Time Storm Shockwave (16 page)

Stewart thought about it and then nodded. “That makes
sense”—he said and then went on—“once they were down here, they started doing research on the things they found, and they built this base, but they had no idea what the dome was made of until the breakthroughs began on nanotechnology.”

“
Okay”—Mark nodded—“now we’re getting somewhere.”

“What do you mean by that?” Stewart asked.

“That’s how they cloned Ashlyn, with nanotechnology, but I thought it seemed far too advanced based on the knowledge that we currently have. They must have learned how from down here.”

“That’s disturbing—” she let out a breath
“—my whole life is connected to this strange place. Who knows what else we’re going to find out.”

Neither of the men said anything for a moment.

“I don’t
really know enough about nanotechnology to have an opinion”—Stewart finally said—“but they eventually figured out that the dome was made out of something like diamond fibers. Whatever it is, it’s the strongest material they have ever run across, and yet it is somewhat flexible.”

“You mean it’s not a force fiel
d or something like that?” she asked.

He eyed her strangely. “T
his isn’t science fiction.”

She looked embarrassed.
“I think—” Mark rescued her “—it’s impossible to tell the difference down here. It all seems like fiction.”

She smiled at him gratefully.

“Go flexible part”—he said trying to understand—“if it’s flexible, wouldn’t it just make the water push it downward and …It seems …Well the strongest design that we know of would be a sphere. I suppose an oblong dome is probably the second best. I’m not really the right kind of scientist to figure that out.”

“Apparently, it’s not that
flexible”—Stewart answered—“just enough to make it able to withstand the changes in pressure and temperature of the water above so that it doesn’t crack. Here is the coolest thing about it. The entire dome is a super strong magnet.”

“Hold on
—” Mark interrupted “—you said it was made out of some kind of diamond type material. You can’t magnetize diamonds; in fact, diamonds are diamagnetic. Why would they want it to be magnetic anyway?”

“
Apparently”—Stewart answered—“you can magnetize anything if you align all of the atoms in the right direction and reverse the spin of the electrons or something like that. Kathleen also said something about adding boron during the crystal growing part. Since water is diamagnetic as well, they actually repel each other, but we are not sure of the purpose of the magnetism. Maybe that is what protected them from the EMP.”

“That’s
possible”—Mark nodded—“a strong magnetic force would have a protective effect in case of EMPs and things like that.”

“Wait
—” Ashlyn held up her hand “—you guys are losing me. What is diamagnetic?”

“Diamagnetic materials
are things, which cannot be magnetized but are very slightly repelled by a magnetic field like wood, carbon, and water. That’s how they levitated that frog in the Netherlands, understand?” Mark answered.

“Frog
?—” More confused she threw up her hands “—no, just go on, maybe I’ll figure that part out later, but wait, why would the Atlanteans have had to worry about EMPs thousands of years ago?”

“Maybe it wasn’t
EMPs—” he paused “—specifically. Remember that most of the damage that the admiral told us about was from a coronal mass ejection?”

She nodded.

“CME’s are naturally occurring, usually at solar maximum, like now when the sun is at its highest activity, but they can happen other times. They are actually pretty common, but usually not that big. Most of them miss the earth. However—” he added “—over the course of thousands of years the earth is bound to get pounded with a big one once in a while.”

“
How often?” she asked.

I think the last one of this magnitude
was sometime back in the eighteen hundreds, but we couldn’t really measure, and we didn’t depend on electronic devices back then. It wouldn’t have affected the people much more than giving them a great lightshow for entertainment. Well, it did cause problems with the telegraph, but I don’t think that would have even been noticed by the average Joe—” Mark motioned with his hand “—it wouldn’t be like us losing the ability to text.”

She seemed to be following his train of thought.

Mark was thoughtful for a moment. “Plus, I don’t think they had a huge earthquake at the same time. Most of our problems now are because of modern technology.”

They were all quiet for a while thinking about the devastation going on in the world above. He broke the silence by encouraging Stewart to continue.

