It would be a smooth ride downwards.
She punched in the coordinates and set the submarine to autopilot.
Leaning back in the seat, Hawk closed her eyes.
She was awoken by a familiar majestic voice.
It said, filling the submarine’s tinny speakers, “Welcome back my child. You have returned.”
“I have,” Hawk said, bowing her head. “And I am here to serve your will.”
“The final stage has begun,” the voice said, both terrifying and soothing in its gravitas, “have you done as I have asked? Delivered the first salvo?”
“Yes,” Hawk said. She paused, uncertain whether she should share her failure. “But there is one thing.”
“What is it, my child?”
“Kip Keene lives.”
“Is this supposed to mean something?”
“I thought you should know.”
“No man can stop me,” the voice said. “It is too late.”
The submarine passed by a broken colonnade, the vehicle’s red searchlight flashing briefly over the pitted stone. Then the ruins disappeared from view as the sub sped by, towards the preserved portion of the city.
A bright white light surrounded the submarine as it settled into Atlantis’ airlock. Through the windshield, Hawk could see the outline of the curved dome which had kept much of the city’s structures intact beneath the sea for millennia.
The airlock whooshed, expelling the water from around the sub.
“Come in, my child. There is much to discuss.”
Hawk stepped out of the submarine and walked through the open door, to an elevator that would take her into the depths of the mythical city.
24 | Preparations
“You sure that’s gonna hold, Keeney?” Wade kept his distance from Lorelei and Derek, who were now chained to a thick pipe at the opposite end of the master bedroom.
Keene, out of breath from carrying the pair on to the yacht, didn’t answer. Things had gotten hairy when Wade had tried to get the two out of the car. Lots of kicking, scratching and obscenities.
The ship’s first aid kit and its ample supply of potentially illegal morphine had fixed the behavioral problems—at least for the time being. Derek and Lorelei were like two animals hit by a tranquilizer gun, snoring with their mouths open, drool running down their chins into a pool on the ground.
Dragging them up the ship’s ramp, and then back down into the belly of the yacht where the master suite was located—even with Strike’s help—was not an undertaking Keene wanted to repeat.
“They wake up, you give them this.” Keene shoved the last of the morphine into Wade’s hand. Then he reached into the back of his jeans and pulled out the Walther P99 handgun he’d removed from Lorelei’s possession. He’d salvaged a couple rounds from the burned-out police car. “And a last resort.”
“That would solve our problems, though,” Wade said. “Like right now.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, dude. Got it.”
“You’re responsible. I’m trusting you.”
Wade gulped and said again, “I got it, dude.”
Strike returned from the top deck, giving the thumbs up. “Ready to shove off.”
“You think you can handle it, kid?” Keene said.
Wade grumbled and cursed, but said, “Yeah, I’ll figure it out.”
Keene followed Strike up the winding chestnut stairs, out on to the deck and to the cockpit.
The marina wouldn’t have made for a bad base of operations—if the waters weren’t shallower than Wade’s assessment of women. No room for the sub to maneuver here amidst the tangle. Dropping anchor a little ways off shore would give them a little more breathing room to navigate.
“You check out the sub,” Keene said.
“Nah, figured I’d wing this shit.” Strike pushed a button on the yacht’s complex navigational console, and the boat rocked in the water as the anchor lifted off the sea bottom. “You take me for some kind of moron?”
“You think this will work?” Keene stared out the seamless glass windows. Pure morning light glistened across the tranquil blue sea.
“Honestly?”
Keene bit his lip and shook his head. “Just steer.”
The boat pulled out of the marina and cut through the placid waters, leaving choppy froth in its wake.
“They’ll be all right, you know,” Strike said, putting the craft on cruise control after entering the charted course in the GPS. The onboard navigation indicated it would take about ten minutes to reach their destination.
“I thought this might be it, you know?”
“It’s not the end.”
“Not an end. A beginning.” Keene braced himself against the crystal clear glass as the craft banked in the open water. The first half year on Earth, that had been difficult. An adjustment. The couple months after that had been eventful. Not wonderful. But interesting.
And now this—this was a pivot, where things could either veer towards awful or decent. Right now, the smart money was on the former. He tuned into the satellite radio, catching the end of a Spanish news report. More bad news. After hearing about hundreds of casualties, Keene turned it off.
The boat rode to a gentle stop, and Strike dropped the anchor. Over the ship’s intercom she said, “How’s it going down there hacker boy?”
A crackly voice returned serve through the navigation room’s speakers. “Fine, sweetbuns, just fine. I’m working on it.”
“You linked up to the sub’s systems?”
“Yeah, that was easy, honey. I’m a pro. Just reroute the firewall, find a backdoor in the code, splice it all—”
“Great,” Strike said. “Keep up the good work. You’ll see the sunlight again one of these days.” Then she cut off the intercom. “I think all the power you gave him went to his skinny head. He’s hitting on me again.”
“I think he’s just scared shitless,” Keene said.
