“Get out of there!” shouted Joel.
The walls began to shake wildly. Rigs triggered the explosives. He didn’t even feel their force, such was the power that was surging through the pyramid. Rigs bounced off the walls as he tried to climb back down the stairs to the Queen’s Chamber below. He reached the door, a hole just large enough to squeeze through. The noise was deafening as the power was slowly building. He covered his ears and climbed through the hole, his insides shaking. His teeth rattled wildly in his mouth and his bones vibrated. He fell to the floor, his legs unable to hold his weight. He tried to reach for the switch but his arm shook wildly. He focused all of his efforts and energy on that one point, as though it were the only place in the universe that mattered.
***
Bea checked the water system again. The Senator still hadn’t triggered the mechanism. It wasn’t time critical but it was her baby. She wanted to know it had worked. She was going to fly back on the first transport and wanted to know everything was working before she left. She turned to Antoine, but his eyes were transfixed in the distance. She looked around. Five enormous transports were slowing as they approached, dwarfing the space port complex as they positioned themselves on the island’s perimeter.
“Magnificent,” said Antoine. His moment had come. He had succeeded.
The first ship moved into position, touching down on the platform, which would allow the full force of the ship’s power to propel it into space.
Bea spotted the name. Atlantis. She hadn’t known its name. She thought of the myth of the lost island, and advanced culture lost forever, or more precisely, until Anya had managed to create the fuel their ancestors knew they needed but weren’t able to create without modern technology.
Bea looked around. “Where’s Anya?” she asked.
“Is she not here?’ said Antoine, disappointed. He had insisted that every Noble be present for the momentous occasion. Only the Senator had been unable to attend. He had assumed she had been somewhere in the spaceport complex working on last minute details. She had been more responsible for the success of the event than any other Noble there.
“Her plane’s on its final approach,” said Conrad.
“Bertie’s still not triggered the toxin,” said Bea. “I’m about to board, would you mind if I…” She trailed off. Anya’s plane; it wasn’t heading for the runway, it was heading for the platform.
“What is she doing?”
Conrad radioed the plane. “Anya, what are you doing?” Everyone else started to run from the platform.
Bea’s hand hovered on the mousepad, ready to click. The plane was still a few seconds from impact.
“Antoine?” she asked again.
“She still has time to pull up,” he said, ignoring Bea. “What is she doing?”
“Anya!” shouted Conrad.
***
Sophie and Kyle kept their eyes fixed on the spot where Cash had last been seen, desperately willing him to fly back. Wake Island was over five hundred miles away to the north. Far too distant to see or hear if Cash had crashed or had changed his mind. All they could do was watch and pray that the plane appeared back.
“Whoa!” said Kyle, closing his eyes at the sun-bright flash of light that filled the northern horizon and most of the sky.
The light died slowly, keeping the brightness on the horizon for some time.
“If that was a takeoff, maybe it means Dad’s okay?”
“That was one giant explosion, not anything lifting off,” said the captain.
***
Joel tried to move into the pyramid but its vibrations threw him out as he struggled to steady himself with only one good arm. A crack sounded, which he was sure burst his eardrums, and a bolt of light erupted from the top of the pyramid and shot straight up into the sky.
His eyes followed the bolt, his mind realizing everything had stopped. The vibrations had stopped, the rumble and shaking had stopped. He walked towards the entrance, where he found Rigs stumbling uneasily towards him.
“Are you alright?” asked Joel, struggling to help him with one arm.
“Yes, a few chipped teeth but I switched it off,” said Rigs.
“Not fast enough, I don’t think. Something just shot into the sky.”
***
“For my son,” replied Anya. “And his family.”
“Antoine, the toxin?” asked Bea urgently, realizing Anya’s intentions.
They were expecting the plane to crash into the platform and Atlantis, but it didn’t. Before Bea was able to register Antoine’s nod to hit ‘yes’ and thereby kill half the population, the plane exploded into light, engulfing the entire island and everything within fifty miles in a power so intense that everything simply ceased to exist, incinerated into oblivion. Anya had used her new fuel to devastating effect. The Nobles were gone, along with their transports and plans.
Cash was almost blinded by the explosion as he bobbed in the ocean’s swells, safe in the A380’s escape pod. The rich really did have it all, they could even escape a plane crash. The pod’s sensors had inflated a raft as it touched down on the ocean surface, its mayday beacon pinging after already having pinged his remote location directly to the aircraft manufacturer the second his mother had insisted he eject.
Understanding the sacrifice he would make for his family to stop what they were doing had finally made Anya realize how lost in their own world the Nobles had become. Her act had destroyed everything, far more than he would have achieved simply using the A380 as a guided missile. He would have upset their plans, she had destroyed them. Anya had finally realized, they had not created life, as Cash had pointed out to her, they had merely made a very slight alteration. That did not give them the right to decide life and death, like gods.
