Queen of Atlantis

Dedication

To my boys.

I wanted something exciting for you to read

without all the smut and bad stuff.

I hope this inspires you to

live YOUR adventure!

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Zack Lawrence and Jaylynn Widmark.

for your professional feedback.

I really think it helped to take this story to the next level!

Thanks to my entire support staff and the many hours of

proofreading, graphic arts, and shuffling paperwork.

Thanks to my wife, who was the entire support staff.

Thanks to Jeremiah W. for your inspirational graphics.

(I'm creating the things I wish existed!)

And of course, thanks to YOU GUYS for buying the book

and for all your support!

Prologue

From the case files of Michael Moast, cabinet 19, drawer 2, folder 8, entitled  Origin of the Fractured Pot:

It happened in the old days.  The age of technology.

The world in those days was pressurized with tension - like an overripe melon about to burst.  World superpowers glared at one another from across (and within) the Earth's great seas.  Ghastly weapons bristled every shore.  Nasties of all kinds, so insidious that they that should never have even been dreamt of, let alone built. 

But built, they were, and in staggering numbers!

Dictators, benevolent and otherwise, amassed great hordes of them.

It was one big powder keg.  All it needed was a spark -- one leader, more desperate and diabolical than the rest, to gauge the situation, to see the weak link, and to act.  A man like that could knock over the whole house of cards with but the slightest breath and set himself up as master above it all.  Yes, the time was indeed ripe for a bid for world domination. 

Tyrants had arisen many times before, but now the pieces were in place for it to happen on a truly global scale.  In the past, innocent people could run, or hide, or immigrate, or defect.  This time there would be no place to run and no place to hide.  In such a universal oppression, there would be no hope of escape in any form.  There could be nothing besides never-ending serfdom... or death.  To the cruel dictator in charge, it would matter little which.

Looking back it's easy to see, just as looking back at the Nazis rise to power makes it seem so obvious what was about to happen.  But those who live in such times are always so strangely blind to things going down right before their very eyes.  Blind to their freedoms disappearing one by one.  Blind to seeing what it all pointed towards.

The tyrant in question was not hypothetical like some logic exercise.  He was a real man, who really existed and indeed his minions were already in place!  The hammer blow was about to fall.  The clock was ticking off the final seconds.  And there was only one person, the unlikeliest of heroes, who could change the outcome.

As surely as these good days were built upon the ruins of those, so it is for all of history.  This adventure begins, not in the age of technology, but in a time thousands of years prior, with a mighty people, both ancient and forgotten...

~1~

Volcano!

The small dog barked and ran from its master yet again.

"Ilíthio!" (fool!) she shouted.

Persephone chased after her pet.  She couldn't imagine what had gotten into him.  He was only a puppy still, but was usually so calm and docile.

As she chased the dog out into the stone-paved street she paused to take a deep breath, basking in the atmosphere of the greatest city-state the world had ever known.  The single island was a whopping 78 thousand square miles of lush jungle and fertile fields. (or, slightly larger than the state of South Dakota in today's terms.) 

Miles from the sea rose the glorious Mount Atlas, said to be the birthplace of the great god of the same name -- son of Poseidon the sea god.  Indeed, Atlas proved a mighty deity for the race that bore his name extended its mighty empire to many distant and unheard of shores.

Not far to the Northeast was another island, nowhere near as important on the world scene -- nearly irrelevant, in fact.  The tribal people who dwelt there were little more than barbarians.  The mere thought that it could ever make anything of itself, let alone become a world superpower was laughable in the extreme.

As the girl continued to try to soothe the frightened animal, little did she know that her invincible homeland was on the precipice of passing from fame into myth -- blotted out from the pages of history.  One day the lesser island would indeed rise to prominence.

But why would she have thought such a thing?  It was 425BC and in that day this was the capitol city of the Earth's mightiest empire.  It had fought and won battles on a hundred foreign shores.  Trade was booming.  On every street corner prosperity reigned. 

The mere thought that it could all be over in a blink?  Of course not!  They were immune.  This nation would endure to rule the ages!  (And such has been the thought of every great nation before or since - even right up to the moment of their very demise.)

