Ancestor

by Scott Sigler

  “Mister Feely,” she said, and as she did she realized that he’d been standing there for several seconds, quietly saying her name over and over. Part of her brain had heard him but hadn’t wanted to come out of that special place.

  “You’re my boss,” he said. “Think maybe you can finally stop calling me mister?”

  She shook her head. No, she could not do that. Sometimes she tried, tried to say P. J. or Tim or Claus, but it always came out Mister Colding or Mister Feely or Doctor Rhumkorrf.

  Her seven-monitor computer array here was identical to the one in her room. Tim held up a bottle and a medicine cup, reached around the outside monitors to offer them to her. “You forget something?”

  Her meds.

  She looked at the bottle, then at her watch. She was two hours behind on her meds. “Ah. I am sorry.” She took the bottle and plastic cup.

  He walked around the desk to stand next to her chair. “And what are you doing up? You should be in bed. How about you turn in?”

  She shook her head, put the medicine bottle down and started reaching for the fridge under her desk.

  “Got you covered,” Tim said. He pulled a can of Dr Pepper from his lab coat pocket. She smelled alcohol on his breath.

  “Mister Feely, have you been drinking?”

  “Just a shot or two,” he said. “And speaking of shots, the meds are yours, and this can is your chaser. So drink up!”

  Tim made her laugh. He was a good assistant, although not as good as Galina had been. But where Galina had spent most of her time with Erika, Tim made sure Jian took her meds, slept, even ate. Sometimes Jian actually forgot to eat, in the times when the code took over and minutes turned to hours turned to days.

  Jian poured the lithium citrate into the medicine cup, filling it to the five-milliliter line. She drank the medicine, then immediately drained the whole can of Dr Pepper. Carbonation bubbled up in her mouth, chasing away the lithium’s nasty taste. The bad taste was worth it, though, because it made her normal. Made her able to function without seeing … them. The medicine let her work.

  She reached for the fridge again, but Tim produced a second can from his other pocket.

  “Got you covered,” he said.

  Jian blushed a little. Tim and P. J. took such good care of her. It almost made this place tolerable despite Rhumkorrf’s pressure and the constant mean comments from that evil bitch Erika.

  “Jian, come on,” Tim said. “We’ve failed the immune test before. Give work a rest for a little bit. We’ll get back to it in the morning.”

  “No, we must work. Did you come up with anything?”

  “Yes,” Tim said. “A bitchin’ new high score in Tetris.”

  “You must be very proud.”

  “Not really. I reprogrammed it so I could win. Maybe you should try playing some video chess. Let your mind do something else for a little bit.”

  She shrugged. She wasn’t about to lecture a grown man on the value of hard work.

  “Come on, Jian. Go to bed.”

  “I will,” she said. “Let me finish sequencing the four new samples first, then I will sleep.”

  “Promise?”

  She nodded.

  “All right,” Tim said. “Then you’re on your own. I’m pooped. Cheating at Tetris will really take it out of you. Night.”

  He turned and walked out of the room. She rubbed her eyes. She was tired. But it wouldn’t take that long to finish this process.

  They’d long ago collected samples of every living mammal known to man. After that, Danté had started acquiring samples from extinct species. Each time they digitized one of those additional genomes, the God Machine’s viability rate went up. Would the four new samples Bobby had delivered take them over 80 percent?

  The myriad forms of animals on Earth take many shapes, but every last one is made from a simple set of four nucleotides: adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine. Those four basic nucleotides create the double helix structure that is deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. Some people didn’t understand double helix, but everyone got Jian’s favorite description—the twisting ladder.

  Variety between the strands, across the rungs of the DNA ladder, is limited even further, to just two combinations: adenine can only bind with thymine, and guanine can only bond with cytosine. But the combinations along the sides of the ladder, the four letters A, G, T and C, combine in infinite ways.

  Those infinite combinations were what Jian wanted to analyze, to digitize, so the God Machine could see the full genome of each animal and compare it with the master ancestor sequence.

