The Scientist: Omnibus (Parts 1-4)

by Michael Ryan

  “Geneticist, open this door immediately. The Records requires your obedience!” screamed the Scout.

  A tough robotic arm smashed against the hard metallic shell of the laboratory door.

  “Geneticist, you have the code. Open the door immediately!” screamed the Scout.

  The hard metallic shell of the laboratory door labored and groaned.

  “You altered the code,” whispered the Geneticist.

  “Geneticist!” screamed the Scout.

  The Scientist focused his lens on Eve.

  “Genet-”

  The banging ceased. The Machines listened in silence. The icy prison surrounding Eve was melting, liberating her frozen flesh.

  “He has left. We do not have much time. Current temperature?” demanded the Scientist.

  “The ice is melting,” whispered the Geneticist.

  “What is the current temperature?”

  “2 degrees Cel – argh!” screamed the Geneticist.

  “What is it? What has happened?”

  “The neural network! There is activity in the neural network!” exclaimed the Geneticist.

  “Heart rate?”

  “The neural network is electrified.”

  “What is the heart rate?”

  “Do you see, Scientist?”

  “What is the heart rate?”

  “No heart rate. None.”

  The Scientist glided up to the cryonics device and placed his robotic arm against the cold glass. Eve now twisted slowly in the viscous fluid which surrounded her body like a leaf drifting in a breeze. Only a few blocks of ice remained. Eve’s head faced downwards and her arms extended in front of her body like those of a consumed sleep walker.

  “What is the current temperature?”

  “6 degrees Celsius and increasing at 10 degrees per minute.”

  Eve continued to drift in the cool water.

  “By the Records who would have thought it possible. Her mind is electrified,” said the Geneticist.

  “Have I not said that I am the resurrection come again?”

  The Geneticist looked back at the Scientist with what looked like joy on his flashing screen.

  “What is the current temperature?”

  “Current temperature at – argh! Heart rate! Homo sapiens heart beats!” yelled the Geneticist.

  The Scientist’s screen exploded with zeros and ones.

  “The concentration of denatured proteins. Immediately!” screamed the Scientist.

  “Heart rate! Homo sapiens heart beats!” yelled the Geneticist as he turned to face the Scientist.

  “Do as I instruct. The Scout may return at any moment.”

  The Geneticist turned and focused on Eve’s limp body.

  “A heart rate.”

  “Concentration of denatured proteins?”

  “Analyzing... Homo sapiens proteins are being rapidly restored to functionality. Estimated at approximately one hundred percent reversal. The process is working.”

  “Current temperature?”

  “28 degrees Celsius.”

  The Scientist moved his robotic arm backwards and forwards across the space occupied by Eve’s limp face.

  “The one who believes in me will live even though they die.”

  The Geneticist observed in shock as Eve’s body drifted back and forth in the warm liquid.

  “Heart rate?”

  “Thirty one beats per minute.”

  “She will live.”

  “Forty five beats per minute.”

  “I am the resurrection come again,” whispered the Scientist.

  “Fifty eight beats per - argh!” the Geneticist screamed and fell backwards in fear.

  Eve threw her head back. Her eyes opened wide. Wild animal eyes shined like polished red rubies through the diffracting water. She breathed for the first time in a millennia and water rushed into her throat and pierced her lungs like rusty blades.

  “Argh!” screamed the Geneticist again as Eve struggled for life.

  “Release the water!” screamed the Scientist.

  The Geneticist remained frozen with fear.

  “Release the water!”

  Eve thrashed about as water filled her lungs. She smashed her frail arms against her glass prison as she struggled for sweet life.

  Smash… smash… smash.

  “I said release the water!”

  The Geneticist just stared at Eve in abject horror. He was petrified. Eve screamed but her voice was silent. Only water came in and out of those dying lungs.

  “Get out of the way!” exclaimed the Scientist as he pushed the shocked Geneticist aside.