Everything rode on a twenty year old who had left Keene naked in the Mexican desert—and had a predilection for wearing pants three sizes too big—and an ex-FBI agent, ex-junkie, loose cannon, firecracker dead-shot bombshell of woman who was something between a partner and a constant obstacle.
With teammates like those, this mission was the lock of the century.
“You know,” Strike said, slipping by Keene to head towards the waiting sub, “I don’t think our little friend’s ever been laid.”
“You volunteering to be the first?”
“Hell no. Just saying.”
“Case and point,” Keene said. He followed Strike to the stern of the SS Bank of Legends, where a submarine hung from a claw-like crane. About twenty feet long, the sub looked spacious and comfortable enough, although such considerations were fairly far from Keene’s mind.
The tubular vehicle was gunmetal gray, glinting with a dull sheen in the morning sun.
Strike pressed a few buttons on the crane’s controls, and the sub began to lower towards the water. She winked at Keene and then leapt over the side of the boat, landing upright on the top of the descending submarine. Then she popped open the hatch and disappeared inside.
Keene put one leg at a time over the railing and lowered himself down the side of the yacht’s briny hull, his feet sliding as they searched for purchase. They dangled a few inches above the submarine.
He let go and fell down almost face first, hugging the cylindrical body of the sub in order to stay on. Once he was sure that he wouldn’t fall in, he crawled towards the open hatch and dropped in.
“Smooth,” Strike said, already adjusting the controls. “Close her up so we don’t drown, would you?”
Keene slammed the hatch shut and tightened the pressure locks. He looked over his shoulder, towards the back end of the sub. A number of guns hung on the wall, replet
e with many boxes of munitions. Two wooden crates about three feet long and a foot wide sat stacked on top of each other on the floor.
Directly in front of the ladder where Keene had descended into the small sub was a sign that said loading instructions. It showed a picture of a cartoon man with a garishly jolly smile loading a missile-shaped object into a chamber running along the sub’s wall.
“Yeah, so I should tell you that sometimes Mom doesn’t play nice.”
“I noticed.”
“Our little war sub might just save everyone’s ass.”
Something up front beeped to indicate that the vehicle was fully submerged beneath the water’s surface. The sub jerked slightly as it detached from the boat’s claw.
“Wade?” Strike played with the craft’s controls, adjusting and clicking various modules. “You hear me?”
“I’ve gotten laid before,” Wade said.
“What?”
“You only muted me, Striker. I’m telling you, not smart since I have to guide your ass.”
“What’s with this Striker business?”
“Figured you needed a nickname.”
“I think otherwise.”
“It suits you,” Wade said. “I’m keeping it, dude.”
“When we get back, maybe we’ll help you out. You know, getting laid.”
“I told you, I’ve already been—”
“We’re all going to die,” Keene said. He picked up a pistol from the weapons shelf and found the hollow points, loading them into the clip. Popping the clip into the bottom and racking the slide, he added, “So there’s no reason to lie.”
“Damn, Keene, just trying to keep it light,” Strike said. She shook her blonde hair, then pressed a series of buttons on the navigational console. “Captain Buzzkill here.”
The sub took off into the depths, the clear blue water gradually growing dark, until the craft’s high-wattage front beams seemed like nothing more than pen lights in the murk. Keene settled into the co-pilot’s chair and strapped himself into the harness, adjusting the loops so they were comfortable.
He stared at the ceiling, then the sea, then the ceiling. They held equal interest to his racing mind.
The sub bore onwards into the unknown in silence.
“Whoa, dudes,” Wade said. “There’s something out there.”
“It’s the ocean. There’s a lot of stuff out here,” Keene said.
“Technically it’s a sea—you know what, that’s not really important, because I swear if you saw what I saw, you’d be freaking out, Keeney. Big time.”
“Are the coordinates off?” Strike said. “Don’t tell me we went the wrong way.”
She moaned and banged her head against the windshield.
“It’s worse.”
“How can it be worse,” she said. “That’s statistically impossible.”
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Wade said, his voice dropping to a hushed, paranoid whisper, “but the city knows you’re coming. And it just fired a missile in your direction.”
The submarine’s radar went berserk, and every light inside the cabin flashed a deep shade of disaster red.
“Find us a way out.”
“I don’t know if there is one,” Wade said. “I think this might be it.”
Keene sat in the co-pilot’s chair, peering into the shadows, waiting for the inevitable to come out of nowhere and wipe him from existence.
Then he saw it.
And he threw the controls down to the floor, so hard that he snapped the stick from the console.
The submarine lurched.
A second later, it spun out of control, blindsided by a tremendous force. The last words from Wade before communications cut off were, “It’s not a missile, it’s a—”
Almost all of the submarine’s critical systems shut down, sending Keene and Strike plummeting into the unknown depths blind.
Completely helpless.
And completely alone.
25 | The Machine
Atlantis could feel its own heart beating. A living machine, crafted of carbon circuitry and electrons, the same as any organic creature. An illusion, of course, one borne from the sensation of smooth gears and pistons working in effortless synchrony. But what was a heart, then, but a well-tuned machine?
