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  The position Smith holds is one traditionally held by a PhD, but Smith is close enough to achieving his, and his work is promising enough, that we can, I think, overlook that detail, especially if he continues to work toward that goal while in our employ.

  OVERALL EVALUATION

  Thus far, Smith has proven to be a talented scientist and a promising employee. In addition, his work could be invaluable in Project Leda. I foresee a bright future for him.

  -Scott Smith—Loyal to Cosima and Leda clones over Dyad—Keep an eye on him and his actions.

  -Tends to stay late to play “board games.” Is that a cover?

  * * *

  DYAD INSTITUTE

  6750 GARRISON ROAD

  TORONTO, M6T JK8

  T +416.555.0139

  F +416.555.0138

  T 1.800.555.0139

  [email protected]

  WWW.DYADINSTITUTE.REG

  * * *

  -Cold River Institute—founded by eugenicists in early 20th century. Now owned by Dyad. Continuing their work?

  -Building torn down. Records stored nearby.

  At Dyad Institute, we work together to make breakthrough medicines which have life changing results. Dyad scientists are encouraged to be creative and active members of the scientific community.

  For the last three decades, the Dyad Institute has been at the forefront of our field, pioneering solutions to humanity’s most pressing problems in the areas of health care, food, science and energy.

  Our discoveries have also secured more than 10,500 patents worldwide, with many more applications currently pending.

  PROJECT LEDA

  NEOLUTION

  Excerpt from Lecture,

  Doctor Aldous Leekie, PhD, MS, ME.

  Author of Neolution: The New Science of Self-Directed Evolution

  Human beings have engaged in genetic engineering, in some form or another, since well before the beginning of recorded history. That’s a bold claim, don’t you think? But consider our primitive ancestors, nomads, scrounging for resources by day, huddled together at night and listening to the wild animals out in the dark. Wolves lingered near their camps, scavenging from whatever the people threw out. And because some of those wolves got agitated when a scary predator approached the group, growling and yipping and providing a form of warning, a symbiotic relationship began to develop. The people started throwing bones and scraps to the wolves on purpose, to keep them around, and the wolves began to evolve. Those that protected the humans were fed; the puppies they had eventually became domesticated, and were bred with other domesticated pups, their traits deliberately selected—or rejected—to make the animals that served people the best. The very earliest of recorded human history—cave paintings and petroglyphs—shows humans and wolves hunting together.

  There are more than three hundred recognized dog breeds today, ranging from shivering lapdogs to lion hunters, and human beings are responsible for every one of them. The very first time a farmer decided to sow the seeds of his best crops to reap a better harvest, or bred two of his prize stock animals together to get a more valuable animal, we embarked on this natural path of genetic engineering. It’s part of our evolution, a trait that we’ve developed and carried for two hundred thousand years; we are hardwired to seek opportunity, to innovate, to make our lives better. We make use of the tools available to us, and if what we’ve got isn’t getting the job done, we make better tools.

  Think of how far technology has brought us in our own lifetimes. Think about what’s available to children being born today that we didn’t have when we were growing up. Advances in medicine, transportation, global awareness, communication, information. We all carry around machines that can instantly tell us anything we want to know, that can connect us to one another at the touch of a finger. It has only been fifteen years since the Human Genome Project was completed. Consider that just this year, a team of scientists saved a baby girl’s life from aggressive leukemia, after she failed to respond to drug treatment—by modifying her genome. Donor cells were edited to track down and attack her cancer cells. That little girl is alive and well because we did what we’re supposed to do: We used the tools we have to make things better.

