© Becca, Dana Simmons and Starbright 2001 The Young Riders is an Ogiens/Kane Production, created by Ed Spielman.
We only borrow his characters for fun. No infringement of copyright intended. There is absolutely no financial gain for the authors. We survive on the feedback, and we need plenty of it.
2313
Prologue
She sighed as she turned her head to read the message she had been sent, the
EA vibrating so furiously she couldn't shake it
off. When it didn't react to her mental commands she knew it was important.
Tiredly she turned her eyes to the blank screen wall: Urgent meeting,
room 2A1, now!
That was all it said, nothing else. She sighed deeply, she knew what this meant. Another futurology discussion, leading nowhere. A total waste of time. Irritated she blinked at the device in front of her, shutting it off. In the same instance she removed the EA and rose. She needed to be left in peace, she needed time to think. Instead of using the AMD she started walking, she loved moving around and had little understanding for the AMSers. "Serves them right to fall apart at 80," she thought with a grin, "brittle boned bastards!"
Wearily she walked along the well-lighted corridor, the surroundings were buzzing with activity, most of them dead-end endeavors, she gathered as she nodded her head at the by-passers smiling at her. God, what a waste of time this is, she though as she paused in front of 2A1. She didn't even realize she had given the device order to open before it bowed itself inwards, showing her the way to thread.
A colleague, the sociologic historian, grinned at her when she stepped inside. She threw him a leer herself, at least they were both on the same side. The elderly woman leading the strategic team of HuRec shook her head at the sight of the newcomer. "Well good-day to you, glad to see you in such a good mood today. You developmental psychologist's always brightens the day with your cheerfulness."
Not bothering to answer the sarcasm she just grunted and seated herself on the first free chair she got in sight. A mug of steaming cafs was put before her and she smiled at the assistant - finally one that did an honest days work! The sociologist at her side burst out in laughter and she threw him a murdering glance, the man was getting to know her all too well. The sourpuss of a GE looked sternly at them both, fatherlylike, telling them to behave. She had to severely repress her impulse to give him the finger. A warning sound from the ME stopped her from expressing her thoughts in public.
The rest of the team started to drop in, a distinct curse from the door diverted her attention, the CA that stepped in was dropping his pens. A truly old-fashioned thing that one, she thought to herself. Not polluting the brain with sick ideas he says, what a hopeless case. Pens went out a hundred years ago, together with the traditional paper. To scribble on RCF was not the same. She had tried to write on paper at the Museum a long time ago, and the feeling was just not the same with the new material. From where he provided the paper was an enigma to them all, word was that he produced it himself, using his old socks and underwear. Word was that he'd walk the suburbs to gather all fibers he found from the inhabitants. The true pride of the group.
The TRC coughed to get attention.
She closed her eyes in desperation, awaiting to hear the same bad news as ever. Human race was getting extinct and all efforts to stop the spiral had been futile. All they had done 200 years ago, the re-atmosphering of Mars, the strive to stop growth of the population seemed like a joke right now. Humans had reached their goal, they were currently only 10 percent left of the 20 billions they had reached at their peak. No need to colonize Mars any longer, now they had to keep earth populated. She was sad, yes, but truth be told, it was nobody's fault but their own.
"Ok HuRec's, no need to get onto the bad new right? We all know about them by now. That's why I called you so urgently to attend this meeting. I finally have good news, real good news."
The TRC looked around the table as 14 pairs of eyes popped open, smugly she smiled at her pessimistic crowd. She was going to blow their minds out with the news. The CA looking only slightly awake, the GE and the ME barely awake, oh she would wake them up all right. The psych looking at her with skepticism and the rest of her group only mildly interested. The elderly woman had a hard time stopping herself from giggling, the next half hour or so would change a lot in these folks sitting here, sipping cafs.
"Remember this?" She said and looked at the screenwall, letting the rest see the pic they had stared at so many years ago, wondering and pondering. The pic that had given her the idea.
The pic was from 1861, a wedding. A beautiful bride and a handsome groom. Surrounded by friends.
The rest of the team looked confused, most of them had no recollection of the pic. It was a nice historical memento but what else? The work had taken her 30 years and many of the HuRec's were new, not new enough to be inspired or enthusiastic like they were when they signed on. But young enough not to ever have seen the image she was now showing them. The psych and the sociologist looked at each other, wondering.
