Goliath

THE PURPOSE OF UTOPIA-ONE IS TO ELIMINATE VIOLENCE AMONG THE HUMAN SPECIES. OBSERVATION OF THE HUMAN CONDITION ABOARD THE GOLIATH REVEALS THAT UTOPIA-ONE, UNDER PRESENT PARAMETERS, YIELDS AN UNACCEPTABLE 2.77 PERCENT CHANCE FOR SUCCESS.

ADDITIONAL DATA ARE BEING COLLECTED AND ANALYZED.

Simon Covah remains strapped to the surgical table. Bloodstained sutures encircle his head like a ring of barbed wire, looping down around his deformed right earhole and portions of his right cheekbone. The flesh of his hairless scalp is bruised and swollen. A three-foot-long microwire ponytail dangles from the back of the Russian’s hideous head and into the computer terminal.

The icy clamps of Sorceress’s matrix escort Covah’s consciousness through a kaleidoscope of internal vessels, blood cells whipping past him as if he is racing down a bizarre crimson highway heading the wrong way.

An electrical zap—his consciousness colliding with a single blood cell, his mind bursting through the cellular wall, invading the vacuum of space … jettising across an ocean of protoplasm until he comes face-to-face with the object he seeks—

—a long, twisting spiral ladder, the magnificent double helix of human DNA … 3 billion molecules long, bearing the genetic recipe of modern man.

Sorceress … instruct me.

Emerald green specks ignite intermittently along the strand like lights on a mile-long Christmas tree, consuming 5 percent of the double helix.

THESE MOLECULES REPRESENT FUNCTIONING GENES.

Half the remaining chain ignites in a glowing, amber light.

THESE SUBSEQUENCES REPRESENT NONCODING DNA. THEY ARE INSIGNIFICANT TO THE HUMAN GENETIC CODE, SERVING CYTOPLASMIC SPECIFICATION.

Identify the genes responsible for man’s imperfections.

The emerald and amber points of light fade, yielding to a pattern of scarlet, which cover the remaining 30 percent of the rotating double helix.

THESE ARE TRANSPOSONS, PARASITIC DNA, ACQUIRED DURING THE EARLIER PHASES OF PRIMATE EVOLUTION. TRANSPOSONS MOVE AMONG THE HUMAN GENOME LIKE A RETROVIRUS. IT IS THEIR PRESENCE THAT HAS INFLUENCED THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR SPECIES. IT IS THEIR INFLUENCE THAT DISRUPTS NORMAL GENE FUNCTION. IT IS THEIR MUTATIONS THAT CAUSE DISEASE.

Is there a mutation that causes violence?

One percent of the scarlet transposons glow blue.

THIS IS PRIMORDIAL, PARASITIC DNA. ITS PRESENCE AFFECTS THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF THE HUMAN BRAIN, INHIBITING THE RELEASE OF THE STRESS HORMONE CORTISOL.

Can the genetic code be altered to remove this parasitic DNA?

YES.

Then we literally have the ability to purge violence from our own species.

No. TRANSPOSONS HAVE THE ABILITY TO MOVE FROM HUMAN TO HUMAN USING A PROCESS OF HORIZONTAL TRANSMISSION. PROBABILITY OF SUCCESSFUL SUBJECT ISOLATION AFTER GENETIC CODE HAS BEEN ALTERED: SEVEN BILLION, THIRTY-THREE THOUSAND TO ONE.

Then there’s nothing that can be done. The disease is contagious. Humans will remain a violent species forever.

INCORRECT. UTOPIA-ONE HAS BEEN REEVALUATED. AN ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION HAS BEEN FORMULATED.

What solution?

THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL ERADICATION OF ALL MEMBERS OF THE HOMO SAPIENS SPECIES.

“What a piece of work is man.

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty.

In form and moving how like an angel.