“This is the second fleet flagship. We’re coordinating the civilian fleet defense.”
Perseus led Paul into what he thought was a clinic or a research lab. Through a wide glass window, he saw Kate, lying on a table, several robotic arms hovering around her cranial area.
“She has resurrection syndrome,” Perseus said.
“Yes. She risked her life to see the Atlantean scientist’s memories. That’s how she found out about your people and the gene therapy.” Paul stepped forward and peered through the window. “Can you save her?”
“We don’t know. We’ve been studying resurrection syndrome for tens of thousands of years, since the siege of our homeworld. When we attacked, we assumed that anyone we killed would simply resurrect after the battle. Our goal was to find the sentinel control station, disable the sentinels, then help rebuild our former world with the citizens returning from the resurrection tubes. During the invasion, we learned that resurrection syndrome was occurring for one hundred percent of those we killed. None of them could come back. With the sentinels battling us, we couldn’t rescue anyone on our homeworld. We left empty-handed, but we’ve been studying resurrection syndrome ever since. Our hope has been that we could one day rejoin our fellow citizens and heal them. We’ve been working on a therapy based on the data we downloaded during the siege and our computer models. We have no idea if it will work.” He nodded to the window and Kate on the operating table beyond. “She’s the alpha for our therapy.”
“Then all our hopes rest on her.”
CHAPTER 53
When the needle punctured David’s neck, the room on the Serpentine ship faded. He found himself at the bottom of a dirt pit. This is an illusion. The thought brought a downpour of rain, flooding into the earth pit, soaking the ground, which grew soft, swallowing his legs, pulling him into the mud. The water was gathering, forming a pool that rose by the second.
David waded to the wall, straining to pull his feet from the heavy, black mud. This isn’t real.
He dug his hand into the wall. It was dry. Dry enough. His hand held, and he climbed, one hand after the other, ascending to the surface. He climbed for hours, how long he didn’t know. A faint sun peeked through the clouds. Slowly, it crept across the pit until it was out of sight, the shadows of its rays its only remnants. Still David climbed. The pit must have been a hundred feet deep, but he pushed himself, a deep well of energy powering him.
The rain never stopped, but neither did he. The sides he dug his hands into were growing soggy. It was taking him longer to make his hand-holds. He threw hand after hand of mud into the pit until he struck solid dirt, then he climbed. The water was coming, but he was climbing faster. Hand over hand, he dug and climbed. He had almost reached the surface when the sides began to slide. Globs of mud dripped, rolled, and dropped onto him, and then the mudslide consumed him, covering him, pulling him down into the water. He was completely coated in black mud, and he struggled under the water, the added weight pulling him into the abyss. He worked his arms, brushing the mud from his body, trying to free himself. His arms and legs burned, and then his lungs burned. He was drowning.
He fought, punching and kicking. Finally he broke the surface of the water, just long enough to take a breath before sinking again. He felt that if he allowed himself to sink, that if he gave up, allowed his will to break, the ring would have him, his soul, and every person he knew and loved. Kate. The thought gave him a new burst of energy, and his head breached the surface again. He sucked air in, waving his arms violently. The mud flew off, but the rain kept coming.
He put his arms and legs straight out, and he floated to the surface, the rain falling on his face.
He understood now. He couldn’t escape. Submission was the only way to survive. But he wouldn’t. They would have to drown him.
Dorian opened his eyes. The curve of glass and the view of the cavernous chamber in the resurrection ark greeted him.
The resurrection had restored him physically, but he was still sick, Dorian felt it at his core. How long do I have? A few hours?
Directly across from him, Ares stared out of another tube, his eyes cold.
Their tubes opened at the same time, and they walked out and stood across from each other, neither flinching. The echoes of their footsteps carried deep into the cavern, brushing past the miles of tubes stacked from the floor to the ceiling. When the last sound faded, Ares spoke, his voice hard.
“That was a very stupid thing to do, Dorian.”
“Killing you? I actually think it’s the smartest thing I’ve done in a very long time.”
“You haven’t thought this through. Take a look around you. You can’t kill me here.”
“Sure I can.” Dorian rushed forward and struck Ares, killing him in one blow. The Atlantean hadn’t expected it, and Dorian fought like a feral animal with nothing to lose. Ares’ limp body fell to the black metallic floor, blood oozing out.
Dorian backed away and into the tube. It would reset the clock, correcting all his ailments except for resurrection syndrome, the only affliction the resurrection tubes couldn’t fix.
He watched the white clouds fill the tube across the way. Time passed, how much he didn’t know, but when the clouds cleared, a new Ares stood in the tube.
It opened, and Dorian rushed forward, killing Ares again.
The cycle repeated twelve times, and twelve dead bodies, all Ares, lay before the tube. Dorian fought like a man with nothing to lose, and he instinctively knew Ares’ every move—thanks to the memories that would soon take Dorian’s life.
On the thirteenth resurrection, Ares stepped out, kneeled and held his hands up.
Dorian stopped.
“I can fix you, Dorian.” Ares looked up. When he realized Dorian had halted, he rose and continued. “You’re suffering from resurrection syndrome—memories your mind can’t process.” He pointed into the chamber, at the thousands of tubes. “So are they. Fixing them is my goal. It’s why I’ve sacrificed so much. You’ve seen those sacrifices, and the memories made you sick. I’ll fix you, Dorian. You’re like my son, the closest thing I have. I’ve waited thousands of years for someone to prove himself to me the way you have. You can kill me, or we can both live—together.”
In the area just beyond the stack of dead bodies, a hologram rose. A space battle raged; thousands, perhaps millions of spheres zoomed into the breach, tearing through triangular ships.
“Our sentinels are battling the Exiles, Dorian. They will win. I’ve been preparing for this war for a very long time. When the Exiles are gone, we will inherit this universe. It will be over in a single day. My revenge. Our revenge. We can share it.”
Dorian paced to the hologram. The spheres were winning. They consumed fleet after fleet of the triangular Exile ships, each time jumping away to a new fleet.
“How would you fix me?” Dorian asked, his voice soft.
“You go back into the tube. I need time to find a cure. But I will fix you.”
“What about Earth?”
“That’s the past, Dorian. Earth is but a pebble in our sea.”
“Show me. Show me my world.”
“It’s not your world anymore.”
Dorian rushed forward and again killed Ares.
When the Atlantean emerged from the tube the fourteenth time, he instantly activated a hologram that showed Earth surrounded by Serpentine ships. Triangular ships fought a battle with them, but they were losing.
“The Exiles are fighting the Serpentine Army?” Dorian asked.
“Yes. Fools. They fight for all the human worlds. The ring has poured through, as I knew they would when I withdrew the sentinel line. This is part of my plan, Dorian.”
“We’re a weapon.”
“Yes. The scientist you saw, Isis. I shared the Serpentine genetic information with her. She created a sort of anti-virus. That’s what the Atlantis Gene that humanity received really is. It’s the most sophisticated survival technology the universe has ever known. Look at what it has done to your world. No civilization has ever advanced so quickly. I combined what Isis created, what she gave to the Exiles, with the Serpentine virus. That’s the Atlantis Gene you know. That’s what you are. Your desire to assimilate, your drive to create a single unified society marching to a common goal, accessing some universal power. It’s your fatal flaw and the salvation of our people. When the serpent bites, your people will poison it.”
“What does that mean?”
“They assimilate, Dorian. They assimilated my wife, all of my people before the fall of our world and our exodus. Someone will resist, and when they do, the serpent will bore deep, trying to access their link to the Origin Entity. They will offer the fruit, something t