Epilogue
Old Earth
The last transporter was ready. The final few hundred had boarded. He stood and looked out on the world that had been their home for over five million years. Five million wonderful years. A civilization beyond equal, the most advanced they had discovered in the universe that they had explored.
He looked at their sun. In the next few hundred years it would explode and destroy their world. It had kept them warm, grown their crops and given them life for five million years. He walked back towards the pyramid-shaped ship and with a final wave to his home, climbed on board.
“Ready,” he said to his crew as he boarded. He had always wanted to be the last to leave.
“Sire, we’ve just received a signal, it says, ‘We’re ready to welcome you to your new home, the Nobles!’” said his pilot.
The King paused. The Nobles, a name he hadn’t heard in a very long time.
“You’ve never met a Noble, have you?” he asked.
The pilot shook his head.
“Neither have I but my father used to tell me old tales. I swear he made most of them up. They were one of the families sent to find and create a new world. They were given a planet very far away. If I remember correctly, there’s only a window every two thousand years that you can even get to it. Our new home is far closer and was always the favored option but nobody told the Nobles. They were the biggest troublemakers we ever had, so power hungry and constantly trying to win favor and influence in the Senate by any means possible. They were always causing upset and unrest amongst our own people. We are a peace loving people, always have been. But the Nobles, never. They were godless warmongers. They were only sent out to find the new world in order to get rid of them; it took some time and I believe some ingenuity, but their ships had only enough fuel to go one way and their communications systems were nowhere near powerful enough to reach back here. The chosen planet, if I remember, was primitive. If they’ve created a world to welcome us to, trust me, it’s not one we’d ever want to go to, certainly not if they’re still there.”
“Do you want me to respond?” asked the pilot.
“Good god no, they might track us to our new world, leave them on the one they created for themse
lves!”
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I don’t often feel the need to give background to my storylines, although I’m sure sometimes it would help with some of my more ‘out there’ thrillers. However, a short while ago I stumbled across a book I had picked up on what had been a particularly miserable holiday in Portugal. Before the days of Amazon and Kindle, you had to pack your suitcase carefully, always ensuring there was plenty of room (and weight allowance) for the English language novels that would see you through your trip to foreign climes. Unfortunately, on that particular trip the boredom of the resort far outstripped the demand for reading material I had envisaged.
After scouring every newsagent and store in the small and woefully inadequate village (excellent shopping nearby, according to the holiday brochure!) I came across one stand with, if I remember correctly, four English language novels, two flowery romance novels (I wasn’t that bored), one book I had already read and one other. A tome that was weighty enough to see me through perhaps a couple of days.
It, as emblazoned on the front cover, offered proof of flesh and blood gods that had visited us in the past. I have to thank Portugal for its boredom factor at this point, as I’d have never picked up the book otherwise. Gods of the New Millennium (GOTNM) by Alan F. Alford was fascinating, certainly more so than the Portuguese resort, and sent my mind racing as fantastical after fantastical wonders of what the ancient civilizations had achieved were revealed. And that’s why I felt the need to add this note. The majority of the information I have written about the impossible size weight and intricacy of the stone work across the ancient sites is fact, not fiction.
There are stones at Baalbeck weighing up to a 1,000 tons having been cut, moved and placed with a precision that we would still struggle with today. Unfortunately the tent outside is also there, complete with the glass cabinets, which I had the misfortune of being ushered into with a Jewish friend. That’s five minutes of my life I don’t want to ever relive. Pumapunka likewise is scattered with amazingly intricate stonework. Saksaywaman, huge stones carved to fit so precisely it’s as though the stones are fused together. The Great Pyramid at Giza in itself defies all logic that something built so long ago was so perfectly constructed, to the point we’d find it difficult to replicate even today.
There is some debate as to exactly how we did evolve to where we are today so quickly and why for example would we lose body hair through evolution, only to have to wear clothes to stay warm?
The first half of GOTNM was fascinating and has to this day always made me wonder. The second half went off at a bit of a tangent and it’s no surprise the author has retracted a large portion of that section since writing it.
As for The God Complex and the Nobles, well there are a few families out there with a power and influence that has lasted many centuries. Okay, not millennia, or at least not that we know of! Joking aside, I really do hope you enjoyed the story and if so, please leave a review for others to encourage them to enjoy the ride too.
Many thanks, and thank you, Portugal!
Other titles by Murray McDonald
Scion
Critical Error
Divide & Conquer
America’s Trust
Traitor
(Young Adult – The Billionaire Series)
Kidnap
Assassin
Please visit www.murraymcdonald.net to sign up for updates and details of new books coming soon.
Table of Contents
Title page
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 1-1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 1-17
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 5-1
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 5-14
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Epilogue
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Other titles by Murray McDonald
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Copyright
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 1-1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 1-17
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 5-1
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
MISSION LOG – EXTRACT 5-14
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Ch
apter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Epilogue
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Other titles by Murray McDonald
The God Complex: A Thriller Page 36