The Atlantis Allegiance

by S. A. Beck

  She stared at it for a full minute. The sprout didn’t seem to be growing. Nodding with satisfaction, she set to work.

  It was slow going. The double gloves made her fumble and drop things, but even so, she made progress. Her mind relaxed and her worries slipped away as she dug holes for the seeds, placed them inside, and added a bit of fertilizer and water. Focusing on her work and her plans for the garden, she stopped thinking about all her troubles in life. Gardening took concentration, but at the same time, it was so simple. You encouraged things to thrive, to grow. Why couldn’t the rest of the world be positive and nurturing like that?

  The day slipped away as she planted, and it wasn’t until several hours later that she heard the greenhouse door open. Jaxon hurriedly tossed the outer pair of gloves to one side so she wouldn’t have to explain herself. Wearing only a single pair didn’t make her look like a freak.

  Stephen walked around the corner with a smile. “How’s it going?”

  “Great! I’ve divided the bed up into flowers and vegetables. I figured you guys would like some homegrown vegetables since you’re health freaks—um, I mean health nuts. Sorry, I mean healthy.” Jaxon blushed. Superpowers and no social skills. Why did she have to be such a mess?

  Stephen didn’t seem to notice. He bent over the soil, studying it carefully as if searching for something. “Looking good. Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Yeah! It’s fun. I can see why you’re so into this.”

  “Glad you like it. It’s time to eat.”

  Jaxon’s stomach grumbled. She had totally lost track of time. As Stephen led her out, she looked longingly at the greenhouse. She had to come back here often. These had been the most relaxing few hours she’d had in a long time.

  That evening with Brett was a lot less relaxing.

  Jaxon had no idea what to expect on her first date. Unlike every other sixteen-year-old in the country, she’d never been on one. That made her feel like a total loser, but at least nobody knew about it. One advantage of moving around so much was that no one knew her past. She could pretend her love life wasn’t as lame as every other part of her life.

  There was no pretending on this date though. While Jaxon didn’t know what to expect, she hadn’t expected it to be so boring. Brett was about as interesting as watching the Home Shopping Channel and ten times as fake. Nothing he said was the least bit interesting, and she couldn’t remember a thing that came out of his mouth five minutes after he said it.

  At least she was getting out of the house. That’s what she kept telling herself as they buzzed around town. Brett tried to impress her by revving his Porsche and running red lights. When that didn’t work, he bragged about all the golf games he’d won. That was an even bigger fail. They went to a burger place that was okay. Jaxon chowed down on a large burger with all the trimmings, plus a large order of fries and a large milkshake, to Brett’s surprise. She thought with glee of what her foster parents’ faces would look like if they could see her sucking in all that fat and salt and artificial flavors. Maybe they should try it sometime; it might do them some good.

  After that, they went to a movie Jaxon wanted to see. Brett tried to put his arm around her the instant the lights went out, and she pushed it away. A few minutes later, the arm was back and she had to shuck it off again. Then an hour into the film, Brett went for broke. He plunked his arm around her and moved in. Jaxon turned toward him just in time to see a pair of puckered lips diving at her like some fighter plane about to launch a missile. She elbowed him in the ribs, pulling back on her abnormal strength. Mostly. With a surprised grunt, he moved away.

  Perhaps that’s what I should have done the first time.

  He sulked through the rest of the movie and didn’t share his popcorn.

  At least Brett was good at his word and dropped her off just before eleven. After dodging a good-night kiss with a move that would have made her Aikido instructor proud, Jaxon waved good-bye with a massive sense of relief and went inside.

  If that was what dating was all about, she’d give it a miss. It had seemed so fake, like, “Hey, let me feed you and show you a film so I can make out with you.” Lame. What she and Otto had fallen into had been so natural. There had never been any artificial behavior or ulterior motives, just real attraction. They hadn’t felt as if they had to go through all the motions before being boyfriend and girlfriend.

