“I’m saying that Kass—which is merely short for Kassiopei—is a great ancient royal line, and Aeson Kassiopei is not only my commanding Fleet officer, not only my fellow astra daimon and heart-brother, but he is also the son of the Imperator of Atlantis, and the heir to the Imperial Throne.”
I look at her, and I no longer hear the noise of the crowd. There is no sound left in the world around me.
“I have told you all this because you matter to him, Lark. And every action, every word of yours makes a difference. If you do not survive the Finals, you will carry this secret with you. And if you Qualify, then you will be all the wiser for it. And now—go on in, your shuttle is waiting.”
“But—I—” I open my mouth and . . . not sure what’s coming out now.
But Oalla Keigeri nods to me. She then reaches out with her hand and shakes mine in a firm grip—it’s a greeting used on Earth and not Atlantis. Her fingers are warm and strong.
“Best of luck, Gwen Lark,” she tells me. “I sincerely hope you Qualify—for everyone’s sake.”
And then the Atlantean girl disappears in the crowd.
Chapter 51
I feel like I’ve been dealt a hard blow to the head as I climb back aboard the stair rungs and enter the shuttle.
. . . You matter to him, Lark . . .
The words go round and round, ringing inside my mind. Even now, I don’t dare understand what it means.
I am so numb that the unfamiliar Atlantean standing at the doors has to repeat himself as he scans my ID token. “Move along, Candidate, take a seat! No stalling!”
I stagger inside, and the interior looks familiar, a transport shuttle identical to the kind that we rode to L.A. during the Semi-Finals.
Candidates are filling the seats fast, and I see Laronda a few rows to the back. She hurriedly waves to me.
“Hey! What was that about, girlfriend?” Laronda says, as soon as I reach her and take the seat next to her that she’s saved for me.
“Oh,” I mutter. “Nothing. Just spoke with Instructor Oalla Keigeri. She came to say goodbye—or whatever.”
“Oh, really?” Laronda can see my strange, dazed expression. “Wait, she actually showed up just to see you? How come? What’s wrong? Did she say something?”
Quickly, I try to get a grip. Laronda is too perceptive for her own good. I need to tone my emotions down, and fast. “Oh, no biggie! And yeah, no, of course she isn’t here for me, she’s just seeing all of us off. She happened to see me. . . .” I trail off, hoping the line of vague bull is sufficient.
Because there is simply no way I can say anything about what just happened—to Laronda, or to anyone.
Instead I try to put my mind in a calming zen state. Focus, focus, Gwen!
I need to concentrate on the here and now, because this is Finals. This is life and death. So I need to get a grip and push everything else out of my mind and pay attention.
And somehow, after several deep breaths, during which I and everyone else fiddles with our seats and our individual safety harnesses, I am sufficiently calm and clear-headed that I can think once again.
. . . You matter to him, Lark . . .
No, just stop it.
About five more minutes pass, and our shuttle fills with Candidates. Every available seat is taken.
There are two Atlantean pilots on board. The one at the hatch entrance introduces himself as Pilot Ekit Jei. He is metallic haired, compact and muscular, and his skin is river-clay-red, which reminds me of Nefir Mekei.
As soon as we are in our seats, Pilot Ekit tells us to make sure we are buckled in, and then proceeds to check us, walking our rows.
The other pilot, a female Atlantean, sits in one of the four command chairs up in the back control and navigation center. “I am Pilot Radra Vilai,” she announces over a voice amplifier in a rich alto. I glance back and can only see her profile and the back of her gilded head.
“Good morning, Team USA Fourteen-C,” Pilot Radra tells us, as a familiar resonant hum begins to rise in the hull of the shuttle. “This is your Final Test for Qualification. Your instructions will be given to you as soon as we take off. You are going to be taken to the site where you will begin the task that will Qualify you. And now, Pilot Ekit, please, lift-off on your count—”
Ekit quickly moves to the back of the shuttle to take the adjacent pilot seat next to Radra. At the same time, the razor-fine lines of golden light that slither throughout the hull start racing with motion. . . .
