Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1
The first chapter in my book, Phoenix Rising. To visit the homepage: Atlantis
Currently, Chapter 1 is undergoing maintenance, but I like to keep all my material on the page until it's completely finished. The stuff at
14:07 Hours, Military Clock, December 10, 2012, Paris, France
"We need you to come with us." The quiet voice reverberated through the crowded street. Despite the noise it was clearly audible.
I paused in the act of examining a book, replacing it on a shelf in the vendor's stall. "Excuse me?" I asked, low and deadly.
The three soldiers simply stood, not bothering to answer.
"What, exactly, is supposed to happen if I say no?"
"Then I would be very unhappy. And you wouldn't want to see that, no you wouldn't." The leader of the three soldiers spoke up, slowly, with only a trace of a French accent in his tone.
"Okay, skipping the macho banter here, I'm gonna go ahead and say get lost. Now. I'm not sure how things go in France, but in my country people have rights, such as the right to exist on a sidewalk. So, like I said, get - lost. Compris?"
"We were told you would not cooperate. No matter. We have other means of... persuasion." The army guy responded. Although le merchand, the stall-vendor, didn't speak English, the tension building in the air couldn't have been cut with a plasma knife, and the guy picked up on it. He suddenly decided he'd rather be someplace else at that moment, and hurriedly slammed the metal curtain of the street-stall and locked it.
The other citizens and tourists along the road appeared to have similar reactions, because within moments the packed street had become mostly desolate.
Except for a bunch of mean-looking, burly guys dressed in Camouflage fatigues and black Kevlar, toting the French Foreign Legion's FAMAS assault rifles. Eight of them moved to surround me, with two men on the roof of the apartment complex across from him. One shooter one spotter.
I cursed. This would either be really fun or really painful. Probably the latter.
I took another glance around. I was on the corner of a what-used-to-be crowded intersection, swarmed by cafe's and cute shopping stalls selling all kinds of trinkets. Across the now empty street was the hotel complex, behind me was the cafe, and along the road to both sides were more shops and dwellings.
Without a second's warning, the lead Frenchie soldier dove for me. I, sixteen and 5 foot 11 inches, weighed in at 160 pounds. I was built stocky and strong, but the Frenchie captain had a good 4 inches on me and probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 pounds.
I fell under the soldier's heavy tackle but came out of it on top, knee pressed into the soldier's poorly armored kidney and fists mashing the Frenchie's face into a pulp. The soldier's buddies converged, but I rolled away suddenly as one swung his rifle. I jumped onto that one's back and wrestled the rifle from the soldiers grip, tossing the soldier over my hip as I did so, copying an effective move I had learned from my friends at school who took wrestling.
Before the Frenchies had time to regroup, I sprinted off for the Apartment complex, weaving in and out of the passing cars as the soldiers opened fire.
Real bullets, too, I discovered, as they shattered windshields, blew tires, and peppered the chassis of the different cars I was putting in between him and the assault rifles.
Then the snipers up top started firing, just to add to the fun. I ducked and rolled and weaved as bullets landed all around me, still clutching the stolen rifle.
The soldiers on the ground got up and followed me . My keen ears picked up the irregular whines of police sirens not far away, and the beat of a helicopter rapidly approaching. As I ran, I pulled my cell and started dialing Jamie's number. This wasn't good. If I was under attack, so were the others.
I had come with my three best friends, Jamie Campbell, Holly Dayne, and Scarlett Miller. And me, Matt Kenderson. Two guys and two girls on winter vacation in Grande Paree.
Jamie answered on the second ring. As I happened to know he was wearing jeans, that was quite a feat. "They're after you too, huh?" Jamie asked, sounding out of breath.
"You don't say," I gasped as I ducked a security guard. I kept running for the elevator, dodging and weaving in between security, putting as many objects between me and those guns as I could.
"I suggest a meeting place. Call Holly and Scar." I said. "Are they on your tail?"
"What do you think?" Jamie shouted, then was followed by a muffled thunk.
