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 He believed it was a historical document that had been passed down for generations, thousands of years.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 saving 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.”
“The ark in… Okay, never mind that,” David said. “What was the rest of the tapestry?” He hoped it would shed more light on Martin’s code. The first two depictions had confirmed David’s theories. He was close to unraveling the message.
“The third was the flood of blood. A global apocalypse. The fourth was the flood of light. Our salvation. Qian said they were events yet to come.”
“You think the plague is the flood of blood?” David asked.
“I believe so.”
“You told Martin about the tapestry?”