Jayden and Maddy followed him as they finned along next to the pyramidal edifice. It occurred to Hunt that this was one of the sides they hadn’t seen yet, and so he played his beam along it as they moved past it. Same gold tiles. Same smooth, uninterrupted surface, just like the—Wait, what’s that? Hunt stopped swimming. Was he seeing things? But Jayden and Maddy were tapping on his arm and pointing at it, too.
It appeared to be an entrance of some sort. A doorway leading inside the structure. The vertically oriented rectangular opening was set perhaps ten feet up from the base. From down on the bottom it appeared only as a dark hole. Hunt kicked off the bottom and rose to the level of the doorway, unable to contain his overwhelming curiosity even in the face of death. He stared into the opening. A narrow passageway that was also constructed of gold tiles. It extended some distance inside, perhaps fifty feet back, where his light beam landed on a wall of some sort.
Then the light blinked out again, plunging the internal pyramid into blackness. Hunt banged on the light a couple of times but it wouldn’t come back on. On the fifth try, as Jayden and Maddy reached him, it illuminated once again.
Hunt shrugged while looking at Maddy and Jayden, pointing into the pyramid. Both of them nodded. Let’s check it out.
The three divers, perilously low on air, swam into the golden pyramid.
Chapter 22
It reminded Hunt of swimming through one of the dry pyramids in Egypt. Narrow, constricting walls with a ceiling that would barely be head-high for most people if they were walking. First Hunt, then Maddy, and then Jayden swam through the claustrophobic passageway, constructed of the same gold tiles as the pyramid’s exterior. When Hunt neared the end of the passage, about the same time he could see that it opened up into a wider space, his air became harder to pull through the regulator.
He kicked faster, if for no other reason than to see one more thing — what lie beyond this tunnel — before he died. He knew now that he never would have made the edge of the blue hole, how futile it would have been to try to find a limestone tunnel that connected to the reef. But at least he would see the inside of an underwater pyramid. He thought about what pyramids were for — basically they were fancy tombs — but to have one underwater made little sense since it meant it would be wet inside, unless there was a section totally sealed off. But then again if it was totally sealed off, they would not be able to gain entrance.
These thoughts accompanied Hunt as he emerged from the hallway into a flooded chamber as his air became harder to pull, the air pressure needle now firmly in the red. He knew any second now Maddy and Jayden would have the same problem if they didn’t already. He felt so terrible that he let them both down, and even now, they still followed him.
He was surprised to find the room unadorned, except for the same gold tiles he’d seen everywhere else. It was more gold than he’d ever seen in his life. The room widened into a roughly square shape, and extended both above and below the level of the passageway from which they had just emerged.
Looking up, Hunt saw nothing interesting, only a vaulted ceiling with no openings or accessories. Turning his attention in the opposite direction, he eyed something that looked like it could be a door or portal of some sort, but he couldn’t be certain. With no time to waste, he swam down into the underwater room. Although there were no inscriptions or anything that could be interpreted as signage of any kind, Hunt felt a surge of adrenaline upon looking at the structure set into the floor.
It had to be a door!
A door to what, he had no idea, but it was something. But then he thought about it — once opened, even if it was dry beyond, the ocean water would rush inside, flooding whatever lay beyond. It would not be possible to close the door again against the raging flood, therefore whatever lay beyond would be submerged before long. With them inside.
He turned and looked back to see if Jayden and Maddy had followed him inside the room. And that’s when he saw it, something that made perfect sense to him in a flash of inspiration. Jayden and Maddy had already entered the flooded chamber and now hovered in the middle of the space, surveying it in all directions as Hunt had done.
But Hunt was focused on what lie just inside the entrance.
Up above the doorway was a massive stone slab. Actual limestone, not gold, supported on four cylindrical posts that jutted from the wall above the doorway exiting the passage. Hunt eyed the stone slab, then turned his gaze back to the construct on the floor that looked like a portal of some sort. Instantly it clicked into place for him: they were inside an airlock.
Hunt knew from his navy days that the way an airlock worked was to have a room with two airtight doors. You entered through one, flooding the room if it wasn’t already, such as with the wet room of a submarine. Then that door was sealed, preventing new water from entering when the second door was opened. Where are you right now? He asked himself. In a flooded room! What’s on either side of you? Two doors.
But as he gazed at first one, then the other, the problem became apparent. How to open the one in the floor and close the one at the entrance? Hunt opted to concentrate on the outer door first, since it would do no good to open the inner one first with the outer still open. He had to seal the airlock, and then open the inner door so that only the water trapped inside would flow through to the new area.
He saw Jayden looking at him and pointed to the stone slab above the entrance. Then he pointed sharply down, hoping that would get the message across. He saw his friend’s eyes brighten as he nodded and began to swim toward him. Hunt then turned and focused on the mechanism that was holding up the stone slab.
He could see that if the four circular rods were pushed in so that they were flush with the wall, the slab would fall into place, blocking the doorway and effectively sealing them in. But how to push in the rods? Hunt swam to them and shoved on one, not surprised at all when it wouldn’t budge. Of course it’s not that easy. Think, if you want to live! He glanced back down at the floor, dropping down through the water towards it as he did so.
The people who built this place, if they had wanted to use it as an airlock, wouldn’t have had dive masks, Hunt reasoned. So to be able to trigger the stone gate mechanism from inside meant that the trigger must be operational to someone who couldn’t see well. Hunt noticed the tiles on the floor, where the door would fall into place should the rods be withdrawn into the wall. Gold, like the rest of them, and unmarked. No press here to release gate, Hunt thought. What a surprise. But as he looked up at the rods, and back down at the tiles, he saw that each rod did in fact line up exactly with one of the gold floor tiles.
Hunt swam down to the tiles, moving to the leftmost one. After getting a glimpse up of the rod supporting the door to make sure it lined up, he then slammed his fist into the tile.
Nothing happened.
He wasn’t sure what he expected — if it would click or move somehow, but he tried a couple of more times, with varying degrees of pressure, and still nothing happened.
Then his flashlight winked out. He banged it on the tile, hoping it would flicker back to life, but no such luck. He dropped his main light and activated his mini backup light that he’d had to rely on earlier. The three of them now worked in near darkness, three pinpoints of light their only illumination.
Jayden swam up and put his face close to Hunt’s, a what now expression plain to see. Hunt showed him the tiles that lined up with the rods above. Jayden swam to the next one over, and Hunt tried pressing on the same one again. Both of them pushed on the tiles at once, and still nothing happened.