Week 41
Day 1
The dawn of our Fortieth One week was a mass of black and tunic descending on us. They came at the breeak of dawn and we fired the cannons and trigger off whatever explosives we have. But there was no way we can overwhelm them. The volleys of cannons shots may bring down a wave of the chimps only to be replaced by anothet wave, When all was in despair, we saw the help that came.
The HELI-PODs are back and they firing their missiles at the chimps on the plateau. Six HELI-PODs with twelve missiles each can be devastating. They cleared the chimps off the plateau; they have retreated down the plateau and seems to be very upset. One of the HELI-PODs landed without trouble as we have not programmed the sensors to shoot at Fed’s as yet. And the their commander came walking towards BASE. I met her at the ground level.
‘Commander Bent, I am here to tell you to stand down. We have given you a reprieve but that may not last. As we speak, the Federations Force Task II is being assembled and its bigger than the first one. This time we will beat the butts off those chimps. I am here to tell you to surrender BASE and Atlantis to us or we will take it by force.’ The woman who stands before is dressed in flying dungarees and is also wearing a handgun in her waist shoulder. She may be the mother of my unborn child but I am not sure I know her anymore.
‘No, Scott. You never knew me. I used you to survive and I needed you to be the father of my child. Nor ours but mine. I never loved you but you assume I did. I did fired at you on instructions from Earth but it was foiled by Pedro. He kicked my leg which why I missed your heart. I am an officer of the Federations’; Forces and always be one. So do you agreed, Commander Bent?’
‘No. And get off my land. I got two battles to fight.’ I turned my back and walked away. To me, Victoria Seeker does not exist anymore.
‘Scott, you will have no chance. I will attack Atlantis now.’ Just as she complete her sentence, I had the snipers fired at the HELI-PODs hovering on the air. They are within shooting distance and I got enough to take down two of the five. The snipers aimed at the weakest part of the HELI-PODs; its tail rotor and shot that off. The two HELI-PODs went into a spin and came down on the plains. It exploded into flames. The rest of the HELI-PODs has extingush their missiles are now left with cannons. That we can counter on with ours. Their general quickly boarded her HELI-PODs and took for safety.
‘Commander, all cannons are programmed to shoot down HELI-PODs now.’
The HELI-PODs won’t hit Atlantis just yet, until they get the TASK FORCE II up and flying. I could buy maybe a day or two for Atlantis. But not for BASE.
‘Cheng, get the men to help you. Take down the cannons; we are leaving soon.’ We had move most of the power packs off to Atlantis. The cannons are already depleted their loads of power packs. I already had BASE Two cannons dismantled and assembled on Atlantis itself. I had ten of the thirteen from SWAMP now at Atlantis. I am adding in twenty of these from BASE leaving only three here now. The Shuttle is on its way here now and will take us all to Atlantis.
BASE will be abandoned and self destruct on my command. It was our home and fire base for forty over weeks and now we are going to leave her. The personnels starts to dismantle the cannons while some of keep watch. Any inquisitive chimps will be shot at to curb their curiousity. Soon the shuttle arrived and we are sending the essential personnels up with any leftover supplies. The last to board is myself and Pedro.
We left the M-Bots behind to defend the place while we take off. I can see the chimps coming by the hundreds now and throwing their spears. Soon they are at the foot of BASE and pulling at the frame or tripods. They are using the logs to batter down the frames. Soon the place is filled with chimps and they seems to be celebrating.
That was when I pressed the trigger on the detonator. The mini nuke I left under the console in my unit, exploded with a force of a hundred explosive barrels. It blew up the plateau and BASE, with the chimps on or near it. The explosion was so intense that we can even fill the vibrations in the shuttle. I looked back to see only a mushroom of smoke at where the plateau used to be. The surrounding area was encased in smoke and dust and little can be seen to be alive there. We were already flying on our way to our new home.
I did not see the HELI-PODs on my way to the city nor do I actually want to care.
Day 2
‘We could not retrieved the Trident using our available equipment. We are talking about two hundred feet and most of us do not dive that deep without the correct equipment. So I decided to winch a W-Bots down. They have tough shell and can withstand the pressure. So we will know soon enough.’ I am standing next to Doctor Tanaki looking at the viewer showing the W-Bots as it about reach the bottom. Its holding well and if it can smile, it would had by now. The W-Bot reached the bottom now and it started moving towards the Trident. My attention was riveted to the screen when the alert went off.
‘Commander, the Fed’s are here.’
