Marcus turned the parchment pages, displaying historical blueprints stamped with the highest level of national defense classification:

“`

==================================================================

UNITED STATES NAVY // SPECIAL PROPULSION & CIPHER COMMAND

PROJECT TITLE: ‘CHRONOS-ROOT’ (1992–1996)

LEAD RESEARCHER: DON EMILIO VAZQUEZ, PH.D.
CO-DIRECTOR: BRIGADIER GENERAL ARTHUR CALDWELL, USA
OBJECTIVE: DECENTRALIZED QUANTUM-BIOLOGICAL LAUNCH CIPHERS FOR
THE COLUMBIA-CLASS NUCLEAR BALLISTIC SUBMARINE FLEET
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET // ORCON // SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED

“`

Marcus traced the historical timeline:

“During the early 1990s, the Department of Defense recognized that digital and satellite communication systems would eventually become vulnerable to foreign quantum computing decryption. To secure the sovereign nuclear deterrent of the United States, Emilio Vazquez engineered a biological cryptographic bridge.”

“He realized that the only encryption matrix that could never be mathematically brute-forced by an enemy supercomputer was a living, evolving human genome—a multi-layered epigenetic cipher that existed exclusively within the mitochondrial DNA of his direct maternal descendants.”

Marcus looked directly into my eyes: