But it gave Hunt an idea. What if all four tiles had to be pressed simultaneously? He turned and saw Maddy swimming very fast over to him, giving him the OUT OF AIR signal as she swam, moving her finger in a slashing motion across her throat. Her tank had run dry. In anticipation of her reaching him, Hunt found his octopus and handed her the emergency mouthpiece. His air was already hard to pull, and he knew that now with two persons breathing off of it that they would have only a few breaths each. Hopefully Jayden had a little more, but he knew they had very little time left, regardless.
Hunt got Jayden’s attention and pointed to Maddy, then pointed to one of the tiles. They were spaced just close enough together that he could press on one while Maddy reached over and pressed the adjacent one. But that still left two more, meaning Jayden would have to somehow be able to push on two of them at once. Hunt was glad to see his old navy buddy comprehend the problem immediately, and swim into position between the two tiles. He stripped off one of his fins and placed that foot on the last tile in the row, while the fingers of his left hand barely reached the other tile. It would have to do.
Hunt and Maddy got into position on their respective two tiles. He knew they wouldn’t be able to hold the position for long, not to mention they were almost out of air anyway, so there was no time for any kind of coordinated countdown. It would either work or it wouldn’t. He looked over at Jayden and nodded.
All three of them pressed down on the tiles at once, with Jayden stepping on one with his foot. This time Hunt could tell something was happening. The tile beneath his hand depressed into the floor about an inch, and he felt the grinding of stone on stone somewhere from deep within the walls. Then he remembered what was poised above them.
Move!
Hunt yanked Maddy back by the arm, while grunting loudly to alert Jayden. He felt the pressure wave of water as the stone block above their heads began to fall as its support rods were withdrawn. Jayden’s legs were already in the clear, but his chest and head was still in the impact zone. Fortunately, he had been on his back to be able to reach both tiles, so he saw what was happening without Hunt’s warning. He pushed off the floor with his left hand, the one deepest in the impact zone, and did a slow-motion roll out onto the chamber floor.
The stone block slid straight down into place as it had been designed, not more than a single millimeter away from the pinky finger of Jayden’s left hand. A small cloud of silt billowed up, displaced by the falling block, which made a dull thud that all of the divers could feel in their bones.
But it was done, it had worked! The room was now sealed off. What’s more, Hunt thought, now allowing himself to feel the faintest tinge of optimism for the first time since they began their descent from the blocked opening far above, he now knew that there was something to this. Someone had engineered this room! It could really be an airlock, and an airlock meant the one thing that was now more important to any of them than they could eve have imagined: air.
He whirled around to look at what he thought of as the other piece of the puzzle, the inner door that was set into the floor. Immediately he felt resistance; he forgot that Maddy was tethered to him by way of his second regulator. She was out of air! They had to hurry. His own air was about to run out at any second.
He tugged on Maddy’s arm and moved toward the other door. Jayden was already moving toward it. The three of them aimed their dim keychain-sized flashlights at the mechanical contraption that now represented their only hope of continuing existence.
This one was a circular limestone lid of some sort sticking up out of the gold tiled floor. Hunt could only pray that it opened up into a space that was now dry and large enough to accommodate the water from this single chamber, which would flow down into it. But that point was moot if they couldn’t figure out how to open it in the first place. Already, Jayden was trying in vain to brute force turn the stone wheel with both hands, feet planted firmly on the floor. But that had zero effect on the mute stone. Hunt took a closer look at the mechanism.
A circular wheel with smooth sides, made of limestone, with no apparent handles or levers, of any kind. Hunt leaned in over the top of the device and shined his feeble light on it. He took a hand and brushed off a fine layer of sediment, which temporarily clouded the water, but cleared a few seconds later. When he looked again at the top of the wheel, he was able to discern something he hadn’t seen before: a hexagonal shape comprised of six very thin grooves cut into the limestone.
He felt a surge of elation followed by a jolt of sheer panic as he went to pull his next breath and found nothing there. His tank had run completely dry! Sure enough, he felt Maddy’s fist pound into his shoulder in a silent, primal cry for help. She, of course, was now out of air, too. Hunt pulled on Jayden’s calf. When his friend turned around he gave him the out of air signal, feeling a deep pang of sadness as he registered the look of shock, surprise and understanding in Jayden’s eyes. They weren’t going to make it. It was amazing they’d gotten this far, really.
Jayden swam over and gave his emergency second regulator to Maddy first, who took one breath and then passed it to Hunt, who gulped a quick one and passed it back to her. He could see her crying behind her mask. With all three of them breathing off of one very low tank, and Jayden exerting himself, they were probably down to mere seconds of air supply remaining. They would perish down here in this strange monument beneath the sea.
But Hunt wasn’t about to give up. He turned back to the hexagon carved into the circular stone top. Think, think, think! On the plane ride to the Bahamas, he had read in his research that six was a sacred number of Atlantis. That bolstered his thought that this place had been designed carefully, and might possibly be connected with the fabled lost city. But it sure didn’t help his real situation right now. What could it mean that there was a hexagonal pattern in the stone, from a mechanical standpoint?
He was out of breath now and turned to Jayden for another. But his friend shook his head and gave the out of air signal.
They were done.
He heard Maddy start to scream into her regulator. Any second now she would spit it out and breathe in water and it would all be over. With nothing left to try, Hunt turned back to what he hoped was in fact a door mechanism. Jayden had tried to turn it. He now took both hands and pressed down firmly in the middle of the hexagonal section in the middle of the cylinder.
To his great surprise, he felt the now familiar grinding of stone on stone as the entire hexagonal piece slid down within the circular stone. Jayden heard it and swam over. Hunt pushed again and the hexagonal stone moved again. Jayden saw what was happening and added his hands and arm strength to Hunt’s, using his last remaining ounce of strength to hopefully accomplish something useful. The hex piece moved faster now, receding deep into the circular stone until they had to reach in almost up to their shoulders to push it. Then Jayden, already not wearing one fin, shoved Hunt out of the way and stood on top of the recessed section. He hopped up and down on it, and Hunt heard the grinding of stone inch by inch with each jump.
His lungs were afire, and he knew he had a few more seconds left before his body would involuntarily betray him and cause him to spit out his mouthpiece and breathe in water. Meanwhile Jayden kept stepping down on the hexagonal block, grunting with exertion on each kick.