Babel Found

by Matthew James

  A wall of water as big as the one in Miami, but much wider, is heading right for us, coming from the east. The Persian Gulf is frothing with an intensity I’ve only seen in a pissed off human. The wave literally looks angry.

  “Good God,” Carrack says. Then he screams into his handset again. “Evacuate the base. Get everyone out of here. Use every helo we have—every pilot we have. Fill the damn C-130’s if we have to!”

  “Corporal,” he says, speaking to the driver, “get us to the nearest Blackhawk.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The hummer gets jerked to the left as we head towards the incoming wall of water. It’s a surreal scene when you’re speeding towards something as tall as a three-story apartment complex with the force of an atomic bomb.

  “Um, General…” I start to say, but don’t finish. There’s not much to say really, at least nothing constructive.

  We screech to a halt and jump out as one, rushing to an awaiting Blackhawk transport chopper. Its rotors are at full speed waiting for us to board, the pilot frantically waving us forward.

  We move as fast as the shaking ground will let us. I stop and help Carrack and the others in, looking for something within the waves. It’s then I see him. I step away from the Blackhawk and head towards the coast.

  “Hank!” Nicole shouts against the rotor wash.

  I look back, biting my lip, wanting to do something to stop it. But I know I can’t, not yet anyways. I turn and leap into the rear hold. Just as I sit and buckle in, the pilot pulls back on the collective, slamming me down harder into the already uncomfortable seat. I wince as the general’s present—the one I asked for without the others knowing—gets shoved harder into my right butt cheek. Its metal cylindrical casing is unforgiving, but it’s payload potentially lifesaving. We then all quickly don headsets and watch the landscape rapidly change over the next few minutes.

  Mother Nature’s finest champion is a wonder for sure. Seeing it in action from above is something else altogether. The tidal wave slams into the shore and continues forward, wiping the slate clean. Thankfully, its strength was lessened a bit when it made landfall, but it will still demolish most of the military installation.

  “Sir,” I hear the pilot say in my ears, “reports of a…man…within the waves are coming in.”

  “Susanoo…” I say, trailing off in thought.

  Carrack looks back, getting Nicole’s attention.

  “He’s one of the Judges,” she says, continuing for me.

  “Oh,” Carrack says, turning back to the pilot, “good to know.” He then cups his hand around the headphone’s mic and yells, “Fire at will! Take out the mermaid.”

  The dozen or so helicopters around us open up with everything. The Blackhawk doesn’t have any munitions, minus the door-mounted machine gun. Kane quickly moves over and gets it ready, his finger itching to unload into anything. He’ll have to wait, though.

  The pilot eases us higher, now well out of reach of the surging wave. We all look over the edge as the water sweeps over the land under us, consuming everything in its path. Only the heaviest of the vehicles are left, mostly tanks and the hulking C-130 planes. They’re just too damn heavy for the rapidly diminishing wave to lift.

  Men are still flung, however. Some weren’t able to make it to safety, but thankfully most had. Casualties will be in the hundreds probably, but without the quick thinking of Carrack to evacuate, it would have been much worse.

  “Get us closer,” I hear myself say.

  “Um,” Kane says, “why?”

  I ignite my right hand. “I need to do what I can.”

  No one reacts.

  “Do it,” Carrack says, getting the pilot to take us back down.

  We’re about fifty feet above the water and nearing the form of Susan in the water. He’s literally standing on the surface of the gulf like Jesus Christ himself. He’s simply walking forward, hands out to each side, calling upon the water.

  I need to disrupt that part.

  I turn to Nicole. “I love you.”

  She smiles but stops halfway through. She knows what I’m about to do.

  Before she can answer, I leap from the open side door like an Olympic high diver, falling like a bomb. Through the mist, I reacquire my target… He’s not hard to miss. He rises up to meet me, sending a column of water into the air as he follows behind it.

  I spread my arms out wide and ball my fists, about to hit the aquatic Mac-truck head on. Now, I think, willing the fires to erupt. They do and engulf my entire body. I then hold out my fists and slip through the sea water like a knife through butter.