  Consider the development of an organic neural implant that could chemically enhance your learning speed, or that could give you a photographic memory. Scientists have already isolated the proteins and processes that make it happen. Consider the stem cell and what we’ve already learned regarding its efficacy in disease management. Now imagine a biological transgenic implant that could continually deliver directed gene therapy to patients with cancer, Alzheimer’s, Cerebral Palsy, Autism . . . the list goes on and on. Pick your pathogen, disease, or disorder, and realize that we already have the tools we need to mitigate the effects on the mind and body. The Dyad Institute is doing amazing things with gene manipulation, and we’re not the only ones. Right now, the human genome is the place to be. It’s where some of the brightest minds are working on new ways to improve our lives. How long will it be before we fully implement these astounding tools we’ve created? The arbitrary, politically motivated restrictions we’ve been forced to work under will fall away as new generations continue to evolve, to accept the reality that we live in. But the future can be now, if we want it. Isn’t it time to leave the creation myths behind and fulfill our potential as creators?

  Neolution is a simple, obvious concept: evolution that we choose, that we design. We accept and take responsibility for our future, we let go of outmoded morality traditions, and we embrace our true potential—to become the people we want to be. We can live longer; we can think better; we can be better.

  From the diary of Dr. Delphine Cormier, University of Minnesota

  Successes and failures, failures and successes. I found her in the library on Tuesday morning, and she seemed quite pleased to be invited out. When we met before the seminar, she was excited, happy. I have never known anyone to smile so much, with such sincerity. Her humor is “geeky” and very dry. Before the lecture began, after we’d found our seats, she had me laughing to tears, telling me about the “evo-devo” culture, the leaky faucet in her bathroom, her friends back at Berkeley, silly things. She often touched my arm or shoulder when delivering her little witticisms, a trait I’ve found oddly lacking in most of the Americans I’ve spent time with.

  Aldous spoke eloquently as always, and I’d hoped to see Cosima take interest. She is so progressive in her outlook, I thought the concept of self-directed evolution would appeal to her, but it was not the tension of excitement that made her shift in her seat or mutter under her breath throughout the lecture. At the “meet and greet” afterward, I took her to meet Aldous, and finally saw the fire behind that sparkle in her eyes. She unapologetically introduced herself as a Darwinist, and made no effort to hide her mild disdain for the “business” angle of gene modification. I was a bit surprised . . . but the look on Aldous’s face! Like he’d bitten something sour. Perhaps I should have been appalled for him, defensive, but it struck me as funny, to see little Cosima poke poor Aldous in his ego.

  After we stepped away and I made some comment on her daring, she grinned at me. Before I knew it we had stolen two bottles of reception wine and were running from security into the cold, laughing. Nous etions comme des adolescents! It was so much fun, the best time I’ve had since coming here. After we “ditched the fuzz” (her words), we talked and drank wine, walking just off the lighted path across campus. I asked what she’d thought of the seminar and she called it sound-bite science. She said that Leekie had some interesting ideas but was pushing an agenda that wasn’t yet scientifically appropriate—that until we understand how our genes are actually naturally evolving, “fucking” with them is a bad idea. I told her that I thought the idea of helping the sick surely outweighed the risks, at least for those suffering and their families, but she drank more wine and shook her head. “We’ve got a genome mapped, sure, but the real research is just starting. Right now, w
e’re still loading DNA into viruses in a lab setting to find out what each gene does, what it triggers. That’s the scientific method, right? We aren’t even close to the next step, and people like Leekie act like we’re all done. He’s basing his whole . . . theology, for want of a better term, on conclusions we haven’t reached. Randomly turning genes off and on in living, breathing people without regard for long-term effects, and thinking we’ve got it under control, that there aren’t going to be ramifications? That’s cane toads in Australia, Delphine, it’s killer algae. And it’s crap science.”

  She smiled at me then. “And anyway, aren’t we kind of amazing already? It took millions of years to get to where we are now, right now. Isn’t that enough?”

  I started to apologize for dragging her to the seminar, but she half-hugged me and said she was sorry for “going off,” that she was having a wonderful time and was really glad I had invited her. When we reached the quad—she lives north of me, off Cleveland—she suggested we continue our crime spree and everything in me said yes, stay, be wild and free! I was supposed to meet Aldous, though—we’d made plans to rendezvous at his hotel—and so I said goodbye. Regretfully. Cosima . . . she’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met. That’s funny, considering her origins. She radiates life and will and good humor. Are the other identicals anything like her? My guilt over keeping the truth from her is like a toothache, persistent, unpleasant, getting worse.