"Jamie?! You there?" I yelled frantically.
"Yeah. Just took out one of the Frenchies."
I didn't have time to answer him before I dropped low to the ground, swept out my attacker's legs, and clubbed him with the rifle. I took that guy's sidearm, too, and some extra ammo off his thinly-moaning body, then dove into the waiting elevator just as it closed.
"Alright, this line is probably tapped by now, but I think you know where to go." I huffed into the receiver, catching my breath.
"Among friends?" Jamie asked.
"Yeah. I'll get Holly, you tell Scar. Make sure to lose the tails first."
"Roger that. Out." Jamie said, then closed the connection. Before I could dial Holly she called me.
"They after you yet?" She asked.
"Yeah. You too? Great. I just got off the phone with Jamie, we're coordinating a meeting point. Among friends."
"Gotcha," Holly acknowledged. "See you in ten?"
"Yeah, but lose the tails first. And maybe more like twenty."
"That bad, huh? Alright, see ya, don't die on me. They're using real bullets."
"So I discovered. Bye."
Just as I returned my cell to a Velcro pocket of my cargo shorts, a shuddering, banging sound filled the elevator shaft. I pulled the charging handle halfway, to make sure there was a round in the chamber, then thumbed the safety off. I knew how to use these.
I had qualified for my Riflery merit badge in Boy Scouts left-handed some years ago, even though I'm right hand dominant, and I'd had some experience in shooting automatics. These assault rifles gave a nice kick.
I punched the elevator roof piece out, then started to climb up. I had half my body out of the elevator when a door in the shaft above me opened, and two French soldiers leaned out. One of them held a grenade, which he primed and dropped into the shaft. Luckily the shaft was dark enough to conceal me, but unluckily the grenade still fell next to me.
I quickly kicked it into the empty elevator shaft, then pulled the rest of my body out quickly. It's all about motivation, or so my body discovered as I jacknifed out of the enclosed cabin faster than I ever had before. The threat of having your legs blown off and riddled with shrapnel would get you out of anywhere pretty quick.
I rolled over to the very side of the shaft. I was still going up; I had pushed the button for the 20th floor.
Then the shaft exploded, and I noticed the service ladder on the other side of the shaft in the brief glow of light. Then the elevator started dropping alarmingly after it was done blowing up.
I ran along the roof of the destroyed elevator, the downward speed slowing me down.
I jumped at the last second for the ladder and felt my feet give way before me. I barely made it, but then my fingers curled around the metal and I got a stronger hold as the elevator plummeted below me, then abruptly hit rock bottom. Literally.
I figured I was on the 6th floor. The nice part was they now assumed I was dead. Still, I had a while to climb.
Then the not-nice part hit me. I spoke a okay French, after having taken 3 years of it in Middle School. Several of my neighbors back in the States were French too. My goal was to be able to have a basic conversation in a bunch of different languages. So far I had achieved that ability in Spanish and English, and I was working on Russian.
But due to my language ability, I was able to understand the two soldiers in the shaft.
"Open up a few rounds, just to make sure." One ordered the other.
The second one just grunted, hefted his FAMAS, and pulled the charging handle.
Crap. These two idiots were about to unintentionally kill me.
I still had my own FAMAS assault rifle, plus the handgun. Plus my knife.
Believe it or not, it's actually extremely hard to fire a rifle one-handed with any degree of accuracy. So instead I drew the handgun from the waistband of my shorts.
I cocked the slide on the Glock 18 Automatic Handgun. One of the more preferred automatic sidearms in the business.
The two soldiers must have heard the metallic clack of the gun, but in the pitch-dark, incredibly grimy interior of this shaft, they couldn't see anything, and it caused the rifle-wielding soldier to hesitate. I took full advantage of this, pulling back the trigger to its stop and keeping it there, expending the whole 15 round clip of 10mm ammunition in a matter of seconds.