  First, she extracted the cellular DNA of the four extinct mammals and placed each in a vial. To each vial, she added her sequencing master mix. The mix consisted of a DNA polymerase, random primers and the four basic nucleotides. The mix also included dideoxynucleotides, which were nucleotides with a slightly different chemical structure that contained a fluorescent section critical to the final stage of the process.

  She slid the vials into a polymerase chain reactor, a machine designed to produce billions of copies of the target DNA. First the PCR machine “unzipped” the DNA by heating it to ninety-five degrees Celsius, which broke the hydrogen bonds in the rungs. That split the double helix, leaving two single strands of DNA. The machine then cooled the mixture to fifty-five degrees Celsius. This brought the prefabricated random primers into play. A primer is to a strand of DNA what a foundation is to a brick wall: DNA strands can’t form at random, they have to begin with a primer. Lowering the temperature allowed the primers to lock in to complementary sections on the single DNA strand, so that a primer with the combination ACTGA would make rungs that created a combination of TGACT on the other side of the ladder. A binds with C, T binds with G, and click, a starting point locks down.

  Then, more heat.

  As the temperature rose to seventy-two Celsius, the DNA polymerase started at the random primers and moved down the open strand, locking free nucleotides onto the open-ended single DNA strands—just like a train engine building the track underneath it as it goes. The end result was two perfect copies of the original DNA strand. From there, the process quickly repeated over and over—two copies became four, then eight, then sixteen, an exponential increase that added up fast.

  In years past, there had been more steps she had to follow, but now the entire process was automated. Her machine created millions of identical copies, peppered with the little fluorescent dideoxynucleotide chunks that marked segments. The computer used a laser to make those chunks fluoresce, then counted off the segments. End result? A nucleotide-by-nucleotide analysis of the animal’s DNA. The millions of copies provided an extremely high degree of accuracy.

  The resultant data fed automatically into the supercomputer known as the God Machine. There, Jian’s programming would take over. She closed the lid on the PCR machines and set them to run automatically.

  In just a few hours, the four new DNA sequences would join the thousands they had already sequenced. She called up the current genome database.

  GENOME A17 SEQUENCING: PROCESSING

  PROOFREADING ALGORITHM: PROCESSING

  PROJECTED VIABILITY PROBABILITY: 65.0567%

  Over and over again the powerful God Machine processed trillions of combinations of DNA, looking for the magical set that would produce a viable embryo. They were close now. A few more samples, a few more mammalian species, perhaps, and they would have it.

  She still had her secret experiment, the one she hadn’t revealed to Rhumkorrf. Colding had insisted on destroying all elements of the human surrogate mother program. Jian had saved just a little bit. A special little bit. She had an ancestor genome with 99.65 percent viability probability, one that would beat the immune response for sure.

  Not a cow’s immune response … her immune response.

  That had been her little secret through the human surrogate phase. She’d used her own DNA as the primary working template. The irony was that Colding’s insistence on eliminating t
he human surrogates had saved the company, but if they could use a human surrogate, they would have successful implantation on the first try. Jian had kept her own modified eggs, hiding them inside the waist-high tank of liquid nitrogen that also held the last sixteen rounds of God Machine genomes. They were her eggs, after all, and she couldn’t really bear to part with them.

  Maybe, if the bovine experiments totally failed, she’d actually use them. Millions of lives hung in the balance. Rhumkorrf would probably even help. He was desperate to make it happen, desperate to make Jian stop being so stupid, such a failure.

  So many people. People dying every day, dying because of her incompetence.

  She needed to relax. Maybe Tim was right … maybe a little video game. Just for a few minutes. No one would know if she stopped working. Jian quietly turned to her left-lower monitor and called up the Chess Master program. So bad to play now! But she was stumped. Come on, Kasparov level, do your best.

