by A. G. Riddle
Kate nodded. Outside she thought she heard rumbling, like thunder rolling in the distance. Something was still bothering her. As a scientist, she knew that the simplest explanation was usually the correct one. “How did you figure it out so quickly—that there was another endogenous retrovirus? What makes you so sure there are two retroviruses at work? Why not one? One virus could cause different outcomes—the evolving and devolving result, the radiation trigger.”
“True…” Martin paused, as if considering what to say. Kate opened her mouth to speak, but Martin held his hand up and continued. “It’s the ships. They’re different.”
“The ships?”
“The Atlantean ships—in Gibraltar and Antarctica. When we found the structure in Antarctica, we had expected it to be roughly the same age and make-up as the structure in Gibraltar.”
“It’s not?”
“Not even close. We now believe that the ship in Gibraltar is, or rather was, a lander, a sort of planetary rover. The ship in Antarctica is a space vessel, a massive one.”
Kate tried to understand what that had to do with the plague. “You think the rover came from the Antarctica vessel?”
“That was our assumption, but the carbon dating makes that impossible. The ship in Gibraltar is older than the one in Antarctica, and more importantly, it’s been here on Earth a lot longer, maybe a hundred thousand years longer. It couldn’t have come from the ship in Antarctica.”
“I don’t understand,” Kate said.
“From what we can tell, the technology in the two ships matches; both have a Bell, but they come from different time periods. I believe the ships belong to different factions of the Atlanteans and that they are at war. I believe that these two factions have been trying to manipulate the human genome for some purpose.”
“The plague is their tool to bioform us.”
Martin nodded. “That’s the theory. It’s crazy, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Outside, the rumbling grew louder.
“What is that?” Kate asked.
Martin listened for a moment, then stood quickly and stepped out of the room.
Kate walked to the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was more gaunt than usual and the dark, obviously dyed hair made her look almost gothic. She turned the water on and began rinsing the brown residue off her fingers. Over the water, she didn’t hear Martin return. He steadied himself against the doorframe, trying to catch his breath. “Wash that mess out of your hair. We have to go.”
CHAPTER 22
Church of St. Mary of Incarnation
Marbella, Spain
Kate woke the boys quickly and corralled them out of the church. In the courtyard, Martin was waiting impatiently. The heavy backpack hung from his shoulders and a worried expression clouded his face. Beyond the courtyard, Kate saw why. An endless crowd of people coursed through the street, running madly, blindly, their feet pounding the cobblestones. This was the rumbling Kate had heard. The scene reminded her of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, another Spanish town in the state of Andalusia.
In the corner of the courtyard, two dogs lay dead against a whitewashed wall of the church. The boys struggled to cover their ears.
Martin closed the distance to her and took Adi’s hand. “We’ll carry them.”
“What’s going on?” Kate managed as she hoisted Surya up.
“The gas was for the dogs, apparently. The Immari are closing the envelope, rounding up everyone. We need to move quickly.”
Kate followed Martin into the flow of people. Without gas clouding her view, Kate noticed that the narrow streets were crowded with debris from the fall of Marbella: burned-out cars, looted merchandise like TVs, and overturned tables and chairs from the long-abandoned cafes that lined the streets and alleyways.
The sun was rising over the buildings that lined the street, and she squinted her eyes, trying to shield them from the intermittent blasts of light. Little by little she acclimated, and the constant thunder of feet became background noise for an early morning run.
Someone slammed into the back of Kate, almost throwing her to the ground. Martin caught her by the arm and steadied her as they pressed on. Behind them, a new group of runners was pushing through the crowd at even higher speeds, pushing past the joggers. Kate saw that some were sick—a day without Orchid was already letting the symptoms of the Atlantis Plague reemerge. They looked panicked, wild.
Martin nodded to an alleyway ten meters ahead. He mouthed some words Kate couldn’t hear, but she followed his lead, edging closer to the buildings that flanked the thoroughfare. They ducked into the alley as more bodies filled the tiny hole they left in the crowd.
Martin pressed on and Kate tried to keep up. “Where are they going?” she asked.
Martin stopped, put his hands on his knees, and panted. At sixty, he was far less fit than Kate, and she knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain this sort of pace for long. “North. To the mountains. Fools,” he said. “They’re being herded. We’re close to the rendezvous point. Come on.” He lifted Adi again and resumed walking down the narrow alley.
The rumble from the flowing mass of people behind them faded as they moved east, to a deserted part of the city. Here and there, Kate heard stirring in the seemingly empty buildings. Occasionally a small creature—a raccoon, cat, or rabbit—would scurry out of the building, and at the sight of Kate, Martin and the boys, dart away. They had survived the gas, Kate thought. Maybe they would inherit the city and the world when humans had finished with each other.
Kate thought she heard footsteps in the buildings several times, but she never saw anyone.
Martin nodded to the buildings. “They can either run or hide.”
“Which is smarter?”