And then the walls—or the Pilots—or the shuttle itself—begin to sing.
“Here we go, baby. . . .” Laronda grips her chair armrests and glances at me with a nervous toothy smile.
“Oh, yeah,” I mutter, then look straight ahead and momentarily close my eyes. . . .
And the next instant, I am being pulled back into my resilient chair by the forces of gravity. . . . Candidates’ voices, soft muffled exclamations and other sounds come from all around, as we are pressed, squeezed, flattened by g-forces.
A few gruesome moments, and you can even hear someone retching in the back.
And then it all recedes and gravity is back to normal.
“Are we—are we in space now?” someone asks pitifully.
“Yes, we have successfully achieved orbit,” Radra replies in an up-beat manner. “Next up, your destination.”
“So what is it? When do we finally find out where we’re going, already?” a boy asks.
But the question is ignored. Instead, Ekit’s deeper voice now comes through the amplifier.
“Attention, Candidates! First, a quick explanation: thousands of years ago during the time of the original Atlantis here on Earth, we—that is, our Atlantean ancestors—built a major transportation network between the continent of Atlantis and the other continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean. A complex system of subterranean caves and tunnels was designed to allow secret travel underneath the ocean from Atlantis to other lands.
“The tunnels connect a series of sunken chambers that get flooded and drained by means of locks and floodgates. This is necessary for tunnel integrity, in order to avoid cave-ins—this way, only a few chambers are filled with air at a time. The mass of water in all the rest keeps the tunnels and caverns intact under the immense weight of the earth and the ocean.
“Now, the entry points to these tunnels are located at numerous places all around the shores of the Atlantic. And they all connect in the center, right underneath Ancient Atlantis itself—the modern-day area spanning Bermuda and the Bahamas.”
There is a brief pause, letting it sink in. We sit petrified in our seats, as things begin to coalesce in our minds.
“Uh-oh . . .” Laronda whispers next to me. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
And now Pilot Radra picks up where Ekit left off.
“These are your instructions for the Finals,” Radra says. “Today you will be taken to one of these entry points along the shores of the Atlantic. We will dive underneath the ocean and emerge in a subterranean cavern that will be drained of water and filled with air, initiating the ancient transport system of locks and floodgates—”
“Oh, man, this is bad,” a boy mutters behind me, while more whispers start in nervous waves all around the shuttle.
“Once inside the first cavern, you will exit the shuttle. Each Candidate will be provided with a hoverboard, a single weapon of your Quadrant, a flashlight, two flares, and a small pack containing food and water for one day. Control of your final points will also be released to you, to be used at your own discretion. From that moment on, you will act both as an individual and as a team. To transfer points, you initiate the transfer—press and hold your token and the other person’s, and speak the number of points to be moved. It is one-way only, you cannot take points from others, only receive them if they are given.
“Your task for the Finals is simple. You have approximately 33.3 hours to cross the distance of 1,000 miles underneath the ocean flo
or, on hoverboards, which is achievable if you are going at the minimum rate of 30 miles an hour—”
“Oh, good grief!” a Candidate exclaims. “That’s insane!”
But Radra continues, ignoring the outburst. “Every half hour, the locks and floodgates activate, starting a new ‘lockout wave’—removing water from the next chamber in the sequence and flooding the chamber you are presently in. At that time the gates between the two adjacent chambers are open, allowing passage from one to the other, while the water drains. You must time your movement so that you are always ahead of the floodgates, because if they close with you inside, the chamber will flood and you will drown—”
“Oh no, oh no!” There are more outbursts of protest from everywhere in the shuttle.
“The floodgates are marked with four-color beacons, and your ID tokens will be scanned as you pass each one. It is recommended you stay close to your team members and work together. For each team with the most surviving members, you will get a cumulative score that will figure in the formula that determines your final Qualification standing. Therefore, it is in your best interest to keep other members of your team alive.
