Chapter Text
"You can't do this to us!"
The exclamation wasn't contained by the ornate double doors leading into the study, and it rang down the hall to where the rest of the team was sitting, on a row of benches, pretending they couldn't hear the massive throw-down going on in the closed room. They exchanged furtive glances at the sound of a shattering vase, undoubtedly the work of the team's leader, Clarke Griffin.
The muffled shouting continued, interspersed with the low pacifying murmur of Cage Wallace's voice. The president of the Wallace Group had just told the team that their funds were going to be cut off in a month's time. As was expected, Clarke hadn't taken the news sitting down. For a twenty-three-year-old grad student, she certainly could pack a verbal punch (as well as a few good physical ones).
"How long do you think they've been at it?" Raven Reyes, the team's mechanical engineer, asked.
The lithe, small Asian boy sitting next to her glanced at his watch. Monty Green, the tech faction of the group, could always be relied on for having the time (though he typically had the dew point, atmospheric pressure, and current temperature as well). "A solid half hour at least."
"Are they going for the record or something?" Raven muttered, clasping her hands between her knees and hanging her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the dejected forms of her three other teammates. "If we've only got a month left, then we should be using every moment we have."
At that exact instant, the shouting in the other room cut off. The group caught their breaths in surprise, instinctively leaning forward in their seats to listen more closely. Instead of further conversation, they were rewarded with the sight of a furious Clarke throwing open the doors so hard they banged against the walls.
She stormed down the hall towards them, blond hair in a messy halo around her head and messenger back slung over her shoulder. There were two spots of color high on her cheeks. The moment her eyes landed on her team, she growled, "He brought him up again."
Jasper Jordan, the biologist, sucked in a hissing breath through his teeth as he winced. "I thought he'd learned better."
"He said my father wouldn't want me to spend my life chasing a story," Clarke said, coming to a halt in front of her friends, who were all on their feet and ready to leave. In a lower voice, she continued, "Like he knew my father at all."
A stiff silence fell between the teammates as they contemplated the creator of the Atlantis Mission, who had died in a car accident a year ago. Clarke had taken up her father's research to find the lost island, using the remaining grant from the Wallace Group to carry out his work.
Finally, Finn Collins spoke up, using his moderated lawyer-voice that the team knew all too well from hearing him negotiate with sponsors. "So . . . what do you want to do now, Clarke?"
Clarke contemplated the question for a long moment before she cleared her throat. "We'll have to go into the field."
Raven immediately protested. "Clarke, we haven't got enough info on the site. It's just a guess. Besides which, I still haven't figured a way to filter oxygen out of the surrounding water. There wouldn't be enough time in the water to - "
"We've got a month, Raven," Clarke interrupted. "And there is only one full moon between now and the time that money runs out, and we are using that spring tide whether the suit is ready or not. I'm finding that island."
The group quieted at the raw determination in her voice. Seeing the tentative, uncertain expressions on their faces, Clarke sighed and said, "My father devoted his entire life to finding Atlantis. He read every book, looked at every map, analyzed every ocean scan. I am not letting that much time go to waste, not after all he did. Not after all we've put into it."
Slowly, Raven nodded, and the others followed suit. With the whole team's approval, Clarke moved directly into barking orders. "Jordan, you're going to finish the medical pack. Monty, you've got to fix up that communications head piece. Raven, keep working on that suit, but be prepared in case you can't finish it by the full moon - that's in seventeen days, guys - and Finn, clear the scientific research visas with Greece and make sure the lab in Santorini is ready for us."
The team let out hasty agreements and started off down the hall, discussing animatedly the new courses of action that had to be taken with the extremely condensed time frame. Clarke stood behind, watching them go, finally allowing herself to feel the leaden weight of her heart pressing against her lungs. It was getting very hard to breath.
For as long as she was old enough to understand, her father had told her about the mythical island of Atlantis, spinning a story so real, so vibrant, that she had never once doubted that it had to be real. An ancient Greek island that had disappeared following the Minoan volcanic eruption, that appeared on the edges of the horizon on the highest tide of the month and vanishing into the fog at sunrise. Now it would be pile of ruins, but even a single granite pillar would be enough for her. Her entire life, she'd heard other scientists mock her father behind her back, calling his mission "pseudoscience", a wild goose chase. That was why her mother had left.
But Clarke hadn't. And Clarke wasn't about to desert his legacy just because the Wallace Group decided that the Atlantis Mission wasn't "a viable business venture" anymore. She could still see the image of Cage Wallace's patronizing eyes when she closed her eyes.
We haven't seen any concrete evidence from your team, Clarke. I wish there was more I could do, but the Board of Directors was adamant: unless your hypothesis becomes fact, we can't divert any more of our funds into your little mission.
The rage she'd felt back in his study returned for a moment, blazing out of the embers and urging her to turn back around at give Wallace an even bigger piece of her mind. Fortunately, her reason got a hold on her again and she propelled herself in the opposite direction, down the hall following the path of her teammates.
They were going to find Atlantis.
It was the only option.