The Atlantis Gene

Inside the Bell chamber, Warner witnesses the test subjects “disintegrating, from the ground up” (206). The lights and booming sounds emanating from the Bell grow fainter, and the test subjects still alive seek cover in the corners and along the walls. The dead seem to have hemorrhaged internally. She finds Naomi dead and the survivors massing against the door, trying to escape. Just as she is about to be crushed in the onslaught, an explosion tears a hole in the wall.

Now in a helicopter hovering over the facility, Sloane watches a series of explosions rock the research wing and the reactor. When radiation begins to leak from the building, Sloane refuses to quarantine the personnel, instead ordering his security chief to evacuate everyone to the trains—the beginning of the Toba Protocol. When the site is cleared, he tells him to “blow the facility” (209).

Through a haze of delirium, Vale feels his body being carried out of the reactor wing and dumped on the grass outside. A doctor performs triage and declares him a lost cause, ordering his men to find other survivors and load them on the train. The train car is only 20 feet away, but he cannot move.