Malden leaned back in his chair and studied Youri for a long moment before he spoke. "Let me tell you about Project Infinity. Fourteen years ago, I was hired as a neurology specialist at another space institute, one called Mero. It was full of every kind of researcher you could imagine. It was enormous, far bigger than Altex, and like your home planet it lay in the Prepequal Nebula."
Mero had been a perfect sphere suspended against the velvet dark, its outer shell forged from layered alloy and translucent panels that shimmered faintly as they caught the distant starlight. Thin luminous rings encircled it, and they were not decoration at all but gravitational stabilizers and energy conduits keeping the whole structure perfectly balanced. Its surface was divided into countless hexagonal plates that could each shift on their own — some opening onto docking bays recessed deep into the sphere, others unfolding into observation windows with vast, unbroken views of space. Through those windows, the silhouettes of researchers, machines and test subjects moved like shadows inside a living organism. Inside, it had been built in concentric layers: an outer ring of transport corridors and maintenance shafts that curved with the sphere until it felt as though gravity bent sideways, and deeper in, the quiet, sterile, tightly controlled habitation and administration levels, where the light panels changed through the day to imitate the cycle of a sun, although time itself felt meaningless so far from any star.
"Mero was backed by the Terrian Empire," Malden went on, "and on the surface it looked like any other institute, much like Altex — technological and medical advancement. But in the shadows, it was a great deal more than that. There were rumors back then that certain specialists there were after something other than progress. They were after something called potential."
He rose and walked over to the window that looked out on open space. "You see, they believed that every human being is born carrying a unique gene — what was later officially named the potential gene. Most people live their whole lives without it ever mattering; they play the hand they're dealt. But there are certain individuals who, when they're pushed up against a wall, or face some catastrophe, awaken something inside themselves. For some it shows itself as power. For others it's subtler — something sensory, or mental, or instinctive. That awakened force is what they called potential."
He turned back to Youri. "At Mero, two researchers were obsessed with that idea. Doctor Percival Knox and Doctor Larsen Churchill. Brilliant men. Dangerous ones. I was only a neurology specialist at the time, so I rarely dealt with either of them, though Churchill was the head of Mero, so I saw more of him than of Knox."
At the sound of that first name, something flickered behind Youri's calm eyes, but he said nothing.
Malden's voice dropped a little. "I remember one meeting in particular. I was waiting in Churchill's office. He hadn't arrived yet, and curiosity got the better of me, so I started looking around. It was a strange office. Shelves covered three of its walls, but there were hardly any books on them — they were full of relics, tools and old artifacts, some of them unsettling enough to send a chill down any man's spine. But what truly caught my eye was a file lying on his desk. Hard copies were unheard of even then, so I picked it up, and the first page read: Project Infinity. Victor Olsen. 4127. That alone shocked me. The lettering made it look ancient, and yet the data inside was precise and modern, written in Terrian script." He folded his hands behind his back. "As I turned the pages, I realized it was a step-by-step manual for creating an artificial clone. But it was the last page that stayed with me. It held a visualization of a DNA print — an abnormal one, unlike anything I had ever seen."
"I heard Churchill coming and put the file back quickly. When he came in, there was something different about him. Churchill was never well kept — always the same uncombed gray hair, the same white coat he never bothered to wash — but that day he was alert. Watchful. I gave my report as usual. While I spoke, I saw him take that file and put it away on one of his shelves. Then I left. At the time, I still didn't really believe the rumors about him and Knox."
His jaw tightened. "That changed soon after. I was walking down a corridor when I noticed a red light at what should have been a dead end. Curiosity struck again, and I followed it. Where there ought to have been a wall, there was a hidden doorway cut into the paneling, and a set of stairs going down, glowing red. I went down them. Halfway, I heard voices. I stopped just short of the bottom and realized they belonged to Knox and Churchill. They were arguing about something I couldn't quite make out. So I leaned forward to look — and what I saw stole my breath."
His voice had gone quiet. "Below me was an entire laboratory. Black floor, black walls, and no light at all except what came from the machines, which cast a sickly green glow over everything. And in the center stood an oval chamber filled with glowing red liquid, and inside it… an infant. Growing."
He shook his head slowly. "I turned away at once. I knew I wasn't meant to see it. I ran back up and returned to my quarters. But fate has a cruel sense of timing, and Knox passed me in the corridor not long after. He stopped and said, Malden, isn't it? I smiled and said, Yes, sir. I will never forget the look he gave me then. It chilled me to the bone. Somehow, I knew that he knew."
"The next day, I received a message informing me that I was being transferred to another institute. I understood then that it was their way of silencing me, and I didn't resist. I transferred." He let out a bitter laugh. "Call me mad if you like, but a few weeks after I left, I learned that Mero had been destroyed by the Empire. The official reason was illegal cloning. But deep down, I always knew that Knox and Churchill had a backup plan."
He came back to the table and set his tablet down in front of Youri. He tapped the screen, and a DNA structure rose up from it — one Youri had seen once before, scrolling across that same tablet in the operating room.
"Even after fourteen years," Malden said quietly, "I will never forget what I saw in that file."