“All of which is influenced by our DNA,” Evan said. “You forget that I was a physician and geneticist once upon a time, my dear.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten. I just don’t know how much you remember but you are correct. Our DNA plays a significant role in the structure of our brains and the information it contains, and it’s not just our brains, it’s our spinal cord and entire nervous system.”
“Our memories are stored in our spine?” Evan asked incredulously.
“No but many of our autonomic functions and reflex responses are stored in the pons, thalamus and medulla.”
“Okay, that's all very interesting but what does that have to do with me?”
“The important part is that as you aged, you developed unique neural pathways based on your genetics, environment and experiences. Got it?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good,” Lily said. “Because we spent a lot of time figuring out that you can’t write engrams coded to one person onto the brain of another. The neural and physical pathways just won’t line up. The variation in brain and neural geometry results in defective neurons, malformed synapses and a distorted engramic mesh.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It is, and the severity depends on how big of a difference exists in the physical geometry between the brains of the host and source bodies. The greater the difference, the more distortion of the engramic mesh and the less likely that the person will adapt to the new host body and survive.”
“You're losing me,” Evan said.
“Sorry. The important part is that the closer the physical structure of the host brain and nervous system is to that of the original, the more probable the transfer will succeed.”
“And an exact match is ideal,” Aubrey added.
“Right,” Lily continued. “And to complicate things even more, we discovered that low gravity and varying solar orbital periods caused random mutations in off-Earth clones. Even if we started with perfectly preserved, original DNA it was likely that we would end up with significant variation by the time the clone was just a few months old.”
“And in some cases, those mutations resulted in variations of neural geometry that caused engramic restoration to fail even though we were using the original person’s own DNA,” Aubrey said.
“Which,” Lily continued, “led to us to our next breakthrough. We compared the brain and neural structure of Earth-born hosts with their off-Earth clones and measured the differences between the two.”
“Okay, I think I get the science. Just tell me what happened.”
“We made progress,” Lily said. “We had a few successes, and I tried again.”
“With me?”
“Yes, we tried again using your engrams. We grew the clone at our facility on Hades One and did everything we could to simulate an Earth-like environment.”
“What did you use for the source DNA?”
“When we don’t have original DNA, we use that of the next closest relative.”
“James Richardson was my relative?”
Lily laughed. “You could say that. James Evan Richardson is me. Or more accurately, my DNA modified to express male physiology.”
“You mean to say that…”
“That you and I now share more than just a father/daughter relationship? Yes, Dad, the body you are in is my clone. You are, for all intents and purposes, my twin brother from a DNA perspective.”
“I’m confused. I understood you to be telling me something that happened years ago.”
“Right. The Hades One experiment was done twenty-four years ago using the same DNA that the other Aubrey used to bring you back three days ago—my DNA.”
“But what about the other me?” Evan asked. “What happened to that clone? It didn’t work, did it?”
“No it didn't,” Lily answered. “You were functional for a few days but then you started hallucinating and you ended up stealing an escape pod and ejecting yourself into space. A space transport picked you up, and you created a major shit storm for us when you got back to Earth.”
“I think I read something about that...that was me?”
“Yes,” Aubrey replied. “Your rapidly failing memory was the only reason Telogene survived the ensuing scandal. Thankfully, you couldn’t tell anyone who you were or anything about you, which allowed us to fill in the blanks. Mom told everyone that you were a Telogene employee who had experienced an unfortunate lab accident.”
“And a year after that I gave a speech calling for the end of full body restorations at the GFN’s tenth-anniversary conference,” Lily added. “I had to in order to restore Telogene’s reputation and save the business. Your escape from Hades One was just one black eye too many, and we had dozens of world and regional leaders speaking out against Telogene—they wanted to put me in jail and sell off the company piece by piece and I just couldn’t let that happen. So, I made a deal to save it.”
Aubrey continued. “And she did save it and three years later the GFN passed the HDDA.”
“What happened to the…the other me?”
“We had to terminate that clone. It…you…were beyond recovery.”
“But President Duchon said that I…that Doctor Richardson had traveled to Luna…with a woman.
“That was our fourth attempt, three years ago,” Lily said. “You and I were traveling to Mars...a trial run of sorts but…well, let's just leave it at you didn’t make it.”
“So, if it didn’t work three years ago, what made you try again…why now?” Evan asked.
“Because we think we’ve finally solved all the technical challenges but…”
“But,” Aubrey interrupted, “we needed to know for sure, and we have more baseline data on you than anyone else.”
“So, what you’re telling me is that I am just an experiment? A test subject so you can see if you have become the masters of inserting the contents of one man’s brain into someone else's body. Is that it?”
Lily stood up, her face turning bright red with anger. “No, Dad, that’s not it at all. This all started because you asked me to bring you back! I have been working for decades to fulfill the promise I made to you after watching your goodbye video.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t get it right the first time, or even the fourth but you and I both know that’s not how science works. You’re the one that taught me to keep failing until I succeed, remember?”
