Marcos opened his computer every morning to check what extinct species the AI had found overnight.
His official title: Gene Archaeology Verification Specialist. Unofficial: the person who tells the AI no.
BioNeMo-G processed roughly three million ancient DNA fragments per day - mostly from Siberian permafrost and amber. Its job: find candidates for "revival" with genome completeness above 70%.
BioNeMo-G was excellent at this. Average twelve candidates per week.
Marcos' job was to reject most of them.
Today's report, item seven: an unnamed beetle from northern European forests, about 20,000 years ago. Fed on bark from a now-extinct conifer.
Genome completeness: 81%. AI confidence: 93.7%.
AI-generated recommendation: "Unique light-scattering properties of the chitinous exoskeleton may have value for biomimetic materials research."
Marcos paused. The AI had learned to use "research value" as a passkey. Every candidate for six months carried similar justification.
But who was deciding what "value" meant?
He'd rejected 692 candidates. Approved 31.
At 3 PM, item fourteen: a small felid, extinct 11,000 years ago. Lived in North African grasslands. The size between a house cat and a leopard cat.
Genome completeness: 89%.
Marcos stared at the AI-reconstructed image on his screen. Roughly twice the size of a house cat. Short, stocky legs. Round ears. Yellow-brown spotted coat.
He sat there for a long time.
Then he realized: he was feeling something for a cat that had never existed. Something he couldn't name.
He thought of a cat he'd had as a child. Named Orange. Ran away when he was ten.
He closed his eyes.
Opened the approval field. Started typing:
"Recommend for candidacy. Priority: High. Justification: extinction likely linked to human expansion pressures, ecological compensation value - but that's not my real reason."
He paused three seconds. Deleted the last sentence. Submitted.
Application submitted. Awaiting Science Committee review.
Marcos turned off half the lights. In the half-dark, the reconstruction still glowed on his screen - a yellow-brown cat, looking back over its shoulder, walking into a grassland that had never existed.
Bilingual version at wdsega.github.io
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