So Much More

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

So Much More

By Plot Roach
　
Newborns were always his favorite. They were so fresh and new, so untouched by what would happen to them later in life. A brand new slate reminding him that anything was possible, given the right splice of genetics, that is.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Dr. Portlafoy asked.

“I’m on break, visiting the newborns.”

“They’re hatchlings” she corrected. They were never ‘born’, that’s a mammal thing. And you really need to stop anthropomorphizing them. They’re just animals.”

“Correction, they are an alien form of life we have perverted for our own cause. Who knows what they could have become had they not been manipulated by human labs for profit?”

“They’re animals, nothing more, Dr. Marea.”

She walked off in a huff, leaving him smiling at the latest batch of Kingeds. “But they could be so much more.” he whispered.

Back at the lab, he was ordered to examine the latest brood, manipulated to work the mines of Cirrus 7. They could breathe the methane of the small moon and had a separate set of lungs to breath the oxygen of their home barracks, so as to not trouble their human handlers with little things like gas masks and oxygen tanks.

Dr. Marea stunned one with the electro probe, binding its feet, wings and legs to keep it from escaping during the examination. Its eyes gazed off into space, but quickly recovered, studying the man who held it. “Sorry, little guy. But I have to make sure that you are healthy before sending you out.” he patted the creature on the head, sending its ruff of feathers erect along its spine. It was a defensive posture. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

He checked the heartbeat, the two sets of lungs and its body temperature before clipping the bands off of its limbs and setting it into the cargo cage. In a few short hours, it would be leaving the labs of its ‘birth’ and would begin its training on Cirrus 7, never to see the lab or the doctor again.

Dr. Marea examined a dozen more specimens before finding them all hale and hearty enough to join their sibling in the cargo cages. Once done, the doctor sighed, removed his medical gear and uniform and exited the labs of Biodex for his shift.

He stopped by the newborn section and watched the next generation through the glass, wondering what new and wonderful creatures would be emerging from the lab. More workers, no doubt, he told himself. Wouldn’t it be nice to make something beautiful just for the joy of it? Or something that could accompany us as the cats and dogs did of Earth long ago?

His mind raced with the possibilities, and the list inside his mind of what would be needed came almost at once. But I dare not do it, he thought. The company would condemn me to grunt work cleaning up labs if they ever found out that I used company time and money to create something just for the thrill of it. But he remembered the creatures that he had examined earlier that day, though they had been built for utility, they were still beautiful.

Maybe if I fake a requisition? He asked himself. But no, he thought, I might get caught. He looked down at the creatures, in assorted body types and colors. Would it be worth trying? Even if he got caught? Even if his creations were destroyed due to their creator’s poor plan?

He stayed up all night, the list of materials needed danced in his head like a Jupiter moon showgirl. By the time his morning shift came, he was determined to see just how far he could go with his little plan. The list of genes and equipment, the funds and lab time needed. Everything down to the incubators was accounted for. He filed the paperwork, stating that a mining colony needed the beasts as a type of companion animal to help ease the suffering of the old and damaged miners and to help them return to a semi functional level by using the animals as types of servants. Which meant that they had to be mobile, intelligent and able to communicate with their human masters. And if they should be beautiful as well? It would only add to their attractiveness to the miners.

His plan in motion, three weeks passed before he examined the first of his ‘companion helpers’. They were bold, intelligent and beautiful just as he made them to be.

He pulled the first from the incubator, stunning it to examine its progress. Once done, he set it aside to examine the others of its kind. Each watched him with iridescent eyes, a spark of intelligence present at even this early stage.

A month later, he began their training. What tasks that would be expected of them. He named each of them, and knew their personalities by heart. Finally the day came when they were to be crated and sent to their respective homes. But he had faked the destination orders and Biodex would be sending them to another location, a small moon base that he had rented to continue with his research.

As he began examining the first of the brood, a security officer halted him in his work. He was found out by the company, probably snitched out by the woman, Dr. Portlafoy, his co worker in the labs.

As they dragged him off from the lab, one of the creatures released itmself. It had, after all, been altered for intelligence as well as loyalty. It released the others and soon the lab was swarmed with the creatures, defending their ‘father’ against the rest of the humans in the lab colony.

Dr. Marea smiled as he watched their beautiful feathered forms streak across the complex, defending him at each section of the lab from his attackers. If only he could get them, and himself, to the shuttle before security rounded them all up and had them destroyed…

This, he thought, is proof of their potential. Bred to be domestic servants, yet they proved that they were so much more.