Chapter 1

Looking Home
Laying on the seabed, looking up at the murky darkness,
only a thin sheet of glass separating you from a crushing
watery death. It is truly enough to drive a man mad.
Many sorties have been told about people losing their
minds down here, opening the air locks and trying to
swim home. Silly fools. Everyone knows that even if you
could hold your breath for that long your body couldn't
handle the water pressure. I mean I'm not just talking
about the miners and engineers, the ones you'd expect to
lose their minds and think they are fish, I mean scientists
who study the sea and creatures that live here.

Out of all the minds in this facility I'm surprised mine is

still with me. I'm neither a scientist nor an archaeologist.
I am here to watch and write. Everyone expects a great
article when I get back from my year down here. I'm not
even sure what they are expecting me to write, I've been
here a month and seen nothing but scientists, water and
digging. No big discoveries, nothing we didn't already
know. It all just seems a big waste of time and money.
And I have to watch it for another eleven months...
Great.

It was meant to be a great honour to get this job,

everyone was celebrating and congratulation cards given,
however now I'm thinking it was one big joke. A year
away from the world, it seemed so appealing at the time,
but not having any air, nothing to look at and being stuck
with a bunch of people I have nothing in common with
and have no intention of learning the names of really isn't
fun. I should have gone on that stupid reality TV show
where people are left on a desert island for a few weeks;
at least I would have fresh air then.

The journey here wasn't much fun. You'd think diving to

the bottom of the south pacific would be a fantastic
journey full of beautiful things to look at, but someone
decided it wasn't a sightseeing trip and didn't attach lights
to the damn submarine. So yes I spent a couple of hours
in an almost pitch black tin can, nothing to look at and
nothing to do, just going down and down. The pressure
changes turn your stomach so much they give you a
bucket under each chair, just in case the full English
breakfast they served up before the journey chooses to
evacuate your body, another little joke I think the people
in charge like to play on new comers. At about eight
thousand metres the little sub sounded like it was ripping
apart, the noise was awful. Ripping and creaking rung
throughout.

"It’s just the pressure, ol' Betsy has done this a million
times and she's never failed us yet. Though I did notice a
few cracks in the hull before we left. Haha I'm only kiddin
ya!" The driver joked.

Great another comedian, that's just what I needed while

surrounded by water in just a confined space. The last
couple of thousand metres were filled with the driver
joking and a few of the people in the sub hyperventilating
and chucking their guts up. I guess some people get over
high school hazing tricks. Then finally we arrived and the
sight of the Poseidon Complex filled me with relief. Even I
admit the complex was beautiful, glass and metal
structure covered the seabed, all illuminated in an almost
magical blue glow. Structures going up and down into a
fissure where the archaeologist excavated for ancient
ruins that sunk and miners dug for oil. At this point I
thought I might like it here. This moment soon passes.

The rest of my month consisted of studying the map of

the complex so I knew where to go, talking to the
scientists, I have no clue what they said back though,
something about small life forms and something about
large life forms not being able to live under the water
pressure. The miners are too thug like for me and I doubt
I'd get anything intellectual or meaningful from them. The
archaeologist are apparently odd, not that I have spoken
to them at all, there is supposedly a team of five of them,
but they all keep to themselves in the fissure so I haven't
seen them around much at all. I think that will be my
next port of call, talk to the archaeologists... God help
me.

How I long for my own bed on the surface world. But

other than that, is there really anything waiting for me? A
boss that is expecting a masterpiece. A family that only
wanted to know when this opportunity showed and fame
was thrust upon me. That's it. Maybe I am better off
down here, maybe the archaeologist will make me feel
happier to be here, and maybe they have a story to tell.
 Chapter 2
A Story Emerges
I didn't get much sleep last night, if it even was night. It's
difficult to tell down here. No sun means we only have
the time on clocks and watches to go on. What if they all
stopped, we wouldn't have a clue how long we were
down here for. There seems to be people awake at all
times, it truly is confusing, and it just makes the days
blend into one. This coupled with bad sleep has caused
me to become a bit of an insomniac. About four hours of
disrupted sleep a night, it plays havoc with my
concentration, and I'm not the only one. There has been
an increase in mistakes around here, from the miners
digging the wrong way and wasting a day causing them
to moan in the canteens, to the canteen serving Tuesdays
meals on Sunday, or maybe I'm a couple of days out.
Either way that just shows where I spend most of my
time, the canteen, well it’s located next to the
laboratories and a few steps away from my room so it
makes sense. But today, I will leave my comfort zone and
head down into the fissure.

