“I know. I removed it. I have another theory. I think when the ship in Gibraltar exploded, the Atlanteans were trapped in the section that broke off. I think the door they went through wasn’t a passage to another room in that ship. I think it was a portal to another ship. I don’t think we’re in Gibraltar.”
CHAPTER 128
Around the next corner, Kate finally got the boys to stop.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she pleaded.
“We have to hide, Kate,” Adi said.
“From whom?”
“There’s no time,” Surya said.
Time — the word echoed through Kate’s mind and another fear gripped her. She spun the boys around and searched for the digital readout.
03:23:51. Almost three and a half hours left. Martin had said there was less than 30 minutes before detonation. How? It didn’t matter — the clock was still ticking. She had to think.
The boys were pulling at her again, and behind them, a set of double doors opened.
CHAPTER 129
Dorian slipped the last of the space suit off and surveyed the room — some kind of decontamination chamber. He walked toward the smaller door. His steps echoed loudly in the high-ceilinged iron chamber. The door opened as he approached, and he stepped out into a corridor. Just like Gibraltar. It was all true. This was another Atlantean city.
Lights flashed to life at the top and bottom of the corridor. The place looked pristine, untouched. It certainly hadn’t endured a nuclear blast — two of them. Why not? Had the children made it farther into the Tombs? Had the Atlanteans caught them? Disabled the bombs?
Up ahead, Dorian heard footfalls — boots marching, striking the iron floor in unison. He drew his side arm and moved to the side of the corridor, in the shadow of an iron beam.
CHAPTER 130
Kate stood and peered into the room.
There were a dozen glass tubes, standing on end like the ones Patrick Pierce — her father — had described in the journal. And like those tubes, each of these tubes contained an ape, or a human, or something in between. Kate ventured into the room, marveling at the tubes. It was incredible — a hall of forgotten ancestors. All the missing links in humanity’s evolution, neatly collected and cataloged in this oval room, two miles below the ice in Antarctica, like a child might collect butterflies in a mason jar. A few of the specimens were shorter than Kate, no more than four feet tall; most were about her height, and a few were a good bit taller. They were all colors, some black, some brown, others pale white. Scientists could spend lifetimes in this room; many had already spent lifetimes digging up bones, desperately trying to find pieces of the intact humans floating there, suspended in the twelve or so glass tubes.
The boys followed her into the room, and the double doors shut behind them.
Kate scanned the room. Besides the tubes, there wasn’t much else except a chest-high bar with a glass top. Kate walked toward it, but stopped short as the doors to the room began to open again.
CHAPTER 131
Patrick Pierce kept his hand on the pistol as he watched the man who called himself David Vale. He had let the younger man lead. His story was believable, but Patrick still didn’t trust him.
They walked down one long corridor after another, and Patrick’s mind drifted to Helena, to that day seven years ago when the glass tube had hissed open.
The white clouds parted, and he reached out to touch her. He thought his hand would turn to sand, crumble, and blow away like ashes in the wind when he felt her cold skin. He fell to his knees, and the tears ran down his face. Mallory Craig wrapped an arm around him, and Patrick threw the man to the ground, then slugged him twice, three times, four times in the face, before two Immari security guards pulled him off of Craig. Craig — the devil’s right hand, the man who had lured him into a trap meant to kill him. A frightened boy — Deiter Kane — cowered in the corner. Craig got to his feet, tried to wipe the blood that kept coming from his face, then collected Dieter and fled from the room.
Patrick had wanted to bury Helena with her family, in England, but Craig wouldn’t allow it. “We’ll need new names, Pierce. Any connection to the past must be erased…” New names. Katherine. Kate, the man — Vale — had called her.
Patrick tried to imagine what it had been like for her. He had been an absentee father, and when he was around, an awkward father at best. From the moment he had held Katherine in his arms, he had dedicated himself to dismantling the Immari threat and unraveling the mysteries of Gibraltar and the Bell — to making the world safe for her. That was the best he could do for her. And he had failed. If what Vale said was true, the Immari were stronger than ever. And Kate… he had missed her whole life; worse: she had been raised by a stranger. Not only that, she had been drawn into the Immari conspiracy. It was a nightmare. He tried to push the thoughts from his mind, but they seemed to resurface around every corner they turned, seemed to rise out of the floor of every new corridor, like a ghost that wouldn’t go away.
Patrick eyed the man hobbling in front of him. Would Vale have answers? Would they even be the truth? Patrick cleared his throat. “What’s she like?”
“Who? Oh, Kate?” David looked back and smiled. “She’s… amazing. Incredibly smart… and extremely strong willed.”
“I have no doubt of that.” Hearing the words was so surreal. But it somehow helped Patrick come to terms with the fact that his daughter had grown up without him. He felt like he should say something, but he wasn’t sure what. After a moment he said, “It’s strange to talk about, Vale. For me, it was just a few weeks ago when I said goodbye to her in West Berlin. It’s… awkward to know my own daughter grew up without a father.”
“She turned out alright, trust me.” David paused for a moment, then continued. “She’s like no one I’ve ever met. She’s beatuifu—”
“Ok, that’s uh, that’s enough. Let’s uh… let’s stay focused, Vale.” Patrick picked up the pace. Apparently there was a speed limit to revelations… of a certain type. Patrick moved in front of Vale and began leading the way. He had an arm and a leg on the man — literally, and Vale was unarmed, so he probably wasn’t much of a threat. And Vale’s last answer had convinced Patrick: the younger man was telling the truth.
David pushed to keep up. “Right,” he said.
They plowed down the iron corridors in silence, and after a while, Patrick stopped again to let David catch up. “Sorry,” he said. “I know the goo takes it out of you.” He raised his eyebrows. “Had a few accidents myself exploring in the last month.”