The Legend of Dark City

Chapter 41

When Sam had returned the first immunes to the bunker, he had told his colleagues about the strange abilities he had noted in them. The other scientists, particularly the older ones, were sceptical at best and dismissive at worst. One even accused Sam of trying to inflate the importance of the immunes as he had been the first one to return to the bunker with them.

Once the angels had settled in to their new environment they were subjected to various tests. Their DNA was sampled and they were given a full health check. The least sceptical of the scientists left at the base carried out a couple of experiments with Taylor and Grace. They were encouraged to play games like hide and seek with each other which mystified the girls. They couldn't really hide from each other because they could sense where the other one was.

This small rather random experiment resulted in someone else giving credence to Sam's claim. The angels indulged the experts putting on displays like some sort of party trick so that they could be observed. They could sense the bewilderment emanating from their testers each time they found each other or divined the others emotion. They knew that they were not in any danger so they indulged their requests until they became thoroughly bored. By that time more immunes were arriving so they had other people to bother.

As more immunes joined the group it was becoming apparent that there might be some truth to Sam's suspicions about them. Some of them were showing signs of having enhanced abilities beyond the strange link that they all seemed to have. The link was something which could not be proved satisfactorily enough for some of the scientists. The abilities, however, could actually be tested.

Strength, eyesight, hearing and other skills could be tested under more scientific conditions and one by one the doctors and experts had to grudgingly agree that there was something different about the immunes. They all came together eventually as they had found a new project to occupy their time.

The testing and categorisation of the immunes and their various talents was now the focus of the scientists' time. They documented their experiments and compiled data which they would analyse and discuss for hours on end. There was further proof when they looked at the DNA samples they had taken. Small abnormalities were found which might explain the anomalies they were finding in the immunes.

It was a project that would have been a ground breaking study which would surely have been published in the most august journals, had they still existed. As it was it, provided employment for the geneticists and others to investigate. Sam resisted the temptation over the months that followed to use the words "I told you so".

Sam got to know all of the immunes pretty well. They weren't just the source of empirical data to him. He could see their skills at work and how they contributed to the community as a whole. He was fascinated by how the various talents complimented each other and were of benefit to the group. Surely it was not an accident that these people came together. Would they have eventually found each other without the help of the platoons sent out from Dark City?

An argument raged for some time about whether the immunes were the next evolutionary step for man. The various scientists with their various areas of expertise just could not agree. They debated the stages of human evolution over the last 4million years and could not even agree on how many different species led from hominid to homo sapiens.

There had been a change from how people were before the Seaside Plague. After much, often rancorous, argument they finally agreed on that . The debate now moved onto whether there was enough of a difference to classify the immunes as a separate genus to homo sapiens. This polarised the experts and looked like it would take forever to resolve.

It was all a bit ridiculous to Sam. Much of what was being furiously deliberated was somewhat academic in this new world. People were forging new lives under difficult circumstances and they didn't give a damn about how they were classified. He spoke to Bree about the obsession of his colleagues and they laughed about it.

"Have you decided what I am yet?" she used to joke when she saw Sam.

In the end Sam took the initiative and started referring to the immunes as homo immunis. He had been the first to recognise their properties and he had the right to name them. Of course this was a contentious move and a fresh round of arguments erupted as a result. Sam just continued using the new classification until the others started using it too. They could hardly complain to a scientific regulatory body, could they?

He told Bree that asfar as he was concerned she was part of a distinct genus of humans which he hadcalled homo immunis. She thanked him for the name but said that it had notreally changed anything about her life to be categorised as a new species. Shewould mention it to others and sometime in the future, probably hundreds ofyears hence, it would be noted in some annals for posterity. Sam would ofcourse get the credit