Ampheres frowned, leaning back in his chair. “I never thought I’d see the day when you of all people would look to false gods for help.”
Gadeiros grunted, waving at the cracked walls surrounding them. “Desperate times, my friend. No, I don’t believe in the gods, but part of me does pray for something or someone greater than us to save our people, for I know no mere mortal can.”
Ampheres sighed. “Then what is your plan to save Atlantis?”
“You’re conflating two different concepts. Don’t you remember your own speech?”
Ampheres’ eyes narrowed as he stared at his mentor, drawing a blank. “I’m afraid my impassioned plea fell on the deaf ears of an ignorant Senate, but of my own as well.” He gestured toward the trident sitting on the table. “Remember, I was acting quite irrationally.”
Gadeiros laughed. “You said ‘Atlantis is its people,’ and you were right. It isn’t this city. Cities can be rebuilt. I intend to save Atlantis by saving enough of its people and its knowledge so that we can rebuild after the coming calamity passes.”
Ampheres’ heart raced, his eyes widening. Had his mentor accomplished what he hadn’t? Had he somehow convinced their leaders to prepare for evacuation of as many as possible? His eyes narrowed. That would be impossible. If Gadeiros had succeeded, then why the resistance shown today by the Senate. He glanced at his old love, then at her father. “How many?”
“Fifty.”
Ampheres’ shoulders slumped at the pitiably low number, his heart aching as his stomach flipped. “Fifty.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Surely we have to do better.” His eyes filled with tears as his head sank between his knees. “We must do better.”
“I’m afraid all we can hope is that our demonstration tonight will convince some to follow us, but we’re lucky to have what we do. I had to lie to the university to get the research vessel we now have. I’ve had copies of as many of our historical and scientific texts moved on board, along with enough supplies to get us back to the mainland. I have chosen the students very carefully, a mix of young men and women, who will help rebuild our society when we find a new home, if they are unable to return here.”
Ampheres lifted his head, wiping the tears away with his fingers. He felt Leukippe’s hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her, giving her a weak smile. Her touch brought back a flood of wonderful memories, and for a moment, he almost forgot he was a husband and father. It felt so familiar being with them, so comfortable, Leukippe, her father, and a younger version of himself having spent so much time together, it was easy to forget the days of pain that ended the years of joy.
His heart skipped a beat as he picked up on something his old mentor had said. “They?”
Gadeiros’ eyebrows rose slightly. “Excuse me?”
“You said ‘if they are unable to return here.’ Don’t you mean, we?”
Gadeiros shook his head. “This is a young man’s expedition, not an old man’s. I will remain here, and try to get as many on the boats as I can when the time comes, but I will not be going with you.”
Ampheres leaped to his feet, his hands clasped behind his head. “Out of the question! You must go! It’s your plan!” He began to pace, then spun with a thought. “You have to go! You yourself said they were all students. Who’s going to lead them? Surely you don’t expect mere students to rebuild our society!”
Gadeiros smiled at him again, again with that look that had always made him cringe when he was younger. “I have no intention of leaving them leaderless.”
Ampheres opened his mouth to respond then stopped when he realized what his former professor meant. His jaw snapped shut and he began to shake his head, his hands joining in. “No, surely you don’t mean…” He dropped into his vacated chair.
“I can think of no better choice.” Gadeiros leaned forward. “You are young enough to lead them for decades, until they too are old enough to have learned the lessons of a life lived. You are well respected, and the most gifted student I ever had the privilege to teach. Those I’ve handpicked know of you, know my opinion of you, and have all sworn to me that they will obey your commands.” Gadeiros rose, and Ampheres stared up at him, his mind a jumble of thoughts as he tried to process everything that had just been said. “My pupil, my friend.” Gadeiros held out both hands and Ampheres took them, rising to his feet. “My equal.”
Ampheres stared at him, then grunted. “I’d hardly say that.”
Gadeiros squeezed his hands. “I see you still underestimate yourself.” He let go of Ampheres’ hands then wagged a finger at him. “If you are to be the founding father of the second incarnation of our great civilization, then you’ll have to show more confidence in yourself.”
Ampheres shook his head. “I can’t do it.”
Gadeiros’ expression hardened. “You must. There is no time to choose another that I trust. You are the one.”
There was a coded knock at the front door and Leukippe opened it. Ampheres breathed a sigh of relief as his wife and children were ushered inside. He turned to greet them when Gadeiros grabbed him by the shoulder, swinging him back around. “Remember what you have to lose.” Gadeiros leaned closer, lowering his voice. “If you don’t do this, there’s no room for you on the boat. Or them.”
Ampheres’ chest tightened as a rage built within. He wrested his shoulder from Gadeiros’ grip. “You would play god with the lives of my family?”
Gadeiros shook his head. “If those students don’t have you to lead them, then they are as good as dead. I’m sparing your family that tragedy, and granting them the quick death of those who will be left behind.” Gadeiros’ expression softened and he placed his hands on Ampheres’ shoulders once again, gently, staring up into the taller man’s eyes. “Be the man I need in this hour. Be the man our people need. Save yourself, save your family, save my daughter and her family, but most importantly, save Atlantis from itself.”