  She sighed as she headed upstairs. Only the front hall light and the light in Stephen’s office were on. Through the open door, she saw Stephen buried in his work, and he gave her an absentminded wave. Their bedroom door was closed and no light came through the bottom, which told her Isadore was already asleep. Jaxon smiled. That meant she got to keep her phone until morning. Stephen was too busy to ask for it and she wasn’t about to give it up without being asked, so she hurried to her room and closed the door.

  By the time her clock read 11:05, she was undressed and in bed, staring at the photo of her and Otto.

  Chapter 13

  JUNE 8, 2016, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

  4:00 PM

  General Meade was finally back where he belonged—in the laboratory of the Poseidon Project, getting his damn scientists’ butts in gear. Enough with Washington bureaucrats, enough with talking with his agents. The real action was here, and he was going to make sure that things progressed according to his timetable for a change.

  The general swiped his ID card, and the laboratory door clicked open. After making sure to close it behind him so the automatic lock would keep the lab secure, he passed a battery of computers and equipment on his way toward a desk. At the desk sat a portly middle-aged man clicking away at a computer. The fellow glanced over his shoulder, spotted General Meade, and immediately deleted a screen. For a second the general thought he saw Facebook, but it was gone too quickly to tell, replaced by a gene coding sequence.

  “So how’s my star scientist?” General Meade asked, making his voice a little louder than necessary.

  Dr. Patrick Jones was a prominent scientist and the new head of research at the Poseidon Project, but he wasn’t at Dr. Yamazaki’s level in either raw intelligence or work ethic. In fact, the guy was a bit of a blunderer. Easily intimidated though, and that was always a plus. Jones wouldn’t dare try to backstab him like Dr. Yamazaki did.

  “Things are going very well, sir,” Dr. Jones said, giving an awkward salute. Jones was a civilian, but for some reason, he thought he was in the army now. “I’ve found out some interesting things. Analyzing the characteristics of the six subjects, I’ve found that each has increased strength and intellect. Their brain synapses are incredible. They have twice as many connections as the average human, and some of those connections are strange.”

  “Strange?”

  Dr. Jones nodded, looking uncertain. “Most of the connections are along the normal neural pathways, enhancing them. It’s like our synapses are a two-lane country road and theirs are an Interstate freeway.” The scientist smiled as if proud of his metaphor, then he went on. “Some of the other pathways don’t follow the regular routes. Since they’ve never been seen before, there’s no good way to tell exactly what they do. Many of them go deep into areas of the brain we don’t really understand.”

  “Could these be some sort of special powers?” General Meade asked.

  “Not sure what you mean by special powers. They might have increased memory or something like that. It’s impossible to tell without waking one up though.”

  “The missing subject, Jaxon Andersen, may have some sort of mental effect on plants.”

  Dr. Jones looked surprised. “Plants? That’s odd. What sort of effect?”

  “Witnesses say she can speed up their growth to a remarkable degree.”

  Dr. Jones thought for a moment. “That sounds more magical than biological. So far, everything we’ve seen from these subjects can be explained through biology. The increased strength and speed are simply enhanced neuromuscular development. Affecting plants goes way beyond that. A
re you sure the witness is reliable?”

  “It’s something worth checking up on,” General Meade said. “Perhaps it’s some sort of transfer of energy from one body to another?”

  “I don’t know any mechanism that could account for that,” Dr. Jones replied with a dismissive shake of his head.

  General Meade felt an increasing annoyance. This scientist was deferential and scared when he was talking to General Meade about the project, but as soon as they got into scientific territory, he acted superior. That was a common and annoying trait among scientists and engineers—they thought they were smarter than they were and spoke arrogantly about their specialized knowledge. Well, General Meade knew a few things that would make this second-rate technician faint.

  Controlling himself, General Meade went on. “I want you to investigate the possibility of all special powers. Throughout history there have been reports of abilities such as ESP, telekinesis, and out-of-body experiences. Perhaps these are linked to the Atlantis gene.”