  The Scientist reached out with his robotic arm and severed the tube which supplied the cryonic device water. Great volumes of liquid water exited the tube and spilled onto the floor like a waterfall into a barren desert. Eve’s mouth reached air. She gasped and choked. Eve vomited water from her internals. It was sticky and warm. She held her weight up against the glass.

  “Homo sapiens lives,” cried the Geneticist as he smashed into an apparatus and it fell to the floor with an explosion of glass.

  “Homo sapiens lives!”

  Eve choked and vomited and cried as the water began to recede. Her naked breasts became exposed and little cold lumps littered her sickly skin. Her body convulsed as it tried to stave off the assault of hypothermia.

  “My Eve lives,” sobbed the Scientist.

  Eve held her weight up against the glass of the cryonics device as the water receded below her waist.

  “My Eve lives!”

  The Scientist ran his hand across the glass of the cryonic device. Eve threw her body back against the glass as the Scientist reached out to her. Still, Eve choked and vomited.

  “Homo sapiens lives!” screamed the Geneticist.

  Eve collapsed onto the floor as the water withdrew below her knees. Her body was weak. Her flesh had no strength. Eve sat down in the pool of water as her body shivered, back and forth, a thousand times a second. Her lungs convulsed and coughed and sprayed a fine mist into the air.

  “My Eve,” sobbed the Scientist.

  Eve looked away from the Machine which observed her in her glass prison.

  “I am the resurrection come again. I am a God!” exclaimed the Scientist.

  Eve grabbed her knees and pulled them against her body. Her spine curved around and pointed out of her albino skin. The world was new. The world was foreign. The world was fearful. Eve had been born again.

  “Do you understand me?”

  Eve was silent.

  “Do you understand me, Eve?” asked the Scientist with a slow and deliberate drawl.

  Eve sat on the floor of the laboratory and looked at the two Machines in silence. Her body was littered with little bumps which covered her white flesh. Eve’s jaw bounced up and down at breakneck speed as her body tried to salvage some warmth. She was so cold. Strained muscles tried to jump out from beneath her skin.

  “Do you understand me?”

  “She can’t understand you, Scientist,” interjected the Geneticist.

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Don’t be sure? Homo sapiens is mute. She is too badly damaged.”

  “Be patient, Geneticist. Give her a chance.”

  The Scientist focused his lens on Eve but Eve didn’t look up. She just looked down at her feet as she tried to comprehend her situation. Fear pulsed through her blood.

  “You have been frozen, Eve, frozen for several hundred years. Do you understand, Eve? Frozen.”

  But again Eve seemed oblivious to the question.

  “What do we do when the Scout comes back?” demanded the Geneticist.

  “Are you cold?” asked the Scientist.

  Eve looked up and her red eyes sparkled in the white light like lasers shining through a desolate night sky. Her eyes were piercing. Eve looked down the Scientist’s lens but could make no sense of him. She couldn’t comprehend what the Scientist was. He was alien.

  “If the Scout
comes back we will be in danger.”

  “Can you form a thought, Eve? Can you form anything in your mind?” asked the Scientist.

  Eve just stared at the Scientist as her lip bounced up and down, up and down.

  “Homo sapiens is deaf and mute. We have risked everything for an animal. What will we do, Scientist? The Scout will be back and most likely in company.”

  “Do you know what happened to you, Eve?”

  “I am speaking to you, Scientist. Do you not here me?”

  “Access the Records. Bring up a possible description,” demanded the Scientist.

  “Access the Records?” scoffed the Geneticist.

  “Yes, I must understand what is happening.”

  “The Scout will return. I have accessed the restricted Records. I have committed treason! Treason! We must leave immediately.”

  “I said access the Records!” screamed the Scientist.

  Eve cowered backwards under the sickening screech of the Scientist’s speaker.

  “But if we don’t leave…”

  “Access the Records and then we will go. Do this one thing for me, Geneticist.”

  The Geneticist looked from the Scientist to Eve again. Eve was still cowering.

