“You could have slept in.” Seo-yun said. She wore only Tomas’s shirt, which made her legs bare. He admired them for a moment and then looked up.
“I couldn’t sleep, too much to do.” Tomas said.
Seo-yun smiled at him walked over to him, she stopped behind his chair and put her hands around his shoulders.
“Now that you are awake, maybe you can clarify something for me.” Tomas said.
“What?” She said.
Tomas accessed the report via his imp, and brought it on his holo desk. “This, you didn’t leave your summary and I don’t understand the science talk.”
Seo-yun leaned down and looked at the report Tomas was talking about.
“Oh. That one.” She pushed off his shoulders and walked around the desk. “I was planning to talk to you about it, it isn’t urgent.”
“Well, you might as well tell me now.” Tomas said.
Seo-yun sighed. “It is about the gene therapy.” She said.
“Are there any problems?” Tomas asked, concerned.
“No, no. At least not in the short run. Or in the long run for that matter.” She said cryptically.
Tomas frowned. “I don’t understand. Is there a problem or isn’t there?”
“Alright, I need to explain a few things first. I know that you trust in me and our scientists, but I need to at least try to explain how it is that we have attained agelessness.”
Tomas nodded for her to proceed.
“What treatment does, in layman’s terms is simple really. It does two things, first, it gives the human body perfect cell regeneration. One of the reasons we aged, is that each time a cell regenerated it wasn’t a 100% but just a bit less. Although people don’t really die of old age, but as the cells regenerate they become weaker and weaker, which in turn makes the human body weaker, more prone to illness. Second thing, is perfect waste removal. Meaning that when our bodies remove waste they remove everything harmful. Another reason humans died of old age earlier than the human body was designed to die was because of slow poisoning. Most everything we use to survive in fact poisons us, the air, the food, the water. It is a very small amount, but over time it accumulates. Now on the other hand our bodies are capable of removing the poisons perfectly. Do you follow?”
“Yes.” Tomas nodded.
“Now the problem is that our bodies regenerate perfectly, and that we pass these abilities to our children.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t that a good thing?” Tomas asked.
“Perfect regeneration Tomas, that means no mutations. Ever.” Seo-yun said vaguely.
“Mutations? I would hope that we would try to prevent any mutations in our children.” Tomas said frowningly.
Seo-yun sighed. “Mutations are evolution Tomas. We are who we are today because of them. If there are no more mutations in the future, then we have effectively stopped the evolution of mankind. We will never evolve from this point on.”
Tomas looked at her and finally realized the gravity of what she said. No more evolution, in a universe where everything constantly evolved. They would stagnate. It might not matter in the short run, or in the long run as Seo-yun said. But a million years from now, or ten million, they will still be the same, while every other life form in the universe moved on. If they even survived that long. Tomas was by no measure a scientist, but he did go out of his way to learn a few things. Humans were on a certain evolutionary path, constantly changing to adapt to their environment and the way of life. Stopping that evolution would mean that they would lose their ability to adapt over time. They will need to lean on their technology to do that for them.
“Is there anything we can do?” Tomas asked.
“We are already changed, we can’t reverse the treatment, and every newborn after we did this to ourselves inherited it. But a few of my people, the ones who noticed this, did offer possible answer.” Seo-yun said.
“What?”
“Artificial evolution.” Seo-yun said.
Tomas raised an eyebrow, and Seo-yun continued.
“Guided evolution. We enhance ourselves. The agelessness treatment has been really just that, as was the life extension treatment that we had previously. Though with the agelessness we didn’t really think all the aftereffects quite through. But the truth is that we have great knowledge of genetics. It might not seem that way, but our greatest advances are in genetics, and we have mostly achieved them on our own. We have eliminated most diseases and improved our quality of life significantly. We have far surpassed anything we have found in the Union databases. And our knowledge expands constantly. In time we will learn enough to start altering ourselves even more.” Seo-yun said.
“Is that wise? For us to thinker even more?” Tomas asked.
“Perhaps not, but now it is our only choice. We don’t need to do this now of course. But in time, perhaps, it might be the only way for us to survive.” Seo-yun said.
Adrian walked through the Olympus city on his way to the space port. Two hours prior he finished with the last of the interviews for the positions on his ship. Now he only needed to decide which people he wanted. The port was outside the city, two hours on foot, and Adrian decided not to take a grav-car. As he walked, he couldn’t help but think back on the events five days ago and his encounter with Bethany. He spent the day after closed up in his room. He refused all comms, and was planning on staying inside the entire second day as well. Until Paul managed to get inside his room. Seeing as Paul didn’t have the codes to enter, the only way he could have, was if someone who knew gave them to him. Which meant that it was Iris that contacted him. She had free access to every piece of technology in Adrian’s home. After Paul arrived, he proceeded to annoy the hell out of Adrian, until he didn’t have any other choice but to get up, clean himself and assent to their wishes and start the interviews. The next three days he spent interviewing personnel for his new ship. The interviews took over his entire day, so he had no time to feel sorry for himself, as Iris liked to say, and by the time he got home he was so exhausted he would immediately fall asleep. Now finished, he needed to get to the shipyard and familiarize himself with the ship. As Adrian left the city boundaries, he looked around. The immediate area outside the city was a grassy plain. The plain where city resided was surrounded by forest, and for the first time Adrian looked around at the nature surrounding him. Before coming to Olympus he was raised in the city, and afterwards in space. He never had a chance of being in the wilderness. Sanctuary was a beautiful world. As he approached the entrance to the forest, he looked up at the great trees. The leaves swaying gently on the wind. It was an awe inspiring sight, he didn’t realize how big they really were. As he entered the forest, following the simple road going through it, he looked around. The inside of the forest was dark, and the wind made a soft whistling sound. Looking around Adrian felt a touch of fear, until he remembered that Sanctuary had no land predators. Well, only one, but they had never attacked humans. Then an image of a great wolion attacking him came to mind. Perhaps I should have taken a grav-car, Adrian though, Would I be the first human ever to be attacked by them?.
He shook himself, and continued walking. The wolion’s had moved away from human settlements, and always chose to run away. He quickened his pace. After a few minutes with no predators jumping out of the bushes to attack him, he relaxed. And then he heard a yowling sound coming deeper from the forest.
Immediately Adrian froze, he wasn’t sure if he imagined the sound or if it was real.