Atlantis

Chapter 49

“Where the hell are you, Maddock?” Tam stood, hands on hips, staring at the small hotel that stood in the middle of the Richat Structure. They’d found plenty of footprints and tire tracks, but no sign of Maddock or the others. Until they’d arrived, she hadn’t appreciated how vast this place was. “I shouldn’t have sent him in ahead of us.”

She looked up as Greg and Professor emerged from the hotel.

“There’s a body inside,” Greg said, “but no sign of our people.”

“Do you think they were here?” Tam asked.

Greg shrugged. “No way to tell.”

“Damn! If Willis and Matt don’t find any sign of them, I guess we’ll follow the tire tracks and hope it’s them.” Tam sighed. “And that’s another dollar in the jar, too. Working with those two is going to break me.”

Willis and Matt appeared a few minutes later, looking sweaty and frustrated.

“We didn’t find nothing.” Willis cast an angry glance in the direction from which they’d come. “I don’t know where those boys got off too.”

“We’ll have to keep looking.” Tam turned toward their vehicle, where Corey sat, pecking away at his laptop. “Any luck tracing their cellphones?”

“No signal out here,” Corey said. “You should have issued satellite phones.”

Tam bit off her reply as the ground began to tremble.

“What the hell is that?” Willis scanned the horizon. “Somebody drop a bomb?”

A low rumble resounded from somewhere deep beneath the earth, and with it the ground shook even more violently. Tam staggered and grabbed hold of Willis’ arm for support.

A column of brilliant, blue light shot up from the ground, consuming the hotel. Tam shielded her eyes from the blinding light. Oddly, it generated no heat, but she felt as if every hair on her body were standing on end. It went on for the span of ten heartbeats, and then stopped without warning.

“What in the name of Jesus?” she muttered, blinking the spots out of her eyes.

“It was like a beam of pure energy.” Professor’s face was ashen. “It went straight up into space, almost like a…”

“Like what?” Tam asked.

“Like a beacon.” He turned his eyes up to the sky. “You know, like the way researchers send messages into space, hoping to make contact with alien life.”

Tam’s breath caught in her throat. She remembered Tyson’s words. “…prepare for the return.” Could this be what he meant? Was the so-called Revelation Machine designed to send a message into space? No, she couldn’t even contemplate that right now. They still needed to find Maddock and the others.

“Tam, look at this,” Greg called.

Where the hotel once stood, a shaft, perfectly round and smooth, plunged deep into the ground. She joined Greg at its edge.

“The stone seems to have melted away, but it’s cool to the touch.” He ran his fingers along the inside of the shaft to demonstrate.

“Dissolved is more like it,” Professor added. “How is that possible?”

“We can figure that out later,” Tam said. “Look at what’s down there.”

Down at the bottom of the shaft, a circle of crystals flickered in the darkness. Tam’s sharp eyes could just make out a metallic ring around the crystals. It had to be the Revelation Machine, which meant there was a good chance that was where they’d find Maddock.

Or the Dominion.