Free The Atlantis World (The Origin Mystery, Book 3) by A.G. Riddle Page A

convincing, you know.”
    “Right…” David was about to slip his shirt off, but he stopped. “Wait. Almost forgot. Paul Brenner is here.”
    “What?”
    “Yeah, I have no idea. We need to go up top to talk—”
    The ship shuddered, throwing David across the room into the bulkhead, Kate landing on top of him.
    Her hands were instantly around his head, feeling for blood.
    He opened his eyes wide and shook his head once. Sounds and feeling converged, and he could focus again. “I’m okay.”
    “The ship’s been hit with explosives,” Kate said.
    “What? How do you—”
    “My neural implant.”
    Another shudder came, but David was ready. He held the desk attached to the wall with one hand, Kate with the other.
    “Earthquake?” David yelled, over the din.
    “No. I think it was the mines the British laid in the straits. Something pulled them down.”
    The ship shook again, this time more violently.
    “They’re destroying the ship,” Kate said. “Alpha is unresponsive.”
    “Come on.” David pulled her up, and they began staggering through the dark corridors, trying to make their way out.

    Paul brushed Mary’s hair out of her face, trying to get a look at the cut the blood was coming from. She opened her eyes, and he drew back instinctively.
    “I’m okay,” she said, peering into the empty front seat. “The guards.”
    “Gone. Thrown out.”
    Water washed into the floor board as Paul unbuckled first his, then Mary’s seatbelt.
    “What is it, Paul?”
    “No idea.”
    “Hurricane?”
    “Maybe,” he said, hoping his lie would comfort her.
    Mary’s reaction told him she hadn’t bought it. So she did remember something from being married to him.
    “Let’s go, we’ve gotta get to higher ground.”
    Mary grabbed her laptop bag.
    “Leave it, Mary.”
    “I can’t—”
    “It’ll be soaked and only slow us down. We have to go.”
    He pulled her out of the Jeep and into the muddy road, where a wall of wind and rain caught them, throwing them to the ground and rolling them twice before it abated.
    Paul got to his feet and caught his first full view of the chaos below, what had been Ceuta only seconds ago.
    He saw the expression on Mary’s face, and that steeled him enough to grab her, turn her around, and yell, “Run.”

C HAPTER 13
    The explosions were less frequent now, but David and Kate still ran cautiously.
    “What could do this?” David asked.
    “A tsunami could have washed the mines into the ship.”
    David’s mind flashed to his conversation with Sonja. A tsunami—at the exact time of the Immari global attack? He didn’t believe in coincidences. “Ares and Dorian did this.”
    “How?”
    “The ice in Antarctica. They melted it. Does the ship there have any weapons?”
    “No. Wait. It has emergency mines for asteroids and comets.”
    “Could they melt ice?”
    “Definitely. Comets are mostly ice.”
    “How do you know that?”
    Kate slowed her pace. “I don’t.” She thought for a second. “I know it because she did. That’s weird.” The tidbit about comets had come naturally to her—like her own memories. Previously, when she had cured the plague, she had focused on the science; remembering her Atlantean counterpart’s knowledge had been an effort.
    “Let’s keep moving,” David said.
    They raced through the corridors, occasionally stopping to grab a bulkhead when an explosion rocked the ship.
    At the surface, David instantly sensed how bad things were. It should have been morning, and the sun should have greeted them, but it was dark, almost pitch black, and he couldn’t see a single star. The sound of destruction was complete: waves crashed into the rocks below, buildings crumbled in the distance, and thunder echoed across the sky and in their chests.
    They stood for a moment, the hard-falling rain numbing them.
    David leaned over and shouted, his voice barely audible against the clamor. “Get below. I’m right behind you.”
    He ran into the clearing, past