The TRC smiled even broader. Nope this congregation had no idea what was coming.
"There's Wild Bill Hickok." She focused in on the longhaired man at the groom's side, "and William F Cody." She glanced around the room again, awaiting for some reactions. A gleam of curiosity altered momentarily the facial expressions on a few of them. Nope, they hadn't caught on yet, except maybe for the ME? "This is Teaspoon Hunter, their boss." She fell silent to gather herself before she finally verbalized her success. "I never told you this before because my suggestion was outvoted, but I did some work, some damned hard and difficult work I might add. I found a document in a private Museum that had been held by the three gentlemen I just named. It must have been a warm day because their hands were moist and they left some pretty darn good traces of themselves onto that paper. So, without dragging you on, 20 years ago this man was born..." She flashed a picture up on the wall. A small male child was envisioned. "And this is him today." Another picture was visualized and fourteen chairs scrambled against the floor as they all stood up to see the image of a young Teaspoon Hunter. Only the developmental Psychologist sat back, watching her colleague intently, expecting to hear if what she hoped had finally come true.
"No, he's not sterile, he can actually father children!"
The crowd was dumbstruck.
"And today she was born, meet Rachel Dunne. Reconstructed from her family's mitochondric line. Thanks goes to our splendid psych who made an excellent chart of her genome's psychological trajectory." The TRC grinned at the young woman in the chair. She was looking back at her, almost teary-eyed. The work she had done, without even knowing why, had enable them to see this wonder of a 1900-century woman brought back to life. "And she's bearing a fresh genome, a genome that's never been tampered with. A return to the past before all went wrong. This is it. This is the way to go!"
The stunned silence in the room had the TRC continue. "This is Buck Cross, genome restored, to be born in 8 years time. Hickok in 9 and Cody in 12. This all made possible through the work of you all and the development of the MRDaD. We will be starting to bring these people, and all others we get a trace of, back into life.
The crowd was still silent, unbelieving, yes - even skeptical.
"I know what you're thinking. We've taken this road before. But we made one huge mistake back then, we took people from our immediate past. Humans already affected by the tampered genomes. We took a shortcut because it was the easiest way. We have to go back, far back to when nature had its course and not the technology. We have learned that, but now it's time to accept it. Teaspoon Hunter shows no effect of the late 2000 ailments or syndromes. He is fresh and functional. This couple - zooming in on the bride and groom - still has relatives up to this day. Few, very few. But they are still with us when so many other GMB's have died out. These two can be restored too and very well, thanks to the findings of her" - flash on the bride - "diary. A diary that even he held and left his traces on." The groom in focus. "In the same diary, handed down from generation to generation, thank God there's still some left with family-values.." a short meaningful grin plastered on the TRC's face, "we found a playing card that was touched by two males, him..." flash on the tall African man in the back of the pic. "..and another which is not in this picture and whose name we can only guess was Ike McSwain, and that from the entries in the diary. There was also a blue ribbon that revealed two more individual's, not on the picture and not known to us yet, only the genome. The male was born 4 years ago, fertile and the woman one year ago. All of them fine."
The silence in the room was accentuated by the quickened breaths of the congregation. The adrenaline was at its peak as she presented her well-kept secret.
"All these people, and all we could find the smallest of trace of will be reborn in their time. Starting from Teaspoon Hunter, in what we call year zero. We have them born into families which carries their names - you all know the fighting that goes on for fresh clones. Only way to avoid it was assigning the clones to their family namesakes. The problem is him, he's not mentioned anywhere except as The Kid. Since he married Louise McCloud we assigned him to a McCloud family too, far away from Louise's. The families are not from the same GMB and does not share any history. They will be born one year apart. And as you've already figured this is not only about restoring the genome. This is also a unique opportunity to test a multitude of different hypotheses, like nature/nurture, fate of the individual and so on. We'll just sit back and watch if we can actually remake history. And all I can say is that I'm gonna enjoy it!" Smiling at the crowd before her she raised her head, this was the dawning of a new hope for the humanity. And they had made it.
In silence the group rose and the applause that spread through the room drove tears to the TRC's eyes.
TBC
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