Chapter One. Poseidonis
1
Cape Verde, Africa, December 29.
The jet carrying billionaire J.C. Perrier, his fiancée Rachel Miller, and Cardinal Di Monti, Archbishop of Venice, touched down after the long flight from St. Petersburg.
At the last minute, through her contacts within the Russian state, Ciduska Plushenko had secured a Bombardier Global 7500. Cruising at eleven hundred kilometers per hour, the aircraft had covered the distance in under seven hours.
A helicopter waited inside the hangar to transport them to a set of coordinates in the Atlantic. Two hours earlier, they had witnessed—by phone—the activation of the Pyramid of Cholula. Afterward, despite repeated attempts, they had been unable to reestablish contact, either with Fátima’s group in Mexico or with Da Vinci’s team in Kazakhstan.
At 1:10 p.m., an Airbus H225 Super Puma approached its target. The Saratoga and the Auckland—the two principal vessels of the fleet Perrier had commissioned to locate the columnae of Poseidonis described in the Medici Manuscript—moved into position near the exploration ship Nautilus, which had been anchored since dawn at the zero-point coordinates.
“Nautilus, this is Saratoga. We request to speak with your captain.”
“Saratoga, this is the first officer, Jacques Tavera. The captain had to disembark in Tenerife; I’m in command.”
“Mr. Tavera, Mr. Jean Chrétien Perrier, president of Perrier Industries, requests permission to land on your helipad. He wishes to meet with Miss Marilyn Jones.”
J.C. Perrier? The billionaire? Tavera thought. Perrier was a symbol of France, the country’s foremost industrialist. A smile spread across the first officer’s face—himself French—at the prospect of meeting such a famous compatriot in person.
“Bien sûr! Affirmative, Saratoga, affirmative. Mr. Perrier is cleared to land. It is an honor for us. Miss Jones will be arriving shortly—bien sûr!” the officer said, still taken aback. He decided this was not the best moment to call his superior and inform her of the unexpected visit. At that very moment, the crane was hoisting the submarine up to the surface.
“Mr. Perrier, it’s an honor. Jacques Tavera, first officer… and a Parisian, like yourself,” said the Frenchman, who had personally gone to the helipad to greet him.
“A pleasure, Jacques. I could tell by your accent. Thank you for allowing me to land on your ship.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Perrier. Miss Jones is in the submarine we’re bringing up onto the deck. It will take a little while. May I offer you and your guests something to drink in the meantime? We have a social area, a small lounge.”
“Thank you, Jacques. Lead the way.”
After some time in the lounge, J.C. retreated to a narrow ledge in a dimly lit corner of the deck and sat down. He took a mint from the pocket of the down jacket that made him nearly immune to the night’s biting cold. With all the rushing back and forth, he had forgotten the last time he’d had a proper shower.
The mini-submarine carrying the people he was looking for would take a while to be hoisted aboard. He decided to use the time for himself, his first minutes of solitude and silence in quite some while. He felt strange. He prided himself on being a strong man, steel-tempered, but for several hours now he had felt vulnerable, and the only explanation for it was the activation of the second pyramid.
Days earlier, in Sudan, witnessing firsthand the energy unleashed by the first had triggered something inside him. It had made him understand that, despite his wealth and power, he was adrift.
When he no longer felt like dwelling on his emotions and his vulnerability, he went looking for Tavera, the ship’s first officer.
“Tell me, Tavera, between Parisians, did anything unusual happen here around ten this morning?”
“I imagine your people have already mentioned it to you, Monsieur,” Tavera replied, slightly more formal than necessary, “so I have no problem confirming that at exactly 10:11 a beam of light burst forth a couple of meters off the starboard side. It gave us the fright of our lives. I don’t know what would have happened if it had struck us directly.”
J.C. smiled, something that did not come easily to him, especially when it unintentionally revealed what he was thinking. It meant the third pyramid, the one at Poseidonis, had been activated. They were close. Cholula had been activated, his last communication with Fatima seemed to confirm it. His expression turned serious.
“How long did the phenomenon last?” he asked, choosing a neutral term so as not to plant ideas in his interlocutor’s mind.
“About three seconds. The time it took me to inhale and exhale to steady myself. It appeared out of nowhere, a light so bright it was impossible not to see, no matter where you were on the ship. And it ended just as abruptly, right when people’s brains were barely beginning to wonder what the hell was going on.”
Tavera was finishing his account when they were informed that the hatch was about to be opened.
2
Marilyn Jones was the first to step out.
Her calm expression shifted the moment she saw J.C. approaching with an easy smile, hand extended in greeting.
“Hello. Did everything go well down there? My name is—”
“Pros!” Marilyn exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “I recognized you immediately. We did it—we activated it. We’re close!”
The other passengers from the submarine embraced him as well, while J.C. Perrier struggled to understand why he was being greeted with such effusiveness.
They must be from a country where people hug a lot—especially after COVID, he thought. Though it’s possible they’ve mistaken me for someone else. They keep calling me Pros.
When the greetings and embraces finally subsided, J.C. straightened himself and said firmly,
“Miss Jones, my name is J.C. Perrier. My mission is important. I need to speak with you.”
“You don’t remember us?” she asked, disappointment plain on her face. When she had spotted him on deck, she had convinced herself that he remembered. That was clearly not the case.
“Should I?” he replied.
Turning to Antonio, she added, “Antonio, why don’t you go with Hans and bring… Mr. Perrier up to speed on everything? Vida, Verónica, and I will coordinate Giuseppe’s rescue.”
“After you,” Antonio said, gesturing toward the ship’s social area, where Rachel and Cardinal di Monti were waiting.
