Exodus

The rumbling rippled through the island again, making all the sensors in the lab go off at once. I'd long since traded fear for determination hours ago, but now the fear returned in full force. The island was lost. I pressed the comms button to the Minister's office and shouted, "The fix didn't work! You have to evacuate the island, now!"

"Are you--"

"Yes, I'm sure dammit! Stop wasting time! Get people to the ships!"

"Understood!"

The comms cut out. I went to the pressure control panel and tried to add more of the lava inhibitor into the control tubes, but it was no use. The temperature was rising too fast. The inhibitor was barely slowing the lava down, but I kept on the dials. I set the inhibitor fow to maximum to give the administrators as much time as I could to get everyone off the planet.

"Athena!" called someone from the lab door.

"What? I'm a bit busy!"

I realized it was Kallias. I didn't look up from the controls. "You have to stop!" he yelled over the noise. "We have to get to our ships!"

The electric feeds shorted out. I ran to the pipes on the other side of the room and with all the strength I could muster, I held the manual feed open on the the inhibitor lines. "You go! I'm giving the ships the time to leave," I shouted back, with much more calm than I was actually feeling.

"But Athena--"

"Kallias, either help me keep the inhibitor flow going, or get off planet with the rest! I can't talk to you and manage the lava flow at the same time!"

"Dammit!" I heard him say, and suddenly, his hands were on mine, holding down the flow lever to keep the tubes open. "Go on, man the dials. I've got this!"

I didn't have to be told twice. I double checked that all the dials were still at maximum and monitored the readouts. The lava was still moving, but the inhibitor was keeping it at a steady pace, holding back the inevitable explosion. I looked out the large windows to see ships taking off into the atmosphere.

"Athena, it's getting harder to hold!"

I went back to the control board. "Shit! That's the best we can do, Kallias! We've run out of inhibitor. You can let go."

Kallias took his hands off the lever and the island again gave a mighty shake. Tiles fell off the walls and ceiling, nearly knocking both of us out. Kallias didn't hesitate, he took my hand and dragged me out of physical plant. When we got to the street, the lava was already bubbling up from the cracks the earthquakes had made. We were trapped on the eastern side of the island with nowhere else to go but into the ocean.

"We'll have to make for the mainland," Kallias said as we ran for the shore.

"But we'll contaminate the culture there! If they know about us, about Atlantis, we don't know what would happen!"

"It doesn't matter anymore, Athena. They already know. Someone named Plato is already telling stories. Thankfully, no one really believes him, but you know how these things go."

"Yes, but--" The island gave another rumble as we reached the shoreline, the walkways and buildings crumbling behind us. To our relief there was one of the local's little fishing boats moored on the beach. Some of the pyroclast had hit it, making a hole in the boat, but that didn't matter. We at least has something to hold on to while we swam. Regular humans couldn't make that swim, but we certainly could.

There was one last sonic boom, and I turned to see the last of the ships making a trail in the sky. We looked at each other, knowing exactly what it meant.

We could never go home again.

"Come on, Athena, let's go," Kallias said over the noise, and we pulled the boat into the water.