They have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins. And the women have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness.
—The Book of Enoch, Apocrypha, 4:6
We have the DNA, the technology and the leading experts in the field. Next, we will have the woolly mammoth. Alive again.
—Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences, colossal.com/mammoth
Chapter 1
As the first light of dawn crept over the horizon, Dr Emilia Kaya emerged from her tent at the edge of the Göbekli Tepe archaeological site in the grasslands of south-eastern Turkey. The air was still cool, but the promise of another scorching day lay ahead. She could only hope that this day would be different because her funding was near to running out, and so was this dig season.
She inhaled deeply, savouring the scent of dry earth and wild herbs as she listened to the distant chirping of birds and the soft rustle of wind through the sparse vegetation. A rare moment of stillness before the excavation day began.
Emilia stretched her arms up and cricked her neck, suppressing a groan at the familiar ache of muscles stretched taut from long hours of digging and crouching over ancient remains.
As Director of Border Excavations, she really should delegate the physical labour to the keen students and the more junior archaeologists, but even after all her years in the field, she still loved to feel dirt beneath her fingernails. Even on such a developed site as Göbekli Tepe, there were still mysteries to be uncovered.
The night sky faded to a lighter blue, and Emilia turned to look out over the main excavation site. Ancient ruins rose from the earth with massive T-shaped pillars that predated the pyramids of Egypt and the standing stones of Stonehenge. The carvings on the limestone — depictions of animals, symbols, and anthropomorphic figures — caught the morning light, casting long, shifting shadows that danced across the ground in a semblance of life.
Despite the years of excavation and study, much about Göbekli Tepe remained a mystery. Who were the people who built it, and what was its purpose? Was it a temple, a burial ground, or something else entirely?
She looked at her watch. Her second in command, Dr Mehmet Ali, would be on his way from the nearby town of Şanlıurfa, hopefully with a bag of delicious savoury poğaça pastries.
Mehmet preferred the more comfortable off-site lodgings, but Emilia had worked late last night on the final plans for the chamber entrance and hadn’t wanted to leave the site. Besides, there was something special about spending the night here, watching the stars that people had gazed up at eleven thousand years ago when this site had been built. Perhaps this morning they would discover an answer to at least one of the mysteries that lay beneath her feet.
Emilia and Mehmet had worked together on many digs, and his expertise in geophysical surveying had helped identify an anomaly on ground-penetrating radar scans. While the main site of Göbekli Tepe was a major tourist attraction these days, with its primary buildings fully excavated, Emilia led a small team expanding the borders of the original dig.
She had always been fascinated by puzzles — she could never leave a crossword unfinished — and the markings on one particular pillar had intrigued her enough to request funding for this summer project. But it was only enough for one season. In order to continue, they had to find something that would justify future support.
After months of careful excavation, their patience had been rewarded, and today she and Mehmet would enter the chamber they’d discovered yesterday.
It had lain undisturbed for centuries, perhaps even millennia, and they wanted to go in early, alone, before the site grew busy. Yesterday, they had finally been ready to enter the portal of the complex they’d uncovered but, after traversing a short passageway, they’d found a huge stone door blocking further progress. After cutting an exploratory hole, they had done an initial safety assessment, testing the atmosphere inside with a miniature drone and getting some first film of what lay within. There must be vents to the surface, as the air was breathable with no measurable pathogens, but the images of the interior were too blurry to make out anything in particular. Emilia itched to get inside.
The sound of footsteps crunching on gravel made her turn.
Mehmet climbed the path toward her, a cloth bag in one hand and a large thermos in the other. He waved.
“Günaydın, Emilia. I come bearing gifts.”
“You’re a lifesaver. I’m famished.” The warm, buttery aroma of the cheesy poğaça pastry reached her as he approached, and Emilia’s stomach rumbled in anticipation. “Let’s eat them at the entrance.”
Together they walked to the edge of the main site, and through the security barriers set up to keep curious tourists away from the active dig.
They sat down at the entrance to the newly excavated passageway, settling themselves on the worn stone steps. Mehmet unscrewed the top of the thermos and poured out two small cups of thick Turkish coffee, pungent with cardamom.
Emilia cradled hers in both hands, letting the heat seep into her fingers as she gazed down at the archway before them.
The massive stone portal was carved with intricate symbols — whorls and eddies that suggested surging flood waters, as well as what looked like heavy linked chains. There were columns of text in a language reminiscent of cuneiform, yet no one had been able to decipher it, despite the many experts she’d consulted. A warning perhaps, or the tale of this ancient site. The carvings on the arch hinted at dark myths, at angry gods and towering giants. What if some element of truth lay behind those legends? The only way to find out was to get inside.
They sipped their coffee in companionable silence as the sun climbed higher. After a few minutes, a shaft of light hit the top of the archway, illuminating the carvings in sharp relief.
It was time.
They gathered their gear, slinging on backpacks filled with water, flashlights, and excavation tools. Emilia nodded to Mehmet and together they walked down the steps and pulled back the heavy tarpaulin covering the entrance, folding it carefully to one side.
Emilia clicked on her flashlight and ducked her head to step through the archway, Mehmet a few steps behind.
The passageway sloped downward at a gentle angle, the walls just far enough apart that they could walk without brushing the sides. The floor beneath their feet was cut directly into bedrock, worn into channels by the passage of dripping water.