As I wandered passed corridors I had never seen before,

following any sign saying Archaeology, I noticed a lack of
intellectual personnel and an increase in thug like people
with wrenches. Each was in a group of between three and
five and as they passed would give me a strange look as
if I didn't belong there and chuckle to each other. Maybe
this was a bad idea. I kept walking and eventually went
past the mining facility. Massive drilling machines and
tunnels all over the place, it was huge. There was a thick
layer of dust and dirt in the air and some very foul
language from the miners as they bantered between each
other. I expected comments made to me as I really didn't
look like one of them, I was in a suit and looked scrawny
in comparison, but there was nothing, too much going on
and they were all too preoccupy. Maybe they were
suffering from lack of sleep too, meaning they had to
concentrate harder.

I was so relieved to have passed the mining areas. The

miners never went further than they needed too, actually
it looked like no one came this far in the complex. I
walked for a good fifteen minutes along corridors and
down stairs without seeing another soul. I started to think
maybe I should be down here, maybe there was a
chemical leak caused by those stupid numskulls digging
for liquid gold above me; maybe this area was off limits. I
pushed these thoughts to the back of my head as I
reached another set of stairs with a sign above it.
'Archaeology' it read, underneath in red pen someone had
written 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here', a comical
joke, probably written by a bored bookworm with too
much time and not enough to excavate. I opened the
door and stepped into the stairwell. The words on the
sign popped back into my head and I paused staring at
the unlit and empty stairwell that seemed to descend into
complete darkness. Maybe we weren't that far from hell
itself. So far away from the world an cut off, digging into
the unknown and hoping for the best. I laughed at
myself, there is no such thing as hell. I descended.
The stairs went on forever until all of a sudden there was
light. It poured through a set of double doors, like the
ones you get in hospitals. It almost filled me with joy,
after all that time in almost total darkness there was
finally a glimmer of hope. There must be someone else
down here. I reached out to the door. Thud! The door
swung back on me just as I went to push it.

"Don't worry I'll grab our food, you carry on deciphering

the runes Dr." I heard a voice shout back into the room
as a red haired woman with glasses came through the
door. Now it could have been the hit to the head from the
door or my eyes trying to adjust to light again but that
was all I could really see of her. Though the way the light
glowed around her she almost looked angelic. She
wondered past, oblivious to the fact she just knocked me
over and back into the darkness.

"Ouch! Don't worry, I'm Ok. I actually enjoy being hit by

a door then ignored." I said sarcastically.

"Ahhhh!" She screamed in surprise, I obviously caught

the woman off guard. "Wh...Who's there?" Looks like I
wasn't the only one who is easily scared down here.
Strangely that thought comforted me.

"Why don't you look before opening a door" my voice said

from the darkness.

"Who is that? And what are you doing down here?" She
replied still very on edge at the thought of an unknown
being in their zone of safety.
I got up and stepped into the light to try and calm the
startled woman down. Another voice from within the
room shouts "Mary! Are you OK? What going on?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you in your work. My name is Sam.

I'm writing the story about the Poseidon Complex and all
its projects and thought it was about time I spoke to you
of you". As everyone seemed on edge I deduced the only
logical course of action was to try and explain everything
before another, more dangerous object hit me in the
face.

The women face standing in front of me went from a pale

white to a crimson that almost matched her hair. She
rushed over and tried to check the damage she caused
my nose. "I am so sorry, come in and let me look at that
for you. O god I think it’s broken." It wasn't broken and I
knew it, but I wasn't going to waste the opportunity to be
invited in by saying that. She walked me into the room. It
was huge. There was a massive hole in the floor of the
complex that went onto the seabed where it looked like
they there excavating some kind of ancient ruin. There
were bits of engraved stones all over the place; the place
was very chaotic and rather messy. All this room and I
could only count six people. The woman who nearly
knocked me unconscious, an older man that I can only
liken to a thin version of father Christmas, a man and
women who looked to be in their late Thirty's and a boy
barely scraping twenty. There must be a story here.
I was guided around the right hand side of the excavation
site and to a table full of books, one read 'Tales of
Atlantis' another 'Myths of the Deep' I wasn't sure
whether these were scientific books or just story books. If
this is what archaeology was about, I could easily do it, I
mean I used to play Dungeons and Dragons and I
watched Indiana Jones when I was young.

"So what have you guys found down here?" Probably not
the smoothest way to ask but I was intrigued and just
had to know. The room went silent. I looked around at
everyone, they were all exchanging glances at each other
as if they were telepathically communicating about what
to say. "Sorry, did I say something that offended you?" I
asked trying to just get someone to start talking.

"I'm sorry for the way we reacted, it just seems odd that
you haven't heard what we are doing here." The older
man responded.

