Reel One

The seaplane’s alarm made the pilot jerk himself awake.

Daniel Taylor looked through the cockpit window in shock. He was surrounded by pitch black fluff, flashes of lightning erupting all around him. How could this have happened? The forecast said clear skies for the entire flight; that’s the only reason he’d bothered springing for the autopilot.

He slid down a pair of red lens goggles off his black hair and over his dark eyes, loosened his blue jacket, and took the controls. Turbulence was starting to rock the craft to and fro across the sky. His navigation was going haywire, his heading indicator spinning around freely.

Daniel was flying blind.

A bolt nearly blinded him literally as it flashed right in front of the plane. Arcs of electricity danced around the flight instruments while Daniel wrestled with the yoke. It was hard to hear over the booming thunder but he knew the engines were dying.

He slammed his fist against the side of the cockpit to finally shut up that alarm.

The lightning flashed in front of his cockpit a second time. But now he was no longer in the middle of the ocean or in the clouds. In that flash of light, Daniel found himself flying a falling plane through fog somewhere in the mountains.

This had to be a bad dream. It had to be. He’d been over the ocean moments ago!

Nestled in the fog, he saw it. A small lake nestled in a ring of mountains and hills. That was his only chance.

Daniel brought the plane in for as smooth a landing as he could. He was rewarded for his troubles by losing consciousness the second the plane hit the water.

----

The trouble really started two weeks ago.

Daniel Taylor did not fancy himself a daring person. A man who teaches at a university could be called many things, but adventurous was not one of them.

Budget cuts at the university he taught at meant that in addition to teaching classes on history and geography, he was now saddled with teaching archeology. Because as his boss told him, archeology was just history but much, much older. It would be easy for someone like Daniel.

His boss could go to hell.

Archeology was not Daniel’s speed at all. He taught history and even he admitted it could be dry at times. The subject also had a negative reputation these days; either students cried foul at its colonialist origins or complained about how much ‘coddling’ there was in the field these days. He’d dealt with both in equal measure and found he needed a stiff drink regardless of who he spoke to.

He quietly hoped they’d can the entire program. But no, some rich donor had gifted the school money on the condition they kept the blasted thing alive.

Which was why he was sitting behind his desk in a collared shirt and tie at five thirty on a Friday evening with two gentlemen in suits. They were identical in attire, with the only difference being their skin color – one was white and one was black.

That the white man introduced himself as ‘Mr. Black’ and the black man as ‘Mr. White’ would’ve gotten a few laughs in his class. Here, it felt like bad comedy.

“Gentlemen.” Daniel nodded. “What can I help you with?”

Mr. Black spoke first. “We understand you were associates with Professor Wozniak. Did you and him speak at all before he left?”

Daniel had to think on it for a moment. “Long enough to tell me that it was my job or his when the last round of budget cuts came down. Haven’t seen him since.”

Mr. White shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Good. He told you the cover story. Our apologies for the deception, Mister Taylor. What do you know about the Atlas of Anomalies?”

Cover story?! Daniel’s eyebrow twitched in irritation. But he got a feeling that if he went off on these two now, he’d end up on a list by the end of the day. “People talk about it like it’s this great myth when it’s only started cropping up over the past few years.” He tried leaving it at that, but both men across the desk waited for him to continue. “You’re familiar with the idea of an atlas. It’s a collection of maps. The story goes that there exists an atlas that shows maps for places that don’t exist. Atlantis, that sort of thing. And that the person who had the atlas can go to those places at will.”

Mr. Black nodded. “Seems we’ve come to the right place, then.”

Not really. Everything Daniel knew he’d learned in five minutes of looking on the Internet. “It’s a meme. Everyone’s so conspiratorial these days that you can convince anyone that anything exists now. I had a student the other day try to convince me birds were a CIA psyop. Wozniak would know more. But it sounds like you already talked to him.”

“We recruited Professor Wozniak to look for the Atlas. His plane’s transponder blanked out while he was en route to Bermuda. We were hoping you could check to see where he is.”

Wasn’t this a job for emergency services? “How long has he been missing?”

“Two years.”

Daniel leaned back in his chair. Wozniak was almost certainly dead. Or chilling in Bermuda with whatever money he’d been paid by these two. Either way, his old colleague didn’t want to be found. Which made his decision easy.

“Double whatever you were paying him and I’m in.”

He was surprised when the men paid him up front and in cash. Suddenly, a paid vacation in Bermuda sounded like a wonderful idea.

----

Daniel woke up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Someone had removed his shirt and covered his chest with medical tape and gauze stained with green fluids. He looked like there wasn’t a scratch on him. For how hard of a landing he must have had, that was crazy.

He started working the bandages off so he could pull his shirt and blue coat back on. It was once he had his clothes on and pulled out a holster from a small backpack that he noticed how strange everything was. The building he was in was made of clay and wood. The bed he was in was crafted from logs, blankets, and animal skins.

There was a small balcony outside this bedroom that overlooked the lake he’d landed on. And what he saw outside was stunning. The fog he flew through had lifted and now he saw a vast city surrounding the lake on all sides. But instead of skyscrapers and concrete, Daniel saw a sea of stone and clay and… and…

Gold.

There were golden accents on so many of the buildings. He stared out in disbelief. What on earth was going on?

“The locals call it Gwatibita. A pool at a high mountain peak.”

Daniel turned around. There was a man about five years his junior standing in the doorway. His brown hair was tied into a rat tail, a loud Hawaiian shirt and shorts hanging loosely on his frame.

“My name’s Mike. And welcome to El Dorado.”

-----

It was impossible. No matter how many times Daniel told it to Mike he kept insisting it was true. Mike kept insisting that Daniel had come to the city of El Dorado.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.” Mike led Daniel to a common room, where a blonde woman was busy toasting quinoa in a pan. She began pouring water into it and filled the water with steam. “Ask any of the locals and they’ll tell you this is El Dorado.”

There was so much wrong with what he said. Never mind that the locals would’ve been speaking Chibcha and not English if this was El Dorado.

“It’s true.” The woman cooking the quinoa brought over the pan of quinoa, the water having boiled away. She split the grains between the three of them with a smile. “I don’t get how, but they understand us and we understand them.”

Mike smiled before picking at his food with a fork. “Daniel, this is Shaunda. She’s been here for about three weeks.”

Daniel sat up a bit straighter. “Wait a minute.” He wagged his finger, trying to place the face. “I remember you. You’re that woman who fell overboard on the cruise ship. It was all over the news.”

Shaunda chuckled to hide her embarrassment. “Yeah. I was dumb enough to try and get a drink in rough waters. That chair wasn’t secured very well.”

“I’ve been here a bit longer,” said Mike. “People come in from the outside occasionally. No idea how. But no one ever leaves.”