“Let me start by saying that I’ve been up to the most important work of my life. The things I’ve uncovered may change the face of human society forever.” The doctor stopped and inspected a dense fluid in a beaker. He grabbed a nearby assistant and said, “Keep an eye on this one. Don’t touch it, though. These things practically run themselves these days.” He began walking again as if he never stopped. “Anyway, this work of mine, though important, is incredibly … well, Cooper called it unorthodox just now, and I think that’s an apt description. If anyone within Andyne discovered what we were up to, they’d shut us down, seal the files, and lock us up. They have the power to do it. I’ve seen it.
“So I’ve been waiting for them to send you independent investigator types. I can reason with you, show you my way of thinking, get you on my side. You’re not company brainwashed just yet.”
Eventually, we reached an old freight elevator that took us slowly down to the basement.
“I just didn’t expect it would happen so soon,” muttered Dr. Bird. I looked to Alice. She looked nervous and began fingering her holstered gun. I felt it, too—an indescribably heavy aura of anxiety and loss that grew with each meter the elevator descended.
The elevator opened to a dark, damp room. “Goddammit,” said Bird, “let me find that light switch.” Bird took two steps forward and disappeared into the darkness. “Let me explain while I do this,” Bird’s voice echoed in the room. “I’ve spent years making stimulants and genetic therapies and artificial what-have-you, spent my whole life trying to improve the human body. Humanity’s a funny thing. Why are our bodies so imperfect? Why do outside agents, medications, improve us so much? Why isn’t that innate?” We could hear him shuffling in the dark. “Any guesses?”
“Because of evolution?” asked Alice carefully.
“To put it broad terms, yes. We are inherently flawed, poorly constructed. I realized that twisting DNA strands and augmenting bodies can only do so much if the blueprint is faulty. You can’t build the Taj Mahal if the foundation rests on top of sand, as it were. So instead of wasting my time contending with human frailty, improving something that even at its apex is still disappointing, why not move humanity forward? Do something meaningful. I’ve unfortunately been
… here it is—”
A loud thunk resonated through the basement as the overhead lights sprang to life, revealing a fairly small and mostly empty room, half of which was cordoned off by a series of metal bars, like one would find in a prison. “I’ve unfortunately been incapable of discerning how to progress, but then, it hit me.”
“During the earthquake?” I hazard to guess.
“Yes! I had begun to think about human frailty after that first great quake, but each night since the second quake, I’ve been visited by a species of creatures that call themselves Mi-go. Yes, I see that look on your face, but you must trust me here. Many of my colleagues have encountered these Mi-go as well. Fascinating fungal beings of superior intelligence—superior in every way in fact. Each night, they visit, and we discuss well … science, metaphysics, astronomy, all manner of things. And in every discussion, they have proven themselves to be definitively beyond human reasoning. They have convinced me that they are a superior being, and as such, I am copying their form. As a gift, the Mi-go gave me a DNA sample. Fascinating, impossibly complex. I have since been working to improve humanity, to construct man in their image.
“I’ve reworked their DNA sample into something similar to one of the gene-altering tablets we currently produce and have begun testing it. It’s only been used on cadavers so far. Safety is my top priority, you see. Specifically, I’ve tested on the bodies of sensitive artists as they too appear to have been touched. Have you seen that mural across the street? That’s the Mi-go! Plain as day! That mural drove me mad with its beauty, and I leapt with joy when I heard that the boy passed … but I can see that you’re still skeptical. I admit, it’s a lot to process, but I suppose, it must be seen to be believed. Would you like to bear witness to the greatest leap forward in human history?”
I nodded. Alice kept a hand close to her gun.
Bird walked over to the metal bars, pulled a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door. “Come forth,” he said and out of the darkness emerged a vile crustacean-like thing. It walked upright like a human, but most of its body was covered with a thick yellow carapace, and it had cumbersome claws that clutched an ornate scroll. Patches of bare—human—skin still showed through, as did tiny hairs, but once you saw the face you could hardly call it human anymore. There was no mouth as far as I could tell. In its place were a series of tiny grasping pincers and two slits, which I assume constituted its nose. On top of the creature’s head were two eyes on stalks that rotated 360 degrees before settling on me. I stared into those dead eyes as they blinked, one at a time, and felt as though I was less human simply for acknowledging the thing’s existence. I felt those eyes peering into me just as the eyes in the mural had earlier.
“It’s the artist boy,” said Bird. “I’ve not only reanimated him but made him better.”
“You said you’ve been in communication with other scientists,” I said. “Who are they? Tell us now.”
“Too many to number,” said Bird with his standard smile. “Apart from all the researchers here, who are fully committed to the experiment, there are men and women all over the world who have felt the call to human improvement. Many have been touched by the Mi-go, but some even speak of entities whose names I scarcely know how to pronounce. This is an exciting time to be alive. We’re witnessing our own obsolescence.”
My mind ached under the burgeoning air of dread and anxiety. When I stared into that ghastly creature, these feelings increased ten-fold. It felt as though those hideous eyes were peeling apart my brain. I turned away and looked at Alice. She now had her gun out.
