Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 22

After the fly-by, they landed just beyond the wall that surrounded the Acropolis, just off to the side of the main channel gate on the east path.

It was agreed that Mark was to be the first person to set foot on the island, but just before Mark exited the shuttle, Annabelle made him stop as she dug out her phone to record this moment for the archives.

Mark thought about what to say for a second, then stepped out of the shuttle, walked a half dozen steps towards Acropolis, reached his arms out towards the mountains towering in the distance and shouted "Happy Rebirthday!" as he then knelt down and kissed the path beneath his feet.

He then stood up and turned to face the shuttle and Annabelle, who was still recording, "On this day, March 19^th in the Earth year 2020AD, Atlanteans can finally return to our ancestral homeland of Atlantis after more than 3,000 years away. It may take time for the people of Earth to accept us back, but we shall show patience and resolve, as we will never leave Atlantis again!"

Annabelle stopped the recording and sent the video to Zack and Samira for the website and the news.

As everyone exited the shuttle, the first thing everyone did was jump a little, which made Mark laugh. They then took a deep breath, satisfied that the island was indeed solid and real, as they started walking up the path toward Mark and the East gateway building.

Only Mark laughed when Annabelle commented that the main path into city should be made of yellow bricks, but since no one else got the reference to the Wizard of Oz, they had to explain it to everyone.

Mark thought about it for a second, then asked Cricket, "Is there any downside to making the main path out of gold?"

"Not really and it's easy enough to do, well not pure gold as it's too soft and slippery, but we could give the road a gold plating, it just needs to have a bit of grit added to it so it won't be slick when it rains."

The path followed the north side of the channel and rose steadily to the gateway building, which stood about 5 metres above the ground and 10 metres above the channel waters. To their right was a towering stone wall, to their left was a 90 metre wide channel, that ran to the Atlantic ocean, just over 9 kilometres to the east, it was lined with tall trees on both sides of the channel, which would make for a nice walk or ride to the ocean from Acropolis. It looked like there were bridges that crossed it every kilometre or so.

Even from this distance, looking over the 10 metre wall, they could still see the mountains towering above the city, far to the west. Mount Pnyx wasn't high enough to be snow covered on top, but it was over 2,500 metres... high enough to dwarf everything around, Mount Cleito was the second highest peak at just over 2,100 metres, just to the south of Mount Pnyx.

The gate itself was a building that spanned and split the channel that widened slightly just before entering the city. In the centre of the channel on a platform 5 metres above the water level was Mark's statue standing 50 metres tall, wearing a blue and white robe, with his feet shoulder width apart, his left hand on his hip and a 60 metre tall golden trident in his right hand.

As they approached the inclined bridge that led to the gateway structure covering the channel behind the statue, several other shuttles landed beside theirs. They waited at the top, behind the statue, while everyone joined the initial exploration group into Acropolis.

While they were waiting, Mark was looking over the statue and was wondering why the base of the statue was quite a bit larger than what he figured it needed to be. Cricket sensed what he was thinking and told him to watch.

Once everyone had reached their group, Mark loudly announced, "Watch the statue!"

Annabelle joked, "Stopping to admire yourself?"

Everyone that heard her comment was laughing as the statue turned his head, shifted his feet, held the trident in both hands and pointed it toward the sky. Everyone just stared in awe as this massive giant prepared for attack and then returned to his normal pose.

Mark explained to everyone as Cricket was explaining to him, "All of the statues of the kings are true protectors of the island, even more so than the Kraken, at night their eyes light up and they turn their heads, acting like lighthouses for passing ships."

Annabelle said, "Kind of like the Statue of Liberty... but useful!"

Rayven added, "... and better looking!"

After the shock and awe wore off, Mark announced, "Welcome to Atlantis! You are all welcome to join the inaugural exploration trip into Acropolis, the capital city of Atlantis, or you can order a lift and go off exploring."