Persephone ran through the stone streets of the bustling metropolis.  She darted between people with rich robes and servants swarming to and fro.  Most carried pots or baskets balanced on their heads full of goods either to be sold or recently bought.

All the while the small dog was just out of reach, taunting her ever onward.

She nearly cornered the wayward pup in a shallow alcove when she froze.  She felt something ripple through her body- a strange and terrifying energy that she had never felt before.

Her friend Dionesys the clothing merchant stepped out of his shop across the road.  He felt it too, but didn't know what to make of it either.  He glanced toward the towering Mount Atlas near the center of their majestic island.  It began to smolder, releasing a growing column of smoke into the serene sky.

The titanic energy continued unabated.  Soon the very ground began to swell and undulate beneath Persephone's feet like she was standing on the sea. 

The violence increased as she watched the transfixed shopkeeper staring at the distant mountain.  The man was so paralyzed with fear that he didn't see the stone facade of his own store begin to crumble, until it was too late, and he lay crushed like an insect beneath it.

The brutal horror shocked Persephone into action.  She scooped up her dog with one arm and ran as the sky slowly became darker.  She wasn't an expert on modern vulcanology, but could clearly see that the source of the disturbance was the mountain in the distance.  As if to confirm this, it began to hurl red hot stones into the sky.  They crashed down around her and the growing throng stampeding their way towards the sea, spurred on with the underworld smell of sulphur.

A man in an irrational headlong rush collided with her, sending her crashing into a streetside pottery vendor's wooden table.  Like the clothing merchant before, he too seemed frozen behind it, not even registering that his entire inventory was just dashed to pieces on the cobblestones.

Persephone lay dazed a moment next to a large orange pot that had split in two during the fall.  The crack ran right through the image of a woman who looked odiously like her. 

Her bruised head seemed slow to react.  Everything seemed hazy and far away.

She realized with a start that the haze wasn't a result of the head injury but was physically real in nature.  It burned her eyes and stung her lungs.  She tried to stand, but fell back again.  Something was broken.

She turned and was horrified to see a wall of scalding ash barreling down the street like a dam suddenly burst.

She wedged her body beneath the overturned potter's table in a feeble, last ditch attempt at saving her own life.

An offshoot of the coming wave of death rammed itself through a side alley to her left, creating a high-powered jet of fire, steam, and stone which carried her off the ground, clutching for dear life to the table.

She disappeared within the flame.

Those that survived the mobs, earthquakes, falling debris, scalding ash, and poisonous gas all found themselves at the seashore looking dumbly back and forth at one another.

Now they had an even more devastating problem on their hands.  The marina was gone.  All of the docks sank beneath the sea along with all of the ships that weren't able to cast loose in time. 

The rest were making for open water as fast as sail and oar could take them.

That left the fugitives with nowhere to flee.

The volcano thundered in the inky, flame-streaked sky.  It thundered like the malevolent laugh of some demon whose clutches could not be escaped.

Lava, which had begun to flow some time earlier, now ran freely down the streets.  Though deadly in its own right, it was slow enough to be avoided, and the townsfolk had a far more urgent problem on their hands.  The sea was rising faster and faster.  Many hurled themselves into it rather than return to the death-trap of the city.  Others, more wisely, took to the sea on trees and planks and anything else they could find that would float.

Even those, however, soon found that their time was up.  As they drifted in the water, they knew their fate was sealed when the great volcano itself exploded in a tectonic fireball.  The ear-splitting crack reached them a second or two later, but as it did, the sea turned into a giant black cavern.  It was like a starving black mouth that gobbled up the volcano, the village, the rest of the island, and any who were near enough to see it happen.

All of it, every last morsel, was slurped up by the hungry sea.  And then, having filled its belly, the ravenous deep closed its mouth once more.

The sea breeze began to dissipate the smoke. 

Soon growing patches of blue sky began to peer through the clouds once more.

In less than two hours' time all that was left of one of the world's greatest civilizations was nothing but a black smudge drifting on the surface of the sea - a steaming cauldron, slowly boiling itself out in the vast expanse of the great ocean.

A pair of Moroccan fishermen began hauling in their nets.  It had now been some days since a devastating tsunami of unknown origin wreaked havoc with the local sea life, and the fishing was only now showing the first signs of recovery.

