David Golemon - Ancients

Tomlinson looked from the engineer to the set of twenty-foot-tall bronze doors that had bowed when the Empirium had collapsed. He could wait no longer. He ducked his head and entered the fifteen-thousand-year-old structure.

"Is he crazy? I told him it may be unstable," the engineer said to Caretaker as he approached the Empirium.

Caretaker's face was neutral as he looked into the blackness beyond the doorway. He had been watching Tomlinson closely ever since he had demolished his home in Chicago. The signs were small and had not been noticed by the others, but he had seen a change in the usually unflappable Tomlinson. When he spoke, his eyes moved too quickly from person to person, as if he was waiting for the first sign of disagreement from them. Caretaker believed that the pressure was mounting for the new Coalition leader. This seemingly obsessive desire to enter the old seat of the Atlantean government was just the latest. He smiled and looked at the engineer.

" Unstable may be the operative word," he said to himself as he followed Tomlinson inside.

The large lights cast eerie shadows on the broken columns and marble that lay crushed beneath most of the collapsed ceiling. A few of his archaeologists and paleontologists started filtering in to look at this marvel of history.

Tomlinson had to smirk when Caretaker ran one of his hands across an overturned marble table and grimaced at the millennia of dust.

"I always said you could never trust a man that didn't like getting dirty once in a while."

Caretaker did not bother to look at Tomlinson. "Is that what you say? Well, here is what I say: I believe you should be working on finalizing this last assault of yours and not out sightseeing."

"Can't you feel it? Where else but here could the power of this civilization be governed but the Great Empirium of Atlantis?"

"If we don't use the Wave soon, this just may be the only place you are allowed to govern."

Tomlinson knew that Caretaker was right. With his new feeling of rejuvenation, he looked around one last time at the Empirium Chamber, not noticing the skeletal form at his feet or the broken marble tile that hid the secret entrance to the underground world beneath.

Fifteen thousand years of leakage had formed long stalactites that hung from the high ceiling, each dripping with water that found a way in through course rock and magma from the Mediterranean, two miles above their heads.

Sarah and the other scientists back at Group had been right: in the three hours they had been in the great tunnel, Carl and his SEAL teams had come across numerous parts of the outer islands--the three great rings that had guarded the capital. There were large and small pieces of great columns, bathhouses, petrified trees, and roadways, all interspersed with giant deposits of ancient molten rock that made the landscape they had come across look like vast lakes of rippling water. The upheaval and death throes of this civilization had been of such violence that Everett could only imagine.

The inefficient lights provided them with horrific views of the cataclysm. Skeletal remains were everywhere, half buried or crushed by the very island they had lived on. It was as if the place had folded up and over the capital, and then the whole mass had sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

"Captain, you have to see this," the SEAL lieutenant said as he approached. "This operation is done."

Carl quickly saw the reason for his dire comment. Standing in front of them, blocking their way, were the entire outer edges of the city of Atlantis rising four hundred feet into the air. Their way was blocked.

The president was watching the C-SPAN coverage of the special UN meeting. He watched the Russian ambassador to the United Nations present their case.

As photos of the aircraft parts from the downed Boeing 777 were shown from an easel, he was reminded of the Cuban missile crisis, only this time it was the Russians who had the sympathy of the body politic. The president winced at the way his government had been set up.

"Our pull-back didn't convince anyone. All it did was corner our men into a tighter situation than before. Now we have a million refugees on the roads south from Seoul, clogging up reinforcements, and at the first sign of an offensive move, which I am compelled to order, the Chinese will rush across the border just like in 1947."

"We have to invite the Russians and Chinese in," Niles said, looking at the president.

"What?"

"Our KH-11 is over the Med; when we hit Crete, we have to get the Russians and Chinese to watch what's going on."

"What makes you think they don't have a spy bird over right now and just don't care what we're doing?"

"Because if they did, they would know our evidence is linked to what's going on. They're smart enough to see what is happening if it's right there before their eyes. Mr. President, if the Russians and Chinese really wanted to believe Kim or the evidence they have, they wouldn't wait, they would have hit us already. They want to believe us."

The president snapped off the television.

"You know what's happening better than anyone. If I can get you into a room with the Russian and Chinese delegations and get a live feed to you, can you convince them? I mean really convince them?"

Niles removed his glasses and shook his head. "I can sure as hell try."

Jack looked at the mountain of rubble before him strewn with giant boulders, parts of the island and most of a city or small village comprising its bulk. As he examined the wall before him, he even saw three of four ancient wooden ships.

"Before you ask, Jack, we don't have enough explosive for a quarter of that thickness," Everett said as he joined him at the blockage.

Collins looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes until the attack commenced. That meant that his element would not be able to relieve any of the pressure on the marines at the front door.

"I'm at a loss," Jack finally said.

Sarah was staring at the massive roadblock. She examined the rubble that lined the tunnel from top to bottom, where most of one section of the island had crashed through the crust and into the bedrock of the seafloor. She then noticed one of the giant stalactites that hung from a massive broken column. She tilted her head as she watched the runoff of seawater from above as it added to the mineral deposit.

"I know that look. It says either you have to go to the bathroom or you have a serious thought," Mendenhall said.

"Smart-ass," she answered as she continued to watch the runoff above her. Her eyes went to the roadway and then followed the water as it disappeared somewhere ahead. "Come on, funny man."

Mendenhall followed Sarah until they came to the inside wall of the tunnel. Sarah bent over, then went to her knees as she ran her hand over the broken cobblestone of the roadway thirty feet from the start of the blockage.

"These were a highly advanced people," she said.

"Yeah, advanced enough to blow their continent to hell."

"These tunnels were designed to run under the Med. What would they have to have installed to control the leaking? I mean, no matter what, if you tunnel under a body of water, you are going to have leaks. Just look at the Chunnel; the French and the British have major flood control built in."

"Yeah, but I don't get what you're driving at."

"Jack!" she stood and called out.

Collins saw Sarah thirty feet away and he and Everett trotted over.

"Make it quick, Lieutenant. In case you hadn't noticed, we have a major problem here."