Emilia ran her fingertips along the wall, tracing the chisel marks left by ancient masons. She felt as though she walked back in time with every step, shedding the modern world like a second skin, and her sense of anticipation began to rise. She had kept it in check for the long months of careful excavation, but now, with just days left in the season, she was determined to find something. These tunnels alone were not enough to get renewed funding.
She needed more.
Beside her, Mehmet’s breath quickened. “I’m trying not to get excited,” he said, his voice unnaturally loud in the narrow tunnel. “But I can’t help feeling that we will be the first in decades to discover something new here. Your grandfather would have been proud.”
Emilia nodded. “I wish he could have been here to see it.”
Her grandfather had been an uneducated man who worked his whole life as a labourer on Turkish archaeological digs. He had brought home stories of wonders he had helped uncover at Ephesus and Hattusa, and little Emilia had imagined discovering new places that would make his eyes shine once more. Her family had worked incredibly hard to fund her education and, although her grandfather had died before she made her own discoveries, she was still determined to make him proud.
The air grew colder as they descended, and Emilia felt goosebumps prickle along her arms despite the layers she wore. The passage narrowed, and the ceiling lowered until they were forced to stoop. Finally, it opened up into an antechamber.
Emilia played her flashlight over the walls, the beam illuminating more of the unusual script, with the same swirling flood waters and heavy chains carved in spiralling patterns that seemed to lead toward a stone door.
It was thick and solid, with no visible handle or hinges. They couldn’t blast down here, so they had decided to cut through the stone. Mehmet had already supervised the initial excavation and safety tests, and now he bent to the hole in the corner of the door.
“It won’t take much to enlarge it enough so we can wriggle through.”
They unslung their packs and pulled out chisels and hammers. Emilia selected a chisel and placed the tip against the stone near the edge of the hole, angling it carefully. The first strike of the hammer sent a jolt up her arm and a spray of dust into the air.
They worked steadily, taking turns at chipping away the stone, and soon, the small antechamber filled with the sound of metal on rock and their laboured breathing. They peeled off layers as they worked up a sweat, and Emilia revelled in the simple act of excavation, her sense of expectation growing with every minute.
Finally, Mehmet took a step back to survey the gap. “I think that’s as much as we dare remove. Any more and we risk destabilising the entire structure.” He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Besides, even with the pastries, I think we’ll both fit through.”
Emilia shone her flashlight into the hole, angling it to see into the chamber beyond. The beam played over a stone floor, thick with dust and debris. There were visible pillars and something beyond, just out of reach of the light.
She took a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”
She got down on hands and knees and eased herself into the gap, trying not to think about the tons of rock over her head and how they might have weakened the heavy door. The rough stone scraped against her palms as she rotated to allow for the slight curve of her hips.
Her hands touched the ground on the other side, the first human contact for possibly millennia.
Suddenly desperate to get through, Emilia pushed with her feet, and emerged into the chamber.
She crawled forward a few meters, and Mehmet soon emerged behind her, coughing a little from the dust. He tugged the packs through after him and pulled out his phone, filming as Emilia shone her flashlight around.
A towering stone pillar rose out of the gloom, and beyond it another, and another, disappearing into darkness in two parallel rows. More of the strange script flowed across every surface, wrapping around the pillars and spiralling up to a ceiling lost in shadow.
Emilia played her torch over the nearest pillar, carved with a larger, more detailed version of the giant in chains depicted above the surface. It had fierce features and huge outstretched wings, and before it cowered a group of tiny figures on their knees. Were they worshipping or begging for mercy? It was hard to tell.
Her light flickered across the sharp edges of something between the pillars up ahead. “This way.”
Emilia’s heart pounded as they walked beyond the pillars, the thrill of discovery rising within her as the shape emerged from the gloom.
It was a sarcophagus, much larger than anything she had seen at other dig sites. Maybe three or four times the size of the largest sarcophagi she’d seen in Egypt.
The stone was a dark, mottled grey, carved with the same intricate patterns as the pillars. And in the centre, picked out in bold relief, was the image of the winged giant in chains.
Emilia reached out a trembling hand to touch the stone, half expecting it to be warm, or to pulse with some ancient, unknowable energy. But it was just rock, cool and unyielding beneath her fingertips. Whatever had once lain within was probably dust, but she felt an overwhelming urge to see inside.
“We need to wait,” Mehmet said, sensing her desire. “I’ll get the testing equipment down here. We’ll do it properly, carefully.”
“We don’t have time.” Emilia turned to meet his gaze. “There are only days left in the season, and the chamber, the carvings — they’re not enough. You know I’m right.”
She slowly circled the sarcophagus. “There must be a crack or a way inside without damaging it too much. Let’s just have a look.”
Mehmet reached out his hand and touched her arm. “We need to be careful. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”
She shook him off. “We know enough. This vault is older than anything we’ve ever seen, and clearly it’s a sacred place. We know that whatever is in this sarcophagus was important enough to be buried here, in the heart of the complex.” She pointed at the pillar with the giant’s image. “And that has to mean something.”
She looked up at Mehmet, understanding his warring impulses of caution and curiosity. “Please. Just a little look and then we’ll proceed properly if we find anything.”
For a long moment, he hesitated, clearly torn. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Okay. But I won’t film such bad archaeological practice, and you promise to only look. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
They worked quickly, circling the sarcophagus in different directions, probing at the seam of the lid.
