Atlantis Bound Episode Three

By Odette C. Bell

Time shifts. The game continues.
Alina’s thrown into the future where she must find Cooper.
She doesn’t get there first. Rachel and Hope do, and they have help Alina can’t hope to fight. But fight, Alina must. For Cooper. For the crystal cave. For Atlantis. For her heart. And for her last chance.
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Atlantis Bound follows a professor and a pickpocket fighting through time for love. If you crave your fantasy with sprawling action, high stakes, and epic destinies, grab Atlantis Bound Episode Three today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Mar 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005511937

Book preview

Chapter 1

Alina

I… I was in the future.

I’d come to the… oh god.

I reached up, placed a hand on the wall beside me, and started to stagger down an alleyway. It wasn’t anything like the alleys I was used to. It was wider, for one, and there was no pernicious black fog sticking to one’s feet and curling around each lamp post.

I staggered out onto the street. And there I saw lines of traffic – not the cars I was used to, but these newfangled devices, somewhat like the vehicles I had traveled in to get to Atlantis but far, far more numerous. They spewed some kind of foul gas out from pipes behind them. And they covered the street.

I could barely think. There was one thing that my mind could latch onto, one cold, hard fact. He was not here. Cooper… he was dead. I did not know if the time virus had claimed him, but I could tell you this. For me to exist in the future, the past was no longer viable. That was a fancy way of saying that even if he had survived, he would be dead by now.

That struck me hard in the face like a blow.

I staggered and fell down to my knees.

Got a problem, lady? someone said as they strode past, neither leaning down nor asking after me with any great compassion.

I stared up at the man. He wore strange clothes. He also had one of those devices pressed against his ear. I jolted to my feet. How did you get that? Do you work for the master too?

The man looked at me, gaze judgmental, lips quickly slicing into a snarl. Are you talking about the mobile phone? And what the hell is this talk about some master? You’re crazier than you look. What’s with that getup, anyway? Every word he spoke did not mean anything to me. The way he said them certainly imparted what I needed to know, however. While this man had no compassion for me, he did not seem to recognize me, nor wish to capture me and use me for the master. Which meant what… in this time period, everybody had rectangle communication devices like that?

He quickly wandered off. It left me feeling cold and confused, my mind racing.

I twisted and looked at the cars. I saw other pedestrians, if that indeed was the correct word.

They all had those so-called mobile phones. I did not get the impression from any of them that they were speaking with some far-off alien creature destined to kill me.

Which meant the technology was ubiquitous in this time.

I took another step. Someone jostled into me. I felt a hand pushing into my pocket. There was nothing there but one of the last parts of that assassin hand. I’d plucked it up after stamping on the rest. Small and incapable of doing any damage, the only reason I had kept it was if I could ever find time to analyze it.

As the hand slipped into my pocket, I twisted. I kicked out, and I flattened the pickpocket in such a quick move, no one would’ve been able to stop me. The guy’s eyes rounded then squeezed together with anger. What the hell are you playing at, lady? You just attacked me. You’ve got another thing coming.

You tried to steal from me—

He didn’t once admit to his attempted theft. He called to a man in a blue uniform further up. You saw that, right? Saw what she did? Arrest her. She knocked into me, knocked me flat. She even tried to put a hand in my pocket, the guy lied.

I might not know who the man in the blue uniform was, but one word was clear. Arrest. All I could do was think of the brutal police officers who’d rounded up the poor and thrown them in the lower district in my own time.

While I was sure many things had changed in the future, I could confidently tell you that if I waited around now, that man marching toward me would arrest me, and he would not be kind.

I quickly darted to the side. I looked at the building beside me. It was built alarmingly well, solid enough that if I tried to run up it, I would soon fall down.

It didn’t matter. I never got there.

She’s trying to run, the pickpocket snarled in an aggrieved tone.

I felt that little scrap of the assassin’s hand in my pocket twitch – or something drew my attention to my leg. I threw my fingers into my pocket, desperate as ever to get away. Perhaps I should not have made such a quick movement, though.

She’s got a weapon, my pickpocket claimed with glee.

The policeman drew something out of his holster. It was not a gun – rather some oblong device with two metal bits at the top.

I stared at the wall one last time, heart pounding, mind knowing that if I did not escape now, the fact I had brought the heart to the future would be irrelevant.

I ran at the wall. That would be when the policeman discharged his weapon. Two crackling wires shot toward me and embedded in my skin, a wave of energy accompanying them. But it could do nothing, for if there was one thing I had been born to do, it was to absorb power.

I had absorbed all of the force of the heart and had done so without my body changing in any observable way. In a moment, there was a flash. It came from my arms technically, but its true origin was somewhere deep within and somewhere far, far away from this time. But fortunately, it was just what I needed.

Whatever weapon had been discharged caused electricity to arc back into both men. They were thrown off their feet.

