CHAPTER 93
CDC
Atlanta, Georgia
Paul Brenner opened the door and walked to his nephew’s bedside. The boy was still.
“How do you feel?”
The boy looked up at him. He started to speak, but no words came. What’s happening to him? Paul wondered.
He checked the vitals. All normal. Physically, the boy had made a miraculous recovery.
Paul rubbed his temples. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I think straight? His mind seemed to be in a fog, a cloud of confusion he couldn’t escape.
David tried to wrap his mind around Janus’s words. “You’re taking us back to the stone ages? You’re… devolving us?”
“I’m making you safe. Have you not understood a word I’ve said? An enemy of unimaginable strength is hunting my people. You have some of us inside of you. Regression, devolution is the only chance you have. It will save your species.”
“Assuming we’re even the same species. Look, we’re not going back. I don’t accept this.”
“I respect that, Mr. Vale. Indeed, that’s why I chose you—you fight for your own kind, you sacrifice for them. You follow the Human Code. But it betrays you in this moment. You just heard the history of your world and your species. Those primates that came down from the trees and sought sustenance on the savannas, they were survivors. Ask the chimpanzees and gorillas how they feel about their choice to remain in the trees. It was easier there, but those who ventured out, who chose the hard road, actually grew stronger, adapted, and evolved—the few who survived. The tribes that marched to the sea during Toba, they were survivors too. That is the defining trait of your species. This is how you will survive this trial.” Janus jerked his head toward the tunnel. “The cube is through—”
David grabbed a lantern. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“It has been for a very long time, Mr. Vale.”
David had led Janus and Milo out of the tunnel, toward the rays of sunlight that cut across the tunnel opening. The glowing yellow cube hovered just beyond the newly carved entrance.
David crossed the threshold first. He swept the room with his assault rifle. Nothing moved. In the corner, a pool of blood spread out. David crept toward it, fearing what he would see.
Kamau. Knife wound to the chest.
David bent and pressed his fingers to the African’s neck. He felt the cold skin before the lack of a pulse. Still, he held it there, waiting, refusing to believe it.
Janus and Milo both stared at the scene. Apparently neither knew what to say.
Finally, David rose and walked over to Kate’s computer. He closed it and stuffed it and the other equipment in the backpack. “Let’s move out.”
Outside the building, David led the group back to the square. Their helicopter was gone.
He turned to Janus. “What’s the plan? We can’t beat them to Germany—they’re too far ahead of us.”
“There is an alternative,” Janus said. “If we can get there in time.”
“The Knights have a plane,” Milo said. “Can you fly it, Mr. David?”
“I can fly anything,” David said. Landing had sometimes been an issue, but he didn’t mention that. There was no need to worry them.
Dorian watched the sea below turn to land. Italy. Soon they would cross into Germany, and they would reach the portal shortly after.
The plague had crushed continental Europe. NATO had folded early, offering their resources to the humanitarian effort. Nothing could stop him now.
Kate opened her eyes. Dorian stared at her.
She didn’t blink now. She wasn’t scared of him any more. She knew who he was, and she knew who she was. History wouldn’t repeat itself.
“Everything okay, Kate?” Dorian asked sarcastically.
She matched his tone. “I’m good.”
The helicopter touched down a half hour later, and Dorian dragged her out, onto the ground.
Humvees circled the portal, which glistened, giving off wisps of white light into the cold silent night.
They passed the Humvees and Kate saw the dead soldiers lying on the ground. Plague victims. The German government must have dispatched troops to investigate the portal, but they had fallen sick. Those that hadn’t died must have fled.
Dorian dragged her toward the glowing portal.
“Stay with me,” he called behind him, to Shaw. “It closes behind us.”
As Shaw pulled up even, the three of them crossed the threshold, and they were standing in a different place.
To Kate, it felt like the corridors in the tombs in Antarctica. But the hallways here were more narrow. She knew this place. It was her ship—the deep space transport that had brought her and Janus here.
Kate tried to take a breath, but she found that she couldn’t inhale fully. Dorian’s eyes flashed on her, but before he could say anything, air began rushing into the space. Did the ship recognize Kate? Was it coming back to life for her? Yes, that was it.
Dorian tugged at her arm, yanking her down the dimly lit hallway.
He paused at an intersection. He seemed to be trying to remember where he was going. Or had gone?
“This way,” he said.
The soft beads of light from the floor and ceiling seemed to grow brighter. No, Kate realized she was just getting used to the darkness.
Another change was gradually setting in. She was adjusting. The last memory, her death in Antarctica at Ares’, or Dorian’s, hands had changed her.
Kate had always had trouble relating to others. She never fully “got” people. She desperately wanted to have fulfilling personal relationships, but it never happened naturally for her. It had always been work.
She had assumed that this personal desire had drawn her to autism research, to seek a cure for people who lacked the brain wiring for understanding social cues and managing language. She now knew her motivation was much more than that.
Dorian had been right: she wasn’t great at reading people. She was easily misled. But now the game was strategy, and she knew the history. She knew the players. And she knew how it would unfold. She was smarter than he was, and she would win.