Atlantis Burning

Chapter 6

Beatrice and Edward headed back to the portal that let them into Atlantis. They saw some children begging and Bea said, "did you see that boy pick something out of that woman's bag?"

"Nah, and we need to keep to our dead reckoning."

"Aye-aye, sir."

They followed the curve of the buildings until they found a break that let them move to the outer ring.

"Look at those mountains, that's the archipelago," Edward declared.

"Archipelagos are made up of islands. Does that mean there is ocean above the sky?"

"It's just blue. No clouds. Maybe the ocean is the sky."

They continued on and happened upon some men that were kicking a small girl. They watched her curl up in a ball on the ground, tucking her head into her body. She had fair skin, strawberry curls and looked to be barely more than a toddler.

"We have to stop them, Edward. They're going to hurt her."

"What can we do? We don't interfere with other cultures."

"Did you just quote the Prime Directive to me? This isn't Star Trek," Bea said as she watched the violent crowd grow in number.

"We can't touch things outside the pod, remember?"

"Why is no one helping her? They could rape her, or worse." Bea said as she ran towards them. Edward didn't move and felt the sides of the bubble expand. "C'mon!"

Edward took up the charge and ran after his wife. She caused the bubble to crash into a man who looked her way, as if he felt something. He responded by shoving the person behind him.

"It's working!" Bea kept running at people and as they felt the unseen force, they began to fight against whomever was near. At the first opportunity, she ran over to the little girl and stood in front of her. Edward stood a few feet from Bea, forcing the bubble to form a barrier in front of the child. A man lunged at the girl, but slammed into the pod. Bea and Edward were startled.

"What now. We can't stay here forever."

"We can wait for them to give up and leave."

"I reckon we can wait a few minutes."

"I wish we'd never come here. This is no dream come true."

Another man ran at them and fell backwards after colliding with the pod. Edward instinctively stepped in front of his wife. The man got up and came near with his hand outstretched, but he felt the invisible barrier. Repeatedly, he tried to push through, before he gave up and walked away, in confusion.

"Dreams are rarely what we imagine." Edward said as they watched the men, one by one, give up in frustration.

"You can say that again. It hurts to see kids mistreated, especially when we're still childless." Beatrice said, holding back tears.

"Let's look into adoption when we get home."

"Really?"

"We found Atlantis, we need a new dream to chase."

The men were all gone, and the girl was beginning to look around, thinking she was alone.

"I want this girl. I want her to be safe. What if we try surrounding her. Maybe, we can enclose her in the pod."

"Nothing seems to penetrate it."

"We have to try. It expands with us. You stand behind her and I'll stand in front," Beatrice said as she stood in front of the girl and reached out her arms. Edward walked around and stood behind her and began to move toward his wife, with arms stretched wide. Suddenly, the girl stood up and ran right into the invisible bubble. She stopped fast when she saw Bea standing in front of her. The confused girl looked with fear at Beatrice. "You can see me!" Beatrice declared as she knelt down and wrapped her arms around the child."

"I think you're scaring her."

Bea let go, keeping a hand on the girl's shoulder. "We have to get her out of this place."

"What about her own family?"

"It's now or never. If she has family, where were they when she needed them? Her clothes are pretty raggedy, like nobody is caring for her."

"Can we get her safely to the surface?"

"She doesn't need much oxygen. We can share from our tanks. We can't leave her here."

"Even if we can get her to the boat, we have a child with no passport, no birth certificate that doesn't speak our language."

"The mere fact that she is in the bubble is proof she's supposed to be with us."

"Some people would call this kidnapping, Beatrice."

"That's in our world. In this world it seems like everything is permissible, even killing babies." Edward knew his wife well enough to know there was no point in arguing. Beatrice would never leave a helpless child in such a dangerous place. Maybe she was even right, maybe this was providence.