26
Somewhere over the Atlantic
Present Day
Konstantin Kozhin leaned back in his chair and put his $10,000 Louis Vuitton clad feet up on the state of the art console, at least from a Russian perspective, and closed his eyes. They burned from the dry air and the constant vigil of the past twelve hours, but it would soon be over. All the charges were in place save one, and with the push of a button, he could detonate any or all of the transatlantic data cables that stretched across the ocean floor between Europe and North America.
Every day, 99% of international data passed back and forth on these cables, carrying everything from phone calls to emails between individuals, corporations, and governments, most sent by people painfully unaware that the cables even existed—most thought everything was transmitted via satellite once it left their continent, but that simply wasn’t true. Less than half of one percent of data went through satellites, the bandwidth necessary to transmit everything, simply far too expensive to do non-terrestrially.
And what he had planned would disrupt communications between the two continents significantly, possibly for months. Yes, the cables would be repaired, new ones perhaps laid for additional redundancy, but not only would it take time and money to fix the problem, it would cost the economies potentially billions due to the disruptions, and perhaps cause people to question their dependency upon the bandwidth they took for granted.
Yet all of that only mattered to those to whom he was not the benefactor.
The Luddites he was associated with were trying to change the world, and he was merely trying to change his world. They were useful idiots, like many activists, who had grand dreams but no money to fulfill them. It wasn’t until the Soros of the world began funding activists, that they gained any press or traction. They were pawns on a chessboard they couldn’t possibly understand, manipulated by the very wealthy elite they disdained, all pushing agendas that would make their minions’ skin crawl.
Though to compare himself to the master, would give himself too much credit. Even he could admit that. He had
money, left to him by his father, and it was dwindling rapidly. But when he had overheard a conversation in a bar in Manchester after a football game, it had piqued his interest, and he had asked to join the table.
That was when he met Gavin Thatcher. Thatcher was smart. Brilliant even. And passionate in his beliefs. If he had gone into politics, he might have even been successful at it if he could have toned down the rhetoric, though that wasn’t to be his destiny. Thatcher was determined to change the world, had grand plans to do it, but no money. Kozhin had the money, but no interest in saving the world—it wouldn’t die off before he did, leaving him determined to enjoy life to its fullest in the here and now. It would be the next generation that had to deal with the mess, and the rich could live without the petty problems brought on by society’s crises.
Though it was something Thatcher had said that had him truly intrigued. When he had spoken about the problems with social media, he found himself agreeing in general with what he was saying, thinking of his own friends list on Facebook, and how he barely knew any of them. Thatcher’s idea to try and disrupt the Internet, if only temporarily, was intriguing, yet impossible, as far as Kozhin was concerned.
But it turned out that wasn’t completely true.
While within nations the redundancy of the design was robust, it was between continents that it wasn’t. The underwater cables. They sat, unguarded, on the ocean floor. Most who even knew about them dismissed tampering because of the depth, but those few were ignoring the fact that the seabed at either end was merely a shoreline.
A beach.
The depths were zero feet at the ends.
Thatcher’s fantasy was cutting these cables to disrupt the flow of data, and perhaps getting people to lift their heads for even a few days, just so they could see the world around them. It was a noble fantasy, but with Kozhin’s connections, not a fantasy at all. His father was not a good man, or rather, hadn’t been a good man. He was dead. Dead in a single vehicle crash on the roads outside of Moscow. It was blamed on alcohol, though what the authorities hadn’t known, was that his father had recently been diagnosed with liver failure, so hadn’t touched a drop in months.
No, his father was murdered by the Russian president-for-life, because he had dared to challenge him in a newspaper interview. He was dead within days, and most of his assets frozen, only to be seized over the coming months. Leaving Kozhin only what he had managed to hide before the hammer dropped, his father always warning him to keep a rainy day fund.
With what he had left, and with his connections in the desperately corrupt Russian elite, he could bring Thatcher’s plans to fruition, but for entirely his own reasons. Destroying data cables could send a temporary message. Threatening to destroy data cables could send a lot of money into his offshore accounts.
A lot of money.
There was a knock on the door and he sighed, sitting up. “Come!” The door opened and one of the contractors he had hired stepped inside, snapping to attention as he had been trained to before going private.
“Sorry for the interruption, sir, but we have a radar contact approaching.”
Kozhin frowned. “Who?”
“A flight of American F-15s, we believe.”
Kozhin rose and peered out one of the small windows at the crisp blue sky of 36,000 feet. “Have they challenged?”
The man shook his head. “No, sir. We don’t expect them to. We are in a Russian Air Force plane, over international waters. As far as they’re concerned, we’re merely a curiosity.”
A smile crept up one side of Kozhin’s face. “Tell your commander, his idea of running this operation from the air was brilliant.”
A smart salute was snapped. “Yes, sir!”
Kozhin dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Keep me informed if they do anything out of the ordinary.”
