by A. G. Riddle
“Naomi arranged for the ID badges at the train station.”
“Yes. My hope was that between her, you, and David, the three of you could rescue the children and disable the power plant, preventing Toba Protocol. It was a long shot, a desperate move. But given the stakes—literally billions of lives—any chance was better than none.”
Kate pulled the last of the bulky suit on. “The boys… You were—”
“Trying to make contact. I’m part of a small faction within the Immari that favors a different path. Our goal has been to find a therapy that activated the Atlantis Gene, allowing us to enter the tombs and greet the Atlanteans as they awaken, not as murderers, but as their children, to ask their help in managing humanity’s growing pains. To ask for their help with fixing the Atlantis Gene. We’ve found some other… interesting aspects of the gene, mysteries we still don’t understand. There isn’t time to explain, but we need their help. That’s what you have to do, Kate. You can cross into the tombs. You’ve seen what Dorian’s plan is. You must hurry. Your father gave his life for this cause, and he made so many sacrifices for you. And he tried so desperately to save your mother.”
“My mother…” Kate struggled to understand.
Martin shook his head. “Of course. I haven’t told you. The journal. It’s your father’s.”
“It can’t be…” Kate searched Martin’s face. Her mother was Helena Barton? Patrick Pierce was her father? How could it be true?
“It’s true. He was a reluctant member of the Immari. He did it to save you. He put you in the tube, inside your mother that day in the field hospital in Gibraltar. He emerged in 1978 and took the name Tom Warner. I was already a staff scientist for the Immari, but I was wavering… the methods, the cruelty. I found in him an ally, someone inside the organization who wanted to stop the madness, someone who favored dialog over genocide. But he never trusted me, not fully.” Martin stared at the floor. “I’ve tried so hard to keep you safe, to honor my promise to him, but I’ve failed so miserably—”
Behind them another explosion rocked the facility. Martin grabbed the helmet to the suit. “You have to hurry. I’ll lower you down. When you get inside, you have to find the children and lead them out first. Whatever you do, make sure they get out. Then find the Atlanteans. There isn’t much time left: less than thirty minutes until the bombs the boys are carrying go off.” He ushered her to another airlock at the end of the warehouse. “When you get outside, climb into the basket. I can operate it from here. When it reaches the bottom of the ice shaft, run through the portal, just as the children did.” He locked the suit helmet in place and pushed her out of the airlock before Kate could say another word.
When the outer airlock opened, Kate saw the steel basket hanging from the crane’s thick metal cord. It swayed slightly as the Antarctic winds blew through it, barely catching the metallic mesh on the sides.
She waddled over to it with some effort. The wind almost blew her over as she reached it. The handle was hard to work with her gloved hands, but she managed to get inside. As soon as she closed the door, it began descending into the round hole.
The basket creaked, and above her, the round circle of light shrank with every passing second. It reminded Kate of the end of a cartoon, where the final scene is gradually covered with black as the circle shrinks to the size of a pin and finally winks out into full black. The squeaking basket was an unnerving soundtrack to the darkening descent.
After a few moments, the basket began moving faster, and the last sliver of light above disappeared. The speed and disorienting darkness gave her a sick feeling in her stomach, and she braced herself against the basket. Not much longer, she told herself, but she had no idea. It was two miles deep.
Then there was light—a smattering of faint sparkles below, like stars shining on a clear night. For a moment, Kate gazed down at them, admiring their beauty, not thinking about what they actually were. Stars, she thought. Then her scientific mind slowly, subtly began rifling through the possibilities before settling on the most likely candidate: tiny LED lights that had been dropped to illuminate the bottom of the hole. They lay there in a random pattern, glowing in the blackness around them, as if guiding Kate on a cosmic journey to some unknown planet. They were almost… entrancing—
A loud sound—an explosion—echoed down through the shaft, and Kate felt the basket falling faster. And faster still. The thick cable attached at the top of the basket grew slack and gathered in waves above her. She was falling—free falling. The cable had been cut.
114
Immari Tunnels
Gibraltar
Craig stepped closer to David as the hologram formed.
David stared at it. The colors were vivid, and the hologram almost filled the room. It felt like he was there. He saw a massive ship rising out of the ocean. The Rock of Gibraltar came into view, and David realized the scale of the machine. The Rock looked like a pebble next to it. There was something else—the location of the Rock was wrong. It was inland, not on the coast, and the land extended beyond the Rock and to the right of it, all the way to Africa. Europe and Africa, joined by a land bridge.
“My God…” David whispered.
Craig paced closer to David. “It’s just as Plato described it, a massive island rising out of the sea. We’re still trying to nail down the time period, but we think this holomovie was made about twelve thousand to fifteen thousand years ago. It was certainly some point before the last ice age ended. We’ll know more as soon as we estimate the sea level. Plato’s account says the island sank 12,500 years ago, so that could be about right. And you’ve noticed the size of the vessel.”
“Incredible. You’ve only found a piece.”