I struggled to keep my aim one-handed as I clutched the ladder for support. As each bullet left the barrel, I felt like my ears were about to burst. Inside the enclosed shaft, each sound ricocheted off each wall and reverberated throughout the space, filling it entirely with loud bangs and the explosive report of a gun.
I screamed silently against the pain, but for the two soldiers it would be even worse, because the barrel, and thus the sound waves, were pointing right at them. Not to mention the extremely lethal 10mm anti-personnel rounds that hit both of them in alternating sequences.
The reason they called anti-personnel bullets anti-personnel was because each bullet had a soft tip to it, so that when it hit something the tip of the bullet deformed, spreading out for a higher surface area to chew up as it went through your body. The problem was that for the same reason, these bullets weren't very effective against Kevlar armoring.
But because these soldiers wore only a Kevlar vest and helmet, that left the arms, shoulders, and the artery-filled legs to hit.
Both soldiers went down under the light kick of the gun. Even though it was an automatic, it was a very classy automatic, and had built in recoil absorbers and other fancy gizmos that used the recoil force from the previous shot to load the next round into the chamber, lightning quick. It was all rather slick.
Then I was crawling upwards along the ladder until I reached the two soldiers. One was most definitely dead; spread of shots hit his neck. The other had gone down from multiple shots to the shoulder, arm, and body, which although armored, still left huge bruises and knocked the wind out of him, if not a couple broken ribs.
Now, I knew these guys were trying to kill me, but I was no cold-blooded murderer. I acted only in self defense. In all the movies you would see, in all the games, I would have just shot him dead. But that just wasn't me.
So instead I dropped my handkerchief for him to use as a bandage, and a small bottle of disinfectant I kept in one of my endless pockets.
I pilfered his grenades and spare ammo, jamming a second sidearm into my waistband. Then I got back on the service ladder, and started climbing. I had about 10 more floors to climb.
Jamie was walking back to the luxurious apartment room that one of his great-aunts had thoughtfully provided for the four of them when the soldiers came.
He had ducked into a supermart, sprinted between some divider rows, and doubled back out the front way while the soldiers followed the likely path out the back. Reverse psychology. Loved it.
That had bought him a few minutes, and then Matt called him. As he ran along the back alleyways, Jamie adjusted his coarse slightly to reach the meeting place. If he could get to the US Embassy, he and the others would be safe, behind the protective might of a battalion of the USA's finest.
A Frenchie burst out of one of the alleyway doors, right in front of Jamie. He looked around wildly, saw Jamie, and raised his rifle.
By this time Jamie had come up with the only viable course of action. He tackled the French soldier, jamming the man's rifle into his mouth. He looked again, and realized it was a woman. Oops. Wait till he told Matt he had tackled a girl and was currently wrestling her for control of her weapon. Jamie noticed he was on top.
Jamie rolled and vaulted the girl off of him. He felt only mildly bad about hurting her. She had been about to kill him, no questions asked. Was he that bad-looking?
Jamie picked up the rifle and started to run, but then the girl pulled her sidearm and leveled it at Jamie, shouting Stop! in a heavy French accent. Jamie didn't, just dove to the ground as a round flew over his head, and came up with his rifle leveled at the girl. He took the microsecond to turn the fire selector to semi, then pulled the trigger twice. The second round hit the girl in her leg.
Jamie got up and ran as the girl screamed, a high, keening sound. Ooh, Scar was gonna get him for that.
Holly burst out of the crowded seafood restaurant, sprinting down the grimy back alley fire exit. Scar was right behind her.
Holly ran right through the lone French soldier that stepped out to block their path, jamming him into the wall and then flipping him head over heels back out into the street. Scar picked up the guy's rifle, and Holly pilfered his sidearm.
Holly opened up a few covering shots as two soldiers stepped out of the front entrance to the restaurant, causing them to duck back in alarm. Another followed and took up aim, but then Scar turned, running backwards, and opened up the whole rifle magazine, firing from the hip like in the movies.
