The Atlantis Plague (54 page)

The tube slid open and Ares stepped out.

“Well done, Dorian.”

“Now, David.”

The portal door opened, and Janus rushed through, David close on his heels.

Janus flung the cube into the hallway and it raced away, a yellow wake of light marking its path.

The cube would find Kate, and David would lead her back to the portal. Janus had promised David that he would take care of the ship. He couldn’t allow it to fall into Dorian’s or Ares’ hands.

David chased after the cube. From the adjacent corridor, he heard Janus’s boots pounding the floor.

As soon as Ares stepped out of the tube, Kate lunged across the room at Dorian. Her attack took him by surprise. Her fist landed square on his jaw, sending him into the wall, then to the ground. She fell on top of him, and she felt Shaw’s hands grip her, pulling her back. But her distraction had succeeded. Had she bought enough time? The answer came in a blinding yellow-white light that erupted throughout the room.

David pumped his legs harder, racing down the corridor. Up ahead, the glowing cube ducked into a room and flashed. David heard a scream. He pressed on.

Shaw screamed out in pain, then fell to the floor beside Kate and Dorian and began writhing back and forth.

Kate was on her feet and out the door, but hands grabbed her. She tried to break free, but the strong hands spun her around.

David.

“Come on,” he said as he sprinted down the corridor.

Dorian’s ears rang, and he saw spots. Someone jerked him up. The panel on the opposite wall was exploding. What was happening?

He felt the ship shudder.

Ares slapped Dorian, and held his face. “Focus, Dorian. Janus is activating the self-destruct. We have to move.” He pulled Dorian up and out of the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dorian saw Shaw lying there, rolling in agony. Dorian gripped the doorframe. “Adam!”

Ares pulled him away and the double doors closed. “We have to leave him. Don’t be a fool, Dorian.” He dragged him down the corridor.

Another blast threw them to the ground.

Dorian leapt up and started back toward the room where Shaw was still crying out.

Ares grabbed Dorian’s shoulders and pinned them to the wall. “I won’t leave you. If you won’t leave him, you’ll kill us both, and everyone down below. Choose, Dorian.”

Dorian shook his head. His brother, his only family… He couldn’t make that call.

The hands shook his shoulders, slamming him into the wall again. “Choose.”

Dorian felt himself turn away from Shaw, away from the only person in the world he truly cared about. Then he and Ares were running. Another blast. They would never make it.

Janus keyed the final sequences into the ship and stepped back, watching the display show the ship’s sections explode and decompress. The massive ship would soon be a burned out wreck.

But she would be safe.

That was all that mattered—the only reason he had come here or to any of the other hundreds of worlds.

Another shudder swept the ship. Death would come soon for him. He had finally done it—given his life to save her, something he had willed himself to do every day for thirteen thousand years in that chamber under the Bay of Gibraltar. It was so easy now, so simple. Janus knew why: he would never awaken, never resurrect. He wouldn’t wake up to remember his death, would never confront the same kind of endless agony the people in Ares’ resurrection vessel endured. He would die knowing he had saved the only person he had ever cared about. In that moment, he understood the stories of Kate’s father. His sacrifice in Gibraltar. And Martin. Maybe subspecies 8472 had come further than he had estimated. Even so, it wouldn’t matter soon. Another blast sent a shudder through the bridge, and Janus steadied himself.

How long do I have left?

Perhaps there was time to correct one last mistake. He activated the ship’s deep space communications array, cleared his throat, and stood as straight as he could.

“My name is Dr. Arthur Janus. I am a scientist and a citizen of a long-since fallen civilization…”

A set of double doors opened onto a room that held three portals. Ares worked the cloud of light from the panel. Dorian felt numb, paralyzed. Ares pulled him through the portal just as the blast broke through the walls.

Dorian stumbled into the room he had seen before, the one with seven doors. Ares was bent over, panting, his hands on his knees.

When Ares had caught his breath, he rose. “Now you see, Dorian. They make you weak. They pull at your heart. Hold you down. They try to keep you from doing what must be done to survive.” He walked out of the room.

Mechanically, Dorian followed. It was as if he were looking at himself from the outside. There was no feeling now. No reaction.

Ares paused at the opening to the vast chamber that held the endless rows of tubes.

“Now you’re ready, Dorian. We will save them. These are your people now.”

CHAPTER 95

Outside Ceuta

Kate flew through the archway of the portal a second before David landed beside her. The portal closed behind them.

Milo was at her side, helping her up.

“Are you all right, Dr. Kate?”

“I’m fine, Milo. Thank you.” She raced to the panel beside the portal doors. Yes, the connection to the ship was closed; it had been destroyed. Janus had done well. The moment she had seen David alone, she’d known what their plan was. Janus had been brave.

Seeing David had confirmed that the fire, that little piece of herself, that small flame she had fanned, was still there. And she had to move quickly to keep it alive.

She brought up a schematic of the ship, or rather, of the section they were confined to. There was a medical bay, one of their labs. She could do it. She began programming the procedure—a gene therapy that would reverse the resurrection process that was rewiring her brain. She would lose the Atlantean memories, but she would be herself again. Her fingers moved quickly across the panel.

David sat up, stared at the portal door for a long moment, then ran over to Kate. “Janus should be here—”

“He’s not coming.”

She almost had the solution. The lab wasn’t far away. A few levels.

“He gave us a false cure.”

Kate made a few last modifications—

“Hey!” David took her by the arm. He held up a backpack. “The therapy he gave Continuity rolls everything back. It’s going to be Flintstones reruns out there soon.” He stared at her. “I brought your computer. Can you fix this?”

She looked up. “Yes. But I don’t have time to fix myself if I do.”

“Fix…” David searched her face. “I don’t understand.”

“The resurrection. The memories. I’m slipping away. In a few minutes, the final stages of the resurrection process will be complete. I will cease to be…
me
.”

David let the backpack fall to his side.

“What do you want to do?” Kate’s voice sounded mechanical. She waited.

“I know what I want, and that’s you. But I know you—the woman I love. And I know what choice you would make, the sacrifice. I know what you reminded me of a few days ago, belowdecks on a yacht in the Mediterranean. You reminded me who I really was, and now I’m reminding you who you are. I owe you that much, no matter what I want.”