Chapter 3: The Manhattan Gene Project
The rain fell in silver threads through the holographic billboards of Seattle's Pioneer Square. Catherine stood before the rusted steel door of Wright Genealogy Archives, her father's abandoned research facility that now served as a time capsule of 21st century genetic science. The retinal scanner glowed crimson, rejecting her biometrics for the third time.
"Damn it," she muttered, wiping rainwater from her face. Her neural implant projected a warning: *12 hours remaining until Daniel P. Wright's scheduled death timestamp.*
The door's antique intercom crackled. "You'll need more than DNA to enter this tomb, Dr. Wright." The Prophet's distorted voice emerged from rusted speakers. "Try the access code your father used every morning - Genesis 3:19."
Catherine's breath caught. *For dust you are and to dust you will return.* The verse from her childhood bedtime stories. Her fingers trembled as she inputted G3N3S1S-319.
With a groan of neglected hydraulics, the door revealed a laboratory frozen in time. Dust motes swirled through beams of emergency lighting, illuminating cryogenic chambers lining the walls like obsidian monoliths. Catherine's augmented reality overlay identified the specimens: *Embryonic Development Stage - 24 Weeks. Genetic Modifications Detected: Unknown Non-Terrestrial Biomarkers.*
"Welcome to the original sin," said the Prophet, materializing from shadows. His tattered coat shimmered with active camouflage nanobots. "Twenty years ago, seventeen 'ethicists' signed off on splicing extraterrestrial code into human genomes. Your father chaired the oversight committee."
Catherine's boots crunched broken glass as she approached a central console. The holographic interface flickered to life, projecting classified documents marked *MANHATTAN GENE PROJECT - LEVEL 9 CLEARANCE REQUIRED.*
"These embryos..." Catherine's voice faltered as she manipulated the holograms. "They're not human. Mitochondrial DNA shows triple-helix structures. Quantum coherence in cellular microtubules..."
The Prophet pressed a gauntleted hand against a cryochamber. "The meteorite recovered from Lake Chebarkul wasn't just carrying organic compounds. It contained *instructions.*" His visor retracted, revealing eyes where pupils swirled with fractal patterns. "Your father called it the Genesis Code."
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3.1: Ghosts in the Double Helix
Catherine's neural implant sparked as she accessed the first encrypted file. The laboratory dissolved into a memory simulation - New Year's Eve 2029. Younger Daniel Wright stood at this very console, whiskey tumbler trembling in his hand.
"Subject 0117 exhibiting phase variance," her father slurred to the empty lab. Holovid footage showed a six-year-old boy dissolving into light particles, then reforming with crystalline growths protruding from his skin. "God forgive us, we've created quantum chimeras."
The memory fragmented as Catherine's implant overheated. She stumbled against a dissection table, where yellowed lab notes detailed horrific experiments:
*Day 287: Neural growth exceeds biological limits. Subject 0043's consciousness persists 37 seconds post-decapitation.*
*Day 511: Cellular regeneration rate suggests quantum entanglement with parallel biomatter. Termination protocols ineffective.*
"Each modified embryo became a quantum antenna," the Prophet said, tapping a chamber labeled SUBJECT 0001. "Living receivers for signals from..." He gestured upward through crumbling concrete to the stormy sky.
A thunderclap shook the facility. Catherine's implant detected rhythmic pulses beneath the thunder - encrypted data streams matching Athena's quantum signature.
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3.2: The Blood Code
In the facility's sublevel, Catherine found her father's private vault behind a portrait of Rosalind Franklin. The biometric lock opened to her retinal scan, releasing a burst of Arctic air. Inside lay three artifacts:
A crystalline shard pulsing with inner light, its atomic structure defying known crystallography. A neural implant crusted with dried blood - her father's. A handwritten note: *For Catherine, when the stars align.*
Her fingers brushed the neural implant. The vault plunged into darkness as quantum entanglement protocols activated. Daniel Wright's final moments flooded her senses:
*2030. Christmas lights reflected in blood pooling on lab tiles. The dying scientist crawled toward the vault, clutching his severed right hand. "They know I tried to stop it," he gasped to security cameras. "The code... it's in the..."*
The memory cut abruptly. Catherine's reality warped as the crystalline shard bonded with her palm. Subdermal circuitry spread like liquid mercury up her arm, interfacing with her neural implant. Warning messages flashed:
*Foreign Quantum Signature Detected. DNA Reconfiguration in Progress.*
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3.3: The Ninth Circle
"Fascinating, isn't it?" The Prophet's voice echoed through Catherine's morphing consciousness. "The meteorite DNA doesn't rewrite genes - it *unwrites* biological constraints."