“
The reason they built the dome was to protect the part of Atlantis that was slowly sinking, more importantly their main library and much of their technology.”

“So
”—Ashlyn asked—“are you saying only parts of Atlantis sank? Where is the rest of it?”

“The Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and pretty much the entire Caribbean. It was a
huge continent and most of it sank, depending mostly upon the undersea topography.”

“It seems that
it would have been easier to move their libraries than to build this dome—” Mark said and then changed his mind “—I guess we don’t know enough about their technology to come to that conclusion.”

The others nodded their agreement.

“Wait—” he added “—I’m confused.
Atlantis was supposed to be in the Atlantic, over by Africa and close to the Strait of Gibraltar?”

“It was,” Stewart said.

Ashlyn scowled. “That makes no sense.”

“See the thing is
—” Stewart was bathing in the attention this knowledge was giving him “—there are several other places in the world, not just the Bermuda Triangle that have these weird electromagnetic events. Atlantis was in one of the other ones.”

“Okay,” she prodded.

“This must be what it feels like to be you.” Stewart grinned at Mark.

He glared at him. “Enough of this
, just
tell
us.”

“Okay, y
ou know how you guys moved in time the other night?”

“Yeah, I don’t t
hink we’re going to forget that,” she said.

“Alright Mark, you’re
the physicist, so correct me if I’m wrong, the fourth dimension is supposed to be space-time right?”

“No
t exactly but close enough, what’s your point?”

“
It’s just exactly backwards of what happened to you. You said you moved in time and not space. They moved in space but not time.”

Ashlyn furrowed her brow.

“Stewart, are you trying to say that an entire continent moved in space?” Mark asked.

“
Well—” Stewart hesitated “—not outer space, just the place they were on the earth. In their records, they describe an odd-cloud formation and some rumbling. I really didn’t get the details, but suddenly their entire continent basically ended up in between North and South America.”

Mark was struggling with this one. “I can see a boat or a plane, but an entire continent?
It’s …” he let out a breath.

“The continents are basically floating on the crust of the Earth, so in some sense they are self-contained vehicles.”

“So what, it flew over here?” she asked.

“
No, it just got stuck in some kind of a wormhole type thing and ended up over here—” he shrugged “—I couldn’t get all the answers in just one evening.”

“I guess that would make sense,
” Mark said slowly.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me
—” she pushed on her head as if it hurt “—I always thought of myself as intelligent until I got around you guys. Is this really possible?”

“Accord
ing to the theory of relativity—” Mark posited “—and quantum theory or even string theory, mathematically yes, it is possible. That’s what happened to us the other night, we moved through time. The harder part is explaining how people could be transported through these types of huge energy tunnels and not get hurt.”

“Okay,” she said totally lost.

“Actually, the existence of exotic particles could answer that—” Mark hesitated and then said “—possibly if they are generated by the same high electromagnetic power as the time-tunnel or wormhole, whatever you want to call it.”

“What are exotic particles?”
Stewart asked.

“
They can be a lot of different things; the point is that they are unusual, and they don’t exist …well at least we don’t usually find them on any measurable scale out in nature—” Mark could barely control his excitement “—things like anti-mass, anti-electrons, anti-protons, positrons, or tachyons, which always travel faster than light—”

“Never mind—” Ashlyn interrupted “—let’s move on.”

“So after the continent moved—” Stewart plowed ahead “—because the sea floor was irregular, parts of it began to sink into the sea slowly. Make sense?”

Mark nodded, but Ashlyn shook her head, so Stewart tried again. “What happens if you take a hot, really soft cookie right out of the oven and put it on a cooling rack?”

Ashlyn raised an eyebrow, “Not a good analogy, Stewart, the cookie would simply cool off.”

“Maybe you are right, but that’s because the pressure is spread out evenly. But what happens when you pick up that soft, hot cookie in your hand, doesn’t it fall apart?”

