The Hunt For Atlantis

Chase pushed the knife upwards like a lever, the point digging into the casing of his suit. Something cracked, and the belt snapped.

He dropped the eight feet to the water, landing flat on his back and banging his head against the inside of his helmet. But there was no time to think about the pain, because he had less than fifteen seconds to get clear.

With a final jet of steam and fumes from the fantail, the Evenor disappeared into the Atlantic, the last echoing sound from the dying ship like the cry of a wounded animal. A churning whirlpool of bubbles spewed up in its wake, hundreds of pieces of flotsam too light to sink swirling around in the maelstrom.

Its generators failed as water surged through the aft compartments, but its emergency lights were still aglow, battery-powered units all over the ship automatically activating as the main power went off. Trailing a jetstream of air bubbles behind it, the survey ship began its rapid, nose-first descent towards the seabed.

Towards Atlantis.

Qobras turned to his captain. “Take us back to port. Full speed.”

“Aye, sir.” The captain issued orders to his bridge crew. Ignored in a corner, Nina held a hand to her mouth as she tried to stop herself from sobbing.

She failed.

Chase jammed his thrusters to full power, not having time to do anything more than aim away from the statue and dive.

Five seconds, four, three…

He glimpsed a faint light below him-Kari!-and twisted towards it-

The explosives detonated.

TWENTY-TWO

The head of the statue of Poseidon, which had withstood the sinking of Atlantis and stood lonely vigil over the temple for over eleven thousand years, was blasted to pieces. The ivory ceiling disintegrated, razor-edged shards raining into the flooded chamber.

But the stone block above the charges also took the full force of the blast.

Under the immense pressure of the water, the block barely rose more than a foot.

But that was enough.

After waiting patiently for hundreds of centuries, the Atlantic finally found a way into its oldest prize. Frigid seawater surged through the gap, the colossal force clawing at the ancient stones. A hole over twenty feet wide ripped open as the ceiling gave way. Thousands of tons of water plunged like a piledriver to smash what was left of the statue of Poseidon into golden rubble.

The impact sent a massive shockwave through the water already in the temple. Statues were snatched from the floor and tossed around like toys.

Chase felt as though he’d been hit by a truck. His flashlight was ripped from his grasp, spinning into the churning vortex. He slammed against a wall. Hard. He couldn’t move, pinned like a butterfly to a board by the horrific force.

Then the noise subsided. As did the pressure grinding him against the wall, the whirling currents dying away. A fierce burning pain rose in his left wrist. He dimly remembered his arm smashing against the wall, but only now was his mind actually able to process the sensation.

His suit lights were still working, but they would be useless for some time. Sediment that had lain undisturbed on the temple floor since the flooding had been stirred up by the fury of the deluge, making the water as opaque as milk.

But now that the temple was completely flooded, the influx of water had stopped. Which meant he could get out through the hole in the ceiling…

Kari!

There was no way she could have been fully prepared for the unimaginable onslaught of the ocean. She would have been hit just as hard as he had been.

He tried the radio. “Kari! Kari, can you hear me? Are you there? Kari!”

No answer.

She might be out of radio range-or injured, even dead.

He dropped towards the floor and swam forwards, wincing at the pain in his left arm. Using the thrusters would have been faster, but he didn’t want to risk running into anything before he could see it.

He felt debris beneath his feet, broken statues and stones. It was like the aftermath of a bombing.

A faint light ahead. Distances were deceptive in the silt-laden water; it looked to be forty or fifty feet away, but in the current conditions it was probably more like five.

“Kari!” he called as the lights took on form. It was the spotlights on her suit- spotlight, rather, as one of them was dead.

And for all he could tell, so was she, hanging motionless just above the floor.

He pulled her upright. Their helmets clunked together as he tried to see her face through the murk. Her eyes were closed, and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing. The deep suit was a closed system, with no telltale release of air bubbles. “Kari!”

Her eyelids flickered.

“Oh thank Christ!” Chase gasped. “Kari, come on, wake up. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Her eyes opened, regarding him blearily. “Eddie? What happened?”

“Short version? Bang! Splash! Hole. Are you all right?”

Her face tightened in pain. “My leg hurts…”

“This place could still collapse. We need to get out-if we go straight up, we can follow the roof until we get to the hole.”

“It worked?”

“Oh yeah. It worked.” He took her hand. “Use your thrusters and go up.” He reached for his thruster control. “On three. Ready?” Kari nodded, and he counted down to zero-

Kari took off vertically. Chase stayed put.

“Whoa, whoa, stop!” he cried, jumping off the temple floor after her. The whirring of her thrusters cut out.

“What’s wrong?”

Chase pushed the control wheel back and forth with his thumb. Nothing happened. “Houston, we have a problem. My thrusters aren’t working.”

“Is your suit damaged?”

“Well, yeah, kind of. The whole ‘not working’ thing was my first clue.”

She banged a hand on his chest. “I’m serious! These suits are tough-if it was hit hard enough for one of the systems to be damaged, it might not be the only one. Is your air supply working?”

“Seems fine, but-” He stopped. “Wait a minute. Either I just pissed myself… or I’ve got a leak.” He shifted uncomfortably. There was a cold, clammy sensation at the top of his legs, inside the suit. “Shit! Water’s coming in.”

As if on cue, a tiny air bubble rose up between them, touching the glass of Chase’s helmet before disappearing upwards. “Grab onto me, and whatever you do, don’t let go,” Kari ordered.