The Atlantis Legacy - A01-A02 by Thomas Greanias Page A

there, P4 holds a legacy of knowledge at least as great as our own.”
    “Which is why we have to get inside first,” Yeats concluded. “Because it won’t be long before we have company.”
    Conrad asked, “You find the entrance yet?”
    “I’ve got a drill crew working out of a rig we’ve set up on P4’s summit,” Yeats said. “The top of the pyramid, about fifty feet of it, sticks out of the bottom of the abyss like the tip of an iceberg. The crew has been drilling a hole down the east face toward the base. That’s where the computer models say we’ll find the entrance. We’re about halfway there.”
    Conrad said, “You’re drilling in the wrong place.”
    Yeats took a deep breath. “OK, then. Where should I be drilling?”
    “The north or south face, although with P4 I’d favor the north face,” Conrad said. “Less than a half mile down the drill crew will most likely find the entrance to a large shaft that will take us into the heart of P4.”
    “Most likely?” Yeats huffed. “You want me to pull my team off mission just to follow your instinct?”
    “Look, if P4 is indeed the original on which the Great Pyramid was modeled, then I suspect we’ll find two shafts radiating from the center of the pyramid out the south and north faces of the exterior.If the similarities I’m seeing continue to play out, then we can use these shafts to get inside P4 in half the time it’s going to take you right now.”
    “And what exactly is the function of these shafts? If they exist.”
    “I have an idea,” Conrad said. “But I’d have to get inside P4 to be certain.”
    “Naturally,” Yeats grumbled.
    “I thought the price of admission to P4 was to tell you something you didn’t already know,” said Conrad when the intercom buzzed. “I just did.”
    “What you told me means nothing if we can’t find this shaft you allege exists,” Yeats said.
    “You will,” Conrad insisted when the com beeped again.
    Irritated, Yeats flicked on his screen. It was O’Dell in the command center. “What is it?”
    “One of our long-range patrols just reported in,” O’Dell said. “Looks like Doctor Yeats’s little distress call attracted some attention. We’ve got company.”

8
DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-FOUR DAYS, SIXTEEN HOURS
    T HE AIR LOCK DOOR SLID OPEN and a blast of polar air blew in with a flurry of snow. An ethereal figure emerged from the cloud in a green Gore-Tex parka. And even before the fur-lined hood dropped and the ultraviolet glasses came off, Conrad instinctively knew who it was.
    “Serena,” he said.
    Every man has his own Atlantis, Conrad knew, a part of his past or himself that seems submerged and gone forever. Serena Serghetti was his Atlantis, and now she had suddenly resurfaced.
    Serena said nothing for a minute, simply smiled at him and looked around. Then Nimrod trotted up to her and licked her wool mitten. She scratched the appreciative husky’s ear.
    Conrad glanced at Yeats, who was standing silently next to him, and at the two armed MPs in freezer suits behind Serena. All seemed to be waiting for some sort of utterance.
    Finally, Serena spoke her first words to Conrad in four years. “You have a permit for her?” she asked, petting Nimrod.
    Conrad blinked, incredulous. Perhaps he was so lost in the moment he hadn’t heard her correctly. “For the dog?”
    Serena nodded. “Huskies have been banned from the continent since 1993, as have any species not indigenous to Antarctica. I think that includes you, Conrad, along with your friends here.”
    Yeats stared, jaw open. “You two know each other?”
    “Don’t you recognize her?” Conrad said. “This is Serena Serghetti,aka Mother Earth, formerly the Vatican’s top linguist and now an environmentalist and official pain in the ass.”
    “Only if you’re an ass,” Serena said brightly and extended a mitten toward Yeats. “General Yeats, you look warm-blooded in person. Not at all like Conrad described you.”
    Conrad