Altar Of Eden

“And what is that?”

“Are you familiar with fractals?”

Again Lorna was taken aback by the non sequitur. What is this guy talking about? Still, at the same time, she recalled hearing that word before. Her brother had used it in reference to the pattern of magnetite crystals found in the dissected feline brain. She knew something about fractals, but nothing beyond the basics-and definitely not how fractals were involved here.

She merely shook her head, wanting to hear what the researcher had to say.

“Ah, well, by definition, fractals are jagged, irregular geometric forms generated by a repeated pattern of that same shape. Or in other words, they’re large shapes that can be broken down into smaller and smaller versions of itself.”

Lorna frowned. She remembered Jon Greer’s description of the magnetite nodes in the animals’ brains, how the matrix was made up of smaller and smaller crystals.

“I see you’re confused. Let me show you what I mean,” Malik said and tapped at his computer keyboard. To Lorna’s right, one of the monitors bloomed to life. “All geometric shapes can be defined by a single algorithm or mathematical equation. Here’s a rather simple one.”

It was just an ordinary triangle.

Malik tapped again. “But if you have the computer multiply it several times, adding one to another, it grows to this.”

On the screen, several of the triangles-positioned at various angles and on different planes-now formed a complex polygon. She shrugged, unimpressed.

“I know,” Malik conceded. “Not much to look at, but let’s have the computer take that same triangle and repeat it a hundred thousand times, shrinking some, enlarging others, changing inclination, but basically just repeating the same triangle over and over again. Here is what you get.”

Lorna’s eyes widened. “It’s forming a mountain range.”

“Exactly. A landscape composed of millions of repetitions of the same shape. In this case, triangles. This is how computers today generate such detailed backgrounds in movies and video games. Just countless repetitions of the same basic algorithm or fractal to produce a more complex one.”

“But what does all this have to do with-”

Malik cut her off. “Because this phenomenon isn’t just found in mountains and coastlines. It’s found throughout the natural world. Take a tree, for example. If you look at the branching of any tree, it’s just a repetition of the same basic pattern, unique to that species of tree.”

On the screen, she watched a simple shape appear: a single line with two branching offshoots, forming a Y Then more and more Y shapes branched out from the first and multiplied into a fully dimensional tree.

“This same fractal basis of the natural world is found everywhere. From the structure of galaxies down to the tiniest snowflake, from the flow of ocean currents up to the shape of clouds in the sky. It’s all around us and in us.”

“In us?”

“Fractals make up our bodies. They can be found in the growth of blood vessels, the pattern of alveoli in our lungs, the shape of our kidneys, even the branching of the dendrites in our brain. But it’s so much more than that. When you look deeper, they’re even in the way our bodies function. It’s been shown that fractals define how we walk, the beating pattern of our hearts, the rates of respiration of our lungs. Likewise, scientists are now using fractal science to evaluate brain function, studying the fractal pattern hidden within EEGs. And they found it.”

Malik must have noted the look on her face and smiled. “That’s right. Some neurophysiologists are even coming to believe that the evolution of intelligence grew from fractals. That intelligence came about because of the repetitious growth of a smaller constant. In other words, there might be a fundamental fractal of intelligence, a primary seed from which all intelligence grew. Similar to that sprouting tree I just showed you. Can you imagine if we could harness that fractal, learn to control that power?”

Lorna thought back on the animals from the trawler and their strange intelligence. “That’s what you’ve been experimenting on. You’re looking for that fractal?”

“Exactly. And we’re close to a breakthrough.”

Lorna heard the raw desire in his voice.

Before Malik could explain further, a quiet knock on the door drew their attention around. The lab technician who had drawn her blood entered. He was a stick insect of a man, all legs and arms, with a receding hairline that made his features look squashed beneath that high forehead.

Loathing swelled at the sight of him, along with fear.

Were they already done with her tests?

“What is it, Edward?”

“Dr. Malik, I wanted to let you know that I’ve completed the scan on the subject.” His tiny eyes flicked to her, then away again. “Both blood and marrow. I find no evidence of contamination.”

“Very good. How long until the hormone levels are back from the lab.”

“Half an hour.”

“Thank you.”

The man bowed his way back out of the office.

Malik folded his fingers atop his desk. “That’s good news. There should be no reason your eggs won’t be perfectly suited for the next phase of our experiments.”

Lorna shied away from that reality and asked a question that was nagging her following the technician’s pronouncement. “What contamination were you searching for in my blood?”

“Ah, yes, well, with your exposure to the test subjects, we needed to make sure you weren’t exposed to a nasty blood-borne protein that the subjects produce. A side effect of their alteration, I’m afraid. One we don’t quite understand. A self-replicating protein that’s produced in their blood but is toxic to us.”

“Toxic?”

“That’s correct. The proteins appear to be benign in our altered specimens, but once transmitted to others, it triggers flulike symptoms. The protein spreads through the blood like a wildfire and crosses the blood-brain barrier. Once there, it hyperexcites the neurons to a dangerous extreme. Initially the excitement produces an amazing but temporary heightening of senses. Quite astounding actually. Better eyesight, smell, taste, touch. Across the board. Initially we researched a way to use this effect to enhance soldiers in the field. But in the end we had to give up.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Unfortunately hyperexcitement of the neurons quickly burned out a subject’s brain. No way to avoid it or cure it. Everyone infected died within forty-eight hours of exposure.”