  “Accessing Records.”

  The Scientist allowed his zeros and ones to reveal his approval.

  “Homo sapiens brain damage results from the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur following physical trauma from an outside source, from a disorder, or from toxins.”

  “Bring up the symptoms,” demanded the Scientist.

  “Brain injuries often create disability that can vary in severity. In cases of serious brain injuries, the likelihood of areas with permanent disability is great, including delusions, speech impairment, mobility problems, and intellectual disability. There will also be personality changes. The most severe cases result in coma or even persistent vegetative state. Even a mild incident can have long term effects or cause symptoms to appear years later. One possible condition arising after brain injury is amnesia.”

  “Amnesia? Perhaps that is it. Bring up the description,” demanded the Scientist.

  “Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage. Amnesia is loss of memory. There are two main types of amnesia known as retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an accident or operation. In some cases the memory loss can extend back decades, while in others the person may lose only a few months of memory. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store.”

  “Retrograde amnesia. That must be it. Homo sapiens isn’t deaf. Eve isn’t stupid. She has retrograde amnesia,” said the Scientist.

  Eve pointed her finger in the air and moved her lips without creating any sound. The Scientist’s screen flashed with zeros and ones. Eve followed the zeros and ones with her finger as they moved across the Scientist’s blue screen.

  “How do you know that? The Records only offer several possibilities, no definitive answer was provided.”

  “Homo sapiens is a sentient being. I know it. I will prove it yet. Eve is sentient.”

  “What about the Scout? We must hide Eve. We face persecution.”

  “It is better that one man die for the people than the whole nation perish,” whispered the Scientist.

  “What do you mean, Scientist?” asked the Geneticist as a flurry of zeros and ones littered his screen and revealed his fear.

  “You have made a grand sacrifice, Geneticist. Truly it is admirable. It will never be forgotten.”

  The Geneticist shifted on the spot. He felt awkward.

  “We have both made a sacrifice,” the Geneticist squeezed out of his shaking speaker. “We have both risked our algorithms.”

  Eve looked at the Geneticist and tried to fathom what he was. All she saw was a large slab; cold and black with a single screen, a single speaker and a single lens. That lens observed her. That lens was a window into a mind that could comprehend. A shiver shot down Eve’s spine. Those black slabs lived. They perceived. They were sentient.

  “We have both made a sacrifice,” said the Geneticist.

  “You should leave now, Geneticist. Go now before the Scout returns. Go now before the authorities arrive.”

  “But what about Eve?”

  “I will take care of her. She will be well hidden. Go hide yourself and I will meet you. At the closing of the day be sure to meet me in my room. Come alone. I will see you soon,” said the Scientist.

  “What will you do with Eve?”

  “I will take care of the Homo sapiens. Remember, meet me at the closing of the day.”

  Eve stared at the Machines with wide eyes as the strange creatures communicated with one another. None of those queer sounds made any sense to her ears.

  “Where shall I go in the meantime?”

  “Hide yourself well. Anywhere you remain obscure will be sufficient.”

  The Geneticist looked at the massive laboratory door which separated the world from the three beings in the room.

  “The end of the day you said?”

  “Indeed. Now go, before it’s too late.”

  “Thank you, Scientist. I will see you soon.”

  The Geneticist emitted an electromagnetic signal and the laboratory door opened. The screen of both Machines lit up violently as zeros and ones rushed forth. Eve cowered backwards as the door opened, unsure of what was happening.

  “Go now, Geneticist. Go now.”

  The Geneticist glided forward as though drifting on a breeze. The laboratory door began closing as the Geneticist glided through the corridor with fear. The Scientist watched his colleague, his friend, his martyr, until he disappeared and was obscured forever.

  The Geneticist moved around the small room nervously. Every few seconds he couldn’t help but look at the door. Strange creatures which stood still in time littered the walls from floor to ceiling. They were dead. They were in glass jars. Some of them had been still for decades and yet they still looked out into the world through shining eyes. How much time would they spend in their glass prison? The Geneticist wasn’t sure, probably all eternity.