  Seconds later, I find him, bulldozing into the man in midair, destroying his defense at the same time. He shrieks in pain as I wrap my arms around his waist and burn. I will the flames to reach their most intense heat, knowing all too well what will happen if I pass out in the water.

  Oh, well… Here goes nothing.

  We slam into the sand ten feet beneath the waves. It’s actually something I hadn’t planned on happening. There’s a void of about twenty feet around us. The water is continually evaporating from my body’s supernova-like heat.

  Susan stands, clutching his badly charred body. After a couple of grunts, the bastard starts to laugh. “This…is what I call…a home field advantage.”

  Susan stands on dry sand, holding his side. I watch as he looks around at the dome of electric green fire encompassing us. My hands are both still on fire, one held aloft above my head, controlling the impromptu sanctuary.

  “Mesmerized are we?” I ask, grinning like an idiot.

  Susan just responds by pulling the seawater surrounding us harder, beckoning it to listen. The weight is unbearable, but I hold, again reminded of the Titan, Atlas.

  I blink hard, feeling the pressure build in my head. I really hope I don’t have to use Carrack’s little gift. It’ll do the job if I need it, I have no doubt. I just really don’t want to do it.

  The pressure again increases as Susan pulls harder, charging me at the same time. He doesn’t think I can keep this up and fight at the same time. A drop of sweat drips down my nose… He’s right of course, I can’t keep this up for very much longer, let alone engage in a bout of fisticuffs.

  I react without thinking, dropping the ten-by-twenty-foot dome of fire. It startles Susan, tripping him up slightly. I react and thrust out my hands, setting his clothes ablaze. Unfortunately, my protective cocoon shrinks down even more, making me hunch over while still trying not to pass out.

  Susan reacts like most would when on fire… He freaks out and flails. He even stops, drops, and rolls, adhering to the horrible safety class slogan from grade school. It somewhat works, but his skin is badly scorched and not healing very much at all.

  Just like Omar, I think, recalling how I beat Nannot back in the necropolis’ courtyard. I literally burned him out of it. Atlantean might versus Atlantean might. Unnatural weapons work the best against these guys.

  But before I can advance and bear hug him, Susan gets up and throws himself through the outer wall of my fiery dome, burning himself even worse. The mad dash pays off, though. He easily passes through and makes it to open water where he’ll be that much more powerful.

  Unless I injured him enough…

  When I get flung into the air and back onto dry land, I realize that he may be just fine. I roll on the sand, lucky that I didn’t land on the rocks, further up the beach. Knowing what’s coming next, I get to my feet, stumble, and start to make my way back up the incline. I need to buy myself more time and recuperate some. I’m about to burn a hole through the military base’s outer fence. How it survived the wave, I have no idea.

  I lift my hand, but stop when I hear laughter.

  Turning, I face the water, feeling my jaw drop at the sight.

  “Holy shit…” I say, making sure I still have my glasses on. “Please tell me you’re getting this?”

  20

  Safe House

  Blairsville, Georgia

&n
bsp; Todd and Olivia couldn’t answer. The only audible reply was an unintelligible “ummm” from the both of them. They watched from Hank’s video feed, witnessing the creature that used to be the small statured Japanese waiter with the ambiguously funny name.

  “He really is a monster,” Todd said still in awe. The beast just stood there in the knee-deep shallows, intimidating as all hell, looking like something straight out of a SyFy channel original movie.

  “Todd?” he shook himself from his fanboy stupor, hearing Nicole click on. He cut his chat with Hank, seeing that he was a little busy.

  “We’re here, Nicole.”

  Her view was that of a humongous tornado and it threw lightning in every direction. Anu could be seen clearly at its center, directing each and every electrical discharge. His body was gray and seemed to swirl like the wind. His suit was gone, giving them a good look at what laid beneath. But regardless of how he looked now, if they could disrupt his concentration long enough to sneak a missile in, they might be able to take him out.