“Yes, I remember but I could never have imagined how far this would go. When I started, I thought only of helping people live longer, healthier lives. It never occurred to me that you would abuse this technology as you have. We can’t keep doing this.”
“Papa”—Aubrey slid over to the couch and put her arm around her grandfather’s shoulders—“We can’t undo the past, we can only move forward. The damage is already done and if we stop now, then it may mean the end of all of us.”
“Did it ever occur to the two of you that maybe that’s how it should be? Hell, dinosaurs roamed the Earth for millions of years but you don’t see any of them around do you? Extinction is a part of the natural order. If dinosaurs hadn’t died out, then it’s possible we wouldn’t even be here. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be—humanity dies to make room for whoever, or whatever, comes next.”
“That may be,” Aubrey replied, “but I am not willing to just give up. If humanity is not meant to survive, then our mission will fail. But if there is even a small chance then I think we have to try.”
“What about you?” Evan asked of Lily. “You don’t look anything like I remember you…that’s not your body.”
“It’s my DNA. We modified it to change my bone structure, eye and hair color. Josana Saunders was a real person once, but she died and I took her identity.”
Evan sat quietly as he considered everything he had just heard. It was beyond belief and he struggled to make sense of it.
“There’s one more thing I have to tell you, Dad,” Lily said.
“What’s that?”
“We want you to go on the ship with us. We want you to help us start a colony on a planet we discovered in the Alpha Centauri system.”
“So, the whole ‘help us save the Earth’ thing was just a ploy then? The real plan is to cut and run and leave those billions of people to clean up the mess you helped create? I cannot believe that any daughter of mine would ever dream of such a thing.”
“But we’re not abandoning them!” Lily yelled. “We are trying to save them, or at least some small part.”
“And who decides who lives and who dies? You?”
Lily started to cry. “No, that’s Aneni’s job.”
“Who's Aneni?”
“She…it is the master AI that will pilot the Kutanga and oversee the establishment of the Gaia colony.”
“What? Are you telling me that a computer program is deciding humanity's fate? Have you completely lost your minds?”
“Aneni is one of the most advanced artificial intelligence systems ever created,” Lily replied. “We have been nurturing her for nearly twenty years and she knows everything that has happened, and what will happen if we do nothing.”
“That’s right, Papa, and once we finish loading the last of the engramic archives, she will have access to the accumulated knowledge of the world’s greatest scientists, engineers and technicians…including yours.”
“Including mine? What are you saying?”
Lily answered. “Aubrey is saying that you, me, her…all of us will make the trip to Gaia as engramic archives and that Aneni will restore us once we reach our destination. As fast as Kutanga is, it will still take nearly thirty years for us to get there…and that’s a really long time to keep thousands of people alive in space.”
“So, why bring me back at all? Why not just transfer me directly into that Aneni thing?”
“It’s complicated, Dad, but what matters most is that we wanted to see you and to hug you and tell you how much we love you. I know you are struggling to understand all this but I just really need you to trust us…trust me.”
“I do love you, Lilypad. I love you both more than anything, and I do trust you, I am just trying to understand.”—Evan stood up and extended his hand—“Come here, Aubrey.”
Aubrey stood up as Evan grabbed her hand, pulling her and Lily close in a tight embrace.
“I am so very happy to see you both. I can’t even begin to tell you what it means to me to see you both again. The only thing that would make it more perfect is if Christine could be here…but I know that’s not possible. I love you both very much.”
“We love you too, Papa. I’m sorry this has been so hard on you. We really wanted it to be different…but we are doing our best.”
“I know you are, Princess, I know you are.”
CHAPTER 33
APRIL 6, 2075 9:17 AM GST
Telogene Headquarters
Lead, South Dakota
Bruce Wagner stared blurry-eyed at the holodisplay in front of him. The AI task he had started when he first arrived was nearly complete, just a handful of engramic archives left to transmit. The AI managing the job was operating from a secret location a few kilometers outside of the Siberian town of Norilsk. Besides Bruce, only ten other people knew the facility existed, including Lily Harris, Alexei Dumanov and the eight technicians that maintained the organic storage array and its supporting power and climate control systems.
The facility, which Alexei had named Vechnost—Russian for “eternity,” was constructed nearly a decade ago to provide redundancy for Telogene’s primary backup storage facility in Xi’an. Its location and purpose were kept secret because Lily had feared that storing engramic archives might be outlawed one day, or another war or natural disaster might destroy the primary storage sites.
Bruce had been the one to suggest that they contract with Alexei’s construction company to build it, in part because of their long-standing relationship but also because Alexei was good at keeping secrets. The crew that built the facility thought they were building a seed and DNA storage vault. The organic storage and quantum computing arrays were installed after they left.
