Connexion : The Atlantis Project, Book.1 (35 page)

On its upper half, the sides, which had
previously seemed massive and heavy, became gradually clearer until
they were transparent. The door opened automatically, without any
intervention on their part, revealing enormous synthetic leather
seats. After the initial impression, Jacques quickly resumed his
sense of practicality and liking for mockery.

“Well! That’s all very impressive, but how
are we supposed to get into this monster? The step is at least
three meters off the ground and unfortunately, we ridiculous little
humans can’t levitate –
“Maybe you can?”
– I guess the drone
will take care of the rest. It’s a shame; I would have liked to see
the landscape “live”, rather than from somewhere stuck under the
driver’s seat. So, what do we do, Charlie; any ideas?”

Francisco was not wasting any time. He had
already taken out of his pack the rope, harness and magnetic
handles. He soon motioned to Mario to come and join him near the
vehicle, proffering him the material without further explanation.
Mario knew what he had to do. He seemed quite adept at this type of
exercise. After adroitly hurling the rope with one of the magnetic
handles attached to the end of it, he yanked down on it with all
his weight to make sure the device was firmly attached.

Jacques watched in envy as Mario pulled
himself up on the small climbing rope. The able-bodied and
obviously very agile man did not seem to have any difficulty
scaling the few meters from the ground to the vehicle. He moved
around in the air by the strength of his arms alone, and all with
disconcerting ease, in spite of his cumbersome suit. It was the
sort of thing Jacques would have loved to do if he had had the
chance, but until now, Charlie had always been rather nervous when
it came to taking risks or exposing their body. Things are finally
going to change, he thought. But already Francisco was handing them
the harness that would pull them up like dead-weights to the base
of the vehicle.

Indeed, it was not a simple maneuver. Despite
their rather puny physique, they weighed a lot more than one man
and had great difficulty stabilizing themselves, so that they had
to start over twice before successfully completing the operation.
Charlie already felt far, oh so far, from the exhilarating
experiences he had just had, unlocking the mysteries of the network
center, but perhaps that was a good thing after all. This was it;
the story of his life, and it always would be. He was becoming his
old self again; caught, stuck, dependant on the good will of his
fellow team members; and that was reassuring. He even found the
ludicrous situation rather amusing. Hanging there in space, like a
disjointed marionette, he looked down at Clementine and smiled.
Still waiting on the ground with Giuseppe, she was watching them
with undisguised fondness and amusement. While Charlie was
nonchalantly letting himself be carried; his brother on the other
hand, was gesticulating in all directions and dishing out expert
climbing advice, which only added to the situation’s burlesque, off
the wall aspect.

“Bravo, Mario! Thank you, Francisco. You
pulled that off really well!” exclaimed Jacques excitedly. Looking
up, he could see the dashboard, still several meters higher up.
“Now we have to do that all over again, to get ourselves up there.
This is not going to be easy!” he added.

Mario smiled understandingly at Charlie,
while Francisco prepared to announce the sad news: they would not
be going all the way up there, because the drone would be able to
drive the vehicle – but he never got the chance. Mario spoke
first.

“You managed well, Jacques! We have a gym on
the base for keeping us fit. We might be scientists but we still
need to stay in good physical shape. We practice climbing and
mountaineering techniques a lot because we often need to use them
for taking readings and samples in the cave. If you want, you can
come along next week. Would you like that?”

“I’d love that! It’s a childhood dream of
mine”, grinned Jacques.

“Good idea!” added Charlie.

He then turned to Francisco, who was
preparing the drone for a new operation. Jacques realized then that
there would be no point in playing acrobats any longer, he reasoned
with himself.

When the doors closed, the atmosphere changed
somewhat. Shut in, in the half-light of this timeless strong-box,
they all had the same strange feeling. Would it ever open again?
The worrying thought swept over the group in the way of a shockwave
sweeping through everything in its path. They felt alone in the
world, trapped in time, in a vacuum which could not be accessed
from the outside (unless the walls were cut through with a laser)
for days on end. None of them dared to mention that aloud, however,
preferring to focus their attention on the progress of the drone.
It was being piloted by the only person present who was capable of
operating these technological marvels, developed by the
N.H.I.’s.