  “Any ideas?” she asked. He quickly relayed what he’d just come up with to her.

  “It could work,” she said. “Let me advise Carrack and I’ll get back to you.”

  Todd could hear Nicole do as much and then she was back in his head. “Anything on Babel yet?”

  Todd looked at Olivia with a defeated look. The only information they could find that was worth a damn was knowledge they were already aware of. It’s like the exact location couldn’t be agreed upon.

  Or the people’s translations were wrong since no one spoke the same language! It was a theory he hadn’t thought of yet. It’s happened in history before. You’ll get a different set of facts from the same event, but through the eyes and words of someone else. Primal translations and word of mouth were never an accurate representation. Then again, with Atlantis involved, he wouldn’t put it past them to go out of their way to erase it from history altogether.

  “Nothing so far, unfortunately,” Olivia said, stepping in for Todd. “We have scoured the internet clean. Frost’s files haven’t come up with much either except something about an impact crater in the desert somewhere.”

  “Impact crater?” Nicole asked, her voice perking up at the mention.

  “Yes,” Olivia replied, hearing the uptake in the Swede’s voice. “Is it important?” She quickly glanced at a visibly distressed Todd. He’d obviously known about that, but hadn’t yet thought to look into it.

  “Actually…it is,” Nicole replied. “Hank was told of the orichalcum based meteor strike by Thoth himself. He lived just outside the crash site, being the first to discover it. Do me a favor and crosscheck Frost’s notes with any mention of Iraq—Mesopotamia in this case. Center your search near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It’s where most cities were built back then. Get back to us if you find anything. I’ve got to go.”

  “Will do,” Olivia replied, watching Todd’s fingers explode across his keyboard. He would have made an unbelievable legal secretary with those typing skills.

  “So,” she said, turning towards Todd, “what exactly are we looking for?”

  “Well,” he said, speaking as he typed, never looking down at his hands. He was literally triple tasking right then, getting an unnoticed impressed look from her, “we know Thoth came from a land to the west of Egypt.”

  “Atlantis,” Olivia said.

  “Yes, but we also know he came from a land to the east of Egypt before that. Hank and Ben had always thought Thoth was a part of the original migration from Babel, but it was just a guess. The Atlantean king was extremely old so it fit the bill.”

  “We just never had a true connection until now,” Olivia added.

  Todd nodded, still typing and reading. “It’s the meteor. It’s always been the meteor. It’s the key to everything.”

  Olivia sat up straighter. “If we find the crater, we find Babel.”

  Todd smiled. “Not quite, but close. The files say Thoth walked a day to the south from his home near the Euphrates. So—”

  “We find Thoth’s village and measure a day’s walk to the south,” she smiled in triumph.

  “Then, my young Padawan,” Todd said, grinning with satisfaction, “we dig some more with better intel and find that damn tower—or what’s left anyways.” He looked back at his screen. “It’s here, I just know it is.”

  “Okay, Todd,” Olivia said, “tell me what you need me to do.”

  He was about to answer but got cut off by an unexpected caller.

  “Jenkins?” a voice asked, cutting through their secure comms. “You there?”

  He and Olivia looked at each other in shock. Who could hijack their system? You needed a code only a handful of people had in the entire world.

  “Um, who’s this?” Todd asked.

  “It’s Daniel.”

  “Daniel?” Todd asked stunned. “I thought you got buried under Site A?”

  Ben’s son laughed at the other end. “We did, but a couple of the engineers survived the attack topside and just pulled us out. Thankfully, the heavy-duty winch system wasn’t too badly damaged.”

  While that was good and all, Todd didn’t need to have another long-distance call from halfway across the world. He and Olivia needed to get to work right away.

  “You need to see what I found,” Daniel said, getting both of their attentions.

  “Okay, Daniel,” Todd said. “What do you have?”

  “Dad gave me your info just in case something happened, but I need an email address to send you the pictures.”

