They crept forward again, another pulse of humanity, another wave of hybrids.
‘Balkanization’ they called it. ‘Interbreeding.’ ‘Too much geographical isolation after war.’
But she knew what it was. Really.
The evolution and reevolution of mankind.
After the last war, they hid it.
Every major government, every computer and paper, altered by AI and a select group of researchers.
There were two data sets, ‘Always a minimum of two datasets,’ she murmured to herself, going through her psych chem 102a experiment results.
She was a stickler for math, and after all these years had finally realized why it was so confusing. Why it was always taught two or three different ways, and then other ways in the next generations.
‘Impossible,’ she concluded. ‘The human genome doesn’t have this many chromosomes, or multiple iterations of mitochondrial DNA in one specimen.’ But she ran the results and the data again and again and again, by hand, using every single technique she had been taught. Different results every time.
She ran it again one final time using the mandatory teaching tools handed out in class: their microscope, their measuring units, their calculator, their prefed charts with data entries already showing the desired outline’s results.
‘It’s a lead,’ she murmured again. ‘It’s like freaking hypnosis.’ She clenched her teeth for a moment, processing her thoughts. ‘The experiment is designed with an outcome in mind. They aren’t teaching science here. Not anymore.’
She locked her cupboard and put the rest of her papers and notes under the floorboard.
She knew she couldn’t do anything for this generation, they were too far gone. They would never question their reality, or their perfect grades.
She eased the floorboard back down and nudged the rug over it, hiding the barely perceptible seam.
‘I wonder what else has been hidden. And why.’