“This is fucked up, Doctor. This is fucked up,” she said
“Put that thing away. You can’t stand in the way of progress!” said Bird.
Alice’s hands shook violently. Tears streamed down her face.
“Shooting me would accomplish nothing. These experiments practically run themselves. Look here.” Dr. Bird grabbed the scroll from the monster and unfurled it. It contained an arcane script with what looked like Arabic annotations. “A gift from my friends abroad, written by their greatest medieval mystics. Don’t you see? The astral entities have been imparting their knowledge on humanity for centuries. Mi-go DNA, the scientific advances following the first earthquake, and these seals: it’s all their handiwork. With these mystic seals, the work can go on without the aid of human hands. One simply needs to recite the incantation. Come now, you can’t deny progress.”
“I can already feel that fucking thing inside me,” Alice screamed before shooting Bird in the head.
The scroll clattered to the floor, stained with blood, as the doctor fell at his creation’s feet. The thing prodded Bird with its claw and let out a deep groan. It turned to Alice and stared, almost mournfully. The atmosphere changed once more.
I felt indescribably heavy and depressed, even more than before. The room shrank into a black void of only Alice, the creature, and me. I turned to Alice to know if she still existed. She placed the gun to her head. Her finger danced on the trigger.
I wanted to shout to her but found my voice was gone.
“Why this?” I could hear the creature’s voice in my head. “Why this?”
My arms felt like they were made of lead.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” the voice said.
I could hear Alice sobbing. It was the only thing that tied me to reality as I began to hallucinate. I saw the Mi-go in hitherto unknown cities of absurd and incomprehensible geometry and ruled by terrifying leviathan masters. I felt myself becoming one with the creatures. That horror of acknowledgment, of witnessing the smallest humanity within this monster frightened me the most. I couldn’t allow this creature to whittle away at my psyche or, worse, make its existence comp
rehensible. It had to be destroyed. With great effort, I grabbed my gun, swung my arm around, having lost fine motor control, and shot three bullets randomly. One kind ricochet hit the creature in the eye, breaking the spell.
Alice fell to the floor as the creature screamed in anguish. I hit the elevator button, and we rose to the surface, the sound of the monster’s shrieks following us up.
I drove Alice to the hospital that night. The doctors said she was physically fine but had suffered some great mental trauma. They said they could fix her mind with an Andyne gene splicing treatment. I told them to go to hell.
To this day, she sits in an institution, screaming her lungs out day and night. I told the Andyne heads what had happened, and the next day, the facility was crawling with military personnel. All the records are classified—I’ve checked. There’s no way to know what was true and what I just imagined. Most days, I think that I’m going crazy too and that I’ll soon be sharing a cell with Alice, but every once in a while, I see snatches of it in the paper.
“Laboratory Explosion, No Survivors.”
“Famed Scientist Checks into Mental Hospital.”
“Genetic Alteration Drug Recalled for Unknown Purpose.”
Now, when I roam the city streets, I see these transhumanist companies strangling the humanity out of us. One of these days, I’m going to be the last human left alive on a Mi-go colony. Whatever’s tormenting humanity isn’t done. Not by a long shot.
When SJ Leary isn’t writing or engaging in some incredibly depressive episode, he spends his free time either haunting the doorways of dear friends or burying acorns in preparation for the coming winter. He finds both writing and acorn burial to be difficult work, though necessary to ensure he has enough to eat when his student loan repayments begin, while he finds self-deprecation and wearing out his welcome to be merely great sport. Comrades and licensed care professionals have describe Mr. Leary as either “The most pretentious person I have ever met,” “Incredibly punctual, almost violently so,” and “Really not so bad, once you get used to him.”
Advanced Placement
Richard Lee Byers
Lisa Clarke liked teaching Advanced Placement. When she was really teaching, it was fun; when she was drilling the kids in preparation for one of the several state-mandated standardized tests, it was easy at least. Her students were bright enough that several hands usually shot up with the right answer, and then, it was on to the next item.
But a moment came when no hands went up. The new question on the pull-down screen in front of the chalkboard stumped everybody. It read, Sound is to air as vision is to _____.
Sitting up front with her frizzy black hair and braces, Nikhila asked. “What’s the answer, Ms. Clarke?”
Light, Lisa surmised, but to her private amusement, she wasn’t sure, either. Fortunately, teachers received the electronic version of a cheat sheet.
“Let’s take a look.” She touched a button on her tablet screen to display the solution.
Sound is to air as vision is to taint.
“Taint,” snickered Jamal, wearing the Orlando Magic jacket he sported constantly, indoors and out, no matter how hot the Florida sun became. Some of the others laughed.
Always serious about schoolwork, Nikhila shot him a scowl and returned her attention to Lisa. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s because it doesn’t make sense,” Lisa said. “It’s gotten garbled somehow. Which just goes to show what I’m always telling you guys. You have to proofread, and when autocorrect makes a change, you have to double check it.”
After the lunch bell rang, she filled out an online form to report the glitch, though it was a little annoying that she had to. The test developer who’d let the mistake slip through probably made more money than she did.
When class resumed, the practice exercises turned to biology. The screen in the front of the room displayed plants and animals, and the kids had to pick the proper classification from the four presented. The pine was a conifer tree, and the toad was an amphibian.
