36 years ago...

Dr. Kang had been monitoring the process of the artificial virus for nearly 32 hours without a break. He was disheveled. It was an unqualified, absolute, unconscionable outrage. A perfectly, sublimely, quintessentially atrocious disgrace.

Dr. Kang was feeling very sorry for himself, and carefully choosing the words to describe both his appearance and how unacceptable the whole situation was, when finally saw what he had been looking for.

The booster drones had apparently done the trick and the last pockets of resistance had been overwhelmed by the virus. The entire population of the planet now consisted of a primordial DNA soup, their bodies broken down by the virus. Dr. Kang could hardly grasp the magnitude of it all; it didn't seem real.

"Dr. Dresden," Dr. Kang called out.

"You're supposed to be my assistant," said Dr. Dresden "If I have to do everything for you then you're not of much assistance to me."

"It's finished," said Dr. Kang.

"I find the prospect of that dubious," said Dr. Dresden, walking over to Dr. Kang's console "Either my timeline was off or you made as mistake. I'm certain I don't have to tell you which of those is more likely. Now shoo."

Dr. Dresden folded the holographic screen open like a triptych. She began to check if the tolerances were properly calibrated.

"You won't find any mistake," said Dr. Kang "I am very precise."

"I'll be the judge of that, Heliodore," said Dr. Dresden "I don't see anything wrong yet..."

"It worked," said Dr. Kang "Can't you just be happy your hypothesis was correct? Do you really have to be right about everything?"

"I am right about everything," said Dr. Dresden "What I need is to confirm it for posterity. That I have barely begun to do. The fact that I could successfully manufacture this virus, or that I could infect an entire world with it and create this sea of undifferentiated humanity was never in question. The true extent of my genius will not be made manifest until it generates a mind."

She folded the consoles back into the streamlined mode.

"Well the equipment would appear to be properly calibrated," said Dr. Dresden.

"So, for posterity, I didn't make a mistake did I?" grinned Dr. Kang

"Try not to get hurt patting yourself on the back so hard," replied Dr. Dresden, waving her hand dismissively at him "Go ahead and sleep for four hours, I want to personally observe the first few hours of activity."

That was as nice as Dr. Dresden ever got, so Dr. Kang decided to just take it as praise and find a place to pass out.

* * *

There was no other way to describe what Dr. Kang had detected other than a human brain pattern. It was many orders of magnitude more complex and intricate, even calling it human seemed like such an arrogant slander, but there was no other way to describe or categorize what he was seeing.

It was beautiful. He couldn't help but stare at the pattern at first, completely lost in it. Seeing it was as close to a religious experience as he would ever have in his long and eventful life.

After a minute or two of rapture Dr. Kang realized he had to call Dr. Dresden.

"Dr. Kang to Dr. Dresden," he said, gaining the attention of the central computer "You should come down here, it's happening. I'm detecting a brain pattern."

"I'll be right there," came the reply "Don't disrupt anything."

Dr. Kang briefly glanced over at some of the other scanner terminals, and was about to return to his dumbstruck staring at the brain pattern when something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

There was a pattern, a cascade of cells dying within the primordial soup-being that was generating the mind state they were measuring. It seemed small, almost trivial at first, but as Dr. Kang began to pay attention he noticed it spreading. More and more of patterns of dying cells began to spring up, spread out and intersect like ripples on a pond.

The entire organism appeared to be self-terminating cell-by-cell.

"What did you do?" demanded Dr. Dresden as soon as she arrived and glanced at the monitors.

"I didn't do a thing, check the logs," replied Dr. Kang, defensively "This whole process began spontaneously."

"That is dreadfully inconvenient," said Dr. Dresden, more to herself.

"What do you think is going on?" asked Dr. Kang "Do you think it might be... committing suicide?"

"The moral cowardice disgusts me as well," said Dr. Dresden "I'm positively livid. There's no way to be certain now that this wasn't simply the result of the mental failing of this particular planetary community. The only thing to be done is to repeat the experiment with a different planet. It's promising that a group consciousness existed at all and that we were able to detect it, vindicates the hell out of me. All things considered I would call this a qualified triumph."

"I thought we were going to create an unprecedented new stage of life," said Dr. Kang, uncharacteristically quietly "Instead we used up the population of a planet for nothing. What a waste of lives."

"Don't go soft on me Heliodore, wasting your brainpower fretting about the fates of baseline humans. There are trillions of them; the ones that died today don't amount to much more than a rounding error. Their lives are worth so little that dying in the furtherance of science was the most meaning contribution they could have ever hoped to make to the species."

Dr. Dresden looked at Dr. Kang with her stolen eyes, and for the first time Dr. Kang saw the madness in them.

* * *

The exit to the Science Department opened just as McAfree walked through.

"McAfree!" shouted Captain Littlecrow "Where do you think you're going?"

McAfree popped her head back around the corner.

"I'm getting something to eat," she said "Once you get Doc talking about 'the good old days' when he used to commit war crimes with Dr. Dresden you are in for the long haul. I'm going to have a blood-sugar crash if I have to listen to this whole superfluous epic without a snack."

"Every detail of my story is absolutely essential," seethed Dr. Kang.

"What did any of that last part have to do with your falling out with the Council?" asked McAfree.

"It was an important emotional turning point in my relationship with Dr. Dresden. It establishes my state of mind going into the next part."

"Hence," said McAfree "I'm going to need a snack. I can bring you back something?"

"Sit down," said Littlecrow "You're not going anywhere until I know how we're going to proceed with the two of you."

McAfree death-marched back to her chair and sat down with dramatized exasperation.