“Which one?” Wilson demanded.
The Mastertech turned away from the data for a moment with slightly wide eyes, as if he still couldn’t believe what he was saying. “The dragons.”
“I thought we removed the genetic trigger and the imbedded transitional code,” Davis asked angrily from his office as Wilson and Gerald were sitting across his clear desk giving him the latest news on Jason and Vitor…and their concerns.
“We did,” Gerald said firmly. “This is not coming from a buried trigger of any kind. Zak’de’ron medical science isn’t that far ahead of us now, and I’d be able to detect it if it was still there. It’s not something they did, but his genome is rewriting itself along similar lines.”
“He’s not turning into one of them,” Wilson added. “I think it’s an upgrade along a similar path.”
Davis scoffed. “They always claimed they were superior. Are you saying that genetically they were correct?”
“Are Zen’zat superior to Ter’nat?” Wilson replied pithily. “It’s more about the pilot inside the body, but the body does matter. Adaptation of it always implied a pathway to improvement, and in retrospect it makes sense that there would be another mechanism of advancement when physical adaptation reached the limits the genome could allow.”
“I thought the Zak’de’ron only recently discovered Essence?” Davis demanded. “Is that another lie?”
“I have no way of knowing that,” Gerald apologized.
“No,” Wilson said firmly. “I don’t think they were playing dumb. It may be that the Life Springs create races on a wide range of levels. If Ter’nat were a level 3, and they got upgraded by the Zak’de’ron into a level 4, the Zak’de’ron may have been spawned a level 6 and upgraded themselves into a level 7 or 8 the same way we created the Saiyan upgrade.”
“A head start?”
“It’s beginning to look that way.”
Davis sighed. “Assuming this all works out, are we looking at the birth of a new race?”
“Yes,” Gerald said reluctantly, “I think so. Jason and Vitor are already beyond what our technology recognizes as Human. I don’t know how far it will go, but while visually they look like us, at a cellular level they’re changing. Superhuman might be a better description.”
“Can they breed other Superhumans?” Davis asked ominously.
Wilson blew out a long breath. “Damn, I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“Gerald?”
“In theory, but without seeing the final product I don’t know. Their reproductive systems are still deactivated. That hasn’t changed yet. I checked that and every other alteration we’ve made to them. Their Saiyan upgrades aren’t being erased, they’re being incorporated into the new genome, and while I don’t know how, Jason and Vitor’s metabolism has gone very low with the normal high spikes. That’s the only way they could be asleep for as long as they are. Somehow the lower limit that we created is gone. They have the option to slow down and rest, though at the moment it seems to be forced upon them. We wanted to give them that option, but we didn’t know how. That alone is a huge upgrade, from a cellular perspective. I’m not sure how it will affect their training,” he said, glancing at Wilson.
“They’ll be able to advance again. Beyond that I’ll figure it out, but I don’t think this is a new phenomenon. There are stories, legends, myths, from a handful of other races about an individual that goes out into the forest, desert, deep space, etc and comes back changed. Not visibly, but their power level is significantly greater. Some have new abilities, and their history after that usually ends up badly. Some are killed by their people, others become tyrants, one even killed himself because she was too unlike the others. Some were said to be sterile, while others reproduced offspring that had some of their power, creating splinter races greater than the ones they came from.”
“Did any of those races possess Essence knowledge?” Davis asked.
“Not a one of them, as far as I can tell.”
“You looked into this previously?”
“I have looked everywhere I can regarding physical and mental development, including legends and lore. I didn’t put it together until now, but there seems to be a common thread.”
“So, maybe this can happen even if you don’t have Essence powers?”
“Jason didn’t consciously trigger it, and it’s not an Essence Rush. But the bigger point is, if you do have Essence powers, can you manually trigger it?”
“The Neofan?” Gerald asked.
Davis glanced at him. “Do you know something?”
“The samples we’ve been able to collect from them have indicated different strains of genetic code, almost as if there were different versions of their race, and we’ve only encountered one of their Houses. If they exclusively reproduce with their own House…”
“They do,” Davis confirmed.
“Then why would there be such wildly different strains of genetics within their House? I’m not talking mild stuff, but different cellular structures.”
“Holy shit,” Wilson said, putting his head in his hands.
“Ditto,” Davis agreed. “And I think we may have solved the riddle of the Spice Lords as well.”
It took a moment for Wilson to process, then it clicked. “How could they produce other forms if their natural state is one that can’t survive the void or produce technology? You think they can use Essence to do ‘Force Adapt?’”
“I’d bet you a planet it’s somewhat related to that concept.”
“I have no knowledge of anything related to this,” the Mastertech said.
“Why would you?” Wilson scoffed. “Those races that have it aren’t likely to want to share, and those like the Hadarak seem to be more hive mind or instinct driven then others. I’m still not sure what to classify them as, or the Uriti. Their intelligence level is so low for such large minds, yet they have another type of intelligence that I can’t identify. Even the Wranglers have a hard time explaining it, other
