“Sure thing, Mom. Back in an hour, and we’ll bring our homework,” Shaw snapped. He turned and led Chang down the darkened corridor.
Kate, David, Kamau, and Janus walked in silence after that. Five minutes later the tunnel forked again. Kamau and Janus edged toward the new path.
“Good luck, David,” Kamau said.
Janus nodded to both Kate and David.
“You too,” David said.
He and Kate walked without a word for a bit. When David thought they were out of earshot of the others, he stopped. “Tell me you know what’s going on here. What’s saving the people in Malta from the plague?”
“I don’t know. In the past, I saw the Ark, but I don’t know what happened to it. I saw the Immaru carrying it into the highlands, but I don’t know what happened after that.”
“There are megalithic stone temples here that are almost six thousand years old—the oldest known ruins in the world. There are legends of miraculous healing dating back to the Roman period, when St. Paul landed on Malta. Could the Immaru have brought the Ark here for safekeeping?”
“It’s possible,” Kate said, seeming distracted.
“How can it be healing these people?”
“I don’t know—”
“What’s inside it?”
“The body of Adam, our alpha—the first person we gave the Atlantis Gene. At this point, just his bones.”
“How could his bones be healing people?”
“I… I don’t know. We did something to him in the past. I was there, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t even see my partner’s face. The human genome was splintering—we were having trouble managing the experiment.”
“The… experiment.”
Kate nodded, but didn’t elaborate. “David, something is happening to me. It’s hard to concentrate. There’s something else. Dorian was there—”
“Here—”
“No. He was there in the past. I think he has the memories of another Atlantean, a soldier named Ares who came to Earth after the science expedition.”
David stood there, stunned for a moment.
“How?”
“He was on the expedition, in Gibraltar. The tubes were reprogrammed to his radiation signature. When Dorian was put in there after the Spanish flu outbreak, he must have awakened with the memories, the same way I got the scientist’s memories.”
“Incredible,” David whispered. A new kind of fear slowly surrounded him, setting in slowly. Dorian had knowledge of the past, possibly even more than Kate. That gave him a tactical advantage.
“What’s your plan, David?”
David snapped back to the moment, to the dimly lit stone tunnel. “We find whatever is down here, see if we can use it to find a cure, then get the hell out of here.”
“The others?”
“One of them is a killer and a traitor. We leave them down here. We have to put some distance between us. It’s the only way to secure you.”
Kate followed David through the tunnel.
The catacombs reminded her of the stone passages Martin had led her through below Marbella. In fact, the small town of Rabat itself reminded her a great deal of Marbella: both of them had Muslim and Christian influences and deserted Mediterranean stone streets.
Kate felt as though a memory were just out of reach—the conclusion of her old life, the balance of the truth of what had happened at Gibraltar. Yet she felt like if she allowed it to come in, the last of her would flow out. And she would lose David. To her, the memory uncovered was the greatest enemy down here, but she knew David was right: a killer lurked in one of the other tunnels.
CHAPTER 85
CDC
Atlanta, Georgia
Dr. Paul Brenner slowly opened the door to his nephew’s private hospital room.
The boy lay still. Panic ran through Paul.
A second passed, and Matthew’s chest rose slightly.
A breath.
Paul gently pulled the door closed.
“Uncle Paul!” Matthew called as he rolled over and coughed.
“Hey, Matt. I was just checking on you.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Your mother’s… still helping me with something.”
“When can I see her?”
Paul froze, not sure what to say. “Soon,” he mumbled absently.
Matthew sat up and broke into another fit of coughing, spraying tiny specks of blood onto his hand.
Paul stared at the droplets of blood that slowly began to flow across the boy’s hand, coalescing into small ravines of red.
Matthew eyed it, then wiped his hand on his shirt.
Paul grabbed his arm. “Don’t wipe it—just… wait, I’m going to get a nurse.” He rose and fled the room. He heard Matthew call to him, but Paul was already out of the room, walking quickly. He couldn’t watch, couldn’t stay in the room another second. I’m finally breaking, losing it, he thought.
He wanted to go to his office, lock the door, and wait until the whole thing, the whole world was over.
His assistant rose at the sight of him. “Dr. Brenner, you have a message—”
He waved his hand at her as he quickly paced past. “No messages, Clara.”