The tourists scattered at the sound of the heavy gunfire, and the three soldiers scrambled for cover. One took hits in the leg and went down. The other two kept their heads between their tails long enough for Holly and Scar, who was loading in a new clip as they ran, to disappear behind another alley and climb the fire escape to the roof.
Holly yelled a string of curses at the helicopter that rose to follow them as Scar fired a few carefully controlled bursts at the bird. Then the two of them were running again as shots from a chain gun mounted on the helo's side opened up, tearing chunks out of the roof at the girls' heels.
"Who the heck are you?" Matthew Kenderson demanded rudely.
The two men stood out like sore thumbs against their environment. For a man standing on a beach in Daytona, the usual outfit was a casual shirt and swimsuit, sandals, and sunglasses. These two lacked all but the dark shades that obscured half their faces respectively. Matt shot a quick glance around him. The white-sand beach stretched down as far as he could see, interrupted by the occasional pier or jetty. Behind him was a long series of never-ending condos and hotels, following the line of the beach. Toes buried in the soft, dry sand, he saw his older half-brother, Jamie, looking curiously at him from the water.
Matt guessed he did look a little odd, talking to these two adults in designer suits. Who wore suits to a beach? Apparently these guys.
"Wouldn't you like to know," the first Suit snarled. The other one, obviously the senior from his salt-and-pepper hair and tired eyes, elbowed the first Suit.
"We're with the Homeland Logistics Division. We'd like to give you something, but you'd have to come with us to get it. Just a short walk to our car." He said smoothly, like oil, pointing over at a parking lot a good hundred yards or so away.
Matt looked the Suit over, noticing a slight bulge at the edge of the man's jacket. A radio, maybe. "Um, right. The magical fairy ponies just descend and are feeling generous, so I'm the lucky guy that gets the prize. And the ocean isn't saltwater. Right."
"It's okay, see, just over to the car. Just a short little walk. I promise you won't regret it!" The second Suit said, trying to put real warmth and authority in his voice but achieving only evil-grandfather malice.
"Um, should I call a doctor?" Matt asked, fake uncertainty lacing his words. "I think you might need to be treated for sudden loss of hearing."
The Suit tried for a laugh. It sounded artificial, even to himself, so he stopped. "No, now, come along with us."
"Jamie!" Matt yelled. His brother started loping for shore as the surf crashed into him and sent sea-spray flying.
Matt only noticed the change after it happened. The two men suddenly tensed, their steel-like corded muscles hidden beneath their designer suits flexing.
"Come with us. Now."
The two men reached into their jackets, and that was when Matt knew something was wrong, very wrong. He acted instantly. Why hadn't he seen this coming? Everything about these two said, "Government Business" all over them.
Matt turned tail and ran, so fast that his chair tipped over and fell in the sand. His only desire now was to escape, but even as the two lined him up in their gun sights, he knew he wouldn't have a chance. The first shot rang out and Matt hit the dirt. The round passed directly over his head. He knew why these two wanted him.
It had happened before, first in D.C. As he was walking out of his apartment, something had felt wrong. He found out what it was, five minutes later, when a man on the street had grabbed him, shoving Jamie roughly aside and dragging him away towards a discreet gray van. Why was it always gray or white, or black? He'd only escaped because of the fountain... no. He'd promised himself he wouldn't ever do it again. Not after that.
Apparently now he wasn't needed alive.
Another car rolled to a stop next to Matt's overturned chair. Daytona Police. Oh, perfect.
The second shot burst forward as the firing pin struck the primer in the modified handgun, igniting a burst of gas and propelling a 9mm neuro-toxin dart at 900 fps at the intended target. This particular dart landed half a centimeter away from Matt's arm. He glanced at it once, briefly, then rolled to his right as a third and then fourth round kicked up sand. The fifth round was on its way and coming directly for him.
Nothing he could do. The dart might kill him at this range, it might not. Either way the built in auto-dispenser would inject 4cc's of a potent paralysis drug into his bloodstream, then into his nervous system, and take him down.
The round flew forward - and stuck into the edge of the pit Matt had just fallen into.
