by S. A. Beck
“It’s like a snapshot from my drone,” Elaine said.
“I wonder if they didn’t do something similar for this image,” Winston said. “I can’t recall anything in the ancient texts about flying machines or photography, but considering all the other things our ancestors could do I wouldn’t put it past them.”
To the right of the city was another scene in close-up showing figures standing in circles around men and women with their hands raised in the air as if they were delivering speeches.
“The time of the Great Division,” Winston said. “When we had grown corrupt and greedy. Some angry young leaders wanted to use our might to conquer the world and enslave the regular humans, while most of our people simply wanted to live a life of lazy pleasure and dissipation. The traditionalists stuck to the founding principles of our civilization, which was to live in peace and slowly spread our knowledge to the rest of the world as each lesser civilization became ready for it.”
“And they all ended up fighting,” Mateo said, pointing to the next scene—a huge battle painted with a blood-red background. Dismembered and decapitated bodies lay everywhere.
The last scene showed the one part of this story that even most regular humans knew—God’s wrath at the arrogance and corruption of Atlantis. Giant waves broke the city apart and swept thousands of tiny figures out to sea. Off to one side a few ships made their escape.
“So the faction that wanted to spread out across the world got their wish,” Winston said, pointing to them. “But not in the way they wanted. And they didn’t get to spread all that much of their knowledge because most of it sank beneath the waves. Nobody won that civil war. Just goes to show that violence is never the answer.”
Winston gave Mateo a significant look. Mateo snorted.
“Sometimes violence is the only answer. How else are we going to get our people free, walk up to that concentration camp holding a bouquet of roses?”
Winston studied him for a moment. “You ever hear the old saying that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it?”
Mateo sneered. “That’s a human saying, not an Atlantean one.”
“We are human,” Jaxon said.
“You’ll learn one day, kid,” Mateo said, walking out of the cave and shaking his head.
After that they had stuck to the desert, avoiding any settlements that showed up on their maps and any open stretch between settlements where they might bump into other vehicles. Their days were lonely ones of endless driving through sun-scorched nothingness—no towns, no outposts, not even any tire tracks in the sand.
In this bleak wilderness there was nothing to do but talk. Jaxon hadn’t seen television in weeks, had lost her iPad in a sandstorm, and didn’t even have any music. Instead she had a circle of loyal friends and some new Atlantean acquaintances who knew far more than she did about her heritage. She was the most cut off and the most connected she had ever been in her entire life.
One day while riding with Winston, she asked him about their first meeting back in Timbuktu.
“You mentioned you wanted to take me down to Gambia. Why?”
“The Gambia is a vital place in our past, indeed the past for all of West Africa. It doesn’t look like much, just a little strip of a country on either side of the River Gambia far to the south of here where there’s actually water and plants instead of all this depressing desert, but it’s played a major role in history.”
“Did some of us land there after Atlantis sank?”
“Indeed we did, because the River Gambia reaches far into West Africa. Being seafarers, we settled at the mouth of that river so we could trade with the interior and still be by the ocean. I suppose we probably had a trading station there even before Atlantis was consumed by the waves. We had trading stations all over, although their exact locations are lost. Like with so many other places where our refugees landed, we played a great role in founding the later civilizations. You can see elements of Atlantean influence in some of the greatest of West African art styles, such as the Benin bronzes and the masks of Cameroon.”
“I didn’t do well in art history.”
“That’s not the sort of thing you would have been taught anyway. Did you get much education on the slave trade?”
“A bit.” Those lessons, at least, she had paid attention to.
“Then you know that the River Gambia was a main trading center in human flesh. Arab and African slave traders raided the weaker tribes in the interior and sold the captives to rulers on the west coast or, later, to European companies who then shipped them to the New World.”
“Did any of us get shipped as slaves?”
Winston made a face. “Perhaps, but there’s a more shameful element to this story. One of the biggest slave traders in the 17th century was one of us.”
“What?”
Jaxon glanced at Mateo, since he disagreed with pretty much everything Winston said. But he wasn’t disagreeing this time. Instead he looked embarrassed. Winston went on.
“We don’t know his real name, only the French name he went by—Mars Sans Pitié. That means ‘Mars the Ruthless’.”
“Mars, as in the god of war? Like Ares? Great, so I share a name with a slave trader. Thanks for the history lesson.”
“Sorry. History is full of uncomfortable facts. I bet they didn’t tell you in school that Africans participated in the slave trade. Or that American corporations sold technology to Hitler before America entered World War Two. The textbooks like everything neat and tidy, but if you read real history, things get very ugly very quickly. Even good things are ignored, like the fact that many Viking warriors were women and that they had the first democracy in medieval Europe.”
“So tell me more about this Atlantean slave trader. What’s he got to do with all this?” Jaxon asked as a massive weight of disappointment threatened to crush her. She had hoped that her people might be different, that their mistakes and evils were all in the ancient past.
“Mars Sans Pitié could control people. His talent was much like mine, although he used it for foul purposes. This helped him set up his slave empire. He made a fortune selling fellow humans and had a whole army of guards under his control.”