“Hiding. Probably. After the Immari clear the city, they’ll evacuate their forces to the next town. At least, that’s what they’ve done in other countries.”
“If hiding is safer, why are we running?”
Martin eyed her. “We can’t risk it. And the SAS will get you out.”
Kate stopped. “Get me out.”
“I can’t come with you, Kate.”
“What do you mean—”
“They’re looking for me, too. And if the Immari have pushed north, there will be checkpoints. If they capture me, they’ll be on the lookout for you. I can’t risk giving you away. And there’s something… I need to find.”
Before Kate could protest, the roar of diesel engines rang out from the cross street ahead. Martin raced to the opening of the alleyway and knelt at the corner of the building. He drew a small mirror from his pack and held it out, angling it so that he could see into the street. Kate steadied herself beside him. A large truck with green canvas covering its cargo section, similar to the one Kate had seen bringing the survivors into the camp, was slowly creeping down the street. Soldiers with gas masks fanned out beside it. They were going door to door, sweeping the houses. In the street behind them, a cloud of gas rose up.
Kate began to speak, but Martin rose quickly and motioned to the narrow passageway between the buildings near the middle of the alleyway. They resumed their frantic pace as they rushed through the cramped space.
Several minutes into their run, the narrow corridor opened onto a larger alley, which flowed into an open-air promenade with a large stone fountain.
“Martin, you have to come with us—”
“Stay quiet,” Martin snapped. “This isn’t a discussion, Kate.” He stopped just shy of the promenade. He got the small mirror out of the pack again and held it up to catch the sunlight. Across the square, flashes of light mirrored his gesture.
Martin turned to her just as explosions rocked the square and dust filled the air. Kate’s ears rang, and she could barely see through the dust. She felt Martin grab her arm, and she in turn grabbed Adi and Surya as they waded out into the chaos erupting in the courtyard.
Through the settling dust, Kate saw Immari troops pouring in from the side s
treets and alleyways. Soldiers wearing Spanish military uniforms—no doubt the SAS extraction team Martin had signaled—took cover behind the massive stone fountain and opened fire on the Immari. Within seconds the sounds of grenades and automatic gunfire became deafening. Two of the SAS soldiers fell. The remaining men were outnumbered and surrounded.
Martin tugged at Kate, pulling her toward a street to the north. Just as they reached the opening, a wave of people rolled in from the cross street and flowed toward Kate, Martin and the boys.
Kate looked back at the square. The last pops of gunfire faded, leaving only the sound of thunder—the rumble from the wall of people bearing down on them. The SAS soldiers lay dead, two in the now-red water of the fountain, two others facedown on the cobblestone street.
CHAPTER 23
Old Town District
Marbella, Spain
Kate couldn’t take her eyes off the Immari soldiers behind them. She had expected them to rush through the promenade and capture her, Martin, and the two boys, but they hadn’t. They simply loitered at the streets and alleyways that fed into the square, pacing in front of the massive trucks, some smoking, others talking on radios, all holding automatic rifles, waiting for what, Kate didn’t know.
She turned to Martin. “What are they—”
“It’s a loading zone. They’re just waiting for the people to come to them. Come on.” He charged into the narrow street, running straight for the oncoming mob of people.
Kate hesitated, then fell in behind him. The crowd was a hundred meters away and closing fast.
Martin tried the closest door—that of a ground floor shop—but it was locked. He looked around.
For what? Kate wondered. Something to break the window?
Martin tried the next door. Locked.
Kate ran across the street and tried the door to a cafe. It wouldn’t budge. She pulled the boys closer to her. The crowd was fifty meters away. She tried the door of the townhome next to the shop. Also locked. The crowd would be upon Kate and the boys in seconds, trampling them. Maybe she could put the boys in front of her, press them into the doorway, shield them. She moved them in front of her and waited.
She heard Martin run up behind her. He was going to position himself to protect her, in the same way she was covering the boys.
The crowd was thirty yards away. Several runners had separated from the pack. They charged on with determined, lifeless eyes. They didn’t glance at Kate, Martin, and the boys as the first of them passed.
In a second-story window, someone pulled a thin white curtain back. A face filled the window, a woman about Kate’s age, with dark hair and olive skin. She looked down, and her eyes met Kate’s. A moment passed and the woman’s expression changed, from alarm to… concern? Kate opened her mouth to call to her, but the woman was gone.
Kate pressed the boys into the doorway. “Be still, boys. It’s important.”
Martin glanced back at the oncoming crowd.
Then the door before them clicked and swung open, sending Kate, Martin, and the boys spilling onto the floor. A man pulled them up as the woman from the second-story window slammed the door. The low rumble of the crowd seeped in through the door and windows.
The man and woman led them deeper inside, out of the anteroom and into a living room with a large fireplace and no windows. Candles lit the eerie space, and Kate struggled to acclimate.
