“Of course, but I don’t see any.”
“Remember how we found the remains of three challenges. Test of strength, wisdom, and sacrifice? With a fourth name being wealth?”
“Yes, and the fourth being the wealth of Poseidon, which our predecessors appear to have stolen.”
“What if the wealth of Poseidon was just a ruse — a final step to dissuade any intruders from looking further inside the temple?”
“To what?”
“The true wealth of Atlantis — the code. If our processors got it wrong, and the device sunk Atlantis nearly five hundred feet below the surface of the earth and wiped out hundreds of miles of tree lines, what power do you think the actual code itself might possess?”
“I have no idea, what?”
“Neither do I, but I intend to find out. And in doing so, we’re going to get out of here, and more importantly, we’re going to find the code to Atlantis before the timer reaches zero.”
Chapter Sixty-Four
Sam looked around the large temple of Poseidon. The place somehow appeared smaller since the cave-in to the entrance. It was psychological, of course — the temple was still enormous. Somehow the sheer knowledge that their exit had been removed introduced a sensation of claustrophobia Sam hadn’t experienced since he was a boy.
His older brother, Danny, had taken him cave diving for the first time. He was only ten years old, but his entire family had been mad keen divers, and he’d been diving all around the world since he was six. Sam laughed when he thought about it — child protection services would have had a field day if they knew what risks his father’s adventurous spirit had brought him.
Being the youngest in the family, he was always the most motivated to keep up and prove his ability. It was that inspiration that made him beat his brother, who was nearly three years older than him, at a freediving competition in the Blue Hole, Belize. His brother was so mad that later that day Danny asked him to go for a dive to the most amazing cave — that was, if he wasn’t too scared to swim through a few tunnels first? Eager to please, and knowing a challenge when it was being set, Sam had been quick to accept.
They had gone on the dive, and his brother had led in through a series of underwater caverns and tunnels. Presumably Danny had made the dive a number of times with his father, and confidently knew that there was only one way in and one out. But despite the appearance of multiple directions, it was fundamentally a very simple cave dive. To Sam, however, it was the scariest thing on earth.
By the second tunnel, the place became quite dark, and by the third, only their hand held flashlights provided them with any light. And even that was extremely inadequate for the conditions. Then, feeling only just on top of his nerves, Sam watched in horror when Danny turned off his own light and began swimming at full speed. Sam tried to follow, but couldn’t keep up and soon lost him. To this day, he could still remember the sensation of panic as it built up in him — he was forty feet below the surface of the water, lost in a labyrinth of caverns and tunnels, his light barely showed what was three feet in front of him, and now, his brother had disappeared.
He began to hyperventilate — the gravest of diving mistake, because it’s the surest way to waste all of your valuable air. And then he stopped. What am I afraid of? If Danny can navigate through here, so can I. Almost as suddenly as the fear overtook him, Sam forced himself to slow his breathing. Work the problem, not make it worse. Soon, the terror of claustrophobia turned to euphoria as he empowered himself to take control of the situation.
Soon, he turned around and slowly navigated his way back to where he started. He looked at his dive watch — only five minutes had passed since his brother had intentionally lost him in the tunnel. An act tantamount to killing him if he hadn’t maintained control.
Sam was about to swim to the surface, when he had an idea. He swam to the side of the cave’s entrance, and found a sinkhole — the entrance to a tunnel that disappeared deep below the rock wall. He dived deeper until he was resting a several feet inside and then switched off his flashlight.
After ten minutes Danny came swimming out the original tunnel’s entrance, swimming faster than Sam had ever seen him go. He watched as his brother swam to the surface, and then returned to the tunnel in a panic.
Sam recalled that feeling so well. He had bested his big brother, who thought he’d got the best of him by trying to scare him.
He waited at the entrance to the cave system, laughing, like the ten-year-old child that he was. And then he looked at the air supply. There was less than 50 BAR remaining. His brother was now risking his life to save him from the being trapped. Sam’s laughter turned to fear as he realized that he might now have killed his brother.
Looking at the remaining 50 BAR Sam quickly swam into the tunnel again.
He shined his flashlight on his brother who immediately turned to swim toward him. The two turned and swam back to the entrance fast. Danny, who’d been exerting the most effort attempting to find him, reached Sam holding his dive gauge — and gave it to him.
The gauge was empty.
Danny made the signal indicating he was out of air. Sam handed Danny his own 2nd emergency regulator, and the two began buddy breathing, as they slowly ascended to five feet.
Sam looked at his own gauge — 20 BAR. It wasn’t much. Especially when two people were breathing it. Maybe three to four minutes. No more.
The surface was just above them, but both had already overstayed their No Decompress Time, which meant that they would have to spend time decompressing. Sam might get away with it, but Danny had already swum to the surface and back again looking for him — an event akin to shaking up a coke bottle. He needed to remain underwater for at least another ten minutes.
Sam wrote on his dive slate — Dad’s emergency air tank!
Danny nodded, and began swimming toward the boat. Their dad, although a risk taker, had always insisted on leaving a full tank of air, on a line, at the five-foot mark below his boat when they were diving. They had been here for nearly a week, but his father never brought it in.
Sam followed his brother in awe as Danny managed to expertly navigate to their father’s boat four hundred feet away. To an expert diver who’d been paying attention it was simple, but to 10-year-old Sam Reilly, Danny’s ability paralleled mythical wonder.
Their air tank gave out thirty-odd feet away.
And the two continued to paddle their fins with slow, strong movements until they reached the tank. Each of them immediately grabbed the tank’s regulator, and began taking giant breaths of fresh air in turn.
Danny smiled at him.
And Sam watched him mouth the words, “Thank you.”
In front of him, Danny held up his diving slate with the words, “I’m sorry.” Sam took it, and wrote something else, “It was an accident.”
Both boys knew it was a lie. Sam had proven himself to his older brother, and more importantly, he’d proven his ability to himself. The two boys became men, and neither ever spoke about that incident while Danny was alive. But his older brother always knew the truth, and until the day he died, he respected Sam and did everything he could to look after him.
Back in Poseidon’s temple, Sam smiled as he slowed his breathing, gaining control, as he had always been able to, of his friend, his constant companion, claustrophobia. It was always there, but instead of his enemy, he had made it his ally. Something to make him focus.
Tom grabbed him. “You okay Sam? You looked like you were a thousand miles away.”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, I suppose I was. Just thinking of the past.”
“Well, I hope it gave you some sort of insight about our future. Because I’ve made three circuits of this temple, and I can’t see anything that leads to the fourth room.”