One man glanced casually over the side of the boat.  He did it a hundred times a day and always saw nothing but water.  This time his heart leapt with a start as he spied the form of a human body floating atop the remains of a wooden table.  At least the overall shape was human enough, but in detail it looked more like a slab of roasted meat.

At first he thought the person must surely be dead, but she stirred, rolling slightly to one side.  There beneath the broken body of its owner peeked the dark eyes of a small, terrified puppy.

~2~

A New Beginning

The sun sank low over the Pacific, boiling away into orange lava.  Janet Jones stood at the edge of the surf watching it slowly disappear.  Her face was travel-worn and contemplative. 

A gentle sea breeze tossed pleasantly at her lightweight ankle-length skirt.  She breathed deep its salty fragrance as if it was what she'd come for.

Who knows?  Perhaps it was.

Janet, or Jane as she preferred to be called, was eighteen years old with tanned skin and with a slight hint of freckles.

She also had long, blond hair -- but not the soft, glamorous Hollywood kind of blond that other girls envied though.   Hers was more of a thick and course kind of blond, and far too yellow.  Being pulled back into a pony tail as it was, it resembled a stack of straw that had hitched a ride with her from the great plains.

Behind her on the beach was a white Toyota hatchback, out of gas, and probably stuck in the sand.

It didn't matter.  She'd decided to drive West, and this was as West as it gets.  Very literally, the end of the road.

The sun she'd chased for so many days kept on with its Westward journey, but for her, this was where she and her heavenly traveling companion would have to part company.

What did she hope to find on the road anyway?  Adventure, perhaps?

This was a very nice, but also very empty beach. 

Escape from her troubles? 

Closer.  But they seemed to shout so loudly behind her that they could be heard even here. 

Even now, she pulled out a bottle of prescription anxiety pills with her name on it.  She took two without water.

A new start, then?

Yes!  That was it!

Time to forget it all.  Time to start over from scratch and make a new life - a better life!  This time could work out.  No.  Scratch that.  This time would work out.  She'd see to it that it did!

She bolstered herself with a another deep breath and set her chin.  She turned to face the nearby town of Santa Augusta California on the overlooking headland.  Its windows reflected sparkling gold back at her.  This would have to be it, then.

She followed her feet into the new future awaiting...

~3~

New Girl in Town

It was Sunday.  Her Aunt had always taken her to church, and so, to church she went.

No,  it was more than that.  If Jane had anybody left in life, it was Jesus.  That was where she had to start.  Starting over like this was much like making an unknown recipe - one where all you knew is that you needed flour.  You couldn't do much, but you could go to the store for some flour.  And that's at least a step in the right direction.

After searching the phonebook and placing a few calls to area churches, she decided on a few candidates.

Jane recalled the time her highschool history teacher had given the class a lesson on the Jim Jones cult.  From the way he had first described it, it sounded like a great place to be.  They did a lot of good deeds like feeding the poor, helping out hospitals, and cultivating inter-racial friendship in an age when segregation was still the order of the day. 

Her teacher had called for a show of hands, how many people wanted to be a part of a group like that?  Most hands went up. 

He then went on to describe how the group had communist ties, extorted its own people, and eventually poisoned over 900 of them to death - including 330 children!

She violently shook her head, trying to get her vivid imagination to let go of the revolting picture it was showing her.

In Kansas, the stories sounded like another world, but here in the middle of the California coast... that cult had risen to power only about three or four hours North of where Jane now stood!  To say she was extremely cautious was an understatement.

With the heart of man still the same now as then, coupled with the fact that the city was a complete unknown to her, Jane found herself with a pen and paper in hand.  Calling to mind all that she had been taught about what a healthy church should look like, she focused her thoughts and began writing a list:

Was the Bible the source of their teachings, or did they preach their own opinions instead? 

Was Jesus center stage, or was it some larger-than-life leader they revered? 

Were they permissive of whatever the world's sin dujour,  legalistically unforgiving, or did they have the Biblical balance of preaching the Truth in love? 

Did they act superior to all others, or as bankrupt sinners saved only by the grace of God?

