The Atlantis Plague (The Origin Mystery, #2)(81)

“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—”

Kate interrupted. “There’s one last thing I haven’t told you all. Martin was one of the founders of a consortium called Continuity. It’s a group of researchers from around the world. They’ve been running experiments for years, looking for a cure. In Marbella, Martin had a research site.” A thought occurred to her. “I worked in a lead-encased building. I did a series of experiments, and Martin periodically took DNA samples from me.”

“Do you think he was experimenting on you, or on the subjects?” Dr. Chang asked.

Kate was sure of it now. “Both. Martin told me that he believed I was the key to everything. Seeing the code, Omega… yes, I know it. Continuity has all his results. I’ve been in contact with them.”

Shock spread across David’s face.

“What?” Kate asked him.

“Nothing.” He shook his head.

She focused on Chang and Janus. “I think we should send Continuity our research and discuss our theories with them.”

Dr. Janus took the memory stick out of his pocket. “I agree.”

Chang nodded.





CHAPTER 69


Somewhere near Isla de Alborán

Mediterranean Sea


The call with Continuity had been intriguing.

Kate felt like she finally understood the experiments she had been a part of in Marbella.

For years, Continuity had developed an algorithm called the Genome Symphony. The principle was that whenever a gene therapy or retrovirus introduced a genetic change into a given genome, the Symphony algorithm could predict gene expression. Those predictions, when combined with knowledge about where the Atlantean endogenous retroviruses were buried in the genome, could predict a person’s response to the Atlantis Plague and a given therapy.

Chang and Janus’s research, which isolated the genome changes from the two plague outbreaks at the beginning and end of the Middle Ages, was the missing piece—or so Continuity hoped.