"Captain, you should take a look at this."
Joseph Dynisis looked up from the map of the Mediterranean he was studying, his first mate was standing in the door, breathing somewhat heavily "What is it now Douglas?"
"We found something floating in the water. It looked like a small shipping container, so we pulled it on board. You really need to come and look at this sir."
Joseph followed his first mate to the aft deck and stopped dead in his tracks
"What in Davy Jones Locker am I looking at Douglas?"
What he saw was a cube, about the size of a microwave oven, if microwaves were four foot cubes with blue neon lights on the edges, and cylindrical recess six inches deep on the one face... floating three feet above the deck...
"We don't know sir, we put it on the deck and it started glowing, then Stanley here kicked it and it got brighter and started floating."
"You kicked it?"
Stanley shrugged, "It works on my Chevy back home, figured it couldn't hurt."
"What if it had been a new type of sea mine? Or a nuke?" Joseph asked
"Didn't think of that Cap'n..."
The captain thought to himself, you just can't find decent help these days... "Well, we'd better get this to someone official."
"There's an American aircraft carrier about thirty kilometers east," said the first mate, "we could take it there."
"Admiral, you should take a look at this."
Admiral Rickey Hattfield looked up from the map Mediterranean he was studying "What is it now Chief Walls?"
"There's a fishing boat, the Donna Bella, sir, they've got something you ought to see."
The Admiral followed his XO down to the flight deck and stopped dead in his tracks
"What the...?"
"We don't know sir. All they told us is that if you kick it, it doesn't explode."
"That's nice to kno- wait... they kicked it?"
"That's what they said."
"Idiots."
"Sire, the Tilom Matrix has activated."
Lord Daetus broke his meditative suspension and looked at his young Learner-Adept, "I have sensed it. Have you also sensed it, young Meuss?"
"Yes, Sire, the pulse was strong, it washed over me like water, then shattered like a pane of glass hit by a stone." He would not mention the vision, not yet.
"I sense anxiety in you young Adept, you fear the prophecy, do you not?"
"Yes, Sire, I do"
"Fear not young one, no adept has the power to commit the acts of the prophecy, not that we have yet sensed."
"Yes, Sire."
"Now return to your meditation."
"As you command, Sire."
As the boy left, Daetus thought, Meuss will make a fine Master-Adept someday, Daetus thought, if he does not uncover the true nature of the prophecy.
The ancient Order of the Chosen had started as a group of philosophers and scientists who collectively sought ultimate enlightenment. What they found was far more... influential, the ability to manipulate reality. To the common folk, they were wizards. During the Great War of Troy, the Order had sent several Adepts to help break the siege. They never returned, and the Trojan refugees they had taken on all attested to them simply vanishing from the battlefield. It was the order that named their land as well, after the first Master-Adept, Magias Atlantias. over the generations, it had become known simply as Atlantis. After the Great War of Troy, the Greeks sought vengeance upon the Atlanteans, whom they deemed traitors. A great battle ensued upon Atlantis itself. The Greek armies pushed the Atlanteans into the central citadel. It was only by the actions of the Order that Atlantis was saved. It cost many Adepts their lives, but they managed to push the Greeks out of Atlantis. So, when the Greeks again tried to assault Atlantis, and it was clear that they would not be repulsed a second time, the Adepts made a choice. The most gifted of their number would make an effort to move Atlantis, and they succeeded. The sky opened, and granted the city entrance to it, closing itself behind it. They had, however, left something: The Tilom Matrix. The wars had changed the Order, its members craved revenge, so they created the Tilom Matrix. When twleve thousand generations had passed, and the time of Greece was over, the Atlanteans would return to destroy them.
**********
"I told you General, we don't know what it does." Admiral Hattfield had spent the last three weeks trying to get various high level generals to understand that MIGHT be something doesn't mean it DOES do something. "But we're flying it to Wonderland just to be safe."
Wonderland, or as it was commonly, (and incorrectly) called, Area 51, was the most logical place for The Box. Its history with both Unidentified Flying Objects, and captured foreign aircraft made a perfect canidate.
"So what you're saying is that this thing was found in the middle of the Mediterranean? Just floating there?"
"That's what I said."
