The Return of the Titans (5 page)

The man was wearing what Justin believed was
called a frock coat. His white shirt was tied at the neck with an
intricately knotted string bow tie. His black hair was quite long
and was tied back. He reminded Justin of pictures he had seen
online of gentlemen from the time of Charles Dickens.

As Justin and Mrs. Mallon approached the
group, the low murmur of conversation stilled and people began to
turn and look at him. He felt his face redden and he ducked his
head. Mrs. Mallon patted his arm again and steered him to a seat at
a table near the dais. When he sat down, she walked to the
platform, stepped up and went to stand beside the seated man. He
glanced up and she whispered in his ear.

The man glanced down at Justin, then looked
at Mrs. Mallon and smiled. He whispered something back and waved
toward the back of the room. She turned away, descended from the
platform and walked past Justin. She smiled at him and he turned to
see her leave the hall.

He suddenly felt very alone and cautiously
glanced around. Most of the others had resumed talking after he was
seated but one boy, sitting at the same table, was staring at him.
When Justin met his eyes, the boy grinned.

“Hi, I'm Aaron. How ya
doing?”

Justin shyly returned the smile. “I'm okay,
thanks. I'm Justin.”

“Cool. Good to meet you.”
Aaron stood up, walked around the table and sat down again beside
Justin. He pushed his long blonde hair out of his eyes impatiently.
“Are you as freaked out as I am about all this?” he asked as he
waved his arm to indicate the room around them.

Justin nodded. “As least. Maybe more. It's
too weird.” He looked toward the man on the dais, who was again
scanning through the pile of papers and lowered his voice. “Any
idea who that is?”

Aaron shrugged. “He hasn't said a word to us
since I got here about an hour ago. I guess he's the boss. At
least, all the other adults talked to him as they brought each of
us in.”

The man had returned to scanning the pile of
notes in front of him. Justin looked at him for a moment then
glanced around the room.

He was fascinated by the tapestries hanging
from the walls. He saw figures hurling thunderbolts, flying horses
and lions, men and women waving swords and much, much more. Like
the carvings in the hallways, every inch of space seemed crammed
with details. Between the hangings, iron brackets held more of the
glowing stones that he had seen on the ceilings in the halls. These
lit the room as brightly as daylight.

Aaron nudged him lightly. “I think
something's happening,” he said and nodded toward the dais.

Justin looked over as the man at the front
stood up, walked around and leaned lightly on the desk behind
him.

“Welcome. My name is
Alexander Fitzgerald. I am the head caretaker of this facility.” He
waved his hand, indicated the room around them. “We are called
Guardians and the name of this place is Sanctuary. You have all
been brought here because you were in imminent danger.” He
hesitated a moment. “This was a drastic move on our part. None of
you were meant to enter here for another ten years or more. By
then, you would have been adults and able to make an informed
choice as to whether to join us here or not.” He shrugged. “But
that choice was taken from you, and us, by our mutual enemies. So
here we are. I know that you all have a thousand questions. And
many of you are in shock, although you probably don't know it.” He
indicated a man wearing a gray suit and round glasses that was
standing to one side of the dais. “Doctor Smythe will be available
to any of you should you need his services. If any of you feel ill,
or dizzy or have any concerns at all for your health, please don't
hesitate to call on him at any time.”

The doctor smiled and nodded at all of them.
Justin heard some noise from the back of the room and turned around
to see several people entering, carrying covered silver trays. Mrs.
Mallon was among the group.

“Before we begin though,”
Mr. Fitzgerald continued, “I'm sure that many of you are hungry.
Please help yourselves and take your time. We'll speak again in a
little while.”

The servers put down the trays on the
scattered tables. As they lifted the lids, Justin saw that some
trays held tall mugs that steamed. The smell of chocolate wafted
past him and he felt his mouth watering. It had been a long time
since breakfast.

On the other trays were mounds of
sandwiches. Justin could see what looked like meat and chicken and
some sort of vegetables. Mrs. Mallon made straight for his table
and set down her tray. She nodded to a gray haired man who set his
tray beside hers.

