The Atlantis Plague(88)
Janus sat up on the couch. “Dr. Chang, I owe you an apology.”
Chang’s face glanced over, confused.
“I never fully trusted you,” Janus said. “I was assigned to you. You went along with our research, but until now I thought that you might have been an Immari loyalist, someone working to obtain my research. I withheld much of what I learned from you.” He took out a memory stick. “But I saved it on this device. Along with the research we did together. It’s all here, and I believe it will reveal the genome changes Dr. Grey was searching for—this Delta-2—the root genetic structure of the Atlantis Plague.”
Chang glanced at the memory stick. “What matters is that you have the data. In your place, I think… perhaps I would have done the same thing. However, there seems to be one final piece—the Omega. To me, that signifies the endpoint—the eventuality of this genetic change. The notation ‘1918…1979’ seems to indicate that Dr. Grey believed it could have happened in one of those years. The ‘KBW’ in the first line is unfamiliar. Mr. Vale, is this another historical reference?”
David had been turning “KBW” over in his mind since he had first seen the code. He didn’t even have a guess. “No. I’m not sure what it means.”
“I know what it means,” Kate said. “‘KBW’ are my initials. Katherine Barton Warner. I think I’m the Omega.”
CHAPTER 68
Somewhere off the coast of Ceuta
Mediterranean Sea
Through the window of the helicopter, Dorian watched the water fly by below. The sun glistened on the black expanse like a beacon leading him to his destiny.
He thought about the white door of light in Germany. Where would it lead? To another world? Another time?
He activated the microphone in his helmet. “What’s our ETA?”
“Three, maybe three and a half hours.”
Would they beat Kate and her entourage there? It would be close.
“Get the outpost on the line.”
A minute later Dorian was speaking with Isla de Alborán’s commanding officer.
The Immari lieutenant at Isla de Alborán ended the call and looked back at the four other soldiers playing cards and smoking. “Put some coffee on. We need to sober up. We’re going to have company.”
David tried to process what Kate had said: “I’m the Omega.”
Shaw glided into the room. “I’m putting coffee on—” He looked around. “What’s all this? You lot look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“We’re working,” David snapped.
Kate broke the tension. “I’d love some coffee. Thank you, Adam.”
“Sure,” Shaw said. “Dr. Chang? Dr. Janus?”
David noticed that he hadn’t made the coffee roll call. He was fine with that.
“Oh yes, much appreciated,” Dr. Chang murmured, still deep in thought.
Dr. Janus stared out the window, an unreadable expression on his face. When he realized everyone was waiting on him, he quickly said, “No. Thank you though.”
Shaw returned with the two cups of coffee, then lingered by the window, diagonally behind David. David couldn’t see him, but he knew he was there. He was less than fine with that.
Janus was the first to speak. “I do not doubt what you’ve said, Kate. I want that clear at the outset. I would, however, like to review our key assumptions and explore several… possibilities.”
David thought Kate tensed a little, but she simply sipped her coffee and nodded.
Janus continued. “The first assumption: that this Tibetan tapestry was a document depicting Atlantean interaction with humans, specifically their intervention to save humans seventy thousand years ago—the introduction of the Atlantis Gene which changed human brain wiring and the fate of humanity—and then, their warning to humans before the Great Flood. The balance of the tapestry we assume to be events yet to come. I have a question about that, but I will hold it for now.
“Our second assumption is that Martin’s note is a chronology—an attempt to decode the past, to identify the genetic turning points of humanity—to lead us to a cure for the plague.”
“Our third and final assumption is that this chronology identifies a missing delta: a point at which Atlantean intervention in human evolution failed—sometime around the Great Flood and the fall of Atlantis. Mr. Vale’s theory is that a battle between the Atlantean factions led to that event. Having said all that, I would have postulated that the Omega—the eventuality of all the Atlantean intervention in human evolution—would have been the survivors of the Atlantis Plague. Specifically, the rapidly evolving. Are they not the outcome the Atlanteans have been pursuing? They are the most obvious choice. As a scientist, I always evaluate the simplest explanation first before exploring more… exotic possibilities.”