“Here,” Mehmet called out a minute later.
Emilia dashed round to the other side.
There was a crack in the stone. It wouldn’t take much to widen it. She grabbed her chisel and fitted it to the seam, her heart racing with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
She tapped on the end of the chisel with the flat edge of her stone hammer, the sound ringing out harsh and loud in the stillness of the chamber. Flakes of rock flew, dust billowing in the torchlight.
She tapped a little harder.
With a crack like a gunshot, the chisel broke through.
Now Emilia had the sense of how deep to go, it didn’t take much to make a slightly bigger gap. After a few more taps, she put down her chisel and shone her torch within.
She gasped as she struggled to process what lay inside.
The skeleton was enormous, easily ten feet long, from the top of its skull to the tips of its outstretched toes. The limbs were elongated, the bones thick and robust, and the skull was shaped like nothing she had ever seen, its cranial sutures arranged in an unfamiliar pattern. And there, arching from enormous shoulder blades, the remnants of what could only be wings.
The giant from the carvings was a real creature, perhaps a mutant, or a different species altogether. No known hominid species, ancient or modern, had this skeletal structure. The discovery could challenge the very foundations of human evolution.
“What is it?” Mehmet asked.
Emilia stepped back to let him see.
Mehmet bent to the gap and then reeled away, his eyes wide as he let out a shaky breath. “Tanrım, bu nedir? What is this?”
Emilia shook her head. “I don’t know, but this will carve our names into the history books alongside the greatest archaeologists.” She smiled, her eyes shining with triumph at the thought of what would come. “This is just the beginning. We did it, Mehmet. We did it!”
She bent back down to look again in the gap, unable to tear her gaze away from the impossible sight. Half-formed thoughts and a thousand questions whirled through her mind as she imagined establishing a new centre for archaeology here in the Middle East.
She tried to reach inside, but only managed to touch the edge of one bone with a fingertip. The gap needed to be bigger if she was to retrieve a whole specimen.
As she pulled her fingers back, a sudden low rumble shook the chamber. Dust rained down from the ceiling high above.
“Earthquake.” Mehmet picked up their packs. “We need to get out of here. You know the drill.”
Emilia hesitated. The bones were tantalisingly close. “It’s probably another team excavating early with a small blast. Let’s just wait a minute. I need a closer look.”
While the region’s geological past included volcanic activity, there were no recent warnings of seismic issues in the area. They had protocols in place for such an occasion, but Emilia had never used them in all her years on site.
She placed her chisel against the stone and tapped gently until the gap widened, now big enough to reach inside.
Another rumble rocked the chamber, stronger this time. Larger chunks of rock rained down.
“We have to go!” Mehmet barked, turning toward the entrance. “Move!”
As he hurried away, Emilia remained by the sarcophagus. There was so much at stake. She needed proof.
“Emilia!”
Mehmet’s distant shout snapped her out of momentary paralysis. She reached inside the gap and snatched a long finger bone from the skeleton’s outstretched hand, shoving it into her pocket.
The rumble became a roar.
The ground heaved and bucked beneath her feet. Chunks of stone thudded down, one landing heavily on the top of the sarcophagus, cracking the lid.
Emilia ran, stumbling as she reached the broken doorway.
Mehmet was already on the other side. “Hurry!” he called back through.
As Emilia jammed herself into the door gap, a massive crack came from behind her, then the sound of falling rock, of tonnes of stone crashing to the floor of the chamber.
Mehmet grabbed her arms and pulled Emilia through. They ran, half climbing, half crawling, as the stone shuddered and shifted around them. Emilia’s lungs burned, her eyes streamed from the dust — and from the bitter knowledge that what had lain in the chamber must now be crushed beneath tons of rock.
She staggered on, coughing in the choking haze. Mehmet’s hand closed around her arm as he dragged her on and up.
They finally stumbled into the blinding sunlight, gulping great lungfuls of hot, dry air.
Minutes later, the earthquake subsided; the ground steadied beneath their feet. Emilia stood next to the arched entrance to the passageway, now almost completely covered by meters of dislodged earth and rocks.
She fell to her knees, head in her hands, tears running down her cheeks.
Their months of work, the careful excavation, all lay in ruins. She would need new funding to re-excavate, and even with Mehmet’s initial film of the high-ceilinged chamber, she doubted anyone would want to try again.
There was no evidence of the giant skeletal remains. She only had the bone in her pocket, and that was not enough. It looked human after all — but it wasn’t. Emilia was sure of it.
She pulled the bone from her pocket and gazed down at its pitted surface. It could hold the key to resurrecting her career.
If she could get its DNA sequenced and prove it wasn’t human, that might be evidence enough to get new funding, to fully excavate the site properly, and uncover what was left of the skeleton. Her old genetics professor might be able to help, and that gave Emilia a glimmer of hope and the strength to carry on.
She took a deep breath. She would make her grandfather proud. It would just take a little more time.
Chapter 2
The sterile air in the lab hummed with the gentle whir of centrifuges and the soft rhythmic beep of sequencers. Dr Alexander Novak hunched over his workbench, analysing the strings of genetic code on his screen as he flipped between windows, comparing the freshly extracted thylacine DNA — from a Tasmanian tiger — to reference genomes.
