing is not the best mode.”
“Perhaps they don’t have access to the same technology as the Shadow. There is much we don’t know.”
Too much. Dane thought. “Do you think the Shadow is alien or human? We did find humans inside the Valkyrie suits.”
Kolkov brought the Land Rover to a
halt at a pier extending out over dry lakebed. The water was almost a quarter-mile away. He looked at Dane. “I hope it is not human. That would mean one time line is destroying many others just to keep itself going. But I also saw the Nazis invade my country many years ago, so I do not doubt the evil man is capable of.
“On the more positive side, if it is human, that means it is as vulnerable as we are so perhaps we can eventually defeat it. First, however,” he opened his door, “we must save ourselves.”
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Amelia Earhart knelt at the edge of the Inner Sea. She saw Rachel’s dorsal fm cutting the black water not far off shore. Behind her was Asper, who had been the ship’s assistant surgeon onboard the Cyclops, a naval coal freighter that had disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle in 1918. Although he had been saved by the Ones Before, the rest of his crew had gone into the Valkyrie cave-an example of the strange apparent fickleness of their unseen benefactors. Earhart. Asper, and the samurai had conducted a raid once into the cave, killing as many of the hapless victims as possible, and Asper had recognized several of his crewmates. They had stopped doing such things because the scope of the task was overwhelming, with thousands of humans strapped to tables being worked on. Also, they were afraid if they were too active, the Valkyries would mount an expedition against their camp and wipe them out. Asper currently had the two Valkyrie suits in tow, a line tied to each, each suit bobbing behind in the air like an oversize white balloon.
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