The gateway building was 30 metres in length and spanned the width of the incoming channels, under the gateway building was a wall that redirecting the water to the sides. In the middle of that wall was an archway between two towers. The 20 metre wide gold path led straight to the heart of the city and was covered by a red roof, for protection from the tropical sun or from the rain. Just like all other paths, they were solid structures, they did have expansion joints every now and then, but were mostly solid, which made them smooth to walk on, but they had a sort of gritty surface so they weren't slippery when wet.

Past the arch, there was half a kilometre of water with white sand, rocks and even some coral on the bottom, the water looked to be around 5 metres deep and the path they were on was about 3 metres above the water level, high enough to prevent flooding from king tides. They even saw a few fish that had already found their way into the channels.

Mark announced, "Hopefully more ocean life will find their way here and that, eventually, this will become a large natural aquarium."

There was another wall, standing 5 metres above the water, with towers on each side of the path, it appeared to be made of bronze.

Once they reached the wall, the land continued for another half a kilometre. This was the temporary residential ring that had 26 rows of houses intermixed with lots of trees, grass, green spaces and communal meal pavilions. There were bridges, all covered, arranged like a clock that spanned the water between this ring and the next one.

Everyone explored a couple of houses and realized they were all exactly the same. They were a bungalow style with a sidewalk that entered on the left corner. Just inside the door was the washroom with a shower, the rest of the room was a common room that had a couch, and a table with 4 chairs. In the centre there was a staircase that led to the roof and there was a door on each side of the bottom that led to the two bedrooms in the back... no kitchens or baths.

The roofs were white and the walls were a mixture of red, white and black. These houses had small front lawns with a red sidewalk that had the house numbers in black embedded in it, big enough and easy to see from both walking or when approaching from a lift. The house numbering system was just like a clock with east being 3... so 3Z001 for example was just past 3 o'clock, Z was the outer row and 001 was the first house. Cricket assured him there was more than 30,000 houses for temporary residence and when a house was assigned, the numbers on the sidewalk would turn white.

Mark turned to explain to everyone, "The plan for populating Atlantis is to use these 30,000+ houses for temporary residence while you explore the island and figure out what region you would like to build your permanent house in. As these temporary houses are claimed the numbers in the sidewalks will turn white.

As the mass immigration period starts to dwindle, these will eventually be re-zoned, but will likely always have some temporary residential. Like on other planets, once you have a temporary residence, there will be an option on the lift menu for HOME that will automatically take you back to your house, in case you forget which one was yours!"

Eager to explore the rest of the city, the group continued on, it was easy to see where the bridges were as they had towers and had a black roof, the main roads however had larger towers and were covered with a red roof. As they approached the inner towers, they saw there was an expanse of about 370 metres of water before the next wall, which appeared to be made of tin or silver.

The inner ring was another 370 metres wide and adorned with lots of trees to provide shade from the tropical heat. This was the business ring and was currently mostly empty as it would be developed as businesses were established. The only buildings currently on this ring were the Planning Office, a library, a stadium, an arena and a baseball park. The stadium and ball park all had beautiful white pillars that looked a lot like the temples beyond. The arena looked like the multi-tiered pyramid similar to the much larger palace beyond.

Since they were standing near the Planning Office, Mark led them inside. It was a nearly round building that had 12 sides (like a clock with lines between each of the hours), each wall had an expanded map on the wall for the region it represented and in front of each wall was a table that could display a holographic map of a specific portion of that region. There was also a wall for Acropolis itself and the remaining wall had some cubicles for staff.

Mark explained to everyone how the process was going to work.

"This building is the Planning Office for not only Acropolis, but for all of Atlantis. Once communities start to grow, they will get their own planning offices, but until then you will need to come here to purchase a lot. There are currently over 100 proposed townsites scattered around the 10 regions, it doesn't mean you need to live near one of the proposed sites, they were just estimated to be the most likely places for communities to develop.

Once you decide where you want to build your house or business, you just need to visit the Planning Office, and indicate where you want to build, pay the fees that are associated with that location and they would provide you with the holocube to build in that location.