“Wait, how could he control a whole army? You can’t do that, can you?”
Winston shook his head. “I could barely control those two policemen back in Araouane. I doubt his power was much stronger than mine, but he had help. He had an ancient device, one of the greatest accomplishments of our people, that could magnify our individual talents. We don’t know what it looks like, or even what it was called. All that knowledge has been lost. But we suspect it’s still hidden somewhere in his old fort at the mouth of the River Gambia.”
“If it’s been hidden for all these years, how are we going to find it?”
Elaine nudged her. “Didn’t you find that amulet in the ruins? You’re the one we need. We always knew that.”
“And when you magnify your powers, you will be able to find all the other lost technology hidden around the world,” Mateo said, his crystal blue eyes lighting up. “We can finally rebuild.”
Jaxon shuddered and looked out the window. Why was all this responsibility being put on her?
After several days of searching in the barren waste, Grunt made contact with the Tuareg rebels and told them what had happened to the Atlanteans. Their leader, Agerzam, already knew about the round up, but he had not known to reasons behind it.
Agerzam was outraged. He pledged to help in any way he could. “The government’s enemies are my enemies,” he swore, his high-class English accent, developed while studying at Oxford University, at odds with his desert robes and the AK-47 slung across his back. “The People of the Sea have never oppressed my people, and if they are now oppressed by those who oppress us, they are our brothers and sisters.”
Noble words, Jaxon mused, but they masked a more practical side. If the Tuaregs could get the People of the Sea on their side with their fabled magical powers,
they will have earned a valuable ally. Plus, exposing these crimes to the world would certainly undermine the government’s position and perhaps get the major powers to force them to the negotiating table.
They hid at night with a band of Tuareg fighters in a rough area of stony hills and gritty sand dunes in a stretch of the most barren desert Jaxon had ever seen, and she had seen way too much desert in the past few months. Her companions and Agerzam hunched over a satellite photo of the prison camp that the Tuareg leader had laid out on the sand. They used only a single flashlight to see by. Even this far from civilization, you could not assume you were safe from prying eyes.
The satellite photo showed the prison camp laid out on the pale brown of the desert sands. It was square in shape, with guard towers on each corner and what looked like a barbed wire fence enclosing the whole place. A couple of long buildings to one side, also enclosed in barbed wire, were probably barracks for the soldiers. The rest of the space was taken up by a giant tent village. They hadn’t even given the Atlanteans proper shelter.
“Nice image,” Grunt said. “Taken by one of the newer model satellites. Where did you get this?”
“We have connections, my friend,” Agerzam said.
Grunt ran a finger along one edge, where a portion of the photo had been cut off. “And you don’t want me to know what those connections are, eh? I bet this missing part had the technical data. What language was it in—English, French, or Russian?”
Agerzam shrugged. “What does it matter, my friend?”
“You know you can crop a photo before printing it out,” Otto said.
“I’m too busy fighting for my people’s freedom to learn Photoshop.”
Agerzam and Otto chuckled. Otto seemed more relaxed now. He had been slowly recovering from the shock of his first kill, and it was good to see him smiling again. Jaxon felt bad to have brought him into all this, but it had been necessary.
Why is it any time I do something necessary, innocent people get hurt? she asked herself.
She stowed that question in the back of his mind and focused on the map. They had work to do.
“As you can see, we have a tough situation,” Agerzam said. “I managed to get a scout nearby one night. He didn’t dare get too close, but he confirmed there are machine guns in each of those towers. Here is the gate,” Agerzam pointed to a pair of closely set towers along one side of the enclosure, “and there are machine guns and rocket propelled grenades in both of those towers.”
“So we’re totally outgunned,” Jaxon said. That was par for the course. They’d been outgunned since the start of this thing. Agerzam laid out another satellite image, this one on a larger scale.
“The prison camp is twenty kilometers from town in the middle of a flat valley. A few hills to the east offer some cover but this square shape here is a watchtower set atop the tallest hill so they can watch for any approach from that direction and radio for help if they need it.”
Jaxon picked up the image of the camp and pointed to a small, square building between the two large barracks.
“What’s this?” her voice came out strained but in control. When she had first seen the image of the prison camp she had burst into tears.
Agerzam shook his head. “We don’t know. Our scout couldn’t get close enough to see it.”
“Those are civilian cars, right?” Jaxon said, pointing to the little white vehicles parked next to the building, so unlike the camouflaged military vehicles.
“You have a good eye, young lady,” Agerzam said, nodding with approval. “Yes, perhaps that’s some sort of research laboratory.”
“Lab rats,” Jaxon spat.
Agerzam looked at her. “Not for long.”
“So how do we get in?” Otto said. “Even if you bring enough Tuaregs to bust into that place, a bunch of Atlanteans are going to get killed in the crossfire.”
Jaxon bit her lip. Otto had put into words what had been worrying her ever since she had first laid eyes on this image.
