Raising Atlantis

20

The rumbling inside P4’s obelisk chamber grew so loud that Serena could barely hear herself shouting at Conrad, who stood frozen like a statue, the Scepter of Osiris tightly gripped in his hand.

“Put it back!” she screamed.

Conrad stepped toward the altar when suddenly the floor beneath his feet split open and a blazing pillar of fire shot up and turned Colonel Kovich into embers.

Conrad leapt back from the gaping hole as the altar disappeared down a fiery shaft. What was left of the Russian exploded in a cloud of dust. The obelisk fell to the floor.

Serena reached down to grab it but lunged too far and teetered over the edge. For a horrific few seconds she hovered above the hell hole and could feel its searing heat burning her cheeks. Then Conrad, coming up from behind, yanked her back from the brink.

For a moment she was safe in his arms, looking up into his concerned eyes with gratitude. But before she could catch her breath a shock wave rocked the chamber and threw them off their feet. The obelisk slid across the floor.

“The scepter!” she shouted.

Yeats dashed to retrieve it. But as the vibrations grew more violent, his right leg gave way, and he tumbled back into the floor shaft. He managed to catch the ledge at the last second. Serena could see his fingers sticking up above the shaft, clawing at the stone floor.

Conrad picked up the obelisk from the floor and grabbed Serena. “See if you can reach him!”

With Conrad firmly clasping her hand, she peered over the edge of the shaft and was surprised to see Yeats swinging above the infernal abyss.

She knew she didn’t have the strength to pull him up, but she shouted to Conrad, “I think I can give him a tug and he can climb out himself.”

She stretched out her hand when another jolt hit, sending Leonid’s corpse sliding into the shaft. The corpse struck Yeats on the way down. Yeats’s fingers disappeared and Serena heard Conrad cry out.

“Dad!” Conrad shouted.

Then she felt Conrad pulling her away so he could look down into the shaft. He stood there, paralyzed, trying to comprehend that his father was really gone.

Serena looked around the chamber as everything shook. She didn’t want to leave. But she didn’t want to stay behind and melt either. So she put her hand on Conrad’s shoulder and said, “There’s no time to mourn for those we’re about to follow.”

Her words were enough to bring Conrad back.

“This chamber is going to turn into a furnace in a few seconds,” he said, picking up the pack Yeats had left behind and slinging it over his shoulder. “Back to the gallery!”

They ran to the outer corridor. The rumbling wasn’t so loud here, she thought, following Conrad down the long tunnel. But when they emerged into the Great Gallery, Conrad stopped and looked up.

“Now might be a good time for you to say a brief prayer,” he said.

“Conrad, what’s happening?”

“I think P4 is releasing a burst of heat through the shafts, melting the ice outside,” he said. “And the water is being processed through this machinery.”

She followed Conrad’s gaze up the gallery and squinted her eyes. There was a shadow swirling in the distance at the top. Then she felt the first droplets of water splash against her cheek and realized what was coming.

“Oh, my God!” she screamed as the cascades of a gigantic waterfall began to tumble down the gallery behind them. “We’ve got to take cover!”

Now she was pulling him back to the chamber.

“Not yet,” he told her, “or we’ll fry.”

Already the water was knee-deep in the tunnel. By the time they were halfway back to the chamber, it was up to their waists. In seconds the current swelled to a torrent and swept them off their feet.

Serena reached for Conrad but couldn’t feel him anymore. She panicked and splashed desperately, taking in water, gasping for breath. She was going to drown, she realized. They were going to be flushed away and drown. Surely this is not what God intended for her life, she thought. But then she remembered the little girl in the ice and realized she had seen too many faces just like hers around the world to know for sure what God intended for her. All she knew was that she wanted to live, and she wanted Conrad to live too.

Oh, God, she prayed, help us.

A shadow fell across her, and she looked up to see Conrad standing in the entry of the tunnel to the star chamber, water swirling around his knees. He held the obelisk in one hand.

“Grab the other end!” he yelled above the rushing waters.

She reached up and clasped the obelisk and let Conrad pull her up. But she felt a tug at her ankle and looked down to see a bloody face emerge from the water.

It screamed something unintelligible, and she tried to shake it off. But it pulled still harder. Suddenly she recognized the disfigured face of one of Kovich’s men from the upper chamber.

“Hold on!” Serena yelled and let Conrad pull her up.

Once over the ledge, she turned to help the Russian. The soldier’s burned legs had barely cleared the ledge when Serena heard Conrad’s shout.

“Hurry!”

Then she saw the door to the star chamber closing down behind Conrad, a great granite slab dropping from the ceiling. Conrad, obelisk in hand, ducked into the chamber, which had apparently cooled back down, and started waving them in.

Serena was still dragging the Russian across the entrance to the chamber when a massive crash behind her rocked the tunnel. She glanced back to see that the door had closed, sealing off the water. Pausing to catch her breath, she heard Conrad cry out her name. He was pointing to the ceiling. Three more great doors were dropping, the second one right over her head.

She lurched forward, her soaked parka weighing her down like a cement tomb as she struggled to drag the Russian, whose limbs had stopped moving.

“Serena!” Conrad shouted.

The third door was dropping.

She fell to her hands and knees and dragged the Russian across the floor. Then she felt Conrad’s hands clasp her ankles like leg irons and start to pull. Her knees slipped and she fell flat on her stomach.

“Let him go!” he shouted.

“No!” Serena gripped the Russian’s cold hands tightly, even as Conrad towed her inside.

The Russian was halfway through when the slab door sliced him in two. Suddenly Serena realized she was dragging only half a body. And still she found it hard to let go, to accept that there was nobody left for her to save.

With a massive scraping sound, the fourth and final door started to drop. She struggled to free herself from the cold grip of the legless corpse. Finally, the hand fell away, and at the last moment something whisked her inside as the final granite slab sank with a sickening thud.

Serena turned to thank Conrad but saw him sprawled on the floor, his hair matted with blood. He must have struck the back of his head against the falling door when he pulled her in.

“Conrad!” she called. “Conrad!”

She scrambled to his limp body. But there was no movement. And the chamber was shaking too violently for her to take a pulse. She saw the obelisk on the floor next to his pack-Yeats’s pack-and picked it up.

Another temblor hit, and she backed herself up against the shaking walls until they began to burn with tremendous heat. She moved away, stumbling across the floor, her body shaking uncontrollably as she tried to keep her balance.

She was alone now, she realized, and fell to her knees with the obelisk cradled in her arms, praying to God that the quaking would stop, all the while trying not to think about the little girl in the ice. There was a loud blast and she looked up as the whole chamber seemed to turn upside down.