Author: M.D. Parker

A chime signaled the readiness of the mixture. She considered it for a moment; There should be celebratory horns of cheer, she thought. If only this machine knew what it had just done.

She gripped the cylinder with all four digits wrapped tight. A thought launched from her lower brain, traveled down the cable into the arm of the lab’s chair and swung her around. She came face to face with the tube. The side was open and waiting like the arms of a mother. She inserted the canister locking it in place. The tube’s walls closed in checkerboard materialization until it was solid. The chair brought her to the communications terminal of the laboratory. The Admiral’s familiar, yet unfriendly, face greeted her on the screen.

“We’re ready,” she said. He did not answer. His elongated head and prominent brow just nodded.

On one end of the lab was the transparent wall looking out onto the young planetary orb floating in the cold of space. The chair’s multi-jointed arm realigned itself, positioning her one-quarter of a meter from the wall. She looked down and stared at the blue-green ball that had so recently coalesced into shape. From this view, she couldn’t see the volcanoes bursting nor the geologic plates that wrestled each other to find position. This world was still in the throes of infancy. She knew the screen allowed for magnification. She could look down on the primordial soup of the seas that covered so the surface, but she did not. She loved the view from up high; to see the whole of this world at once. It was beautiful.

“Doctor, the Admiral has requested that you accompany him on the observation deck during implantation.”

She hadn’t heard them enter. She turned her chair and watched as they escorted the tube out of the laboratory. It’s silvery-white housing hovering its way through the door guided by the speaking one’s hand.

“Yes, of course.”

She dismounted her chair and followed. Her white body wrap stood in metaphoric contrast to their graphite colored ones. A junction in the hallway separated them from her. They continued down the hall, while she found her way to a lift platform, ascending to the observation level.

Others were there awaiting her arrival. She tried to divert her eyes from them as they spoke her name and gave praise to her. Some of them truly meant it, she realized. Some cared only for what they could do with her design. Their adulation was false, and their words held a stink that she knew would blacken her mind if she spent more time among them.

“Doctor, thank you for joining us,” The admiral nodded. His brow lifted and his arms extended as he turned to face the others once she had taken her position within the room.

“My fellows,” he continued. “Today we embark on a great experiment. On behalf of the council, I thank each of you for your part. Now, I’ll turn us over to the doctor as she guides us through the final implementation of the project. Doctor… the short version, please.”

“Yes, of course.”

She gestured to the screen where she began explaining how the project had come from idea to fruition. She quickly took them through each of the steps that had brought them all to stand before her.

“… The mixture of amino acid compounds that define our structural genetic coding is making its way to the surface. This planet, the third from its sun in this isolated arm of the galaxy. From here we’ll learn if we will become gods.”