I didn’t have the time to scream, nor the proclivity. I threw my hands over my face in surprise, then stared down at my body.

I hadn’t chosen to do that. It had chosen to do that through me.

Coughing in surprise, I glimpsed my true power glimmering out from my arms, visible just underneath my jacket. I had been quite smart to bring this along with me. The thick, sturdy fabric still hid my skin, ensuring only the faintest glimmer was visible around my wrists.

I backed away from both men. But when I realized they weren’t moving, I jolted toward them. I placed my hand over one’s mouth. He was breathing hard – as was the other. But I was starting to draw a crowd. People had stopped in their vehicles and were pointing at me. They even had their mobile phones in their hands. While the pickpocket hadn’t spoken with Master, what if someone out there could?

I backed off.

I went to throw myself at the wall, to try to climb it again, but I quickly ascertained I could not. So I fled down the alleyway instead. All the while, I squeezed my eyes closed in confusion, grief, and plain despair. Here I was in a future I could not understand, alone, incapable of looking after myself, and with a tremendous destiny still tied around my neck like a noose. All I wanted was Cooper, but he was not here.

I took another jerky step, and his last promise struck me. He would be here, not as himself, but in some other form. All I had to do was find him, force him to remember me, and… the rest would be written in the future. If only we could reach it in time.

Chapter 2

Rachel Gold

I was lying in bed when it happened. This moment of pure clarity. I was waking from a dream, but I inadvertently dragged something with me.

I’d dreamt of some mission to Atlantis from the far distant past. I could remember every detail, even taste the sweat that had coated my brow.

But the details were real, the taste too strong.

For some dreams are destined to come true.

Just as I wiped a hand down my face, trying to dislodge the last distracting details, they grabbed hold of me with a bloody grip. I stared at my hand, stared past it, then stopped breathing.

I felt… felt the power of Atlantis’s heart. My eyes closed with a snap, feeling like they were dragged into place by two speeding photons. I tried to struggle against them, but it was just as successful as pushing Mount Everest out of the way with a pinky finger.

Sweat covered my body, and images flashed through my mind – the information – and memories – of one Rachel Gold, heiress, Atlantean adventurer, and my past self.

I would’ve screamed, but I bit down on my lip hard. For I could hear him out in the kitchen.

My husband had clearly woken early.

A man I knew right here in the future and back there in the past.

For that man was Cooper.

The process of integration was not yet complete. My mouth opened in a silent gasp, and in a rush of tingles that felt like the combined sparks of a dying star, my body lit up with some form of energy.

I could not scream now, and wouldn’t have, even if I’d possessed the requisite lung capacity. For this needed to happen. This was the only way to claim my true reward.

Light… light from somewhere spilled all over me. Light that brought with it knowledge. That brought with it… the power of Atlantis.

The full personality of my old self was downloaded into a new body, my body. Two sets of knowledge, two sets of memories, and one set of powerful hands.

I couldn’t tell you how long it took. I couldn’t even tell you what it felt like. But I could tell you that the process was soon complete. My limbs shook. Energy rippled over my arms. It tried to form symbols, but it was as if it did not quite know how to yet – or if it didn’t exactly have the right energy.

I opened my mouth and stared at the light covering me as it started to ebb away, disappearing under my skin, not forgotten, but hidden for now.

I closed my eyes.

And on cue, I heard it – the ringing of my phone. I snatched it up from the polished bedside table beside me. I still had my memories from old, but now they were perfectly integrated with the knowledge of who I was and how to navigate the future.

I soon accepted the call, even though the number was unknown. Yes?

You have reached the future with your mind intact. You failed to absorb the crystal—

My moment of utter joy at being downloaded into my future body ended. I re-concluded what I had already suspected. This master would not be kind. Fail him, even once, and one’s life would be traded for swift, violent death. I couldn’t forget how that fool Hope had gone in the end.

I quickly controlled my breathing. I pressed my lips into a certain smile. True. I failed. I got there first, but she proved to be more powerful than me in the end. Irrelevant. I am here now, and I have a certain advantage.

Yes, you do this. But prove—

I am married to him – the current version of that fool Cooper from the past. He is in this house. I can walk out and wrap my arms around his neck. I could kill him—

No. You’re right. This is an advantage. He is a scientist. He will soon develop important technology in this era. You must find it. You must take it. You must bring it to us.

Anything you want, I snarled quickly. I pushed to my feet. I walked over to the door. It was closed, but that didn’t mean too much to me. I had honed my skills as a child, eavesdropping on whoever I could find. I’d overheard so many conversations between my mother and father, including all the ones where they’d expressed fear of my personality. If only they could see me now. This was true success.

For this was the kind of success that would be remembered through the ages.

I heard Cooper in the other room. He was on a prosaic call with shareholders, trying to describe how he needed just a