As I gave a humble nod from towards Logan, he let Walter know that the three of us would be staying on site together until we completed our mission. Walter had already called in a helicopter, but Logan informed them that instead of an extraction they could refuel and load chopper full of supplies to drop off at our location. From the communications room we weaved our way through the labyrinth of corridors and found ourselves in a maze which wasn't on Logan's detailed map.
"So, where are we at, Doc?" I asked with my hands on my hips as we looked about in confusion.
"That guide gave me directions, but they don't seem to correlate with what she ...I mean it, said," he related while thumbing through his notes.
Mica stepped over to look at the rough map he had drawn and tried to make sense of it.
"I wish you would have let me helped with this Logan," she uttered with distress, "that's what an assistant is for you know."
"Yes, yes, I know dear, just help me figure this out," he offered as he handed her a few loose papers from his pocketbook. The professor was still armed with one of the sharp silver rods and roamed about the chamber we had now wandered into several levels up the tower. According to his crude map there was supposed to be a stairwell located at this intersection, but there was nothing here.
"Are you sure you got the directions right?" I asked while taking a peek over Mica's shoulder, "There doesn't seem to be a way to get any higher. Maybe there is a hidden lift in the floor or something," I suggested offhand.
"I'm sure I got everything correct, Allen," he responded, "just help me look for an indentation for the bracelet Mica is wearing, or anything else that looks out of place, would you?"
The three of us searched around the chamber and when we met side by side, it finally dawned on us that the doorway we had used to enter was no longer there. We suddenly found ourselves trapped inside a cell. Logan stepped back in contemplation as I began to feel an anxious churning in my stomach while wondering if we walked into a trap.
"The corridor exit should be right here ...or here," Logan exclaimed as he pointed at one wall, then another several meters over; quite unsure about his orientation.
"Well, this is unsettling," I blurted with a tone of anguish as we wandered around the large chamber, unsure as to what we should do next.
Mica, on the other hand, had a wild thought and removed the ring from her wrist and placed it on the floor near the outer edge. Moving it around, she finally found a seam where the ring itself began to rattle and spin. We expected it to do something, but after a while it just sat there in place, spinning slowly and we had nary a clue as to what it was supposed to be doing.
"Considering how old this place is, maybe its internal workings have broken down," I suggested.
"I think you may be right, Allen," Logan answered as he scratched his head.
"Hold on a minute," Mica cut in, "Allen, give me your canteen," she ordered with her hand out.
"What, again?" I asked as I unstrapped the flask and handed it to her; while referring to the trick she had pulled with the red sphere near the stone forest deep within the bowels of the fortress.
Mica opened the canteen and gently poured out a stream of water into the center of the spinning ring while both Logan and I watched in amazement. The small amount of water she poured into the circlet floated there and began to pool into a turbulent circle.
"Ah, it's creating a diamagnetic reaction. I should have figured it out that the torus field would react to other natural elements," he exclaimed with mild surprise.
"Ah, I see ...but ah, what exactly does that mean?" I asked bluntly, though likely failing in my effort of trying not to look so naive as to what he was talking about.
"The technology of the Kish appears to be reliant on magnetic fields, right?" she started to explain, and I just nodded my head in agreement like a dolt. "So the reason that this battery key ring spins is because it's inducing a small magnetic field."
"Ah, I see," I spat again like an idiot repeating himself.
"So it is generating or responding to an electromagnetic induction, which creates..." Logan led off in thought as his assistant answered for him.
"An electric current," Mica finished his sentence.
"Yeah, it's a cute magician's trick, but what good does it do us?" I shrugged, not understanding why they were both getting so excited about it.
"These battery rings are not only magnetic keys which are useful as locks and triggers, but they also create electric conductivity with the right element," she stated with a grin of satisfaction of what she had uncovered.
Mica had to explain to me that water itself was slightly magnetic; which was something I would have never guessed, but that explained how it was floating there within the spinning ring. She quickly snatched the ring from where it was rotating and raised it; causing the field to collapse around the water where it splashed to the floor. She then set it down in the same place and waited for it to begin revolving once again until it reached its optimum speed. She then took the silver staff from Logan's hand and slowly inserted it with the central axis of the rotating ring.
"Ah, this reminds me of an induction forge," Logan breathed.
"What exactly is that?" I asked without masking my dignity.
"It's a way to melt metal without direct heat from an ignitable source," the professor stated, though his explanation still left me in the dark, "which is actually used in our modern foundries and among many other applications using faradays law; but these sciences are not generally as well known to the public at large," Logan finished with a smile of satisfaction. I, however, was still at a complete loss.
"So, in short, it uses magnets to get metal hot?" I blurted.
"Magnetic fields in a rapid flux, yes," Logan shot back.
We stood there watching as the entire tip of the staff began to turn white hot, but it still did not seem to melt; making me consider that it was a type of special alloy. Within seconds, electrical arcs began to dance between the rod and the spinning ring, but Mica didn't let go of her grip. Apparently the rod itself absorbed the voltage without passing it along to her.