  Pictures? Todd thought.

  He gave Daniel his email and was pleasantly surprised to get it only a few short seconds later. He double-clicked the file and downloaded it, getting a bevy of images.

  “What is all this Daniel?” Olivia asked, helping Todd sort them out.

  “It was the last group of pictographs I was cataloging before the camp was leveled. Dad had mentioned a crater of some sort once, knowing I was really interested in astrology as a kid. I was kind of an alien freak growing up, loved the stuff. He thought it was a neat conversation. He asked me to send him anything related to an impact crater, but I can’t reach him.”

  Todd and Olivia looked at each other as they pulled up the last of the images. It depicted a man praying over a stone, but it wasn’t the man or the stone that caught their eyes. It was the setting the man was in. He was kneeling in a bowl-like depression in the ground.

  “That’s it…” Todd said, his voice trailing off.

  “Daniel,” Olivia quickly said, going through the other slides, “is there another picture with the same man walking, maybe from a river or something of that nature?”

  “Actually,” Daniel replied, “yes.”

  Todd found it as soon as Daniel confirmed its existence.

  It was a shot from above—the lay of the land. There was a river to the north, but also a lake to the west. It looked familiar, but he didn’t know from where.

  “Daniel,” Olivia said, leaning in closer, “do you know where this spot is—the crater.”

  “I do.”

  Todd and Olivia halted their search and again looked at each other.

  “Where is it?” Olivia asked.

  “It’s Eridu,” he simply said. “Some say it’s the oldest known city in the world.”

  “We found it,” Todd said, leaning back in his chair, eyes wide.

  “Found what?” Daniel said, not following.

  “We just found the Tower of freaking Babel.”

  21

  Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

  The Blackhawk’s occupants watched Hank descend upon the water, bursting into a dazzling display of electric-green fire. Kane and Nicole had seen it quite a few times, but for Carrack and the pilot…this was something new.

  “Hot damn,” the pilot said, whistling at the sight.

  “Literally,” Kane replied. “It’s hotter than the surface of the sun.”

  Nicole shook her head. “Don’t exaggerate.
” Her mind was in two places at once, she didn’t need to be scolding Kane right now too. Hank was about to fight what could pass for a living god while Todd and Olivia tried to find Babel—a location no one in history has been able to find.

  She watched as Hank struck the water—the same time the helo got sideswiped by a gust of wind, tilting them sharply. Nicole was tossed towards the open rear door but was caught before her upper half could follow her lower half. She kicked at the open air, trying to find the landing strut—just as something locked onto her lower arm. If she could, she’d be able to brace herself and push. She kicked out once more and happily found it with both her boot tips. She flexed her legs and pushed, barreling into Kane who still had a tight grip on her wrist, sending both of them to the metal floor.

  “What the hell was that?” Kane asked from his back. Nicole was laying on top of him, her chest uncomfortably close to his face. Thankfully, Nicole quickly regained her footing and headed for the front of the chopper.

  Olivia would have never let that go, Kane thought, smiling a little. The grin wasn’t aimed at Nicole’s bust, though, it was at seeing Olivia blow her top over nothing. He really did enjoy making her pop.

  Kane watched as Nicole turned back to him. “It’s Anu.”

  His face fell flat. Then, he also stood, but instead of heading up front to join the others, he stumbled back over to the .50 caliber machine gun. He clipped himself on so he wouldn’t be thrown like Nicole had just been. Kane expertly yanked back on the loading mechanism and scanned the sky, looking for something to shoot.

  He immediately found that something…

  Anu was hovering just west of the camp, sandwiching them between him and Susanoo. “Over there!” Kane shouted against the gale. “He’s over there!”

  The Blackhawk banked, facing the incoming twister.

  “All eyes on the tornado coming in from the west!” Carrack yelled as they got thrown again, losing altitude. Military chopper pilots were some of the best in the world, however, and they trained to fly while under duress. They quickly straightened out and Carrack continued his instructions. “Halfway up. Fire!”