Jack Canyon and The Superweapon of Atlantis | CHAPTER FOUR

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Jack Canyon sat at the head of an oval-shaped wooden table in
the conference room of the Mediterranean Pearl. To his left
along the side of the table were Katelyn and Captain Rallis.
To his right sat Erin Sawyer and Atawhai Tangaroa. Everyone
awaited Jack's grand explanation of things.

He took in a deep breath before explaining anything. He
glanced around at everyone's anticipation. It had been his
mother's lifelong research that led him to his current
conclusions.

"Okay, Jack, spill it," Erin urged him.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied. "So, here it goes. My mother spent
her entire life chasing after her dream of finding Atlantis,
or finding some real evidence that it existed. I don't think
I ever got the whole story. . ." He looked up at Kate.

She looked disappointed for a moment. "I was hired by a
woman, Baroness Johanna Mahler, who told me she had been doing
an entire satellite scan of several countries. Most of them
were along the Mediterranean Sea. It started off with us
leading the excavation, then it turned into translating
symbols on doors and this one scroll we found."

The others were looking at the journal pictures of the scroll
and its translation.

"From that point, we were convinced that it was from
Atlantis," Katelyn continued. "She was hellbent on Atlantis
being some kind of superpower thousands of years ago. A lot
like Hitler, she believed the original uber-humans or Aryans
inhabited Atlantis. She also believed it to have been
advanced with machines, and something she called the
super weapon."

"What happened?" Tangaroa asked.

"She wanted us to transfix a location for Atlantis, but we
were unable to," Kate announced. "She started killing us one
by one, until I was the only one left. She kept me alive,
even mailed my journal home to Jack."

"I was obviously out on my Wiccan Stone run when this
occurred," Jack admitted. "They had sent it to me nearly six
months before I returned home. She must have gotten tired of
waiting, decided to destroy the journal and me."

"Apparently she failed," Erin added.

"Yeah, and Jack came for me, using the return address on the
package," Katelyn said. "Foolishly, he was captured, and
escaped, barely. That's how we got here."

"Right," Erin said. "But what does this all have to do with
Atlantis, and Libya?"

"I'm getting to that," Jack replied. "See, The Libyan Scroll
was the first clue, and the only clue as far as we were
concerned. We were lucky enough to come here just in time.
It seems this coffin comes from the same source. The source
of this symbol."

"Atlantis." Tangaroa spoke.

"Exactly," Jack responded as he leaned back in his chair.
"Now, let's do the math."

"Not your strong point," Erin chimed in.

Jack straightened himself and glared at her before continuing.
"Let's say this guy was the only survivor to flee Atlantis."

"Why?" Rallis asked, breaking through his silent spell.

"Just go with me on this," Jack answered.

"No, why would he be the only survivor?" Rallis questioned
him.

"Well, if our friend the Baroness is right, these people
valued superiority, the smartest of the smart," Jack replied.
"They would have wanted their top genius to survive and pass
on their legacy, right?"

"He didn't make it too far," Tangaroa stated. "He was right
in the middle of the Mediterranean."

"What if the Mediterranean wasn't a sea?" Erin asked.

"What?" Jack shifted again in his seat.

"Think about it," Erin continued. "If a large enough island
in the Atlantic was to sink, water would pour into it."

"That won't explain how our guy got here, though," Tangaroa
pointed out.

"What if he traveled by boat?" Jack asked. "I mean, this is
simply a hypothesis session, but he would have been fleeing
via boat, and got caught up in some tidal wave that pushed him
into the Mediterranean. Though, the water couldn't have
filled it completely in a fast amount of time."

"So, how long did it take?" Rallis asked, interested in their
discussion now.

"Maybe a week or two," Tangaroa stated. "That's not enough
time to build a tomb, though."

"What if we're looking at this all wrong?" Erin asked. "What
if they had more time to evacuate?"

"Then why aren't there more accounts like this one?" Jack
added.

"Maybe they too had problems," Erin replied. "I mean, they
could have all went out in different directions to better
their chances of survival. Some might have been caught in a
tidal wave just the same, maybe even killed by it."

