Scott Sigler

by Ancestor

Jian grabbed the catheter package. She placed it and the sample tray on the lab table.

  Embryo transfer in most in vitro procedures was done by a doctor, and guided by ultrasound. Ultrasound would take an extra set of hands. Jian did not have an extra set of hands. Too bad the orange spiders couldn’t help. They had lots of hands.

  She’d be on her back, but doing it herself would only take about five minutes.

  And besides … they were her eggs. She could do whatever she wanted with them.

  NOVEMBER 25: A VALID CONCERN

  Implantation +16 Days

  CLAUS RHUMKORRF SAT at the ultrasound station, waiting for Tim to finish running the transducer across Molly McButter’s belly. Claus had taken a liking to Molly, but that was simply because the cow showed above-average intelligence. And he liked the way she nuzzled against his chest when he scratched her ear (but only, of course, when no one else in the lab was looking).

  Jian, thank God, was looking better already. She’d even combed her hair. Two more days, three at the most, she’d be back to her normal, far-less-creative self. That was okay, though, because they were in the homestretch. No question anymore—the ancestors would live to term, and all data indicated they would walk on their own.

  That asshole Colding, manhandling him like that. How dare he. And yet Colding had been right. At least somewhat. If Jian killed herself, that didn’t help the project. With the most significant problem behind them, Claus could afford to be gracious and correct her meds. She still threw darting glances into the corners, but he estimated that behavior would vanish by the end of the day.

  The progress bar filled up. A gold-hued picture flared to life. “Heilige scheisse,” he said, the words out of his mouth before he knew it.

  Baby McButter had come a long way from its start as a microscopic ball of undifferentiated cells. If Claus hadn’t known better, he would have estimated the creature up on the screen to be four or five months along, not two weeks.

  Jian stared at the picture. She shook her head as if to clear it, then stared at it again. “There has to be a mistake,” she said. “That fetus is at least a hundred pounds.”

  “More,” Tim said as he came out of Molly McButter’s stall. “Try one-thirty.”

  “No,” Jian said. “Program say ancestors should be no more than forty pounds right now.”

  “Your program versus a scale?” Tim said. “I think the scale wins, Froot Loops.”

  “Stop with the names,” Claus said, feeling odd about his instant defense of Jian.

  “I don’t care about Jian’s bullshit program,” Tim said. “Look at the damn readouts. Well over a hundred pounds in two weeks? Nothing grows that fast. Not an elephant, not nothing.”

  Claus marveled at the life he’d created. The back legs looked much thicker than he’d theorized. The front legs looked strong as well, but were skinnier and longer than the back. That would suggest a creature that moved at somewhat of an angle, like a gorilla on all fours, as opposed to horizontally, like a running dog or a tiger.

  The skeletal structure also showed remarkable growth. The ribs looked very thick and extended from the head all the way down to the hips, growing against one another almost like a kind of internal armor.

  “Doc,” Tim said. “What are we going to do?”

  “We observe and document,” Claus said. “We prepare for a C-section in a week. Maybe less.”

  “That’s not what I mean, dude. Based on the growth patterns thus far, in another week these bitches could hit three hundred pounds.”

  Rhumkorrf nodded. “True, and adult weight could reach four hundred, maybe five hundred pounds. You’re right, the organs might be too large. We’ll adjust the genome for the second generation, but right away we can use livers, maybe even kidneys.”

  Tim’s face wrinkled up as if he were looking at a very, very stupid person.

  “What?” Claus said. “Now what is your problem?”

  “I’m not talking about transplants and organs, you fucking nerd.” Tim looked at Jian. “You know what I’m talking about, Fruity Pebbles?”

  “Mister Feely,” Claus said, “I’m not going to tell you ag—”

  “Predators,” Jian said. “Teeth. Claws. Maybe three hundred pounds at birth, possibly twice that size within days. Where will we put them? What will we feed them?”

  Claus looked at her blankly, then turned to stare at the workstation’s gold-tinted screen. He used the trackball to turn the fetal image, looking at it from every possible angle. Teeth. Claws. Muscle. Aggression. Attacking the camera, killing while still inside the womb.