Jane narrowed it down to a short list of places to visit in turn.  It was all too common for a website or church secretary to know all the right words to say.  Like the Jim Jones cult, who cares what a group claims they are?  What they really are is what's important!

That morning she hit up a cute Pentecostal church that was near the outskirts of town.  It was small and pleasant and Jane had nothing bad to say.  She had time to visit that and also catch a large downtown church's late service and thereby cross two candidates off her todo list in one day.

The downtown church was called Santa Augusta Church of Life, a non-denominational evangelical group set up in a renovated warehouse.  The place was a hive of commotion and borderline madness that morning.  A lot of people introduced themselves to her, but it was hard to say whether that was out of friendliness or whether the close proximity the tightly-packed lobby forced people together.

Was that forced camaraderie a result of exceptionally clever, or exceptionally poor, planning? 

Hard to say.

Either way, the crowd was becoming a bit too much and her head began to feel a little dizzy. 

In the medical vernacular, Jane had something called Asperger's Syndrome, a milder form of Autism.  In more practical terms, it meant that she had super-acute senses, which all tried to cram their information into her mind at once causing the equivalent of Los Angeles rush hour traffic on the way to her brain.  If it got too bad, nothing would make sense at all anymore and she'd have a breakdown.  You could call it 'Information overload', to put it mildly, but hers could be brought on from what most other people would see as a normal, everyday situation.  A simple crowd of people with fifty different conversations meant fifty different conversations that her mind was trying to understand all at once.  Add to that movement, colors, the smell of perfume...

She clutched her sternum and took a slow, deep breath.  Even the thought of it was making her head swim and the room seem to spin around her. 

She pulled out her pill bottle and hit it at the maximum the dose would allow.  She hated to.  Each time the level went lower, she knew, it pushed her that much closer to the end.  There were still many pills left, but she feared they would disappear far too fast.  Then it would mean trying to find a new psychiatrist who would willingly give her more and yet not ask about her past.  This unlikely combination of traits made the problem insoluble.  The dilemma was a dark cloud that continued to loom on her horizon.

As she stood near the sidelines waiting for a sense of normalcy to return, Jane was approached by a deliberately friendly greeter named Tim.  He introduced himself as such even through his name tag clearly said it as well.  Tim, it said in sharpie.  And there was a smiley face.

He gave her a whirlwind tour of the bustling building, answering her questions the best he could.

It's a little busy here.  Don't you get lost? Jane asked.

What?  (The ironic part was that he wasn't even trying to be ironic.)

She repeated the question at a near shout.

Oh, yeah!  It's easy to get lost.  That's why we encourage everybody to be a part of one of our Bible Study small groups.

He picked up a two-page folded document off a nearby table.

Here's a list. said Tim.  You can check out whatever appeals to you, but we encourage people to find one and stick with it - forges relationships and all that good stuff.

The sound of a guitar and muffled singing began echoing throughout the building.  A wave of last-minute chit-chatters headed for the doors to the main auditorium.  That group included Jane and Tim, Smileyface.  The latter seemed convinced that it was his sworn duty to find her a seat against all odds.

After the remaining half of the song was over, she sat and listened to a variety of announcements (many of which did not apply to her).  As she did, she glimpsed absently over the list of Bible Studies.

One, in particular, caught her attention:

Singles of all ages

Childcare: none

Looking for Photography Enthusiasts

Interesting...

Had she remembered to grab her camera in her haste to leave Ditchwater Kansas?

She had!  Jane always loved the art of photography, so maybe this was a way to find common ground and get to know people.

And single people?  Who knows?  Maybe she could find a guy to boot - although that thought was a fleeting one.  She knew her life was crazy as a bag of cats at the moment.  She had a long way to go before she even started looking down that road.  

As the service concluded the maelstrom blew into the hallways once more,  Jane realized that she'd probably just found the church she'd wind up with by the time she reached the end of her list. 

It was a lot bigger and more chaotic than anything she'd been used to, but they passed all of the qualifications to be considered legit Christians.  Given that, the only remaining tie-breaker would be where she would personally fit in the best.  The Bible Study seemed like it might fulfill that need.

'Photography Enthusiasts'... she mused.  Then smiled.

