[MGW] 124 - The human mind...
Oct. 16th, 2008 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elementof_risk"If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it." - Emerson Pugh
It was amazing how the world could change, open up with a sudden possibility that took your breath away in the most mundane of circumstances. But there in the shadow of a replica of the world's largest garden gnome, playing mini-golf with a serial killer and listening to Sylar explain how he acquired new abilities, Julian Sark had just such a revelation.
"You're able to rewrite your brain and your own genetic code..."
Sylar's audible confirmation was barely necessary. Sark had already put the pieces together. That Peter took abilities like a sponge he'd already gathered from Adam. Whatever, it was a freak of genetic ability and Sark shrugged it off. He'd assumed that somehow Sylar's ability was similar, just messier, but it was something so much more wonderful and controlled and the implications far more far reaching. He could look at the brain, find the ability, understand how it worked and then...rewire himself to do the same.
Add that to what Mohinder had done...the proof there that, however unstable, a non-evolved human genome could be shifted somehow, and then toss in the things that Sark knew that they didn't? Sylar had no problem seeing that Julian's mind was no longer on the game.
Project Helix. God, why hadn't he thought of it before? He was nearly quivering with suppressed excitement as they finished the game--he won by two strokes--and headed back into the City. Once he explained to Sylar, the other man seemed mostly amused, but encouraging, and Sark really tried to not think too far ahead. He didn't even know if it was possible.
Could the two be combined? Would Project Helix even work on evolved DNA? Could it be duplicated and superimposed, or would it falter, something in the different strand of code resistant to the enzymes and technology of Project Helix? Was this, then, really, the secret Rambaldi had found, part and parcel of the Horizon and that sphere it had created? Was this Rambaldi's endgame, discovered in a roundabout way, backed up to, and not needing all the hocus pocus, or, well. Not exactly, he supposed, and he cursed himself for even thinking that, but, was that what Arvin had been seeking, in the end? Some sort of alteration of his genetic code to make him...invulnerable. It had to be something similar didn't? Ability to heal. Cessation of aging. What Arvin sought, Adam had, and had Rambaldi figured out a way to change that, and were the two related?
He'd sworn off the quest. Look where it had gotten everyone he'd ever known before. Irina, reaching for the Horizon, falling to her death. Arvin, gunned down moments from his goal, buried in a rocky grave. His father, shot by an assassin trying to protect the Passenger. Meddling in these things never ended well, and he should walk away, but for the first time, he caught Irina's vision. Maybe it was Adam's fault, standing there, like him, exactly, except Adam would never change. If Michael Vaughn put a bullet in him, Adam would walk away. If Sydney Bristow threw a pike into his leg, Adam would pull it out, watch her heal, and gun her down. Julian couldn't see it before, thought Irina was overly obsessed, but he could see it now. It was only a matter of time, he mused the next morning, sprawled across a bed in a loft turned into a lab, accessing his remote server via his laptop and finding files. She'd drilled it into his head from the time he was ten. He had vague memories of meetings in a house that had no form in his mind anymore, from when he was younger, a passion, obsession even, in his father's voice. He was born for this. Raised for this. Groomed and molded for this moment.
Perhaps the geneticist and his ramblings about Destiny was not so far off. Perhaps he never should have rolled his eyes behind Arvin's back. Because he understood now.
It was really only a chance, an outside one, and the warnings of those that had gone before him sounded in his memory. But, ultimately, this wasn't purely Rambaldi, he thought, as the files popped up on his laptop, pages of details of findings and genetic markers and explanations and instructions for how to build the device. His gaze flickered across the room to the man feverishly going over his research. He, Julian Sark, had something Irina and Sloane and his father and Elena and Lauren and even Sydney Bristow herself hadn't had.
He had Dr. Mohinder Suresh, premiere geneticist with an absolute understanding of the genetic code of evolved humans.
And better than that, beyond that, beyond the technology and the risks that Markovic and Allison and Anna had all undergone, the sacrifices they had been forced to make?
He had Adam Monroe.
With a smile, Julian pushed to his feet, picking up the laptop and crossing the room with a predator's grace. "Dr. Suresh? I think I have something here you might want to take a look at..."
