In 2086, NatGov was poised to arrest Dr. Dar Lumbre for performing genetic experiments banned by law, but before the warrant could be served, a solar flare erased large amounts of national census data. During the chaos created by this massive data loss, Dr. Lumbre vanished like a will-o'-the-wisp and hasn't been seen in fifty years. His disappearance triggered questions...
Did NatGov assassinate him?
Did he change his identity and go into hiding?
Did he ascend?
Believing the solar flare to be divine providence, the enigmatic doctor's followers formed the Dar Lumbre Society and proclaimed his timely return, not as a fugitive, but as a sociopolitical messiah destined to unite the divided country by serving as a nexus between science, politics, and religion.
CellTech geneticists, Crane Hopkins and Annie Lee, are thrust into this melee due to the failure of DL-666, the oddly-named synthetic heart tissue developed by Dar Lumbre shortly before his disappearance. Many people, including the First Lady of the United States, are awaiting heart transplants which cannot be performed with the malfunctioning tissue. Crane and Annie launch a frantic search for compatible DNA to make the needed repairs, but are stymied time after time because the records of Dr. Lumbre's original work have disappeared, if they ever existed.
Dar Lumbre is of Mexican descent, and in Spanish, his name means to give light. If he reappears, will he establish himself as a bold new light in the world of medicine? Or will NatGov ban his efforts a second time and impose another scientific dark age, as the number 666 might suggest?
