Babel Found (12 page)

Location Unknown

He woke with a groan, clutching his head in pain. It felt like he’d been kicked by a rearing Clydesdale. He tried to open his eyes, but couldn’t, the pain was too intense. He needed to wait for the pulsing in his skull to subside first. So, instead of relying on his eyes to see, Ben used his other senses.

He calmed his breathing as best he could and listened. He heard nothing, but could sense a large space around him, like a cave of some kind. His mind went back to William’s notes about the Atlantean necropolis underneath
Site A
. The Boyds made detailed records about their experiences beneath the sand and Ben used them to the best of his abilities. But he wanted more. He wanted to see the necropolis for himself.

They’d tried several times to remove the rubble from the cavern’s entrance, but had to stop every time they touched the tiniest of stones. Seismic activity was prevalent in the area now, though those topside wouldn’t be able to feel it. It was a massive desert after all and they were deep beneath it.

“Once we catalog the tunnels,” Hank had said, “then we can try to reenter the necropolis—if it wasn’t completely annihilated. But until then, we need to be smart about it and not jump to any rash decisions.”

Ben agreed of course. He wasn’t one to rush into anything. He and William worked very similarly, researching everything until their minds went numb. Then, they’d act, or more likely, Hank would. They let the younger man do most of the heavy lifting the last few years. In truth, Ben was jealous of the Boyds. He wanted to be the one to find something of that significance.

Okay,
he thought, lowering his hands away from his head,
one more time.

Ben again tried to open his eyes, fighting back the nausea associated with the knock he took. As he did, he noticed an ambient light overhead. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to see the faint objects around him.

They made no sense.

The floor around him was smooth and round, like a giant bowl. Thirty feet up the wall looked like giant upside down stairs. They themselves looked to be around five feet in height and another five deep. Ben continued his twilight scan of the strange space, seeing what may have been—

“Plants?” he asked himself. “Can’t be. There’s no sunlight.” He knew of some cave-dwelling plants and of those deep in the ocean that grew by other means, but these looked leafy and magnificent.

The faint glow increased, just out of his line of sight as he tilted his head up more. It’s then he saw it. An extraordinary, perfectly smooth stone of some kind protruded from the ceiling, its tip wickedly sharp like an oversized spike. It had to be close to thirty feet in length, growing wider as it attached above.

Like an inverted pyramid.
It reminded him of the one he’d seen in the Louvre. Only, that was glass and much less threatening to look at.

Ben planted his hands on the ground and shoved, trying to stand, but couldn’t. He was stuck in a sitting position, leaning up against another stone of some kind. The movement caused him to howl in pain, falling over on his side. His legs wouldn’t follow his brain’s instructions and his body was on fire, protesting the act. So instead, Ben just lay there, now facing the large flat rock, panting like a thirsty dog, trying desperately to catch his breath.

“What…happened?” he asked himself, struggling against another wave of pain-induced nausea. He knew his back was broken, but how severe he couldn’t fathom. He wasn’t that kind of
doctor.

“It would be unwise for you to try that again,” a voice said from behind. Ben tried to turn, but couldn’t. He instead just laid back down and focused on the world around.

“Who’s there?” he asked, starting to panic. “Where am I?”

“Be calm, Benjamin,” the voice hissed from the shadows. “You’ll only hurt yourself further.”

He—whatever it is—knows my name?

“As for who I am…” the voice chortled, coughing hard. “Well… I’ve been known by many names over the years, but most have come to call me…
Master
.”

Ben’s throat clenched. He’d heard the name used in the team’s transmissions. Supposedly, there was a ringleader behind the Judges, pulling their strings.

Not supposedly… Factually.

“The four Judges are yours then?”

“Yes, they are,” the voice whispered, getting closer. “They’re my chosen pupils.”

Ben tried to battle against the pain and put things together, but couldn’t focus enough to do so. So instead, he kept talking, vocalizing his questions to the master, instead of himself.

“Where am I?” he asked, studying the stone he’d been resting on. It didn’t resemble a naturally cut one. It was actually perfectly smooth and rectangular in shape, lining up perfectly with the dagger-like stalactite above.

“You are in the mighty Citadel, Dr. Fehr. Very few have seen it with their own eyes. Not in the last few millennia anyway.”

“The Citadel?” Ben asked aloud, his mind reeling. The word
citadel
had many possible meanings. It meant fortress, stronghold, refuge… His eyes widened.
Can’t be…
“You mean the tower, don’t you?”

