The Atlantis Plague (The Origin Mystery 2)

“Immari International’s solution is simple: one world, with one people, all working together. If you prefer the old world, if you prefer Orchid, sitting in a concentration camp, waiting for a cure that will never come, waiting to live or die, you can. Or you can choose life, a fair world, a chance to build something new. Choose now. If you do not wish to be part of the Immari Solution, stand where you are. If you want to assist us, to help save the lives we can, step forward, toward the men holding the Immari International signs. The men at the desk will interview you, find out what skills you can offer, how you can help your fellow humans.”

The crowd around Kate began dispersing. Maybe one in ten stood their ground. Possibly less.

Kate hated to admit it, but Dorian had given a convincing speech for anyone that didn’t know what he was truly like. He was a smooth talker; she knew that all too well. As she stood there watching the people flock to the Immari soldiers, a procession of images flowed through her mind. Her father: died trying to prevent an Immari massacre. Her mother: dead at the hands of the plague they unleashed. David: dead at Dorian’s hands. Now Martin, her adoptive father, would soon be their latest victim. He had made so many hard choices and sacrifices—many of which had been all for her benefit, to keep her safe. He had tried to protect her for so long.

She couldn’t leave him. Wouldn’t, no matter what. And she would complete his research.

She felt the pack that hung on her back. Did it hold the keys to finding a cure?

She took a step forward. Then another. She would play the game—as long as she had to. That’s what her father had done. But he had turned his back on them, and they had buried him in a mine under Gibraltar. She wouldn’t relent.

She blended into the growing throngs of people swarming the tables, talking quickly. “There you are.”

Kate turned. It was the middle-aged man that had spoken to her before. “Hi,” Kate said. “Sorry if I wasn’t very talkative earlier. I… wasn’t sure what side you were on. It turns out I am a survivor.”

CHAPTER 35

Outside Ceuta

Northern Morocco

Through the dark of night and the glowing perimeter lights, David could see only glimpses of the massive military base ahead.

The area around it was another mystery. The convoy of three jeeps sped across what David would have sworn was a dormant lava field. Here and there, wafts of smoke floated up from the lumpy, charred ground. The smell confirmed David’s worst fears. Ceuta had been put to the torch. The Immari had dug a trench around this part of the city, then burned it and flattened the remains—leaving an open area their enemies would have to cross to attack. Clever. Drastic, brutal, but clever.

The scene reminded him of something, a lecture. For a moment, he was back at Columbia, before the world had changed, had come crashing down on him, literally. His professor’s voice had boomed in the auditorium.

“The Roman Emperor Justinian ordered that the bodies be burned. This was mid-sixth century, people. The Western Roman empire had fallen to the Goths, who had sacked Rome and assumed control of its administration. The Eastern Empire, centered around Constantinople, now Istanbul, was very much a force in the civilized world. At the time, it was the largest metropolitan center on Earth. It held sway over Persia, the Mediterranean, and every land its army could sail to. The plague that came in 541 changed everything, forever. It was a pestilence the likes of which the world had never seen before—or since. The city’s streets ran red with the blood of bodies.

“There were so many bodies that Justinian ordered the dead to be dumped in the sea. But still there were too many. Just beyond the city walls, the Romans dug giant mass graves, each capable of accommodating seventy thousand individuals. The fires burned for days.”

History repeats itself, David mused. If this had happened in Ceuta, what was the rest of the world like? The plague unleashed by Toba Protocol—the eventuality he had spent the last ten years trying to prevent—had come to pass. He had failed. How many were dead? Almost against his will, his mind focused on one: Kate. Had she gotten out in Gibraltar? If so, where was she? Southern Spain? Here in Morocco? She was a needle in a haystack, but, assuming he survived the looming behemoth ahead, he would burn it down to find her. He would have to wait for his opening, a chance to escape. From the back of the jeep, he watched the last of the burned stretch of the city pass by.

The convoy slowed at the iron gate at the center of the giant wall. Two black flags hung on each side. As the gate parted to let the jeeps pass, a gust of wind caught the flags and they unfurled: [II]. Immari International. The high white wall reached at least thirty feet into the air, and here and there it was charred with long stains of black, no doubt the scars from where the enemy on horseback had lain siege. The black-striped wall and gate looked almost like a zebra, opening its mouth to swallow the convoy. The flags waved like ears, flinching at the wind. Into the belly of the beast, David thought as they passed under the wall and the gate closed quickly behind them.

The eight soldiers that had apprehended him in the mountains had bound his hands and tied them to his belt. He had ridden silently in the back seat of the jeep, enduring the bumpy, sometimes brutal journey from the mountains. He had gone through several escape scenarios, but each had ended with him leaping from the jeep, breaking a high number of bones and winding up in no shape to fight.

Now he squirmed in the seat and turned left and right, surveying the interior of the base, searching for an escape opening. Inside the high walls, Immari soldiers were rushing to resupply the towers that dotted the walls. The scale took David aback. How many troops were there? Thousands at least, working along the wall that faced inland. Others no doubt manned the other walls that faced the sea. Beyond the wall, past the towers and wide supply roads, rows of houses spread out along the street. They looked mostly unoccupied, but occasionally a soldier would step into or out of one.

Three rows of tilled soil ran along each side of the road. Every twenty feet or so, a wooden pole, like a shortened telephone pole, rose out of the ground. Each held two lumpy sacks, spaced several feet apart. David thought at first that they were giant wasps’ nests.

Ahead, another high whitewashed wall loomed, almost exactly like the outer wall, and that told David what this was: a kill zone. If the Immari’s enemy—whoever the raiders on horseback were—ever breached the outer wall, they would shred them in this area in between. The tilled soil along the dirt road no doubt hid mines, and David assumed the sacks hanging from the poles were filled with spent shell casings, scrap metal, nails, and other debris that, when exploded, would rip apart anyone caught between the walls.