Milo sat silently.
David stood and paced, staring at the countdown.
0:21:38
0:15:19
0:08:55
Surgery complete
The words blinked for a moment; then, when the next words appeared on the screen, David exhaled deeply and smiled as Milo jumped into his arms.
Survival probability: 93%
Post-op Recovery Procedures Commencing
Maintaining medically-induced coma
Time to completion: 2:14:00
David hadn’t considered that there would be a post-op period. This was the first time a loved one had been operated on by an ancient Atlantean ship. He would have to do a blog post about it afterward—for everyone out there who might go through the same thing. His grin widened. His giddiness had turned to foolishness. He tried to focus. “Alpha, what happens after post-op?”
“The procedure will be complete.”
David glanced at the Immari military MREs. He realized he was famished. He grabbed the closest pack and ripped it open. “Have you eaten?”
“I was waiting for you.”
David shook his head. “Dig in. You must be starving.”
Milo shoveled a mouthful of the closest ration pack into his mouth without even reading the label.
“Want it heated?” David asked.
Milo stopped in mid-chew and spoke with his mouthful. “Don’t you eat yours cold?”
“I do. But it’s just an old habit.”
“Because your enemies could see a fire?”
“Yeah, and the dogs could smell the food. Better to eat it cold and quick, then bury it and move, if you can.”
“I like to eat mine like you eat yours, Mr. David.”
They both finished two ration packs.
David didn’t notice the countdown anymore. He felt different now. He was confident Kate would live, though he didn’t know how long. Alpha’s prognosis, the result of the initial scan, had been four to seven local days. They would cross that bridge together. For now, he knew he would talk to her again, feel her in his arms.
A flood of memories came back to him—thoughts he wouldn’t let himself think during the surgery. It was like his mind had been holding every memory of his time with her at bay. The day he met her, how they had argued in Indonesia, only hours before he had saved her. His extensive wounds in China. And then it was her saving him, practically bringing him back from death’s doorstep.
They had truly sacrificed for each other, laid it all on the line when the stakes were highest. That was the definition of love.
At that moment, he knew that whatever she was doing, she was protecting him. But from what?
When the round portal slid open, David and Milo both rushed to it.
They stepped aside as the flat table extended.
Kate opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling… confused?
Her expression changed upon seeing David and Milo. She smiled.
Milo glanced back and forth between Kate and David. “I’m very glad you’re okay, Dr. Kate. I… need to do something on the surface now.” He bowed and exited.
David was actually impressed at the young man’s intuition. Milo never ceased to amaze him.
Kate sat up. Her face was fresh, the blood gone, her skin glowing. David spotted a small area, just beyond her ear, where Alpha had shaved the hair to access her brain.
Kate quickly pulled some of her brunette locks over it and turned her head away, hiding it. “How’d you find me?”
“The power.”
“Clever.”
“I was due.” David sat on the rigid table and put his arm around her.
“You’re not angry.”
“No.”
Kate narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“I have some bad news.” David took a breath. “Alpha did a scan before your surgery. You have a neurological condition. I can’t remember the name. The life expectancy… Alpha could be wrong, but it said four to seven days.”
Kate displayed no emotion.
“You knew?”
Kate stared at him.
David hopped off the table and faced her. “How long?”
“Does it matter?”
“How long?”
“The day after the plague.”
“Two weeks ago?” David shouted.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Kate said, sliding off the table and closing the distance to him.
“Why not?”
“I have a few days left. If you knew, every day would be agony for you. This is better. Sudden. You can move on when I’m gone.”
“I’m not interested in moving on.”
“You have to. That’s your problem, David. When something bad happens, you refuse to move on—”
“What’s happening to you?” He pointed to the vats. “What is this? Why are you dying?”
Kate stared at the floor. “It’s complicated.”
“Try me. I want to hear it all. From the beginning.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“You owe me this much. Tell me.”
“Okay. I was conceived in 1918. My mother died in the Spanish flu pandemic, a pathogen my father unknowingly unleashed when they uncovered an Atlantean ship buried off the coast of Gibraltar. He placed me in a tube, where I remained until I was born in 1978. What I didn’t know, until a few weeks ago, is that those tubes were used for resurrecting Atlantean scientists in the event that they died unexpectedly.”
“You’re one of those scientists.”
“Close. Biologically, I’m the child of Patrick Pierce and Helena Barton, but I have some of the memories of one of the scientists on the Atlantis expedition. What I didn’t know is that Janus—”
“The other member of the Atlantean research team.”
“Yes. Janus erased some of his partner’s memories. I only got some of the memories. Janus’ partner had been killed by Ares.”
“Another Atlantean.”
Kate nodded. “A soldier. A refugee from their fallen homeworld. Thirteen thousand years ago, off the coast of Gibraltar, he tried to destroy the scientists’ vessel—this vessel. He only split it in half. Janus was trapped in the section on the Moroccan side of the Straits of Gibraltar. He longed to resurrect his partner, but he had a secret, something I didn’t realize until two weeks ago.”
“Which was?”
“He wanted to bring her back without some of her memories.”
“The corrupted resurrection files.”
“Yes. I think they’re about something she did. I believe those memories take place on the Atlantean homeworld or possibly on their expedition.”
“Why hide the memories from his partner?”
“It’s something that damaged her beyond repair, changed her.”
“Why didn’t you know about the memories before? Why now?”
“I think her memories were always there, driving me, influencing my decisions. My choice to become an autism researcher, my quest to isolate the Atlantis Gene—it all makes sense in light of these repressed memories. But I think they were activated by the Atlantis Plague. I was only able to see the repressed memories after the final outbreak.”
David nodded, prompting Kate to continue.
“The Atlanteans isolated the genes that control aging. They’re disabled for deep-space explorers. The resurrection process takes a fetus, then implants the memories and matures it to around my current age.”
“Then you emerge from the tube, ready to pick up where you left off,” David said.
“Right. But for me, it didn’t happen. I was a fetus, trapped inside my mother’s body. I got the Atlantean memories—those Janus wanted me to have—but the tube couldn’t develop me to standard age. I was born as a human and lived a human life. I formed my own memories.” She smiled. “Some with you. And then the Atlantis Plague hit. I think the radiation retriggered the resurrection process, the evolutionary components. It’s trying to overwrite the memories I formed, but it’s failing. The resurrection process has a failsafe. If the brain is damaged or resurrection fails, the tube destroys the biological matter and recycles it. It starts over.”
“You’re not in a tube.”
“Correct. But the hard-wired processes are the same. My brain, specifically my temporal lobe, will shut down in a few days, and then my heart will stop. I will die.”
“Won’t you resurrect?”
“No. The tubes in this part of the ship are destroyed.”
David’s mind flashed to a memory of four tubes cracking and crumbling to the floor in a pile of white dust.
“It’s better this way. If I resurrected, I would be the same age, with the same memories and neurological condition. The outcome would be the same. I would die an endless number of times.”
“Purgatory. Like the Atlanteans in Antarctica.”
Kate nodded. “This will be better. I will die here and never resurrect. It will be very peaceful.”
“The hell it