The Atlantis Plague: A Thriller (The Origin Mystery, Book 2)

by A. G. Riddle

  “Just make sure they don’t make any phone calls,” he said.

  Kate had spent the last hour discussing Martin’s notes with Doctors Chang and Janus. Both men had listened intently, occasionally raising their hands and asking a question.

  When Kate finished, they presented their own research, beginning with a bit of their personal backgrounds. Both men stood when they presented to the group.

  Kate thought that Dr. Chang’s story was very much like Martin’s. Shen Chang was sixty-one and had joined Immari Research right out of medical school. He had been enamored with the research, with the possibilities, but had soon learned the truth about the Immari. He had spent his career trying to prevent the Immari’s worst atrocities, but ultimately, like Martin, he was trapped and had failed.

  “There’s something I need to tell you, Dr. Warner. And I will completely understand if you no longer wish to work with me. I was the chief scientist as the Qino Immari facility. I was on site the day they put you in the Bell room.”

  A long silence passed and finally Kate said, “We’re working on the same side now. Let’s focus on the work at hand. On finding the cure.”

  “I’d like that very much. There is one other thing. You look… very familiar to me. I wonder if we’ve met.”

  Kate studied his face. “I… don’t think so.”

  “Ah, well, my memory isn’t what it used to be, Dr. Warner.”

  “Call me Kate. Both of you.”

  When Chang finished, Janus shared his story. Dr. Arthur Janus was an evolutionary biologist and virologist with an interest in viral evolution—the study of how viruses mutate and adapt.

  “I was on assignment for the World Health Organization in Algiers when the plague hit,” Janus said. “I barely got out. I made my way to Ceuta. The Immari sorted me there, and I was placed on the plague barge, assigned to be Dr. Chang’s assistant.”

  Dr. Chang laughed. “But it was I who has done the assisting since then. Dr. Janus is the genius on our team. He’s responsible for the breakthroughs.”

  Each man tried to deflect the credit.

  After that they described their research and their approach. Kate was blown away. The men had tackled the plague from another angle—looking for similarities to past outbreaks and trying to find someone with natural disease resistance who might have a genetic anomaly that provided immunity to the plague.

  Janus made some tea and handed it out, and now they sat, sipping their tea and talking in turn. After each person spoke, they paused to consider the others’ assertions.

  Disagreements were never direct. It was so nice, Kate thought. The relaxed environment and collegiality made it so much easier to focus on the work, the theories.

  All their civility aside, the group was, however, making no progress on Martin’s notes.

  Their work had now focused on one particular page that contained some sort of code:

  PIE = Immaru?

  535…1257 = Second Toba? New Delivery System?

  Adam => Flood/A$ Falls => Toba 2 => KBW

  Alpha => Missed Delta? => Delta => Omega

  70K YA => 12.5K YA => 535…1257 => 1918…1979

  Missing Alpha Leads to Treasure of Atlantis?

  Theories had been thrown around, and collectively shot down. Kate had begun to fear they were out of ideas.

  Periodically, she heard banging from the engine room below, which was inevitably followed by a bout of cursing, always Shaw and David at each other. It only ended when Kamau spoke up in his deep baritone voice, always the same refrain interrupting the chorus of cursing and clanging: “Gentlemen, please!”

  Kate wondered if there would be anything of the engine left when they were done.

  Overall it sounded like a bar brawl belowdecks and a book club up above.

  After yet another bout of intense banging and a final “Gentlemen, please!” from Kamau, David emerged from below, covered in grease.

  “We’re almost there,” he said. “But that’s all the good news. We don’t have enough fuel to make it to the coast.”

  Kate nodded. She considered bringing up Shaw’s plan to call his government, but she decided now wasn’t the time. David still seemed wound up. What would they do if these “pirates” showed up? Race down to their room, pass out guns and hope they could repel them? And that whoever killed Martin didn’t take a shot at her or David in the crossfire?