“Next instruction—once you have reached the last of the cavern chambers, which happens to be the central hub underneath Ancient Atlantis, you will need to rise to the surface through a wide tunnel carved out of an underwater mountain. The original tunnel opening is unfortunately many feet underwater. But we have retrofitted it so that it extends to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, and it is the last leg of your journey. You will go through the opening and rise to the transport shuttles that will await you.
“The final difficulty you will encounter will be in that major central hub cavern. That’s because every single team of Candidates from all the countries around the world will be converging into the same cavern. And the final sprint race for Qualification spots will happen there. Remember—only one half of you will Qualify. That means that you must move as fast as you can in those final minutes and fight for your place on the shuttles.
“Even if you arrive at the shuttle early enough, you will still be scanned at the entrance and allowed entry only if you have sufficient points—a minimum of 100 individual points plus a minimum average number for your entire team—the higher, the better. This team average number will include missing or dead members whose points will be subtracted as negatives and will bring down the team average. As soon as the last shuttle is filled to capacity, the doors will close and anyone not onboard will not Qualify. Which means that, a day from now, at eight PM exactly, the shuttles depart Earth.”
Pilot Radra pauses and then Pilot Ekit takes over. “Candidates!” he says. “Here is where I need to explain your team roles. All the Sections have been divided into four teams, A, B, C, and D, in order of achievement, as measured by points. And this determines your time of entry into the cavern system. Everyone on this shuttle is in team C. This means that you get to go in third in your Section. The first team A has an hour advantage over every one of the rest of you. Then comes team B with a half-hour advantage, then you, then team D that will go in half an hour behind you. Once we set you down in the entrance chamber, you will wait your turn.”
“But that’s unfair!” a girl in front of me says. “Even if we move as fast as we can, those other teams will still get to the central hub ahead of us, so what chance do we even have?”
“It’s true, you will be in a later floodgate ‘lockout wave’ than teams A and B.” Ekit acknowledges the girl’s statement. “However once you’re in the central hub, you will be surprised how much time you can make up in the struggle to advance to the surface.”
“This sounds absolutely horrendous,” another girl says. “What if we fall off the hoverboard, or get hurt, or get stuck in some awful dark tunnel?”
“Then you die,” Ekit says. “Sorry.”
“Oh, wow. . . .” The girl is rendered speechless.
A few seconds pass and Radra speaks again. “We are now about to return to Earth at your designated entry point. Everyone, brace for transitional gravity.”
And in the same instant we start to fall. . . .
I close my eyes and keep my head turned straight ahead as vertigo renders me close to passing out. Fortunately it lasts only a few minutes. The sensation of falling ends, and then the shuttle hull seems to absorb and then resonate with a heavy impact that sends the hull lights flying even more rapidly. Meanwhile, the sensation of motion is changed, thickened somehow. . . .
“We have now submerged underneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere off-shore between Jacksonville, Florida and the former location of your long-flooded ancient Florida Keys,” Radra announces.
And for about a minute more we move at a vague angle through what we have been just told is the thickness of water, until the shuttle lurches sideways then slightly up, and finally comes to a hover stop. The golden threads of light stop pulsing around the hull walls, and the musical hum fades into dead silence.
We sit, frozen in our seats, breathing faintly.
Pilot Radra gives us a moment to recover and then speaks again. “It is now nine-thirty AM Eastern, local time. We have lost two hours due to time zone transition from Colorado Mountain time. However, it has been accounted for—the exact starting times at all international points around the Atlantic have been synchronized. You all have 34 hours to complete the task. The clock starts now.”
