For several long minutes we simply sat there in the dark and waited. Then white recessed lighting flickered on like a swarm of fireflies, illuminating an auditorium-sized chamber. Our sub was situated in the center of a circular ring that resembled one of my Vostok energy generators, only this one was twelve feet high and large enough in circumference to corral a Miocene sperm whale.

The device looked like it hadn’t been operated since Antarctica was free of ice.

Jonas was busy running an analysis of our surroundings. Determining the air fit to breathe, he popped open the Manta’s cockpit and stood up on his leather bucket seat, groaning in pain from having been stuck in such a cramped space for more than thirty-six hours.

I followed suit, my leg muscles burning as I stretched. Attempting to increase the circulation in my knees, I performed a slow squat and recovery—shocked to find myself levitating away from the cockpit!

“Zach?”

“We’re in some kind of anti-gravity well. Try it.”

Jonas jumped—only way too hard—and shot straight toward the dark recess above our heads.

“J.T.?” Hovering in mid-air a foot above my seat, I stared up at the void. “Jonas, are you okay? Can you hear me? Jonas!”

Nothing.

Damn.

Placing my right foot on my headrest, I launched my weightless body into the air like Superman, the sensation of flying causing me to grin from ear to ear despite concern for my colleague. Within seconds I was high above the Manta, looking down at the triple-ringed generator, the interior rollers of which were either rotating very slowly or at a speed so fast their velocity rendered them an optical illusion.

Looking up, I realized a polished metal ceiling loomed less than twenty feet overhead and there was no way for me to slow down. Covering my head, I braced for an impact that was going to hurt—only to feel a bizarre, titillating sensation from my hands down through my skull, neck, upper torso, and legs as the atoms of my body passed through the surface.

Opening my eyes, I found myself on the opposite side of the permeable barrier, standing in a dimly lit circular chamber on a polished metal floor, my body once more weighed down by gravity. The circular walls and twelve-foot-high ceiling were made of the same metallic substance that seemed to radiate its own blue-white light.

Ten feet to my left was Jonas. He was on his hands and knees, a dark figure standing over him.

The surface of the circular floor beneath us brightened, revealing Colonel Vacendak—

—The barrel of his Beretta 9mm pistol pressed firmly against the back of Jonas’s skull.

“Nice to see you again, Dr. Wallace. You’re looking well for a dead man.” The Colonel nodded to two armed men, who stepped from out of the shadows to guard Jonas.