  David headed toward the galley, probably to wash himself up.

  Janus set his teacup down. “The part that puzzles me most is PIE = Immaru? It seems almost a comedic reference. Perhaps it is meant to throw off any nefarious readers? A sort of camouflage. We should consider omitting it—”

  “What did you say?” David was out of the galley.

  “I—”

  David picked up the page with Martin’s code with his greasy hand.

  Kate tried to snatch it from him. “David, you’re smudging it…”

  “You know what this means?” David asked Kate.

  “No. Do you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it. I know what the whole thing means. These aren’t scientific notations. They’re historical references.”

  CHAPTER 64

  Somewhere off the coast of Ceuta

  Mediterranean Sea

  David glanced at Kate and the two scientists, then read Martin’s code again.

  PIE = Immaru?

  535…1257 = Second Toba? New Delivery System?

  Adam => Flood/A$ Falls => Toba 2 => KBW

  Alpha => Missed Delta? => Delta => Omega

  70K YA => 12.5K YA => 535…1257 => 1918…1979

  Missing Alpha Leads to Treasure of Atlantis?

  Was he right? Yes, he was certain of it. But he wouldn’t start with the first part—it was too out there, too… fantastic, even for him to believe.

  “Will you please wash your hands?” Kate pleaded.

  David lowered the page. “It’s not the Magna Carta—”

  “It is to me. And it could be the key to finding a cure for the plague.” In that moment, David thought she couldn’t be any cuter. She sat on a white leather club chair in the lavish upper-deck saloon, the other two scientists sitting side by side on the adjacent couch. Three white porcelain cups, all half-full of a brown tea, sat on the coffee table before them. There was a faint smell from the galley: biscuits cooking. The whole scene seemed bizarre, like the aftermath of a brunch in a penthouse apartment in Dubai.

  David handed her the page and walked back into the galley. He scrubbed his hands and thought again about the code. Yes, he was right. Below he heard banging sporadically in the engine room. Shaw and Kamau were almost finished. Then what? David had to figure out their next move. His decision was crucial and he felt the weight of it. If he guessed wrong, played into the hand of whoever had killed Martin and disabled the boat…

  He walked back out. “You guys seriously don’t know what this is? You’re not messing with me?”

  “No.”

  The looks from the three scientists were skeptical at best, and David had to smile. “You mean you’ve got every scientist in the world on this and you need little ol’ me, a lowly grad-school dropout historian with a half-finished PhD to explain this thing for you?”

  “I didn’t know you… Really, a PhD—”

  “In European History at Columbia—”

  “Why’d you drop out?” Kate asked, some of her skepticism waning.

  “For… health reasons. In September of 2001.” Being buried under a building after a terrorist attack and a year of physical rehab wasn’t the typical “health reason,” but David wasn’t sure how else to describe it. That day had changed his life, his career. He had abandoned his academic life instantly, but he had never given up his love of history.

  “Oh, right…” Kate said quietly.

  “I told you once I liked history—a lot.” He wondered if she would remember the reference, his words in Jakarta.

  “Y
es, you did,” Kate said, still somber.

  David grinned at her and tried to lighten the mood. “You know this is a big moment for historians—worldwide, both amateur and professional. I mean, we usually get consulted after the fact—after the global apocalypse. Can I just take a moment here, on behalf of historians everywhere, to simply bask in the glow of this?”

  The serious look on Kate’s face softened, and she broke into a smile. “You bask on your own time, mister. Start talking or you won’t get consulted at all.”

  David held his hands up. “Okay, just saying.” He took a second to collect his thoughts. His theory was that the code was a broad outline of human history, specifically of the major historical turning points. But… he would start with what he was most certain about. “First thing’s first: PIE is not pie or any other pastry. It’s a group of people.”

  Blank stares greeted him.

  “PIE stands for Proto-Indo-Europeans. They’re arguably one of the most important ancient groups in world history.”

