Weapon of Atlantis (26 page)

“Quickly, the air masks,” he shouted in near panicked tone.

He rushed between Jack and Javi, into the engine compartment and retrieved a breathing mask. He placed it on his face and took several deep breaths. Right behind him, Jack and Javi did the same. They strapped individual air tanks to their backs, then donned arctic parkas and pants, as well as gloves.

“I’m glad someone realized the cold at this depth. It’s got to be thirty degrees in here now,” Javi commented.

“Thirty-four degrees, to be exact… at least that’s what the science geeks tell me,” Wexler responded. He pointed to the lab and said, “Who wants to go first?”

“I do,” Jack responded,
clumsily pushing his way past the two, while acclimating to the heavy air tank and thick clothes.

He rushed through the cockpit and into the airlock of the lab. Inside, h
e looked around. As Javi and Wexler followed in behind, the three noted the emptiness of the room.

“Man, it’s like a steel cell,” Jack
said aloud, his voice echoing, through his facemask.

“Very clean too,” Javi added, while readjusting the fit of the mask around his face.

Wexler noted double doors and a panel on the rear wall.

“That’s got to be the way in. You guys know how to work that control panel?” he asked.

Javi nodded. “This is where it gets interesting. The scepter is obviously powering the door and the lights. Let’s see if it powers the door lock too,” he said.

Jack walked to the control panel and waved his
ungloved hand over it. Instantly, a set of buttons illuminated. He turned and smiled through his mask at the other two.

“Yup, we’re in,” he said
excitedly.

As the two came close, he rubbed hi
s finger over one of the lights. Instantly, the two doors swept open, disappearing inside the walls. The three stared in awe at the brightly lit room in front of them. Measuring thirty feet square, there were rows of tables and desks that lined the walls and inner space. Cabinets hung from the steel walls and shelving covered many of the desktops. Spread across the tables, large arrays of equipment seemed ready for work, and round disks, similar to the hologram in the spacecraft, lay just beside them, ready to dispense data at a moment’s notice.

“Oh my God! This is it. This is their lab,” Javi shouted, barely able to contain his enthusiasm.

Grinning ear to ear, Jack said, “Incredible. It looks similar to our modern labs.” He walked in and pointed, “Look, containers and instruments… hologram tables everywhere.”

Suddenly, Jack stopped. Looking down at the floor, he noted what appeared to be a large pile of dust and rags. He stepped closer and realized the sight.

“Oh Shit!” he blurted in surprise.

“What is it Jack? What’d you find?” Javi asked,
hurrying around of a table, Wexler following right behind him.

Jack pointed to the ground.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think this is a body,” he said in grim tone.

Wexler bent down. He pulled a pen from inside his heavy coat and poked at the mound. The pen seemed to push through the debris with ease.

“I think you’re right. This material I’m working through is definitely some kind of cloth,” he said with mild interest.

He pushed the debris aside and stopped. He tapped his pen on a hardened surface.

“Yup, definitely a corpse. Appears to be mummified,” he added.

“This must be the last moment when
the lab was attacked,” Jack said, in realization. “I’m guessing there’s probably a lot more around here too.”

“Poor guys,” Javi said in deep sympathy. “Never had a chance.”

“It’s the nature of war,” Wexler responded callously. He stood, stowed his pen back inside his heavy coat and pointed. “Keep moving,” he ordered.

Jack shot him an irritated expression, then turned. A few steps further into the lab, he spotted another mound of mummified remains. He moved to investigate, but was stopped short by Wexler.

“Leave it,” he ordered. “We don’t have time to examine every pile of dust we see.”

Once again, Jack shot him a disapproving stare, then moved on. As he walked toward another set of double doors at the rear of the room, he ran his hand over large containers made of crystal, speculating on their usage. Behind him, Javi touched metal instruments used in scientific experiments: some he understood their purpose, others were indistinguishable.

As they stepped to the rear doors, Jack took off his glove again and waved his hand over a wall-mounted control panel. He pushed a lighted button, opening the doors. Once more, a rush of cold stale air swept past them. They stared down a long hall that seemed to separate the facility with closed doors on both sides of the hall.

“The lights continue on past the lab…
a good sign,” Wexler stated approvingly.

The long hall stretched on for more than two hundred feet. On each side, many doors marked the entrances to rooms that seemed to occur at consistent intervals. Jack moved to his right, waved his hand over a control panel and opened the first door along the hall. Instantly, the lights came on, illuminating its interior. Looking inside, they realized the fifteen by fifteen foot room had been someone’s living quarters. A thin single-person bed seemed to stick out from a wall. Shelves and simplistic furniture adorned the room’s perimeter. At a far corner, a desk with a hologram table sat empty, but seemingly ready for work.

Jack walked to the bed and pressed down on it.

“Wow, remarkably comfortable,” he said in surprise. “I call dibs on this one tonight,” he joked.

Javi and Wexler pressed on the bed and nodded.

“It
is
comfortable,” Javi concurred.

“Ok, it’s just a room. Let’s move on,” Wexler ordered. “We don’t have time to search the entire building. We’ll look at a couple more, then get to work,” he said.