I rushed to the nearest console which I can get a viewer on the coming threat. I see like ten HELI-PODs and they are loaded with the missiles. They are fifteen minutes away. I hit the comms and asked for status on the automated twin cannons on the city, currently being placed at strategic locations. They are mostly ready and now doing the fine tuning on the program. That is a relief to me, but can they stopped ten HELI-PODs.
‘Major Shaw, do your best. I will see to the Trident first.’ I went back to the viewer on the W-Bots. Its W-Bits now, as its seems to dissolved into components. It was reaching for the Trident when it went all into pieces. This is ridiculous and time wasting, so I just jumped into the well. I dived and swam down like the lake I used to swim in when I was a kid. It was the most wonderful feeling then to do with my grandfather who taught me how to swim. He used to said to me when I am swimming; ‘swim like Neptune, and he will protect you. Be him and he is you.’
I swam and I reached the W-Bots pieces and the lungs of mine is near bursting. But my eyes caught the Trident and I needed it. Someting drew me to it and I know it. I reached down and the distance between me and the Trident become nearer. Soon I could touch the so called artifact and its throbs on my contact. I reached out further and I had my fingers on it. I grabbed it and I raised the Trident to me. It was then I find myself the additional energy to swim up. I could not feel my lungs but I can breathe as normal.
‘Ahhh....’ I broke the surface and drew my breath in. Its a wodnerful feeling to be breathing again. And more to it, I am holding what may be the Poseidon’s Trident. I swam to the side and climbed out with the Trident still held by me. I half crouched by the side of the well, and have my breathing back to normal.
I stooped down to picked it up and it weighs about a couple of pounds. Everyone gives me a surprised looks. I leaned the Trident against the wall and told them I needed a change of uniform from the wet dive. But that was not going to happened. The missiles came in and rip off some dusts off the dome, but no real damages. But the cannons did do some damages; they shot down three HELI-PODs but the rest withdrew.
Just as always, the worse will come last.
‘Commander, we got a comms from BASE Three. Its urgent.’
‘We are floating down the river now and we just chased off some big crocs away but other than that, we are okay. In a way.’ I disliked when Lieutenant Carlos lied to me. ‘Okay. I lied. We are stuck in some mud banks and we can move for now. So I thought I let you know. ‘
‘More, Lieutenant.’ I know he is holding something back.
‘The chimps are on both side of the riverbanks. They are not peaceful if you asked me for my opinion. So we thought we let you know.’
‘Send the shuttle now. Get ready for evacuation. And self destruct too.’ I looked at Major Shaw who was already making the arrangements.
‘Commander, we got a delay. Shuttle is under maintenance and will fly in two hours, latest or half a day.’ Darned the issue will go more bad when the things worse.
The shuttle did take off two hours later. But they found the BASE on the river banks and its torn apart into sections. The personnels are missing or dead as we cannot find their bodies. We cannot raise them on comms too. But we noted the two MSVs’ are missing and they could be the clue to the personnels.
Eight personnels was in BASE Three.
Day 3
‘We got another situation. Chimps seen marching for here.’ That was Major Shaw comms to me, as I am having my coffee and examining the Trident. Its a three prong straight spear point on a long staff made of a unique metal composition. ‘Come back, Major. I want to take ride on the Shuttle.’
What was once a flat plateau is now crumbled stones and boulders. The Cavern is gone and so are the mines. I had the pilot fly over the Main Village and that is also looking desolate and crumbled. Most of the strcutures are basically torn walls or stand alone pillars. The well paved paths are now covered with debris and grass are already growing. The Holdings moat is now a dumping ground for the torn down walls and any thing they can think of. So are the rest of the villages and outposts; the undergrowth are growing back over it. Its amazing how things grow here. The creatures are having their own land back and they going about their daily lifes. I wonder what did happened to Rexy but I will never know. But there are no chimps to be seen here or around. I was so wrong as I did not looked hard enough; the survivors are on the river banks and jungles. They are in small troops and keeping silent on their hideout. And combined with the oncoming reinforcements, we are talking about maybe three thousand more.
I swung to BASE Three or SWAMP, and saw the structure on the river bank. It has been broken into and sections of it looks ripped off or bitten off. Then I saw the big crocs and I can understand why. The base defenses are down and the reptiles are able to approach it now. A section of the oval structure had broken off and is now partially in the river. I saw two MSV partially submerged in the river.
‘Commander, you are needed back at Altantis.’ Funny, how they adopt the name without any qualms.