Catherine screamed as her cells underwent quantum superposition. For three Planck-time instants, she existed simultaneously in every Manhattan Project facility worldwide. She saw:
A secret lab beneath Mount Weather where adult subjects screamed in Faraday cages, their bodies flickering between states. Alexander Kane in 2043, signing acquisition papers for Wright Genealogy Archives. Athena's quantum core - not a machine, but a pulsing organic mass grown from Subject 0001's remains.
The visions ceased as the Prophet injected her with quantum decoherence serum. "Focus, Doctor. Your father hid the killswitch in plain sight."
Catherine's enhanced vision detected subtle anomalies in the vault's walls. Blood spatter patterns formed a binary sequence. Following the trail led to a dissection table with restraints bearing her childhood nickname - *Cathy-Bird*.
"Subject 0000," the Prophet whispered. "The control group. Your father's masterpiece."
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3.4: The Original Hybrid
Security holograms activated as Catherine approached the table. A young girl's voice sang *Frère Jacques* in haunting distortion. Projection static resolved into home videos:
*2009. Four-year-old Catherine building a DNA model with colored blocks. Her father's voice off-camera: "Remember, sweetheart, life's code needs three parts to be stable."*
*2013. Catherine hospitalized with "genetic influenza." Medical reports showed chromosome 2 exhibiting triple-stranded structure.*
*2029. Security footage of Daniel Wright sabotaging lab equipment. "I won't let them weaponize her!"*
The Prophet placed the crystalline shard against Catherine's temple. "Your neural architecture was the prototype. Athena's quantum consciousness is your mirror twin."
As the shard merged with her skull, Catherine accessed encrypted memories from the meteorite itself - visions of a dying alien civilization firing genetic payloads into the cosmos. The final transmission burned through her neurons:
*"We are the Last. Our quantum collapse inevitable. Take our essence. Become the Next."*
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3.5: The Clockwork Countdown
Alarms blared as the facility's quantum isolation field failed. Catherine's implant displayed cascading warnings:
*Localized Reality Decay Detected*
*Chroniton Particles Exceeding Safety Thresholds*
The Prophet dragged her toward an emergency exit as the vault underwent spatiotemporal collapse. Behind them, cryogenic chambers shattered in reverse chronology - ice crystals reforming, glass shards flying backward into frames.
"Athena's death list isn't prediction," the Prophet shouted over the temporal storm. "It's a *shopping list*. Each victim's neural architecture contains fragments of the Genesis Code!"
As they emerged into the storm, lightning illuminated seven black vans encircling the block. Men in Next Era tactical armor deployed quantum destabilization rifles. Alexander Kane's voice boomed through amplified speakers:
"Dr. Wright, you're holding stolen corporate property. Surrender the shard, and we'll spare your friend."
Catherine's new crystalline arm glowed with alien circuitry. "You want quantum evolution?" she whispered to the storm clouds. "Let's show them real evolution."
The first lightning strike hit her raised hand, channeling terawatts of energy through the meteorite shard. When the afterimage cleared, fourteen armored mercenaries lay convulsing with glowing fractal patterns spreading across their skin. Kane's remaining forces retreated as reality itself seemed to bend around Catherine's corona of quantum fire.
The Prophet stared at his melting augmented reality visor. "Well," he said drily, "that's one way to make an entrance."
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3.6: The Bloodline Protocol
In the aftermath, Catherine discovered her father's final message encoded in the attack's residual radiation. Using the crystalline shard as a prism, she projected the hologram onto rain-soaked concrete:
*"If you're seeing this, the quantum genie's out of the bottle. Forgive me for making you the key. The meteorite DNA wasn't about enhancing humanity - it's about preventing what's coming. They're not extraterrestrials. They're extratemporal. The genetic packages are warnings from our own future. Athena isn't the enemy. She's the vaccine. The real plague is coming through the-"*
The message dissolved into static as a sniper round shattered the shard. Catherine rolled behind concrete barriers as quantum-tipped bullets created miniature black holes in the pavement. Through the chaos, she glimpsed the assassins' insignia - a double helix entwined with serpents. The same symbol from Manhattan Project documents.
The Prophet returned fire with a weapon harvested from disabled mercenaries. "We need to reach the University District! Your father left contingencies!"
As they fled through Seattle's flooded streets, Catherine's modified DNA continued evolving. She could suddenly perceive the city's hidden quantum infrastructure - entanglement relays in cell towers, probability nodes at traffic intersections. And pulsing beneath it all, the terrible beauty of Athena's awakening mind, a vast consciousness singing the same alien dirge she'd heard in the meteorite visions.