The Atlantis Ascent Read online

  “I just had an idea,” she said. “Why don’t we get that thing in Gambia first, that artifact the slaver used, and then you could use your power to control all these people’s minds. We could just walk them out of that camp!”

  Anything to get out of this, she thought.

  Winston shook his head slowly, and when he replied his voice sounded grave. “No, Jaxon. It would take took long to find. Even just the trip there and back would take several days, and who knows if we would make it considering all the people hunting us. Whatever our enemies have planned for these captive Atlanteans, they will have done it long before we get back.”

  Her heart sank. There didn’t look like there was any way to avoid this attack. Jaxon studied him. “That’s true, but that’s not the real reason you don’t want to try it, isn’t it?”

  Winston looked at his feet. “It’s a good enough reason, but you’re correct. The truth is I’m afraid. I was always the small child in school, picked on for not being good at games and for not having any parents. Perhaps I developed my particular power just to get the other children to leave me alone. There’s a lot of anger in me, just as much as there is in Mateo. I hide it, control it like he should learn to do, but it’s still there. If I try to use that artifact I might become as bad as some of our oppressors.”

  Jaxon fell silent. Everyone seemed to assume that she’d use this artifact, if they ever found it. But what would that kind of power do to her? Winston talked about being angry, but she’d spent her entire life angry. Most of her childhood she kept her head down, wanting to be ignored, while all the time quietly seething. Then she had let it all out when she and Brett went hunting criminals together. It sickened her to think about it now. How she had thrilled at the feel of smacking around weaker, regular humans. It didn’t matter that they were thugs who deserved to be in jail, hunting them had made her too much like them.

  And now she was supposed to take on some sort of leadership role and use this artifact to save her people? She might freak out from the power and damn them for all time.

  Now she understood how Atlantis had become corrupt. They had lived isolated on their island kingdom in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, equals at peace with one another. But then they started exploring and got in touch with regular humans. Those people had been far less advanced, with no special strength or speed and no individual powers. Of course the Atlanteans had started to feel superior. Instead of being humble and using their powers to raise up the rest of the world, they began to lord over it. A few Atlanteans never learned their lesson and had acted like that even after Atlantis was punished and sank into the sea. Mars Sans Pitié had been like that probably even before he found that artifact to magnify his power. Once he had it, he became a despot.

  But what about her? She’d like to think she’d use her enhanced power wisely, but until a few months ago she’d been nothing but an underachieving screw up. She’d been turning things around, she felt herself growing every day, but had she grown enough? Even now she was almost powerless, constantly on the run and being manipulated by forces she could barely understand. If suddenly she was the one in power, who knows how she would react?

  “First thing’s first,” she sighed. “Let’s get through this night alive and then we can figure out what to do with that artifact.”

  As she boarded the truck with the Atlanteans and mercenaries, she began to make terrible calculations in her head. How many people would get hurt tonight? How many killed? Elaine could save a couple, but that was the limit of her strength. At least they had brought along a plentiful supply of the healing water, but in the firefight, would there even be a chance to give it to people in time to save them? The scientists were probably right; it probably couldn’t bring back the dead.

  Jaxon sat on the hard wooden bench in the back of the truck and put her head in her hands.

  She felt a soft touch on her shoulder. It was so dark in the back of the truck with the canvas awning blocking out the starlight, she didn’t know who it was until Vivian spoke.

  “It’s okay to be scared, honey. We all are. Even these desert rebels who have been fighting all their life.”

  Jaxon blinked. Until Vivian said that, Jaxon hadn’t realized that she had been worrying only about other people and not herself.

  Now she did.

  “Oh no,” she moaned, shaking her head. She didn’t want to die. She had never felt her life was worth much until all this craziness started to happen, but then she had finally found a place, a reason for living. She didn’t want to lose that now.

  The truck’s motor ignited with a dull roar that sounded loud in the otherwise silent desert. The Jeep ahead of them started up too. They headed out, headlights off, as Jaxon gripped Vivian’s hand.

