The crowd surged towards the oversized doors, which were ceremonially opened by two uniformed guards.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you the world’s first controllable cosmic wormhole.’
Lynn felt Eldridge pull her through the doors into the chamber beyond, but pulling her was no longer necessary; she wanted to see it.
Lynn gasped as she passed through the doors.
This was the kind of hi-tech facility that people would probably have expected to find upstairs. The room was large, dozens of immaculately presented white-suited technicians scurrying from one bank of monitors to another. The room was a hive of activity, and yet it was so perfectly clinical, Lynn couldn’t help but be impressed.
And what was even more impressive — although more ominous, given its purpose — was the fact that CERN employed several thousand scientists and support staff, and yet almost nobody knew this place even existed.
The other half of the room was some sort of observation gallery which stretched for two hundred feet to either side of the doors. Ahead of them was a huge perspex window, with luxurious leather-upholstered benches lining the gallery from one end to the other.
Lynn tried to see through the long window, but whatever was on the other side was shrouded in darkness.
Despite the situation, and despite what the device was intended for, she was still curious about it. A real, operational wormhole? What on earth would such a thing look like? Even with her own high level of scientific knowledge, she could not imagine.
As the gathered members of the Bilderberg Group took their seats, Professor Messier strolled to the front, smiling broadly.
‘My friends,’ he said, clapping his hands together in delight, ‘first of all let me say thank you. Thank you for helping to fund this project. Since CERN’s first days in nineteen fifty-four, the creation of what you are about to see has consumed the modern equivalent of six trillion US dollars, most of which has come from Bilderberg Group members like yourselves. Stephen has spoken of the importance of the project already, and I do not wish to labour the point. I will just show you instead.’
Messier nodded his head to one side, and all of a sudden the chamber beyond the huge viewing window was cast into bright illumination.
He was pleased with the looks of amazement on the faces in front of him.
Lynn, too, was astonished by what she saw. She had imagined something like the Large Hadron Collider itself, a gigantic piece of machinery, something that shouted ‘high-tech, super-advanced physics’. But here there was only a massive, colossal underground canyon; a truly gigantic pit dug deep into the earth, walls of bedrock stretching up and around as far as the eye could see.
‘What is this?’ she heard one member of the Hundred exclaim, confused.
Messier held up a hand. ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘It’s not what you were expecting, eh? Well, don’t worry, there are plenty of exciting metallic bits and pieces dotted around that cavern, all designed to focus energy to the centre. But think about it logically. We are bringing back an entire people, approximately twelve thousand of them. In deep space, the wormhole device they have created is outside their own starship, and their entire starship will be going through it and returning here. And remember, if you will, that their spacecraft is Atlantis itself, regarded as an entire city-state when last it was on earth, which should give you some indication of its size.
‘In fact, the craft is so big that it will literally fill that vast cavern completely. It will be an incredible sight to behold,’ Messier said, his eyes shining. ‘We will witness the return of Atlantis, the return of an ancient pre-historic civilization, the return of humanity’s gods, and the return of our direct biological ancestors, all at once.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘And it will all happen within the next hour.’
9
Adams drove his car down the streets of Maisonnex Dessus until he eventually reached the main gate of CERN.
The guardhouse wasn’t much, but the sentry got on the phone as soon as he saw the car, doubtless calling Eldridge or another of his Alpha Brigade goons. But Adams didn’t care; getting picked up by the brigade was part of his plan.
As he halted at the gate, the sentry got out of the shack and approached him warily. ‘If you wait there, sir,’ he said nervously, ‘someone will be right with you.’
Adams just nodded his head and waited.
Sure enough, within minutes his vehicle was surrounded by a dozen armed men, all screaming at him to get out of the car with his hands where they could see them.
Adams complied, got out of the car and rested both hands on the car roof, even though it caused tremendous pain in his arm.
Two of the men searched him thoroughly, then spun him back round, pushing him against the car. Backing away, they raised their rifles, ready to execute him on the spot.
And then Commander Eldridge was there, Sig Sauer pistol in one beefy hand.
‘Mr Adams,’ he said graciously. ‘We meet again. Although I’m afraid this time I’ll have to make it quick, we’ve got to get back in time for the show.’ He smiled and raised the handgun.
Adams stared down the end of the large barrel. ‘Wait!’ he shouted, and the urgency in his voice caused Eldridge to hesitate for a moment. ‘I have information about the Anunnaki.’
Eldridge scoffed. ‘What could you possibly know about them that we don’t?’
‘Something Travers told me back at Area 51, something that might be useful to Jacobs. All I want to know is if Lynn is alive. If she is, then release her and I’ll tell Jacobs everything. If she’s not, then you might as well shoot me now.’
Adams watched Eldridge’s face, and knew the man was weighing his options. Suddenly, he flipped open a phone and dialled a number. He quickly relayed what Adams had told him, listened, and then turned back to Adams. ‘He’s not interested.’
‘Tell him it’s about where they come from. Originally, I mean. I don’t think Jacobs knows, does he?’
Adams remembered Travers’ history lesson, and clearly recalled him saying that advanced humans arose on the earth many thousands of years ago, but nobody — apparently not even the Anunnaki themselves — knew how this had happened.
Eldridge scowled but relayed the message to Jacobs. He then waited — for what seemed to Adams an inordinately long time — for a reply. Eventually, he gave a confirmatory ‘Yes, sir,’ and ended the call. He turned to his men. ‘Did you search him?’ Two of his men told him that they had performed a thorough search, and Eldridge turned back to Adams, looking him up and down with suspicion. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘search him again. He’s going inside.’
Jacobs had no idea what information Adams might have, if any. He realized that it was probably just a ruse to get inside, but there was an outside chance that Travers had told him something; the professor had spent more time in contact with the Anunnaki than even he himself had.
He also knew that, despite his confidence with his guests, their position wasn’t as secure as he made out; the Anunnaki were far more powerful than they were, and there were no guarantees that things would be as promised. As such, any scrap of information that might be of use to him in his dealings with these ancient humans would be worth having. Knowledge of their origins, for instance, might be of great value.
And so he left the viewing gallery and went back inside the conference room, where he took a seat and waited for the arrival of Matthew Adams.
10
Adams was pushed into the room minutes later, forced to sit in a chair directly opposite Jacobs.