Asterion (7 page)

They settled down under a huge oak tree. Hundreds of years old, it is six feet across and provided a huge canopy of shade to escape the heat of the day. Taylor spread a blanket, they placed their baskets on it and reclined facing each other across them.

Taylor looks into Christine’s blue eyes, “I don’t think I have relaxed like this for quite a while. I guess I never had as good a reason as now to take in nature’s beauty.” He smiles coyly.

“Well that’s a lot better than calling me a politician.”

“I guess I’m not the smoothest guy around or the quickest thinker on my feet.”

“You do okay.” She puts her hand on his.

“Just your touch…, I can’t describe it.”

“Good, then it’s not just me.”

“Really,” his voice cracks and he clears his throat and in a low voice, “Really.”

She laughs, “Yes, silly.”

They stop laughing, pause and look into each other’s eyes, then embrace for a few minutes.

Taylor looks down at his shirt, “I think we just absorbed the grease from the chicken.”

Christine laughs, “Less fattening, the government will love it. The grocery store voice asked if I needed that much poultry.”

Taylor smiles, “Well if you need some more before it allows you to, I’ll get it for you.”

“Oh, my knight in shining armor.”

“My lady, I bring you chicken.”

They laugh and eat lunch, spotting the various animals that inhabit the park. They try to lure the rabbits and squirrels to eat out of their hand, but they are too skittish.

Christine looks at Taylor, “I don’t want this to end.”

“Neither do I.” He gulps, he wants to ask her to marry him, but he thinks, “Don’t be too forward stupid. Don’t scare her off.”

He smiles and settles for, “I’ve never had a better time in my life than now.”

Her eyes open wide, “Neither have I.”

“Okay, impetuousness avoided,” he thinks, smiles and continues to eat.

Packing up, they stroll through the park talking about their wishes for the future. They did not say it, but they thought it. They would be together some day for the rest of their lives.

A perfect moment except for the spying eyes peering around the trees and bushes from a distance. The future is catching up fast.

CHAPTER 7 - HEADLONG INTO THE UNKNOWN

Morning at the lab is routine. They checked the experiment’s progress, recorded their work and kept watch of the processes. The intercom crackles once again, calling the team to the conference room.

Devin, Milar and other anonymous officials await them. Devin introduces them” This is the backup team we spoke of earlier. They will gather our information and data. They will make sure it gets to a secure place in case a catastrophe happens.”

The leader of the team stands up and looks over the team with a cold stern look. “We will try to stay out of your way as much as possible, but we do have to accomplish this task in a short time, so we must have your cooperation. We begin immediately.”

Taylor recognizes the voice, but cannot remember when and where he has heard it before. In the lab, the backup team is everywhere, gathering data and info under the watchful eye of Milar. The tension is high because the project is valuable and attractive to thieves. The crew finally finishes their work and the team can get back to normal.

In the lab, Milar addresses the team. “The information destined for outside the lab walls is not safely transmittable in any form or fashion. Not even over encrypted lines. I will be transporting backups personally from now on. If someone wants this information bad enough, they could still plan an ambush, but that would expose them to failure or capture. If we continue to transmit data over the network, they can breach it from anywhere in the world.”

Later that day, Taylor announces to the team, “We have completed the DNA engineering phase of the project. Now, it is in the incubation stage where it will become a zygote, progress to an embryo and finally a fetus gestating in the artificial uterine chamber. Trent, have we audited the logs and verified the results?”

Trent glances up from the paperwork at Taylor. “There are no errors. All procedures occurred at the right time, order and correct length of time.”

“Great,” Taylor turns to Christine. “What about the chemical analysis?”

“All test results are in spec with no anomalies in the repetition cycles. Test calibrations verified the accuracy of our results.”

“Fantastic, now we can watch our garden grow,” Taylor smiles with satisfaction.

He catches Christine in a quiet corner of the lab. “Are we on for tonight?”

“You bet. I’m too deep into the documentary. I have to see the rest of it.”

“Me to,” Taylor replied.

Taylor prepared dinner at his apartment complete with candles and waited for Christine’s knock on the door. However, the knock he heard is much harder than her knock. Answering the door, Milar is standing at his threshold. “How are you doing this evening?”

“Fine, what brings you around?”

“I hate to bother you after hours, but I wanted to bring the news as soon as I heard.”

Taylor notices that Milar is friendlier than she had ever been in the past. It seemed flirtatious, but Taylor is not sure. “What news?”

“Once the experimental creature is viable outside of the lab, Leader Burnsom wants to meet personally with you. That could mean great things for you and your career.”

“Wow! That would be great. Thanks for letting me know. I would invite you in, but I have plans for tonight.”

“That’s okay, maybe some other time?”

“Sure.”

Milar leaves and Taylor wonders what just happened. She seemed cold and professional in the past, but now she seemed interested in him. Taylor hears a more familiar knock at the door and ushers Christine to his special dinner for two. They eat, talk and laugh until the candles burn low. Then they retire to the couch and Taylor starts the documentary at the previous night’s stopping point. Curling up together, Taylor hits the remote.

The narrator starts this segment with the silhouette of a factory in the background. “Initially, business owners and managers protested the takeover of the businesses they worked so hard to create and nurture. Burnsom appeased them by making them bureaucrats overseeing the very businesses the government confiscated. Some could remain in single-family homes as a benefit and some of those homes are very large. Burnsom justified this by saying that managers are under a great deal of stress and they needed the space to relax and clear their minds for the next day. A clear thinking manager is good for the business and subsequently the workers. He made it all sound reasonable. In reality, behind the scenes, cronyism and nepotism ruled the day.”