Agerzam grinned. “Desert warfare requires subtlety and guile. We have always been outnumbered by the governments that have tried to crush us, but we have always held our own by being smarter and more resourceful than they are. In an hour or so, the solution will come.”
The solution came in the form of a Mauritanian army Jeep and truck that arrived in camp with their lights off. The men inside all wore military uniforms but had distinctive Tuareg features.
“Nice one, Agerzam,” Grunt said, slapping his old friend on the back. “Should I even ask how you got these?”
“No you should not, my brother.”
“Got some spare uniforms for us?”
“Yes.”
They examined the vehicles. Agerzam’s men had done well. There wasn’t a single bullet hole on either the Jeep or the truck. However they had gotten them, they hadn’t spilled blood for them. Good. Jaxon didn’t want anyone killed unless it was absolutely necessary. Grunt told her the vehicles were both older models but in decent shape. The radios worked too, so they could listen in on army communications, although no doubt Agerzam already had that capability.
“So what’s the plan?” Grunt asked. “Sneak in and take them by surprise? Even if we fill up the back of this truck with men we’ll be outnumbered.”
“There’s an officer always by the gate. If we capture him and his men then perhaps we can negotiate,” Agerzam said.
“Perhaps,” Grunt said, sounding doubtful. “But even if we get them to hand over the People of the Sea, how are we going to get them out of here? There are hundreds of them!”
“More trucks are on the way, my brother, enough to take them all.”
“We’ll be sitting ducks if they decide to send the air force after us. Mauritania doesn’t have much of an air force by Western standards, but it’s good enough to take out a column of trucks in the open desert.”
Agerzam’s face clouded. “I do not have a solution for that other than to do this at night and then split up and hope for the best.”
Jaxon frowned at him. “Well that’s great, but even if by some miracle we all get away, what then? The government will just try to round everyone up again. With the mess we made back in Mali, my people won’t be able to get out that way. The army will never let them across the border. And Morocco is too far. So what do we do?”
Everyone fell silent for a moment, thinking. Otto spoke first.
“Why don’t we get some international media attention? Tell the world what’s happening here!”
“Yeah,” Jaxon put in. She had been thinking the same thing.
“Because nobody gives a damn,” Agerzam said. “My people have been oppressed for decades. Have you ever read about it in the newspapers? When I lived in Oxford I used to read all the Western papers. The Guardian, the Telegraph, the International Herald Tribune, Le Monde Diplomatique. They hardly ever mentioned Africa, and when they did they only showed their ignorance or their greed. Big game hunting and oil concessions were all they ever talked about. If the Tuareg had oil or uranium people would care, but we don’t. The People of the Sea have even less.”
Jaxon turned to the three other Atlanteans. “We could tell them everything. Make the world understand just how special we are, and just how much humanity needs us. They should know everything.”
The three Atlanteans got a guarded look on their faces.
“What do you mean, ‘everything’?” Mateo asked.
“Everything. About us. About where we’re from. About what we can do.”
Winston looked horrified. “Oh Jaxon, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Agerzam looked from Jaxon to Winston and back again. “What are you talking about? How are the People of the Sea so special?”
Jaxon took a deep breath. “We’re—”
“This conversation stops now!” Mateo snapped.
Jaxon threw up her hands in disgust and walked off.
Jaxon stood out of the light, staring up at the brilliant night sky.
The stars were so bright here, sharp pinpoints of light that almost hurt to look at. Perhaps there was peace out there, between the stars where there was no one to bother you and nobody who wanted to use you for their own ends.
A faint star moved between the others. Silently it arced across the sky from east to west. A satellite. Vivian had pointed them out to her before. It could even be a spy satellite checking out this position.
Great. Even the night sky is against us.
“You can’t trust their kind,” a voice said behind her. Mateo.
“Where do you get off talking like that?” Jaxon snapped. “After all the crap they’ve thrown at us you want to turn around and act the same way?”
The Peruvian snorted. “I’m just being realistic. Any time one of them has helped one of us, it’s been for their own damned reasons.”
“My friends are different.”
Mateo gave her a look like she was a silly little kid. “Of course they are.”
“They’ve put their lives on the line for me. Do you think any of them want to be here? They’re helping me because they believe in what we’re doing. And they care about me.”
Jaxon thought of Otto. Their relationship had been cooling for some time now. He spent more time with that crazy mercenary Grunt than he did with her. Perhaps he needed a father figure more than he needed a girlfriend. He’d had plenty of girls. He’d never had a father in his life.
Mateo shook his head, the movement almost invisible in the darkness. “Even the well-intentioned ones end up disappointing us.”
Chapter 8
AUGUST 27, THE PRISON CAMP A FEW MILES EAST OF TIDJIKJA, MAURITANIA
5:45 P.M.
* * *
General Corbin looked around the prison camp with distaste. He had seen many godforsaken places in his time, but this was the worst. The giant barbed wire enclosure stood on a barren, windswept plain with no shade and no source water. A few large water trucks were parked just inside the gate, but Corbin calculated that they barely provided enough to drink, let alone wash. The food situation didn’t look much better.