“Maybe they don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a cho—”
“In their minds,” Kate said. “Just based on the thinking in the journal, I have a couple of theories. I think they’ve been looking for the Atlantis Gene so that they can survive the device. That’s why they wanted to know what I did to the kids, why they kidnapped them. They must be out of time.”
“The satellite photo — with the codes on the back. It had a sub in the middle.”
“Kane’s sub,” Kate said.
“I bet so. And there was a structure below it. We know they’ve been looking for the sub since 1947 — the obituary in The New York Times decoded to: Antarctica, U-boat not found, advise if further search authorized. So they finally found the sub, and under it, another Atlantis City — a threat.” David shook his head. “But I still don’t get it, the science, why unleash another pandemic?”
“I think the bodies from the Bell are Toba Protocol. It seems that direct contact with the Bell is the most deadly, but there’s only one Bell, or was only one. Maybe they’re going to distribute the bodies around the world. The subsequent outbreak would reduce the world’s population drastically, to only those that could survive the Bell, to anyone with the Atlantis Gene.”
“Yes, but why — aren’t there better ways? Couldn’t they, I don’t know, sequence a bunch of genomes or steal some data and find these people?”
“No, or maybe. You could probably identify people with the Atlantis Gene, but there’s a missing piece: epigenetics and gene activation.”
“Epi—”
“It’s sort of complicated, but the bottom line is that it’s not just what genes you have, it’s what genes get activated, as well as how those genes interact with each other. The plague conceivably would cause a second Great Leap Forward by activating the Atlantis Gene in anyone who has it. Or maybe it’s something else entirely, maybe the plague will reduce the population and force us to mutate or evolve, just like the Toba Catastrophe did…” Kate rubbed her temples. There was something else, some other piece, just out of reach. The conversation with Qian flashed through her mind: the tapestry, the flood of fire, the dying band of humans cowering under the blanket of ashes… the savior… offering a cup with his blood, and the beasts of the forest emerging as modern humans. “I think we’re missing something.”
“You think—”
“What if the first Great Leap Forward wasn’t a natural occurrence? What if it wasn’t evolution at all? What if humanity was on the brink of extinction and the Atlanteans came to our rescue? What if the Atlanteans gave that dying band of humans something that would help them survive Toba? A gene, a genetic advantage that made them smart enough to survive. A change in brain wiring. What if they gave us the Atlantis Gene?”
CHAPTER 98
David looked around as if deciding what to say. Finally he opened his mouth to speak, but Kate held up her hand.
“I know it sounds crazy, ok, but just hear me out, let me talk through this. It’s not like we’re going anywhere for a while.” She motioned to the basket and the balloon above it.
“Fair enough, but I’m warning you, I’m out of my element here. I’m not sure how much help I can be.”
“Just tell me when it starts sounding too crazy.”
“Is that retro-active? Because what you just said—”
“Ok, actually, you just listen for a while, then call me out on any craziness. Here are the facts: around 70,000 years ago, the Mount Toba Supervolcano erupts. There’s a global volcanic winter that lasts 6-10 years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode. Ash blankets Southern Asia and Africa. The total human population plummets to 3,000-10,000, maybe even as low as 1,000 viable mating pairs.”
“Alright, that’s true, I can confirm its non-craziness.”
“Because I told you about the Toba Catastrophe in Jakarta.”
David held up his hands. “Hey, just trying to be helpful here.”
Kate remembered her own reaction and her words to David in the van days ago, what felt like a lifetime ago. “Very funny. Anyway, the reduction in population caused a genetic bottleneck around that time. We know that every human on the planet is descended from an extremely small population, between 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago. Every human outside of Africa is descended from a small tribe that left around 50,000 years ago with as few as 100 people. In fact, every human alive today is directly descended from a man who lived in Africa 60,000 years ago.”
“Adam?”
“Actually we call him Y-chromosomal Adam, since we’re scientists. There’s an Eve too — Mitochondrial Eve, but she lived much earlier, we think about 190,000-200,000 years ago—”
“Time travelers? Am I still calling out the craz—”
“Not time travelers, thank you very much. They are just genetic designations of the people everyone on earth is directly descended from. It’s complicated, but the bottom line is that this Adam had a huge advantage — his offspring were far more advanced than any of their peers.”
“They had the Atlantis Gene.”
“For now, we’ll stick to the facts — they had some kind of advantage, whatever it was. By around 50,000 years ago, the human race is beginning to behave differently. There’s an explosion in complex behavior: language, tool making, wall art. It’s the greatest advancement in human history — what we call the Great Leap Forward. In looking at the fossils of humans before and after, there’s not a ton of difference. There’s also not much difference in their genomes. About all we know is that it was a subtle genetic change that caused a difference in the way we thought, possibly a change in our brain wiring.”
“The Atlantis Gene.”
“Whatever it was, this change in brain wiring, it was the greatest genetic jackpot in the history of time. The human race goes from the brink of extinction — less than 10,000 people, from hunting and gathering in the wilderness, to ruling the planet, with over seven billion people, in the span of 50,000 years. That’s the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. It’s an extraordinary comeback, almost hard to believe for a geneticist. I mean, 12% of all the humans who have ever lived are still alive today. We only evolved around 200,000 years ago. We’re still riding a mushroom cloud of the effects of the Great Leap Forward, and we have no idea how it happened or where it will lead.”