It was a shallow pit, but it served its purpose. The two Suits were momentarily taken aback, then ran forward. The first Suit strafed right to flank Matt and leave no grounds for escape. Jamie was closing, behind them now, but the second Suit turned and snapped off a quick shot at him, barely looking and not aiming anywhere near.
The dart buzzed past Jamie, but he sprawled in the sand anyways, covering his head in panic. Matt grabbed a fistful of powdery white and threw it at the first Suit. Luckily the wind was working against the man and the sand flew straight into his face. He stumbled, raising an arm and lowering his defenses to wipe the grit out of his eyes, when Matt struck.
He flew out of the shallow depression, heedless of the single round fired at him from the Suit's partner before Jamie tackled him. Jamie was kinda big.
Matt launched a 360 kick as he ran forward, catching the Suit's shoulder and popping it out of the socket. The Suit blanched but dropped the clip from his gun, fumbling for another.
Matt payed him no attention. He ran directly for the waterline. He'd be safe if he could get out to sea. What he really wanted right now was to sit on this very beach with a cold drink in one hand, his now discarded and forgotten book in the other, and just relax. God knew he hadn't been able to the last month.
But nnoooo. These two ding-dongs had to just waltz in and ruin everything.
Again.
The second suit struggled out of Jamie's hold and mercilessly clocked him in the jaw with the butt of the handgun. Jamie's head whipped back as a cracking sound filled the air. Jamie's jaw.
Matt ducked and weaved as another two shots followed his path, clean misses.
Just another thirty feet! The surf seemed cruelly near and yet far at the same time. Matt cried out as a round took him directly between the shoulder blades. He maybe had twenty seconds before the drug took effect, more likely thirty, due to his... condition.
The two police grabbed Jamie by the collar of his black spandex muscle shirt and attempted to heave him into the car. Apparently they hadn't been told that Jamie was pretty handy in a fight, because the first officer hit the ground hard.
The second followed closely as Jamie's fist hit the officer in his unarmored gut and Jamie's foot nailed the officer in the knee. A grisly cracking sound hit Matt's eardrums. Ouch. To make sure they didn't get up anytime soon, Jamie kicked the first in the teeth, twisted the second's arm until the officer's shoulder popped out, then broke the fingers of the first, removing both their sidearms.
Then the Suit tackled him from behind.
Stumbling forward with the force, stumbling but forward always, Matt couldn't spare his brother a glance as he was kicked again with the Suit's shoe, a plain black Loafer. With a metal toe. Jamie curled around the blow, clenching his bloody teeth.
Satisfied that Jamie wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, the second Suit spun and clicked off a shot. Another dart impacted and drove through Matt's thin T-shirt. Already he was starting to feel sluggish. The darts hurt, also, but that was distant. He could barely feel anything...
Matt sank to his knees, convulsing, and pitched forward. His head crashed into the sand. This was it. They finally had him.
The surf licked gently up and into Matt's face. The water gave him a surge of energy, but the shallow sea-foam didn't do much, or as much as Matt had hoped.
He tried to stand but couldn't, so he crawled on his hands and knees. With each pull forward, he felt more and more like himself again as he moved deeper and deeper into the water. Always water.
Meanwhile, Jamie had gotten back up and through sheer persistence, was wrestling the second Suit's gun out of it's owners hand. The Suit punched Jamie in the gut. Jamie doubled over, and when he straightened half a second later, he was grinning dementedly, his teeth welling blood, and spit into the Suit's eyes.
The mixed blood and saliva had the intended effect; the Suit lowered his gun arm to wipe his face instinctively. Jamie kicked the gun out of the Suit's hand, and they both dove for it, scrambling in the sand.
The first suit advanced at a casual pace, believing there to be nothing abnormal with his almost-subdued quarry. Matt felt another surge of strength and power as the swell crashed over him, re-vitalizing and fresh. He dragged himself into a stooped but upright position, trudging through the deeper water. The five-and-a-half foot crest came up to just below his neck, and he cursed that he was only fourteen and still too short.
