A1 ROAD, CENTRAL DISTRICT, BOTSWANA

We traveled through the African savannah at full throttle. I once heard it was called ‘the birthplace of Mankind” or whatever. Our combat machinery going at full speed through the long plains, the warrior engine roaring with strength, a sun high in the sky releasing its best heat attacks on us. It had been several hours since our journey began, the road had long since ceased to show signs of civilization, we were now in the territory of nature.

The landscape unfolded before us like a vast canvas, impregnated with colors that only our beloved Mother Earth could conjure. Endless plains stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted here and there with sparse vegetation that defied the aridity of the terrain. Giant Baobabs trees centuries-old emerged like solitary sentinels, their majestic presence marking the passage of time in this corner of the earth.

The road, ever-changing by the passage of time and devoid of the vestiges of civilization, stretches like an earthen serpent among the surrounding natural vastness. The savannah is revealed in its full splendor, with tall grasses and sporadic trees struggling to find respite from the aridity. The color palette changes as the journey progresses, from shades of gold and ochre to deeper greens in the areas where life finds a refuge.

qaTcrwd.jpg [https://i.imgur.com/qaTcrwd.jpg]

The fauna was elusive yet omnipresent, punctuating the immensity of the landscape with the presence of wandering herds and birds that soared through the sky in improvised choreographies. We passed by a herd of elephants trotting in the distance, close to them was a giraffe, a peaceful sight for all to marvel at. The natural spectacle of wildlife unfolded all around us, indifferent to the metallic bricks that furrowed the earth.

Viktor was next to me driving talking with me as we all waited for time to pass.

"So, you work for Adelis right?"

"She's pretty well known for sparing no expense, so I have my doubts as to how you ended up here."

"If I may ask, did you get tired of it?" Fenrir's leader asked me.

"She's helped me out quite a bit, in fact, a lot to tell you the truth."

"A lot more than she should’ve."

"And sometimes I feel like I'm the one holding her back in her work."

"And well, there's a goal I want to accomplish, a personal project."

"I can't let her have to pay for it too, I can't always be a burden to her you know."

"So I took the job to get a good financial boost." I said honestly.

"And what kind of project is it?"

"A racing team basically."

"Or at least that's the long-term idea, first I want to build a mechanic workshop, to have a base for the rest of the team, the car, and the machinery."

"So you like cars eh?"

"It's rare to see a pretty girl like you interested in engines."

"But there are several disciplines in racing, do you have any in mind?" Viktor kept talking while keeping his eyes on the road.

"No not yet, but I was thinking of something cheap to enter."

"I heard that Rally is a good way to enter the world."

"At least if you compete locally, there are several categories of cars so it's easy to compete even with an old car, cheap entry to compete, no other cars to wreck your car, you get experience in all areas."

"Easy to get fame and sponsors, spectator entry is free so more people go to discover new teams."

"Rally eh, that sounds like good a way to get into racing maybe."

"But stuff like repairs and especially fast mechanics are expensive."

"Especially if you crash the whole car into a tree or really anything."

"That only happens if you crash in the first place."

"Well no duh."

"But anyways look, you're in Africa right now, a good place to practice driving on hard land."

"Maybe later I'll let you drive this one so you can practice."

"Thanks, but a 17-ton MRAP is not the same as a light rally car."."

"True, it's not the same."

"So what about you?"

"I understand you used to work for Adelis, mind telling me more about it?" I asked him, as he seemed to have some relationship with my mother.

"I mean there's not much really."

"We started working for her when she came to work in England to help in the continental war."

"At that time she wasn't the boss yet, when she arrived I think she was assistant to the Prime minister or something like that."

"Several commanders had high hopes for her."

"Even though she was not military, she somehow managed to get them difficult to get supplies the other commanders asked for."

"Little by little she gained the reputation that if they wanted to get what they needed in a reliable way, they had to go through her."

"If they asked her for a submarine in the middle of the desert she somehow managed to get it, along with the sea so they could use it."

"It was like watching the miracle of the multiplication of loaves of bread, but with guns and tanks.”

"Our job was to protect her from anything."

"Typical bodyguard stuff, wear a suit to a meeting, wear an earpiece, sunglasses always on, straight face all day long."

"Although after she lost her son, things got more complicated."

"She no doubt became very angry."

"She started asking to be closer to the front lines, told the commanders who didn't serve to eat shit, and even started to lead units herself."

"And it turned out that the woman really had guts"

"The biggest problem that the Alliance had, the relationship between all the different armies of each country, erased in one fell swoop."

"Overnight she took over the leadership, turned all that bureaucratic mess into a bonfire that’s why now it’s what she said or nothing."