I'm hoping we'll soon have some architects that will setup shop to design houses and offices, so that we'll have a bit more variety in housing styles, right now we only have a few ancient looking house styles to choose from. Unless anyone here is an architect, you may want to wait a couple of days to see if any architects are on the transports that are already en route.

The lot fees will be based on numerous criteria, obviously the most scenic prime spots will be the most expensive. Please note that you cannot build in the mountain parks as those have been designated as national parks!"

Exiting the Planning Office, they could see the central section, which was about 1 kilometre in diameter, separated by a span of about 185 metres of water and surrounded by a copper wall that shone like fire. You could now see the temples and palace quite clearly over the wall, scenic against the mountains in the background.

The central section was only available via red roofed bridges on the North, South, East and West paths.

Upon crossing the bridge, the central section appeared to be mostly trees and parks sprinkled with benches, gazebos, playgrounds and fountains, most of which looked like simple wading pools that would no doubt be refreshing on hot summer days. They were all linked together by a network of walkways and all of the pools, ponds and fountains seemed to be networked together by a series of small surface aqueducts that flowed from the fountains surrounding the temple in the city centre. All the ancient looking buildings in the city centre appeared to be made of white stone and had a kind of peripteral Ionic design, with the common 3-step stylobate and white colonnade that supported the entablature, gables and frieze of the roof structure.

In the very centre of the city, at the intersection of all four paths, was a beautiful white temple surrounded by shallow ponds. The temple itself was about 40 metres square and the corners pointed to the 4 paths. From overhead it probably would look a lot like a compass.

This was Cleito's Temple, now the primary medical facility for the island. In the middle of each side of the temple were four beautiful arc-shaped fountains, adorned with nereids on a rock. The rock itself looked like a natural rock that was around 6 metres high and there was a number of nereids statues, some partially in the water and others sitting upon the rock itself, as the water, that was flowing out of the rock, cascaded down the rock and into the shallow pool at the base. All four nereid statues were setup the same with the central rock, but all of the nereids had unique faces and poses and the gold nereids were in the hot springs and the silver nereids were in the cold springs.

Many people stopped to cup the cool water in their hands to quench their thirst after the long walk from the outer edge of Acropolis. Both springs were rich with minerals, the water from the nereid pools flowed into small surface aqueducts that linked every pool, pond and fountain together. One of the hot water pools though flowed into an outdoor hot spring pool, not too far from the temple. All the water eventually drained into the water ring and out to the ocean, so at least the water wouldn't get stagnant and gross.

Central to the Southeast quadrant was the Senate Chamber, which looked a lot like the one on Atlanterra, but quite a bit bigger. Possibly big enough that every senator from every planet in the Federation could meet, but since all the Senate Chambers were similar, there was no use checking it out at this time. The other building in that quadrant was the communal meal pavilion. They were kind of like a concession building at an event, except it looked ancient with a colonnade supporting the entablature and large roof. Down the right side under the roof was a queue line and just before you got to the kitchen was a donation terminal, you didn't have to pay, but it was a sign of gratitude if you did donate something. Many people just donate 1 credit, but still if you get 100 or 200 people donating 1 credit, that's a lot of credits to split up among the few volunteers that made the meal! Once you got your food and your utensils, you then found seating among the rows of long picnic tables, so you actually ate as a community, not at your own table, although there were numerous individual picnic tables scattered in the parks around the pavilion.

In the centre of the Southwest quadrant, was the massive Temple of Poseidon, which they had decided should be the museum due to its size and how many displays they had decided to put in it. The temple was 185 metres long, 90 metres wide and 30 metres high, the upper level ran the entire length of the base and on that level, each side of the 70 metre wide upper level had fifty golden statues of nereids riding dolphins, twenty-five on each side.

Curious to see the museum himself, Mark led the group inside. The interior was ornately decorated with gold, silver and copper everywhere. The centre of the temple had a huge golden statue of Poseidon himself in a chariot being pulled by six winged horses, his arms were in the air, almost as if he, himself, was holding up the ivory coloured roof of the temple.