“Yes, sir!”
“And send the communique.”
The man smiled. “Yes, sir!”
He left, closing the door behind him, and Kozhin returned to his chair, leaning back once again and closing his eyes as the hum of the Ilyushin Il-80 airborne command and control aircraft he had blackmailed a very corrupt Russian general for, lulled him into a light snooze, visions of the billions he would have before the day was out, raining before his eyelids.
27
Operations Center 3, CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
Chris Leroux stood in the middle of the state of the art operations center, his team of nearly a dozen hard at work on their latest tasking. Data was already pouring in which seemed to confirm the two archaeology professors were indeed missing. It had already been confirmed that they had left their hotel that morning as expected, but never returned. Satellite imagery showed their rental off the coast of Pico Island, then docked hours later, corroborating somewhat the story provided to the Interpol agent by the dive shop. Most importantly, their private jet, part of a lease-share network, had filed a last-minute flight plan, leaving the islands ahead of schedule, and landing in Portugal less than two hours ago. Their phones were off, and had been for most of the day, and beyond a text message from Palmer’s phone to her travel agent requesting the flight to Portugal, there had been absolutely no communications with them.
“What do you make of that?”
Leroux glanced at Randy Child, a genius level hacker with no brain-mouth filter. “What?”
Child pointed at the displays wrapping around the front of the op center then tapped his keyboard. A satellite image of the Azores zoomed in on a rather large vessel compared to the pleasure crafts in the area. “Looks like they’ve got some pretty serious equipment there.”
Leroux stepped closer, his head slowly bobbing as Child focused in on an expensive looking submersible on the rear deck. “Could be anything.”
Child nodded. “True, but didn’t Agent Reading say they were diving in the same area?” He tapped his keyboard again, bringing up photos from the past twenty-four hours, showing the ship anchored in the same position, the submersible not on board in the earlier photos. “They’ve been there quite a while, obviously doing something underwater. Maybe they saw something.”
Leroux smiled. “Good thinking. Get the registry, let’s see if we can make contact.”
“Sir?”
Leroux turned toward another of his analysts, Sonya Tong. “What have you got?”
“Footage of them arriving in Portugal.” She gestured toward the displays, bringing up security camera footage of the professors and two men leaving the airport.
“Good work. Let’s run their faces, see if we can identify who their friends are. And tap every camera in the database. I want to know where they went.”
“Yes, sir.”
28
Outside the Senate Chambers
Atlantis
Before the fall
Senior Enforcer Kleito stood along the sidelines of the protesters, dozens of students chanting at the steps of the Senate, demanding to be heard. Their message was clear. They agreed with the nutbar Professor Ampheres, who had escaped her clutches earlier in the day.
But that wasn’t who they were chanting about. It was another man she had never heard of, academia not an interest of hers. She had gone straight to the Academy, and never looked back, always knowing what she wanted to do with her life for as long as she could remember. She wore plain clothes now, and she stared longingly at the crisp uniforms worn by those lining the steps, creating a human wall, protecting their government from any who might threaten it.
The protest was peaceful so far, but as it continued, and more joined them, she feared it might not remain so. People were scared. The earth was shaking at least once an hour now, the steam from the mountain was constant, yet the criers in the squares, delivering the latest messages from the various government departments, continued to proclaim there was nothing to fear.
She didn’t believe them anymore.
But she had her orders, and she had to follow them. If the government
did have a plan, it could only be executed if law and order prevailed, and if it didn’t, as these protesters insisted, then all would be lost, and it would be up to her and her fellow Enforcers to maintain order, rather than let Atlantis descend into chaos in its final days.
The students were rallying around a man named Gadeiros, an elderly professor who had given a rousing, well-spoken speech, that had many of her fellow Enforcers exchanging nervous glances.
And it had tipped her opinion on the debate.
Yet it made no difference. There were tens of thousands of Atlanteans. There were boats enough for maybe a couple of thousand, and most of those could never survive the trip to the mainland. If these people were right, they had to act now and save as many as possible, and if they were lucky, and time was on their side, perhaps those boats that made it to the mainland could return and save more.
The ground trembled again, as if to tell her it was impossible.
She searched the crowd for Professor Ampheres, a copy of his official portrait having been sent over earlier from his university. She was quite certain he wouldn’t be here, but with the message delivered matching his, she had to wonder if he had planned to be here, those plans scuttled by his idiotic theft of Poseidon’s Trident.
This was not a bad man, just someone who had let his frustrations get the better of him, and normally she would have expected him to turn himself in, with the trident and an apology. But instead, his family had been retrieved, her men had been assaulted, and what had seemed relatively innocuous once she had the facts, now seemed much more sordid.
She spotted a man speaking to the elderly Professor Gadeiros, a man with a bandaged nose and two black eyes, who also met the general description of one of those who had assaulted her men earlier.
We got some good blows in, let me tell you.
Could this be one of them? A man belted in the nose recently, matching the description given by her men, talking to a professor who held the same beliefs as her suspect?
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