Atlantis Gold

Chapter 24

Daedalus stood on the bow deck of his yacht overlooking the stern dive platform, which was currently a hub of purposeful activity. Below, crew members set up scuba tanks and prepared dive equipment, including double-tank rigs with exotic gas mixtures that would allow increased bottom times. He glanced at his jeweled watch and then spoke into a handheld radio to his brother, Phillipo, who supervised the dive operations down on the platform.

“Carter and his team have certainly expired by now. Split your divers into two groups: one to see what lies in the blue hole that might be connected to Atlantis, and another to locate the bodies of Hunt and his team. I want confirmation that they are dead.”

Phillipo did not bother replying over the radio but merely looked up to his brother from the dive deck and held his fingers in the “okay” sign before turning to address one of his men concerning specifics of the dive operation. While the operation was prepped, Daedalus stared out over the water above the Bimini Road, occasionally raising a pair of marine binoculars to his eyes, looking for heads bobbing in the water that might indicate Hunt and his friends somehow made it to the surface, alive or dead. But he saw only the sparkling blue sea surface. One question burned into his mind while he stared into the uncaring sea.

What did you find down there, Carter Hunt?

As he heard a splash near the boat and looked over in time to see the first diver entering the water, his lips spread into a thin smile.

He would have his answer soon enough.

Hunt shook his head in wonder as he, Jayden and Maddy stared at their new surroundings. Sunlight, blue sky, trees, sand, dry coral, birds…

An island.

They stood immediately outside the passageway entrance, in a copse of scrubby trees rooted in sandy soil, on a small hillock shrouded in foliage at the highest elevation point of what was little more than a sandspit of an islet. Hunt summed up what they were all thinking.

“So the passageway we were washed down into from the pyramid — it travelled beneath the seafloor a mile or so until it angled up beneath this island, right through its base. Coming out in the middle of it.”

Maddy nodded. “I’m pretty sure this is that same island we saw on the way in from the plane.”

“Let’s check it out.” Jayden pushed through the foliage until he was outside the heavily shrouded tunnel exit. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve got this place all to ourselves.”

Hunt and Maddy also fought their way through the brush until they, too, could see the rest of the island. Scrubby green plants dominated the center while brown coral rubble defined the perimeter, with a ring of white sand encircling that. The blue Atlantic sprawled in every direction beyond the island, with no other land masses within sight.

“Which way do you think our plane is?” Jayden asked. All of them turned slowly in circles, visually inspecting the horizon in every direction, but none of them had an answer. Hunt offered the closest thing to a solution.

“Wherever it was, I think ‘was’ is the key word, since Daedalus obviously found our secret underwater blue hole and tried to make us a permanent part of it. I doubt he’d leave our plane floating around so people can find it and say, ‘Hey I wonder what happened to whoever was on it?”

“You can bet that the rental company will start looking for it when we don’t bring it back later today. You’re right, he’ll probably sink it rather than risk a lot of questions that he thinks could lead to not only some dead bodies being found, but the entire underwater area beneath the Bimini Road.”

“And he doesn’t even know about the pyramid yet,” Maddy added.

“I can think of one advantage this has given us,” Hunt said, staring out across the ocean.

“What’s that?” Maddy asked. “Because from where I’m standing, all we did was show Daedalus where a monumental treasure is and meanwhile, after almost drowning, we’re stranded on a deserted island with no food or water and no way to call for help.”

Hunt turned to look at Maddy, her disheveled, waterlogged form in a posture of defeat, even through the elation of still being alive. He felt bad for what she had been through, and so was glad to think of something positive to buoy her spirits. “Daedalus and Treasure, Inc. think we’re dead.”

He let that sink in for a moment as the three of them stood there and gazed about the uninhabited island. At length, Jayden said, ”Interesting. But I’m hungry.”

“I don’t think they deliver here,” Hunt said.

Jayden pointed to a tall palm tree some distance away. “Coconuts will have to do for now. Going to go get us some.”

Hunt pointed to the nearest edge of the island. “Maddy and I will see if we can flag down a passing boat or aircraft. Meet us on the beach when you’re ready.”

They agreed to the plan and set off through the scrub brush until they reached the palm tree. It was a good three stories high, but brimming with ripe coconuts at the top. Jayden assured them that he would be all right and then Hunt and Maddy continued on across the island until they reached the beach, which didn’t take long. Once there, Hunt was glad to set down the heavy hexagonal door piece while he and Maddy surveyed the scene.

They scrutinized the sea and horizon, and while they saw a couple of large boats far in the distance, there were no craft in the immediate vicinity. “Waving our arms for help and being picked up anytime soon isn’t looking so good,” Hunt admitted.

Maddy shrugged. “This area’s not all that remote. The Bimini Road is a popular dive destination. Bimini itself is a major tourist destination with lots of charter fishing and diving activity. Someone’ll come along. Meanwhile, let’s have a look at this thing you lugged all the way up here.” She moved to the hexagonal door piece and picked it up. She stared at it closely for a couple of minutes, and then began turning it over in her hands, pausing to study each of the six facets, basically a six-sided cylinder, longer than it is wide. Exotic hieroglyphic style drawings were etched into each of the six longitudinal facets.

Finally, she studied the end pieces, noting that neither of them featured any markings. The rock itself they were composed of was different than the limestone of the area, nor was it a metallic substance — gold or otherwise — as with the submerged Bimini pyramid itself. Gray slate was what it looked like to her, although she was no geologist, but as an archaeologist she had dug many holes into the Earth, and had on more than one occasion collaborated with earth scientists.