Another wave crashed over, this one larger, and he brought himself fully upright.
The first Suit paused at the edge of the water, only just sensing something wrong.
Matt felt the poison leech out of his body, slowly but surely. The Suit fired another shot, taking the time to aim. The dart buzzed straight for Matt, but was intercepted by a wave that rose opposite the riptide. An evidently random wall of water, rising up from the backwash and against the tide, catching the round and dragging it down to the murky bottom. Matt felt the rhythmic tug of the Atlantic Ocean peeling away the toxin and augmenting his rising strength.
The Suit fired the last of his clip, then threw his gun aside and sloshed into the water after Matt.
Strike one.
The second Suit kneed Jamie between the legs, and he collapsed again, feebly grabbing at the Suit's leg. Another kick in the face served to knock him out and down, unconscious. The Suit picked up the gun and fired a round into Jamie, then launched the rest at Matt.
Strike two.
The second Suit raced towards the waterline, discarding his dart-gun and reaching for another weapon holstered to his thigh. When he brought it around, Matt knew it wouldn't fire a dart.
Strike three.
Matt grinned malevolently, feeling power surge through him. A burning, tingling sensation spread through his body, the kind he got when his legs fell asleep. Starting with his chest, funneling to his legs and head, then filling his arms. Power radiated from his hands, blue liquid-like orbs glowing from his palms.
Matt shuddered slightly as he leeched the energy and life out of the water around him, channeling it through his body, and a pale blue-gray mist settled over the two Suits; his targets.
The sky turned dark, instantly, with no warning. Rain pounded the beach-front, causing any heroic life guard that hadn't scattered when the two Suits brought out guns dive for shelter. One moment sunny and perfect, the next black and twisted.
Sirens wailed in the distance, and something told the few remaining people on the beach to hit the road, some forgotten animal instinct telling them to flee. One life guard grabbed Jamie and dragged him off the sand. The two Suits looked at each-other warily.
Matt tried to contain the power, but it surged through him, bursting from his hands. The sea grew choppy and treacherous.
The storm whipped the beach into a frenzy, causing a sandstorm to impact the two Suits. They were instantly soaked by the water falling from the sky and scoured continuously on any exposed skin by the flying sand.
Sapphire blue, water. The glowing watery energy burst forth, unable to be contained, and whipped the sea around. Matt raised his arms, not himself any longer, not able to contain or control...
With his ascending hands, a wave rose as well. Not just a wave, but a huge tidal wave, a solid wall of water, slowly gaining and rising. The tingling had turned to a burning, undefinable energy that coursed through his body, focused out his hands and down into the water.
More slick black cars rolled to a stop, right next to the two Suits on the beach. Out of the cars poured more Suits, each carrying a gun of some sort, and one a rifle. He took aim and opened fire, a three-round burst of 7.62mm ammunition that could tear a normal person apart. Matt dragged his left hand through the air, and another wave rose up, again going against the frenzied tide, and swept the bullets away. With his other hand, Matt poured more and more power into the water, the enormous tidal wave, now twenty feet high and stretching only a hundred feet wide. The water sloped down to a bare three feet at the ends.
The wall rose up and up, twenty feet, then thirty, advancing all the time to the beach. More vans pulled up on the edge of the condo-front, all marked FBI or SWAT or Daytona Police. Men in helmets and body armor slipped from the vehicles, more guns, and settled into combat positions. Until they saw the water.
Always water. The tidal wave rose up and through, passing Matt by as the source of energy, a small hole in the water opening for him and him alone. The Atlantic was left bare where the wave passed, the incredible power and sheer mass came crashing down on the beach, where thirty government Suits stood waiting for their deaths beneath the tortured, pulsing dark sky.
The wave lost momentum as it headed towards shore, the bottom portion of the almost-solid water jerking to a halt and rising. Seemingly, an invisible floodgate broke, and the tidal wave crashed forward.
Impact.
