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Authors: Michael R. Hicks
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enemy they faced was as biologically complex as it was implacable. They had taken the studies on harvester vulnerabilities originally begun by the Earth Defense Society and the original SEAL organization and expounded on them. But the result hadn’t changed. They had nothing more to use against the harvesters now than they had at the start.
Even the genetic work Naomi and her people were doing, while brilliant, would bear fruit far too late to save humanity. The CIA Red Team report had made that abundantly clear. The shame of it was that they had all the major pieces.
“Damn,” he whispered as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips, only to find it empty. He set it down and reached for the intercom to have his secretary bring in a fresh cup when the phone rang.
It was Naomi.
He snatched the phone from its cradle. “Morgan.”
“Come down here, Howard,” she said. “There’s something you need to see. Right now.”
“Hang on, I’ll be right there.” With a glance at the empty cup, he hung up the phone and headed downstairs to the genetics lab.
***
“You’re not going to believe this,” Naomi told Howard as he looked over her shoulder at the pair of computer monitors on her desk. Her eyes were bright with excitement, and Harmony Bates, who stood next to him, looked like a proud mother.
“You don’t have to be melodramatic to get my attention,” he told her. “Just please tell me it’s not another mutated super-virus like the one you created last week.”
Naomi made a dismissive wave of her hand. “Forget all that. Everything else is a sideshow now.” She turned to her monitors, which showed a set of base pair gene sequences side by side. “Remember when I asked you to run sequence comparisons with harvester DNA against all non-human DNA samples that have been catalogued?”
Morgan chuckled. “How could I forget? That’s been one of the most expensive parts of this project. We’ve got three server farms dedicated to it, run by the folks at SEAL-7, and we’re running more servers than the two biggest web search engines combined.”
“It was something I knew we had to look at, but I never expected to find anything.” She ignored Morgan’s scowl. “But we did. Look at what Harmony picked up from the latest results.” She pointed to the left monitor, which showed a long sequence of base pairs. “This is harvester DNA from the current generation, what we refer to as Group B, with Group A being the original harvesters that created them. This one,” she pointed to the second monitor, “is from a human tissue sample.” She tapped a few keys, and three base pairs sequences were highlighted in both images. “These are the only deviations in this entire sequence.”
Morgan was stunned. “How can this be? I thought you were only running comparisons against non-human DNA. Why was this sample even considered?” Morgan had made the decision to exclude the mass of human DNA samples from the comparative search on the grounds that even with as much computing capacity as had been dedicated to the Dragonfire project, it would take forever to run through even a tiny fraction of the available human DNA samples. Naomi had agreed after a long, drawn-out argument, but now Morgan wondered at the wisdom of his decision. What else might we be missing?
“It was a fluke,” Naomi said. “This was from a human patient suffering from a disease called Morgellons that’s been disputed from the outset, with some claiming it’s a hoax and others claiming that it’s real. This DNA sample was tagged as both human and non-human, which is how it made it into our search matrix.”
“Morgellons?” Morgan shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Naomi spun around in her chair to face him. “Most people haven’t. What appears to be the first known modern case was reported in 2002 in Pennsylvania, and thousands were reported by 2008 when the CDC finally launched a study to determine if the disease was
Even the genetic work Naomi and her people were doing, while brilliant, would bear fruit far too late to save humanity. The CIA Red Team report had made that abundantly clear. The shame of it was that they had all the major pieces.
“Damn,” he whispered as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips, only to find it empty. He set it down and reached for the intercom to have his secretary bring in a fresh cup when the phone rang.
It was Naomi.
He snatched the phone from its cradle. “Morgan.”
“Come down here, Howard,” she said. “There’s something you need to see. Right now.”
“Hang on, I’ll be right there.” With a glance at the empty cup, he hung up the phone and headed downstairs to the genetics lab.
***
“You’re not going to believe this,” Naomi told Howard as he looked over her shoulder at the pair of computer monitors on her desk. Her eyes were bright with excitement, and Harmony Bates, who stood next to him, looked like a proud mother.
“You don’t have to be melodramatic to get my attention,” he told her. “Just please tell me it’s not another mutated super-virus like the one you created last week.”
Naomi made a dismissive wave of her hand. “Forget all that. Everything else is a sideshow now.” She turned to her monitors, which showed a set of base pair gene sequences side by side. “Remember when I asked you to run sequence comparisons with harvester DNA against all non-human DNA samples that have been catalogued?”
Morgan chuckled. “How could I forget? That’s been one of the most expensive parts of this project. We’ve got three server farms dedicated to it, run by the folks at SEAL-7, and we’re running more servers than the two biggest web search engines combined.”
“It was something I knew we had to look at, but I never expected to find anything.” She ignored Morgan’s scowl. “But we did. Look at what Harmony picked up from the latest results.” She pointed to the left monitor, which showed a long sequence of base pairs. “This is harvester DNA from the current generation, what we refer to as Group B, with Group A being the original harvesters that created them. This one,” she pointed to the second monitor, “is from a human tissue sample.” She tapped a few keys, and three base pairs sequences were highlighted in both images. “These are the only deviations in this entire sequence.”
Morgan was stunned. “How can this be? I thought you were only running comparisons against non-human DNA. Why was this sample even considered?” Morgan had made the decision to exclude the mass of human DNA samples from the comparative search on the grounds that even with as much computing capacity as had been dedicated to the Dragonfire project, it would take forever to run through even a tiny fraction of the available human DNA samples. Naomi had agreed after a long, drawn-out argument, but now Morgan wondered at the wisdom of his decision. What else might we be missing?
“It was a fluke,” Naomi said. “This was from a human patient suffering from a disease called Morgellons that’s been disputed from the outset, with some claiming it’s a hoax and others claiming that it’s real. This DNA sample was tagged as both human and non-human, which is how it made it into our search matrix.”
“Morgellons?” Morgan shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Naomi spun around in her chair to face him. “Most people haven’t. What appears to be the first known modern case was reported in 2002 in Pennsylvania, and thousands were reported by 2008 when the CDC finally launched a study to determine if the disease was
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