Kate awoke to vibrations on her thigh. The first thing she saw was David’s eyes.
She took the vibrating phone from her pocket and glanced at the number. It was a 404 area code. Atlanta, Georgia. The CDC. Continuity. Paul Brenner. The revelations washed over the stupor of her sleep as she answered the call. She listened. Paul Brenner was panicked now. He spoke quickly, the phrases hitting her like punches. Trial failed. No alternative therapies. Euthanasia Protocol has been authorized. Can you help?
“Hang on,” she said into the phone.
She sat up. “It didn’t work,” she said to David, Chang, and Janus.
“There’s more, Kate. Another piece of the genetic puzzle,” Janus said. “We need more time.”
“We have something,” Kate said into the phone. She listened, then nodded. “Yes, okay. What? Okay, no, we’re…”
She looked at David. “How close are we to Malta?”
“Malta?”
Kate nodded.
“Two hours, maybe a little less at top speed.”
“The Orchid Districts in Malta—they report no casualties. Something is happening there.”
David didn’t say a word. He climbed past Chang and Janus in the seat across from her and began talking to Shaw and Kamau in the cockpit—setting a course for Malta, Kate assumed.
Kate rubbed her head. There was something different about the way she felt. She was more… detached, clinical, numb. Almost robotic. She had full command of her mind; she just experienced the scene as if it were happening to someone else. The danger was intense—the annihilation of ninety percent of the human race… yet she felt as though she were in the middle of a science experiment, where the outcome was uncertain but would have no impact on her. What’s happening to me? Her feelings, her emotional core seemed to be slipping away.
When David returned, he slumped back onto the bench beside Kate. “We can be in Malta within two hours.”
Kate held the phone to her ear and began conversing with Paul. We’re going to check it out—Can you hold them off—We don’t know what’s there—Do your best, Paul—This isn’t over.
She ended the call and focused on the group.
Janus spoke before she had a chance. “It was here the entire time, under our noses.” He pointed to the page containing Martin’s note. “Missing Alpha Leads to Treasure of Atlantis. MALTA.”
Kate watched as David scanned the code. His face changed. What was that: guilt?
She interrupted the pause. “Martin had been looking for it—whatever it is—for a long time. He thought it was in southern Spain, but he told me he had been wrong about the location. He must have added the last note—regarding the treasure and Malta, the location, after the fact.”
“Do you know what it is?” Janus asked. “The Treasure of Atlantis?”
Kate shook her head.
David pulled her close to him. “We’ll know in a few hours.” The look in his eyes said something different, however: Do you remember? Kate closed her eyes and tried to focus.
The rustle of the suit under the pressure of the decompression chamber was unmistakable.
The voice in Kate’s helmet was crisp. “There are two settlements now.”
“Copy.”
“Sending coordinates of original settlement.”
Kate’s helmet displayed a map. Their ship, the Alpha Lander, was still off the coast of Africa, where she had originally administered the Atlantis Gene.
A floating chariot waited silently in the middle of the chamber. The doors opened slowly, revealing the scene beyond. Kate mounted the chariot and zoomed from the ship.
The world was even more green. How much time had passed?
At the camp, she realized exactly how much. There were at least five times as many huts as she had seen before. At least a generation had passed.
And the nature of the camp had changed. Muscled warriors, dressed in clothes and wearing war paint, patrolled the perimeter. They turned to her and raised their spears threateningly as she floated in.
She gripped the stun baton.
An elderly man hobbled out to the warriors and shouted to them. Kate listened in amazement. Their language progress was stunning: they had already developed a complex linguistic structure, though the words used at this moment were a bit more “informal.”
The warriors released their spears and backed away from her.
She set the chariot down, and ventured into the camp.
There was no bowing and groveling this time.
Up ahead, the chief’s shanty had grown as well. The simple lean-to had morphed into a temple with stone walls, built directly into the rock cliff.
She marched toward it.
The villagers lined up on each side, keeping their distance, fighting to see her.
At the threshold of the temple, the guards stepped aside, and she entered.
In the altar at the end of the cavernous room, a body lay. A circle of the black humans knelt before it.
Kate paced to them. They turned.