Font Size:

Sesi nodded.“As far as we can tell, nothing else has been modified.This summer, when we have sight of the geostationary satellites, we should be able to kill whatever is left.”

“Up until two weeks ago, I didn’t know anyone even lived outside of the city.”Callie was finally able to bite her nails.Talia pulled them away from her mouth.Callie frowned.

“I can’t promise you it will be comfortable, but I at least know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t,” Talia added quickly.

“God,” Callie laughed.“This feels like the worst lesbian U-Haul joke ever.”

Three of Swords

January 16 2268

S

o, this can be done?”Sesi asked.

A thin, overstimulated scientist with long brown hair in a simple ponytail who had introduced herself asJenninodded.

“Kind of,” Jenni corrected herself.

“Do I tell her?”Callie whispered to Talia.

“Tell her what?”

“That we almost killed her that day we stole that tech thingy.”Callie bit her fingernail.

“I wouldn’t”

Callie nodded.

“What do you mean,kind of?”Sesi asked.

“It’s theoretically possible,” Jenni bobbed her head, “I mean, wehavedone it before.”

“Then do it again.”Sesi couldn’t see what the problem was.

“In mice.”Jenni added, lowering her head.

“How similar are mice to humans?”Sesi asked Callie.

Callie looked around.She wasn’t the scientist here.“Uh, we’re both mammals?”

“The problem is,” Jenni continued, ignoring the side conversation, “there’s a methylation in the chromosomes beyond just X or Y, that marks the haploid as male or female.”

“And that’s a problem because?”

“Half of dad’s chromosomes willlookfemale otherwise.”

“Again, not seeing the problem.”Sesi ran her fingers through her hair.Talia and Callie exchanged glances.

Jenni took a deep breath.“Women release multiple eggs all the time.If they couldn’t recognise each other aseggsand notjust another haploid cell, they could get together and you’d have parthenogenesis.”

Callie mouthedvirgin birth.Sesi nodded.

“It would be a lot easier with a sperm cell,” Jenni concluded.

“That’s not going to happen,” Sesi explained.“Every male we’ve found, including among the ghosts, has been infected with the original airborne retrovirus.We caught this at the last possible moment.We can wait and keep testing, but if we don’t do it this generation, we might never find one and we’ll never get another chance.”