The Atlantis Gene

by S. A. Beck

  General Meade ground his teeth. That made it easier to fight the group, but it also meant that his own regiment of Atlanteans would be more vulnerable. He’d have to ask the Pentagon to assign him some more medics. Great, more paperwork.

  “What’s his name?”

  Dr. Jones shook his head. “He didn’t have any ID on him.”

  Dr. Jones gave the prisoner an injection. Ziegler leaned over the patient, dangling a shiny metal ball at the end of a string.

  “As he wakes up, he’ll be at his most impressionable,” the hypnotist explained. “I will try to put him under the influence. If you could use the same drugs you used on Orion, that would help.”

  Dr. Joes shook his head. “Not in his condition.”

  The prisoner’s eyes fluttered, shut again for a moment, and finally opened. Those brilliant blue eyes fixated on the shiny metal ball, which Ziegler started to swing on the end of the string like a pendulum.

  “Relax,” Ziegler said in soothing tones. “You’re safe. You’re in a hospital. You’re safe. We’re here to help. We’ve given you the best medical attention. You’re going to be fine. Could you tell us your name, sir?”

  General Meade nodded in appreciation. That “sir” on the end was a nice touch. Gave the Atlantean the impression that he was a patient, not a prisoner.

  “Arturo Robles.”

  “Could you give us your address?” Ziegler asked, spinning the ball around on the end of the string so it caught the light. General Meade could see it flickering in the Atlantean’s eyes.

  “2323 East Cesar Chavez Boulevard,” Robles said, naming a street in East LA.

  “You have been in a car accident, Mr. Robles. Could you tell us who was in the vehicle with you?”

  “A car accident? I—” Robles turned his head and tried to move his arm. The restraints let him move only an inch. He stared at his arm in confusion, trying to focus his vision.

  “Mr. Robles,” Ziegler said. “Look at me. That’s it. I need to ask you some questions. Who was with you in the car? What are their names?”

  Robles looked at him. For an instant, there was awareness.

  “I—” Robles’s voice trailed off. His eyes shut, and he let out a sigh.

  Ziegler turned to Dr. Jones, who looked down at the patient thoughtfully.

  “Bull,” General Meade grumbled. He poked Robles in his good shoulder. “Stop faking.”

  Robles’s eyes snapped open. They fixated on General Meade, glinting with hate.

  “I want to see my lawyer,” the Atlantean demanded.

  General Meade gave a grim smile and shook his head. “There are no lawyers in this dark hole, Mr. Robles. I’d talk if I were you.”

  Robles turned his head and looked up at the ceiling.

  “The others are dead?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And Dr. Yamazaki?”

  “We caught her. She’s in a prison cell just down the hall from the one we’ve reserved for you.”

  Robles snorted. “Maybe.”

  General Meade gripped the Atlantean’s jaw and yanked his head so he faced him. Dr. Jones let out a cry of disagreement that Meade ignored.

  “Name the other people on your team,” the general said.

  “Go to hell,” Robles said.

  General Meade tightened his grip on the man’s jaw as the scientist and the hypnotist looked on, their eyes wide. After a minute, he loosened his grip. “Never mind. We have your name and address. That’s all we need to track them down. What I really want to know, and what I’ll really hurt you to tell me, is how many Atlanteans are in your group.”

  Robles looked at him, confused. “Huh?”

  “How many Atlanteans are in your group? Are there other groups like yours?” General Meade asked, growing uncertain.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  General Meade stared at him. No, the man wasn’t shamming. Robles really didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Could it be that none of those people knew what they were? So far, he had found no evidence that they did, but he had assumed when he found an organized group that they’d have some sort of idea of where they had come from.

  “Your people, what are they?” the general demanded.

  Robles said nothing.

  “Dr. Jones, give the injection.”

  “He’s still very weak.”

  “That’s an order.”

