The Prometheus Objective

19

The next few minutes were a blur for Alexander and the others. Blindly splashing through the low tide canals of Nan Madol. No time to marvel at the architecture, no time to attempt remote views of the past, to scry the builders or mages, or aliens or whatever mystical means assembled these colossal building blocks into such wondrous precision.

Gunshots split the air, louder as Nina returned fire. She ducked, found cover and produced an MP5, blasting away at pursuers. Alexander didn’t know if she targeted the choppers above, the pair of jet skis following, or the men in black, coming on foot.

It didn’t matter, he pitied them all equally.

We may not have the numbers, he thought, but we’ve got her.

They splashed through another canal, pushing the outrigger boat and the air tanks, until it hit the bank, around another artificial embankment, and towering walls, some battered and broken in places, torn down by angry vines and merged into thicker rubble.

“You two, go!” Nina hissed, shoving the boat ahead, toward the open bay, as Alexander and Aria scrambled inside. He felt helpless and vulnerable, but then Nina and Jacob were racing back, toward the walls, the trees — and the enemies. Red-laser sights sought them out and stabbed across the debris, dancing off the water, until their targets were sheltered by the protective mangroves.

The beams swung out toward the bay, but Alexander had started the motor, and even at a low thrust, had put some distance between them and the shore. He took Aria’s hand and they ducked below the rim, not taking any chances. She met his eyes, seeing the guilt at leaving their companions, but also the fear — and the urgency.

They had to get below. Had to dive, find the treasure they came here for before it was all too late. And now, given the madness gripping the world, Alexander had the feeling everything depended on it.

On him.

He reached for the tank and the BCDs and started fitting the vest onto Aria when the first helicopter cleared the horizon, stark black and dangerous like a bird of prey, and roared toward them.

Alexander could almost see the pilot’s goggles, and the other man leaning out with a gun. Not wasting another second, he tightened the strap holding her air tank, and pushed Aria (not too gently) over the side. She shook her head, still protesting her inexperience and how she wasn’t ready. The waves had picked up speed in a rising wind as the cloudbanks turned menacing and swallowed up the low, meager sun.

He hoped the darkening sky would provide Nina and Jacob some more cover as they led away the pursuers and bought Alexander time, but he couldn’t think about any of that now. Just like he couldn’t think about Dad, or Aunt Phoebe, Orlando or Uncle Xavier or any of the Morpheus Group.

They had all sacrificed so much and worked so hard to get this far. Everything they’d been through, and it seemed the world was never in more peril.

Something below these waves could change all that. Something untouched for thousands of years maybe. How long? Back to Atlantis — or would it be the other fabled lost continent in this case, Lemuria?

It didn’t matter. Not now, not if they couldn’t evade death from above.

Aria dropped below, mouthpiece clenched between her teeth. She tried to rise, but then the weight of her belt pulled her down and all Alexander could see was her terrified eyes and her splashing hands before they were gone. The reef was around them but deeper. He knew the depth here was anywhere from 50 to more than 200 feet. He recalled the stories of pearl divers harpooning sea turtles and riding them down into the depths. Recalled tales of one (who later died of compression sickness) who had spoken of majestic columns, pyramids and other roads and canals under the depths, partially devoured by the sandy sea floor: an ancient city lost to time.

Alexander would soon find out.

He fit in his mouthpiece, strapped the vest tighter and adjusted the weight belt and his fins and then — as bullets tore into the side of the boat — he launched himself over and after Aria.

Kicking for all his life, he tried to move away from the path of fire and caught up with her quickly as they descended. He held her by the hands, steadying her from dropping too fast — or from rising. They were at twenty feet, and already his ears were tight, his face tightened with the pressure, but he gave a reassuring look to Aria, forcing her eyes on his until she calmed her breathing. He nodded, then pulled a hand free for a ‘thumbs up’ sign.

She mimicked the sign, then looked around and up.

They had to get lower. He could see the shadow of the boat above, and thought he saw bullet trails coming close to where they had dropped into the bay. Fortunately, the strong current had already brought them out and away from the initial descent point.

He reduced the air on her vest, nodding again as she did the same. Then, checking his compass, he pointed down and to the right. Had to at least pretend he knew where they were going, but really this was just a shot in the dark. Literally.

There were stories of this island being riddled with tunnels and underwater caverns, some that might lead to pockets of air, to preserved tombs or storehouses of treasures. The Japanese divers had excavated and supposedly removed hundreds of platinum coffins and other artifacts, as had Kubary, the German explorer whose boat later sank by the Marshall Islands, hundreds of miles to the East.

Aria started moving too fast and too deep, and Alexander had to kick hard to catch up to her. Took her arm and again had her wait for a decompression check, and to calm her breathing before she hyperventilated. Their muscles were working extra hard down here with the strength of the current, but the lower they were descending, the less the strain.

