by A. G. Riddle
How long do I have left?
Perhaps there was time to correct one last mistake. He activated the ship’s deep space communications array, cleared his throat, and stood as straight as he could.
“My name is Dr. Arthur Janus. I am a scientist and a citizen of a long-since fallen civilization…”
A set of double doors opened onto a room that held three portals. Ares worked the cloud of light from the panel. Dorian felt numb, paralyzed. Ares pulled him through the portal just as the blast broke through the walls.
Dorian stumbled into the room he had seen before, the one with seven doors. Ares was bent over, panting, his hands on his knees.
When Ares had caught his breath, he rose. “Now you see, Dorian. They make you weak. They pull at your heart. Hold you down. They try to keep you from doing what must be done to survive.” He walked out of the room.
Mechanically, Dorian followed. It was as if he were looking at himself from the outside. There was no feeling now. No reaction.
Ares paused at the opening to the vast chamber that held the endless rows of tubes.
“Now you’re ready, Dorian. We will save them. These are your people now.”
CHAPTER 95
Outside Ceuta
Kate flew through the archway of the portal a second before David landed beside her. The portal closed behind them.
Milo was at her side, helping her up.
“Are you all right, Dr. Kate?”
“I’m fine, Milo. Thank you.” She raced to the panel beside the portal doors. Yes, the connection to the ship was closed; it had been destroyed. Janus had done well. The moment she had seen David alone, she’d known what their plan was. Janus had been brave.
Seeing David had confirmed that the fire, that little piece of herself, that small flame she had fanned, was still there. And she had to move quickly to keep it alive.
She brought up a schematic of the ship, or rather, of the section they were confined to. There was a medical bay, one of their labs. She could do it. She began programming the procedure—a gene therapy that would reverse the resurrection process that was rewiring her brain. She would lose the Atlantean memories, but she would be herself again. Her fingers moved quickly across the panel.
David sat up, stared at the portal door for a long moment, then ran over to Kate. “Janus should be here—”
“He’s not coming.”
She almost had the solution. The lab wasn’t far away. A few levels.
“He gave us a false cure.”
Kate made a few last modifications—
“Hey!” David took her by the arm. He held up a backpack. “The therapy he gave Continuity rolls everything back. It’s going to be Flintstones reruns out there soon.” He stared at her. “I brought your computer. Can you fix this?”
She looked up. “Yes. But I don’t have time to fix myself if I do.”
“Fix…” David searched her face. “I don’t understand.”
“The resurrection. The memories. I’m slipping away. In a few minutes, the final stages of the resurrection process will be complete. I will cease to be… me.”
David let the backpack fall to his side.
“What do you want to do?” Kate’s voice sounded mechanical. She waited.
“I know what I want, and that’s you. But I know you—the woman I love. And I know what choice you would make, the sacrifice. I know what you reminded me of a few days ago, belowdecks on a yacht in the Mediterranean. You reminded me who I really was, and now I’m reminding you who you are. I owe you that much, no matter what I want.”
Kate studied him. She saw the memory in her mind’s eye. His irrational bloodlust, her bringing him back, reminding him of the stakes. It was the same here, except she was all too rational, too clinical. She knew what she wanted and she knew the stakes. But if she saved herself, if she erased the memories, she would leave this structure and return to a primitive world, populated by people she had refused to save. Countless deaths would be on her conscience. She would be the same as the people in those tubes in Antarctica, never able to be happy again, always haunted by something from the past. She would never escape this moment, this decision.
The choice was simple: her or them. Save the people suffering from the false cure Janus had submitted to Continuity—or save herself. But it wasn’t that simple at all. If she chose herself, she would never be the same. But if she chose them, she might lose the last bit of herself, the last piece that held on to the person she was, had become.
In that moment, she finally understood Martin. All the hard choices he had made, the sacrifices, the sort of burden he had borne for all those years. And why he had tried so desperately to keep her far away from this world.
She felt herself take the backpack and pull the computer out. She brought up the Continuity program and typed quickly. She saw it—what Janus had done. He was very clever. He had been looking for the pure form of the Atlantis Gene the entire time. The section of the ship with their research database had been completely destroyed and their space vessel had been locked down, making the database there inaccessible. Finding the body of the alpha had been his only choice.
It was amazing: in the genome maps, she could see all the endogenous retroviruses now—those she and Janus had administered as well as the remnants of the changes she had helped Ares/Dorian with. It was as though she was working on a puzzle she couldn’t solve as a child but had returned to as an adult, with the knowledge and mental ability to finally complete it. Martin had been correct. The interventions in the Middle Ages had caused changes to the genome with radical repercussions. And those changes had compromised the rollback therapy Janus had tried to unleash with the Bell.
