CROSSFIRE - Atlantis DSV - New Cape Quest

Rhodes swallowed again, writing down a few quite notes with her stylus as Hurst
struggled yet again to keep up. “What?” he asked, noticing the ashen look upon her face.
“What does it mean?”
“There‟s nearly a perfect correlation between the major base pairings,” she said.
“Accounting for the modifications to the AI‟s code, that would suggest the two controls are
related.”
“Rhodes, slow down,” Hurst frowned. “Are you trying to tell me that that Nycarian
DNA shares the same base augment modifications to the virus that is killing Annie?”
Rhodes exhaled slowly. “It‟s not a virus,” she started to realise. “It‟s... a catalyst. The
same one they used to create me... us. The Nycarians.”
Rhodes‟ mind clicked in to gear, pushing aside the startling realisation and
categorically, rapidly eliminating the implausible formulas before resuming her work. In the
time she had spent with Annie, unknowingly studying the very same genetic code that
coursed through her own veins, she had begun to see patterns of generational change.
Annie, by any rational definition, was a human brain that had been engineered and
hardwired to artificial systems built by human hands. She was not governed by the same
cycles of decay and renewal that so defined a biological existence.
83%, Rhodes reminded herself, was still a significant margin of error when dealing
with something so exacting as genetics. There were few ways to explain away the changes,
and she began pulling up a comparison of the three genomes.
The catalyst, the AI, and the Nycarian.
All linked, and none the same.
Annie did not age. A human did.
A human could reproduce. Annie could not.
The only common link they held was that simple, genetic augment that had changed
them both, and Rhodes‟ fingers swiftly flew over the keyboard, linking the common base
pairs.
Rhodes‟ stomach turned as she saw the final outcome – the two lines, superimposed
on the graph, largely in equilibrium before a projection continued a steady but inescapable
divergence that disappeared from the chart. She slumped back in to her chair, her breathing
shallow, and her mind aflutter.
“That‟s not right,” Hurst said, studying the graph as he slowly caught up with Rhodes‟
work. “A genetic catalyst needs to remain neutral for a genome to be stable. There‟s a
generational change here. How did you project this?”
“I asked the computer to simulate what would happen if two instances of the same
catalyst were used to produce a second generation of the DNA.”
“Then you‟ve made a mistake,” Hurst reasoned. “A catalyst that was deliberately
designed to change physiology over the course of multiple generations would destroy itself.”
“There‟s no mistake,” Rhodes sighed. “Annie isn‟t being killed. She‟s being changed.”
Hurst smiled. “But that‟s good, right?”
Anniel Rhodes closed her eyes. “I can slow the decay and stabilize the base pairs
that are causing the breakdowns, yes,” she confirmed.
“Where did this „genetic history‟ come from? Who‟s DNA is it?”
Rhodes swallowed. “It‟s mine.”
Hurst stopped. “But... if that formula is accurate.”
“It is.”
The ONI officer‟s mouth fell agape, his voice falling to a hoarse whisper. “Anniel...
how did this happen?”
She sniffed back a tear as she looked back at the chart. “That doesn‟t really matter,
does it? The entire Nycarian race... We‟re all dying.”
~
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