It soon became eerily calm. And darker. He could just barely make out large triangular dark patches floating around gracefully below their feet, and deeper, some outlines of the coral formations, too irregular to be columns, but vaguely reminiscent of monuments and statues. He tried to keep heading to the west as they descended, slower now, with Aria gripping his arm.

The water grew progressively darker as the clouds reigned above, and the light still filtered somewhat, but Aria froze suddenly and kicked back up, just as she turned on the C4-LCD Underwater light she had on her belt and aimed it down. At the black triangular shapes…

Stingrays.

Dozens of them, blanketing the area below. Their eyes and whip tails caught and scattered the beam’s illumination.

The beam trembled as she played the light all over the leathery bodies, as they glided and dipped and ascended to the light, guarding their depths and whatever else lay below. Her free hand instinctively reached for him, caught and clenched his hand.

Maybe it was the fear and adrenaline of the moment. Maybe it was something more.

Alexander had a thought, not much later, that it had to be that. Something more. Something between them. Their attraction, their connection.

It brought out his talent, merged it with hers in a new combination of something stronger.

Something…

…that could tear down walls.

In this case, blue ones.

He remembered his father telling him of the time he almost died in the Alexandrian harbor, after touching a statue head and getting an unbidden vision of ancient Rome; it had been as if his subconscious had been waiting there for the right stimulus to unleash just the right video selection — what he needed to see.

In this case, Aria’s touch spilled over his senses and left his mind so clear, so free, of all but its imminent need.

The entrance. The source, the question:

Where was it hidden?

Some part of his consciousness, the part not overwhelmed with budding excitement and cautionary bliss, knew that wasn’t quite worded in the best question form, thank you Jeopardy, but it was close enough for now.

Close enough to see what effect she had on his sight.

Her own ability to shield others from the Sight — it had to have interacted with his own, counteracting the blocking agent, or maybe he was siphoning the ability, manipulating it and using it to color his own perceptions.

Whatever the cause, it was like he donned a filtered pair of glasses to alter what his normal vision would have shown. Up until now, trying to perceive this place’s ancient past, anything about its construction or its people, resulted in a total blindness manifested as a field of blue.

But now Alexander knew the truth. What Aria could do, it was the same talent that these previous magicians, psychics or whatever had; but it wasn’t that they clouded their location and actions from psychics, past, present and future; it was that each moment, each action, as they were etched into the fabric of reality, like the recording of an album or digitization of video, were encoded in such a way that only certain few had the key to access them.

Only a few could translate and experience.

And see.

Some part of his psyche wanted to shout and share all this with Orlando, because for sure he would get it. Something about the theory of the holographic, Matrix-like nature of reality… that this proved it, or something like it.

But right now, at a depth of a hundred feet, with a terrified girl clinging to him, with a school of huge and potentially deadly stingrays swarming beneath their feet, and with deadly assassins above waiting for them to falter and rise, he had more pressing problems.

And only one solution.

He had to open the gift she had given him, the power to unlock the code and access the blue filter.

Once, what seemed like millennia ago, when he had a mother and a home, she had given him a game — a puzzle book that had hidden clues only visible under a magnifying glass with red transparent plastic instead of the glass. He knew, just as surely as if he had just held that toy over his eyes, he could now see what had been denied.

Show me…

A rush of sights. Overwhelming and fast, rapid-fire almost. It was as if his mind knew his current precarious situation and couldn’t linger on any one thing. Instead, it selected a myriad of images, collated and collected in no discernable order at first, and just flung them at him, spinning them before his eyes like a carnival zoetrope.

Bits and pieces at first, as the blue wall faded, chipped and blew away, revealing the sights beyond.

Two boys, natives wearing grass skirts; their heads painted bright colors, with crowns of bright orchids on wreaths. They race about a lush landscape as workers labor behind them, building great spires out of glimmering metal and basalt under a brilliant blue sky.

The boys carry slender sticks that could be play swords, except they hum and tremble, and anything they point at lifts into the air. It’s a competition as they throw heavy stones, excess basalt from the materials pile, tree trunks, and even a passing slave, into the air. Floating, kicking, laughing.

In the distance, tall men and women in bright, elegant robes stand on scaffolding and, holding similar wands, raise up even larger blocks, assembling complicated and massive towers, temples, pyramids and megalithic architecture.

The stones fall between the laughing twins, and then the sky darkens, the land trembles, and the winds howl.

Amid lightning streaks, the distant spires shiver and huddle among their silhouetted brethren as the city falls into a hush below before the sky erupts in a torrential rain and the winds howl and the ocean surges.

Another flash and it’s daylight, calm. Two tall bearded men stand at a balcony of a tower, supervising the city below — whose streets are now under water. People are crammed up higher amid their towers, congregating on the rooftops of smaller buildings while in other areas blocks are being assembled out of the water itself, layering in interlocking fashion as dwellings are created and roads raised above the new sea level.