“Yes, and a small one at that. We think the structure is over sixty square miles—that is, assuming the rock is the same size today as it was fifteen thousand years ago. The structure, or piece, as you say, that we stand in now is less than one square mile. The vessel in Antarctica is much larger, about two hundred fifty square miles.” Craig nodded to the hologram. “The next movie reveals what this vessel is—we think.”
David watched the massive ship move to the shore and stop. The hologram flickered, as if someone were changing the reel in an antique movie projector. The ship was still there, but the water had risen some. Just beyond the ship, on the edge of the coast, there was a city, if you could call it that. Primitive stone monuments, like a series of Stonehenges radiated out from the ship in semicircles. Huts with thatched roofs dotted the landscape. A huge bonfire burned in the middle of the stone structures, and the hologram zoomed in. A band of humans wearing thick furs was dragging another human—no, an ape. Or something in between. The ape was tall. He was naked and fought wildly at the captors at his sides. The humans around him bowed as he neared the fire.
From the ship, two flying objects launched. They looked like chariots or space-age Segways. They floated a few feet above the ground, racing toward the fire. When they reached it, the humans backed away, bowing and facing the ground.
The Atlanteans dismounted their chariots, grabbed the savage, and injected him with something. They wore some sort of body armor with helmets covered almost entirely by mirrored glass, except the rear part. They threw the ape-man across a chariot and rushed back to the ship.
The hologram flickered again, and the scene changed to the inside of the ship. The ape-man lay on the floor. The Atlanteans were still in their suits, and David couldn’t tell, but it seemed as if they were saying something to each other… the subtle body language, a few hand gestures.
Craig cleared his throat. “We’re still working out what’s happening here. Bear in mind we only saw them a few hours ago when we got the map from the journal and accessed the chamber, but we think this is a video of the Atlanteans interrupting a ritual sacrifice. The man is a Neanderthal. We think our ancestors considered it their duty to hunt down every man not made in the image of God and sacrifice him. Some sort of early racial cleansing.”
> “Is it the same early human that Pierce saw in the tube?”
“Yes, as you’ll see.”
“What happened to it?”
Craig snorted and shook his head. “Kane thawed him in the early thirties, the second he had the Bell operational. We had a time with the power supply. They ran a series of experiments over a few years. They even tried to recreate the ape-man by breeding humans with chimpanzees: his insane ‘humanzee’ project. Kane finally lost interest when there was no progress. He fed him to the Bell in ’34.”
“He didn’t survive?”
“No, even after countless thousands of years in the tube. So of course we were shocked when Kate Warner did. We think it has something to do with the tubes, but whatever it does only works on our subspecies. The tubes must somehow activate the Atlantis Gene. Whatever she treated the children with has to be connected to the tubes in some way. Our theory is that every human has the Atlantis Gene, but it’s only activated sporadically and by a select few. Clearly the Neanderthal didn’t have the genetic precursor.”
Craig nodded to the hologram. “Oh, here’s the money shot, as they say.”
The image moved out of the lab to an outdoor shot again. Behind the ship, a massive tsunami rose in the air. It must have been a hundred feet taller than the ship, which itself could have easily been two hundred feet tall, based on its height relative to the Rock of Gibraltar. The wave washed over the ship and into the primitive city, destroying it in one violent sweep.
The ship was adrift, and the wave carried it into the city, flattening the stone monuments and huts as it went. Then the waters receded, dragging the ship out to sea, more than half of it still underwater. Sparks flew along the bottom as the ship skidded against the seafloor below it. Then the hologram flashed red and white as a massive explosion erupted below the ship, ripping it into two, three, now four pieces.
“We think it was a giant methane pocket on the seabed. It exploded with the force of a dozen nuclear warheads.”
The water was rushing back over the broken ship, and the image returned to the lab and the Atlanteans. One of them had been thrown against the bulkhead. The body was limp. Dead? The surviving Atlantean hoisted the Neanderthal like a rag doll and shoved him into a tube. His strength was amazing. David wondered if it was the suit or his natural strength.
The Atlantean turned to his partner and hoisted him up. The image winked out as the man left the room. The hologram followed him as he ran through the ship. He was thrown about—no doubt as the waves rocked the ship and it floated lifelessly to the bottom of the sea. Then he was in the chamber where Craig and David now stood. He worked the panels for a moment. He didn’t actually touch the controls, he merely worked his fingers above them as he held his partner on his shoulder.
The computers shut down one by one.
“We think he’s activating the Bell here. An anti-intrusion device to keep animals like us out. It makes sense. Then he powers off the computers. We’re still scratching our heads at this next part.”
On the hologram, the room was almost dark except for the faint glow of emergency lights. The man stepped to the rear of the room and touched something on his forearm. A door slid open before him. David followed it with his eyes—the door was there, but it had the spear in it now. The Atlantean looked around, paused, and walked through. The door shut behind him—with no spear in it.
David looked back to the door.
“Don’t bother.” Craig shook his head, as if disappointed. “We’ve tried. For hours now.”
“What’s in the door?” David stepped closer to it.