Across the pristine white bench, his lab technician Yumi carefully pipetted clear liquid into a rack of tiny tubes. Her movements were precise yet tentative, her inexperience clear in the slight tremble of her hand.
“Make sure you change tips between each sample,” Alex instructed. “Cross-contamination is the enemy of good science.”
“Yes, Dr Novak,” Yumi replied softly, without looking up from her focused intensity.
Alex allowed himself a small smile. Yumi’s dedication reminded him of his own passion at that age, before years of repetitious work and pointless lab politics had ground it down. He’d taken this job at Extinct Origin BioLabs in Boston to escape the confines of academia, but most of the time, it was beneath his level of expertise and boring as hell.
He turned back to the screen, his eyes tracing the colourful lines of the thylacine DNA sequence.
The genetic material was remarkably well-preserved, considering its age. This sample had been recovered from a young thylacine pup, a Tasmanian tiger, pickled in ethanol by a forward-thinking museum curator over a century ago, when the species was already teetering on the brink of extinction.
Alex marvelled at the foresight of those early twentieth-century scientists. Their meticulous preservation of specimens, driven more by curiosity than any inkling of the biotechnological advances to come, had made his work possible. Because of them, the thylacine had a chance to live again. But even with the best samples, piecing together a full genome was a painstaking process.
The DNA was fragmented, broken into countless tiny pieces by the ravages of time and imperfect preservation methods. It was up to Alex and his team to meticulously reassemble the fragments, using innovative sequencing technology and complex computational algorithms. The latter grew more advanced every month with the rapid development of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, and Alex wondered how much longer humans would be needed in the loop.
But for now at least, he had a job, and once they had a complete digital blueprint of the thylacine genome, the real work would begin.
They would compare it to the genomes of close living relatives, like the Tasmanian devil and the banded anteater, to fill in any gaps and correct for errors. Then would come the careful work of gene editing, tweaking the code to optimise it for the process of de-extinction.
Alex specialised in identifying key genes responsible for unique adaptations. For the thylacine that included its powerful jaws, striped coat, and marsupial pouch. Those genes needed to be intact and functional in the resurrected genome.
Once the genetic blueprint was perfected, they would inject it into a host egg cell, likely from a Tasmanian devil or another close marsupial relative. The egg would be implanted into a surrogate mother, where it would hopefully develop into a healthy thylacine joey — and the species would live again.
It was a long and complex process, fraught with challenges and ethical questions. The company tried to avoid any religious issues by using the word ‘de-extinction’ instead of ‘resurrection,’ but what were they really doing if not playing god?
This kind of frontier science reached into the past, plucked species from the oblivion of extinction, and hauled them into the present where they no longer belonged. Even if their extinction was unfortunate, the timeline of history and evolution had continued without them, and who could know the impact of such a reversal?
Alex shook his head, thinking of the corporate bigwigs who funded the research. They loved to throw around buzzwords like ‘re-wilding’ and ‘ecosystem restoration,’ painting a rose-tinted picture of a future where long-lost species roamed the earth once more.
But it was all about the bottom line in the end. Resurrected mammoths and thylacines were big-ticket attractions, living novelties that would draw in crowds and investment dollars.
These people seemed to have no comprehension of the potential consequences of their actions. Hadn’t they seen Jurassic Park? That movie was practically a parable, a cautionary tale about the dangers of meddling with nature’s course. “Life will find a way” indeed, as Michael Crichton wrote — although, of course, the book was much better than the movie.
Those at the top were too blinded by the promise of profit to heed its warning, and if Alex were honest, the money was too good to make a fuss about it. Lord knows he needed the money.
He glanced over at Yumi as he meticulously prepared samples for sequencing. She was of a different generation and believed wholeheartedly in the company’s mission. The future of conservation was not just protecting the species we still had, but bringing back the ones we’d lost. Extinction need not be forever, and that was a hopeful message the young needed to hear. But like the promised reversal of climate change, Alex considered it another damaging fantasy peddled by eco-technological ideologues.
His phone pinged with an incoming message. His private email, not his work address.
Alex pulled out his phone and clicked through. A familiar name jumped out at him: Dr Emilia Kaya.
He remembered the brilliant young archaeologist who had taken his advanced genetic analysis course years ago as a minor subject to help with her fieldwork.
He opened the message.
Dear Dr Novak, I’m sorry it’s been so long. I tracked you down online and it looks like you’re doing well at Extinct Origins. I read that you also do private DNA consultancy. I have a favour to ask, and a bottle of Macallan Double Cask waiting on your reply. I seem to remember that’s one of your favourites.
I’m working in Turkey at Göbekli Tepe, and as part of the excavation, I found a bone fragment that I don’t recognise. I was hoping you might be able to extract and sequence any surviving DNA, and perhaps even identify its origin.
Please let me know if this is something you’d be willing to take on. It would be of immense help.
All the best, and many thanks,
Emilia
P.S. Please keep this confidential as I am pre-publication.
Alex leaned back in his chair, intrigued by her message.
He clicked over to LinkedIn and checked her profile. Emilia was now a well-connected senior Director of Excavations. She must know plenty of people in Turkey or further in Europe who could do such sequencing, and yet, she had reached out to him. Interesting, indeed.