Quickly, they moved to the next room, opened and looked inside. Just like the first room, this one too, was a living quarters. Unlike the first, mummified remains were stretched out on the bed.

“Damn, they got him wh
ile he was sleeping,” Jack said surprised.

“He was probably dead before he even knew what hit him. It’s
a nice way to die,” Wexler said thoughtfully.

Javi glared back at him in disgust.
Even through Javi’s face mask, Wexler could see his foul expression.

“A nice way to die?” Javi
blurted.

Wexler nodded, unaffected by
his condemnation.

“If it’s going to happen, better off not knowing and dying quick, instead of some protracted death,” he reasoned.

“I guess,” Javi responded in unconvincing tone.

The three men opened four more doors. Each room appeared the same. As they opened the seventh door in sequence, the size of the room was the same, but the interior was completely different. Spread around the perimeter, they noticed shelving and counters that seemed to indicate the room’s purpose: kitchen and dining. At the room’s center was a table, eight feet in diameter, supported at its center by a single post. Spaced around it, were six chairs. Jack stared in shock. Two held the remains of alien people slumped over onto the tabletop, their faces seemingly resting on top of dinner plates. On the floor, a ring of dust encircled the base of the chair.

“Huh… their arms and legs fell off,” Wexler comment with curiosity. “I wonder why they detached but the torso remained intact.”

Jack glanced to Javi, both men recognizing the strangeness of the remark. As the silence grew more uncomfortable, Wexler motioned for them to move on. The three exited the room and moved to the next in line.

Walking slightly ahead, Jack opened the next door and stepped inside. On what appeared to be a couch, the dusty remains of another alien person lay spread across it. He shook his head in sympathy, then scanned the room. Looking to his right, he stopped and stared in disbelief. His mind raced as he struggled to formulate a plan. In seconds, a smiled curled the corners of his mouth.

Quickly, he backed out of the room. With deliberate and exaggerated movements, he waved his arms as Javi and Wexler approached.

“Don’t go in there guys. There’s another one,” he shouted, his tone sounding saddened and disturbed.

“Another body?” Wexler asked, only mildly interested.

Jack nodded.

“Yeah… and I’ve gotta tell ya, I’m getting real sick of looking at all this death. Is this really necessary? Do we really need to keep looking at all these dead guys? I vote for going back and looking at more positive sights… like biological weapons,” Jack said, hoping his twisted humor would appeal to Wexler.

Wexler grinned.

“I’ll second that motion. We’ve wasted too much time sightseeing as it is,” he said, pleased with Jack’s proposal. “Let’s get back there and do some real work.”

Back inside the lab, Javi and Jack picked a table nearest the remains of the first person found, hoping the last pages of data on his hologram would reveal clues to the whereabouts of the biological weapon. Javi waved his hand over the device, instantly starting it. A smile spread across Wexler’s face, relieved the system was operational.

Although their bulky clothing and air tanks made work awkward and clumsy, they quickly settled into a routine.

Within minutes of reading, Javi’s face appeared troubled. He paged backward through the data, skimming through the content, retracing the entries as they were added seven thousand years before.  Very quickly, Wexler began to notice the negative expression through his facemask.

“Did you find something?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to find the beginning of the document, but each time I flip backward, the data takes me down other disturbing tangents,” Javi responded, still reading.

“What do you mean, ‘disturbing’?” he demanded.

“It’s too soon to tell,” he responded with hesitation.

“Try,” Wexler demanded.

Javi nodded reluctantly.

“It appears whoever made this entry, was still working on his experiment… which leads me to believe they never finished. The more I dig, the more I’m finding unresolved data.
”

“Explain,” Wexler demanded once more.

“It appears they may have been caught in a catch-22 situation: they couldn’t proceed until they resolved previous issues, but couldn’t perform the previous issues without first solving the main problem.

“What’s the main problem?”

“It appears they were trying to work out an issue with some kind of enzyme, experimenting with different proteins, trying to speed up metabolic reactions in cells,” Javi explained.

“Sounds like mumbo jumbo to me. What’s that got to do with a biological weapon?” Wexler asked, growing frustrated.

“I just started. Give me a few hours and I’ll be able to tell you more,” Javi said in apologetic tone.

“This better not be a trick,” Wexler threatened. “Remember, there
’re men
way
higher than my pay grade that’ll be scouring every detail of your reports. If your data doesn’t add up, they won’t give you a second chance to prove yourself. They’ll just kill you and replace you with someone they can trust.”

“You can trust us,” Jack cut in. “We’re not holding back. The world i
s filled with weapons. What’s one more? We just want to get out of here alive.”

Wexler nodded and flashed Jack an approving smile.

“Glad to see your priorities are straight,” he said. “You do this right, and I promise you, you will.”

For the next few hours, the room was nearly silent as Javi and Jack scanned through the files on the hologram. As they read, they recorded notes on a notepad. From time to time, Wexler skimmed through them for content. Satisfied with their progress, he returned to his seat and sat guard over them, playing a handheld game to pass the time.