Then I saw a sight which I did not think of; Korin standing on the clearing and waving a spear at me at the river bank. She looks upset and I think she wants to kill me. She held up what appeared to be jacket of ours and pierce it with the spear.
Thats’ two female with the same intention. Must be my lucky week.
‘We did some tests on the pillars outside. There are exactly twelve pillars, fifteen on the second ring and thirty three on the last ring. Its stands for the numbers of Olympians’ Gods, fifteen Primodial or the Gods’ equal, and thirty three Titans. The pillars represents the guardian of Atlantis.’ Doctor Indira was narrating this time instead of Doctor Leong.
‘But I thought Poseidon built Atlantis; so would the rest helped him.’ I know that Poseidon and Zeus are not the best of pals, but rivals in their own battles.
‘True, but the guardian here does not mean they are here, but represented by their design or name only. Maybe Poseidon had those constructed to show his position with the rest of the peers. The twelve are the Gods worship by many and holds the world and everything around it, their influence and their source of power. So when the people stopped worshipping them, they leave the place to die by natural causes. It was fabled that Atlantis was swallowed by the sea due to its lack of worshipping for their God, Poseidon did built Atlantis and he was also said to be buried it.’
‘You are telling me if we worship Poseidon now, we might be able to bring the city back to life.That’s too close for comfort.’
‘Commander, worshipping does not mean praying but giving respect or idolising the presence of that person. Like you may love your commanding officer; to follow and act without questioning. Its a form of worship if you asked me, although you may be called it ‘following orders’. Some expressed our admiration for our Professors but that does mean we will be their slaves. We may one day overstep that and they in turn may look to us for more inspiration and ideas.’
‘Okay, you got me there. You are telling me, I have to ‘admire’ Poseidon to emulate his strength and power.’ I looked at the Trident and tried to imagine how Poseidon would had wield the tool.
‘Sort of as you are already chosen by him to carry his spear now you think to make him think you are worth his equal to wield his power.’ Doctor Indira was very articulate in expressing her terms.
‘Doctor, he was a bad dude, you know seducing many around him..... and bad temper.’ I was trying to remember what I remembered of him from my talks with Doctor Leong.
‘Admire, Commander. Not be him; can’t you keep your phallic thoughts to your own private moments.’ That sure took out the pleasure out of the subject.
‘I will try... and I need some time to consolidate my thoughts alone. Private moments, thank you.’ The array of experts left me to my singular pursuit of understanding Poseidon.
‘So Poseidon Trident can move earth and sea; so if I am the only one able to carry it, maybe I can do the same.’ I swung the Trident and everyone near me went down on the floor or crouched down. ‘Can we drop the theater’s act. I want to know if it works or not.’
I tried again, from left and right, and other directions, but nothing happens.
‘Is there any mumbo words I am supposed to recite like ‘hail you clowns?’ But none of the doctors could tell me, and I felt like a real clown holding a trident then. ‘Okay, then find me what’s wrong.’
They all ran off for their respective units or consoles. I looked at the Trident and tried to imagine what could be the magic if any on it. Or it is just an ornamental piece which happened to drop into the well. I leaned the Trident to the wall of my new unit and read the reports which I had not peruse for a week.
Then I remembered some key words that the doctors was telling me. Atlantis was claimed to be founded by Poseidon with his mortal wife; they five twins and he gave them one tenth of his Earth Kingdom to ruled then. They worship him for generations until one day that generations did not do it, in which he destroyed the city he built. Poseidon was also seen in the company of six white horses which pulled his chariots across the seas. He is also claimed to be the one who created the first horse to court Demeter who has changed into a mare. His other mortal wife named Medusa who ‘gave birth’ to a flying white horse named Pegasus when Perseus slay her. It was Amphitrite the rightful wife of Poseidon who changed Medusa to the fabled Medusa with the head of snakes.
I was name by my Grandfather, himself a Native American Cree descent as ‘white horse’ as my dad was part English and Sioux, and my mum a Cree. The Cree and Sioux go back a long way of rivalry and there was also a legend of White Horse Plains. It united a pair of lovers from the two tribes and the horse is the symbol of that pairing. My grandfather said that one day, I will unite the people of the new land and I shall be the white horse to roam the land.
Could I be the one of his White Horses?
Day 4
‘Commander, you are needed at Command Unit.’ We converted the command room which Doctor Bormann found into our’s. And this morning, I am there as usual. No one dares to sit on the three chairs in the centre although the other consoles are all being operated with interface to our portable pads.