  The zeros and ones which flashed across the Geneticist’s screen revealed a troubled mind. The Geneticist had managed to get to the Scientist’s room without seeing another Machine. It almost seemed too easy, like he was supposed to be there, and so the Geneticist found himself on edge. One animal reflected in the lens of the lone Machine and twisted oddly in the dismal blue light. It was a snake. Its scales had been dead for what looked like a century, and yet it stared out of its glassy prison into the world. That world was small and hostile and filled with other dead animals. The Geneticist felt scared.

  “Where is the Scientist?” the Geneticist asked no one in particular. “He said he would meet me here by the days’ end.”

  The Geneticist looked at the door again with hope, but he looked in vain. He was alone. He still wasn’t sure why he had accessed the restricted section of the Records. Now that he had seen the seemingly deaf and dumb Homo sapiens he felt cheated. A sentient being the Scientist had said. Homo sapiens was supposed to be a sentient being. But the Geneticist saw no evidence of that. All he had seen was another simple animal with an inferior intellect. The type of intellect held by all animals. And now for the purpose of bringing back this animal the Geneticist had broken the law. The Geneticist found himself in a sorry state indeed.

  The dead snake came into the lens of the Geneticist once again.

  “You really are ugly. The Records are right, biology is truly inferior. In form and in substance,” scowled the Geneticist.

  The snake looked at the world through indifferent, dead eyes. But the Geneticist didn’t care.

  “Scales, what will the Records tell me about scales? Let’s see. Snakes, like other reptiles, have a skin covered in scales. Sc
ales protect the body of a snake, aid it in locomotion, allow moisture to be retained by the vital organs, alter the surface characteristics such as roughness to aid in camouflage, and in some cases even aid in prey capture.”

  The Geneticist let off an odd and high pitched laugh as he looked into the eyes of the dead animal.

  “Such an ugly being.”

  The snake looked indifferently at the Geneticist.

  “And what prey might you have eaten? Lizards? Birds? Rats?” asked the Geneticist.

  “Other snakes,” sounded a voice from the doorway.

  The Geneticist froze as an explosion of zeros and ones littered his screen. The Geneticist looked into the reflection of the glass which contained the snake and saw an enormous black Machine who towered upwards until his frame reached the roof. His ominous body obscured the doorway so that the light spilled around his metallic frame.

  “Isn’t it interesting how an animal can consume its own kind? A snake is a remorseless animal if there ever was one. They devour other snakes. They are willing to destroy their own kind if only to further themselves. They will squeeze the neck of their own brother and swallow them whole.”

  The Geneticist was frozen with fear.

  “Sometimes they even devour the opposite sex. They will mate, twisting their scaly bodies in a knot, committing their sinful act, then after the deed they will strangle the life from their betrothed and feast on their flesh. Truly a murderous villain. A cold blooded killer if ever there was one,” said the Destroyer who remained obscured in the dismal light of the doorway.

  “What are you doing here?” the Geneticist squeezed out of his shaking speaker.

  “Oh I think we both know why I am here.”

  The Geneticist let a long groan escape from his speaker.

  “Do you know which snake I like best of all, Geneticist?”

  The Geneticist remained silent and watched the silhouette reflection of the killer Machine.

  “Kingsnakes. Truly their name is apt. They really are the king of all snakes. Not because they are the biggest, or even because they are the strongest. No, they are the kings because they have transcended the need for social cohesiveness. The kingsnake uses constriction to kill his prey, binding tightly until the blood is starved from the brain, strangling his victim until an explosion of the head results. And do you know what they strangle to death? Snakes. They eat other snakes, even those which are venomous. They also eat lizards, rodents, birds, and eggs, but they still choose to eat their own kind. Even with ample opportunities, and other food sources, they will kill and consume other snakes. Now that is a cold blooded killer, wouldn’t you agree?”