“Once perhaps, yes. We’re in its ruins, in its most hallowed of chambers—the most sacred one, in fact.”

“So part of the Tower of Babel still exists?” Ben asked. He was excited, but his body was in agony. It continually spasmed, shaking with adrenaline, causing his muscles to twitch as a result. Each involuntary tremor sent another wave of nausea through his body. He tried to calm himself, but couldn’t, retching all over the side of the stone block in front of him.

A grating laughter filled his ears, echoing around the room. “You humans are weak, so easy to…damage. Breaking your bodies is easier than breaking your will.”

Ben only heard half of what the master said as he wiped the vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand. With a shout of agony, he rolled onto his back and lay there grinding his teeth as he fought yet another upsurge of pain.

He opened his eyes and took in the room some more, sensing a living shadow off to his right. The master hadn’t fully revealed himself yet, choosing to stay in the darkness. Ben reached up and tried to activate his glasses, but found them missing. So instead, he just lay there and stared in awestruck wonderment.

“Why…me?” Talking was becoming difficult and the words came out inbetween labored breaths.

More laughter filled his ears. “It wasn’t only you,” the voice replied. “We were content with any of you. You were just the easiest to apprehend…” Ben heard a growl of disapproval. “The others proved far more…elusive. We intended to kill you all, but knew Boyd would come for any of his friends. An overused ploy, I admit, but nevertheless a useful one. Very effective, I’d say.”

Ben could hear the revolt in the master’s voice. He loathed talking up Ben’s teammates. They all had apparently gotten away from the Judges. Except him, of course.

“My team endures when most don’t,” Ben said full of pride. “Especially Han—”

“You know nothing!”

Ben quickly turned as a hunched shape stepped out from the shadows of a lower hanging plant. It even smelled sweet in the otherwise musty room. The figure was covered head-to-toe in a filthy gray cloak, not even the master’s feet were showing. The only thing visible in the reflective light was his cold, dead, jet-black lifeless eyes. They had no whites, just completely black, irises and all. They radiated a primal malevolence, one that should have belonged to an ancient superpredator, not some man. Then again, Ben wasn’t so sure the master was actually a man. Regardless, he could feel the wickedness under his skin, gnawing at his soul.

The master’s face was still covered in darkness, concealed from the light of the magical stone. Then, a gangly hand, composed of impossibly long fingers, reached out and plucked a leaf from the lowest vine. The master brought it to his face, parting the cloth covering his mouth.

What Ben saw was incredible…in the worst way possible.

The master had no mouth.

What?
Ben thought, his eyes growing wider.
He’s using telepathy. Just like what Hank described. The priests did the same, also having no physical way of speaking.

Not being able to bite it, the master just crushed the palm-sized leaf in his gnarled hand and inhaled its fragrance. Ben could smell it from here and it calmed him some. What properties it held were unknown, but Ben could even feel his headache lessen too.

“Impressed, are you?” the master hissed again, the voice in Ben’s head. “The vegetation here is what you would say…unique. Its power, and life in general come from the source.”

“The source?” Ben asked, not understanding.

“The
Source
.” The master pointed overhead to the stone above them. “It has a supernatural influence over the Citadel’s gardens and—”

“Gardens?” Ben asked in shock, he only knew of one
garden
ever associated with Babel. “It can’t be!”

The master scratched out another laugh. “It is… This place is what inspired the fairy tale of the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
. Only…these aren’t myth. These are quite real as you can plainly see.”

Through his dumbfounded bewilderment, Ben watched as the master stepped fully into the ambient light and de-robed, letting it fall to the floor below. He groaned and stood tall, adding another couple of feet to his hunched nude form.

“Now,” the
creature
said, its demonic stare growing more vehement, “all we have to do is wait for him to come. On this day…Hank Boyd will be mine.”

Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

Ceiling tiles fall as we burst through the doors out onto the tarmac, watching as everything within sight shakes like mad. The only things not bouncing around are the massive armor vehicles and aircraft parked along the wide expanse of asphalt.

I half-listen as the general continuously barks orders into his walkie-talkie, barely ever coming up for air. I gotta give the man some credit, he’s taking our recommendations and running within them, trusting our judgment wholly.

We told him what we honestly thought and he’d decide what to do with it. He’s running this outpost for a reason. I’d find it hard to believe that a man in his spot would be anything except the best at what he does.