"That's not a bad thought," Kate told her.

"Can we focus on our one guy for a moment?" Jack asked,
hoping to get them back to the task at hand.

"I like their input, son," Kate said to him.

"Do you think that Atlantis had been sinking into the sea for
some time?" Tangaroa asked. "Maybe they knew they could not
stop it. This guy might have carried some of their documents
and died somewhere. His men could have built a tomb and
buried him. Then with the complete sinking of Atlantis, the
Mediterranean flooded. All evidence was lost."

Jack stared at Tangaroa for a while. He was speechless at the
man's hypothesis. "Maybe that scroll was washed out by all
the water! It all fits. It's all good."

"The only way to know what's true is to find Atlantis," Kate
told them all.

"Then why don't we get out there and examine our coffin now
that it is good and dry," Jack announced as he began to stand.
Everyone soon stood with him.

"So, anyone want to bet on who is right?" Tangaroa asked as
they all hurried out toward the coffin.

Jack laughed slightly, knowing it was the typical Tangaroa.
Once they were outside, they were amazed at their find.

Atawhai looked into the sky, noting that it was midday
already. He placed his hands on his hips as Kate pulled her
journal from her back pocket. "So, what are we looking for?"

"Locations, coordinates, anything that points the way to
Atlantis," Jack answered.

"Maybe even constellations," Erin added with a smile. "People
back then used the stars to map their locations. It was
common knowledge to sailors. Why not to the geniuses of the
Atlantic Ocean?"

Jack gave Tangaroa a look. He hated when that girl made sense
of things. Ever since he knew her, she had always tried to
throw her knowledge into the midst of things. She was always
trying to outshine the man.

"Hmm," Kate said as she shifted her reading glasses and moved
in closer.

"What is it, Mom?" Jack asked her.

She tapped the shield's symbol as she looked up at the others.
"This is Talus, our resident Atlantis scientist."

Jack stood in awe for several minutes. What were the odds?

"Who's Talus?" Erin asked.

"He was the one who wrote the scroll I translated in Libya,"
Kate announced. "It says he came from the west. From the
vast Sea of Atlas."

"Are you sure?" Tangaroa asked, receiving a death glare from
Katelyn. "I guess so."

"These characters are like that of the scroll," Kate admitted.
"They're almost a mixture of Greek, Latin, Arabic,
everything. I mean, its really hard to figure out unless you
can spot the slight differences."

"Okay, so we know that Atlantis is in the Atlantic Ocean,"
Tangaroa spoke.

"I don't know," Jack argued.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Tangaroa yelled. "It's
plain and simple."

"The vast Sea of Atlas," Jack repeated. "The Atlantic is a
large place to look."

"Is there anything else?" Erin asked.

"Yeah, something about the 'twin pillars'," Kate read off more
of the shield.

"That must be the Pillars of Heracles," Tangaroa announced.

"Then it's settled," Erin cried. "We're going into the
Atlantic Ocean!"

"Does it say anything about how far?" Jack asked.

"No, it doesn't," Kate said as she leaned away from the coffin. She removed her reading glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. "But we can't forget the story of Atlantis itself for clues."

"What do you mean?" Tangaroa asked.

"Some accounts say there was a volcano," Erin stated. "Earthquakes were involved, too."

"Azores," Jack announced happily.

"What?" Erin questioned, not quite understanding what he was saying.

"It's a cluster of Portuguese Islands on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge," Jack said.

"Of course," Tangaroa said, seeing what he meant now. "Along the ridge there has been numerous reports of earthquakes and volcanic activity."

"Alright, then," Jack spoke. "Let's tell the Captain to set a course."

They all headed up to the bridge to find the captain, since he had disappeared earlier.

"Captain!" Jack called out as they reached the bridge. "We were wondering where you had wandered off to."

"I got called away," Rallis stated. "Sorry." He turned back to look our at the horizon. "We have incoming ships. We've been trying to hail them, but to no avail."

"The Baroness," Jack told him. "She's found us."