chirp from the instruments told the trio that something had changed. “What is it?” Nina asked. “Are we there?”
“Nearly,” said Matt. “Look at that.”
He pointed at the LIDAR display. Something had appeared at the bottom of the screen, a tangled, twisted mass that at first glance resembled some sort of seaweed. But it was no plant. A grid overlaid on the image showed the scale: It was hundreds of feet across, and growing larger as the sub’s descent brought more of it into LIDAR range. “What is it? It can’t be the wreck of the Evenor, it’s too big.”
“No, but it is a wreck,” Matt told her. “It’s the SBX.”
Nina felt a chill at the realization that she was looking at a mass grave. Before Atlantis’s existence had been officially revealed to the world, the IHA had been secretly exploring the ruins under the cover of SBX-2, a giant American floating radar platform ostensibly deployed to monitor the threat of missiles being fired into Europe from North Africa. It had been sabotaged and sunk, with the loss of over seventy lives. The mangled state of the wreckage meant that some of the bodies had still not been recovered.
“Jesus, look at that,” Eddie said quietly as more of the sunken station was revealed. SBX-2 had capsized, landing on the seafloor with its six great pontoon supports sticking up like the legs of a dead insect. The superstructure had been crushed beneath them by their weight, girders jabbing outward from the rusting ruins.
“We’re about four hundred meters from the main dig site,” Matt announced solemnly, making a course adjustment. The ghostly wreckage on the display slowly disappeared behind them. It was replaced by the contours of the seabed as Sharkdozer neared the end of its journey.
Other shapes appeared, not the smooth curves of current-swept silt but the angular outlines of human constructions, standing out where the sediment of millennia had been cleared from around them. Nina couldn’t help but draw in an astounded breath.
Atlantis.
She had discovered its location, overseen its exploration by the IHA. But this was the first time she had ever visited the ruins in person. She leaned forward again, shoulder to shoulder with Matt. “How long before we can see it for real?” she asked, excited.
“A little room, please?” the Australian asked, nudging her with his elbow as he tweaked the controls. She reluctantly retreated—about three inches. “Give us thirty seconds, and the first thing we’ll see will be the Temple of the Gods.” He pointed it out on the LIDAR screen. “Then after that, we’ll be at the Temple of Poseidon.”
The wait was almost intolerable. Nina moved forward again, not even another nudge from Matt sufficient to move her back. She stared intently into the darkness outside. Then …
“There!” she cried. “There it is!”
Her first true sight of the ruins of Atlantis hazed into view through the murk. It didn’t appear particularly impressive, just the collapsed remains of a building—but to her it was utterly breathtaking. A civilization lost for eleven thousand years, discovered through the work and dedication of first her parents and then herself … and now she was finally seeing it firsthand. “Oh my God. That is incredible …” She felt as though she was about to cry.
Eddie punctured her bubble. “Great. We’ve come to the bottom of the Atlantic to look at a building site.”
“Shut. Up!”
They approached what was left of the Temple of the Gods. Compared with some of the other majestic structures the expedition had unearthed, it was not particularly big—an oval perhaps seventy feet across at its longest. Large sections of its walls had toppled outward, giving the impression that it had exploded from within.
“So that’s where they kept this sky stone?” Eddie asked.
“That’s right,” said Nina. “It’s quite an unusual place, actually. Atlantean temples are usually devoted to a single god, but this was dedicated to … well, dozens of them, as far as we can tell. Although now that we know about the sky stone from the rest of the Kallikrates text, there might be an explanation. Nantalas said that it contained the power of the gods—plural. So the Atlanteans made sure to honor them all.”
“If they knew there was something special about the meteor, enough for ’em to build a temple to put it in, why didn’t they use its power right away?”
Nina looked out at the broken building as they glided past. “There could be any number of reasons. They might have been afraid of it; the