  Dr. Jones barked out a laugh. “Next you’ll be asking me to believe in UFOs!”

  “Just do your job!” General Meade snapped.

  Dr. Jones paled and sat bolt upright in his chair. “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Look, Jones, I’ve got to tell you I’m not impressed by your performance so far. The project is way behind schedule. I know you were brought in late and it takes time to get up to speed, but this is important. You’ve only brought in three new subjects since you’ve joined us. Where are the rest?”

  Dr. Jones took a moment to collect himself. “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about, sir. A lot of the likely matches for the Atlantis gene are missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “As in missing persons. I was having trouble tracking down more prospects from the list you gave me. I’ve been crosschecking with documents like school and medical records to find matches based on physical appearance and known Atlantean traits, but many of these people’s records simply stop. Then I ran a check with police records and found many are listed as missing persons.”

  General Meade’s brow furrowed. He leaned over the computer screen. “Show me.”

  Dr. Jones clicked on a few keys and brought up a long list of names, each with a few paragraphs of information and a thumbnail image. General Meade’s eyes scanned the images. Seeing all of them together really brought it home. Every one of them looked like all races at once. Sure, some may be simply mixed race like a lot of normal humans, but that blending of human attributes was obviously an Atlantean trait. General Meade wondered if, back in the distant past, the Atlanteans had been the ancestors of all races. They knew so little of the history, only hints and rumors, and they were only just beginning to learn about the biology. What secrets would they eventually uncover?

  The scientist’s voice broke him out of his reverie. “Here we go. Take this one, for example. Andrew Warner, Wisconsin high school football all-star and junior weightlifting champion. Adopted after being abandoned at birth. Interesting parallel to Jaxon Andersen, isn’t it? Reportedly ran away from home three years ago and hasn’t been seen since. Odd since he had a full football scholarship to Princeton for the next year. Who gives up a free ride to an Ivy League school? And here’s another. Brianna Osborne, thirty-two, Canadian marathon runner, disappeared without a trace last year. No ransom note, no suicide note, no body. And the Fergusons, a family of five from Maine, all went missing six months ago and haven’t been seen since. Their bank account was emptied the day before they went missing. And there are more—plenty more. A total of ninety-seven are missing, including that family of five and another family of three. The rest are lone individuals, either orphans or unmarried adults. None of them have been found.”

  General Meade rubbed his jaw. This was disturbing. He tapped through Jones’s database. After reading a few more entries, something struck him. “All the missing person’s reports are recent.”

  Dr. Jones looked surprised. “Really? Let’s check.” He entered a few commands to isolate the dates of when each subject disappeared and arranged them in chronological order. “So they are! The first went missing only four years ago. Most have gone missing in the last two years. It looks like the rate of their disappearances is increasing.”

  General Meade felt like slapping the idiot. Jones had assembled this database and hadn’t seen a trend Meade spotted in a couple of minutes? This guy couldn’t hold a candle to Yamazaki. What a waste to scramble her brain like that.

  Idiots everywhere! How the hell was he going to save the world when he was surrounded by idiots? The general fought to control himself. Getting angry would only be counterproductive. Somebody or something was taking the Atlanteans. He needed to find out why.

  “Put each disappearance onto a map,” he ordered.

  Dr. Jones did as he was told. After a few minutes, the map showed disappearances in every region of the United States and Canada, with a dot for each missing person. So far the Poseidon Project had limited its search to those two countries for convenience’s sake, but Meade had the dreadful feeling that it might be happening globally. He studied the map for a moment, looking for trends.

  Jones said what Meade was thinking. “It looks like they’re going missing everywhere. Slightly more disappearances in the Northeast and California and fewer in the Midwest, but that could be explained by differences in the general population. We’ve already noted that the Atlanteans don’t seem to cluster geographically. They’re spread out evenly in the regular human population.”