“Get every available bird in the sky and defend this compound at all costs!” Carrack yells, about to crush his walkie-talkie in his ever-increasing white-knuckled grip. “I want tanks positioned around the perimeter facing east, guarding an attack from the water too—not just the north and west!”

He breathes and continues. “Every able body is armed and falls back into the center of the tarmac! All weapons are hot—I repeat all weapons are hot!”

Carrack then draws his own sidearm. It’s a familiar weapon and brings a smile to my face. “Mark XIX?” I ask, motioning to his Desert Eagle.

He nods. “Jeremy turned me onto them a few years ago. Not exactly standard issue with somebody in my position, but what the hell, I don’t get to do this very often anymore. I might as well make every bullet count and use the heavy hitting ones.”

Kane, Nicole, and I follow suit and flick our safeties off, joining the large mass of soldiers forming near the camp’s centermost point. Machine gun mounted hummers zip by, escorting tanks and transporting pilots to their designated stations. One of them screeches to a halt next to us and Carrack motions for us to get in.

“In,” he says, opening the front passenger seat. “We’ll just waste time and energy. Plus, it’s just too damn hot to walk all the way across the burning runways.”

Agreeing, I climb in behind the driver, following Nicole in. She then stands and hefts her futuristic assault rifle up into the roof’s circular gunner’s cut out. Kane and I man the rear windows ready for anything.

“Quite the woman,” Carrack says, looking at me.

“Better than the lot of us in a fight too,” Kane says, smacking my shoulder.

“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Boy—”

Carrack’s complement is cut short as a siren starts to blare—just as the ground shakes again, throwing off the driver. We swerve and nearly collide with another hummer heading the opposite direction.

“Damnit!” the driver curses. “Sorry everyone.”

“Just get us there in one piece,” Carrack says.

Please,
I think, looking out my window.

“Hank…” a nervous voice says from above.

Nicole’s current tone is uncharacteristically unsure. Normally, she has everything under control… Everything she has the ability to control, I mean.

“Oh, hell,” I say, seeing what she did.

A wall of water as big as the one in Miami, but much wider, is heading right for us, coming from the east. The Persian Gulf is frothing with an intensity I’ve only seen in a pissed off human. The wave literally looks angry.

“Good God,” Carrack says. Then he screams into his handset again. “Evacuate the base. Get everyone out of here. Use every helo we have—every pilot we have. Fill the damn C-130’s if we have to!”

“Corporal,” he says, speaking to the driver, “get us to the nearest Blackhawk.”

“Yes, sir.”

The hummer gets jerked to the left as we head
towards
the incoming wall of water. It’s a surreal scene when you’re speeding towards something as tall as a three-story apartment complex with the force of an atomic bomb.

“Um, General…” I start to say, but don’t finish. There’s not much to say really, at least nothing constructive.

We screech to a halt and jump out as one, rushing to an awaiting Blackhawk transport chopper. Its rotors are at full speed waiting for us to board, the pilot frantically waving us forward.

We move as fast as the shaking ground will let us. I stop and help Carrack and the others in, looking for something within the waves. It’s then I see him. I step away from the Blackhawk and head towards the coast.

“Hank!” Nicole shouts against the rotor wash.

I look back, biting my lip, wanting to do something to stop it. But I know I can’t, not yet anyways. I turn and leap into the rear hold. Just as I sit and buckle in, the pilot pulls back on the collective, slamming me down harder into the already uncomfortable seat. I wince as the general’s present—the one I asked for without the others knowing—gets shoved harder into my right butt cheek. Its metal cylindrical casing is unforgiving, but it’s payload potentially lifesaving. We then all quickly don headsets and watch the landscape rapidly change over the next few minutes.

Mother Nature’s finest champion is a wonder for sure. Seeing it in action from above is something else altogether. The tidal wave slams into the shore and continues forward, wiping the slate clean. Thankfully, its strength was lessened a bit when it made landfall, but it will still demolish most of the military installation.

“Sir,” I hear the pilot say in my ears, “reports of a…man…within the waves are coming in.”

“Susanoo…” I say, trailing off in thought.

Carrack looks back, getting Nicole’s attention.

“He’s one of the Judges,” she says, continuing for me.

“Oh,” Carrack says, turning back to the pilot, “good to know.” He then cups his hand around the headphone’s mic and yells, “Fire at will! Take out the mermaid.”

The dozen or so helicopters around us open up with everything. The Blackhawk doesn’t have any munitions, minus the door-mounted machine gun. Kane quickly moves over and gets it ready, his finger itching to unload into anything.
He’ll have to wait, though.