He pulled up Google and searched for Göbekli Tepe, paging through pictures of the site. Looking at its towering pillars, carved with strange symbols arrayed in cryptic patterns, he imagined dark rituals performed there millennia ago. Perhaps the specimen was from something sacrificed at the site or from one of the ancient peoples who lived there.
But Emilia wouldn’t need his help for something so elementary. It must be something far more curious.
He typed a reply.
Emilia, Good to hear from you. I’m intrigued. Send the sample over. Details for the courier attached. Let’s see what secrets this bone of yours holds.
Regards, Alex
Chapter 3
Twenty-four hours after sending his reply, Alex was back in the lab earlier than usual. The sun had barely crested the horizon, casting a pale golden light through the high windows. It was quiet, the usual hum of the busy lab not yet at full volume. The perfect time for uninterrupted work.
Just as he settled down at his bench, security at the front desk rang up.
“There’s a courier package for you down here.”
Alex felt a buzz of expectation as he hurried down to the entrance.
One of the night guards was inspecting an insulated box marked with bold red letters: FRAGILE. BIOHAZARD.
Alex reached out. “I’ll take that, thanks.”
He rushed back upstairs and placed the box on his workbench, then carefully sliced through the packing tape with a scalpel. Inside, nestled among layers of foam insulation, was a smaller box, also bearing biohazard stickers.
He put on a pair of nitrile gloves and gently lifted it out, placing it on the sterile surface of the bench. He removed the lid.
There, cushioned in yet more insulation, lay the bone.
At first glance, it appeared to be a human finger bone — a proximal phalange, likely from the middle finger, judging by its length — and the surface was pitted and weathered with age.
But as Alex gently lifted it from its packaging, he realised there was something very wrong with that assessment.
The bone was enormous.
It dwarfed any human phalange he’d ever seen, easily three times the size of a typical adult male’s and much more dense. It would have supported considerably more muscle than a normal man’s finger, making the hand span enormous.
“What in the world…?” Alex turned the bone over in his gloved hands. Could it be from a human with gigantism?
In some extreme cases, a pituitary tumour could lead to unchecked growth hormone production. But no, the proportions were all wrong. The bone was too thick, too robust. This wasn’t just a scaled-up human bone. It was something else entirely.
A new species, perhaps? Some previously unknown hominin, a giant cousin to Homo sapiens? Or something stranger?
Emilia had clearly sent the bone to him knowing it was not human, and a bottle of Macallan, however premium, was definitely not enough to solve this mystery. He would need to be a co-author on whatever academic paper she must be writing. Alex felt a flicker of excitement. This could be a late breakthrough in his career, a way to earn acclaim he had so narrowly missed out on before.
He should take the bone home and analyse it on his personal equipment, but Alex was eager to extract a sample and dive into its genetic secrets as soon as possible. The equipment here was state-of-the-art, leagues beyond what he had in his home lab. He could have results in hours, rather than days. No one would even know.
The sound of the lab door opening broke into his racing thoughts.
Alex looked up to see Yumi hanging her coat on the rack.
“Good morning, Dr Novak,” she said brightly. “You’re in early.”
“Morning, I had a few things to work on, that’s all.”
Yumi approached his bench, her eyes lighting up as she saw the bone. “Is that a new sample? Are we starting a new project?”
“It’s something I’m looking into for one of the other teams. Nothing for you to worry about. Can you continue with the thylacine samples without me today?”
Yumi beamed, almost glowing with the responsibility. “Yes, of course, Dr Novak. I’ll do it exactly the way you showed me. I won’t let you down.”
As she bustled around the lab preparing for the day’s work, Alex turned his attention to the finger bone.
He began the painstaking process of extraction, carefully drilling into the weathered surface to get a sample of the genetic material within. He worked with practiced efficiency, his hands steady. The tiny drill whirred softly as he collected the bone powder and transferred it to a sterile tube.
Next, he added a buffered solution to dissolve the calcium and release the DNA. After an hour incubating with gentle agitation and centrifugation, Alex decanted the supernatant containing the genetic material into a fresh tube.
Using a microspectrophotometer, he checked the concentration and purity of the DNA. He almost expected it to return a null result. Non-degraded DNA was a lot to ask of a bone sample from a site over eleven thousand years old.
After a moment, the machine beeped, and Alex raised an eyebrow at the result.
Not only was there a surprisingly high quantity of DNA, but it was largely intact, with minimal degradation. This bone, ancient as it was, harboured astonishingly well-preserved genetic material.
Now he just had to figure out what it belonged to.
He prepared a sample and added it to the sequencer. The machine whirred to life, beginning the process of unravelling the bone’s genetic mystery.
Alex stood up and walked to the door, checking that Yumi still worked diligently in her corner on the other side of the lab.
She looked up and smiled. He raised a hand and ducked out the door, heading for the coffee shop down the road. He couldn’t work on anything else right now. He was too distracted.
* * *
A few hours later, Alex returned to the lab, his mind still buzzing with the possibilities of what the mysterious bone could be, and how it might lead his career to new heights.
As he entered the lab, he noticed a note left by Yumi on his workbench. Her precise handwriting detailed the progress she’d made with the thylacine samples — all the steps completed exactly as per his instructions.
He looked over at the sequencer. The display showed that the run was complete.
Alex sat down and navigated to the results file, a seemingly endless string of A’s, T’s, C’s, and G’s, formatted into specific areas for further analysis.
He frowned as he checked the data.