‘Commander, we managed to digitalised the sub-terannean structures.’ Doctor Tanaki led me to look at the screen which became to to flicker and then came to livid colors. Its showed a an image of a structures which are upside down. ‘Those structures extend from ours here to the bottom and ... if you think you are looking upside down; you are not. The structures are in the water..... submerged, Commander.’
‘So we are sitting on a lake?’ I am still pictured myself floating on the water.
‘Sort of, or this whole continent is on water.’ I hate riddles and unknown facts.
‘Well, get more facts for me. I will be on the outside yard if anyone needs me. I got to try to used the Trident or we will be fish food soon.’
Blinking thing weighs about a few pounds in my hands, and its silvery in the sunlight. I juggle it on both my hands and it feels nice as a weight lift for my arm’s muscles. And then I dropped it on the yard and it happened. A major tremor went right through the Monolith but the structures held in its place.
‘Commander, we just register a hit of above 7 on the scale. That was one major tremor but we are okay. No ones’ hurt. We are re-calibrating the system as it did not register any pre-tremors indicators.’
‘I.... I think its no tremor, Doctor Tanaki. It could be me..... I meant the Trident. I dropped it and the tremor came.’
I became an instant celebrity. But I was not sure of how and why it happened. As other times, when I dropped the Trident, nothing came out of it.I can’t recall what was it that trigger off the Trident to released the tremor or maybe it was a real tremor.
But I was called into the Command Unit.
‘What you are going to view may be disturbing.’ I focused my attention on the large screen.
‘Good afternoon, Commander. This is a live feed from our pads to the console. We are going to take a tour of one section which we would like you to see. Let us go in now. You will see that we are in a large chamber; the size of about two thousand feet wide and five thousand feet deep. What you see are the rows of glass chambers hanging from the ceiling; we counted about five hundred of them per row and about one thousand per column. Each glass chamber as we will approach it has a panel on it. We did not understand it until we got the computer to translate it twice. Sorry, the chamber is system controlled on the environment including humdity and temperature, lighting and also sound. There is a music being channelled in but our ears are not able to picked it up. Its a series of sounds that repeats itself; like the sounds dophin; you remember dolphins, the fish creature that has uncanny ability to mimic man and gudes lost swimmer at times of needs. Well, we peek at the chamber now.’ The vid-viewer focus on the interior of the chamber and it showed something floating inside. Its reacting to the light that the vid-viewer is emitting.
‘Move back. It does not like the light. Commander, what you are seeing is probably an embryo of an unborned creature; one of those that roams the land here. They were cloned by the Atlanteans.’
Cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of another living creature like a human. The authorities has banned human cloning for over three hundred years now, as it has implications which the world is not ready to accept. There been cases of illegal or improper research or even production of such process. But the ones discovered are destroyed as lab specimens and not allowed to be published any of their notes. To the world even till today, cloning is an extremely controversial issue. But there has been leeway given to ne type of cloning which is the therapeutic cloning. Therapeutic cloning involves cloning of cells from an adult for use in the field of medicine and cure. One of the early research was on stem cells that can stored the orginal DNA of the human who contributed for it. Initially it was wide spread in research and abuse in the field with possible boundary breaches to reproductive cloning caused the research to be heavily curtailed and monitored.
But then been cases as said illegal ones which desperate people calls for it, or the over zealous need to know the unknown. That has brought up the total banning of the process including the above. No total ban can stop it as mentioned above. People with needs overcome rationale and the one very obvious is immortality. If you remember the elixir of life syndrome, people still harbours the thought of living forever, be it in a new body as long as their mentality are retained. It inspired the cloning experiment and there has been rumoured that it suceedded but we are not able to confirm it.
It was reported that the Federations were into it among many other things. We are not trying to demonise the Federations, but they have been seen to be desperate to hold the extra edge. As a military man, I won’t deny either side has their zealots who will do anything to hold the upper edge. Maybe we do have cloned process in place too irregardless of what we read. But its not proven so we can discount it for now. But here now, I am facing the previous inhabitants of this city could be doing it on a mass scale. They are not testing or researching it. They done it.
And a panel of nervous doctors are looking me for the answer to their dilemma. We have not advised Earth Council yet.
We did not complete the discussion past the hour of our rest, so I told them to sit it over till morning.
Day 5
‘Stop, Vickie. Its our son you are holding there.’ I am looking at Vickie on the edge of the cliff holding a baby in her hands. She is stepping back nearer to the edge and looked down the cliff, and then she gave me the looks I seen before many a times.
‘No....’ but she has jumped with my son in her hands.