The pilot eases us higher, now well out of reach of the surging wave. We all look over the edge as the water sweeps over the land under us, consuming everything in its path. Only the heaviest of the vehicles are left, mostly tanks and the hulking C-130 planes. They’re just too damn heavy for the rapidly diminishing wave to lift.

Men are still flung, however. Some weren’t able to make it to safety, but thankfully most had. Casualties will be in the hundreds probably, but without the quick thinking of Carrack to evacuate, it would have been much worse.

“Get us closer,” I hear myself say.

“Um,” Kane says, “why?”

I ignite my right hand. “I need to do what I can.”

No one reacts.

“Do it,” Carrack says, getting the pilot to take us back down.

We’re about fifty feet above the water and nearing the form of Susan in the water. He’s literally standing on the surface of the gulf like Jesus Christ himself. He’s simply walking forward, hands out to each side, calling upon the water.

I need to disrupt that part.

I turn to Nicole. “I love you.”

She smiles but stops halfway through. She knows what I’m about to do.

Before she can answer, I leap from the open side door like an Olympic high diver, falling like a bomb. Through the mist, I reacquire my target… He’s not hard to miss. He rises up to meet me, sending a column of water into the air as he follows behind it.

I spread my arms out wide and ball my fists, about to hit the aquatic Mac-truck head on.
Now,
I think, willing the fires to erupt. They do and engulf my entire body. I then hold out my fists and slip through the sea water like a knife through butter.

Seconds later, I find him, bulldozing into the man in midair, destroying his defense at the same time. He shrieks in pain as I wrap my arms around his waist and burn. I will the flames to reach their most intense heat, knowing all too well what will happen if I pass out in the water.

Oh, well… Here goes nothing.

We slam into the sand ten feet beneath the waves. It’s actually something I hadn’t planned on happening. There’s a void of about twenty feet around us. The water is continually evaporating from my body’s supernova-like heat.

Susan stands, clutching his badly charred body. After a couple of grunts, the bastard starts to laugh. “This…is what I call…a home field advantage.”

Susan stands on dry sand, holding his side. I watch as he looks around at the dome of electric green fire encompassing us. My hands are both still on fire, one held aloft above my head, controlling the impromptu sanctuary.

“Mesmerized are we?” I ask, grinning like an idiot.

Susan just responds by pulling the seawater surrounding us harder, beckoning it to listen. The weight is unbearable, but I hold, again reminded of the Titan, Atlas.

I blink hard, feeling the pressure build in my head. I really hope I don’t have to use Carrack’s little gift. It’ll do the job if I need it, I have no doubt. I just really don’t want to do it.

The pressure again increases as Susan pulls harder, charging me at the same time. He doesn’t think I can keep this up and fight at the same time. A drop of sweat drips down my nose… He’s right of course, I can’t keep this up for very much longer, let alone engage in a bout of fisticuffs.

I react without thinking, dropping the ten-by-twenty-foot dome of fire. It startles Susan, tripping him up slightly. I react and thrust out my hands, setting his clothes ablaze. Unfortunately, my protective cocoon shrinks down even more, making me hunch over while still trying not to pass out.

Susan reacts like most would when on fire… He freaks out and flails. He even stops, drops, and rolls, adhering to the horrible safety class slogan from grade school. It somewhat works, but his skin is badly scorched and not healing very much at all.

Just like Omar,
I think, recalling how I beat Nannot back in the necropolis’ courtyard. I literally burned him out of it. Atlantean might versus Atlantean might. Unnatural weapons work the best against these guys.

But before I can advance and bear hug him, Susan gets up and throws himself through the outer wall of my fiery dome, burning himself even worse. The mad dash pays off, though. He easily passes through and makes it to open water where he’ll be that much more powerful.

Unless I injured him enough…

When I get flung into the air and back onto dry land, I realize that he may be just fine. I roll on the sand, lucky that I didn’t land on the rocks, further up the beach. Knowing what’s coming next, I get to my feet, stumble, and start to make my way back up the incline. I need to buy myself more time and recuperate some. I’m about to burn a hole through the military base’s outer fence. How it survived the wave, I have no idea.

I lift my hand, but stop when I hear laughter.

Turning, I face the water, feeling my jaw drop at the sight.

“Holy shit…” I say, making sure I still have my glasses on. “Please tell me you’re getting this?”