The Atlantis Gene (The Origin Mystery 1)

David watched the massive ship move to the shore and stop. The hologram flickered, as if someone were changing the reel in an antique movie projector. The ship was still there, but the water had risen some. Just beyond the ship, on the edge of the coast, there was a city, if you could call it that. Primitive stone monuments, like a series of Stone Henges radiated out from the ship in semi-circles. Huts with thatched roofs dotted the landscape. A huge bonfire burned in the middle of the stone structures and the hologram zoomed in. A band of humans wearing thick furs were dragging another human, no, an ape. Or, something in between. The ape was tall. He was naked and fought wildly at the captors at his sides. The humans around him bowed as he neared the fire.

From the ship, two flying objects launched. They looked like chariots, or space-aged Segways. They floated a few feet above the ground, racing towards the fire. When they reached it, the humans backed away, bowing and facing the ground.

The Atlanteans dismounted their chariots, grabbed the savage, and injected him with something. They wore some sort of body armor with helmets covered almost entirely by mirrored glass, except the rear part. They threw the ape-man across a chariot and rushed back to the ship.

The hologram flickered again, and the scene changed to the inside of the ship. The ape-man lay in the floor. The Atlanteans were still in their suits, and David couldn’t tell, but it seemed as if they were saying something to each other… the subtle body language, a few hand gestures.

Craig cleared his throat. “We’re still scratching our heads on this one. Bear in mind we only saw them a few hours ago when we got the map from the journal and accessed the chamber, but we think this is a video of the Atlanteans interrupting a ritual sacrifice. The man is a Neanderthal. We think our ancestors considered it their duty to hunt down every man not made in the image of God and sacrifice him. Some sort of early racial cleansing.”

“Is it the same early human that Pierce saw in the tube?”

“Yes, as you’ll see.”

“What happened to it?”

Craig snorted and shook his head. “Kane thawed him in the early thirties, the second he had the Bell operational. We had a time with the power supply. They ran a series of experiments over a few years. They even tried to recreate the ape-man by breeding humans with chimpanzees - his insane humanzee project. Kane finally lost interest when there was no progress. He fed him to the Bell in ‘34.”

“He didn’t survive?”

“No, even after countless thousands of years in the tube. So of course we were shocked when Kate Warner did. We think it has something to do with the tubes, but whatever it does only works on our subspecies. The tubes somehow activate the Atlantis Gene. Whatever she treated the children with has to be connected to the tubes in some way. Our theory is that every human has the Atlantis Gene, but it’s only activated sporadically, and by a select few. Clearly the Neanderthal didn’t have the genetic precursor.”

“The Atlanteans didn’t give them—”

“The gene, no. The working theory is that they didn’t need to. Neanderthals were bigger and stronger than us. And they had bigger brains. They may have even been smarter than us 60,000 years ago. Either way, we know they were cold-weather great apes that resided in Europe, farther away from the TOBA volcano. They probably weren’t in much danger from the eruption, so the Atlanteans didn’t need to save them. But you all probably figured all that out.” Craig nodded to the hologram. “Oh, here’s the money-shot, as they say.”

The image moved out of the lab to an outdoor shot again. Behind the ship, a massive tsunami rose in the air. It must have been 100 feet taller than the ship, which could have easily been 200 feet tall, based on its height relative to the Rock of Gibraltar. The wave washed over the ship and into the primitive city, destroying it in one violent sweep.

The ship was listless, and the wave carried it into the city, flattening the stone monuments and huts as it went. Then the waters receded, dragging the ship with it — more than half the ship was still under water. It dragged the ship out to sea, and sparks flew along the bottom as it skidded against the seafloor below it. Then the hologram flashed red and white as a massive explosion erupted below the ship, ripping it in two, three, now four pieces.

“We think it was a giant methane pocket on the seabed. It exploded with the force of a dozen nuclear warheads.”

The water was rushing back over the broken ship, and the image returned to the lab and the Atlanteans. One of them had been thrown against the bulkhead. The body was limp. Dead? The surviving Atlantean hoisted the Neanderthal like a rag doll and shoved him into a tube. His strength was amazing. David wondered if it was the suit or his natural strength.

The Atlantean turned to his partner and hoisted him up. The image winked out as the man left the room. The hologram followed him as he ran through the ship. He was thrown about — no doubt as the waves rocked the ship and it floated lifelessly to the bottom of the sea. Then he was in the chamber where Craig and David now stood. He worked the panels for a moment. He didn’t actually touch the controls, he merely worked his fingers above them as he held his partner on his shoulder.

The computers shut down one by one.

“We think he’s activating the Bell here. An anti-intrusion device to keep animals like us out. It makes sense. Then he powers off the computers. We’re still scratching our heads at this next part.”

On the hologram, the room was almost dark except for the faint glow of emergency lights. The man stepped to the rear of the room and touched something on his forearm. A door slid open before him. David followed it with his eyes — the door was there, but it had the spear in it now. The Atlantean looked around, paused, and walked through. The door shut behind him — with no spear in it.

David looked back to the door.

“Don’t bother.” Craig shook his head, as if disappointed. “We’ve tried. For hours now.”

“What’s in the door?” David stepped closer to it.

“Not sure. A couple of scientists think it’s the Spear of Destiny, but we’re not sure. We think Patrick, or rather Tom Warner, had it down here, trying to cut a hole in the door or something.”

David edged closer. “The Spear of Destiny?” David knew what it was, but he needed to buy some time and distract Craig.

“Yes. You don’t know it?”

David shook his head.

“Kane was obsessed with it, and Hitler after him. The legend is that the spear was stabbed into the side of Jesus Christ as he hung on the cross, killing him. The ancients believed that any army that possessed the spear could never be defeated. When Hitler annexed Austria, he took the spear, and he only lost it a few weeks before Germany surrendered. It’s one of the many artifacts we collected over the years, hoping it, or anything else from antiquity, would provide clues to the Atlanteans.