“Yes. Here.”
Andrew tried to move, but she withdrew her tablet and tossed it toward Edward.
“It’s all on there,” Dr. Swan said.
“Good work. I knew I could trust you!”
Dr. Swan yelled. “Edward, I can’t believe you’re alive! How did you survive?”
“It’s a long story, but for now, I need to enter the code.”
The blue sphere glowed radiantly as Edward began quickly inputting the code. When the final image was inputted, the sphere began to rotate on its axis. A shining blue light reaching toward the ceiling.
“What the hell have you done?” It was the pygmy who spoke with vitriolic rage. “You were supposed to bury Atlantis properly, not activate it!”
Edward smiled, pulled the pistol out again and shot the pygmy dead with a bullet straight to his head. “Sorry little king. I lied.”
“What the fuck have you done?” Billie cursed.
“Indeed, I am very sorry,” Edward said. “I neglected to mention that I’m part of the Phoenix Resistance. All I’m doing is making the world right again. Andrew, you were supposed to activate it! I knew that your lavish lifestyle would make you weak. Greedy, you were most likely trying to determine where if you could reprogram it to destroy parts of Manhattan only — making my investment in high altitude real estate worth a fortune to you.”
Andrew tried to reply, but couldn’t.
Billie looked up at him. “But it was already activated. The code was supposed to deactivate it!”
“Yes, well you were very gullible, weren’t you? What did you think was happening? That you had walked in here, touched some things and triggered a cataclysmic event? No, I’ve tried for nearly fifty years to get my hands on the code to Atlantis, and only you have been able to give it to me. So thank you. It’s a real shame that we’re all going to die.”
Chapter Eighty-Three
Sam fired three short bursts from his M16 and the machine gun sprayed Edward Worthington before he could finish his next sentence. He and Tom then quickly crossed the secret path over the dark ravine.
“How much time have we got?” he asked.
“About five minutes,” Billie replied.
Letting go of Andrew, she began examining the sphere again.
Sam looked at the code and then at the sphere. “Can you deactivate it?”
“I have no idea. I mean, it must be possible, but I wouldn’t have a clue how.”
Andrew began to move. His face was white with sweat beads. Blood frothed at his mouth as he exhaled.
Sam stepped toward him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Andrew tried to speak, but the bubbling blood in his lungs made it difficult to hear what he was trying to say.
Sam grabbed him and tried to listen closely. “What is it?”
In barely an audible whisper, Andrew replied, “I can stop it.”
“Why should we trust you? You’ve spent the last five weeks trying to get me killed. We know that you were the leader of the Phoenix Resistance.”
Andrew spoke again, but no one could hear his words.
Billie stepped in. “Because I have no idea how to stop this thing, and the timer is now displaying two minutes!”
They helped him to stand next to the sphere. It glowed positively with him. As though he’d been rejuvenated by the ancient sphere, Andrew began rapidly working with his hands along the myriad of symbols.
Billie looked at him. The wounds to his chest were now almost entirely gone. “Who are you?”
His disarming smile returned, and Andrew said, “My name’s Andrew Brandt, and I have waited nearly two hundred years to infiltrate the Phoenix Resistance and protect the sphere of Atlantis.”
Sam grabbed his arm. Previously badly wounded by Billie’s knife, it was now almost entirely healed. “That’s impossible. No one lives that long.”
“You’re right. It is impossible,” Andrew replied, like a creature from beyond our reality. “If you want to live, I suggest you both leave now.”
“What are you going to do?” Billie asked.
“I’m sending Atlantis where it will be protected for another thousand years.”
He entered the code to Atlantis and the Sphere glowed blue. He held on to two specific symbols. Sam had studied them before, but had never truly worked out what their purpose was. Literally, one translated to life, while the other, death.
The ground began to shake and small stress fractures slowly reached up toward the ceiling of the massive cavern.
Tom looked at the large crack in the wall. “Sam, Billie. It’s time to go, the roof’s going to come down soon.”
“We’re right behind you.”
Sam stopped at the edge of the chasm and glanced at Andrew once more. His eyes were alive, and he appeared happy — finally in possession of the greatest power on earth.
Chapter Eighty-Four
Billie was the first to slide through the incinerator and back into the vault. She pressed the button for the elevator. Her large brown eyes appeared larger, if that was even possible, while they waited.
“Sam, do you realize what this means?” she asked.
“Billie, I just watched a man virtually return from the dead because he touched a blue sphere, and now, the entire building is collapsing beneath us. So, no. I have no idea what any of this means!”
“Think about it. What if the Master Builders were the only survivors of the great flood who maintained the full knowledge of the technologies of Atlantis?”
“And why did they of all people retain the knowledge, when others joined their fellow hunter gathers in the mountains and survived?” Tom asked.
“What if the reason they maintained the knowledge was they were immortal?”
Sam stepped into the elevator. “That’s impossible.”
“They were Gods! The ones the ancient Atlanteans worshiped. Poseidon was a god. They were immortal.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. Everything’s impossible until it has been done. Just because no one’s ever heard of it, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“Yes it does. That’s exactly what it means. It’s made up.”
“But it would answer everything. We know that the Master Builders were just a few super intelligent people, who used armies of men to build their great works. How could the same person build the pyramids if they didn’t live forever?”
“You’re talking about legends, the Holy Grail — nothing more.”
“Yes, but today we stepped inside Atlantis, entered an ancient code that was otherwise planning on sending a comet hurtling toward earth.”
“Okay, so we’ve had an unusual day. For now, I will accept that there’s a possibility they lived a much longer life than what we know of. Andrew told us that he spent nearly 200 years trying to infiltrate the Phoenix Resistance, but that’s a long way off saying they were Gods.”
“Okay, but it’s worse than that.”
“What’s worse than that?”
“If what we think is true, then the Master Builders are still around. That means they’re here, in our time. Weaving their Machiavellian webs of purpose, but for what ultimate desire, or where, we have no idea.”
Sam had another cold shiver down his spine.
“That thought’s really going to send terror through the heart of the Secretary of Defense.”
Outside the elevator a blue glow had encompassed the building. The entire structure shook for a couple minutes and then the light and vibrations stopped completely.
Billie looked at her feet. They had finally stopped moving. “It’s over. Atlantis is gone.”
Chapter Eighty-Five