Vechnost was re-purposed when Lily Harris and Adekunle Gbadamosi decided to build the Kutanga. It still served as a repository for engramic archives but now it contained the most important archives in the world. Over the past five years, the engrams of 4,487 of the planet’s most talented leaders, scientists, engineers, artists, composers and authors had been acquired and added to the Vechnost repository.
Gathering them had been a relatively simple matter as many of the donors either worked for Telogene or were customers of its archival and storage services. There were a few who had to be convinced to create an engramic archive but Lily persisted until, whether by flattery or bribery, she convinced each one.
Bruce had been careful to cover his tracks, knowing full well that the GSSA would monitor his every communication and action on the GeoNet. So, to avoid detection, he sent the command that activated the Vecnost AI before he left Zurich. The message was disguised as a request to perform a routine backup of his corporate files to the Xi'an office. The receiving AI in Xi'an then forwarded the embedded command to Vecnost using a private network.
Within seconds of receiving its orders, the Vechnost AI packaged all the archives in its care and began transmitting them to Aneni, the master AI on board the Kutanga. The readout on the holodisplay showed that the last batch of archives would be received and verified in seven minutes and fifteen seconds. Once complete, the Vechnost AI would detonate the high explosives planted throughout the facility; destroying the facility, obliterating itself and any trace of the archives once stored there.
Almost there, Bruce thought.
Several gestures later, the holodisplay changed to show a list of names…names of people selected to be among the first colonists on a planet outside of our solar system. Only a handful of people even knew the list existed and only three had the ability to change it—Bruce was one, Lily Harris and Adekunle Gbadamosi were the others. Bruce filtered the list to show only surnames starting with the letter “D.”
The name he was looking for was near the bottom—Alexei Dumanov. He was already on the approved colonist list, although Alexei had no way of knowing that, of course. He was only on the list because Bruce Wagner had long considered him a trusted friend and had advocated for his inclusion when the list was first created three years ago.
Unfortunately for Dumanov, his awareness of the Kutanga and his demand to be included among the colonists had given Bruce pause. Bruce had no idea where Alexei had gotten his information but it had to be someone inside the GSSA or BGSI. That meant that there was a spy somewhere, and it also meant that if Alexei had been able to get the information, then surely others had it as well.
He had spent several hours during his flight back from Switzerland agonizing about what to do. Should he tell Alexei he was already on the list? That would mean explaining to him he would not be physically getting on a ship and that only his engramic archive would make the voyage to Gaia. It would also mean risking exposure of the entire operation if Alexei decided he didn’t agree with the plan.
That was why none of the people on the list had been told of their inclusion, there was simply too much chance that one of them would disapprove of some aspect of the mission plan—or just not be able to keep the secret until the ship was safely away.
He was also worried about who Alexei would become were he to be restored on Gaia. Would he be the trusted confidante, exceptional leader and gifted organizer that Bruce knew him to be, or would he be the tyrannical thug that had strong-armed his way into a multi-billion-dollar fortune?
Until yesterday, Bruce had assumed that his friendship with Alexei was strong enough to ensure the former but Alexei’s words had conveyed more than a hint of deep-seeded animosity when the topic of repaying his debt had been brought up. In the end, Bruce decided that he couldn’t take the chance.
He gestured at the holodisplay and was rew
arded with a message confirming that Alexei Dumanov had been removed from the list and his engramic archive deleted from the Kutanga’s storage array (or at least it would be once his message was received sometime in the next twenty minutes). Once that was done, he transmitted his final progress report to Lily, informing her of his decision to remove Dumanov from the mission.
Satisfied that his work was done, Bruce had only one thing left to do—say goodbye to Geoff Wagner. He reached into the briefcase that he always carried with him and withdrew a small silver case. He set the case on the desk in front of him and placed his thumb on a small depression in its otherwise smooth surface. The case opened like butterfly wings to reveal two halves, one containing an injector and the other containing a small vial.
Bruce picked up the vial and twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. The contents shimmered in the light like mercury but as deadly as mercury could be, the material in this vial was even more so. Telogene had originally developed neural nanites to repair diseased or damaged tissue in the brain, spine and nervous system.
But, after passing the Human Dignity and Decency Act of 2055, the GFN needed a method of humanely disposing of illegal clones. In what was perhaps the ultimate irony, Telogene won the contract to design, develop and manufacture the substance the GFN would use to eliminate over two million clones from the planet. This was the same substance Bruce now twirled in his hand.
Although the relatively benign-sounding term “nano-wipe” was widely adopted to describe the effects the nanites had on a human being, the reality was far starker. Once injected, the nanites would take anywhere from two to five minutes to infiltrate the victim’s brain and spinal column.
Only seconds later the victim would lose consciousness as the nanites attacked the brainstem and disabled the neurons responsible for controlling heart rate and respiration. Another group of nanites would then disrupt the synapses of the brain and destroy the neurons responsible for conscious thought. Within ten minutes the victim would be clinically dead and within thirty minutes the bulk of the victim’s brain and spine would be the consistency of thick chicken soup.
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