But the sides of the hexagonal object were composed of a different rock, a conglomerate of sorts, she guessed. She set the piece down on the ground on one end. Then she rapped a knuckle on the slate cap.

“It’s sort of hollow — hear that?” She put her ear up to the hexagonal piece while she rapped on it again. Hunt drew closer, taking a keen interest.

“Maybe we should open it?”

Maddy looked up at him with a frown. “We can’t break it! This thing is an artifact in itself.”

“Who said anything about breaking it?” Hunt knelt next to Maddy and rapped his fist on the opposite end cap of the artifact. It, too, resulted in a hollow echo. “Do me a favor, will you?” He gripped the hexagonal chamber by its base.

“Depends what it is!” She gave him a coy smile. Hunt pointed to the opposite end of the artifact. “Just hold it by that end, okay?”

“What for?”

“I’m going to try something. Watch…” Hunt proceeded to twist the base of the hexagonal tube counterclockwise while Maddy held the other end firmly in place.

“Nothing’s happening,” she said, eyes on the artifact.

“Let me try the other way.” Hunt steadied his grip on the end-piece once again, but this time turned it clockwise. At first, the result was the same as the last time, but then he felt something start to slip. He looked closer at the surface of the hexagonal cylinder. He now saw a tiny puff of dust dislodged from turning the object. He tried again, turning the base clockwise, and this time part of the structure rotated.

“It moved!” Maddy exclaimed.

Hunt released his grip on the artifact and eyeballed the faces. Sure enough, the pictographs decorating each facet were now out of alignment. Looking at the device now, he realized that’s exactly what is was — a machine that was designed to exact specifications. He looked at Maddy.

“It appears to be a machine with two functions: one, to act as the door stopper for the underwater pyramid airlock system, and two: as a safe, it looks like.”

“Safe?” Maddy arched an eyebrow as she stared at the hexagonal machine.

“It’s hollow inside, and it has six six-sided sections that turn, each with a different drawing on them. What if when the drawings are lined up a certain way, the device is unlocked?”

“Kind of like a Rubik’s Cube or something?” Maddy suggested.

“Yeah sort of, but cylindrical instead of a cube. It just has to be lined up a certain way and then it unlocks. So let’s take a look at these pictures, there are…wow, six vertical sections, each with six sides, for a total of thirty-six pictures.”

Maddy squinted hard at the artifact. “You’re calling them ‘pictures’, but it looks to me like they’re actually parts of pictures.

Hunt eyed the strange drawings. “Right, I see a lot of random shapes, lines, maybe runes.”

“Let me hold it for a minute.” Maddy picked up the artifact and turned it over in her hands. “I’m looking at the bottom section, the one you just turned.”

“They look like two outward facing ‘L’s.”

“You call them ‘Ls”, I call them feet.”

“Feet?”

“Bear with me, I could be wrong, but hear me out. The middle pieces are harder to visualize, but I think I can make sense of the topmost pieces…here.” She pointed to a triangular shape next to the end she had held when Hunt turned the first piece, and then then a more rectangular polygon on the section below that.

“What are they? Seriously, they look like Greek to me.”

“Not Greek, but Egyptian. If I’m right, that is. Not sure yet. But let’s try it. This time you hold the other end, and I’ll turn the section.” They worked together to turn the device until the next section of pictographs lined up the way Maddy thought they should.

“An animal head?” Hunt guessed.

Maddy nodded. But not just any animal head. Watch this — next section down. Hunt held one end of the device while Maddy rotated the next section.

“Now that does look like some kind of animal head,” Hunt admitted. “Kind of a pointy nose or muzzle, like maybe a fox?”

Maddy gazed down at the aligned pictograph. “Or a dog. But let’s keep going and see if there’s a body in the middle.”

Hunt eyed the series of lines on the middle sections as Maddy turned the hexagonal segments. “I think there might be a big rectangle or square formed by a double-section.”

Maddy turned the segments until, sure enough, a polygonal shape close to a vertically oriented rectangle manifested. “Looks like part of a body to me,” Maddy said.

Together they examined the remaining two segments of the puzzle, seeking to identify a recognizable shape that might come together with proper alignment of the hexagonal wheels.

“I can see an inverted triangular form being constructed by turning this wheel three facets to the right, and the other one two to the left.”

“Let’s give it a go,” Hunt said.

Together they held the artifact and made the requisite turns. “Yes!” Maddy squealed when it was done and she leaned back to view the results of their image manipulation. “Does that look familiar to you?”

Hunt held his breath as he took in the astonishing sight. He was nearly speechless. “How…”

“How did we get here? I mean what led us here?”

“Anubis, the statuette of the dog.”

“I think there’s your answer. Because it’s a good likeness, wouldn’t you say?” Both of them stared at the image a moment longer. Taken as a whole, on one half of the artifact, the image depicted a figure with a canine-like head, a blocky body tapering to a pair of outward facing feet. On the reverse of the device, there were only a series crisscrossing lines that made up a background of sorts, perhaps as though the figure stood in a field of vegetation or reeds.

“Could be Anubis,” Hunt had to admit. “But right now, I have another question: did we unlock this thing?”

“Let’s see. Each of us should hold onto one end, and then pull straight back.” Gently, Maddy and Hunt performed the action. “Mine’s not budging.” No sooner had Maddy said the words than Hunt’s end piece came free from the device.