"Those days were quite fun, I can imagine how she used to treat people she disliked."

"More than once she paid us well to go visit the house of some politician who was upset with her and break things, windows, tables, legs, you know send a clear message."

"The best part is when she put her opponents to fight among themselves so they’d never manage to create a resistance against her command."

"I think it was during that time that the Chinese girl appeared, she followed her like a shadow all day long."

"That girl was on another level, it was clear that Adelis had not hired her as a simple bodyguard pretending to be her secretary."

"By the end of the war, she was pretty much on one of those huge aircraft carriers, so she didn't need her own private army on a ship full of soldiers."

"And in the end, the Chinese girl was better than us and won us the job."

"...."

"But we are not complaining, thanks to her we got good publicity with some people, so we haven't been short of work since then."

The convoy continued on its route at full speed without stopping, the road in front of us was almost completely empty, with only the occasional family car appearing sporadically in the opposite direction. When they appeared, we had a small moment of tension as to whether this would be the time they would attack us, but after they passed and nothing happened, the calm would return and we could again relax a bit admiring the beauty of the African nature.

wBBZgwa.jpg [https://i.imgur.com/wBBZgwa.jpg]

"May I ask how you ended up in mercenary work?" I asked Vicktor who was still driving.

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"I got lost on my way to school like everyone else."

"...."

"I studied a shitty career that I thought I had a future, but couldn't find a job anywhere."

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"I lowered my standards, bad jobs, bad pay, subsisting in poverty."

"That wasn't life, it was just not dying"

"I got to a point where I didn't care if I was dead or alive."

"So I did what every young man with no future who doesn't mind killing or dying for money would do, I joined the army."

"And it turned out that being the bully boy in the classroom gets you far in there."

"I became part of the Special Operations Command, I was even in the Jaeger Corps, I'm sure you know them, they're the ones that dress up like ghosts."

"Of course that was before the Continental War, by the time the war started I had already started my own security company."

"So I ran into a lot of luck there." the driver said with a chuckle at how he had narrowly escaped having to serve during the war in the front lines.

"What about you, how did you end up here?"

"Did you join the army too?" he asked back while glancing at me.

"Yes that's right."

"Although in my case, was more the typo of you either fight or die, no in-between."

"You join the army to fight and maybe live another day or you die being devoured by an all-consuming enemy."

"Then when the war was over I tried to get out but personal reasons kept coming up, I needed money when I needed it most, I had to go back again."

"After that and back out again I kept on wandering around looking for something good but still nothing turned up, and then one thing led to another and I ended up here." I responded minimally, keeping personal details to myself.

"So you were also someone without choice...."

"Well, there is not much variation for those who end up in the military really."

"You know what they say, there are only 3 types of people who become soldiers."

"Those who have no choice."

"Those who are just looking for an excuse to kill someone."

"And those who follow the long family tradition of joining the army."

"...."

"Personally I think the ones with no choice are the best ones."

"They are the ones who weigh the facts and the consequences of what they are doing, and are aware of it."

"Well if you are of the family tradition you will come face to face with the harsh reality of seeing someone die for your partially lied-about choices of false memories of glory."

"And those who look for an excuse will end up dead sooner or later, either by an enemy soldier or by the police back home when they get out of the army." Fenrir's boss had impressively been quite honest about a subject that I thought he wouldn’t be.

Viktor was a curious character, so I wondered why he did all this in the first place, as he seemed to be a very down-to-earth person despite his line of work.

"And what is the money for, if I may know."

"I don't think people like to be in this kind of job for a long time without a good reason and need a lot of money." I asked him to try to see if he would give me a clear answer.

"Well, in that I think it's kind of like you."

"I'm trying to fulfill a dream."

"...."

"I always consider myself an adventurer."

"I like traveling from one place to another and discovering new places."

"And well, this job has quite a bit of travel and adventure in it."

"If you can get past the part about always having to carry weapons and the likelihood of being blown up at any moment."

"If you are looking to travel for adventure then backpacking is what you should do, safer, less chance of dying from a stray bullet."

"The best way to get out of a gunfight alive is to not be in it in the first place." I answered confused about his motives.

"Yes, but this job pays, and quite well I might add."

"Here you can earn a year's salary in a week."

"It gets addictive at some point, in a couple of days you make more money than any unfortunate office manager could ever imagine working at a desk for some software job."

"It makes you almost feel guilty to be paid so much for something that is barely considered work like it feels like you're scamming."

"But hey, you're gambling your life, a big risk, so the pay has to be good in the first place to make it worth it."

"Big risks, big rewards."

The atmosphere of virgin land was surreal, it was incredible to see how little humans had affected the region. It being a virgin land that was still as pure in its majority, as humans never bothered to modify this place, almost as if they were trying to protect the home from where they were born. I found myself wondering how it all started here.

