Ancestor

“The ancestors are out there...you have to believe me.”From acclaimed author Scott Sigler—New York Times bestselling creator of Infected and Contagious—comes a tale of genetic experimentationвЂTMs worst nightmare come true. Every five minutes, a transplant candidate dies while waiting for a heart, a liver, a kidney. Imagine a technology that could provide those life-saving transplant organs for a nominal fee ... and imagine what a company would do to get a monopoly on that technology. On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, PJ Colding leads a group of geneticists who have discovered this holy grail of medicine. By reverse-engineering the genomes of thousands of mammals, Colding's team has dialed back the evolutionary clock to re-create humankindвЂTMs common ancestor. The method? Illegal. The result? A computer-engineered living creature, an animal whose organs can be implanted in any person, and with no chance of transplant rejection. There's just one problem: these ancestors are not the docile herd animals that Colding's team envisioned. Instead, ColdingвЂTMs work has given birth to something big, something evil. With these killer creatures on the prowl, Colding and the woman he loves must fight to survive — even as government agents close in to shut the project down, and the deep-pocketed company backing this research proves to have its own cold-blooded agenda. As the creators become the prey in the ultimate battle for survival, Scott Sigler takes readers on the ultimate thrill-ride—and offers a chilling cautionary account of what can happen when hubris, greed, and madness drive scientific experimentation past the brink of reason. "Deformed by the desert he had been born in, Antronos had fought hard to overcome the stigma of being a surface dweller and make his place in the underground civilization of the Temlochti State. Finally accepted in academia, he graduates with a degree in medicine and accepts a position as a graduate student in the laboratory of Sen Vernus, a Professor Emeritus who demonstrates an extensive and arcane knowledge of longevity. The weak-willed Lord Jait possesses psychic power he has no idea how to use-power that Vernus can use to possess others. The 'longevity' studies progress from stealing body parts to control over entire beings. Can Antronos resist the mind invasions of Vernus or will he destroy Lord Jait, the very man he has vowed to save?"--Publisher description Deep below a desolate Utah mountain lies the largest platinum deposit ever discovered. A billion-dollar find, it waits for any company that can drill a world's record, three-mile-deep mine shaft. EarthCore is the company with the technology, the resources and the guts to go after the mother lode. Young executive Connell Kirkland is the company's driving force, pushing himself and those around him to uncover the massive treasure. But at three miles below the surface, where the rocks are so hot they burn bare skin, something has been waiting for centuries. Waiting ... and guarding. Kirkland and EarthCore are about to find out firsthand why this treasure has never been unearthed. When grizzled prospector Sonny McGuiness discovers platinum dust on a desolate Utah mountain, he thinks he's struck it rich. Then McGuiness runs headlong into the corporate power of a shadowy mining conglomerate called "EarthCore."