‘What do you mean?’ Dax’s voice is low.
My eyes drop to the genkit’s screen. The last scan is still running, searching through the contents of my panel. ‘In his message, he told me to use the notes he left with me, but I don’t think he was talking about paper. He left a hidden note in Cole’s panel, and he left one in yours, and Leoben’s. But I never once thought of checking my own.’
Dax freezes. I see the realization come over him as clear as day – he sees it now, what I’ve seen for the last few minutes. I’ve never checked my panel for hidden files. I had no reason to. But if my father’s plan goes back years, there’s no reason he couldn’t have left me with something – a password, a backup, a key. Something he would remember to build into his code when he finished the vaccine.
That way, if Cartaxus forced him to encrypt it, he would have someone beyond their control waiting to unlock it. Even if they tried to withhold its release. Even if they killed him.
He left me in the cabin because he needed me for this.
The genkit’s scan returns, and the screen flashes to black with a list of hidden files in blazing white text. I expect to see the system logs and lists of updates, but not a giant procedural file stored in its own repository. It was saved to my panel on the morning of the outbreak, the last time my father ran a software update for me.
PROCEDURE_NOTES.txt, 184MB
The words glow, white and cold. This is the key to the vaccine. I feel it as an itch in the base of my skull. My hand shakes as I click on it, and the screen flashes, bringing up the first page of text. At first it looks like pure, unreadable quaternary, but as I scroll down, I realize it’s my father’s code. The file is thousands of pages long, but a quick search brings up all the comments, and I lean closer, fighting my swimming vision to read them.
‘This is a program,’ Dax says, reading it wirelessly through his panel. ‘But I don’t know what it’s doing.’
The air hangs still as the maths and chemistry spin through my mind, weaving into a single algorithm. This code wields a million variables, a million cell types and separate genes, all unfolded and then sewn together in a staggeringly complex dance. It’s a genetic ballet, with each dancer part of a larger, massive pattern, so beautiful and elegant that I can barely breathe.
‘I do.’
The logic snaps together in my mind. I scan through the code, stunned by what my father has created. I expected a decryption algorithm – something to unlock the source code that’s hidden in Cole’s panel, but this ignores the panel’s architecture completely. Instead, it’s aimed at the vaccine’s synthetic DNA – the ribbons of proteins swimming in Cole’s blood.
I’ve never seen anything like it. The nanites that run gentech code are designed to build strands of DNA that are coiled up in complex knots, like balls of twine. Those knots are shaped so they can only ever uncoil and wrap around specific parts of your natural DNA. We could take a sample of Cole’s blood and distil it down to the knot of DNA that is the vaccine, but it would be almost impossible to untangle and sequence it. Too small, too soft, too unpredictable. The calculations could take years.
But that’s exactly what this code is doing.
It uses a clonebox to draw the vaccine out of Cole’s arm, making a copy of the encrypted code like his panel does when backing up his apps. That’s still useless on its own, but then the procedure branches into something new, and the equations ignite, tracing fractured lines of logic through my mind.
It’s wonderful and terrible. It’s my father’s masterpiece. He’s used my DNA as the key to the vaccine – my own body as the object that will break the encryption. We need only to hook me up to the clonebox and run the procedure in this file, and then the vaccine will bleed through my cells and unfurl like a flower, one petal at a time.
Catarina can unlock the vaccine.
That’s what my father was saying all along.
‘It’s me,’ I breathe.
‘You’re right.’ Dax’s face pales. ‘It’s you. You’re the key.’
I nod, staring at the screen, my vision blurring in and out. My muscles are growing weaker, and I know I should lie down. We should call a doctor and bandage my arm. There are a dozen things we should do, but I can’t stop staring at the endless lines of code my father left for me.
I’ve never seen anything like it. If this procedure’s code is right, then the password that’s being used to encrypt the vaccine is its own synthetic DNA. All we need to do is untangle the knot. This code will drag the vaccine out of the clonebox and force it into every cell in my body. The procedure will use my DNA to unravel the tangled coil of the vaccine, but a sample of my blood won’t be enough. This needs to be run through my skin, my muscles, my blood and neurons, all living and working in unison. Every cell in my body is part of the key. Each will unwind the knot a little more, and when it’s fully unravelled, we can unlock the source code, and we’ll be able to release it.
The code will be free to broadcast. People will be able to live without fear. They’ll come out of the bunkers; they’ll rebuild the world.
But I won’t be around to see it.
The realization pushes the air from my lungs. There are too many entry points in this procedure’s code. It’s not just using my cells to unravel the vaccine – it’s tearing them apart, shredding my DNA to pieces. A few minutes after this code starts running, my body will disintegrate.
The vaccine will be decrypted, but this code is going to kill me.
My vision dims. I rub my eyes and feel a trickle of heat weave down my arm. Blood is still running from the stitches where my panel used to be. I’ve been bleeding this whole time. My blood pressure is plummeting, and now I can barely keep my eyes open.
I should have made Dax bandage my arm. I should have got an IV, but we both got swept up in the secrets hidden in my arm. Now it’s too late. I feel myself swaying. The floor is opening up and swallowing me whole.
‘Dax,’ I breathe. He doesn’t hear me. He’s pacing the room, coding, his eyes glazed over. He’s about to read what the code will do to me, and I know he’ll turn to me when he figures it out, but I need his help now, before I pass out. ‘Dax …’ I say louder, but he doesn’t even blink. I’m slipping to the floor, drifting into the darkness, and either Dax can’t hear me or is too distracted to care. There’s only one person who can help.
I just pray he’s close enough to find me in time.
‘Cole,’ I cry out with every ounce of strength left in me. A chill is creeping across my skin, my teeth starting to chatter. I try to prop myself up with my good arm, but my hand just slides over the bloody puddles on the floor.
My head falls back. The room goes black. The door whooshes open.
‘Crick!’ Cole yells. ‘Dammit, she’s going into shock!’