Martin began conversing rapidly in Spanish. Kate inspected the boys, but they twisted and resisted her prodding. They had had about all they could take. Both boys were agitated, tired, and confused. What was she going to do? They couldn’t take much more. Can we hide here? Those were Martin’s words: run or hide.
She unzipped the pack on Martin’s back and took the two notebooks and some pencils out, then handed them to Adi and Surya, who grabbed them and scurried off to the corner. They needed a little piece of normalcy, something they knew, if only for a moment, to calm them.
Martin was motioning with his hands, making it almost impossible for Kate to rezip the backpack. He kept repeating one word: túnel. The couple looked at each other, hesitated, then nodded and gave Martin the answer he seemed to want. He glanced back at Kate. “We need to leave the boys.”
“Absolutely not—”
He pulled her aside, toward the fireplace, and spoke in a low tone. “They lost their sons to the plague. They will take the boys. If the Immari here follow their previous purge protocol, families with young children will be spared—if they take the pledge. Only teens and childless adults are conscripted.”
Kate looked around, her mind searching for a rebuttal. On the mantel above the fireplace, she noticed a photo of the man and woman standing on a beach, their hands on the shoulders of two smiling boys who were about the same ages as Adi and Surya. The hair color and skin tones were roughly the same as well.
She glanced between the couple and the boys, who were hunched over their notebooks, quietly working in the corner by a stack of candles. She squinted and tried to think. “They don’t speak Spanish…”
“Kate, they barely speak at all. These people will care for them as best they can. This is our only play. Think about it: we are saving four lives here.” He motioned to the two adults. “If they catch the boys with you or me, they will instantly know who they are. We put them at further risk. We have to do this. We will come back for them. And besides, we can’t take them where we’re going. It would be… more stressful.”
“Where are we—”
But Martin didn’t let her finish. He spoke quickly to the couple, who started out of the living room.
Kate didn’t follow them. She walked to the boys in the corner and pulled them into a hug. They fought at her, grabbing for the notebooks, but after a moment, they settled down. She kissed each of them on the top of the head and released them.
Outside the living room, the couple led Martin and Kate down a narrow hallway to a cramped study with a large oak desk and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The man marched to a bookcase along the back wall and began throwing the heavy volumes onto the floor. The woman joined him, and soon the shelves were empty. The man planted his feet and pulled the bookcase away from the wall. He pressed a button in the adjoining bookcase and the wall snapped and receded slightly. He pushed and the section of wall swung open, revealing a dark, grimy stone tunnel.
CHAPTER 24
Old Town District
Marbella, Spain
Kate hated the tunnels. They were filthy; the stone walls were moist and seemed to ooze a blackish slush that brushed onto her at every turn, and there had been too many turns to count. Some time ago, she had whispered to Martin, asking him if he knew where he was going, but he had quickly shushed her, which she took to mean no. But where else could they go? Martin led the way with a bright LED bar that illuminated just enough of the tunnel to keep them from running headfirst into a grimy stone wall.
Up ahead, the cramped tunnel opened onto a circular intersection that branched in three directions. Martin stopped and held the light bar to his face. “Are you hungry?”
Kate nodded. Martin unslung the pack and dug out a protein bar and a bottle of water.
Kate chewed the bar, chugged the water, and when her mouth was clear, said in a low tone, “You have no idea where you’re going, do you?”
Martin shook his head as if the question were irrelevant. “Not really. In fact, I’m not sure the tunnels go anywhere at all.”
Kate looked at him curiously.
Martin set the light bar on the ground between them and sipped his water. “Like most old cities on the Mediterranean, humans have been fighting over Marbella for thousands of years. The Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Muslims. The list goes on. Marbella has been sacked a hundred times. I knew we were in the old town and that the old merchant houses would have escape tunnels so that the wealthy could avoid… could escape all the nasty things that happen when a city gets sacked. Some tunnels are just shelters—for hiding. Some might lead out o
f the city, but I doubt it. Best case, they link up with the newer city’s sewer system. But I think we’re safe down here. For now.”
“The Immari won’t search the tunnels?”
“I doubt it. They’ll do a house-by-house sweep, but it’s cursory. They’re mostly looking for troublemakers and anyone they didn’t catch with the wider sweep. I imagine the worst we’ll face down here will be rats and snakes.”
Kate cringed at the thought of an unseen snake crawling across her in the darkness. The thought of sleeping down here, with snakes and rats… She held her hands out in a pleading gesture. “You might hold back on some of the details.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” He grabbed for the pack. “More food?”
“No. Thanks, though. What now? How long do we wait?”
Martin considered it for a moment. “Based on the size of Marbella, I would say two days.”
“What’s happening out there?”
“They’ll round everyone up and do a preliminary sort.”
“Sort?”
“First they separate the dying and devolving from the survivors. Every survivor faces a choice. Take the Immari pledge or refuse.”
“If they refuse?”
“They’ll put them with the dying and devolving.”
“What happens…”
