Aya searches Eric's eyes with her own, trying desperately to detect any hint of a lie. There is, of course, none. How could this have happened? With Eve and the Ultimate Being gone, the consciousness at the head of the mitochondria's rebellion had been removed. The mutants had regressed to a more mindless state, wandering and acting on instinct rather than being unleashed and directed to attack specific locations. Aya's mind races. Could human mitochondria that attempted to rebel be the cause of such a 'sickness'? Without Mitochondria Eve to control them, perhaps...

She shakes her head. How long had she been in that pod? For civilization to collapse in such a way, much more time must have passed while she was kept in that pod than she thought.

"When...when did it start?"