“Okay, I get what you are saying, but we aren’t talking about cookies, we are talking about a continent. Isn’t that more solid?”

“Well, yes, but it’s kind of like putting a dirt clod in a puddle of water, it might stay hard at first, but eventually the water will soften it enough that it will fall apart.”

“So you are saying that parts of Atlantis, after it magically moved across the planet, slowly sank into the sea?”

“Exactly, and they built this dome over their most important stuff to preserve it once it was under water.”

“Alright”—Mark said—“I can agree that it makes some sort of sense, but how do we know this? You said they have writings?”

“Yes, their most valued possessions were their knowledge and
their writings. One of the most important things down here is the big library.”

“
And you read all this—” Mark looked skeptical “—last night?”

“Oh,
no”—Stewart answered—“I didn’t read any of it. I just asked Kathleen lots of questions.”

Ashlyn and Mark made eye contact, and then they both stared at Stewart. “Why didn’t you just take us there in the first place?” Mark asked, irritated.

Stewart leaned back in his chair and knitted his fingers together. “Because this time, I got to explain everything to you.”

Chapter 15

Those who’ll play with cats must expect to

be
scratched. — Miguel de Cervantes

~

Luckily, Ashlyn and Mark so far had managed to avoid running into the
admiral. They followed Stewart down the dark road, heading for the library. All three had their dive lights.

After walking for some time, Mark
asked, “How far is this library, and why isn’t it with the other buildings?”

“It isn’t much
further”—Stewart motioned for them to keep moving—“and it’s not with the other buildings because it’s not part of the naval base. The base was built by us; I mean the navy. The library was built by the Atlanteans.”

“What does it look like?” Ashlyn
asked in anticipation.

“It’s difficult to describe
,” he said and left it at that.

“I think
—” Ashlyn stopped in her tracks.

Mark
looked at her appraisingly. “Why did you stop?”

She didn’t answer him
.

He prompted,
“Ashlyn—”

“Turn off your light.”

“—why? What do you …” he drifted off because even as he spoke, he saw a soft glow ahead of them. As his eyes began to adjust, he said, “Is that what it looks like?”

“Yes,” Stewart answered
, drinking in their reactions.

Mark finally turned away from the sight to stare at Stewart in the darkness. “You said it was hard to describ
e, you liar.” Mark teased.

“Let’s go!
” Ashlyn demanded, picking up the pace.

Far into the distance now, it was clearly a pyramid, only this one was fully exposed, and it emitted a soft glow. It stood proudly in its complete perfection. The monolithic structure appeared to be as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

“The one we came through must glow too”—Mark suggested without missing a step—“we just couldn’t see it because of the ambient sunlight.

***

When they got close enough to touch the softly glowing structure, Stewar
t told them to feel it. They ran their fingers over the smooth, glassy surface, and even though Stewart had already been, there, he felt the thrill anew. Just like the inner walls of the other pyramid, there was no obvious source of light. It appeared to be coming from the stone itself.

As they entered
through the enormous doorway, their eyes were stunned by the dazzling light in contrast to the darkness of the outside. Mark and Ashlyn both stood still as marble, mouths agape in astonishment. Glued to what they were looking at. Unlike the pyramids of Egypt and South America, this had an enormous open room with a cathedral ceiling. They finally understood the elaborate, bizarrely out of place building back at the base; it had obviously been made to resemble the style of this pyramid.

Opposite the entrance,
were the same great statues with the same outstretched hands—water pouring from them into a large pool with a fountain in the center. However, these statues were impossibly large; their heads nearly touched the ceiling, which must have been six or seven stories high. They seemed to be made of the same seamless, glowing material as the pyramid; the ones at the base were only made of marble.

A woman dressed in a civilian skirt and blouse
, hazel eyes, and long auburn hair walked up to them and introduced herself, “I’m Kathleen. Stewart told me that you would be coming.” She extended her hand.

Mark was still staring at the impossible scene before them when Ashlyn poked him in the ribs. “Say hi, Mark.”