In her mind, for the first time, she could grasp all the changes, see them like little glowing lights in a pile of rubble. She could pick them out now, line them up and form different patterns with different outcomes. She worked the computer, running scenarios.
The Symphony database—the collection of billions of sequenced genomes that had been collected in Orchid Districts around the world—was the last piece. It was a shame that the world had to come to the brink of annihilation for such an incredible feat to occur.
The true challenge was that Kate had to stabilize all the genetic changes—both those she and Janus had made as well as Ares’ interventions. In essence, she was creating a therapy that would synchronize everyone: the dying, the devolving, and the rapidly evolving, creating a unified, stable genome. An Atlantean-human hybrid genome.
After almost half an hour of work, the screen flashed a message.
One Target Therapy Identified.
Kate examined it. Yes, it would work.
She should have felt euphoria, pride, or even relief. This was the moment she had worked for her entire life: both Atlantean and human. She had finally created a therapy that would complete her life’s work, a genetic therapy that would save the human race and fix all the past mistakes. Yet it felt as though she had simply completed a science experiment, arrived at a conclusion she had suspected, hypothesized, anticipated her entire life. Where joy should have been there was a cold, clinical interest in the outcome. Perhaps the Atlanteans didn’t feel joy in the same way. Maybe joy was so four million years ago for them.
That would be her next task: fixing herself, getting back to who she was before. She wondered what sort of chance that experiment had.
She grabbed the sat phone. “We need to get aboveground.”
She followed David out of the ship. On the hillside, she briefly looked down at Ceuta. Dead horses and people lay across the black, charred expanse that led to the massive wall. Beyond the wall, the ground was stained red from the carnage David had unleashed. The last remnants of the plague barge floated in the water outside the harbor, slowly drifting toward the shore.
The scene… Yes, she had made the right decision, even if it meant that she was giving up the last piece of herself. She was sure of it now.
Kate plugged the sat p
hone into the computer and sent the results to Continuity.
When the data had uploaded, she disconnected the phone and dialed Paul Brenner.
He answered quickly, but sounded distracted, unfocused. Kate had to repeat things several times. She realized what had happened: Paul had administered Janus’s false cure there—on his own cohort. Continuity was now ground zero for the radiation from Janus’s regression therapy, and it had infected Paul. But Kate couldn’t do anything to help him. She could only hope he found her results and could remember what to do.
She ended the call. Only time would tell now.
Dorian walked into the dark cavern. “Now what?”
“Now we fight.”
“We have no ship,” Dorian said.
“True. We can’t take the fight to them, but we can bring them to us. There’s a very good reason I buried this vessel here in Antarctica, Dorian.”
CHAPTER 96
CDC
Atlanta, Georgia
Paul Brenner steadied himself against the wall. It was so hard to concentrate. Where was everyone?
The halls were empty. The offices were empty. They were hiding from him. He had to find them.
No. He had to do something else. She had sent him something. The pretty one in the movies.
A set of glass doors slid open. The screens inside blinked.
ONE RESULT
One result. Result of what? A trial. He was the head of it.
Trial for what? A cure. For the plague. He was infected. With a cure. No, that couldn’t be right. How could he be infected with a cure? Something was wrong.
He surveyed the room. Empty. Coffee cups all over the floor. Stained papers on the table and chairs.
Paul sat down and pulled a keyboard closer.
A flash of clarity seized him. One result.
He typed until his fingers ached.
The letters on the screen changed.
Transmitting new therapy to all Orchid Districts…
CHAPTER 97
You’re listening to the BBC, the voice of human triumph on this, the first day after the Atlantis Plague.
The BBC has learned that the initial reports of disorientation and brain fog associated with the cure for the Atlantis Plague were only temporary side effects of the cure.
Orchid Districts across the world now report a one hundred percent cure rate with no need for further Orchid treatments.
World leaders hailed the breakthrough, citing their historical investments in medical research and steadfast commitment to staying the course in these dark times.
In related news, sources within the intelligence community have reported that citizens of nations managed by Immari International have been ordered to evacuate coastal areas. The populations of entire regions in South Africa, Chile, and Argentina are heading into their mountainous regions with only food and water.
Dr. Phillip Morneau of the think tank Western Tomorrow had this to say:
“They’ve lost. They bet on the plague running its course, on the ruin of humanity. And we’ve come through it, like we always have. It’s fitting: they’re literally heading for the hills.”
More cautious observers have speculated that the Immari move might be part of a larger pattern, possibly the beginning of a counteroffensive.
We will update this report as details emerge.
CHAPTER 98
CDC
Atlanta, Georgia
Paul Brenner trudged through the hallways of Continuity. He felt as though he were recovering from a severe head cold. But he could think now, and he knew what he had to do. He dreaded it, dreaded the answer.