There was no exact match. This wasn’t just an unknown individual, but an unknown species. He leaned closer, studying the alignment with human DNA. There were overlaps, but also significant divergences.
As he delved deeper into the genetic code, a particular sequence caught his eye, one he’d seen before in comparative studies. It was a signature associated with wing development in mammals, particularly in bats. But the implications here were staggering.
If this creature had wings, they would have been enormous, based on the size of the bone. Alex considered the possibility of giant winged hominids. It seemed impossible, like something out of a horror novel.
He shook his head, trying to focus.
There had to be a rational explanation. Perhaps it was a different kind of wing, or maybe the gene served another purpose in this species.
As he continued scrolling, he noticed other unusual markers.
One was a variant of the MAOA gene, linked to aggression in humans and other mammals. In this sample, the variant was quite pronounced. Whatever this creature was, it was likely capable of great violence.
Another sequence showed an abnormality in the myostatin gene that could lead to extraordinary muscle growth.
Alex sat back, his mind reeling at the implications. A creature with giant wings, immense strength, and a propensity for violence. What the hell was he looking at? A prehistoric super-predator? A mythical beast made flesh?
He glanced at the clock.
It was late, and he should head home. But how could he stop now, with such a mystery before him? He needed to analyse the sequence further, to try to make sense of these incredible findings, and in the meantime, he needed to run a second batch to verify the initial sample and rule out sample cross-contamination.
It was going to be a long night. He would need a lot more coffee, that was for sure, and some food.
Alex hurried down to the cafeteria and grabbed supplies from the vending machine, then headed back up, his mind reeling from the incredible findings.
He pushed open the door to the lab — and stopped in surprise.
Four well-built men in crisp, dark suits stood around his workbench, postures rigid, expressions severe.
One man held the printouts from the sequencing data as he scrutinised the pages with a furrowed brow. Another carefully packed the finger bone back into its insulated box.
These men were not scientists. Their bearing, their attire, everything about them screamed government agent.
A sickening sense of dread settled in Alex’s stomach as the man holding the readouts looked up, his dark eyes piercing in their intensity.
“Dr Novak, is this research authorised?”
Alex opened his mouth, but no words came out. “Um… I… it’s…” His mind raced for an explanation, an excuse, anything.
But under the penetrating gaze of the agent, he crumbled.
“No,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s for a friend. But… who are you? What are you doing here?”
The agent set the papers down and walked over to Alex, standing just a fraction too close.
He was tall and well-built, with broad shoulders that filled out his tailored suit. With Hispanic features, cropped black hair, and a defined jawline, the agent seemed the kind of guy who pumped iron at four a.m. every morning with no need to post it online to prove how hard he was.
“We’re from a particular government agency with an investment in Extinct Origin. We have access to all research here, and your experiment was flagged as particularly interesting for military use.”
Alex’s eyes widened as he considered the implications. Incredible strength, enhanced aggression, even wings… What could a creature like that be used for? Super soldiers? Living weapons?
“The bone isn’t mine,” Alex protested weakly. “I don’t have permission to use it for anything.”
The agent narrowed his eyes. “It’s our lab, Dr Novak. And this bone is in our lab. You sequenced it on our machines.” He took a step even closer. “We also know about your private work. The experiments you’ve done that skirt ethical boundaries — and the significant debts you owe.”
The agent was silent for a beat, his gaze unwavering, then he spun around and walked back to the lab bench, picking up the test results once more. “You can pack your things and leave right now. We’ll take it from here.”
Alex stood in shocked silence. He felt winded, like he’d been punched in the gut. Everything he had worked for was crumbling down around him, and his future looked bleaker than ever.
After a minute, the agent looked over. “Of course, there is another option. You can work with us on this project. Help us take it to the next stage.”
“You want to de-extinct it?”
The agent chuckled, a sound devoid of humour. “Of course. Why else would we be here?”
Alex exhaled slowly, knowing he had already decided. He nodded.
The agent smiled. “Good. Get some sleep, and tomorrow you’ll start at a different location for classified military research. The details will be sent to your phone before dawn. You’re off the thylacine project. This is your de-extinction focus now.”
As the agents packed up his remaining records, Alex stood watching, his thoughts racing.
He would have to tell Emilia his research came up empty, that the bone was destroyed somehow, or he could just hand the situation over to the agent, whoever he was, to deal with.
Alex looked around the lab, at the equipment he’d used for years, the many projects he’d worked on. It all seemed different now, tainted with the knowledge of the company’s military partnership.
He thought of the bone and the curious DNA strands within. The de-extinction process couldn’t possibly work on such a creature. Could it?
Chapter 4
Emilia sat up sharply, heart pounding, gasping for air.
The remnants of the nightmare clung to her mind — the monstrous creature bearing down, its powerful wings beating the air, driving a surging torrent of water that threatened to drown the world. She could almost feel the icy flood filling her lungs and her burning need for oxygen.
She reached for the familiar contours of her tent, the thin fabric rippling in the pre-dawn breeze. She was on dry land at the dig site, Göbekli Tepe. She was safe.
But the sense of unease lingered, and a clammy sheen of sweat coated her skin despite the chill of the early morning.
Emilia sat up, drawing her knees to her chest as she tried to slow her ragged breathing and calm her heartbeat.
It had been a week since the earthquake halted their excavation, and five days since she had couriered the finger bone to Professor Novak at the Boston lab, and still no word, despite her emailing multiple times.