~4~

Jack

The woman wandered around the Virginia Beach waterfront plaza with a worried look on her face.  Her sun visor and flowered Hawaiian shirt gave her the aspect of a tourist.  Her foreign-sounding California accent only amplified the image.

She'd made the rounds all morning, asking desperately each person whether they knew the directions to the Lillian Edwards Convention Center.  Nobody had yet been able to direct her to the location.  Neither the local clerks at the souvenir shops, nor the wait staff at the various sidewalk restaurants could point her in the right direction.

Many of the employees watched her saga with great sympathy as they bussed tables or waited on customers.  A few even took the quest a step further and attempted to search the phone book or use the web to help her out.  Still, it all availed nothing.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the Lillian Edwards Convention Center did not actually exist.  And the woman knew it, too!

She spied a bent-over old lady pushing an antique pram down the sidewalk.  It was no secret to anyone watching that her quest was getting desperate.  That part was no act from her perspective either.

The buggy's wheel squeaked softly as the old woman shuffled along behind it.

Excuse me, ma'am.  Do you know the way to the Lillian Edwards Convention Center?

The lady looked up.  Her grey hair was disheveled and seemed to not fit her head properly.  The face was ruddy and there was even a trace of a five o' clock shadow.

Do you have a map of Oklahoma City? she croaked.  It was a frustrating and silly thing for the old lady to ask.

But lo and behold, the woman did have one!  She handed it over and the old lady unfolded it.

Here and there, intermixed with the street names, were additional words written in blue ballpoint ink.  She made a superficial adjustment of her bifocals and examined the map closely.  Her finger traced from location to location, stopping at certain blue words and skipping others entirely.

She took the map and held it even closer to her face.  So close, in fact, that nobody in the plaza could see her lips when they began to move.

This is impossible Melinda! the old woman said, now in a soft man's voice.

Seems that way.  But it couldn't be as bad as--

The old women wrinkled her nose and growled, Atlantis. 

Yeah, well...  Melinda brushed off the painful reference and continued on regardless, Grab Kurt or Wendell as your backup.  If this conspiracy thing is for real, then it's way too big for you to handle on your own.

Do I get a starting location, or do I just have to wing it?

Take the map.  It's all there in standard up-3 encoding. she said.

And after a pause, But here's a quick spoiler for you Jack:  It's smack-dab in the middle of Siberia.

Jack rolled her eyes.  Siberia huh?  Lucky me.

Melinda looked into the pram.  It contained a lovingly-swaddled Nerf football.  "By the way, that is the ugliest baby I've ever seen."

Takes after his grandpa.

Melinda's sudden laugh nearly blew her cover.

Sorry 'bout that.  You be careful out there.  Got it?

Jack, the old woman, nodded.

Melinda stood up straighter.  She smiled and said loudly for the crowd's benefit.  Thank you very much!  I knew convention center was around here somewhere!

The old lady shook the grateful hand.  She resumed slowly pushing the carriage down the sidewalk in the original direction she'd been heading.  She still held the map, but nobody seemed to question that.

Siberia... she muttered to himself.

~5~

Photography Enthusiasts

Jane checked the address in her hand one more last time against the gleaming brass numbers affixed to the gate.  Its white-painted wrought iron entwined in interesting spirals and swirls like some grand vine.

The guard in his little shack had seen her (recently resurrected) Toyota hatchback pull over.  He raised an eyebrow slightly, wondering at her business here.

Jane wondered about that too.  There was no other way to read the numbers on the paper she'd picked up at church that morning.  The address certainly belonged to the stately mansion behind the gate.

But why not?  Millionaires could volunteer to host a Bible Study just the same as anybody else.

The logic of that was sound, but did nothing to calm the sense of uneasiness presently doing backflips in her gut.

A worried set of images and thoughts flashed across her mind.  If the stereotypes usually associated with the very rich were to be believed, she wanted to make absolutely sure she wasn't knocking on the wrong door and about to get the scolding of her life.

She frowned at the prospect of it.  Social interactions weren't exactly her forte.  (One trait that all those with Asperger's share.)

Instead of the direct approach, she came up with an alternate plan.  She'd talk to the guard and act like she was lost.  Maybe it was silly, but at least it was a safe way to learn more without making the world's biggest fool of herself.

Jane walked over to the