Then the National Geographic-style photos gave way to something murkier.
Nikhila screwed up her face in disgust, and Jamal exclaimed, “Gross!”
The creature certainly was: spiny tentacles surrounding its maw and a ring of glistening black eyes above. What looked like a second slobbering gash of a mouth opened in the center of its body, stalks like rotting tulips stuck up from its back, and spindly, many-jointed legs zigzagged down to the ground. There appeared to be five legs on one side and three on the other.
“What is that?” Nikhila asked.
“Look at the choices,” Lisa said. When she did that herself, she found Fungus, Reptile, Insect, and Synthetic.
“Insect!” several children chorused, and clearly, they were correct. Lisa had never seen a creature like this before, but some insect species were notably grotesque, and the other choices were impossible.
Still, when she clicked on Insect, the program told her, Good guess, but no. Please try again!
Well, then, Reptile. It was the only other animal choice. But that wasn’t right, either. Nor was Fungus.
Synthetic was the only option left. She clicked, and the screen declared her Correct!
“But it’s not,” she said. “It’s another mistake. A living creature can’t be synthetic.”
Nikhila raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“What is it, really?” asked the dark-haired girl.
“An insect, just like you all thought.”
“What kind?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. With some research, we could figure it out, but for now, let’s move on.”
At the end of the day, Lisa reached Doug Baker’s office just as two boys were trudging out. Judging from their hangdog expressions, the pudgy, round-faced principal had just given them a scolding.
With justice done, Doug was fishing a diet ginger ale out of his mini-fridge. When he spotted Lisa, he brought out two. “What’s up?” he asked.
She popped the top, and the soda can hissed. “There are problems with the practice tests.”
“Like what?” he asked.
She told him.
When she finished, he shrugged. “Well, two items. You have to expect some typos the first year.”
“They seemed like more than typos. They were weird. The bug looked diseased or deformed.”
Doug smiled. “You know what the kids see online and in video games? I doubt you gave anybody nightmares.”
“Still, the answers were gibberish.”
“Then it’s a good thing you were there to explain that.”
“What if the same kinds of mistakes are in the e-workbooks they’re going through at home?”
“Then somebody will catch those and fix them, too.”
As she walked to her car and drove home, Lisa told herself that somebody didn’t have to be her. Thanks to Common Core II, educators and parents all across America were grappling with the stupid test. Still, after she rinsed the supper dishes and put them in the dishwasher, a combination of curiosity and a lack of good TV prompted her to switch on her tablet and open one of the workbooks.
The contents were like the in-class exercises. Mostly, they were all right, but scattered among the valid analogies were Chaos is to strong as mind is to weak, Prey is to curve as predator is to angle, and The old are to basalt as man is to dust.
Sometimes one of the strange comparisons tugged at her, and she felt like she ought to understand. But of course it was only her tiredness creating the illusion that the analogies might actually track. She reported each, and the testing corporation website acknowledged that she had.
She then checked the items she’d reported earlier. They were still as she’d first discovered them. The company hadn’t reached out across the internet to fix what was on her cloud drive.
But though that was aggravating, it wasn’t surprising. It had only been a few hours. She switched off the tablet and went to bed. She dreamed
that something that resented her calling it an insect was crawling on the ceiling. The drool from its two mouths dripped down to glue her inside the covers.
The next day, the problem with the in-class activities was worse. There still weren’t all that many nonsense items, but there were more as if they were cancer metastasizing through the body of the exercises.
“All right,” she told the class, “it’s obvious the quizzes are still having problems. So we’re just going to skip past the items that are wrong.”
With that resolved, she tried to skim text and take in visuals as quickly as possible and, if something was flawed, whisk the question off screen before the students had a chance to process it. That way, she wouldn’t waste time or confuse them.
Though really, there was more to it than that. The problem items weren’t obscene or outrageous. They weren’t likely to titillate, traumatize, or rouse the ire of a protective parent. But something about them made Lisa’s throat tighten as if she were about to start feeling queasy. She wanted to keep every trace of the content out of the children’s heads.
Sadly, her tactics elicited a reaction. Some of the kids began leaning forward, peering, trying to grasp what was on display before she could snatch it away. She’d given them a challenge, a game to relieve the tedium of the drills.
She told herself that, if it made them pay closer attention, it was actually a good thing. Then Nikhila shouted, “Stop!”
Surprised, Lisa eyed the girl quizzically.
When Nikhila realized she’d yelled out, she looked mortified. Still, she pressed on: “I’m sorry, Ms. Clarke. But the last question wasn’t one of the messed-up ones.”
Wasn’t it? Lisa had been so intent on zipping through the faulty items quickly that, perhaps, she’d made a mistake. With a twinge of reluctance, she called back the screen she’d banished a moment before.
Supposedly, it was a problem in geometry. Too advanced for her class, precocious as they were, but that wasn’t the real concern. Though it was difficult to make out exactly why, her instincts told her the shape in the diagram came together in an impossible way, like a tangle of Escher staircases subverting up and down.
Tomorrow's Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity Page 13