“Now Mr. McLeod, you and
your friend tuck in. Don't let the chocolate get cold.”

Justin smiled. “Thanks, Mrs. Mallon. This is
Aaron.”

Aaron nodded and Mrs. Mallon patted his
shoulder. “Pleased to meet you, Mister..?”

“Dalton, ma'am,” Aaron
said.

“Good. Mr. Dalton it is.
As I've mentioned to Mr. McLeod, we follow the formalities here, at
least during meetings.” She gave Justin a last pat and smile and
walked to the back of the room.

The two boys took mugs of hot chocolate.
Justin sipped his. It was delicious; thick and sweet with small
marshmallows floating on top. The sandwiches were excellent and,
after eating three of them, Justin began to feel better. He was
still confused about what was going on and worried about his mother
and Wilson but he felt calmer somehow. He looked at Aaron who was
munching steadily on his fourth or fifth sandwich and just grinned
suddenly. Aaron looked back at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Justin said. “You
just look so...normal, chewing away like that. And this place is so
strange, that I suddenly felt better somehow.”

Aaron swallowed a huge mouthful and
chuckled. Then his eyes widened and he grabbed his mug and washed
down the food that seemed to be stuck halfway. He drew in a deep
breath. “Whew, that was tight. But I think I know what you mean,
Justin. I mean, just having a friendly face nearby helps when
everything around you is kind of nuts, you know?”

Justin nodded. He looked around at the
others. Everyone seemed a little calmer, although several of the
girls were just nibbling on their sandwiches and looked very sad.
The leader had picked up his papers while they ate and was going
over them, still leaning against his desk. He glanced up and seemed
to notice that most of them were finished. He cleared his throat
loudly and the group all turned to look at him.

“Now that you are feeling
a bit better, I will try to explain what is going on. Many of you
will find the explanation hard to believe. That is to be expected.
As I said, we had not planned on you being here for quite some
time. By then, we would have already told you all of what I'm about
to relate, but much more slowly, so that you would have had time to
digest the facts and come to your own conclusions.” He set the
papers back on the desk and sighed. “But here we are, so I will
have to drop all of this on you and let you absorb it as best you
can. I apologize for that.”

He folded his arms. “Let me start with some
history. Ancient history now. I assume that some of you have heard
of Atlantis. It was an island that legend says was inhabited by an
advanced people. There are tales that tell us that these people
were much like we are now, but with sciences and technologies
rivaling anything that exists today. It is even said that they had
invented flying machines, telephones and other modern technological
marvels.” He glanced around the room. “Lovely stories, I'm sure
you'd agree. But these legends are absolutely false.”

Mr. Fitzgerald stopped as the room began to
buzz with conversation. Justin leaned over to Aaron. “Did you read
anything recently about Atlantis?”

Aaron looked puzzled. “How did you know
that? Yeah, about a week ago, I got some weird email that had me
doing some research on it.”

“Me too!” Justin
exclaimed. “I wonder what...”

“I see that many of you,
perhaps all of you, are realizing that you share something in
common,” Mr. Fitzgerald said loudly. The room quieted down. “And in
answer to the obvious question, yes we are the ones who sent you
the emails, or the regular mail, or in one or two cases had one of
our people drop hints that set you on the road to delving into the
history of Atlantis. We were trying, you see, to prepare you
somewhat in case our mutual enemies began to move against you,
which they have.”

“How did you know, sir?”
asked one of the older boys from the back.

“That they were on the
move?” The boy nodded. “We have been watching them, Mister...” Mr.
Fitzgerald glanced at the papers on his desk. “Mr. Benson. We have
been keeping track of them as best we can for many years now. They
are secretive and clever so it did come as some surprise when they
moved. Which is why you all ended up in Sanctuary so
abruptly.”

“But who are they?” the
boy asked.

“Ah, I will tell you that
shortly. Let me continue with the background first, if you
please.”

