A MILLION YEARS ago, and a bit more, a lifeless moon had been infected with a carefully structured virus. That moon had then been exploded, sending out countless fragments, seedlings, like the seeds of a dandelion, blowing across the billions of miles of space.

It was to bring life where no life existed. It was an optimistic gesture. But in one place, that hopeful experiment went terribly wrong. One seedling hit a nuclear pile on the planet Earth, and dragged shattered bits of human DNA into the crater.

Slowly the virus and the chromosomes and the radiation cooked up a monster. The virus spread, but instead of creating life it began to infect the very fabric of reality. It spawned mutations. It created its own unhinged version of evolution.

Light, Chapter 31