J.C. had no intention of wasting time wondering where he was supposed to remember her from. He met countless people every day; it was impossible to retain every face. So he strode forward, his mind fixed on the mission. Time was running out. He had a Meriaa with him, but not the medallions, nor any news of the others. All that remained was the rest of the twenty-ninth, then the thirtieth and thirty-first—and that was it. This was no moment to take things lightly.
Antonio Vivaldi and Hans Andersen accompanied J.C. to the ship’s lounge. Some crew members were having lunch, so Antonio pointed to the table farthest from the others. Once seated, he began his account.
“I’m going to assume you’re here because of the Atlantean pyramid.”
J.C. studied him for a moment, then, as if conceding the point, nodded.
“We found it among the ruins of Poseidonis,” Antonio said, feeling authorized to disclose the information. Both he and Hans kept their eyes fixed on J.C., measuring his reactions. “We activated it using a Meriaa and three medallions.”
With a rare burst of enthusiasm, J.C. grabbed Antonio by the shoulders and said, visibly moved,
“Fantastic! We activated one in Sudan on December twenty-first, and another in Cholula, Mexico, earlier today. One remains!”
He regretted the outburst immediately. He had revealed too much to people he knew nothing about. He did not feel in control; his emotions were spilling past their usual boundaries.
Antonio kept his tone measured and continued.
“After activating the columnæ, we recovered fragments of past-life memories. They’re very unclear… Your face is familiar to us. You are Pros, our ally, but we don’t fully understand why. When Marilyn ran toward you and said your name, an image formed in everyone’s mind. Yours. Not exactly the same—your skin was darker—but it was you. Your face. Pros…”
“Souls reincarnate,” Hans interjected, noticing the involuntary expression on J.C.’s face that revealed how absurd he found the claim. “The pyramid’s activation flooded us with images… memories. Until recently I believed I was simply Hans, a university professor and the author of a few books. Now I know I am a soul that has lived many times.”
“So am I,” Antonio added.
J.C. regarded them seriously. Seeing in their eyes and gestures that they believed what they were saying, he chose to listen without judgment.
Perhaps activating two pyramids at once multiplies the effect, he thought. Perhaps it allows you to realize that the voices are yourself, telling you you’ve lived this before, and that the right path lies one way, not the other.
Hans, Antonio, and the others had opened the hatch to those memories and experiences, uncovering figures hidden and inaccessible until now. He regretted not sharing in the experience.
“How many lives do you remember?” J.C. asked Hans, curiosity getting the better of him. He thought of Margarita, the woman in his group who claimed to have remembered a past life after the Sudan activation.
“It’s all vague, more a sensation in the soul than specific recollections. The images are still coming. There’s no coherent structure beyond faces and emotions; I haven’t been able to piece together any single life in full. But your presence—and that of the others in your group—stirs something powerful in me. There is one thing we seem to agree on: many lifetimes ago, we shared a close bond in Atlantis. And that bond is fundamental now. It gives meaning to what is happening.”
Antonio went on to recount their encounter—Alexander Gordon and the Purifiers, Giuseppe and his violin—and everything that had led them to activate the Atlantean pyramid.
J.C. spent hours listening to their stories and absorbing the information, still unable to establish contact with the other members of his group. Both Fatima’s team and Da Vinci’s remained missing.
He decided to share the Medici Manuscript with them—he had a copy on his phone, to see whether the events described in it resonated with their experiences and might help unlock further memories. Their sincerity, combined with the little time remaining, convinced him it was time to lay his cards on the table.
“Our situation is as follows. We believe the remaining pyramid is in Vietnam. We have approximate coordinates and a Meriaa, but not the medallions. There are two days left to find it—very little time, even though we’ve mobilized all our resources. I propose we travel to Cape Verde in my helicopter, and from there a jet can have us in Vietnam tomorrow. Secondly, I have a document that may help the group remember. I’ll show it to you. It’s known as the Medici Manuscript.”
He paused.
“And lastly, we are not alone. The Purifiers know about us, and we’ve already had confrontations, specifically with Niccolò Machiavelli.”
“We know about him. Alexander Gordon, a Purifier, is helping us.”
“The senator who was reported dead and then turned up alive?”
“He’s been with us the entire time. Without him, activating Poseidonis would not have been possible. He doesn’t want the Purification; he’s far too fond of the power he already has and the power he’s about to gain. So we believe that, at least for now, he’s on our side.”
“You never know whether you can trust allies from the other side.”
“Let’s go speak with Marilyn and the others. We’ll explain everything and decide what to do. What about Rachel and the Cardinal?”
J.C. turned and saw his fiancée deep in animated conversation with Cardinal di Monti. She was an excellent conversationalist, sharp and articulate. He would have wagered that the cardinal was losing the argument, whatever it happened to be.
“She isn’t afraid of Di Monti. She hasn’t remembered. I’ll speak to her about that later, when she’s not with him. For now, I’ll give them the good news.”
He walked over to them and, so that the nearby crew members would not overhear, spoke discreetly.
“Poseidonis has been activated. Cholula isn’t one hundred percent confirmed, but I’m treating it as a given.”
“Fantastic,” Rachel exclaimed, just as quietly.
“That’s right. We’re close,” J.C. replied.
He watched Di Monti carefully, trying to read his reaction. Nothing. Had he remembered? If he wished to conceal it, he certainly had the skill to do so.
“We’ll be departing for Europe in a couple of hours. For now, they’re going down in the submarine to retrieve someone who was left behind in the pyramid.”
“I’ll stay here with Cardinal di Monti. He’s trying to persuade me of a few of his theological positions,” Rachel added.
“Have you made any progress, Cardinal?”
“She has. I haven’t,” he replied.
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