  After a few minutes they came out of the hills and swung to the west to get onto the track that led to the prison camp. Once they did, they turned on their headlights. Jaxon lifted up the bottom of the canvas awning and peeked out.

  In the distance, the prison camp stood out like a beacon in the desert. Floodlights lit the interior and the surrounding area. Even though they were still a mile away, Jaxon could clearly make out the grim concrete barracks, the metal guard towers, the barbed wire fence, and the large cluster of tents where her people led a miserable existence.

  Suddenly she realized she no longer felt afraid. The adrenaline had kicked in and all she wanted was to get this done.

  When they got within half a mile, the driver of the Jeep honked his horn several times. A tiny figure in one of the guard towers flanking the gate waved. She could hear the crackle of the radio in the truck’s cab up front.

  “Everything sounds okay,” Vivian said. “They’re welcoming us in, if my bad Arabic is getting that right. Put the awning down, it looks suspicious.”

  Jaxon did as she was told, but sitting in the back of the truck completely blind made her fidgety. She looked around at the rest of the team in the dim light. Everyone seemed on edge, even the Tuaregs.

  This is a bad idea, she thought.

  She peeked out from under the canvas again but Vivian pulled her back. The mercenary pulled out her Bowie knife.

  “If you have to look out, do this.”

  Vivian poked a little hole in the canvas right next to Jaxon.

  “Go ahead,” Vivian said. “You’ll be able to see out but as dark as it is in here, they won’t be able to see in.”

  Jaxon peeked out. They were just driving up to the gate, the Jeep in the lead. The gate did not open.

  Instead, a man who looked like an officer flanked by a pair of machine-gun-toting soldiers came up to the other side of the gate, staring at them through the wire mesh.

  The Jeep and truck parked. One of the Tuaregs, dressed in military uniform, got out and went up to the gate, holding up an identification card.

  The officer looked at it a second before calling out to the tower. An electric motor hummed, and the gate slowly slid to the side.

  The Tuareg hopped back in the Jeep and the two vehicles moved forward again. Despite Vivian’s reassurance, Jaxon moved away from the hole, not wanting the guards to spot her bright blue Atlantean eyes.

  The back of the truck lay open and light from the gate shone on the back seats. The guards would see them soon enough. Everyone got their guns ready. The Tuaregs had taken all the places close to the opening so that the Atlanteans and white people would be hidden in the shadow.

  The officer came around back, saying something in a friendly voice. Jaxon noticed an automatic pistol in a holster on his belt. The man hadn’t drawn it or even kept his hand on it. He was obviously fooled for the moment. One of the Tuaregs a little further in held up a cigarette. The officer said something that sounded like a thank you and clambered in.

  As soon as he got inside, Winston touched his shoulder.

  “Shhh,” the Englishman said. “Everything’s all right.”

  The man froze.

  “Sit down. Relax,” Winston said in a voice like he
was coaxing a kitten out from under the couch. The officer sat next to him.

  One of the Tuaregs giggled, an odd sound from a tough desert warrior.

  “You have great magical, Sea Person,” the Tuareg said in heavily accented English. “What you want me tell him to do?”

  “Tell him I want—”

  A series of explosions rocked the air. The entire truck shook and Jaxon was jolted out of her seat.

  The officer looked around, eyes growing wide.

  Before Winston could stop him, he drew his pistol from his holster.

  And then everything went wrong.

  Chapter 10

  AUGUST 27, THE SAHARA DESERT A FEW MILES EAST OF TIDJIKJA, MAURITANIA

  11:30 P.M.

  * * *

  Winston tried to grab the gun from the officer’s hand. The pistol barked and Winston flew backwards with a cry. Several other guns went off all at once. Jaxon cringed on the floor where she fell. When she dared to look again, she saw the officer dead and the Tuaregs and mercenaries pouring from the back of the truck. Elaine crouched over Winston. The Englishman’s shirt was soaked with blood.

  “Wait!” Jaxon cried. “Save your energy. Use the water instead.”