  The scientist hesitated for a moment and then picked up another hypo. It was a serum Meade had used in various theaters of war. It caused acute to excruciating pain without actually harming the individual. More refined and less barbaric than waterboarding or sleep deprivation or good old-fashioned punching. Meade had never enjoyed interrogation, but at times it was necessary.

  Unfortunately for Arturo Robles, it was one of those times.

  General Meade had to hand it to him, for someone who had taken two bullets only to wake up and find all his friends dead and himself officially missing, he had a lot of spirit left. As the injection kicked in and sweat beaded on the Atlantean’s brow, as his muscles strained against his bonds, as his teeth ground and a scream came from his lips, he had nothing to say to his captors.

  Dr. Jones gave him a second injection, doubling the pain. That didn’t weaken Robles’s determination.

  He started talking, though. Said all sorts of creative things about Meade’s personal life, his mother, and things he’d do to both if he ever got free. Meade learned a dozen new vocabulary words he’d never actually say. Then he started in on Jones and Ziegler.

  The scientist looked pale and nervous, clearly uncomfortable with what he would call torture.

  The hypnotist, on the other hand, didn’t look bothered at all. He sat a little distance away, watching with interest. Meade figured he’d seen a lot worse during his time in the Mafia.

  After the third injection, Arturo Robles started screaming and crying. He still didn’t talk. His body bucked and writhed so much he tore one of his wounds open. Meade wanted to give him a fourth injection, but Dr. Jones put his foot down.

  “His system can’t take any more of this,” Dr. Jones said. He’d also said it with the second and third injections, but that time, Meade believed him.

  The general sighed. “Well, it’s late. I guess we won’t get anything out of him this time. Patch him up, put him in a cell, and we’ll deal with him later.”

  Meade bent down and grabbed Robles’s jaw again. It was slick with sweat. “And there will be a later, trust me. I’m going to make you talk if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Robles’s eyes widened in fear.

  Meade stormed off. He exited the laboratory and headed for his office. His assistant, Major Jefferson, was there to meet him. She held a pair of dossiers.

  “I’ve been going through the blacklist,” Major Jefferson said.

  General Meade turned to her, eager to hear what she had to say.

  “I’ve eliminated most of the suspects and narrowed the list down to two,” she said. “A few of your enemies were clearly not the culprits. You’ll be happy to know that Albert Jennings turned up dead last month in Oklahoma. Someone shot him. Police have no suspects.”

  “Somebody beat me to it? Good,” General Meade said. “That’s one less headache. Try to find out who killed him and why.”

  “Will do. Intelligence reports show that several other people on the list were in other regions of the country at the time of the fight in New Mexico. No way they could have made it down there in time to be involved. A couple of others, Gloria Alberts and Maggie Dennison, are down in the Bahamas, supposedly on vacation.”

  “A sniper and an explosives expert getting a tan in the Caribbean? I find that hard to believe.”

  “So do I. There have been a couple of killings down there since they showed up. I’m checking on that.”

  The general nodded in appreciation. While there was a time when he had resisted the inclusion of women in the military, and he still thought it was w
rong to let them on combat missions, he had to concede that some female officers had proven to be indispensable. Major Jefferson was one of them. She had a tenacity and an attention to detail that most male officers lacked. Women made good independent operatives too, as Ms. Alberts and Ms. Dennison had proven time and time again. Not to mention Isadore Grant. She was the most dangerous woman he had ever met.

  “So who does that leave?” General Meade asked.

  “Only two people,” Major Jefferson said. “Two of the worst. Vivian Gulland and Philip Sellmeyer, who’s going by the nickname ‘Grunt.’”

  The major handed over the dossiers. General Meade didn’t have to look at them. He knew their histories well enough.

  With those two up against him, he needed to get his agents in order. He needed to eliminate those two right away, or they’d eliminate him.

  It wouldn’t be the first time they had killed a general.

  Chapter 16

  JUNE 30, 2016, COUNTY HIGHWAY NEAR APACHE JUNCTION, ARIZONA

  1:05 AM

  Otto and Grunt drove through the first half of the night, passing along remote county roads as usual. Grunt had returned to his normal joking self, although Otto could sense an underlying tension.