  My meeting with Aldous felt perfunctory; with Cosima’s words running through my mind, I wasn’t entirely engaged. I think of myself as a methodical, reasonable person, yet how had I not seriously considered Neolution from this angle? Her analogies to the destruction caused when plants or animals are introduced into a new environment are not lost on me . . . even Aldous admits that the possibilities of genetic pollution have not been fully explored. But then I think of my father and how he looked near the end, his strength gone, his sweet, kind face hollow with disease. My mother never really recovered. She still weeps when she speaks of it.

  The benefits outweigh the risks. They must. The unnamed patient that Dyad sends me information about grows weaker every day, one of too many likely doomed to an untimely death, their families forever changed by grief and loss. Neolution proposes answers, and if they’re the wrong ones, at least we have tried, yes? Whether or not I am comfortable with the fact, Cosima is 324b21; she is part of an amazing experiment that may unlock a brave new world, for all of us. I mustn’t allow the chance of a friendship to cloud my judgment; if she learns that I have lied to her, about everything, she will hate me anyway. Et puis, je serai triste. I will be sad.

  —Delphine

  ELIZABETH CHILDS

  DYAD INSTITUTE

  Childs, Elizabeth

  PLGI #317b31

  DECEASED

  PERSONNEL FILE

  Det. Beth Childs was the spark that ignited the self-aware clones. M.K. first told her about them, but it was Beth who brought Katja, Alison, and Cosima together. And it was her suicide that brought Sarah into the so-called “clone club.”

  DOB: 04-01-1984

  HEIGHT: 5’4”

  WEIGHT: 110 lbs.

  SEE ALSO: ChildsR, Eliot-ChildsA, DierdenP, EUPLGIs ObingerK, SuominenV, ChoE.

  OCCUPATION: Police detective. Committed suicide by passenger train.

  Elizabeth (known as Beth) grew up in East York, Ontario, Canada, adopted from Brightborn outreach by Richard and Anne Childs. Unfortunately, her adoptive father wasn’t properly vetted; subject was sexually molested throughout her childhood, the abuse hidden from Dyad monitors until Beth was well into her early teens. School records from the time indicate an oppositional defiant disorder and possible PTSD; subject was monitored by school counselor TenungrenN, neighbor NicosE, and family pediatrician, BurkeD (Dyad employees). Ongoing blood and chem panels tested within ranges. Parents divorced in 1998. Following her graduation from high school, subject broke ties with both parents and began law and society courses at York University in Toronto. She also took up long-distance running, competing in a number of annual marathons. Top grades ensured her admission to the local police college, where she excelled in armament and investigative training. Staff psychiatrist placed by Dyad prescribed antidepressants and antianxiety medications. Her superiors at the college were not informed of her emotional state; indeed, subject presented as unflappable. Subject moved quickly into detective work, achieving detective status by age thirty, the same age she met her last monitor, Paul Dierden, on a 30K charity run in Toronto.

  Contacted by EUPLGI Veera Suominen (#3MK29a, also M.K. or Mika) and told of clones being murdered in Europe. Subject received a number of coded contacts, presumably from Suominen, regarding the Helsinki incident (see Helsinki XXX case # REDACTED, ChevalierF) and the individual murders of three other European Leda clones. Beth then began collecting information on her own, finding more matches. She contacted Cosima Niehaus and Alison Hendrix, informing them of their connection to each other.

  —PROPERTY OF DYAD INSTITUTE—

  Notes On Ongoing Investigation

  Primary Investigator: Det. Elizabeth Childs

  –Went to Club Neolution, where victim hung out. Looks like average Goth club, but members wear one white contact lens—the secret handshake for “freaky Leekies,” a cult that uses Aldous Leekie’s Neolution as their bible. Reading the book and it is crazy pop-psych crap, but you can see how it appeals.