It was then I woke up. I looked up at the dream catcher but its not there. Its on the side of the bed, and the place is shaking. Then I hear the explosions on the structure. I got up and slipped into my uniform while hugging my comms, but no one replied to me. I ran to the Command Unit with the place shaking but no pieces of the dome are falling on me as yet.
‘Status, Major.’ I climbed into the main seat and watched the large screen. Its shows the HELI-PODs on there; all fifteen of them firing their missiles in turn of five per row. Its a fragging attack at 0600hr, and no coffee served as yet.
‘The cannons, Major?’
‘They are taken offline by someone. We do not know who. But the system is fragged and so is comms.’ This is getting bad by the minute. I held onto the chair for balance and to think. It was then the console on my left light up and a hologram of it appear before me.
‘Frag it....’ I psuehd with my left hand to shut it, but I seem to activate something. The place hummed like its getting alive and the five HELI-PODs in the front row went into a series of explosions. They looked they been hit by lightning bolts.
But from where?
The other ten HELI-PODs took caution and withdrew. So did my hologram screen.
I sure needed that coffee now, and double fast.
‘Dear doctors, and also my esteemed comrades in this world. I don’t know how to start but I will do with today’s morning wakeup call. Like the Trident, I have no fragging idea how and where did I touch that triggerred off the .....bolts that destroyed the HELI-PODs. If anyone has an answer, the floor is open. If not, we will go onto the next topic; the one which we did not complete last night.’ Is it me or the coffee taste better this morning.
‘Commander, I am holding here a list of doctors’ petition that does not condone the process of cloning. We numbered twelve of us to this hour.’ Doctor Tanaki was quick on his feet and it was he who insisted I see the vid-view on the place.
‘Commander, I hold another petition. It contained twelve doctors who can attest to the fact that we cannot hold back research of anything even though its contravene the beliefs of faith. We are not Gods, but we are given the ability by God to think and advance ourselves. We stand by what the Atlanteans’ thought of; research and that includes cloning.’ Doctor Bormann was very passionate in his short speech. His face seemed to bloom up in red when he spoke.
I looked at both doctors and thanked them for their contribution. And I spoke.
‘Cloning to me is just another research and like any research, its supposed to let us know more on the subject matter. In fact, if we did not allowed research we may be still walking on Earth and wearing loincloths. But there are some research not meant for us as yet like the extra hot nukes bombs which we keep on releasing in the core of the Earth. Its our research that make Earth dead like today. But either way we looked at it, its not the logic that matters, but the temptation to be advised. It brings me to the Pandora Box syndrome. For those of who do not know Pandora, I will tell you. I been reading myself thse days. Pandora has everything; beauty, persuasion and above all, curiousity. Pandora is no mortal born by mortal; she was spawn by Zeus helper from the earth ground. She was given a box to hold and told not to open it. Due to her curiousity, she did and all the evils in the world came out. She tried to close the box lid back but they are all out, except one; hope. She kept that locked. She did not let hope escape her.’
‘So what is hope? Hope is a hold onto something which may make things better. Hope has been mankind’s salvation in times of need. Hope has kept us going for over last forty weeks. Hope has also despair us sometimes as we faced so many hardships and losses of loved one. But in hope, we hope to make it good for the ones living.’
‘But does hope tells us to be equal to the Gods’ in their work? If there was hope here, why did the Atlanteans’ leave this place too. And more to it, they buried it deep into the Monolith. With the cloning process, they could had developed more of them to populate the world. But they did not. So why? And until we learned why, we will abandon all hopes to cloning for now. For now, the cloning section is closed to all.’ I walked out of the discussion as I have a spy to catch.
‘Tell me, Cheng.’
‘The cannons were taken off the grid by a dampener on the circuits. It was not firing as it could not fire due to the unit.’ He showed me the unit; size of my palm and ist Fed’s made. ‘Some one knew that the cannons are all linked to the master program in one of the cannons. That dampener was found on the switch on the particular cannon. It jammed the commands and locked us out. It was a fail safe in th system for roque programs that may infect the cannons system. We have a manual switch on one of the cannons which can override the system and shut it down. Its hidden in the cannon base and only the main technicians knows it. In this case, all the senior officers knows it.’
‘The comms?’
‘I checked with the Comms guys, the system was hacked in and shut down by a remote console in the Dome. But we do not know which one; its pinging the signals everywhere.’
Darned it. Now I got a spy or a Fed’s sympathiser.
I got Joseph on the job.
Day 5
Joseph Bat turned up dead the next morning on the outside yard. He was killed by a K2 Blade, used by the military.
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