  “Perhaps,” he said quietly, “that is a valid concern.”

  NOVEMBER 26: CHECKMATE

  Implantation +17 Days

  COLDING STARED AT the chessboard and contemplated his next move. He couldn’t screw it up, because he was winning—he was actually beating Jian. No one in the project had ever beaten her. Okay, maybe her brain was still a bit addled from the med shorting, but Colding would take a victory over her any way he could get it.

  He had avoided Sara as much as possible in the last two days. After, of course, he’d gone to her room and broken the cameras there. He didn’t quite know how to tell her that Andy “The Asshole” Crosthwaite had a video of her, naked, making love.

  He explained his distance by telling Sara that he had to focus on Jian, that he’d been slacking off more than a little on that part of his job. Sara understood. And he wasn’t lying, because he did focus on Jian, monitoring her progress, making sure Rhumkorrf gave the proper dosage. That and playing a lot of chess.

  Colding moved his queen’s knight and smiled. “Check.”

  Jian stared blankly out the lounge’s picture window. She seemed to have forgotten Colding was even there at all. She looked much better, though—clearly, the proper dosage was working.

  “Jian?”

  She just sat there, her hands turning a bottle of Dr Pepper over and over until the color was a light brown—the normal dark caramel shade mixed with the white of bubbles seeking escape against the bottle’s pressure. When she finally opened it, Colding thought, the thing would explode.

  “Hey, kiddo, pay attention—you’re in check.”

  She glanced at the board, then went back to turning the Dr Pepper bottle.

  “Jian, talk to me. What’s eating at you?”

  She looked at him, her eyes once again focused. “It is too big.”

  “I know, it’s okay. Gary Detweiler is getting material for heavy cages. We’ll have them up in a few days. Doc tells me that will keep the animals under control.”

  She laughed. “Doctor Rhumkorrf wants to see his name on the cover of Time magazine. He would risk all of us.”

  Colding thought of the shorted meds. Jian was more right than she knew. He also thought of the cages, and of a tiny, camera-biting fetus enlarged to two hundred pounds. Or even bigger. Rhumkorrf had assured him everything would be fine, but the man’s statements were questionable at best. If Jian was worried, then Colding was worried. “Why are the fetuses so much bigger than you thought they would be?”

  She looked down. The bottle turned faster. “I … I made projections, but … maybe I was not thinking clearly.”

  Not thinking clearly. He thought about the timeline. She’d had her breakthrough, created the successful batch right when they left Baffin three weeks ago … two weeks after Rhumkorrf started shorting her meds.

  “Jian, I need you to think. You said you coded for a herd animal. Docile, about two hundred pounds adult weight. But it’s not just the size of the ancestors, it’s the aggressive behavior, those … teeth.”

  She raised her head, looked him in the eyes. He couldn’t quite read her expression. On her face he saw doubt, confusion. “I thought I program for herbivore. But … it is predator.”

  No shit, Sherlock. Herbivores didn’t eat each other in the womb. If Genada had more time, more resources, Colding could just scrap this round of fetuses and have Jian start over. Magnus,
however, wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “I want to leave,” she said suddenly. “I want to leave this place. Something bad is going to happen, unless we stop it. We need to call someone.”

  Colding’s breath caught in his throat. He automatically looked at the camera in the upper corner. Gunther was in the security room. Did he see Colding and Jian in here? There was no sound … but Colding had also thought there was no video capture in Sara’s room. Who knew what else he was wrong about? If Magnus found out Jian was talking about leaving, what would he do?

  “Jian, don’t say that again. Don’t you even think about saying anything like that, to anyone. Do you understand?”

  “But Mister Colding, I am afraid that I … I …” Her voice trailed off.

  “These half-sentences of yours are really annoying, Jian. Just tell me.”

  She looked at the chess piece in her hand and said nothing.

  “Jian, just tell me. What are you afraid of?”

  Her eyes narrowed. Something was going on in that brilliant head of hers, but what?

  “I did things I do not remember doing,” she said. “I think that … I will look at code again, see what I can find.”