“Not sure. A couple of scientists think it’s the Spear of Destiny, but we’re not certain. We think Patrick, or rather Tom Warner, had it down here, trying to cut a hole in the door or something.”
David edged closer. “The Spear of Destiny?” David knew what it was, but he needed to buy some time and distract Craig.
“Yes. You don’t know it?”
David shook his head.
“Kane was obsessed with it, and Hitler after him. The legend is that the spear was stabbed into the side of Jesus Christ as he hung on the cross, killing him. The ancients believed that any army that possessed the spear could never be defeated. When Hitler annexed Austria, he took the spear, and he only lost it a few weeks before Germany surrendered. It’s one of the many artifacts we collected over the years, hoping it, or anything else from antiquity, would provide clues to the Atlanteans.”
“Interesting,” David said as he grabbed the end of the spear. He pulled at it, and he felt the door move, if only slightly. He pulled harder, the spear came free, and the door opened. He dropped his cane and lunged through the doorway as Craig pulled his gun out and began firing.
115
Immari Research Base Prism
East Antarctica
“No, don’t shoot them!” Dorian yelled into the radio, but it was too late. He watched the second man take two shots to the chest, and the third fall from shots to the shoulder and abdomen. “Stop firing! I will shoot the next idiot who pulls the trigger!”
The gunshots ceased, and Dorian walked out into the open space toward the last man. At the sight of Dorian, he began crawling for his gun, leaving a trail of thick blood as he went.
Dorian jogged to the gun and kicked it to the far wall of the lab. “Stop. I don’t want to hurt you. In fact, I’ll get you some help. I just want to know who sent you.”
“Sent me?” The man coughed, and blood ran down his chin.
“Yes—” Dorian’s earpiece crackled, and he looked away from the dying man.
One of the station techs came on. “Sir, we’ve ID’d the men. They’re ours—one of the drill teams.”
“A drill team?”
“Yes. They’re actually the team that found the entrance.”
Dorian turned back to the man. “Who sent you?”
The man looked confused. “Nobody… sent us…”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I saw…” The man was losing more blood now. The shot in the gut would do him in soon.
“Saw what?” Dorian pressed.
“Children.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Dorian said. What was the world coming to? Even oil-rig operators were bleeding-heart softies these days. He raised the gun and shot the man in the head. He turned and walked back to his Immari Security unit. “Clean this up—”
“Sir, something’s happening in portal control.” The soldier looked up. “Someone just launched the basket.”
Dorian’s eyes drifted toward the floor, then darted back and forth. “Martin. Send a team—secure the control station. No one leaves that room.” A thought ran through Dorian’s mind: the basket was launched. Kate? “How much time?”
“Time?”
“The bombs the children are carrying.”
The Immari security agent took out a tablet and tapped at it. “Less than fifteen minutes.”
She might still reach them. “Cut the cord on the basket,” Dorian said. It was a fitting end. Kate Warner—Patrick Pierce’s daughter—would die in a cold dark tunnel, just as Dorian’s brother Rutger had.
116
David fell to the floor as the bullets ricocheted off the door closing behind him. He spun around, crouched, and held the spear point-forward over his shoulder, like some prehistoric hunter ready to stick his prey when it emerged from the sliding door.
But the door didn’t open. David exhaled and sat down on the floor, giving the wounded leg a rest. He didn’t see how Patrick Pierce had done it—all the walking around down here.
When the pain subsided, he got to his feet and took in his surroundings. The room was similar to the one he had just left—the metallic gray walls were the same, and so were the lights at the top and bottom of them. The room seemed to be a lobby of some sort. It had seven doors in all, fanning out in a semicircle, almost like a bank of elevator doors.
Other than the seven oval sliding doors, the room was almost e
mpty, save for a chest-high table opposite the bank of doors. A control station? The surface was covered in dark plastic or glass that matched the controls in the previous chamber.
David stepped up to the desk and leaned the spear against it so he could use his good hand. He held his hand over the surface, like he had seen the Atlantean do in the hologram. Wisps of white and blue fog and light whirled around his hand, giving him tiny electric pops and shocks. He wiggled his fingers, and the light and fog changed radically; the pops and slight electric impulses swirled over his fingers.
David drew his hand back. Talk about being out of your element. He had half-expected, or rather hoped, that some sort of help menu would pop up.
He picked the spear back up. Stick to what you know: your hunter-gatherer ways, he told himself. There was another door, set off by itself, next to the control station. An exit? He walked to it, and it slid open, revealing more of the Star Trek–type corridors that had led to the tunnel-maker’s secret chamber. His eyes had now fully adjusted to the faint LED lights that ran along the floor and ceiling.
If the Atlanteans had run to this room when the ship had exploded twelve to fifteen thousand years ago, it stood to reason that this was some kind of escape pod, or maybe a fortified section in the middle of the ship. Another thought popped into David’s mind: if they had come here, some of them could still be here. Maybe they had hibernated here, in other tubes.
David looked around. There were certainly no signs of life.
The elevator room opened onto a T intersection. Both directions ended in another oval door. He chose the shorter path and limped along, using the spear as a walking staff. It helped immensely.