As he passed the sliding glass doors that led to the operations room, he noticed a young female analyst sitting inside, alone, staring at the screen. The tables were still arranged haphazardly and coffee cups and crumpled papers littered the scene.
Paul stepped toward the doors. When they parted, the analyst looked back at him, her eyes a mixture of surprise and hope. Or relief? It caught Paul mildly off guard.
“You can go home now,” he said.
She stood. “I know… I didn’t think I should… be alone.”
Paul nodded. “The others?”
“Must have left. Some are… still here.”
In the morgue, Paul thought, completing her sentence in his mind. He walked over and turned the large screen off. “Come on. There’s nobody at my house either.”
They walked together out of the ops room, and Paul asked her to wait outside his nephew’s room. He pushed the door open and braced himself for what he might see…
“Uncle Paul!”
His nephew rolled over in the bed. He was bright-eyed, but when he tried to push up, his muscles failed him, and he collapsed back onto the bed.
Paul rushed to the bedside and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Take it easy, kiddo.”
The boy smiled at him. “You fixed me up, didn’t you?”
“No. It was another doctor. She’s much smarter than I am. I was just the delivery man.”
“Where’s Mom?”
Paul leaned forward, scooped the small boy into his arms, and headed out of the room. “Just rest now.”
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going home.”
Paul would wait until the boy was stronger to tell him.
Until they both were stronger.
Kate had long since closed the laptop and moved to the end of the rock cliff.
David was there, behind her, waiting silently.
He seemed to sense that she needed some space, but he still wouldn’t let her out of his sight.
Together, from the mountaintop, they watched the sun sink beyond the Atlantic. Its last rays slid down the mountain, casting a long shadow on the bloody scene at Ceuta. Across the straits, she knew the same thing was happening in Gibraltar, with the Rock of Gibraltar casting the shadows there.
When the night arrived, Kate finally said, “What happens now? To us?”
“Nothing changes.”
“I’ve changed. I’m not the same person—”
“What you just did confirmed to me who you are. We are going to be just fine. I can wait.” He walked to the edge of the rock cliff so that he could and looked her in the eyes. “I never give up on anyone I love.”
As his words were spoken, Kate realized that the most important part of her was still there. She wasn’t entirely herself, but there was some piece of the old Kate there, something to start from. She smiled.
David tried to read her expression. He shrugged. “What? Too much?”
She took his hand. “No. I liked it. Come on. Let’s go see what Milo’s doing.”
At the entrance to the tunnel, she said, “I think you’re right. We’re going to be just fine.”
EPILOGUE
Arecibo Observatory
Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Dr. Mary Caldwell moved the mouse back and forth to wake up the computer. The screen came to life and began displaying the data collected overnight. The radio telescope outside her window was a thousand feet in diameter—the largest single-aperture telescope in the world. It was sunk into the ground, looking almost like a smooth gray plate that sat on a high plateau overlooking the green forested mountains beyond.
The first rays of sunlight were peeking over the mountains, into the dish. Mary never missed watching the scene, but it wasn’t the same now, mostly because of the people they had lost.
Before the plague, there had been a dozen researchers manning the observatory; now there were three. Arecibo had been losing staff for years due to budget cuts. The plague had gotten the rest.
Yet Mary returned for her shift each day, as she had done for the previous six years. She had nowhere else to go, and there was nowhere else she wanted to be. She knew the U.S. government would get around to withdrawing their power allocation any day now, but she had decided to stay to the end, until the last lights went out. Then she would venture out into the world to see what sort of
work there was for an astronomer.
She would have killed for a cup of coffee, but it had run out weeks ago.
She focused on the computer. There was… She clicked one of the data feeds. Mary’s throat went dry. She ran an analysis, then another. Both confirmed that the signal was organized. Not random cosmic background radiation.
It was a message.
No, it was more than that: it was the moment she had waited for her entire life.
She glanced at the phone. In her mind, she had rehearsed this scene for the last twenty years, since she had first dreamed of becoming an astronomer. Her first instinct was to call the National Science Foundation. But she had called them—once a week since the outbreak. And gotten no answer. She had also called SRI International—with the same results. Who to call? The White House? Who would believe her? She needed help, someone to analyze the transmission. The SETI Institute in Mountain View, California? She hadn’t tried them. She’d had no reason to… Maybe—
John Bishop, another scientist on the project, stumbled into the office. He was usually only sober for about an hour after he woke up.
“John, I found something—”
“Please God tell me it’s more coffee.”
“It’s not coffee…”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
What a difference seven months makes.
That’s how long it has been since I uploaded my first novel, The Atlantis Gene, to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing—the platform where any common scribbler with the time and desire can make a book available to “the world.”
You and the other folks reading this note are “the world” to me.
And I want to hear what you think. I’m currently debating several things, in particular how long this series should be. I’ve created a short, three-question poll that will determine where it all goes.