  She always beat the Kasparov level. At least the computer program was good enough to make her actually think about her moves, which was more than she could say of playing anyone else in the project. Poor P. J., always trying so hard to win, but he could only see five or six moves into the future. Jian saw entire games played out before the first pawn advanced.

  She stared at the black-and-white pieces lined up neatly on the video chessboard. The computer waited for her to make the first move, but for some reason she could only stare at the pieces. The black pieces. The white pieces. Black and white.

  Black and white.

  Black and white.

  They might be another color, and yet the game would still be the same. Blue and red, yellow and purple, and that wouldn’t make any difference because the board’s function didn’t change.

  The board that lay underneath the black-and-white pieces. Black and white …

  … like the fur on the cows.

  “That’s it,” she whispered. “That’s it!”

  She quit the chess program and called up the bovine genome, her fingers an unrecognizable blur on the keyboard. It was so obvious. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? If all that mattered was the internal organs, the underneath, she could eliminate hundreds of potentially problematic genes by swapping out what was on top—the integument.

  The God Machine could process that change even while counting off the genomes of the four extinct mammals. Could all of it be enough to push the viability rating over 80 percent?

  Her main terminal let out an alarm beep, demanding her attention. She called up the alarm window.

  REMOTE BACKUP FAILURE

  The off-site backup, the ten-petabyte data drive array that sat in a temperature-controlled brick building at the end of the runway … it had failed. That system hadn’t failed once in the fourteen months since they’d installed it. The array was designed to survive no matter what, to keep the experiment alive in the event of worst-case scenarios at the main facility. Computer crashes, fire, electromagnetic pulses … she’d been told it could even survive a really big explosive called a fuel-bomb, although she couldn’t imagine why someone would use such a destructive thing on a harmless research facility.

  The timing couldn’t be worse. She had inspiration, the missing link that might let her solve the immune reaction problem. But she highly doubted the backup drive failure was an accident—someone was up to something. She’d just have to do two things at once: deal with the backup failure, and simultaneously type in the genetic code that had hit her like a blast of mountain wind. She isolated the computer lab from the rest of the network, then quickly called up a diagnostics program.

  NOVEMBER 8: MRS. SANSOME

  Margarite’s hands moved of their own accord, as if possessed by an unseen demon of passion. She undid the laces on her bodice, slowly exposing her soft, moon-shaped breasts. When the night air caressed her nipples she gasped … how could she be so bold?

  “Yes, Mrs. Sansome,” Craig beckoned heatedly. “Yes, let me see.”

  “I will, Craig,” she cooed sexually.

  She stared at him, her eyes passionately out of focus. She wanted him. But he was a vampire! And a stable boy vampire at that!! She had come so far from her servant beginnings, winning the hand of Edward and becoming Mrs. Edward Sansome the Duchess of Tethshire and a very rich woman with money and jewels and many servants of her own. This was wrong, was it not? This was evil! She had to run! Run to Pastor Johnson and do something or she would become an evil denizen of the night and seek the blood of innocents.

  However, before she could turn and run, Craig stood up and effortlessly declothed himself of his trousers. His penis sparkled in the moonlight like skin made of crushed rubies.

  GUNTHER JONES SAT back and read his words. Not bad, if he did say so himself. Take a bite out of that, Stephenie Meyer. How hard could it be? Some handsome bloodsuckers, some romance, a little forbidden fruit that turns into hot sex, and boom—vampire novel.

  The wee hours of the morning were usually his most creative. Tucked away in the security control room, no one bothered him, particularly at 3:00 A.M. Not that he didn’t do his job … there just wasn’t much job to do. Other than making sure Jian didn’t try to off herself, he ran through all scheduled procedures and checked that the alarm systems were online. If anything came up that required eyeballs, he woke Brady or Andy or Colding, depending on who was on call.

  Closed-circuit cameras blanketed the facility’s interior, giving him a view of every possible angle. After almost two years here, he was adept at keeping the monitors in his peripheral vision—if something out there moved, he’d see it. Nothing ever did. That meant Gunther Jones basically got paid damn good money to sit and write for hours on end.