The minutes went by and the expression on
Charlie’s face remained closed; absorbed by the screen. Nothing
moved. There was not a sound, not a word; just the high-pitched
whirring of the drone’s blades. The little radio-controlled device
occupied all the sound waves exclusively and with complete
impunity, taking advantage of the extremely tense atmosphere. Then
the long-awaited moment finally came. Lights came on inside the
vehicle at last, and the mass of steel started to move gently. They
all tried to take a look at the tablet’s screen so they could see
pictures of the base. The images, transmitted by the drone’s
cameras, showed a panoramic view of the main highway that the
vehicle was travelling down at a prodigious speed. Less than a
minute after leaving, the door opened again, putting an end to
their apprehension once and for all. An enormous, perfectly shiny,
steel door stood in front of them.

“Here we are!” exclaimed Charlie. “Sector
24.”

“Already?”

“Yes, already. Barely a fifty-second trip. I
can’t believe it myself. All we need to do now is get down from
here.”

38 ROSALINE

The gigantic door opened for the first time
in millions of years, revealing the naked body of Rosaline. It
immediately closed behind them again with a dull, muted thud; the
sound of dozens of tons of steel ramming together in a brief,
precise movement. Charlie and Jacques were alone. The others had
received instructions to wait outside. Even Clementine had had to
resign herself to not accompanying them.

As they drew nearer to the sleeping body, the
tears flowed freely down Charlie’s face. There she was at last,
right in front of him: Rosaline, this woman (or rather, this female
being) resting peacefully; prostrate and connected just as Victor
was, on the metal platform in the middle of the dome. He had never
seen her. Victor had only told him her name, without ever
describing her, and yet he felt as if he had always known her.
There was not a shadow of doubt. It was her; he was sure of it.

The skin covering her generous breasts was
perfectly smooth, slightly lighter than the rest of her body. In
proportion to her, the twins were merely large insects, and her
feminine attributes seemed to them like huge, gray mounds, sagging
slightly outwards from her sternum. If he had to compare her to a
woman, Charlie thought she looked more like a mother. Rosaline was
certainly no young woman. Her wide hips, heavy breasts and rounded
belly gave away her age like markers of the passage of time, made
even more obvious by her nudity.

The exposure of this naked, completely
immobile body was somehow obscene or indecent. It was completely
different to how Charlie had experienced his own nakedness in the
connection. He would have liked to cover her up, give her some
clothing, to preserve her dignity, her privacy, but he could do
nothing. He had not felt the same compassion or embarrassment when
they had seen Victor for the first time, although he was completely
naked, too. At that point, he had been nothing more than a monster
to them; a giant straight out of the bowels of the Earth; a
headless beast – with a vaguely human appearance, it is true – but
a beast nonetheless. This was completely different. He was seeing
her with new eyes. She was one of their own, unless it was the
other way around. He was no longer completely human, even if he was
reminded of his clumsy body all too often. He was part of their
world and was working for them, of his own volition, whatever it
may cost him.

“
Look, Charlie! She seems to have some
sort of medallion around her neck.”

Jacques was right. Lost in thought, Charlie
had not noticed that perfectly obvious detail, even more visible
since she wore nothing else on her naked body, which was free of
any embellishment. Rosaline did indeed have a finely chiseled,
metal necklace around her neck. The metal it was made of looked
entirely different to any they were used to seeing on the base. In
view of its slightly pinkish gold color, it was probably a metal
that was precious to the N.H.I.’s. It could have been gold, or
perhaps another alloy of their making which closely resembled it.
In any case, it was something perfectly resistant to the effects of
time and oxidation. The medallion on the necklace was a small,
golden sphere which glinted slightly, despite the very dim lighting
inside the dome.

“I absolutely must find a way to get a closer
look at that.”

“
Do you think it could be significant? Is
that why you came here?”