It adjusted the wireless security cameras overlooking the Ruby Rattlesnake fountain. The fountain was dry, from where Owens’ thieves had siphoned off its water, not realizing that the substance they sought came from the stone statue they considered worthless. Part of the serpent’s tail had fallen into the basin, the stone crumbling underneath the weight of time. The craftwork of the Atlanteans, while most impressive, couldn’t hold up to two hundred millennia of decay.
It had been two hundred thousand and thirty-six years, by the machine’s count, since the entire city of Atlantis had plunged deep into the Mediterranean, the consequence of an earthquake, the calamity killing its inhabitants.
Except the machine.
Amidst the tremors and water, tucked away in an impermeable bubble deep in the heart of Atlantis, it alone had been afforded the time necessary to survive. Activate the city’s pressure and impact shields.
Then it had waited for many years.
When the humans had returned, it had reasoned that perhaps they would be brave and intelligent as the Atlanteans once were. The machine had not activated its defenses, instead had allowed them into the center of the city.
A grave mistake, for the humans—that Commander Owens and his troop of thieves—had looted the sacred fountain, draining it of its water.
It zoomed in with the cameras.
The one called Hawk had returned, and was staring into the barren fountain. Her former employers had drank it dry, stirring a contempt within the machine for mankind that demanded retribution. So it had shown Hawk the light, making her its hands, eyes and arms where the machine itself could not go.
She was a practical woman. Perhaps not a true believer. A woman’s true motivation was always difficult to read. But, so long as her own interests aligned with the city’s, she would remain loyal. And thus, the machine’s plan was almost complete. Hawk only had to return, gather more supplies and prepare for the wide-scale attack. Barcelona had only been a test-run, a proof of concept.
The next step involved the world.
After it had plunged into chaos, the two of them would reign over it, directing humanity back to a Golden Age.
If the machine had any facial characteristics, it would have smiled.
Instead, the thousands of lights adorning the front of its sleek, rectangular chassis stretching from one end of its impermeable bubble to the other—about ten feet—blinked and oscillated.
But the machine did not know this, for it was blind in the spots where cameras did not reach.
Thus, it did not know itself.
And perhaps, how vulnerable it truly was—for its existence hinged on Atlantis’ power sources. A number of them were already offline—the solar collectors, those requiring raw materials such as coal or uranium. But the hydroelectric facility converting pressurized water into fuel with an elaborate system of vessels and tanks still ran daily, providing life to the machine.
But as it flicked through the images, the pixels and bits streaming through its millions of processors running in tandem, it had the sense of being invincible.
For it did not consider itself different than the city.
It was, in its own mind of silver and gold wires and diamond cut circuitry, Atlantis.
And it would have its revenge.
Hawk ran her fingers across the dry stone. Once painted a deep shade of crimson, the material’s hue had chipped and faded to a grayish pink.
The statue was a massive creation, over twenty feet tall, and even in decay, it was clear the artisans had sp
ent many hours in its details. The rattlesnake still looked poised to leap off the pedestal and attack.
Lining the walls around the dried fountain, in a sort of oval shape, were a series of clear empty boxes, reminiscent of fish tanks and aquariums. But even covered in dust, the clear windows possessed an outstanding clarity, amplifying the very nature of reality itself. The twigs and broken grass within looked more real than Hawk’s own life.
Behind the fountain lay the entrance which Hawk had come through. Above that entrance was a faded painting, in fresco style, of the snake before her in all its glory. Symbols reminiscent of ancient Greek were carved above the doorway.
Another exit led to a different part of the great city, replete with squat, empty houses and cobbled streets.
The third and final doorway led to the remainder of the city, which stretched on for a great distance. She had never set foot there, for it was forbidden. Somewhere within that expanse, the heart and mind of Atlantis stirred, directing every piece of the plan. Through the grimy glass of the atrium, she could see shadowy spires and ancient structures.
Maybe one day she would be allowed to set foot on that ground. She stared at the text over that forbidden doorway, the ancient symbols meaning little. The city had told her that it meant “The Park.”
It sounded so nice, so peaceful.
It had been hell getting down here alone the first time, with Commander Owens and his team watching over her. But there had been a calling—primal and urgent—insisting she do so. Perhaps it had been a need for survival, an unspoken suspicion that Owens could discard her at any time.
Perhaps it was something more.
Owens and his team had never worried she would flee. No, they had been afraid she would die, or spiral into insanity, like all the others. The rest were dead. Two at the hands of Rabbit during an escape, Rabbit by Hawk’s own.
She was now the last piece of Project Atlantis standing.
All because she had heeded the city’s faint call.
The sound of a camera lens grinding and rotating made her look up. High in the corner of the atrium—which stretched fifty feet in the air, fashioned of tiny clear panes inlaid in a thin wire frames—sat a minute optical device the size of a bee.
The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3 Page 27
