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Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them.
SF Trope: Evil
de-evolution
Current Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution_(biology)
(Fascinating article in which an evolutionists tap-dances around the idea that
the dissemination of correct information is NOT the responsibility of
scientists but of...um...Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, but ultimately Nobody
and CERTAINLY not them…(http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/hlife.html))
Ugnė Mertens flipped
her pigtail back again as she stared at the image on her laptop. Muttering, she
stepped sideways to the microscope and moved the slide using the X-Y
translational control knobs fine adjustment. The image of the chromosome she
was studying moved fractionally.
Naranbaatar
Todorov picked at his thin, first beard and said, “Staring at it isn’t going to
make the genes magically appear, Ug.”
“That’s what you
think,” she straightened up, she smiled and added, “Baaaaa,” drawing out the
stereotypical sheep sound. “Watch.” She touched a pressure toggle on an odd,
goose-necked device standing beside the microscope. The computer’s screen
fuzzed suddenly, then the single chromosome lit up as if it was a candy cane.
Baa started,
looked at the lamp and exclaimed, “What is that thing?”
“Something I
invented and you didn’t,” Ug said, sitting on the lab stool, leaning forward.
Baa swallowed
hard, pursed his lips then said, “Listen, I know you don’t much like me...”
Ug reached out and
typed an entry into the text box then said, “If I had a choice between
dissecting three-day-old roadkill and having lunch with you...” she paused,
made a face, then said, “I’m not sure which one I’d pick.”
Baa glanced at the
clock on the wall. He still had four hours left of his shift. He couldn’t skip
it or Dr. Harber would find out and dock him points. But he wasn’t sure he
could keep his feet still and not kick Ugnė in the butt. He took a deep breath
and said, “Must be an infrared to ultraviolet, rotating frequency projector.”
She shot him a
look then went back to making notes on her computer. Occasionally she tapped
her smartphone as well, which lay next to the laptop. “Lucky guess.”
“So that means,
‘yes’. Then you must have bathed the chromosomes in a solution that would...” Naranbaatar
hooked another stool with his foot to drag it closer. Shrieking as it vibrated
along the floor tiles, he winced and said, “Sorry.”
Ugnė sniffed but
didn’t reply. Finally she said, “I used a mix that the older the gene, the less
fluorescing compound it would pick up.”
Baa frowned then
asked, “What are the chromosomes from?”
“A narn.”
“You’re kidding!”
he exclaimed. Reports had been circulating for years about animals whose genes
had suddenly started evolving – a quantum evolution event – from static forms
to much, much more intelligent forms.
“These are
chromosomes from raccoons killed in southern Minnesota.”
“We have narns
here?” Baa exclaimed, backing away from the microscope.
Ug turned to look
at him. “The genes aren’t contagious, idiot! This isn’t a disease – it’s animal
chromosomes. Dyed and fixed at that! What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing.
Nothing!” He spun around and took long strides out of the lab. He didn’t care
if he lost hours – all he could see in his mind’s eye was the raccoon he’d
nearly run over when he was biking on rural trails near his family’s home in an
outer ring suburb of what was slowly becoming the three, four-kilometer-tall
towers of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Vertical Village.
He would never
forget the look on its face as it held out a mangled aw to him and said,
“Help...”
Names: ♀ Lithuanian, Belgian; ♂ Mongolian, Bulgarian
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