Finding Atlantis - Ch11
#10 of Finding atlantis
One more for the books. I'm starting to worry a bit about the ending. I just not comming up with anything good enough. Never fear though, I wont stop working until I end this right. I refuse to leave anything hanging! as always, have fun and don't be afraid to share your thoughts.
"Oh God, No!" Ariana had been shot! I saw motion from the guard shack. One of the guards had managed to regain consciousness. Without even thinking, I grabbed one of the hand dollies and threw it at the guard who was standing unsteadily in front of the shack. I heard the distinct sound of bones crunching as the metal frame connected with his chest The momentum drove him back into the wall where he slumped over the cart, not that I was paying attention. Before he even hit the ground I was at Ariana's side. What scared me more than anything however, was the nothingness in my own mind. She was gone. My head felt empty, utterly alone.
Only, I could see her breathing.
The bullet seemed to have passed through from the back of her shoulder and out the front; she was bleeding everywhere.
I ran to the jet and grabbed one of the robes we had brought and tore off a couple of strips. I raced back to her side. She had passed out from loss of blood, but the wound was clean, and I didn't think the bullet had hit anything vital, but there was no time to waste. I bandaged her shoulder as best I could, carried her to the cockpit, and set her in the passenger seat. I jumped into the pilot seat and took off. I started back East, toward the Rockies. Ariana still hadn't come around. I had to get moving.
The canisters were still banging around behind me so I landed quickly to take them on board. With them hanging behind us we would spotted the minute we got close enough to an airport. Plus I didn't want to go too far with them banging around in the wind; they were full of plutonium after all.
I landed in a secluded valley and hopped out to slide the canisters into the cargo hold. They were really heavy, but after about twenty minutes, I had wrestled them in to place. I was just closing the hatch when I felt a pinch on my back. I reached around to scratch it and my hand ran into something. A dart. "What the.. oh shit." I muttered as the world began to swim around me. Then everything went black.
White. Everything was white, and blurry. I was laying on my back on an uncomfortable bed that crinkled like it was made of vinyl. The air smelled clean, like a hospital. I laid there for a few minutes until my vision started to clear up. I was in a prison cell of sorts. I was laying on a bed chained that was to the wall. There was a toilet and a sink along the back. All stainless steel and white plastic. The floor was polished concrete. I couldn't see any guards, but I had the feeling that there were plenty around. The wall that faced the hallway was made entirely of clear bars. Past those, on the other side of the hall was a camera that hung down from the ceiling. I sat there for a while, waiting for the dizziness to go away. Then I herd voices coming down the hall accompanied by approaching footsteps.
"But how did he get there?" It was a strong masculine voice that was charged with authority.
"We don't know. He seemed to be doing something, but when we went to investigate, there was nothing there." The second voice was younger and slightly shaken, like he was a barer of bad news to someone, who really didn't like bad news.
"He must have had a aircraft of some kind. What about the Plutonium?" The first voice plied again.
"Sir, we looked everywhere. There was nothing in the aria but the target."
"Ah, and speaking of the target..." I herd the footsteps stop so I looked up. A big gray man in uniform was standing in front of my cell.
"This is quite a predicament your in Adam." He said. "Yes I know you. How you survived the crash I'll never know, But the moment your cell phone came back online, I was tracking you."
He sighed, "I'm surprised you weren't more careful about that. Now you're here, inside Aria 51, and everybody thinks you died a month ago. He paused for a second to make me think about the current circumstance. "This is a particularly bad position for someone as 'unique' as yourself. There are plenty of people here who would die to figure out what makes you tick." again he paused to let his words sink in. "Now, I can make them go easy on you, but you've got to tell me where that Plutonium is."
I looked up at him. "Who are you?.. It doesn't matter, listen I have to get out of here or..." he cut me off.
"My name is Agent Frank Martin." He read the expression on my face and sighed. "You need tell me everything that's happened to you since the crash, or things will get very messy for you."
I thought for a moment, Did it really matter if they knew about Atlantis? They would never believe me, but still, I didn't think it would be wise to let any government agency have something as powerful as the Atlantian virus. I had worked in government enough to know that certain things were better left un-discovered.
"Fine," I agreed, "but you have to tell me something. Where is my research? Where did you take my lab equipment."
"Don't worry about that, It's in good hands now. That reminds me, you went parading yourself around in front of- oh, what was her name? I believe you referred to her as Scottie. Poor thing. You know we had intended to leave her out of it, but you had to go and make her curious." He replied.
What did you do to her." I growled.
"I don't quite remember, but perhaps if you helped jog my memory..." he stood quietly and waited.
"Fine, You want to hear my story?" I started. "You won't believe it, but I 'll tell you." I preceded to tell him about my accidental trip to Atlantis. Of course, I left out a few minor details like how close I had become to the locals (one in particular). I also left out the tesseract. As far as he knew, I just warped my way there. But I made sure to emphasize the danger the Taki represented. How they had taken out so much of Atlantis, literally without warning.
When I finished, he sat still for a minute. Then his eyes narrowed as he said, "No, I don't think so. You want to know what I think? They sent you. They sent you to get a sample of our Plutonium. We know that they don't have anything as destructive as fission. They may be more advanced, but they have nothing with so much raw power. No, They did who knows what to you, and got you to come back to do their bidding."