  “Proto…” Kate began. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “Nor have I,” Dr. Chang said.

  “I too am unfamiliar,” Dr. Janus said.

  “They aren’t well known. The irony is that they are the precursor civilization for almost everyone living in Europe, the Middle East, and India today. In fact, half the world’s population is directly descended from Proto-Indo-European groups.”

  Janus sat forward. “How do you know? The gene pool—”

  David held up his hand. “We historians have another tool, just as important as the gene pool. It’s passed down from generation to generation. We can mark changes in it across time, and we can trace its dispersal across the world—it changes in different places.”

  None of the three scientists offered a guess or comment.

  “Language,” David said. “We know that almost everyone in Europe, the Middle East, and India speaks a language that is descended from a common root language: the Proto-Indo-European language, which was spoken by a single group, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, about eight thousand years ago. We believe these people lived in either Anatolia or the Eurasian Steppes—that’s present day Turkey or southwestern Russia.”

  “Fascinating…” Janus mumbled as he glanced out the window.

  “David, it’s interesting, but I’m just not sure how this would connect with the plague,” Kate said gently.

  Janus glanced at David, then Kate. “I agree, but I for one would very much like to hear more about this.”

  David gave Kate a look that said, At least someone around here appreciates me.

  Janus continued, “I have two questions. First: how do you know what you’re saying is true?”

  “Well we didn’t even know about the PIE until 1870 when a British judge named William Jones was assigned to India. Jones was a brilliant scholar and linguist. He knew Greek and Latin and began studying Sanskrit—mostly to familiarize himself with native Indian laws, many of which were written in Sanskrit. Jones made a remarkable discovery: Sanskrit and the ancient classical Western languages were eerily similar. This was completely unexpected. As he further compared Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, he realized that they all had a common ancestral language. Here we have three languages, separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years of development, yet they had all evolved from a common root language: what we now call the Proto-Indo-European language. Jones was a true scholar, and he dug deeper into the mystery. The revelations were shocking. Other languages were also Proto-Indo-European, and not just obscure ones: every major root language from India to Great Britain. Latin, ancient Greek, Norse, Runic, Gothic—they’re all derived from the Proto-Indo-European language. The list of modern-day languages is extensive. All the Germanic languages, including Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, English—”

  “Wait, English is a Germanic language?” Kate asked.

  “Yes, of course. The English are descended from Germanic tribes, well mostly. The Angles and Saxons were Germanic tribes that settled the west coast of Britain in the fifth century. You’ve got the Norman invasion in the eleventh century, but the Normans were also a Germanic tribe—Norman literally means “north men”—who invaded and settled the north of France, now Normandy. France is really a mix of Franks—another Germanic tribe—and some Celtic and Latin peoples. When the Normans invaded Britain, it was actually the descendants of one Germanic tribe attacking another. But back to Great Britain. You’ve got some Gaelic and Celtic elements present, but the Angles and Saxons gradually displaced them, especially after the Plague of Justinian, which I believe is the third part of the code—”

  Janus held his hand up and spoke softly. “If you would indulge us a moment, I would like to hear more about the PIE. You said there were other derivative languages?”

  “Oh yeah, tons of them. All the Italic languages: Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish… let’s see… all the Slavic languages: Russian, Serbian, Polish. What else, Balkan languages. Of course Greek; the Greeks were PIE descendants. Sanskrit, as I mentioned; Hindi, Farsi, Pashto. There are also tons of extinct PIE languages. Hitite, Tocharian, Gothic. In fact, scholars have been able to work backwards to actually reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European language. And that’s actually the basis of about everything we know about them. They had words for horse, wheel, farming, animal breeding, snow-capped mountains, and for a sky god.”