  She set down her rook in a new space that blocked his check. Colding smiled and started to move his knight into attack position, when he saw that by moving her rook, she had put his king in check with her bishop.

  “Checkmate in two moves,” Jian said absently.

  “Fuck,” Colding said.

  The bottle spun even faster. Without another word, she stood and walked out of the office.

  NOVEMBER 27: KILL ’EM ALL

  Implantation +18 Days

  JIAN HELD HER breath and waited while Claus Rhumkorrf read her report on his computer. They were alone in the upper-deck lab. She was feeling better, but not when she was around him. Stress was bad for her. Made her twitchy. Made the shadows move.

  He turned from the screen to stare at her. “But you don’t remember doing this?”

  She shook her head. “I do not, but look at it. That is the real code I used for the genome. That is why my growth projections are so off.”

  His eyes widened. She’d never seen that look before. A look of doubt, of fear. He turned back to the screen.

  “I see,” he said. “And now that you know this, you have new projections?” His tone of voice, almost like he didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “Yes, Doctor Rhumkorrf.” She again looked at the printout in her hands, even though she already knew the answer. “Birth weight, approximately two hundred fifty pounds.”

  He swallowed. She actually heard him swallow. Trembling hands reached up to readjust his black glasses. “And your best guess at … at the recalibrated adult weight?”

  “Over five hundred pounds.”

  Of all the odd things, he picked his nose for a second. He wiped his finger on his pants leg. “That would be more in line with the growth we’ve seen in the fetuses. Still, we need to see the adults. We won’t know organ functions or dimensions for sure until we have an adult. Then we can make adjustments and try again.”

  Jian couldn’t believe her ears. See an adult? Was he crazy? “Doctor Rhumkorrf, we need to kill them.”

  His head snapped around, anger smoldering in his eyes. “Kill them? But we’re succeeding!”

  Jian shook her head. “We are creating something bad. Something evil.”

  “We’ll have the cages soon. We’re not going to kill anything.”

  Jian started to speak, but was interrupted when Mister Feely’s head popped up the aft ladder.

  “Bro-ski! Froot Loops! Get down here, pronto!” He disappeared back down the ladder. Rhumkorrf and Jian followed him to the first deck.

  Mister Feely stood next to Molly McButter. Molly’s head hung almost to the ground. Thin trails of blood ran from her mouth.

  Rhumkorrf knelt to look into the cow’s mucus-coated eyes. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Tim shook his head. “I’m not sure. I just got here ten minutes ago and found her like this.”

  “Ten minutes? You should have been here hours ago, Mister Feely. Were you drinking again, or just sleeping off last night’s hangover?”

  “Fuck you, shit-breath,” Tim said as he ran down the aisle to his lab area across from the crash chairs and the elevator. He tore through the cabinets and came back with a fluid-filled IV bag and a needle envelope.

  “So?” Rhumkorrf said. “What’s wrong with her? Doctor Hoel isn’t here to wet-nurse you anymore, you drunken idiot.”

  “Know what, chief?” Tim hung the bag from a hook above Molly McButter’s stall, then knelt to work the needle into her neck. “You’re about one ounce of lip shy of me pimp-slapping you like a bitch.”

  “Just tell me what’s wrong with the cow!”

  “She’s sick, it’s like her body is feeding on itself. I’d say it’s a sudden onset of malnutrition.”

  Jian had looked over the cows just last night, and they seemed fine. Malnutrition? How could that be? Too much stress. She felt all itchy. She wanted to get out of there, get away from Rhumkorrf, Feely and the cows.

  “Ridiculous,” Rhumkorrf said. “It can’t be malnutrition. Molly’s feed bin is full; she hasn’t touched it. We’ve increased their food intake to compensate for the advanced fetal growth. She didn’t look like this yesterday … did she?”

  “Not even close,” Tim said. “Whatever made her sick, it made her so sick she stopped eating. She’s the only one showing these symptoms, so I’ll see if something is wrong with the IV setup. Maybe the pump broke or the needle jammed.”