Justin noticed that the boy looked
rebellious but another older teen beside him whispered in his ear
and he subsided.

“Thank you. Now, to
continue. As per the information you hopefully gathered, I know
that you also have read some of the legends of the Titans. Old
gods, apparently, that existed before Zeus and Hera and the other
gods took up residence on Mount Olympus.” Several of the others
looked confused by this seeming change of subject, as was Justin.
What's the connection? he wondered.

Mr. Fitzgerald looked slightly amused. “Yes,
they seem to have nothing in common, do they? But in fact they do.
You see, the Titans were not gods. They were in fact a race of
people.” Again the room buzzed for a moment but quickly settled
down. “Just as the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon were separate
branches of the human family tree, so too were the Titans. And it
was the Titans who inhabited Atlantis.”

He began to pace slowly back and forth along
the length of the dais. “You see, the Titans were never a numerous
people. Very few children were born into each generation. Even when
they mated with humans, they weren't very prolific. And so, what
they couldn't make up for in numbers, to defend themselves in a
violent and dangerous world, they made up for in technology.” He
smiled as if to himself. “The old saying, that necessity is the
mother of invention, was literally true for the Titans. While the
rest of the world developed slowly, and inched it's way generation
by generation out of primitive darkness to new discoveries such as
metal working and simple types of healing, the Titans bounded
ahead, learning to create steel, steam power, advanced water
conduits and much more.” He stopped and turned abruptly to face the
room.

“As you might imagine,
this caused many in the human race to become envious. Over time,
envy turned to jealousy and then hatred. The humans wanted Titan
technology for themselves. And inevitably, there was war.” he
sighed and shook his head. “While the Titan race had the advantage
of living on an island, which is more easily defended, and they had
their technology, there was one thing that they did not have. And
that was the will to fight.”

“What?” It was Benson
again. “They were too chicken to defend themselves?”

Mr. Fitzgerald frowned. “No, Mr. Benson. It
wasn't a question of bravery. The Titans lived by a moral code that
respected all life. They simply could not bring themselves to kill
for their own survival.” Now he stared at the teens intently. “Or
at least, most of them couldn't. There was a faction that wanted to
fight. Wanted, in fact, to rule not just Atlantis, but the entire
world. They had no hesitation when it came to using the weapons of
the Titans, weapons which were created more for research sake than
actual use, against the humans. When the first attacks came, it was
a slaughter.”

Justin looked over at Benson and saw him
smile slightly at this. He shivered and looked back at the
dais.

“To save the humans,” Mr.
Fitzgerald continued, “the Titans broke their own code and fought
against the rebels in their midst. It was a horrible conflict, as
Titan battled Titan, using their inventions against each other. And
it was this, not the human attacks, that destroyed
Atlantis.”

Justin watched the man intently. He could
almost see in his mind what it must have been like, fighting in the
streets, using weapons whose powers he could scarcely imagine.
Powerful enough to destroy an entire island? It must have been a
terrible battle.

“This place,” Mr.
Fitzgerald waved a hand at the room around them, “was constructed
by the Titans long before their internal conflict. It was meant as
a place to store knowledge and artifacts but it was also built as a
last refuge in case the Titans had to retreat from the human
threat. When the threat instead became that of other Titans,
Sanctuary was sealed. Knowledge of it's location and secrets was
passed down, not to other Titans, who all perished in the civil
war, but to a handful of humans, humans who were allies to the
Titans, not enemies. And those few who survived passed on that
knowledge to their descendants.” He looked at the other adults in
the room. “We are those descendants.”

One of the girls held up her hand, as if she
was at school. Justin smiled to himself at how easily they fell
back into old patterns of behavior.

Barely glancing at his notes, Mr. Fitzgerald
nodded at the girl. “Yes, Miss Shapiro?”

“Sir, this is all very
interesting,” she said. Justin could see her hands were clasped so
tightly that her knuckles showed white beneath her skin. “But what
does it have to do with us. What's it got to do with my...my
brother being hurt when he tried to protect me?”