The Atlantis Plague(95)

“I remember now, David. It’s like a flood, like a dam has broken. Memories. Where to start—”

“How do you have the memories?”

“The tubes—the Immari thought they were healing pods. That’s only half of what they are. They heal, but their main purpose is to resurrect Atlanteans.”

“Resurrect?”

“If an Atlantean dies, they return in the tubes, with all their memories, just as they were before they died. The Atlantis Gene—it’s more than what we think it is. It’s a remarkable piece of biotechnology. It causes the body to emit radiation, a sort of subatomic download of data. Memories, cell structure, it’s all collected and replicated.”

David stood there, unsure of what to say.

“You don’t believe me.”

“No,” he said. “I believe you. Trust me, I believe you. I believe everything you just said is true.” His thoughts drifted to his own resurrection, his rebirth, both in Antarctica and Gibraltar. He sensed that she needed him. She was going through something he couldn’t begin to understand. “If anyone in the world believes you, it’s me. You heard my story—my resurrection. But let’s walk through it. First things first: how could you have an Atlantean’s memories?”

Kate wiped the sweat from her face. “In Gibraltar, the ship was damaged, almost destroyed. The last thing I remember was going back into the ship. During the explosions, I was knocked out, and my partner… he grabbed me. I don’t know what happened after. I must have died. But I didn’t resurrect. The ship must have turned it off—either because it was damaged or there was no escape. Or maybe he turned it off—my partner.” Kate shook her head. “I can almost see his face… He saved me. But… somehow I didn’t return in the tube. In 1919, my father put Helena Barton—my mother—in the tube. I was born in 1979. The tube is programmed to bring the Atlantean back to the moment it died. It grows a fetus, implants the memories, then matures the fetus to the standard age.”

“Standard age?”

“About my age now—”

“The Atlanteans don’t age?”

“They do, but you can disable aging with a few simple genetic changes. Aging is just programmed cell death. But it’s taboo for the Atlanteans to disable aging.”

“It’s taboo not to age?”

“It’s seen as… oh, it’s hard to explain, but a sort of greed for life. Wait, that’s not exactly right. It’s that and it’s a sign of insecurity—forgoing aging signifies clinging to an unfinished youth, as if you’re not ready to move on. Forgoing death implies a life unfinished, a life one is not happy with. But certain groups are allowed to disable aging and maintain the standard age—deep-space explorers being one group.”

“So the Atlanteans—” David hesitated. “You’re… a space explorer?”

“Not exactly. I’m sorry, I keep using the wrong words.” She held her head for a moment. “Will you see if there’s some kind of anti-inflammatory in the bathroom?”

David returned with a bottle of Advil, and Kate took four and dry-swallowed them before David could object to the dose. She’s the doctor, not me. What do I know?

“The two of us, we were a science team—”

“Why were you here?”

“I… can’t remember.” She rubbed her temples.

“Scientists. What kind? What’s your specialty?”

“Anthropology. What would be the closest term? Evolutionary anthropologists. We were studying human evolution.”

David shook his head. “How could that be dangerous?”

“Primitive world research is dangerous work. In case we were killed in the field, we were programmed to resurrect so we could resume our work. But something went wrong with my resurrection. With me, it implanted the memories, but it couldn’t advance me—my unborn body was trapped inside my mother. These memories have lingered in my subconscious for decades until now—until I reached the standard age.” She slumped onto the bed. “Everything I’ve ever done has been driven by these subconscious memories. My decision to become a doctor, then a researcher. My choice to develop a gene therapy for autistic individuals, it’s simply a manifestation of my desire to correct the Atlantis Gene.”

“Correct it?”

“Yes. Seventy thousand years ago, when I introduced the Atlantis Gene, the human genome wasn’t ready for it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Atlantis Gene is extremely sophisticated. It’s a sort of survival and communications gene.”