  He guessed that Grunt was trying to make up for snapping at him, and that was the closest thing to an apology he could manage. Otto tried not to take it personally. He didn’t know what was going through the mercenary’s mind, after all. Otto had spent his whole life being judged by people who didn’t know him, and he wasn’t about to do the same with Grunt.

  At one point, Grunt asked Otto to stop the Hummer so they could change the license plates. Grunt had a whole collection of plates from different states in a secret compartment in the back. Most of the Tohono O’odham pickup trucks went on the interstate since their drivers had clean records. Jim Running Horse drove his pickup a mile behind the Hummer. He changed his plates too.

  About one in the morning, Grunt told him to pull off at a rest stop, a quiet place in the desert with nothing but a restroom, and closed. The other vehicles were already there, except for the trailers that carried the rest of the Atlantis Allegiance.

  “Since they’re driving slow in the trailers, they’re going on ahead,” Grunt said.

  “And what are we going to do?” Otto asked as he turned off the lights. He didn’t need to be told something was up. He could tell by the fact that while all the pickups were parked nearby, not a single Tohono O’odham was in sight.

  “We’re going to do something entirely optional,” Grunt replied. “But come take a look and decide for yourself if you want to be a part of it or not.”

  They got out of the Hummer and walked to the edge of the parking lot. A low whistle out in the darkness made them turn and step into the desert. Another low whistle led them on. Their feet crunched on rocky soil. The stars shone brightly overhead, and the moon rose to the east, giving them light enough to avoid the cacti. After about thirty feet, Jim Running Horse and a couple of his friends emerged from the shadows.

  “We’ve been listening to police chatter on the scanner,” one of the men said. With a jolt, Otto realized that was the guy he had stolen the lighter from. “There won’t be a patrol car passing by for at least twenty-five minutes.”

  “Time enough,” Grunt said.

  Jim Running Horse led the way. Otto peered into the darkness, trying to pick a safe path through a thick growth of cacti and agave. The Tohono O’odham passed through it without slowing down. Grunt hissed as a thorn jabbed his calf. Otto smiled. It was nice to see the guy wasn’t invulnerable. They came to a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. A section of the fence had been cut open wide enough to slip through. Otto spotted a small sign and the emblem of a major security company.

  “You guys sure you didn’t trip the alarm?” Otto asked.

  “We tripped it when we cut open the fence,” Jim Running Horse said.

  “Come on,” Otto grumbled. Why didn’t those people take him seriously?

  “I mean it,” he insisted, his grin bright in the moonlight.

  “Did Edward hack into the security company site or something?” Otto asked.

  “You’re learning, Pyro.” Grunt chuckled. “Those security boys back at their headquarters are reading all clear for this place.”

  On the other side of the fence, they met up with the rest of the Tohono O’odham. They all wore dark clothing, and several of them carried bolt cutters and other tools.

  The group walked for another ten feet or so and came to an area of churned-up earth. All the cacti, bushes, and big rocks had been cleared away. Instead of the subtle scents of the desert, Otto smelled gasoline and freshly turned soil. Not far off loomed the silhouettes of several tractors.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  Jim Running Horse turned to him. “This is a burial ground for the Hohokam. They were ancestors to my people and lived here about a thousand years ago.”

  “Yeah, but what about all this construction?”

  “Test mine for uranium. Big money in nuclear power,” he replied, his voice laced with bitterness.

  “But…it’s right next to a rest stop!”

  “So what? It’s on private land.”

  “But if they find uranium, the rest stop will get hit by radiation, won’t it?”

  Jim Running Horse shrugged. “Just a little. Might give some people cancer in twenty, thirty years. The feds look the other way. Besides, it’s on private land like I told you. What gets carried in the air isn’t really their business, is it?”

  “So it’s not illegal to do this?”