“I’m sorry—” he shook his head “—Stewart, didn’t tell us.”

“Don’t worry about it, most people have that
reaction the first time they see this place,” Kathleen answered with a smile.

Ashlyn
gave Mark a mischievous glance. Stewart had clearly lost his composure while in Kathleen’s presence, and the way she was smiling at him made it obvious why he was acting that way.

Ashlyn leaned closer and whispered to Mark, “Now we know why he spent so much time here last night.”

Mark covered his mouth and feigned a cough to cover the grin that he was trying to.

“So this is a library?” Ashlyn asked Kathleen, unable to believe that something so elaborate could have possibly been used for such a purpose.

“Yes”—Kathleen nodded—“but there are no books. They records are written on stone tablets and embedded in the walls and pillars of the various rooms.”

Mark shook his head in amazement. “So is the other pyramid also a library?”

“To be honest, we haven’t quite determined its purpose, except that it acts as an entrance into the dome.

Aside from the four of them, there were only three oth
er people in the absurdly large room. They were also wearing civilian clothing. Kathleen introduced them as her team.

Do the military personnel spend a lot of time in here?” Mark asked.

“No”—she motioned around—“it’s not really that type of library. Only those of us working on the translations are ever here, with very few exceptions. Would all of you like to follow me? I think you will find more of the information you are looking for this way.”

She motioned in the direction they should go and walked with them.
Ashlyn noticed that Kathleen was eyeing her strangely, but clearly trying to hide it.

Ashlyn stopped and faced her.
“Is something wrong?”

Kathleen
was noticeably embarrassed, “Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just that you—” she looked at Stewart uncomfortably and then back at Ashlyn “—well, you look so much like Dierdra.” Kathleen cleared her throat nervously.

Ashlyn
turned to Stewart, and he shrugged, “I told her about Dierdra being your clone.”

Ashlyn glared at him for a second and then turned to Kathleen who looked uncomfortable. “Yeah people have noticed that resemblance before
. Just for the record, she looks like me, not the other way around.”

Tension hung in the air
for a few minutes, but they continued on to a much smaller room. The walls were covered with carvings on every surface. There were six pillars, or balusters encircling the round room supporting a circular balustrade about eight feet high with a spiral staircase leading up to it. The upper level also had small carvings covering it.

Mark touched the surface of one of the carvings
cut into the same glowing, stone-like material as the rest of the pyramid. The symbols had been etched too perfectly to have been crafted by human hands. The inner portions of the carvings themselves were made of a darker material, which was not dyed, rather inlaid.

“
How were these cut? They couldn’t possibly have been done by an artisan, no matter how good—” he pointed to the detail “—plus, the inner section is made of a different material.”

Kathleen walked over and said, “You’re absolutely right.”

“How can they not be carved?—” Ashlyn asked “—How else would they do it?”

Kathleen began to answer, “Well—”

Mark cut her off, answering his own question, “The same way they built the dome to hold back the water.” He looked to her for conformation.

“—right again,” she answered.

“Okay, that tells me a lot,” Ashlyn said sarcastically.

“Oh,
sorry”—he spoke in hushed admiration—“with nanotechnology.”

She stared at Mark, a strange expression on her face. “You are in love with this whole place aren’t you?—”
she rolled her eyes “—and I don’t just mean this pyramid, I mean the dome too. Should I be jealous?”

“I bet this place will answer a lot of unsolved mysteries.”

“I’m sure it does, but maybe”—she waved her hand in front of his eyes—“you should try to remember that we are prisoners here, and we need to find a way to leave.”

Kathleen didn’t say anything, but it was obvious that she was uncomfortable with the conversation. Stewart broke into everyone’s thoughts.

“These aren’t just designs this is writing. I’ve seen it before.”

Ashlyn turned to him; a
disbelieving expression blanketed her face.

“Where?” Mark
demanded.

“In Guatemala, i
t’s Mayan.”