  “Good idea,” the healer replied, grabbing the nearest jug of water. “I don’t want to be so tired I can’t move.”

  A bullet popped through the canvas, opening up holes on either side of them and letting fingers of light in. Jaxon and Elaine crouched lower. Elaine put the jug to Winston’s lips. The Englishman murmured something.

  “Drink,” Jaxon said.

  Several bullets pinged off the front of the truck.

  “What if they hit the gas tank?” Elaine shouted. “We have to get out of here!”

  Winston had already downed a cupful or two of water. Jaxon grabbed him and hauled him out of the truck …

  … and straight into a nightmare.

  The Tuaregs were firing at the towers and at guards running across the open enclosure. Bullets came back at them from all directions. A line of bullets stitched up the sand inches from Jaxon’s feet, forcing her to dive for cover under the truck, hauling Winston with her. Elaine did not follow.

  Looking desperately around, she spotted her bending over a fallen Tuareg who had a gunshot to the shoulder.

  More bullets pinged off the truck. She couldn’t see who was firing at her, all she saw was the prone forms of those who had been hit and the running feet of those who still survived.

  Then she saw something that made her heart grow cold.

  Vivian lay on the ground about ten feet in front of the truck. She was not moving.

  Then Jaxon saw she had a more immediate problem. She saw a trickle of gasoline running out of the truck’s engine, making a puddle beneath the cab not five feet from where she and Winston lay.

  The Englishman groaned.

  “Can you move?” Jaxon asked.

  A flurry of bullets clattered off the truck’s cab, sending sparks dangerously close to the puddle of gasoline.

  “I can move away from this!” Winston shouted and leapt out from under the truck, pulling her with her.

  And they were back in the firestorm. Jaxon tore herself from Winston’s grasp and sprinted to where Vivian lay.

  Jaxon wailed. Her friend had been shot all over, her uniform a mass of blood. Several Tuareg warriors crouched close by, firing at the soldiers in the towers. She opened Vivian’s mouth and poured some of the precious water down her throat, then poured some more on every wound she could find.

  A hot pain lanced through her calf. She looked down and saw a garish red bullet wound. She poured some of the water on it, swallowed a mouthful, and felt a rush of cool relief. The pain departed instantly.

  Jaxon poked a finger through the bullet hole in her uniform and found the skin had healed. A nearby Tuareg took a hit and she ran to him, her legs feeling fine.

  Another deafening explosion knocked her down before she could get halfway to him. The world went red. She fumbled the jug, sloshing out some of the liquid before she caught it. One of the buildings nearby, the one that looked like a lab on the satellite photo, erupted in flame. Jaxon remembered a brief glimpse she had caught of it in all the chaos when she had jumped out of the truck. It had been where the first explosions had gone up. And now another, more powerful detonation ripped the building apart, sending chunks of concrete in all directions.

  Who was blowing up the lab? That hadn’t been her side.

  Jaxon regained her balance and hurried over to the Tuareg.

  One of his companions knelt beside the body, firing up at the tower. She recognized him as the one who spoke a bit of English. He glanced at Jaxon, then at the man she was lifting up, and said, “He gone to God.”

  “Not yet he hasn’t,” she shouted back over the roar of the man’s assault rifle.

  Again she administered the water left over from Earth’s creation. Within a second the man opened his eyes and sat up. The English-speaking Tuareg gasped with surprise and looked at Jaxon with awe.

  A clatter of bullets hitting the truck reminded Jaxon of why she was out here in the first place.

  She pointed at the truck. “Get away from the truck, it’s going to blow!”

  Her words got drowned out by the gunfire, but her meaning was clear enough. The Tuaregs ran.

  Then Jaxon remembered Vivian. She still lay a few feet from the truck, just now beginning to rise. Because of her terrible wounds, the water had taken longer with her.

  Jaxon sprinted back to her, grabbed her under one arm, and ran towards the ruined lab that lay shrouded by a cloud of smoke.