He turned to walk away, obviously done talking to me. "Sargent. Contact the orbiter. Tell them to get their asses back here yesterday. They know we're here. We need to hit them before they can hit us. Oh," he paused for a few seconds and added as an afterthought, "Send in someone to get a DNA sample from this... animal. I want to know everything about him."
He whipped out a cell phone as he stamped through the door. As It swung shut behind him I could hear him speak loudly into the phone "Collin, He's back. Dark Sparrow's hit a bit of a snag.."
Once again I was alone.
'What the hell! So much for my research. Now what am I going to do?! What can I do, I'm stuck-
Adam!
Wait a minute. I could feel.. could it really be, yes! Ariana! Her voice was weak, like yelling through a blizzard, but it was her.
'Where are you?! Are you okay?'
I am fine, we have been looking everywhere for you!
'Ariana, I'm so sorry, I should have seen him coming.'
Nonsense, I should not have been shot. That was my own stupidity, but we can argue about that later. We are coming for you.
'Who is we?'
Corinth came to get us. The Takian transport ships are empty! They are coming to pick up their Army. All of them.
'That's- great, but why?'
Corinth says he thinks they are headed for earth.
Then it all clicked. I felt Ariana's shock as the pieces fell together in my head. I heard the officer's words echo back through my head "We need to hit them before they can hit us."
he's right.
I felt Ariana's shock as she too realized what was about to go down.
We have to get you out of there.
I had no argument with that, so I sat and watched as Ariana And Corinth made their way to the fence outside the building I was in.
Can you meet us halfway?
'Sure'
I had been studying the bars to my cell, they were a sort of clear, high poly plastic strips, woven together to make a mesh. I figured that they used it so that they could see in better.
It was plenty strong for any human, even I couldn't bust my way through, but I saw a way around it. I looked at the latch that held the door shut. It was stainless steel and bolted to the plastic. I started to induce a current in the latch. I knew that if I could heat it up enough I could soften the plastic. I worked steadily. It took all I had, but I was able to get the metal bolts so hot that I could smell the plastic as It began to soften. This kind of plastic never melted completely, but it would soften with heat. Suddenly I was interrupted by a loud bang in the room on the other side of the door.
Time is up.
I backed up to the far wall and pushed off, twisting in mid air so that my foot slammed into the latch with a powerful drop kick. I smiled as I heard the bolts rip free of their holes. I rolled up to my feet As a familiar vixen and cat sprinted through the door, followed closely by the sound of gunfire and yelling soldiers.
"Good to see you have everything under control!" I shouted as they approached me. They still hadn't slowed down.
"Just shut up and run." Collin shouted back. As soon he said that a group of three very pissed soldiers came through the door and opened fire down the hall. I noticed that both Ariana and Corinth had one wrist behind their backs. 'Shields. Good.'
You get one too.
"Thanks." I grabbed the wrist band shield she tossed me.
"So how are we getting out of here?" I yelled over the pounding gunfire.
"Same way we got in."Collin announced.
"Great!"
Ariana reached into a fanny pack around her waist. And threw a shiny metal sphere at the soldiers. I ducked as I realized what it was. An Atlantian grenade. The blast left me deaf for a second, but we had to make the best of the confusion. I was sure that more soldiers were pouring into the building every moment.
We ran for the door. Working off Ariana's memory, I knew that there would be a door to the outside at the far end of the room. Unfortunately, as soon as we made it through the door, we were met by a row of soldiers that stretched from wall to wall. "You guys are nuts!" I shouted, as the gunfire quickly pinned us down behind a counter
"I have an idea." shouted Ariana. "Cover me."
Corinth and I shielded her as we made our way over to the side wall she set down another grenade, This time she took a full two seconds to charge it up. This was going to be seriously loud. The gunfire had died off as the soldiers prepared to rush us. Meanwhile the clock was ticking on Ariana's
little toy, so I grabbed Collin drug him over the counter. We were now on the wrong side, exposed to the soldiers, but as they began their charge, the bomb went off. I had my ears plugged as best I could, (It was surprisingly hard to do the way they were built) but I still felt the concussion. It threw the running soldiers on their backs while we sprang over the counter to find a six foot wide hole blown in the wall.
I saw that the wall hadn't been as much blown up as ripped apart. The metal siding was still there but it was twisted back in strange looking shapes. Even the thick metal supports were twisted like a deranged artist had intentionally bent them that way. the wood two by fours and insulation were splintered and ripped, but not charred. There were chucks of drywall and wood everywhere.
'You are a genius Ariana.'
I know.
'Modest too'
She giggled.
"Are you two coming or what?"Corinth hollered over his shoulder. He was already half way across the runway. We took of after him. I saw him reach up into the air and whip his arm to the the side. Suddenly there was the inside of the cockpit of our jet. He climbed in and slid to the side to make room for Ariana and myself. I heard bullets start pinging off the jet in front of us and saw the little explosions in the dust at our feet as we piled into the ship. We were in the air before the door was even shut. It was kind of cramped in there with three of us, but we were alive. As we acceded into the atmosphere, I looked back to see a very confused group of soldiers wandering around in the middle of the runway.
"So what now?" I asked.
"We go back to Atlantis." Ariana said simply, "The Takian army must not reach earth."