The Atlantis Plague (The Origin Mystery 2)

David noticed that he hadn’t made the coffee roll call. He was fine with that.

“Oh yes, much appreciated,” Dr. Chang murmured, still deep in thought.

Dr. Janus stared out the window, an unreadable expression on his face. When he realized everyone was waiting on him, he quickly said, “No. Thank you though.”

Shaw returned with the two cups of coffee, then lingered by the window, diagonally behind David. David couldn’t see him, but he knew he was there. He was less than fine with that.

Janus was the first to speak. “I do not doubt what you’ve said, Kate. I want that clear at the outset. I would, however, like to review our key assumptions and explore several… possibilities.”

David thought Kate tensed a little, but she simply sipped her coffee and nodded.

Janus continued. “The first assumption: that this Tibetan tapestry was a document depicting Atlantean interaction with humans, specifically their intervention to save humans seventy thousand years ago—the introduction of the Atlantis Gene which changed human brain wiring and the fate of humanity—and then, their warning to humans before the Great Flood. The balance of the tapestry we assume to be events yet to come. I have a question about that, but I will hold it for now.

“Our second assumption is that Martin’s note is a chronology—an attempt to decode the past, to identify the genetic turning points of humanity—to lead us to a cure for the plague.”

“Our third and final assumption is that this chronology identifies a missing delta: a point at which Atlantean intervention in human evolution failed—sometime around the Great Flood and the fall of Atlantis. Mr. Vale’s theory is that a battle between the Atlantean factions led to that event. Having said all that, I would have postulated that the Omega—the eventuality of all the Atlantean intervention in human evolution—would have been the survivors of the Atlantis Plague. Specifically, the rapidly evolving. Are they not the outcome the Atlanteans have been pursuing? They are the most obvious choice. As a scientist, I always evaluate the simplest explanation first before exploring more… exotic possibilities.”

To David, Janus’s argument was convincing. He started to speak, but Kate beat him to it. “Then why did Martin put my name in the chronology, above Omega?”

“To me, that is the question,” Janus said. “I believe examining Martin’s motives reveals that. We know that everything he did, all his research, his deals, his compromises, were for one purpose: to protect you. I believe that is his motive here. If his notes were found, he wanted the reader to find you, to ensure your safety so that you could be on hand to decode them, to be close to anyone pursuing a cure.”

David nodded involuntarily. It was convincing.

“The pattern makes sense,” Chang said. “As I see it, there’s a problem with the timeline though. 70K YA: Adam, the introduction of the Atlantis Gene. 12.5K YA: the fall of Atlantis, the missing delta. 535 and 1257: Second Toba, the two volcanoes and subsequent outbreaks of bubonic plague, the beginning of the Dark Ages, then its end, followed by the Renaissance. Then 1918: the Bell, an Atlantean artifact that unleashed the Spanish flu. And this year, the second outbreak from the Bell. The Atlantis Plague. Martin has the dates wrong: 1918…1979. 1979 should be this year—the current outbreak creates the Omega.”

“That would be logical,” Janus said.

“When were you born?” David asked. “Uh, I’m inquiring for purely scientific purposes here.”

“Cute,” Kate said. “I was born in 1979. However… I was conceived in 1918.”

“What?” Janus and Chang said, almost in unison.

David heard Shaw move from behind him and stand before the group, his first sign of interest in the conversation.

“It’s true,” Kate said. “Martin was my adoptive father. My biological father was a miner and an officer in the US Army during World War I. He was hired by the Immari to excavate the Atlantis structure under Gibraltar. He did it in return for my mother’s hand in marriage. What he unearthed, the Bell, unleashed the Spanish flu epidemic. In a twist of fate, the outbreak claimed my mother’s life. But the structure he uncovered contained a room with four tubes. He discovered that they were healing and hibernation pods. He put my mother—and me inside of her—in one, where we stayed until 1979: the year I was born.”

Dr. Arthur Janus sat back on the couch. This could change everything.

Kate’s words shocked Dr. Shen Chang, even though he had already known about the Bell and the hibernation—that part was no surprise.

In 1979, Shen had been a researcher on a project funded by Immari International. He had gotten a call one morning from Howard Keegan, a man he had never met before. Keegan told him that he was the new head of the Immari organization and that he needed Shen’s help, that Shen would be handsomely rewarded, would never have to worry about research funding again, and would do incredible work—work that could save the world but that he would never be able to tell anyone about.

Shen had agreed. Keegan led him into a room with four tubes. One held a young boy, the man he came to know as Dorian Sloane. The other held Patrick Pierce, the man who Keegan said had found the tubes. The last tube held a pregnant woman.

“We will release her last, and you will do everything you can to save her, but your first priority is the child.”

Shen had never been so afraid in his entire life. What happened next was permanently burned into his memory. He remembered holding the child, her eyes… the same eyes Kate Warner now stared at him with. Incredible.

Adam Shaw marveled at Kate’s story. There’s more to this than I thought; more to her than I thought. But I will deliver her safely, no matter what.

Kate was tired of waiting. “Will someone please say something?”

“Yes,” Janus began. “I would like to revise my earlier assertions. I now believe you are the Omega. And… it changes some things. My understanding of Martin’s work, for one. I no longer think his note is just a chronology. That is only the half of it. Martin’s code is much more than that. It is a roadmap to fix the human genome—to correct the problems with the Atlantis Gene, to create a viable Human-Atlantean hybrid, a new species, of which you are the first. Martin’s sequence starts with the introduction of the Atlantis Gene—with Adam—then tracks the interferences, the missed correction at the time of the Flood, the Dark Ages that followed… and ends with you, Kate, someone with a stable, functioning Atlantis Gene, thanks to the tube that saved your life and your extraordinary birth. But… the real question, the practical matter becomes: what do we do now? We have our research, we understand Martin’s notes. We need to find a lab—”