The background changes to a collage of entertainment programs. “Burnsom declared that the workers deserved their own rest and relaxation and the monitor on the wall became filled with several hundred channels of varying entertainment genres that are free. Through the government run entertainment industry, sports, reality, drama, comedy, educational and pro-government documentaries streamed into the homes of the masses.” The scene changes to the inside of a grocery store. “Burnsom made sure that food is plentiful. The government provided most staples and credits bought the snack and better foods the people craved. At least as long as the scanner at the door declared you and your family are healthy enough to purchase them. Burnsom carefully allowed a few choices to fool the masses into thinking that they had some freedoms.”

“Crime is reduced due to the control the authorities had over the society. Prison is not a sequestered vacation with all bills paid. They are workers in a factory like other people except that guards kept a watchful eye on them. Get out of line and your shock collar drops you to the floor writhing from the pain. Chemical and physical castrations kept offender in line, reduced the need for a watchful eye, and confined incarceration meted out as punishment for those who caused trouble. Chemical alteration and lobotomies quelled the most violent and they are kept on display for up and coming violators.”

The final scene pops on the monitor. It is the traditional shape of a church with a steeple and a cross on top. “Burnsom had determined that religion hindered his engineering of society. With beliefs in a Creator, Lord and Ruler of their lives, Christians believed in the old ways. The belief in freedom granted by the Creator and not by man. Burnsom sought to replace it with his vision of the future. Burnsom relabeled most religious speech as hate speech, not free speech. Any lessons related to one path, or that churches condemned some activities became regarded as speech against the government and personal civil rights. That branded these activities as hatred against the norms of society and harmful. Christians, pejoratively renamed Christers went underground. Secret handshakes, nods and symbols replaced the greetings of old. Like the early Christians in the catacombs, they hid their beliefs. Other religions in the country adopted similar methods of meeting and worshiping. Once again, Burnsom turns to the military for a solution. The generic practices of the chaplaincy sufficed for marriages, funerals and general comfort. Burnsom decreed that military chaplains would staff the government churches after their service in the military is completed. They preached a belief in the perpetual government that took care of everyone and their needs. The illusion of freedom, based upon the clouded view of time. Burnsom had created just the right amount of authoritarianism and freedom to enrich his life and those he smiled on.”

The clock strikes midnight and Christine and Taylor realize they have to go to work tomorrow. A long embrace yields to a goodbye kiss and they part ways for the evening. Taylor wrestles with how much society had changed. The illusion is that it is better than the past, but conditions for the people are austere when compared to history. However, he thought that at least now, everything is stable. What is best? Is there a middle ground to all of this and what about being able to worship as one pleased? Christine went home with similar thoughts racing through her mind.

The end of the week draws near and the team moves the embryo to the uterine chamber to start the accelerated gestation process. Pushing the envelope, they will bring this experiment to term in a month.

Off in a corner of the lab, Taylor stops Christine, “Hey, do you want to worship together?”

“Yes, I would love that. Every Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, I’ve worshiped in private for years. Couldn’t find any Christians around.”

“Me to, it’s better when someone else is there”

“I know what you mean.”

They are excited about the prospects of working together on significant projects and for the life they are starting to build together. All noticed their closeness and for a few, it is of significant interest. Devin is suspicious of any assembly and Milar had her own interests.

Milar gathers a backup iteration and prepares to transport it to a secret location. Milar asks Taylor, “If you’re not doing anything this weekend, you can come with me to deliver the backup.”

“Sorry, I have plans for the weekend.” This confirmed his suspicions.

“Too bad,” Milar leaves the lab.

Taylor wonders what this new interest in him is about, as he did not see himself as her type and showed no interest in her.

Devin catches Taylor in the hallway and offers his own brand of advice. “Be careful who you trust. Appearances can be deceiving and deadly.”

“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?”

Devin shoots back, “You science types are always too trusting. That trust can come back to bite you in the end.”

Taylor breaks off the encounter. “Okay.” He wonders if Devin is talking about Christine, Milar or even himself.

Christine is waiting for Taylor back in the lab. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t know. Either they are acting weird, or we’re a bit paranoid after watching the documentary.”

“It does cause me to look over my shoulder more often.”

Taylor smiles, “I guess we’re making too much out of this.”

With concern on her face, Christine looks at Taylor. “Maybe, maybe not.”

CHAPTER 8 - EXPERIMENT GONE WRONG

Taylor enters the lab early on Monday with great anticipation. Walking the dark hall his footfalls echo throughout the idle structure. He enters the main lab and proceeds to the artificial uterine chamber. He enters after going through the second set of security measures. The high humidity level hits him. Maintained at a higher level than the rest of the lab, it mimicked a real uterine environment for Asterion. Soft red lights provide some guidance in the darkness. Taylor feels the beat of the lab as it monitors and provides for the experiment’s subject. Looking into the round, clear chamber the embryo is still too small to see any details of the creature.

He turns on the monitor for the scanning microscope and witnesses his first clear glimpse of the creature. Taylor carefully studies it from head-to-toe making sure development is normal, as normal as a designer creature could be with its engineered DNA. He first notices that the facial structure is different from what he envisioned in his mind, but definitely not a developmental abnormality. Moving on from the head, he focuses on the creatures hands where he sees that the tips of the fingers display a slight bump where the fingernails should be, but again, no obvious abnormalities. The creature has great muscular structure as he examines the arms and then he focuses on the creature’s torso. He notices that the torso’s epidermis is denser than the rest of the creature. In fact, all the skin of the creature is thicker than normal. Taylor brushes it off as just an effect of the accelerated maturation process and it could provide beneficial for the creature in terms of resistance to injury. He finalizes his scan with the creature’s legs. Again, he sees the muscular structure he planned for ending with the hoofs.