"I'm just surprised one of those idiot miners didn't tell a

joke or comment about it." The man in his thirties
interrupted. "Look at the loons, going to dig up some
more fantasies?" He added with a gruff voice to try and
imitate the miners above.

The old man glared at him and he stopped talking and

wandered back to some of the engraved stones on a
nearby table. "Unfortunately our discoveries have
encountered much scrutiny down here, especially with the
people with lower intelligence. Before we go through
what we are doing, let me first introduce everyone." The
old man started pointing at people and introduced
everyone one by one. "This is Mary; she is my assistant
and studying her degree in archaeology." Pointing to the
woman who almost knocked me out with the door. "That
comical man is Peter. If his humour was half as good as
his history he would have his own TV show." He gestured
to the man who had just walked away to the stones. "The
lady over there." Pointing into the pit at the woman in her
thirties who was studying the ruins. "That is Peter's wife
Jennifer. She is both a historian and an archaeologist. She
would give me a run for my money." He chuckled to
himself. "Speaking of intelligence. This young fellow." He
put his hand on the younger mans messy brown hair and
rugged it up a bit. "This is Victor. Smartest man I have
ever known and more degrees than the sun." He laughed
again to himself. The boys expression never really
changed, he just seemed to just keep walking and
working. "O yes and I almost forgot. I am Giles. I am the
reason we are all here and head of this department."

I guessed this meant it was my turn to introduce myself.

"My name is Sam, and I am a journalist." I felt like I was
back in an AA meeting. "I have been asked to stay down
in the Poseidon Complex for a whole year and write about
it. To be honest I haven't found anything interesting to
say, but I ventured down here in the hope you guys could
change that."

"Ha! You mean you want to make fun of us like the rest
do." Peter shouted across. "Well you can count me out."
He picked up a rock and tried to move it across to
another table, struggling under the weight as he went.
"Once again I am sorry about him." Giles said. "Being
caged with all the bullies above has made him lose trust
with anyone other than ourselves." He walked over to the
table with all the books on it, lifted up a very old black,
leather bound book, and walked it over to me. "This is
why we are here." He dropped the book into my lap. The
book was written in another language and looked like it
would fall apart at any moment. I opened it somewhere
in the middle, on the page there was a ancient map off
the coast of America with an almost kite shaped island in
the centre. "Atlantis!" Giles announced.

"Now I don't know much about Atlantis, but aren't we in

the wrong ocean for that?" I questioned trying not to
sound too patronising. "Isn't that what your book says?"

Giles smiled. "Come with me." He walked me over to

massive black board with many equations scribbled over
every inch of it. He reached up and flipped it over to the
other side revealing a huge map of the world with all
sorts of markings, writing and arrows all over it. "For
years people have been looking for the island of Atlantis
and trying to prove its existence, however all have failed.
However we believe this is soon to change. We spent
three months digging in Greece, just outside of Athens. It
was here we found that book. It was a historical
breakthrough. A book written by Plato, an ancient Greek
philosopher known for creating the story of Atlantis. The
book describes the exact location and time of Atlantis
when it sank, it also describes the economy and
technology they had." I could tell Giles was getting
increasingly excited about what he was telling me; almost
as if he was reliving the moment he found it. "But that
isn't the best bit! The biggest issue with authenticity of
Atlantis's existence is that there are no stories or
reference to it before Plato. However the book not only
starts with a story about the people of Atlantis coming to
Athens to trade, a treaty of peace was also found in the
dig signed by the ten Archon's at the time and what we
believe to be the leader of Atlantis. It is proof of its
existence!"

"So why are we in the South Pacific?" I had grown up

hearing the stories of Atlantis and had always seen it as a
fantasy made up years ago to try and stop the
government in ancient Greece to not become corrupt for
fear of the gods striking them down, not a bad idea if you
ask me, but it would take more than this to convince me
to believe. "I mean we are miles away from where the
book said Atlantis was."

Giles started to gesture to different areas on the map. "As

you may have guessed, many people have searched for
Atlantis where Plato suggested it was, but of course
nothing was ever found. We have studied the ocean
currents, tectonic movements and shifts in landmasses.
For a normal mind or even a super computer this would
have been an almost impossible task however with the
help of young Victor there we have managed to predict
where a landmass the size of Atlantis according to Plato
would end up after all these years. And here we are." He
turned around and looked at the dig site. "And look what
we have found. Carved tablets and ruins, all of which we
believe are from Atlantis."

Even I had to admit, it seemed to be too much of a

coincidence that there would be ruins right at the bottom
of the ocean where they had calculated to not be true.
Could they really have found it? Could the stories be true?
I had to know!