  David paused, not sure what to add next. “In general we know the PIE were extremely advanced for their time—their use of horses, the wheel, tools, and agriculture made them a force in the region, and their descendants went on to dominate the world from Europe to India. As I said, today roughly half the world speaks a Proto-European language. In many ways, they are the ultimate lost civilization.” David stopped again, then glanced at Janus. “You said you had two questions?”

  Janus was deep in thought. After a second, he realized the room was waiting for him. “Oh yes. I… would like to know… where they are now.”

  “That’s the real mystery. We’re not even sure where to look for them. What we know of them is based on language reconstruction and myths—specifically the mythology they passed down to their descendant groups along with their language. Those are the tools of history: language, stories, and artifacts. In this case we don’t have many artifacts, just their language and myths.”

  “Myths?” Janus said.

  “Here again, we’re reconstructing the past based on shared myths across cultures—these are instances where the same story appears with slight changes. Obviously the names are changed, but the shape of the narrative is the same. One common belief is that there were two progenitors of mankind: brothers, sometimes twins. For the Indic, it was Manu and Yemo; the Germanic have tales of Mannus and Ymir. These mythologies were eventually incorporated into histories. For the Romans, Remus and Romulus; the Hebrews, Cain and Abel. Another common myth is that of the Great Flood—it appears in some form in every PIE culture. But overwhelmingly, the most common myth is that of an epic battle ending with the slaying of a serpent, usually a dragon of some sort.”

  Chang picked up the page. “It seems Dr. Grey had some inkling of who the PIE were. What does it mean: PIE = Immaru? I am not familiar with Immaru.”

  David looked at Kate. Do we tell them?

  Kate didn’t hesitate. “The Immaru are, or more likely were, a group of monks in the mountains of Tibet. After the incident in China, where David was almost killed, they rescued us.”

  Chang winced, and David thought he was going to say something, maybe an apology, but Kate continued.

  “I talked with several of the monks. A younger one, Milo, took care of us, and an older monk, Qian, showed me an ancient artifact: a tapestry. He believed it was a historical document that had been passed down for generations, thousands of years. It depicted four floods. The first was a flood of fire, which I believe to be the Toba Catastrophe—a volcanic eruption seventy thousand years ago that changed the human race. The tapestry showed a god sa
ving a dying band of humans. The god gave them his blood. I believe that depiction was an allegory, a representation of a gene therapy an Atlantean gave those dying humans. That gene—the Atlantis Gene—helped that small band of humans survive in the volcanic winter that followed.”

  Dr. Chang nodded vigorously. “This matches the Immari assumption—that the Atlantis Gene was introduced seventy thousand years before present and that it caused the cataclysm: a change in brain wiring that set the human race apart from other hominins.”

  “Qian also told me that the Immari are actually a splinter group of the Immaru—a faction of monks that separated thousands of years ago. The Immari had grown tired of allegory and myth. They wished to pursue answers in science and archeology,” Kate said.

  “That may be, but I can’t comment,” Dr. Chang said. “I never advanced high enough to know the true Immari history. It was closely guarded and assigned its own mythological status. Dr. Grey would have known the history—he was a member of the Council—one of the three highest-ranking officers. Do you think that’s why he included the note on the Immaru and PIE? Do they have something that relates to the plague?”

  Kate considered that. “I know Martin was looking for something. His words to me were: ‘I thought it was here in southern Spain, but I was wrong.’ Maybe he was trying to trace the history of the Immaru and the Proto-Indo-Europeans to find the object… Maybe they have it.” Another thought occurred to her. “The Immaru did have something, a box. The second flood depicted on the tapestry was the flood of water. In it, the god returns and tells the humans to repent and move inland, but many refused, ignoring the warnings. But the Immaru had faith. They heeded the warning, and carried a large box into the highlands.”

  “What was in it?” David asked.

  “I don’t know—”

  “You didn’t ask?!”

  “Qian didn’t know.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Kate said.

  “Well… what did it look like?”

  “I don’t know, like a large plain box they were carrying on poles. Like… the ark in Indiana Jones.”