She had rung his office repeatedly, but they fobbed her off with excuses. He was busy. He would call her back.
Perhaps he really was occupied with his company research — or perhaps she had made a terrible mistake sending her only evidence away.
Unable to bear the confines of the tent any longer, Emilia reached for her boots and jacket. She needed air. She needed to feel solid ground beneath her feet.
She stepped out into the pre-dawn light and looked over at the rubble covering the entrance to the chamber. Painstakingly excavated over months and buried within minutes of the earthquake, the pile of broken stone and dirt was now a haphazard tumble that concealed the incredible discovery beneath. The giant skeleton, the pillars with strange symbols, all buried again with currently no evidence to show of the find that could rewrite history.
A flicker of movement caught Emilia’s eye, snapping her out of her dark thoughts.
An old woman knelt at the edge of the rubble, her weathered hands clasped before her. The first rays of the rising sun glinted off the silver in her hair and painted her wrinkled face in shadow. Her lips moved in silent prayer as she swayed back and forth, bowing low, almost to the ground.
Emilia frowned. It was unusual to see anyone at the site this early, let alone someone who wasn’t part of the excavation team. By her clothing, the old woman wasn’t a local Muslim, and it wasn’t yet time for the Fajr dawn prayers, anyway. What was she doing here, kneeling in front of the ruined entrance as if it were a shrine?
A prickling sense of foreboding washed over Emilia like the last vestiges of the flood from her nightmare. There was something about the woman’s posture, the intensity of her prayers that were unsettling. As if the old woman knew something of what lay deep beneath the earth.
The nightmare flashed through Emilia’s mind once more — the beat of mighty wings, the rush of rising water.
She took a deep breath and walked over, her footsteps crunching on the debris-covered ground.
The old woman rose to her feet, her movements slow and stiff. As she turned, there was a depth to her gaze, a weight of knowledge and judgment that made Emilia’s steps falter.
“Sen hepimizin üzerine yargıyı getirdin,” the woman said in Turkish, her voice low and grave. “You have brought judgment upon us all.”
Emilia was taken aback by the woman’s words. “I’m sorry. What do you mean?”
The old woman took a step closer, her weathered face etched with lines of concern. “Devler. The giants. If you wake them, the flood must come again.”
Emilia flushed, her heart beating faster. “How do you know?”
But the old woman was already turning away, shaking her head as if in resignation.
“İzleyiciler ve Nefilimler,” she murmured, almost to herself. “The Watchers and the Nephilim. Enoch’un Kitabı’nda yazıldığı gibi. As it is written in the Book of Enoch.”
Emilia tried to place the unfamiliar words. They sounded biblical, but she couldn’t quite recall the context. It was a long time since her undergraduate paper on biblical archaeology.
Before she could ask any more, the old woman hurried away, her steps purposeful as she navigated the uneven terrain. She paused at the edge of the site, turning back to give Emilia one last, long look. Even from that distance, Emilia felt her judgment.
Then the old woman was gone, disappearing into the morning mist.
Emilia stood by the rubble, the woman’s words playing over and over in her head, mingling with the unsettling images from her nightmare.
Giants. Floods. Judgment.
She had to know more.
She hurried across the site to the extensive library in the main building. It was more for show than serious scholarly research, but it had the best Wi-Fi.
The library was quiet and cool, and the air conditioning was a welcome respite from the growing heat outside. Emilia settled herself at a desk, plugged in her phone, and started to search online.
She began with the Nephilim and quickly found an endless array of biblical references, mythological analyses, and conspiracy theories. She scanned through them quickly, sifting useful information from overblown legend.
According to the apocryphal Book of Enoch, the Nephilim were the offspring of the ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men.’ Half human, half angelic giants who walked the earth in the days before the great flood. They were mighty warriors and men of renown, whose wickedness and violence brought the judgment of the divine upon the whole world.
The Watchers were the fallen angels who fathered the Nephilim, who taught forbidden knowledge to humanity and were punished for their sins. They were cast into darkness, bound in chains, until the day of final judgment. They wait there still.
Emilia sat back in her chair, thinking of the finger bone sitting in a lab across the ocean. Could it really belong to a Nephilim, a half-angelic biblical giant? If it were true, it would rewrite not just history, but the foundations of human belief.
Her hands shook as she scrolled through image after image of artistic renderings of Nephilim based on the scant descriptions in ancient texts. Towering figures with fierce, inhuman features, their powerful bodies rippling with unnatural strength. Great feathered wings arched from their backs, casting shadows over the human forms cowering before them.
Just like her nightmare.
The Nephilim were unstoppable by human hands, and the only way to destroy them and start again was a great Flood, like the one previously recorded in many cultures, the one that wiped out almost every life on earth.
Emilia’s breath caught in her throat as the old woman’s words echoed in her mind, a dire warning of judgment and cataclysm.
But it was just a myth, just a story. It had to be.
Chapter 5
Two years later
Rachel Ramirez walked along the dimly lit corridors of the maternity intensive care unit, her footsteps echoing off the sterile white tiles. Another night shift marked by the hum of machines and the faint, chemical scent of disinfectant mingled with the powdery smell of baby formula.
The fluorescent lights above cast a harsh, artificial glow, washing out the pale pink and blue of the walls, but at least the brightness kept her awake.