“No way
—” she looked more closely at it “—I think he’s right Mark.”

“He
is”—Kathleen interjected—“or close to it, but it would be more accurate to say that the Mayan’s wrote in a derivative of Atlantean.”

They all turned,
and she continued, “That’s the reason that we’ve been able to translate so many of their writings. In fact, it’s the reason I’m here. I worked on Mayan ruins prior to this job.”

They were silent waiting for her to continue.

“We couldn’t make any sense of it until the last couple of decades as we began deciphering the written language on the Mayan Pyramids. We used their work to begin translating these.”

Stewart smiled broadly, “Again, I’m the one with the answers.”

“You, my friend—” Mark put his hand on Stewart’s shoulder “—are going to get a swollen head.”

“Me?—”
he laughed “—at least then I won’t be the odd man out between the three of us.”

“
Hey”—Ashlyn cut in jokingly—“watch the insults.”

Mark went back to studying the walls. Suddenly, he asked,
“Ashlyn, can you read this?”

“Why would I be able to?"

“You speak lots of languages.”

“
Mark, why would an assassin ever need to be able to read ancient Mayan writing?”

Kathleen cringed. Stewart
noticed her expression. He quietly whispered the answer to her unspoken question, “Ashlyn isn’t an assassin, just Dierdra.”

Ashlyn
heard the interchange, and realized how bad that must have sounded. She turned to Kathleen.

“I was trained
how
to be an assassin—” Ashlyn spoke hesitantly “—but I’m not an assassin.”

“I’m sorry for my reaction—”
Kathleen said “—Stewart already explained it to me. You just look so much like …I’m sorry; she looks so much like you. I never knew what she did for the admiral until last night. I haven’t adjusted to the thought.”

A
shlyn bit her lower lip slightly, and shot Stewart a look that clearly said—
stop telling people about my personal life!

He opened his mouth for a second, but nothing came out and he swallowed hard.

Mark stepped closer and gently touched her arm. “I suppose—” he was trying to break the tension “—the Atlanteans taught the Mayans how to build pyramids. What do you think?”

“How should I know?” Ashlyn walked away and pretended to look at something else.

“Yes they did”—Kathleen answered his question—“they taught the Mayans as well as the Egyptians.”

Mark was no longer paying attention. He was watching Ashlyn.

Stewart turned to Kathleen and said, “But the Egyptians didn’t build the pyramids until long after you said that Atlantis arrived here.”

“They were quite adept at building ships,” she answered.

Mark left the conversation and joined Ashlyn. She was facing away from him. He didn’t ask her to turn; instead, he walked to the other side of her.

“I’m going to check on my team,” Kathleen announced to everyone. It was obvious that she was trying to escape the awkward situation.

“Hey, mind if I tag along,” Stewart asked her.

“Don’t you think you should stay with them—”
she said very softly “—I think I’m the problem here.”

Stewart shook his head, and whispered, “No, I am, but right now, I think I should let Mark take care of it. I will apologize later.”

When Mark and Ashlyn were alone, he stepped closer to her, and gently lifted her chin so that she was looking up at him. Tears glistened in her eyes, but none had escaped.

“He didn’t mean to hurt you, sweetheart.”

“I know”—she whispered—“it’s just so hard to …I just don’t want the part of me I hate the most to be public knowledge.”

“I will talk to him, and—”

“No, when we get back I will. I’m fine really. I just didn’t expect that to happen the way it did.”

“—alright, but—” he pulled her closely to him “—remember that I love you.”

“I know”—she whispered—“I love you too. I just want to go back to the yacht. This place …It’s the admiral’s domain. I’m having a hard time with …”

He met her eyes. “I understand. Stewart doesn’t know the connection to your childhood.”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Anything,” Mark answered.

She shook her head. “Don’t tell him.”

He looked surprised, but he didn’t ask any questions, “All right. I won’t.”

After a short while, she and Mark went in search of Stewart. He was busily conversing with Kathleen.