INTERLUDE II: NUMBERS
Lies are truth in tattered clothes.
Money speaks louder than morality.
[This recording is rough, and the lab is a tangle of mismatched equipment, scavenged machinery, and dented metal furnishings that were likely acquired from some other, richer facility. The camera is focused on a pale woman lying on a hospital bed. An IV needle is hooked to her arm, and her hair does not appear to have been brushed in some time.]
DR. CALE: Doctor Shanti Cale…
[She stops, coughing.]
DR. CALE: I’m sorry. Doctor Shanti Cale, postoperation report. I appear to have survived the surgery which removed the
[She stops to cough again before looking wearily at the camera.]
DR. CALE: I am making this record because I don’t know if Steven is still looking for me, and something has to survive. When things inevitably go wrong—and it
[She sighs, closing her eyes.]
DR. CALE: Turn off the camera. I’m tired.
[The recording stops there.]
[End report.]
STAGE II: EXPANSION
SymboGen: practicing Nature’s medicine, Nature’s way.
Oh, God. What have we done?
-
It wasn’t something as simple as an ethical disagreement: it was a basic division of morality. Shanti felt that the life of every creature she worked with was of equal value—meaning she ranked you, me, and her lab assistants on the same level as her test subjects. Given a choice between saving the life of a human and saving the life of a tapeworm, it was impossible to tell which way she would go. It made her a liability, once we reached a certain point in the process. She couldn’t be trusted.
It broke my heart to lose her. It really did. But given what we’ve turned up in her lab notes, it was for the best. We wanted to improve mankind’s future, and with Shanti’s help, we were able to do that. The thing about working for the future, though, is that sometimes you have to admit that it’s time to stop clinging tightly to the past. Sometimes you have to let things go.
Chapter 12
AUGUST 2027
This is insane.” Nathan recoiled from Adam, who didn’t move. He just looked at Nathan sadly, his hands twitching by his sides. Nathan took a step backward, nearly bumping into me, and said, “You’re delusional. Mom, I don’t know what’s happened to you over the past several years, but—”
“Calm