[To be continued at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
witnessof_fate, here.]
It was amazing how the world could change, open up with a sudden possibility that took your breath away in the most mundane of circumstances. But there in the shadow of a replica of the world's largest garden gnome, playing mini-golf with a serial killer and listening to Sylar explain how he acquired new abilities, Julian Sark had just such a revelation.
"You're able to rewrite your brain and your own genetic code..."
Sylar's audible confirmation was barely necessary. Sark had already put the pieces together. That Peter took abilities like a sponge he'd already gathered from Adam. Whatever, it was a freak of genetic ability and Sark shrugged it off. He'd assumed that somehow Sylar's ability was similar, just messier, but it was something so much more wonderful and controlled and the implications far more far reaching. He could look at the brain, find the ability, understand how it worked and then...rewire himself to do the same.
Add that to what Mohinder had done...the proof there that, however unstable, a non-evolved human genome could be shifted somehow, and then toss in the things that Sark knew that they didn't? Sylar had no problem seeing that Julian's mind was no longer on the game.
Project Helix. God, why hadn't he thought of it before? He was nearly quivering with suppressed excitement as they finished the game--he won by two strokes--and headed back into the City. Once he explained to Sylar, the other man seemed mostly amused, but encouraging, and Sark really tried to not think too far ahead. He didn't even know if it was possible.
Could the two be combined? Would Project Helix even work on evolved DNA? Could it be duplicated and superimposed, or would it falter, something in the different strand of code resistant to the enzymes and technology of Project Helix? Was this, then, really, the secret Rambaldi had found, part and parcel of the Horizon and that sphere it had created? Was this Rambaldi's endgame, discovered in a roundabout way, backed up to, and not needing all the hocus pocus, or, well. Not exactly, he supposed, and he cursed himself for even thinking that, but, was that what Arvin had been seeking, in the end? Some sort of alteration of his genetic code to make him...invulnerable. It had to be something similar didn't? Ability to heal. Cessation of aging. What Arvin sought, Adam had, and had Rambaldi figured out a way to change that, and were the two related?
He'd sworn off the quest. Look where it had gotten everyone he'd ever known before. Irina, reaching for the Horizon, falling to her death. Arvin, gunned down moments from his goal, buried in a rocky grave. His father, shot by an assassin trying to protect the Passenger. Meddling in these things never ended well, and he should walk away, but for the first time, he caught Irina's vision. Maybe it was Adam's fault, standing there, like him, exactly, except Adam would never change. If Michael Vaughn put a bullet in him, Adam would walk away. If Sydney Bristow threw a pike into his leg, Adam would pull it out, watch her heal, and gun her down. Julian couldn't see it before, thought Irina was overly obsessed, but he could see it now. It was only a matter of time, he mused the next morning, sprawled across a bed in a loft turned into a lab, accessing his remote server via his laptop and finding files. She'd drilled it into his head from the time he was ten. He had vague memories of meetings in a house that had no form in his mind anymore, from when he was younger, a passion, obsession even, in his father's voice. He was born for this. Raised for this. Groomed and molded for this moment.
Perhaps the geneticist and his ramblings about Destiny was not so far off. Perhaps he never should have rolled his eyes behind Arvin's back. Because he understood now.
It was really only a chance, an outside one, and the warnings of those that had gone before him sounded in his memory. But, ultimately, this wasn't purely Rambaldi, he thought, as the files popped up on his laptop, pages of details of findings and genetic markers and explanations and instructions for how to build the device. His gaze flickered across the room to the man feverishly going over his research. He, Julian Sark, had something Irina and Sloane and his father and Elena and Lauren and even Sydney Bristow herself hadn't had.
He had Dr. Mohinder Suresh, premiere geneticist with an absolute understanding of the genetic code of evolved humans.
And better than that, beyond that, beyond the technology and the risks that Markovic and Allison and Anna had all undergone, the sacrifices they had been forced to make?
He had Adam Monroe.
With a smile, Julian pushed to his feet, picking up the laptop and crossing the room with a predator's grace. "Dr. Suresh? I think I have something here you might want to take a look at..."
[To be continued at
witnessof_fate, here.]