The twins are speaking, but nothing is heard but a hum and a bubbling sound, and they both look up, over their shoulders, to another construction happening simultaneously: a massive project, creating a lattice-work shell for an arced dome.

A construction to cover the entire city, where dozens of robed priestesses stand on scaffolds and direct the immense stones to obey their commands, to rise and align and fit, and…

A flash… and the two brothers are under water, in bright rays of sunlight spearing from above. Holding their breaths, they look down and admire the shimmering dome below their feet, as sharks circle nearby, massive and hungry.

Another blinding light.

And now the dome is cracked, covered with grime, coral and silt, and half-buried in sand.

Time has written its name large upon the once-majestic structure. A giant hole in its apex seems to draw a family of stingrays…

Another flash, and words rumble in the waves…

“Show me the tunnels.”

And a glowing schematic appears, then blurs into another, zooming and moving around. Faster and faster, the tunnels extend out from a large land mass, one that subsequently shrinks and shrinks until it’s just an island and the domed city, its former capital, is only a submerged ruin, forgotten and lost to the depths.

But the tunnels expand, crisscrossing and descending and rising, one in particular, glowing in this vision, following the trail of an original, now-ruined and unrecognizable bridge, to the domed city.

Under the city…

Under the dome that had been engineered as a last-ditch effort to withstand the rising of the ocean and any number of other disaster scenarios. But like all of man’s efforts, nothing lasted forever, and nothing could forestall inevitable destruction. Not even zero-gravity technology or lost wizardry or psychic powers.

A true lost civilization, viewed for the first time by any psychic, Alexander thought — or maybe for the first time in such detail. Edgar Cayce was known to channel other spirits and visit those times; or maybe he caught glimpses beyond the blue filter that prevented future civilizations from learning the mistakes of the past. But whatever the case — the other Emerald Tablet was here.

Or it had been here…

A flash.

And back on that tallest of spires, dizzying and almost reaching the apex of the dome itself, rested a platinum coffin. About the size fit for a toddler.

The two brothers, now aged, with long, flowing grey beards. Their eyes bathed in emerald radiance, gazing down, past the thing glowing in the box, down below to the tens of thousands of colorfully-dressed citizens on the streets, on the canals in boats and on rooftops. The dome lets in the outside light and is painted with clouds that give way to stars in the evening, moving with the celestial mechanics of the outside world.

The brothers look grim, as if the future fate is inevitable and these people, their people, have no hope despite the most powerful artifact in their possession.

A flash, and then:

A glimpse of three huge pyramids, one with a golden capstone, amid a lush palm tree region beside a flowing river, and a majestic lion-headed sphinx gazing over an army of incalculable numbers. A green beam forms atop the pyramid, arcing out into the sky as the people roar their violent war cry.

The brothers, back on ancient Nan Madol, reach for the box. One shakes his head, and the other nods.

They close the lid on the box, first revealing that what’s inside is no longer a familiar tablet at all, but a smaller chip — a tear shaped gem. Just as fiercely jade, radiating power and spinning with runes, formulae and multi-dimensional knowledge.

It’s the same and yet, not.

The lid closes — echoing moments later as hundreds of other platinum cases close over other treasures. Minor things: gold necklaces; silver baubles and ruby rings. Hundreds of treasure chests, time capsules to preserve their most valued items, should they survive the ravages of the war to come.

The brothers lower their heads, as — shifting to the view outside the dome — the skies turn black as rolling crimson-grey clouds rush in, bringing with them cyclonic winds, massive waves, lightning, and then — a scalar beam of pure energy arcing across the globe, spearing toward the city of light and hope.

Alexander jolted back to the surging cold as Aria let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around him tight. Bubbles shot out of his dislodged regulator, his mask was a blur of her hair and bubbles, but Alexander saw other things: dark, fan-like things. Eyes, long tails and white underbellies.

They were descending through the school of mantas. And her light — dropped and dangling from its tether on her belt, spun around after the rays brushed past it and sent the beam this way and that—

Highlighting that they were nearly to the great crack in the dome-shaped reef. To the hole drawing them inside, into the past…

Alexander fought for his regulator and got it back into place just as the leather caress of a stingray caught his leg. Aria made a bubbly-screaming sound and clenched him tighter. The light spun, and he tried to kick out to arrest their descent.

Had to check the gauge.

They had been near 80 feet already and couldn’t risk much lower for too long without oxygen poisoning. How he wished for Waxman’s resources, the boat that took his young father to Alexandria, with a hyperbaric chamber, and probably the means to get a Deep Diving Suit to go down 600 feet. They might need it, if they could get the time and the chance to come back here and do this exploration up right.

But would they — any of them — have the time?

