In orbit above a planet, Doctor Avrana Kern readies herself to give a speech to her crew before initiating her experiment. She plans to launch a container of monkeys, a nanovirus that advances evolution, and a stasis pod that is designed to hold a single human preserved in cryo-sleep; this will allow the human to survive until the evolution of the monkeys is complete and the time is right for humans to influence this hypothetical future species.

While researching her speech, Kern muses on the Earth factions that resist her scientific ambitions; they are spearheaded by the group Non Ultra Natura, or NUN. Now, when she introduces the man who has been selected to stay in the pod, she realizes that he is not in position. As she speaks to the crew, Kern realizes that this man is actually an agent of NUN and has sabotaged her project by rigging the central hub to explode, destroying both the research and those who have performed it. Kern escapes by getting into the cryo-pod herself and launching it far from the facility. The monkeys and virus also launch, but the sabotage causes the monkeys’ delivery pod to be incinerated when it enters the planet’s

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