The lab was busier than usual that day. Scientists jogged through the corridors, most of them with strange-looking documents and apparatuses. Engineers were hunched over their charts and screens, rechecking every tiny detail, for the thousandth time. The rich people, some were standing, some were sitting, some were smoking, some were sipping wine, felt the tension rise every passing second, as they watched the weird-looking machine on the other side of the safety glass. They had put a lot of money into this, the experiment of the century or so the news reports called it.
‘You think this will work?’, the man asked and leaned back on the sofa.
The woman sitting next to him took a sip of wine, stared at her watch, and looked over at the man. ‘We’ll know in about a minute.’
‘Not the experiment. The promise.’
‘What about it?’
‘You think whatever comes out of that machine would be all that they said it would be? The ideal human. The perfect human.’
‘I don’t really care.’
‘Hmm, I thought so.’, the man said, stood up, went over to the safety glass, and stared at the machine on the other side.
The woman watched him go, smirked, and took another sip of wine.
The man looked on at the machine, a capsule the size of a refrigerator, with all kinds of pipes and wires attached to it. It hissed and smoked now and then in the cold chamber on the other side of the glass. He shifted his gaze to the seven glass vials above the capsule. If one were to scrutinize the fourth vial, they would find the man’s name and his company’s logo embossed on it. His company had worked on the contents of that vial, a viscous blue liquid that teemed with the DNA fragments of some of the most kind and grateful people on the planet. Not just people, he thought as he remembered his dog.
The speaker above his head crackled. The man’s heart started beating a little bit faster. It was about to begin.
‘Hello everyone. We will be commencing the injection procedure in 15 seconds.’, a robotic sound boomed from above the man’s head.
There was a pause and the countdown started.
10…9…8…7…
The man tapped his foot and fidgeted with his watch.
…6…5…4…3…
The woman behind him stood up.
…2…1.
The machine hissed and the first vial, with orange liquid, emptied out into the capsule.
‘Humility Injection successful.’, the voice above boomed.
The next vial and the one after that emptied out. The fourth one took its time or so the man thought. Must be the viscosity, he comforted himself.
‘Gratitude Injection successful.’
The man let out a sigh and his shoulders relaxed, but his heart kept on trying to escape his chest.
The other vials emptied out into the capsule in succession and after a long pause, the voice above boomed again.
‘Injection Procedure successful. All parameters are normal.’
Somebody next to the man started clapping. Others followed. The woman behind him sat back down and emptied her glass of wine. The man stared at the machine and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He also started clapping. His heart beat in perfect sync.
An embryo infused with all of the goodness in the world floated inside the machine
***
If there’s one thing that nature does, then it’s balance. Man and woman. Night and day. Summer and winter. Predator and prey. Life and death.
As the man clapped and the embryo floated, a thousand miles away, a hot spring gurgled, and a creature slithered out. A blob, no larger than an ant, snailed its way along the rough terrain. Its black body glimmered under the afternoon sun. The blob could smell something. Something new. Something just like itself but equally different. It followed the scent.
***