  He’d completed two novels in the Hot Dusk series already: Hot Dusk and Hot Evening. As soon as he finished his current book, Hot Midnight, he’d have a kick-ass trilogy to push on agents.

  The computer beeped, indicating an alert. Gunther reduced his novel (making sure to save it first, he wasn’t about to lose those amazing words), revealing a flashing alert message:

  SATELLITE UPLINK SIGNAL DOWN

  He called up the maintenance screen, hit the re-link button, then waited to see the link reconnect like it always did. Colding didn’t like losing that signal, although it happened from time to time for some interstellar communications reason they didn’t really understand. A new message appeared:

  NO SIGNAL DETECTED, RE-LINK FAILURE

  Huh. He’d never seen that before. He repeated the step and waited.

  NO SIGNAL DETECTED, RE-LINK FAILURE

  “Colding’s going to be pissed.” Gunther called up the diagnostics program and let it run.

  HARDWARE FAILURE

  He stared at the screen. Hardware failure? That had never happened before. There was only one thing left to do in the repair protocol—send out some eyeballs. He turned to the vid-phone and punched Brady’s room.

  NOVEMBER 8: A HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN

  BRADY GIOVANNI DIDN’T mind the cold, but that didn’t mean he was stupid about it. He had been one of those kids who always listened to his mother. Growing up in Saskatoon, listening to your mother meant dressing warm.

  When on call, dressing warm meant wearing his thermal long johns and socks to bed, cutting down his response time. After Gunther’s call woke him, it took Brady only seconds to pull on the black Genada parka with matching snow pants, military-grade cold-weather gloves, a scarf and the thing that Andy “The Asshole” Crosthwaite teased him about to no end—a wool hat knitted by none other than Brady’s mother. The hat fit perfectly over his big head and the headset/mic combo in his ear.

  He punched in his access code at the front interior airlock door. It opened and he stepped into the chamber. He closed the door and waited five seconds while the pressure equalized. A beep from the door let him know the cycle had finished.

  “Gun, this is Brady, exiting now.”

  “Roger that,” Gunther’s voice said in his ear.


  Beretta in hand, Brady opened the heavy latch to the outside door and stepped out into the cold night air. The compound’s lights lit up the grounds. From the door, he could see the back of the satellite dish. Nothing moving. He double-timed it across the snow, the icy wind pulling at him as he ran. It could blow all it wanted, because Brady was prepared. Maybe a little more than just prepared, as proven by the sweat that already trickled down his armpits despite the subzero temperatures.

  He kept a sharp watch as he cut a wide circle around the satellite dish. Nothing really happened at the isolated facility. Even something as trivial as this hardware failure brought welcome excitement, gave him a chance to practice good soldiering.

  The fifteen-foot-wide satellite array pointed out to the stars, away from Brady. His circle brought him around to the front, where he could see the receiver held up by metal arms that pointed in and up from the concave dish. As he moved, he steadily swept his vision from left to right, then right to left.

  Gunther’s voice piped into his headset. “You there yet?”

  “I’m twenty feet away and you know that,” Brady said. “You’re watching on infrared, aren’t you?”

  Gunther’s laugh sounded tinny through the small headset. “Yeah, I love this thing. Never get to use it. Nothing moving out there but you, big fella.”

  Brady came around the front of the satellite dish. Seeing no movement, he closed in until he could examine the receiver. He stared at the gadget for a full three seconds, not really believing what he saw.

  Baffin Island wasn’t boring anymore.

  THE VID-PHONE AGAIN let out its shrill digital blare. Colding groaned and rolled over and looked at the phone—3:22 A.M. Jian again? Jesus, couldn’t a guy just get some fucking sleep around here? Colding clicked the connect button.

  “What’s up, Gun?”

  “We have a situation,” Gunther said in a rush. “The satellite array has been damaged.”