  “Not in any serious way,” Grunt said. “They don’t care about the living or the dead.”

  The group spread out. Some went to the bulldozers, while others scattered across the site.

  “What are you going to do?” Otto asked, tagging alongside the Tohono O’odham leader.

  “We’re going to pull up all the survey stakes and wreck their equipment.”

  “But that’s illegal!”

  “Under your law it’s illegal. Under my law it’s illegal to desecrate a burial ground.”

  Otto stared for a moment, stunned, then said, “But it’s not like you’re going to stop them by doing that. They’ll just add some more security to the site, bring in more bulldozers, and keep working.”

  Jim Running Horse shook his head. “No, we won’t stop them the first time, but if we keep hitting them, they might just decide it’s not so profitable to work here, and they’ll go off to dig someplace else.”

  He turned and walked off into the night.

  Grunt pulled something out of a small backpack he carried. He held it up so Otto could see. It was a packet of bulk food like ones sold in the supermarket.

  “Care to join me?” he asked, then turned and walked away before Otto could reply.

  Otto followed, his heart pounding. What did that have to do with their mission?

  Grunt hurried over to a pair of bulldozers parked side by side. One of the Tohono O’odham had opened the hood and was busy clipping cables in the engine. Grunt went up to the other bulldozer, unscrewed the cap to the gas tank, and poured something from the packet into the tank.

  “What’s that?” Otto asked.

  “Sugar,” Grunt replied, carefully watching as it poured into the tank. “If they’re dumb enough to turn on the engine, it will get flooded with sugar mixed with gas. That will wreck an engine worse than emptying my nine millimeter into it.”

  Grunt then took out his canteen and poured some water into the tank.

  “Water is heavier than gasoline, so it will settle on the bottom of the tank along with the sugar,” he explained. “When they turn on the ignition, the water will flood the engine, seizing it up, and the sugar will grind down everything.”

  Otto gave the nearby road a nervous glance.

  “How is this helping Jaxon? We’re taking a risk for no reason.”

  “Keep your voice down, Pyro. There are plen
ty of fights enough in the world for everybody. The T.O. have helped us out, so we help them out. You don’t freeload off your allies, kid.”

  “This is illegal,” Otto repeated. He wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “Says the pyromaniac who broke out of prison and threw grenades at government agents.”

  “That was different. They were trying to kill us.”

  Otto realized that only justified half the stuff he had done. For once, Grunt was polite enough not to point that out.

  “They’re trying to kill the Native Americans too. Erase their history, desecrate their holy places, make them look like savages in the movies. Killing their spirit works just as well as killing their bodies.”

  Grunt had moved on to another tractor and started pouring sugar into the tank.

  “Are you part Native American?” Otto asked.

  Grunt shook his head. His features were hidden in the dim light, and Otto wondered what his expression was. “Don’t need to be. Jim has been my friend for years, and some of the others have done me a good turn too. In the end, we’re all on the same side.”

  Grunt finished his work and handed him the half-empty sugar packet. Suddenly he grabbed Otto and pushed him down to the ground. Grunt lay right next to him. The Tohono O’odham got down too.

  A distant set of headlights appeared on the highway. Otto could hear his heart thumping against the loose soil. Had the patrol car shown up early?

  The car whooshed by them without slowing down. Otto let out the breath he had been holding. He and Grunt got back on their feet.

  “Why don’t you take that backhoe over there?” the mercenary said. “You’ve seen how it’s done.”

  Otto looked at the packet in his hand. “But the mining company isn’t our enemy,” he objected.

  “Yeah it is, I just explained it to you.”

  Otto paused. That went against everything he had been taught, and yet what Grunt and the Tohono O’odham said made sense in a way. After a moment, he shook his head.

  “No. This isn’t what I signed up for.”

  “Want to burn it instead?”

  Otto’s eyes widened, and his heart did a flip-flop. He felt a warm flush over his body. The stolen lighter in his pocket called to him.