The Brightest Night (Origin 3)

Luc and I nodded.

“Great. We’re all on the same page.” She smiled. “When I think of the genetic coding we were working on in humans and the similarities I’ve been able to find in the serums I have seen, I think the DNA in the Andromeda serum is more like a computer code or a virus.”

“A virus?” I repeated.

“Have either of you ever heard of virotherapy?”

I stared at her blankly, but of course Luc had a response. “Viruses bioengineered to fight cancer?”

“Yes.” She snapped her fingers at him. “You get a gold star.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Certain oncolytic viruses can bind themselves to the receptors in tumors but not to healthy cells. I imagine the Andromeda serum followed a similar path. Attacked the cancer cells without harming the good ones. And if that serum is anything like the two before it, it carried a dual purpose—not just to heal you but also to mutate you with the blending of Luxen and Arum DNA. However, this new one that I really, really would’ve loved to have seen could have unique coding features. It’s those features that remind me of certain types of viruses and their ability to remain dormant.”

This conversation was so above my pay grade.

“Like herpes?” Luc suggested.

“What?” I gaped at him.

Grinning, he picked up a fresh bottle of water. “Herpes is a virus that lies dormant in the host.”

“He’s right,” confirmed Dr. Hemenway.

“You couldn’t come up with a better virus than that?” I took the bottle.

“Malware is a virus that can be dormant in a computer,” he went on, eyes glimmering with humor.

I glared at him as I took a rather large gulp of water.

“Chicken pox is also a form of the herpes virus. Billions of people have some form of it,” Dr. Hemenway clarified. “But back to the subject at hand. What if the Andromeda serum mutated you and then was coded to push that mutation into a dormant stage, designed to be activated under certain scenarios, just like some viruses only became active under a perfect storm scenario?”

“Like how some astronauts can have herpes flare-ups while entering space?” Luc added.

I closed my eyes and then reopened them when I was sure I wouldn’t throw the water at him. “How you even know that is beyond me.”

Dr. Hemenway ignored Luc. “How they sent the mutation into latency is something I can’t even begin to figure out. It could’ve been the Cassio Wave used to send it into a dormant stage and also to activate it. That’s just a huge guess, but what’s not a guess is that when some viruses wake up, it’s not a bam”—she smacked her hands together, startling me; I almost choked on my water—“the virus is everywhere and symptomatic. Some are slow to get moving, to become active. Symptoms, or in your case, abilities, start to pop up here and there.”

“So, you’re saying that my mutation is slowly becoming active?”

“Yes.” She paused. “And no.”

I blinked.

“To tackle the yes part of that equation, you’re starting to experience new abilities.”

“Arums see the energy around other living species,” Luc chimed in. “I’ve heard that Luxen looked like rainbows to them, which is how they’re able to pick them out in a crowd. It’s why Luxen used to live in communities near natural-forming deposits of beta quartz. The crystal distorts Luxen wavelengths until they cannot be distinguished from humans. The same with hybrids or Origins.”

“Oh,” I whispered, shaking my head. This was a lot. “But that doesn’t explain how I was able to do what I did with April and in the woods.” I stopped. “I’m assuming you know about that?”

“Luc told me enough to have a general understanding,” she replied.

“I think I’m following,” Luc said.

“Of course,” I muttered around the mouth of the bottle.

He winked at me, and the flutter in the pit of my stomach irked me. “When the Cassio Wave was first used, it woke up the mutation, and there was a burst of abilities, of symptoms, before returning to something like a base level. Your mutation was activated at that point and started interacting with your cells again. And in the woods, it was more or less triggered into a flurry of activity again by a perfect storm scenario—a threat to your life, but it wasn’t a full-blown infection at that point.”

Dr. Hemenway clapped enthusiastically. “Yes! Pretty much that. In a way. Your mutation was activated out of dormancy. The two incidents were like flare-ups, and it makes sense given what you began to experience along with the manifestation of new abilities. Luc mentioned that you’ve been extremely hungry?”

Lowering the bottle, I nodded. “Yes, always.”

“So, just to recap where we are at this point. The mutation was activated out of dormancy by the Cassio Wave. Like many latent viruses, this mutation slowly began to interact with your body. You had flare-ups triggered by extreme emotional or physical distress, but all along, ever since the Cassio Wave, the mutation has been slowly taking hold, explaining the ability to sniff out other alien DNA. Now, what I think happened, what sent this mutation into a flurry of activity, is the training—purposely using the Source. It was the straw that broke the horse’s back.” She paused, wrinkling her nose. “Wait. That doesn’t sound right.”