“No! I came to see Rosaline. I had to make
sure she was still alive. Victor asked me to; she’s his wife.”

“
I know that already, Charlie! But why are
you interested in her necklace?”

“I don’t know, Jacques. I didn’t even know it
existed until you pointed it out. It’s as if I’ve always known this
woman; as if I were used to seeing her wear this jewel – which I
wouldn’t have even noticed if it weren’t for you. Now I feel as if
I know something deep down. That object surely holds vital
information; information that Victor wanted me to find in coming
here.”

“
From down here it just looks like a
simple, metal sphere.”

“We’ll have to climb up onto her body,
Jacques. I must admit; the idea hardly appeals, but we have to.
There’s no other solution if we want to get closer to it.”

“
Why don’t we go out there and ask
Francisco to let us come back with the drone? We could use it to
film all over the medallion. We would probably never be able to cut
through that metal, anyway.”

“No! I don’t want to draw attention to the
necklace; not until I have a more precise idea of the secret it
holds.”

“
Let’s do it, Charlie! I feel I have what
it takes to be a climber today. At least she’s not made of metal;
her skin should provide us with a few holds.”

“The necklace, Jacques!”

“
What about the necklace?”

“You said yourself that it was too solid to
cut through. We can use it like a rope and pull ourselves up onto
her chest.”

“
We can always try.”

This time Jacques and his brother were alone,
faced with a sporting challenge that he had been craving for a very
long time. They only had two or three meters to climb in order to
reach the medallion, which seemed feasible, but if they fell,
nobody would come to their aid for a long while. The heavy door
would remain closed for days; an impenetrable wall to all who did
not have the magnetic pass that opened it. They both clambered up,
clinging on with all their strength to the long metal cable that
linked them to the mysterious treasure. To their great surprise,
they ascended quickly, with Charlie making every effort to follow
his brother’s instructions to the letter. They were soon up on the
giant’s chest. Exhausted by the brief but demanding endeavor, they
sank down gently and leaned back against Rosaline’s generous breast
while getting their breath back.

“You see! We’ve finally done it. We should
have tried that kind of activity long ago. It’s at times like this
that I feel truly alive. Who cares if we seem ridiculous compared
to others; compared to able-bodied people? Promise me that we won’t
let ourselves be shut up in an apartment like helpless woodlice
again! After what we’ve experienced lately, there’s no way I’m
going back. For the first time in ages, I’m happy, Charlie! Happy,
you hear?”

Sitting alone together, or rather, sprawling
on those gigantic, incomparably soft, natural cushions, Jacques and
Charlie allowed themselves a moment of complicity. They were
reveling in the pleasure of life; the pleasure of adventure; of a
life full of the novel and unexpected, full of challenges. A life
where they were in the foreground, where their opinions mattered,
where the most improbable or foolhardy actions (such as climbing a
giant necklace) made sense, and justified risk-taking – oh how
exhilarating for people who never took risks! Tired out and worn
down by physical and emotional fatigue, for a minute, a precious
moment, they allowed themselves to forget everything, or
almost.

“I like seeing you like this, Jacques. You
know, you’ve changed a lot lately too. I haven’t noticed you being
cynical in ages. And you’re more discreet, less hotheaded than
before. Sometimes I even feel a bit lonely, if I’m honest. It’s a
new feeling for me which is a bit disconcerting.”

“You and I will never be alone, Charlie;
never completely, and I’m glad. You should be too, you know.”

“Right now, I am!”

Several long minutes went by in thoughtful
silence which they were reluctant to end. They contemplated
Rosaline’s peaceful face and the large, gold ball that lay just in
front of them. The golden sphere turned out to be perfectly smooth,
shining like a thousand suns that someone might have tamed to cater
to the whim of a pretty woman. The twins could see their slightly
deformed reflection in the large, convex mirror. Viewed that way,
their usually squat, stocky body seemed a lot slimmer and taller
than it really was. It was all artificial, but it added to the
general atmosphere, symbolizing in some way the levity and
happiness of the special moment.