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A/N: Here it is the return of Whisper. For the foreseeable future it will update fortnightly.

At first look the final image did look very much like a human but as Amanpreet stared she spotted a series of subtle differences. The fingers were longer than on any human she’d ever seen for one and the head body proportion seemed off as well. Still the resemblance was disturbingly uncanny.

“Can we get some scale on this image?” Umi asked. “It’s hard to tell without scale but I think these people are longer than humans.”

“Oh! Of course.” Prima said and a scale showing height appeared. “This one is about average for them.” She looked at the screen and then around at the humans. “But they’d be an outlier for humans.”

“Yes,” Midori said. “A human who hits 2.3 meters tall probably has gigantism and wouldn’t be that slender. Still that level of resemblance…are they all that colour?”

“They all have the light hair but hide colour varies as much as yours does. The other two vary a lot as well, the goblin ones from siilver-grey to brown and the grey ones come in various shades. Why do you ask?”

“Because the mutation that causes fair skin in humans hadn’t even appeared when these people attacked you.” Midori frowned. “Please tell me you analysed samples of their genetic material.”

“Yes, several,” Prima said. “Would you like the information?”

“Could you make sure that the scientists of all the species get it?” Midori said. “I want to know why they resemble us so much. The council will as well and we don’t want people thinking we’re hiding something.”

“The system will upload it to your systems then,” Prima said. “I’m intrigued to see what you discover because the resemblance is greater than I realised even given the significant differences. You’re clearly not like them so it makes me curious.”

“Believe me it makes us feel the same,” Midori said. “Especially given the fact they appear so prominently in our industrial age folklore.”
***
The scientists had their preliminary results within a day and called the supervisors together to discuss their findings. Amanpreet was surprised when she received an invitation as well.

“You brought this to our attention,” Midori said. “You should know the results.”

“Well, our enemies genetic information was informative,” one of the Mez scientists said. “We have always thought that homo is a monospecific genus, but that is no longer true. These people aren’t human but they are very close kin of yours. This DNA is ancient as we know but even then they’d been split off from the gene pool that humans emerged from for around two hundred thousand years ago…and it looks like they were genetically engineered by someone who didn’t wish them well rather than evolving naturally. Which might come in useful but is also disturbing.”

“You mean there might be someone else behind them?” Prima asked.

“Maybe, hard to say,” Summer said. “But we managed to ascertain that their hyperspace vulnerability was engineered into them as was severely reduced fertility.”

“We think the biological immortality is natural,” one of the human scientist said. “Because it’s just an undamaged version of the same gene complex that leads to us stopping ageing eventually. They naturally stop ageing in their forties rather than their nineties so they don’t need medical intervention to take advantage of the plateau as long as nothing else kills them.”

“There’s some evidence someone tried to interfere with that and failed,” Chen said. “We think someone was trying to control them but that’s just a surmise.”

“The morphs were also engineered for some reason and all the samples, regardless, of morph, that were analysed seem to descend from just a few hundred Homo heidelbergensis,” the human scientist said. “And on top of the hyperspace vulnerability and reduced fertility we found something else. A very nasty kill switch gene that no one would recognise if they didn’t know our genome. We could use this to kill them all if we were willing to break the moratorium on biological weapons and it’s sick as hell.”

“What is it?” Midori asked.

“A specifically targeted vulnerability that would allow someone to trigger aggressive and untreatable cancers in them via a viral vector. Someone really didn’t want them going anywhere.”

“That’s horrible!” Prima exclaimed. “Even if we’d known we couldn’t have brought ourselves to use such a thing.”

“You know all this would explain the folklore, if it’s actually true,” Amanpreet said. “The stories indicate a reproductive interest in humanity.”

“That’s our surmise as well,” Summer said. “Keith showed us some of the stories. It looks like they are trying to fix their genetic issues which does suggest whoever did it to them isn’t around to stop them.”

“We’ll need to report on this to the council,” Midori said. “How soon can you make a full report?”

“A couple of days,” Summer said. “And we’ll put together a team to present it.”

“Thank you,” Midori said. “We’ll leave you to it then.”
***
“Amanpreet, may I have a word with you?” Umi asked as they left the briefing.

“Of course,” Amanpreet said.

“Midori has said we can use her office,” Umi said. She led them there before speaking again. “I did a bit of digging about Summer as you asked and believe I have uncovered the source of his knowledge.”

“Is it bad?” Amanpreet asked.

“Oh, no!” Umi said. “Though I do understand why he’s kept it secret. I doubt his team would care but history is a harsh thing.” She paused before she continued tapping on her keyboard. “He’s descended from a slave line. Some of our people are still prejudiced against them. But more importantly he’s descended from one of the lines that was engineered to be pilots for the initial Fish. I would imagine that if anyone managed to keep the records they did. The interesting thing is that they survived at all. We thought they’d been wiped out. I want to speak with him about it but I think he might clam up if I do.”

Amanpreet gave a low whistle. “That explains a lot. Perhaps you should ask Promise for help. He’d probably open up to it and his family may have a wealth of knowledge.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Storm said. “Would you like me to speak to it? It likes me.”

—

A/N: Here it is the return of Whisper. For the foreseeable future it will update fortnightly.

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