Free Temple of Fire by Christopher Forrest Page A

underground fissure in the floor of the chamber where offerings to Kalpur-az had once been stored.
    “Son of a bitch,” Hawkeye muttered.  “This isn’t a temple of the sun.  It’s a temple of fire.”
    The Titan members gazed at a geological chamber below the one they now inhabited.  It descended far into the bowels of the earth.  Rivers of lava flowed around raging fires, the flames of which shot up every few seconds as gas escaped from deep recesses in the earth.  Pools of black oil bubbled up from below, occasionally erupting into lakes of fire.
    “U.S. Petroleum created a literal hell,” Madison said, “but their theory of abiogenic oil was dead on.  They tapped into the Deep Biosphere.  Oil rich, to say the least, but also rich in natural gas deposits.”
    “Did their drilling techniques do this?” asked Hawkeye.
    “It’s wasn’t their technique,” Madison answered.  “Any sustained drilling three miles below this area would have destabilized the geology.  The fact that this city was here was the wild card.  The city contains plenty of air pockets — the rooms in all the temples and pyramids and dwellings — making the ground far more unstable than most drilling sites.
    “But that’s only one factor that caused this shit-storm.  The air pockets, combined with the escaping gas, are responsible for the raging fires.  A simple equation: fire, gas, and oxygen equals explosions.”
    “So the city is going to be destroyed?” asked Shooter.
    “No!” cried Ambergris over the COM sets.  “It must be preserved at all costs.”
    “Joshua, you don’t understand the ramifications of what I’m saying,” Madison said.  “This city is going to be consumed in less than a day, maybe even in a matter of hours.  But it’s not just fire that’s going to level it.”
    “Cut to the chase,” said Caine .
    “What we’re witnessing in this cavern extends for miles down into the earth.  Everything is going to collapse.”
    “Isn’t that a good thing?” asked Hawkeye.  “The city will be lost, but this whole damn pit of hell will be sealed up.”
    Madison shook his head. “No.  Not sealed.  The pressure created by the collapse is going to trap megatons of energy that will rebound in an explosion far more powerful than anything the human race has ever witnessed.”
    “How powerful, Christian?” asked Caine .
    “As powerful as the blast that created the underwater Yucatan crater sixty-five million years ago.  The one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.”
    “What you’re telling me,” said Caine , “is that mankind is going to be wiped out.”
    “Exactly,” said Madison .  “Extinction.”
    Tremors deep in the earth shook the cavern.
    “Let’s get out of here,” Hawkeye said.  “We need to regroup on the surface.”
    The team made their way up and out of the Temple of Kalpur-az . 
     

86 TH FLOOR, Jin Mao Tower ,
Shanghai , China
     
    Dressed impeccably in an Armani suit, Li Soo Yang stood before the double-plated window that served as the office wall overlooking the heart of Shanghai .  The flatscreen behind him announced with a gentle chime that he had an incoming video call.
    “We have penetrated the crater, sir,” said Saturo Aiko .  “My troops are recording all data from the city, which we shall transmit to Dominique Caine when we are finished.”
    “Well done,” said Yang.  “Dominique is interested in studying the extent of technological influence, if any, the Ancients had on later cultures that their descendants created.”
    “Understood.”
    “Tell me of the geological situation,” said Yang.  “We have decided to pursue any information pertaining to abiogenic sources of oil.  Dominique has discovered alternative energies while interpreting The Genesis Code, but they will take time to develop.”
    “My team’s lead scientist tells me that there is a vast reservoir of oil beneath the crater, but we have only begun to investigate the