  Jian looked at the other cows. They all looked fine. Then she saw something move in stall forty-one. Coldness blossomed in her chest. A tiny plastic baby-doll hand reached over the stall divider. A black-and-orange tiger paw appeared a few inches to its left.

  “No,” Jian said in an inaudible whisper.

  The mismatched arms shivered. A black head slowly appeared from behind the wall. Jian shut her eyes tight and jabbed her thumbs into her stomach, sending a wave of dull pain up her body. She gave her head one shake, then opened her eyes.

  The thing was gone.

  “Jian,” Rhumkorrf said sharply. She jumped at the sound of his voice and turned to face him.

  “Jian, did you hear me?” He looked annoyed. Mister Feely looked disgusted.

  “No, Doctor Rhumkorrf. What did you say?”

  “I asked what you thought of this.”

  Jian quickly looked at the sick cow, then back at Rhumkorrf. “Mister Feely is right, the rapid fetus growth is making the cow sick.”

  Tim inserted a new IV needle into Molly’s neck. “I’m going to crank up her intravenous feeding,” he said. “Hopefully that will normalize her metabolism enough for her to start eating again. I’ll increase all the cows’ food another twenty-five percent. I think that sometime during the night Molly became sick enough to stop eating, and her body started breaking down muscle in order to sustain the fetus. From there, the situation cascaded.”

  “We need to set up checks every two hours,” Rhumkorrf said. “We’ll have to create a rotation with the nonimportant staff.”

  Tim shook his head. “I can do you one better, bro-hem. I’ll program their monitors to watch for altered vitals, tie that into the security room computer. Something goes wrong, the security dude on staff gets beeped, zooms in with a camera, then gives us a holler. Easy.”

  Jian shook her head. “No. Just let them die.”

  Rhumkorrf glared at her.

  Tim nodded slowly. “Fuckin’ A right,” he said.

  “Wrong,” Rhumkorrf hissed, the word long and drawn out. Jian took a half step back.

  “These animals will not die,” Rhumkorrf said. “And if they do, I swear to God that I will destroy both of your careers. Timothy, the only way you will get near a lab is if you’re pushing a mop. And Jian, I promise you that when they take you back to China, you will spend the rest of your life rotting away
in an insane asylum.”

  Rhumkorrf’s eyes were wide and angry. A sneer bent his upper lip. Hateful. She had to look away. And when she did, Rhumkorrf turned his gaze on Tim. Tim looked down—all of his bluster, all of his threats of violence, gone.

  Rhumkorrf walked back to the aft ladder and climbed to the second deck. Jian said nothing. She had to do something to stop all of this, but what? Mister Colding wanted her to shut up. Doctor Rhumkorrf just didn’t want to listen. Mister Feely was all talk. Sara? She wasn’t one of the decision makers.

  Jian couldn’t rely on anyone. She knew what she had to do. The only question was, did she have the courage to do it?

  NOVEMBER 27: NICE ENDO

  Implantation +18 Days

  COLDING WAS GETTING the hang of snowmobiling, and, he had to admit, he liked it. A swarm of sleds shot down the snowpacked road toward the docks—Magnus and Andy out in front, Alonzo and the Twins next, then Colding, with Sara bringing up the rear.

  She hung back a little in case Colding had problems. Wasn’t exactly rocket science to drive one, but like anything else a sled took some getting used to. The brakes on a car or motorcycle usually weren’t applied while driving thirty miles an hour across snow or ice, for example.

  Up ahead, the road crested the snow-covered dune that marked the harbor. Colding’s eyes widened as he saw Magnus and Andy accelerate up the dune and fly off it, trailing comet-tails of powder through open air before they vanished behind the dune’s far side. ’Zo and the Twins took the crest more conservatively, keeping their sleds on the ground as they went over. Colding slowed and stopped a good fifty yards shy of the dune.

  Sara slid to a stop next to him. “You like what you see there?” Her smile blazed in the afternoon sun. Even with goggles covering her eyes and a helmet hiding her hair and ears, she looked stunning. The helmet didn’t hide those freckles.

  He looked back to the dune. That much air under Magnus’s sled seemed terrifying, but it also seemed like a crapload of fun. “How do you land without killing yourself?”