The Atlantis World (The Origin Mystery, Book 3) (13 page)

“Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll guide you around the mines.”

One by one, Dorian directed his men down through the water, using his vantage point to spot suspected mines. He couldn’t afford to lose any more men. When they were safely at the ship below, he followed them, pushing through the water, careful to avoid anything that could be a mine.

The darkness slowly consumed every bit of light from above, and the dark shapes that could be mines grew harder to spot. Dorian had only his memory and the narrow beams of light from his helmet to guide him.

Ahead, he saw the four soldiers floating. Forty feet. Thirty. Twenty.

He was there. The airlock control was similar to the portal in Antarctica. It opened for him as he drew close, and he and his men rushed in, out of the darkness.

The airlock flushed the water out, and Dorian shed his suit and approached the control panel. The green cloud of familiar light emerged. Dorian worked his fingers inside it, and the display flashed.

General Ares


Access Granted


Dorian pulled up a schematic of the ship.

It had been badly damaged, either from the nuclear blast Patrick Pierce, Kate Warner’s father, had unleashed or by the mines. Entire sections were decompressed and flooded. The ship was on emergency power, and most importantly, there was only one route to the portal room.

Dorian pointed to the map. “Arc 1701-D. South entrance. That’s our destination.” Dorian chambered the first round in his automatic rifle. “Shoot to kill.”

C
HAPTER
18

David was covered head to toe in dirt. His muscles had ached, and now they burned, but he kept digging, throwing shovel after shovel of dirt and rock down the tunnel where Milo, Mary, and Kate waited to haul it out, pail after pail.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to find Sonja. “Take a break,” she said.

“I can go another—”

“And then you’ll be exhausted, and I’ll be exhausted, and Paul will be exhausted, and we’ll all have to wait.” She took the shovel from him and began digging into the hard-packed ground, maintaining the upward slant they hoped would lead to the surface—an opening into the arc.

Kate had been right: the contents of the arcology had shifted over the last thirteen thousand years and not in their favor. The door was underground now, the earth having slid to one side. How far under, they didn’t know. It could be ten feet or a hundred. David wondered how long their meal rations would last, and what they would do if they didn’t see the arc’s artificial daylight soon.

At his and Kate’s bedroom, he collapsed on the chair by the small metal table and dug into the MRE Kate had left out for him.

He was famished. He stopped eating only to breathe.

Kate entered and threw another MRE on the table.

“I’m not eating your ration,” he said.

“Me either.”

“You need your strength.”

“You need it more,” she said.

“I wouldn’t if you could get that quantum cube Janus gave to Milo to work.”

“We’ve been over this. Gaps in my knowledge. Big ones.”

David held the fork up defensively. “Just saying.” He finished the first MRE and eyed the second. “I feel like Patrick Pierce tunneling under the Sea of Gibraltar.”

“That’s a bit dramatic. I don’t see why you don’t use the explosives.”

“Don’t have enough. We used half to get in. Barely broke through. We’ll need the other half—assuming we ever make it across.”

Kate opened the second MRE. “Eat it, or it will go to waste.”

She left before David could say a word. He exhaled and continued eating. He would pull a double shift next go round, whether Sonja stopped him or not.

The door slid open, and Milo rushed in. “Mr. David!” The teenager smiled. “We’re through.”

“Water break!” David called, halting the line of six that snaked through the dense rainforest. All of them took out their canteens, some drinking more liberally than others. They were all exhausted from the three-hour march, which had been mostly uphill.

David handed the machete to Paul, who took the lead position, ready to continue cutting their path through the thick green, red, and purple plants and vines that webbed between the trees which stretched to the dense canopy, blocking out much of the artificial sun. Or two suns in this case.

David studied the shadows on the forest floor, trying to get an idea of how much daylight they had left.
Night will be dangerous
, Kate had said.

“What do we call the flying invisible reptiles?” David asked her.

“Exadons.”

“If we make camp here, will they attack us? In the thick forest?”

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

David sensed that Kate was holding back. “Tell me.”

“They are predisposed to attack any new species in their habitat. It’s an evolutionary response, a learning method for them. It’s one of the reasons the scientists were interested in them.”

“Wonderful.”

David took his pack off and slung his sniper rifle around his shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

“To climb a tree.”

The view from the top of the forest’s canopy was breathtaking. The arc was an arena unlike any David had ever witnessed. He sat there for a few minutes, simply taking it all in. The ceiling of the dome simulated a sky with clouds and radiated heat. In the center of the floor, the rainforest stopped, and a green plain spread out, maybe a mile wide and slightly longer, followed by a smaller forest, this one more rocky and on declining terrain that ended in the exit. David was relieved to see that it wasn’t blocked. The bottom layer of soil had completely shifted in their direction. In fact, they would need to build a ladder or stairway of some sort to even reach the door. And they’d have to blow it up, but there was another bright spot: they could use fewer explosives, which gave them a little extra to work with out here.