  –One of the ways it’s like a Goth club is that people who look like tattoo artists work there, but they’re not—they’re performing body-mods. One lady implants things in people. I saw her put magnets in someone’s fingertips. This has to be where our victim got his birfurcated penis done.

  –Also talked to Leekie, who keeps his distance from the freaky Leekies. Doesn’t support them but probably really thinks they’re great for giving his ideas prominence, at least in one community.

  –Gave card to pregnant Neo girl and her SO. They pulled usual screw-you-pigs attitude we always get from subcultures, right up to the part where I showed them Capra’s dead body. I think she’ll call eventually.

  - Beth visited Club Neolution when investigating Edward Capra’s murder.

  - Probably what led to clones becoming aware of Neolution and of Dyad.

  DYAD INSTITUTE

  * * *

  MONITOR ASSESSMENT REPORT (AR-21)

  PTN LV 42

  DATE: 10-2-14

  TIME: 1505-1620

  AGENT: DierdenP

  SUBJECT DESIGNATION: 317b31

  NAME: Elizabeth Childs

  LOCATION(S): Apartment

  OBSERVED WITH: No one

  INTERACTIONS/EVENTS OF NOTE: Subject was wearing a dress when I arrived home for dinner, and attempted to seduce me. There are indications that she is using recreational pharmaceuticals. When I suggested a vacation to Barbados, she countered with the suggestion that we take two weeks off and have sex the entire time. She expressed concerns about our relationship, particularly with regard to her infertility. However, she refused to end it, and when I told her I would end it if that was what she wanted, she called me a coward for not ending it, despite her doing the exact same thing—another indication of possible drug use, particularly as that was the most recent of a series of mood swings that characterized the entire conversation. Following that accusation, she stormed out.

  PUPIL GAUGE (mm)

  B = BRISK

  S = SLUGGISH

  N = NO REACTION

  C = EYES CLOSED

  EXTREMITIES: Record RIGHT (“R”) and LEFT (“L”) if there is a difference between the two sides.

  HEALTH/APPEARANCE CHANGES: Subject appeared tired, slightly pale. Possible hangover?

  MONITOR-SUBJECT INTERACTION: I believe that she suspects that our relationship is predicated on false pretenses. I have used all the skills at my disposal to appear to be an ordinary boyfriend, but she is a trained detective, and is skilled at reading people. At one point during this evening’s heated discussion, she unho
lstered her weapon and trained it on me. She did not remove the safety, which is possibly an indication that she did not truly mean me harm. It could also indicate that the drug use has compromised her firearms discipline. Regardless, it is becoming increasingly apparent that it’s growing more and more difficult for me to function as her monitor, given her perspicacity and her state of mind.

  EMOTIONAL STATE(S) OF NOTE: As indicated, her emotional state is erratic. This evening alone she modulated from seductive to depressed to angry in the space of less than five minutes.

  LIST ANY ATTITUDES, ACTIONS, OR BEHAVIORS THAT ARE ATYPICAL FOR THE SUBJECT: See above.

  CONTACT SUPERVISOR IMMEDIATELY IF YOU OBSERVE OR SUSPECT ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: SIGNS OF ILLNESS, SUICIDAL OR SELF-INJURIOUS IDEATION, CRIMINAL ACTIVITY, PRIVATE MEETINGS OUTSIDE OF DOCUMENTED FAMILY/ACQUAINTANCES, AND ANY POSSIBILITY THAT THE SUBJECT HAS BECOME AWARE OF BEING MONITORED.

  Security footage of Beth Childs’ suicide

  Art—

  I wrote it up just like we talked about. Look it over before I turn it in to Hardcastle? We are in this together.

  —Beth

  OFFICER-INVOLVED SHOOTING

  POLICE DIVISION

  INCIDENT REPORT

  DATE OF REPORT: October 1, 2013

  DATE AND TIME OF INCIDENT: September 30, 2013, 11:43 p.m.