Seed & Bone

By Hatteras Mange

A gifted paleobotanist and rising star in the scientific community, Dr Yvette Coradi spends most of her time in a lab where she replicates ancient climates and synthesizes extinct plant life for study and use in the development of new medicines. Her skills bring her to the attention of a time traveling expedition team whose leaders invite her to take part in the latest mission: a backward jump millions of years from the world Yvette knows to gather ingredients for a radical new treatment.

 

Along with time travel veterans, doctors, and pharmaceutical technicians, she sets out to shape the future of wellness. But as tensions rise and motivations come into question, she learns that work done outside of the lab isn't always clean.

 

 

PRAISE FOR SEED & BONE
 "A slow burn sci-fi mystery wrapped in a blockbuster movie premise that packs an emotional punch. SEED & BONE unfurls its cautionary tale about capitalism and ethics with deft pacing, strong characters, and vibrant prose. Fans of Jurassic Park will definitely enjoy this paleo adventure––it hits all of the right genre notes, from futuristic science fields and tech to time travel."

       -Jessie Thomas, author of BAPTISM OF FIRE

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hatteras Mange
• Release date: Aug 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201677640

Hatteras Mange

Hatteras is a creator of science fiction, horror, and fantasy for adults and young adults alike. He draws inspiration from long bike rides, hot cocoa, and the peculiar creaking sounds coming from the bottom of whatever dark stairwell he’s currently on.

Book preview

Seed & Bone

Hatteras Mange

Published by Hatteras Mange, 2021.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

SEED & BONE

First edition. August 31, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 Hatteras Mange.

ISBN: 979-8201677640

Written by Hatteras Mange.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Seed & Bone

About the Author

For Mary

Dr Yvette Coradi had just returned from lunch in the courtyard when she noticed the message. The old brick of a landline on her desk winked at her as she shouldered back into her lab coat. Someone had called.

That wasn’t unusual. Her lab fielded a lot of calls. Some were important, but most weren’t even intentional. Their extension was one of dozens on the University of Paleo & Future Sciences directory. People often called looking for their department head.

That possibility, at least this time, was one she could rule out. Spring semester ended two weeks ago. The only students left on campus were lab rats and summer crammers, neither of which tended to make phone calls.

It was probably one of her coworkers or the lab’s head of research. That, or someone following up on one of her recent submissions. She had several papers stuck in various stages of peer review, all that’d been languishing for months. Maybe it was news.

It was an odd time for that, though. Her lunch was so late it could’ve been called dinner and most academics she knew didn’t make calls after six. Many didn’t even work past then if they weren’t currently teaching a class. It was also a weekend, the nicest Saturday they’d had in months, and nearly everyone had better things than work to do.

Dr Coradi didn’t. She spent so much time in the lab that its research head, Dr Zhao, kept crooning about the honeymoon phase. Maybe he was right. She hadn’t had the job long. She was brought on just shy of a year ago. At the time it was a dream come true. It still was, if she was honest. Most mornings, Yvette half expected to be woken up by her old alarm.

As an alumnus of the university’s Paleo school, she’d spent the better part of a decade dreaming about working in one of the labs. It wasn’t until her post-grad program that she decided on the Paleobotany one. Most of her assignments and papers at the time centered around the findings pumping out of it. It was a rare place where paleontologists, biologists, botanists, and doctors could meet to fill out natural histories and experiment with new pharmaceuticals. Because of that, their lab, and by extension the entire university, was one of the frontrunners in future medicines development.

Since being accepted into the lab, Dr Coradi had made a quick name for herself in paleo synthetics. Getting too old for it himself and happy to have a replacement, Dr Zhao had delegated most of that work to her as soon as he could. She hadn’t minded. Actually, she’d been thrilled. Getting to nurture revitalized samples, watch them grow, tend their soft spots, and synthesize any part that couldn’t be naturally replicated wasn’t much different, at the most basic level, from working in her garden.

Yvette’s thumb had been as green as grass from childhood. She was good at making things sprout and keeping them alive. The only real differences were climate—tightly controlled—and genus, and the fact that what grew in her lab didn’t always come from seed. If it could naturally regrow at all, any microscopic fleck would do. Leaf, bark, spore, stem, or pollen, she wasn’t picky; and if it couldn’t be, there were still other options. Their digital rendering programs and 3D printers made first-rate fakes.

As far as career kickoffs went, Dr Coradi considered herself lucky. She’d only spent a few months in the department's reception rotation before getting her dream assignment, and she’d totally avoided getting stuck outside. She hadn’t handled a sample in situ since her obligatory stint in field school. With her legs still scarred from tool slips and bug bites, she was grateful for that. She was more comfortable in labs. She liked doing her research somewhere clean.

Research was what she was thinking of as she snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and went to her desk to check the phone. Her crocs made a spongy sound on the recently polished tiles—one