Atlantis Gate

CHAPTER 17

Dane was finding moving inside the Valkyrie suit most annoying. He moved his legs as if walking but instead of actual leg movement, the suit simply moved forward. To change direction, he had to twist at the waist, the upper body pointing in the correct direction, the lower following. It didn’t take much effort to move the suit and he realized that was necessary given the atrophied condition of the bodies they’d taken out of them. He had the Naga Staff while Earhart carried a backpack with Sin Fen’s skull tucked inside.

“This isn’t much of a plan,” Earhart’s voice was a low buzz, coming out of a speaker inside the headpiece. They’d discovered they could communicate with each other simply by talking. Dane had to assume that the transmitters and receivers were built into the skin of the suit, again indicating a high level of technical proficiency.

“It’s as much of a plan as you had before I got here,” Dane noted. He could see the inner sea now and a portal column ahead and to the right. He headed straight down to the water. He immediately saw an advantage to the suits as he floated out over the black surface. He stopped moving his legs and came to a halt, Earhart floating next to him.

Dane concentrated, mentally projecting an image of himself. He was rewarded by the sight of a gray dorsal fin cutting the smooth black surface a quarter mile ahead and racing toward them. When Rachel was close by she leaped into the air, clearing the water completely and flipping over onto her back with a tremendous splash. She then rose up out of the water about two feet, regarded the two floating white figures for several seconds, bobbed her head as if nodding and then began swimming off further into the inner sea.

“Let’s go,” Dane said as he set off after the dolphin. Just for a moment he sensed a presence nearby and paused and turned. But then a blast of urgency from Rachel overwhelmed that sense and he turned back and followed her.

Cyra was watching the two Valkyries move. Leonidas raised his sword slightly as one of them paused and turned in their direction, but then the creature turned back and followed the dolphin away. In a couple of minutes the two white figures disappeared around the black column.

“That was strange,” Cyra said as she got to her feet.

“’That was strange’?” Leonidas was dusting black sand from his cloak and armor. “What isn’t strange in all of this?”

“The dolphin being with the Valkyries is strange,” Cyra clarified. “I was taught that the dolphins are our brethren in the sea. Why would they be with our enemy?”

Leonidas had no answer. “Let’s find this gate and get out of here,” he suggested.

“Come.” Cyra strode off.

“Did you feel that?” Dane asked as they skirted around the black cylinder of power.

“What?” Earhart asked.

“Someone was back there. On the shore. Someone with the vision.”

“I didn’t feel anything,” Earhart said.

Dane could see a half dozen portals ahead, the black columns varying in width from a few feet to one over three quarters of a mile wide. He wondered which one was the Nazca power portal and if placing Sin Fen’s skull into it would disrupt it. Earhart was right — he didn’t have much of a plan. Despite those misgivings though, he felt as if he were on the right path.

Rachel swam between two portals with Dane and Earhart following. Dane noted that some of the portals were different — in several he could see swirls of colors, mainly red, gold and blue. These colors came and went so quickly it was hard to get a read on them.

Looking ahead, Dane saw that the inner sea stretched as far as he could see with numerous portals visible. The dolphin paused and rose half out of the water, head turning to and fro. Then she dove forward. Dane noted that her course was taking her directly toward a portal a quarter mile ahead. This portal was about a hundred meters wide. Rachel came to a halt right in front of it and once more rose out of the water. She jerked her head toward the portal a couple of times, then slid back into the water, disappearing from sight.

“I guess this is it,” Dane said.

“There,” Cyra was pointing at a black circle that hovered above the water about ten meters off shore.

“Are you sure?” Leonidas asked.

“As sure as I am about anything else we’ve done,” Cyra answered, which did little to reassure the Spartan King. Still, he led the way, wading out from shore until he was just in front of it. The water was knee deep and the portal at his waist. He sheathed his sword, then laced his fingers together, forming a step for the priestess. Without hesitation, she put one foot in it, stepped up and fell forward into the circle, disappearing.

Leonidas backed off a few feet, then ran forward and jumped, arms extended, into the portal.

Dane was less than a foot from the shimmering black surface of the portal. Every so often there was a flicker of red in the black, similar to what he had seen in a few of the others on the way to this one.

“After you,” Earhart said.

Dane nodded and then realized the gesture couldn’t be seen. Without a word he moved forward into the blackness. The screen in front of his eyes blacked out for a second, then came back.

“Oh, my God,” Dane whispered as he took in the scene the screen displayed. He wasn’t even aware as Earhart materialized besides him and her own gasp of dismay echoed inside the helmet.

Dane was floating less than two feet above the Reflecting Pool on the Mall in Washington DC. Except there was no water in the pool and the concrete was blistered and blackened. But what held his attention was the view directly ahead. The Washington Monument had been sheered in two about fifty feet up, the broken stub of the base pointing into the air, the bulk of the remainder lying cracked and smashed on the ground next to it. Beyond, on a rise, the dome of the US Capitol had been blasted away, leaving only the shattered remains of the building.

“We’re too late,” Earhart whispered, her voice hoarse.