The green plain was surrounded on three sides by rainforest, but its right side ended in a wide stream with a slow-moving current. A herd of large, four-legged animals similar to hippopotamuses bathed and congregated where the water met the plain. Above the pool, a rock face covered the entire right side on the arc.

There, on one of the highest ledges of the rock face, David got his first look at the exadons. He counted eleven of them, spread out on the rock, unmoving, their eyes closed, their bodies glistening under the sun like silvery glass pterodactyls. Most exadons were entirely silver-glass except for two, who were covered in bright-colored tiles like a stained-glass window. He made a note to ask Kate about that. He estimated their wingspan at twelve feet, but from this distance, he couldn’t make out any other details.

The first sun was setting now, and the edge of the forest cut two distinct shadows: one pointing to the open plain and the last stretch of forest before the exit, the other back into the forest, in the direction they came. And those were their options.

If nightfall arrived as they crossed the plain, the exadons could pick them off easily.

“What did you see?” Sonja asked him.

She had continued hacking at the path during David’s surveillance, and he was glad for that. She was every bit the leader he was, maybe more so: she had led her Berber tribe, composed of fighters and elders from the remnants of many disparate factions, to victory against the Immari in Ceuta. She was the definition of a self-starter.

David related their situation, and the six of them stood there in the dense, shaded forest, waiting for a decision. To David, the group looked like a motley crew of superheroes.

Milo, Mary, and Kate carried large packs that held the food and what Kate had only described as the scientist’s expedition gear. It remained a mystery box to David, a surprise for the end of the day—if they lived that long.

The real question was Paul and Mary. They had been exhausted when they arrived, and David and Sonja had given Paul the shortest digging and machete shifts.

Paul seemed to sense the eyes on him and Mary. “We can keep up. I agree that we should make for the other forest at best speed.”

“Sonja and I will take the packs when we cross the plain.” Milo smiled, excited to keep his pack. The young man seemed to be a well of energy. David continued. “We’ll hug the far tree line in hopes the exadons won’t see us.”

About an hour later, they cut the last of the plants and vines that held them in the rainforest and exited onto the plain. The packs came off Mary and Kate’s backs, and the six of them began their march across the green plain to the trees in the distance. Everyone's focus was on the rock face to the right, and the predators that would soon take flight, hunting, invisible in the night. David had never dreaded nightfall so much.

Kate pulled up even with him. “I can take the pack.”

“Not happening.” At the back of his mind, he wondered how her condition was affecting her, if she was in any pain, if the exertion would limit her prognosis. Four to seven local days. He had tried not to think about that.

He nodded toward the exadons. “Why are two brightly colored?”

“It’s the point in the pride’s cycle. When food is plentiful, the colors come out. When living and hunting is easy, the members focus on mating, distinguishing themselves. But some conserve their power—opting not to waste it on colors. When the cycle ends, the members who were more flamboyant die out first, and those who stored up energy can out-hunt them and pick them off. There’s been a recent population decline.”

“So those are the survivors. The best hunters.”

“Yeah. And they’re probably hungry.”

“Fantastic.”

As the march wore on, the “water breaks” became more frequent, and they drank less and less water, most panting and massaging leg muscles, some stretching while they set their packs down for relief.

David and Sonja resumed the lead each time, setting the best pace the group could manage. They reached the tree line of the forest just as the second sun was setting.

David led them a little further into the forest, to an area where the trees were close and the underbrush was thick.

“We’ll camp here.”

Kate opened the first pack and laid out a black rectangular box. The familiar blue light rose from it, and Kate worked her fingers inside it.

Seconds later, the box began unfolding tile by tile, making a square floor about twelve feet by twelve feet, then a small opening that jutted out. Tiles continued unfolding, upward this time, forming walls with no windows until the walls formed a smooth circular dome at the top. The front of the… tent, David assumed, had a shimmering black portal. He stuck his head in. Amazing. He entered, and Kate followed. A queen-sized bed rose out of the floor in the upper left corner, and there was even a small desk and stool along the right-hand wall.

“Not bad,” he said.

Kate laid out a tent for Milo and Sonja. David had never seen Milo move so fast.

Kate stuck her hand in to configure Paul and Mary’s pop-up dwelling but hesitated. “I can configure it with two double beds or one larger.”

Paul squirmed.

Mary glanced away but quickly said, “I think two beds… probably gives us…”

Kate nodded, and the tent began to take form.