“This is a tough moment of decision, Candidates.” Pilot Ekit speaks to us, as he disengages his seat harness. “It’s the point of no return. As soon as you step outside into the network entrance cavern, you will have formally agreed to proceed with the Finals competition. You forfeit your lives and your choice in the matter. However—right now is the time to Self-Disqualify. If you genuinely feel that you are unable to compete in this Final Test, it is not a reflection on you. You have the right to give up. Simply remove your ID token and press the recessed button on the back. Then, remain in your seats and wait. You will be returned back to the National Qualification Center and discharged to go home. There is no shame in it. But please note that you may not Self-Disqualify once you step off the shuttle. Unlike the Semi-Finals, we have no means of rescuing you from the middle of the tunnel system once its sequence is activated, so if you get in trouble, you will not survive.”
He pauses, and the silence in the shuttle is overwhelming.
It occurs to me, everyone here, including me, is considering this option . . . considering whether to give up now or proceed into living hell.
So easy to just give up.
Press a button and go home.
I shudder, taking a deep breath. And then I think of Mom and Dad, and the asteroid flying through space on its way to burn us alive.
I’ve come this far, and I simply cannot give up now. Besides, Gracie and Gordie and George might need me in this thing. Not to mention, Logan, and Laronda and the rest of my friends. After all, we are a team.
. . . You matter to him, Lark . . .
And he might need me.
I blink, and then begin to unbuckle and get up, together with the rest of the Candidates who make the choice to keep going.
Laronda and I both stand, and we move toward the hatch exit, where the line is forming and the two Atlantean Pilots are handing out our gear and hoverboards.
“I’m so gonna regret this,” Laronda mutters.
“I already regret this,” I reply with an exhalation of breath.
Curious, I glance around at the shuttle to see if anyone stayed behind.
Sure enough, there are at least three people I can see, sitting motionless in their seats. One young boy is crying. Another girl looks like she is in shock. Their ID tokens are no longer lit.
One boy gives me a glance of despair as I pass by him and his lifeless token.
They have chosen, I think. It’s their free choice, to die here on Earth, with their families, later. At least they don’t have to go through the nightmare Finals now. r />
A fair choice.
And then I turn my back on them and share a look of sorrow with Laronda.
Moments later we’re at the doors, and receive our hoverboards and supplies.
“One Yellow Quadrant net weapon, one hoverboard,” Pilot Radra tells me. “Flashlight, flares, and food are in the backpack. Good luck, Candidate—may you Qualify.”
I nod silently, receive my stuff, and go down the shuttle stairs after Laronda.
Cold, musty, damp air hits us. We emerge into a place for which I have no words.
First, eerie, greenish-blue light, a general glow, and twilight.
When they said huge cavern, they meant it! Holy lord, this is immense!
The Candidates crowding ahead of us stand on a slippery cavern floor with smooth water-eroded rock formations jutting out all around us. The cavern is at least three hundred feet across, likely more, because the chamber is segmented into lesser ones in all directions, and the ceiling overhead is covered with descending stalactites hanging like icicles of ancient sediment.
The floor of the cavern ends about fifty feet behind us, and there is an expanse of lapping ocean water. The large transport shuttle hovers partially over the water and over the floor, since there is really no place for it to set down, even if it had to—good thing it does not.
Since we are apparently well underneath the ocean, the light does not shine from the water which appears black as ink. The only source of light in the cavern is the plasma lights on the underbelly of the shuttle. They are the ones creating the eerie glow and casting shadows.
No, I take that back. . . . As I glance directly ahead, the cavern wall reveals a row of four-color light beacons, six in total, spaced three feet apart. They appear to be attached to the walls, but if you observe closer, they are actually installed in a horizontal line to the bottom half of a vertical lift-gate.
“Attention, Team USA, Fourteen-C!” Pilot Ekit says loudly, using a voice amplifier, as he stands at the shuttle doors. His voice sends up immense echoes that resound in the cavern. “On my count, I am now activating the tunnel gate system! Water will begin to flow out as soon as the gate opens, so get up on your hoverboards now or prepare to be drenched if you’re still standing on the ground. As soon as the gate opening is of sufficient height to allow you through, do not waste time and enter the tunnel. Fly as fast as you safely can, until you see the next row of six beacons. That would be your next floodgate. Wait for it to open, then repeat.”