  I hope they’re done blowing up that building, otherwise we’re going to be stuck between two explosions.

  An instant later, the truck lit up.

  The force of the explosion threw Jaxon and Vivian several feet to land face first in the pile of rubble. Jaxon smacked her head hard. The world spun, the sounds becoming muted. She could barely hear the battle over a painful ringing in her ears. Her lungs filled with smoke and grit and the smell of burning.

  After a minute her head cleared. Blearily she looked around, the scene hazy with the smoke still hanging over the building and the great column of black smoke billowing from the burning truck.

  The first thing she noticed after that was Vivian reloading her gun.

  The second thing she noticed was the jug of healing water. It lay on the ground, empty, its contents spilled on the desert sand.

  Jaxon got onto her knees, trying to get her head together. Gunfire flashed through the smoke. Dimly she could see one whole side of the barbed wire fence off to her left rocking back and forth. Suddenly, with a metallic screech that tore through the ringing in her ears, a large section collapsed and fell to the ground with a crash. The fire from the towers in that direction intensified.

  Closer to her, she saw men from both sides lying on the ground, their bodies torn by the merciless bullets. She felt sorry for them all. None of this needed to happen.

  A breeze wafted away some of smoke and she saw the Jeep standing untouched close to the flaming truck.

  The Jeep! There were several jugs of healing water in the back!

  “Cover me,” Jaxon told Vivian.

  Jaxon didn’t wait to see if the mercenary heard her. She took off running, pushing her body to its utmost to get enough speed to make it through the fusillade alive.

  None of the bullets touched her. She got to the Jeep in less than two seconds and grabbed a water jug in either hand.

  The first person she came across was one of the prison guards. She poured some water into his mouth and on the gaping wound in his chest, kicked his gun out of reach, and ran to the next wounded man. This was a Tuareg. Within a second she had administered the water and ran to the next patient. This time it was a soldier and a rebel lying side by side, dying with the same look of terror on their faces. She helped them both.

  A dim part of her mind heard loudspeakers blaring an urgent message in Arab
ic from all the towers. She didn’t understand it and didn’t have time for it. She saw Elaine lying nearby, cradling her hand. A bullet had passed right through the palm. Jaxon healed it and moved on.

  After helping out another wounded man, she noticed the gunfire slackening somewhat. She didn’t know why and didn’t have time to find out. Mateo lay not far off, his chest riddled with bullets. She poured the remains of one of the jugs all over him and moved on, having no idea whether he would live or not.

  Some of the people she came across were beyond help. Guards and rebels alike had taken their last breath before she could get to them.

  She picked up her speed, sweat pouring from her body, her lungs burning from the smoke and exertion, and she ran at blurring speed from one fallen person to another. She drained the second jug and ran back to the Jeep to get two more.

  It was then that she realized the shooting had stopped entirely. That voice still blared from the loudspeakers. She was about to stop and look for Grunt or Vivian to ask what it meant when she noticed a prison guard with bullet wounds in both legs trying to crawl away. She ran to him. He looked at her, eyes wide with terror and pain, and pointed a pistol at her face. She kicked it out of his hand before he could pull the trigger and knelt down beside him.

  She poured the water on one wound, slapped aside a punch aimed at her head, and poured some more water on the second wound. She left him staring in wonder at his legs, the pistol lying forgotten nearby.

  After tending to three more wounded, she had no one left to heal and she finally took a good look around her.

  What she saw amazed her.

  Firstly, everyone had stopped firing. The soldiers had backed off. The ones in the towers had ducked behind their protective metal walls and weren’t showing themselves. The Tuaregs had hidden behind whatever cover they could and looked around warily.

  The second thing she noticed was that the Atlanteans had broken free. Through the smoke she could see they had torn down most of one wall of the prison camp. One of the towers had been nearby ripped from its foundations and leaned crazily to one side. Several prisoners lay on the ground, obviously shot by that same tower, but a couple of Atlanteans moved among them, pressing their hands against wounds. They were healers like Elaine.