"Tell me what we're looking at," Hanse Davion requested solemnly. He'd read the summaries but something might have been misunderstood, and Ardan hadn't been briefed yet. He wanted the younger man - the nearest thing he had left to a brother - to give his own opinion.

Dr. Banzai activated the holodisplay and what both mechwarriors recognised as a molecular structure began to rotate in the air above the scientist's desk. "We call it the idiot ball." He could be playful at times but right now that side of him was not in evidence. "We can't replicate it, we can't cure it, but we're better than ninety percent sure we know where it came from and what it does."

Ardan blinked. "And...?"

"It's been found in sample populations from one end of the Federated Suns to the other. The Lyran Commonwealth has been checking, and while they're not as far as we are, they're picking it up too. Very limited checks in other realms come up with the same results." Banzai shrugged. "I understand MIIO is under limitations, but at this point if anyone in the Inner Sphere or near Periphery doesn't have this then they're a statistical outlier. We're trying to identify the transmission mechanism but it must be infectious on some level."

"You don't believe that all humans have it? That it's just something that we've evolved?"

"No, Colonel. This was engineered. Even the Star League chose not to explore this level of genetic engineering but there are enough characteristics that we can be sure that this is not something that nature threw up."

"If I understand your report correctly -" Anger and impatience spurred Hanse to push the conversation onwards, "- this impairs mental creativity."

"Very slightly, yes." Banzai toyed with a stylus. "For day to day life, it probably doesn't affect us at all. But when we're really thinking, focusing on... out of the box thinking? That part of our brains just doesn't work the way an unaffected human's would. It pushes us towards old and familiar solutions instead."

The people in the office were, in their ways, three of the most innovative and brilliant men in the Federated Suns. If anyone had been actively impaired by this then... they would have been.

"And yes." The stylus snapped in Banzai's hand. "All three of us test positive."

"How much of an affect does it have?"

The scientist shrugged. "How do you put a hard number on it? Let's say that since this spread the number of 'one in a generation' geniuses has been recognisably lower. Statistical analysis helped us narrow down an origin."

"The Combine?"

"No, Colonel. It's well beyond them."

Sortek shook his head slowly. "Who? Is this Star League technology? You said that they didn't really explore this field."

"It's possible that that was an active decision to help them cover this up." Banzai looked at the malignant molecule displayed above his desk. "It's pre-Star League. Pre-Terran Hegemony. It's been spreading since the early twenty-third century."

Meaning pre-Federated Suns. Only a handful of existing states back that far. "Who did this?"

Hanse gave his old friend a basilisk stare. "I theorise," he said flatly, "That when the Terran Alliance granted independence to their colonies and withdrew to their... Demarcation line. When they withdrew they left this behind, thinking it would spread and leave the colonies... neutralised. No threat to them."

"It's possible, but Terra is fairly definitely infected." Banzai shrugged. "It's possible they miscalculated on some level. Or just forgot, hard as it is to imagine. Governments changed so quickly then that it's possible those aware of the Idiot Ball died or were sidelined and didn't dare tell their political rivals what had been done."

Sortek looked at Dr. Banzai, subconsciously turning his head so he couldn't quite see the holo-display. "You said you can't cure it? Could we... vaccinate?"

"I hope so." The scientist looked frustrated... and angry. "We're working on it, but this field has been neglected for centuries. And what it'll take to break this is exactly the sort of creativity that it is meant to stiffle."

"Eight hundred years." Hanse's voice was ugly. "Eight centuries that we've been... lobotomised. And we didn't even know."