"And what do you plan to spend it on?"

"People in jobs where it’s easy to die young aren't known for making a lot of money and then not using it."

"I was thinking that when I retire I would become one of those tycoons who travel around looking for ancient ruins."

"Have my own TV show, visit South America and find a rare species of bird."

"Be the first to cross the Antarctic in some weird way."

"Or maybe find traces of civilization lost to time!"

"My big idea is to find Atlantis ruins!" Fenrir's leader answered cheerfully as if I had just asked about his favorite theme.

"Atlantis, really?"

"The fictional underwater city?"

"And here I was taking you seriously."

"I know it sounds like a joke, but I'm being serious."

"Listen, I'm not crazy, yeah, I have my own hypothesis about what happened."

"Do you know why you can't find anything about the Atlantis civilization?"

"Because it doesn't exist in the first place?"

"Wrong!"

"Because people are not looking in the right places."

"People have been looking for Atlantis underwater since forever."

"But why would a civilization as advanced as Atlantis be underwater in the first place?"

"Because that's what the legend is about?"

"Wrong again!"

"Because the people of that time did not know anything beyond the sea, for them it was the last frontier, both for the Egyptians and the Greeks."

"When Plato wrote the Legend, Plato lived around 360 B.C., he wrote the history passed on to him by Solon, who visited Egypt around 600 BC."

"And he himself explains that it is already an ancient Egyptian legend from the year 9,000 BC."

"Which means that it is from much further back in time."

"Now just imagine that Atlantis is an ancient civilization even more advanced than the one we have."

"So, with so much advanced knowledge, why build the capital of their civilization in a place that could create a great tragedy?"

"It does not make sense!"

"By 10,000 B.C. Mesopotamia was just beginning to invent agriculture."

"Writing had not yet been a thing, Egypt was at the same stage."

"No buildings or pyramids yet even." I said to him.

"But there you are wrong again." He spouted confidently.

"We only know of what has survived since then."

"We know that those two civilizations existed because they managed to survive into modern times."

"But it's a big world out there."

"Just recently the ruins of Gunung Padang were discovered in Indonesia."

"Do you know how old is this engineering marvel?"

"27,000 years ago!"

"22,000 years before the first pyramid in Egypt!"

"17,000 years before Mesopotamia existed!"

"We are talking about when humans were in the middle of the ice age, hunting the mammoths and fighting what was left of the dinosaurs."

"A real madness."

"I still don't see where Atlantis fits into the equation you are making."

"It's easy, Atlantis originated in Indonesia."

"A human kingdom like no other known."

"Maybe this Gunung Padang was their first construction, or maybe the most recent one they left on earth."

"But Indonesia is a long way from Egypt and Iraq is not?"

"Which brings me to my great theory!"

"It's mine, don't steal my idea!"

"Listen well, Atlantis, being such a great and incredible civilization, knowing the problems of the ice age, they decided it was best to be nomadic to survive."

"But it's impossible to have a large and thriving civilization if you're always on the move."

"So here is the great invention that perhaps mankind has never developed and lost forever."

"Atlantis, unlike what everyone believes to be an island under the sea, is instead a floating island in the sky."

"Just imagine it, everything fits, they started in Indonesia during the ice age, let's say in a stage of relative calm, they created their mobile island and searched for new warm lands when the ice returned."

"There they went to the Middle East where they spent most of their time."

"Until the day of their fall, when they headed to new territories to the West for new materials and less competition against other civilizations."

"So while they all searched in the Atlantic for hundreds of years, an old and well-researched sea, they never thought of searching beyond the Atlantic."

"It never occurred to them to search in the Pacific."

"My idea that I propose is to start searching in the Pacific Ocean, which is much less explored."

"Just imagine, the ocean floor of Central America is almost completely unexplored."

"If Atlantis were looking for new lands, this was a good place to start again."

"Between Mexico and Costa Rica, I'm sure if you look deep enough you can find the real remains of Atlantis!"

"Wow, I didn't know you were so excited about the whole Atlantis thing."

"I must admit I got a little scared there." I said, being honest about the fact that he had really scared me with how slightly correct he was.

"You will see when I prove that my theory is correct, and everyone will look to me."

"I will mention you in one of my interviews don’t worry." He said with a cheeky grin.

After a short break to change drivers with those who were more rested to continue the trip, the convoy continued its journey into the fading daylight, the road stretching ahead like an uncharted path. As the stars began to emerge, painting the sky with their ancient light, I couldn't help but feel that somehow the moon was following behind me. The trip would still take a long time to complete so we probably wouldn't reach the border until the sun rose again.