"Do you think this staff we though was a lightning rod might actually be another type of battery?" Logan inquired with astonishment to the cleverness of his assistant.
"I wasn't sure, but they both the ring and this shaft appear to be made of the same type of alloy," she responded.
She lifted up the rod out of the electrical vortex and laid it down in the center of the room and backed away. Fingers of electricity emanating where its heated tip touched the floor and the staff itself began to pivot in place. Like a needle in a compass it began to spin, pointing towards one section of the curved wall and to the other until it came to a stop pointing at one of the panels. Mica then grabbed the metal bracelet and placed it on the floor at the edge of the room.
A jolt of electricity sparked from the coil and danced across the panel where the image of a tree appeared surrounded by a central coil. This was the icon of the sacred tree the Kish so revered. Mica gently touched it while looking for a keyhole or depression where she could place the ring; but the walls surrounding us began to spin when she did. It took us all by surprise and left us disoriented while the walls twisted about us until they slowed to a stop. We could now see that several tree designs of several styles were marked on each of the panels, as if they were carved by different artists.
Mica did the best she could to point towards the one that originally appeared, though she wasn't quite sure because it happened so fast. She put the ring back on her arm and touched the panel once again, and it slid open; revealing that we had ascended to another level of the tower. Looking around, Logan recognized something he had recorded on his map and claimed to know where we were. I picked up the staff off the floor just as we left the room and the panel closed behind us; leaving us stranded in a pyramid shaped room at the highest point of the citadel.
"Ah, do you think I should have left this there?" I asked Mica with
a sense of guilt as I held up the silver spear.
"Well, its too late to worry about that now," she noted with a shrug, "let's see if we can find that master control room Logan was talking about, shall we."
Making our way through the upper level, we crossed into a room that was unique to say the least. A circular platform stood in the middle of an oval room surrounded by several pedestals lining its circumference. Upon these podiums floated several clumps of what appeared to be different types of metal; each of them were shattered into a variety of pieces which moved independently from one another. Other settings contained shards of crystals levitating in midair, slowly rotating without any fixed point. Professor Logan strode up to the central platform and took his time inspecting its surface details.
Etched therein were images and symbols that lined its outer edge. He asked his assistant to hand over the battery ring which he then used to cover several of the emblems on the table. Mica assisted him from the other side as they searched for hieroglyphs that corresponded with one another. Marking them out, Logan was eventually able to get several of them activated.
The symbols began to glow a soft crimson color as one of the clumps of metal on a single pedestal began to snap together into its original form.
"Ah, progress..." Logan chimed as he offered a smile of satisfaction, "if I'm right, that sequence connected one of the power orbs to this console. Moving the key ring around the top of the table over each symbol to match them up, a seperate clump of shattered crystals began to coalesce above another stand; becoming one with its former structure.
"How the hell do you know what you're doing, Doc?" I asked, quite perplexed by the method he was using to control them.
"See here," Logan stated as he motioned for me to come over to his side, "this symbol is that of the Jotu, or the domain of the giants, where we activated the first orb, remember?" he asked, and I nodded, "and here is the one for the Nida, or the Dwarves as you so quaintly called them; which was a predominant icon saw branded upon their walls within the catacombs," he noted as he pointed to the crystal base which had combined itself into a single complete shard the moment before, "and this one is for the Asga, or Asgardians as the tall tales of the Norse mythology would put it," Logan stated as he pointed towards that same symbol we had found imbedding within the floor where ghostly interface had emerged.
I looked at it again, recognizing the symbol from before, but still not being able to place it. I knew I had seen it somewhere and was irritated that I couldn't remember where it had been. Looking down to grab my flashlight, I knocked aside Tom's boot knife which I had kept on my belt and it fell to the floor. I peered at it closer just before I picked it back up and noticed that the insignia on the hilt of the dagger was an identical symbol as the one for this citadel which the professor had just shown me. I stood there stunned as I slowly picked up the knife to show it to Logan, wondering how the two images could possibly be the same.
The Atlas Star
Though Logan appeared busy with the console, I couldn't help but bring attention to what I had discovered. Holding the hilt of the dagger up, I showed it to the professor.
"Why is the symbol of this ancient fortress on Tom's knife?" I demanded. I remembered now how Logan had reacted when we had first seen this same icon on the floor of the main chamber. He had also known this figure. Logan and Thomas had known each other for years, and there was some history to this he was hiding.
"It would be too hard to explain at this point," Logan tried to shrug off my inquiry.
"Enough with the lies, Doc!" I grated with an unmistakable measure of anger in my voice.
"What is he talking about?" Mica asked Logan as she glanced at the dagger from across the platform.
