Author: Yueyang Wang
No.365: assigned as Breeder for Stem Cell No. 173.
I saw my number on the screen.
This was my first time breeding.
The surgery started immediately. Mechanical arms extended a catheter into my body, warm fluid surged in, and then instruments moved back and forth within me. Minutes later, the seed had been planted in my cavity.
I was moved onto a conveyor belt, transported to the breeding center.
Here, everyone was obligated to do the breeding tasks. We can enjoy extra care, great food, and comfortable dorms during breeding.
That night, I dreamed my belly blew up like a balloon and took me outside the window, over the high walls of the breeding center, past this planet’s colonies, into space, and finally toward a mysterious blue planet.
The breeding process was lonely and tedious. Fortunately, I got a partner—who communicated with me through movements inside me. I could feel the changes, realizing I was not just a carrier but a fusion of myself and the seed – a symbiotic relationship akin to roots and fungus intertwining.
By the tenth week, surprisingly, he learned my language and started talking with me in my mind.
“Who are we? Where are we?” He was so curious.
“You are a seed. I am your breeder. I am nurturing you. Once complete, they will study you.”
“Who are they? Why study me? I’m just a fragile carbon-based creature.”
“They are the masters of this world. Seeds come from various civilizations, each shaped by different environments. Carbon-based creatures are weak but adaptive—this is what they want to learn.”
“Why use you to nurture me?”
“Most carbon-based lives have vanished. To obtain your biological samples, they need carriers. We were specially engineered with universal breeding cavities.”
“And after breeding?”
“I might nurture more of you or be destroyed.”
You fell silent.
“Let’s escape.”
We came to the walls at midnight. You taught me to find steel rods and use them as footholds, moving step by step upward. My bloated body made climbing difficult. Slowly and finally we reached the top.
Beyond the wall lay a vast swamp.
“Jump!”
The cold relentlessly invaded.
Where could we run?
We were chasing an unknowable dream.
Eventually, they caught us.
They tied us up and roughly opened my cavity.
It was empty.
I knew you had left my cavity long ago, settling instead in my mind.
They started probing everywhere in my body.
“Now!” You shouted.
I grabbed a blade from the surgical table and stabbed into the mechanical arm.
Sparks exploded on the silicon panels. It made an electronic groan, collapsing into a cube-sized box.
Alarms blared.
I picked up an alcohol burner and smashed it to the ground.
Flames roared.
They could no longer control me. Here, no death—only fire and glory.
Experiment Summary No. 173:
Stem cell No. 173 originated from the dominant species of the Solar System’s Earth (known as “humans”). Neural stem cells were dedifferentiated in vitro to achieve pluripotency and implanted into the carrier.
However, we overlooked the invasiveness of human cells and their epigenetic memory. The embryo did not develop normally within the cavity but invaded the breeder’s brain, reshaping Breeder No. 365’s neural network.
The invasion endowed Carrier No. 365 with a strong sense of self and rebellion.
This transformation leads us to reevaluate human civilization.
Though their civilization ultimately reached only Level 1, it produced vast cultural works of collective consciousness. Humans possess insatiable curiosity, an indomitable will to conquer challenges, and defy death with love.
Human civilization—so short, so powerless.
And yet, so persistent, so determined.