Genetics professor Michelle Murphy loses§her husband under mysterious circumstances and without warning, while their§brilliant eight year old daughter Avalon, adopted in Kazakhstan, stubbornly§believes she is a mutant.§§As if this were not enough she soon finds§herself thrown into the middle of a quickly thickening plot, where the legacy§of Genghis Khan meets the hunt for FOXP5, a genetic transcription factor that§could herald the dawn of new human species.§§Initially caught helplessly between§well-meaning fellow scientists, the government and more sinister agents,§Michelle, with the help of a host of unlikely heroes, eventually takes control§and finds the courage to confront the decision of whether to save human lives§or humanity.§§The scientific and§technical aspects underlying the plot - in particular aspects of FOX proteins,§genetic mutations, viruses and cancer as well as the relation between§intelligence and cortical complexity - are introduced and discussed by the§authors in an extensive non-technical appendix.