  “So whoever’s doing this is spread out too, or traveling constantly.”

  Jones color-coded the dots by year and still found no obvious trend. “It looks like you’re right, sir. Now what do we do?”

  Damn good question. Someone was obviously taking the Atlanteans and had been doing so since the early days of the Poseidon Project. Could it be an inside job? He doubted it. For the first three years, the research had been very basic and all done by Pentagon scientists. Their loyalty wasn’t suspect, and in any case, they were all under close observation. When he had gotten the funding to kick the project into high gear, he brought in Dr. Yamazaki. While she might have leaked some information before her “stroke,” that was well after the start of the disappearances.

  Could the research itself have alerted some outside agency? Pentagon operatives had gone out and asked plenty of questions, even monitored some suspected Atlanteans. That might have been noticed. General Meade knew America was filled with spies. The Russians and Chinese had small armies of operatives working in various capacities. Even allied countries such as Israel and France kept a close eye on the world’s largest superpower. That was how the game was played, and General Meade didn’t take it personally. Could some other nation, hostile or friendly, be trying to get their hands on the Atlantis gene? Or perhaps one of the major pharmaceutical or biotech companies? With the economic downturn, corporate espionage was at an all-time high. While he wanted the Atlantis gene for its military applications, he couldn’t even begin to imagine its economic potential.

  He’d have to investigate these disappearances. Unfortunately, that meant getting more funding from the Pentagon, and that wasn’t going to happen.

  If some organization had been collecting Atlanteans for years longer than he had, and had gathered them in much greater numbers, that organization’s research was probably far ahead of the Poseidon Project.

  When an enemy is potentially stronger, the best thing to do is to strike first.

  “Dr. Jones, when can you wake the first subject out of hibernation?”

  The scientist blinked. They hadn’t even discussed doing that yet. “But, sir, we haven’t finished with our tests!”

  “I’m aware of that. How soon can you wake one?”

  “Um, today if you wish, but—”

  “Do it.”

  Dr. Jones shrugged, obviously flustered.

  “Which subject do you think is the best suited to wake up?” General Meade as
ked.

  “Um… probably Zion Wilson,” Dr. Jones said, clicking on his computer again and bringing up several files. “He’s been the most responsive to the chemicals we’ve been pumping into him. Plus he’s the youngest of the subjects, not that that seems to make much difference with these Atlanteans. Even our oldest, who’s in her mid-fifties, has more strength than your average Marine.”

  “Impressive, but we want the best of the best.”

  Dr. Jones turned to him curiously. “What for?”

  General Meade glared at him. “Shut up and get to work.”

  The scientist cringed, and the general allowed himself a moment of smug satisfaction. Jones was weak, and Meade despised weakness. It was everywhere—in the Pentagon, in the White House, and it was rampant in civilians. America used to be strong. Now everyone just wanted to go shopping, play games, and stuff their faces with fast food. It had become a nation of overgrown children. That needed to change, and it looked as though he had to be the man to change it.

  Meade followed the scientist past some complex equipment whose function Meade only vaguely understood. There, along the far wall, stood seven metal pods, each eight feet tall. The one on the end was empty and stood open. Its interior was padded, and various nozzles and sensors filled in spaces between the padding. The other six were closed and occupied. Computer monitors next to each of them showed the occupant’s vital signs, such as their heartbeat and blood oxygen levels. Through small windows in each pod, they could see the sleeping faces of half a dozen Atlanteans.

  General Meade paced slowly down the row. Three men and three women, all in suspended animation, their eyes closed, minds unconscious. Like with the computer database, seeing their physical similarities when they were all bunched together was striking. All had dark skin that the casual observer would label as black, but their genetic makeup was more complex than that. Their facial structure was wide with high cheekbones, like the Native Americans, and their eyes had traces of epicanthic folds like the Asians. If the eyes were open, Meade knew they would all be a brilliant blue that spoke of northern Europe.