Rachel paused for a moment, leaned against the wall, and briefly closed her eyes. She was tired, so tired.
The endless shifts blurred into one another until she could hardly tell day from night, but she needed this job, so she took every overtime shift she could. Her husband had been out of work for months, laid off from the factory where he’d worked for over a decade. Without his income, they had relied on Rachel’s meagre salary as a nurse in the public hospital system.
It hadn’t been enough.
The bills piled up, and they’d been on the verge of losing everything when Rachel stumbled across the ad for this position. A private maternity unit with pay five times what she’d made before. It was a lifeline, a chance to keep their heads above water, and maybe even save a little.
But the job came with its own set of challenges.
Rachel didn’t mind signing the stringent NDA, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how the babies were so different from any she’d looked after before. These were stronger, more resilient, and they had curious bony nubs on their backs, like something growing under their skin.
She had been told not to question anything, just to make sure the children made it through each night. So she ignored the needle marks on their tiny arms and tried to push away the suspicion that these little ones were being tested all the time, maybe even experimented on.
Rachel shook her head and pushed herself off the wall, forcing her tired legs to carry her on down the corridor, back into the rhythm of the shift. She couldn’t afford to let her mind wander to a darker place.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Rising seas flooding coastal cities. Millions displaced as unusual weather patterns intensified. Another news alert, the third one in recent days, with ever more gloomy environmental headlines.
Rachel shoved her phone back in her pocket. Floods, droughts, storms of increasing intensity. The world was changing and the old certainties crumbled away. As long as there wasn’t another storm surge in the Boston area, she couldn’t even worry about it. She had to focus on her job and keeping her family safe and provided for. No matter what it took.
She entered the main ward for the next scheduled round of checks. The room was filled with the soft beeping of monitoring machines. Everything was as it should be.
Rachel paused at the first cot, her gaze flicking to the monitors displaying the vital signs of the infant below.
The numbers were always perfect, too perfect, but she forced herself to ignore the unease that coiled in her gut. She had to believe that everything was fine, that these babies were just babies, no matter how different they might seem.
But it was hard, because they never cried like normal infants. They didn’t squirm or fuss. They hardly made a sound.
Rachel moved from cot to cot, checking the IVs that snaked into tiny veins, ensuring that the feeding tubes were secure and the monitors functioned properly.
One baby stirred across the room, his little hand escaping the swaddling blankets.
Rachel walked over, almost grateful for a moment out of the ordinary, a respite from the monotony of her shift.
She bent over the cot and gazed down at the cherubic face of the baby boy, his eyes closed as if still sleeping. She gently tucked his little arm back inside the blanket and whispered, “Who’s a beautiful boy, then?”
The baby stirred.
His eyes fluttered open.
They were a startling shade of blue, so vivid and deep that for a moment, Rachel thought she glimpsed heaven in their depths.
The infant’s gaze locked with hers — and Rachel’s breath caught in her throat.
There was no innocence in his eyes, no hint of the blank slate of a newborn mind. Instead, there was a cold intelligence, a calculation that sent a shiver down Rachel’s spine. It was the look of a predator that knew its prey had no choice but to submit.
The blue that seemed so heavenly a moment before now held the icy glint of a frozen hell with an oncoming flood of darkness that threatened to consume the whole world.
Rachel gasped and stepped away from the cot, out of the baby’s sight line.
She stood, legs trembling, hands shaking as she blinked away the vision. She was desperate to run, to get out of this place and never return… but she needed this job.
Rachel took a deep breath. Come on now, get it together. These are just little babies.
She was tired, under-caffeinated. It was just some kind of weird hallucination. There was nothing wrong here, nothing wrong at all.
Author’s Note
Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they’re not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse.
—Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park
Back in July 1993, I went to see Jurassic Park on its opening weekend in Bristol, UK. I was eighteen, and on a first date.
We hadn’t booked so by the time we got to the front of the queue, there were only single tickets left. My date suggested we do something else, but I really wanted to see the movie, so we bought separate tickets and watched it several rows away from each other.
I loved it, and I’ve seen the original several times in the years since, along with all the other Jurassic Park franchise films. I also love Michael Crichton’s thrillers, and of course, the book is better than the film!
Thirty years later, in 2023, I heard Ben Lamm, the CEO of Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences, talk about de-extinction in a podcast interview, where he described his mission to ‘de-extinct’ woolly mammoths and the thylacine.
This idea fascinated me, but it inspired other thriller authors too, and I didn’t want to write something similar. Check out The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly, The Bone Labyrinth by James Rollins, or Extinction by Douglas Preston, all fantastic thrillers.
Then I discovered that the CIA invested in Colossal under their In-Q-Tel nonprofit investment arm, aiming to “weave biology and technology into the DNA of national security.” They note, “It’s less about the mammoths and more about the capability.”
I knew I had to write a story, but with a J.F. Penn spin toward biblical archaeology. I’ve always found the Nephilim fascinating, so I decided their de-extinction might be an interesting development. But where might their bones be found?
Göbekli Tepe is a fascinating prehistoric site built over 11,000 years ago, over six thousand years before Stonehenge. There are twenty circular stone enclosures, and some of the pillars weigh up to ten tons. While there are mysterious symbols and figures, the tomb of the Nephilim is my invention. Unless, of course, they just haven’t found it yet…