Around the interior of the temple were hundreds of rooms, as you entered each room you could look at the displays and hear some narration. Some of the rooms even had holographic displays of certain events. There were a LOT of rooms as they had information going back nearly 3,500 years, long before befriending the Mazjik. There was also numerous statues and displays in the central area of the temple as well.

The upper level contained more displays as well as numerous Oracle rooms. Only one person at a time could enter an Oracle room, which appeared empty until you stood, knelt or sat in the circle. The lights would then dim and a holographic version of Cricket would appear and greet you by name and then you could ask her questions. She couldn't answer all questions of course, but she could answer pretty much anything that was public knowledge, by referencing the Internet or the Federation network and she was an AI, so she remembered past conversations and could actually carry on a conversation if that's all you wanted. If someone asked a question about their life, she would use the same process as an oracle card reader and have the person choose cards from a holographic deck, the cards they chose would be enlarged and displayed on the walls. The left wall being the past... the front wall, the present... and the right wall, the future.

The museum had a lot of information about the history of not only Atlantis, but Earth up until 1,138 BC, including the Mazjik that helped them leave Earth, settle Atlanterra, find other planets, the battle of Rylen IV, and the formation of the Federation all the way up to the rebirth of Atlantis.

Mark had a feeling the museum was going to be THE main attraction.

The Northeast quadrant has a 5,000 seat amphitheatre, which the plan was to use it for live performances and on other nights it was going to be an outdoor movie theatre, it could even be used in the rain, since it had a force field roof. This quadrant also had a skatepark and a couple of testing centres.

Central to the Northwest quadrant, was the palace, which was a huge white pyramid with a lot of foliage growing on the side of it and red and black blocks scattered all over in no particular order. It was 185 metres square and 165 metres high. The top of the pyramid appeared to be floating above the rest of the pyramid.

The ground level looked like a courtyard with foliage, fountains, benches, paths, lamp posts and what looked like it could have shops or offices all around the edge, there was even a few almost building like structures in the courtyard, likely conference rooms or event centres. The courtyard was open to the 30 levels above it, then there was a clear section for levels 31 to 33, providing natural light into the courtyard, and making the top of the pyramid to appear floating. The second level also appeared to be mainly for shops or offices and it was accessible by stairs in the centre of each side, or by the hover elevators located near the front entrance of in the pyramid.

Hover elevators were a bit unique with the way they worked, they were nothing but an AGC platform with a force field that looked like tinted glass elevators. You would stand within the blue square and would be enclosed by a solid force field that was tinted similar to a glass elevator. They were intelligent, because it knew who was on the elevator, so it floated to the elevator zones in the corners closest to the guests rooms. The elevators only worked for guests, but non-guests could get on, if they were accompanied by a guest. Since the elevators only stopped on the relevant levels of the people on it, you couldn't wander around the other levels, because you simply couldn't get there. Similar to non-guests, the only way to get to a level other than yours, was to ride with someone from that level.

The elevators floated around kind of like lifts, so during peak times it would look like people floating all around the central area of the pyramid. The neat thing was as soon as one elevator had cleared the space, another would appear in its place and you could have multiple elevators going at any time.

Staff, of course, had their own elevator that came from the kitchen area and they could select whatever level they wanted via a holographic selector pad that would appear once the elevator was in motion.

Nobody went further than the third level, mainly because they couldn't get to any other level since no one had been assigned any rooms higher than the third level. Levels 3 through 30 were much like the Luxor hotel in Vegas, where all the rooms were around the edge and it was open to the central courtyard below. The rooms were quite spacious and were likely intended for senators, foreign dignitaries or royal guests. Every room also had an external balcony that was 3 metres wide by 2 metres deep, with a floor to ceiling force field window, rather than a sliding glass door. You could literally turn off the force field and walk out onto the balcony, or you could turn it on and adjust the privacy.