From what he had just seen, if this was it — the domed city, there was no way they could get to the bottom during this dive.

But we don’t need to… do we?

That thought calmed him. He held her tight. Felt her cold skin against his fingers. She was trembling through fear and cold, and he couldn’t imagine the terror going through her mind now.

Just keep trying to stay calm.

He found her chin, gently turned her face up to locate her eyes in the fogged mask. Tried to nod and make the ‘ok’ sign, to which she just shook her head rapidly in the negative. She struggled in his embrace a few moments longer and flinched as another ray brushed against her leg.

Then, just like that, they were out of the school.

Not out, he realized, but just under their congregation, through the fissure in the barnacle and urchin-decorated dome.

The temperature dipped, and Alexander could feel her skin tightening, goosebumps rising, but then she calmed — or more like froze.

Not in terror or deathly concern, but in awe. It was the same shared experience Alexander just felt wash over him as the light speared this way and that, finding and dazzling off structures at once alien and yet so familiar, as he had just seen them.

The city of the ancients.

Lemuria or Atlantis, his father would know for sure. More likely the former, but here was one of its greatest outposts, at one time a shining city of tremendous architectural skill and techno-magical accomplishment. A civilization where psychic-mystics ruled, and knowledge was revered as religion, and the impossible a daily reality.

Aria gently squeezed his hand again, and again a flash speared through another blue filter as his mind sought out the answer to another question:

A battered remnant of the past glory, survivors huddled on the island’s mountainous and volcanic cliffs, this peak which had been a mountain lording over the previous land’s scenic harbor. A limping old man with a gnarled staff leads the survivors to the water’s edge, where workers clear debris and pile up washed up coral. In the distance, carrion birds feast on floating bodies, hundreds of them that have risen from below.

Turning away in sadness, the old man speaks to his staff, which vibrates and hums, and then it calls to an enormous shaft of basalt, and stands it up on end, hovering, until he walks it into its new place, the first in a foundation of rectangular edifices placed on the coral reefs to create a new complex…

Back — and Aria let go of his hand. Treading water in reverence, she hauled back on the flashlight’s cord, caught it, and now with it firmly in her grasp, she aimed it down, and then back and forth. So dark, only traces of the spires and angular buildings peeked out into the light. A dome here, an arch there. The beam tread carefully over rooftops, around columns of marble and across bridges of majestic construction. Exotic fish darted away, and in the distance a larger nurse shark eyed them warily.

The light fell on the closest structure. The tallest.

Alexander was already heading there, pulling her by the shoulder. They couldn’t separate; but had to be quick. This was the tower he had seen — he wanted to tell Aria that, to indicate he knew this was it, and he had to check it.

They might reach it.

His air was getting thin, his breathing tight and strained, and he could only imagine what Aria felt. Hopefully the experience of wonder and the thrill of this discovery outweighed her fear of not only being so deep, but of potentially not being able to find the exit and get past those stingrays and rise again.

With every kick toward the spire, which seemed to be pointing at an angle now, as if the whole city had tilted during the cataclysm, he was struck with the certainty they’d never make it out, and their bodies would be lost to time, just like all those poor souls inside this dome when disaster struck. But they were almost there, almost…

Her light shone ahead, like a tether they were latched onto, hauling them in to the prize.

Alexander slowed, then pulled up.

Not because of the shark that circled around the tower’s cupola, and now seemed to be waiting for them at the balcony area, but because what he had hoped to see there was absent.

The platinum coffin.

It might have fallen off the balcony or been washed clear in a tidal wave, but something told him its positioning there in the ancient past was far too important. It was a beacon, a treasure, a riddle to solve that none ever would. Or even if they did, they could never ascend the tower, with its guards, traps and defenses.

And he thought again of those hundreds of other platinum coffins — red herrings in a game of misdirection. Each had their own guards and traps, all over the city.

His heart surged at the thought of trying, imagining a desperate puzzle-cracking quest. Of blazing his own trail and conquering a test older than anything even his father had attempted, but — still touching Aria — another flash came to him, and now at last the truth hit, and hit hard…

It wasn’t there.

This trip had been for nothing, and they were going to die.

His vision showed him the truth, and as he turned, met her eyes and reluctantly shook his head and dashed her excitement, he knew that it had already been too late.

Too late by sixty years.

Bad intel. Wrong question. Whatever the reason, they had come on a wild goose chase, and despite this most amazing of finds, they had been put into danger — and their enemy had not only expected it but let them fall into the trap.

And now Nina and Jacob were up on the surface, fighting for their lives. Two against how many?

And Alexander and Aria might never make it back, and if they did, who would be waiting to greet them?

Worse, and the only thing Alexander kept thinking and still seeing, was that none of this might matter.

Because the one who found the artifact still had it.

And in his hands, that meant the end of everything.