The professor stopped what he was doing and turned to me as he took the knife and placed it back in the sheath I had set on the ledge. Logan had an odd look in his eyes as his thumb caressed the hilt across the symbol molded within its hilt. He seemed distant at that moment, as if lingering somewhere in the past. It was as though I had awoken a sour and unpleasant memory he seemed reluctant to recall.
"You may have heard of the Illuminati, the Skull & Bones, the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, Order of the Eastern Star, or of many other such secret backroom organizations and the conspiracies that surround them," Logan began, "which were all respected Orders of their time, controlled by select groups of men ...and women," he added with a modest nod towards his assistant, so as to not forsake her gender, "they were self-appointed custodians who were seeking change in a social system which had fallen to the wayside, which in their eyes, had sunk to an ideology which seemed unfair to the common man. Twisted by slanderous whispers and tall tales that followed in their wake was the scripted disinformation which was fed to the public about these obscure societies; conceived by those who where in positions of authority. As a result of their deceit, it was the very citizens these organizations were created to protect, who began to fear them."
"But I thought those secret societies were intertwined with governments and monarchs and other positions of control over the population," Mica announced with a look of surprise.
"Over time, some did eventually evolve into seats of power, seeking to press their own influence against the grain of their origin; but one must be reminded that many of these obscure societies evolved had over timelines of hundreds of years. What isn't common knowledge is that many of those Orders derived from the basis of even older cults," Logan responded.
"So what does all that have to do with this?" I pointed at the symbol on the dagger; feeling that both Thomas and Logan were involved in something they had failed to tell the rest of us.
"Ever since I was a child I had taken a keen interest in ancient cultures from the times of antiquity, and even in our most recent era of human societies where secret groups had arisen; who's real goals were to oppose superstition, deception and overreaching religious influence on public life and its citizens, and especially so towards those that committed abuses of state power," Logan answered, "Tom and I, along with Sir Walter and Alexander, as were many other scientists of conscious pursuits, had been drawn in by a common theology that has been known by several names over recorded history."
"And what exactly is that?" I demanded with a suspicious glare.
"It is known in many parts of the world as the Atlas Star, commonly seen as a crescent moon symbol below rising star, though in reality what most see as the icon of a moon is actually a representation of the Gaia, our own earth; and the star itself refers to creation," the professor revealed.
"But Thomas wasn't a scientist," Mica pointed out.
"One need not be a scholar to join our cause," Logan corrected, "it is based on a sense of ethics as a caretaker towards the Earth itself, and that all races of men should realize that we share this planet with many other forms of life," he added. This core doctrine struck me as strange, because I never saw the Professor as a tree-hugging hippy.
"So you're all flower-power environmentalists...?" I reached for an answer while trying to make sense of his wild statement.
"Far more than that my friend; we hold a common belief that mankind has lost balance with this world on which we live," Logan responded with the hint of a smile, "we are just common people who have awaken from the illusion of our modern society and how these irrational, if not deranged pursuits of greed and power, has poisoned our civilization and stunted our growth as a whole," he finished.
"So you're what, feral hippies or anarchists...?" I began to struggle with his explanation.
"Or both, you might say," Logan granted, "and you may have seen the modern symbol for anarchists is actually a variance of a five pointed star," he noted while gesturing towards the icon engraved upon the dagger, "within a circle, which represents the earth; and the 'A' is a modern update to mean 'Atlas'. It's a fundamental translation, actually," he stated as he turned the dagger around so that the handle faced me to place the icon upright, "it was said that this symbol had onc
e stood for pacifism, and as a collective or more primitive way of life; but its older meaning is purity."
Mica came over and took the dagger and compared it to the symbol written in his notes; seeing the same vector icon drawn within. Both Mica and I had no idea that Logan and his colleagues were all part of some secret brotherhood; and the professor informed his assistant that her own mentor, Professor Rice, had also been a member of the same gentry.
"If that's true, why didn't he tell me about it?" Mica inquired.
"He expressed to me that he wished too on many occasions, but only when the time was right," Logan offered as an answer.
"So what the hell does all this mean, what is your true agenda for coming out here, Doc?" I charged as Mica handed the small boot knife back to me.
"Our modern world has tipped hell-bent towards its own self destruction ever since the turn of the industrial revolution," Logan stated as he regained his composure, "nonrenewable resources forged with toxins are polluting our ecosystem on a level far beyond what is being reported; which due to our many types of global transportation, are no longer contained as localized problems to certain sections of the hemisphere," the professor admitted. This was of course all true; for we had seen such reports regarding toxic landfills and vast stretches of garbage floating in our oceans.
"Are ...are you actually trying to encourage this polar shift, Logan?" Mica dared to ask.
"No, no, my dear; you misunderstand the direction and the very purpose behind this expedition," the professor noted, "this ancient technology works in balance with the natural flow of energies; without the hazardous and permanent side effect of our own methods, which is something we are trying to understand to help us alleviate the damage we are doing."
Islands in the Sky Page 23