Seeds of Life
First chapter for a story I was throwing around for awhile. The idea is that we were seeded by aliens long ago and now they’ve come to take over the buildings and the like we constructed. Killing those who serve no purpose, keeping some around to ease the transition and for work not appropriate to machines. Didn’t like the first chapter so didn’t continue with it.
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Seeds of Life
CHAPTER 1: Unnatural Disasters
University of Alabama Gene Labs 9:15 AM-March 1st 2043
“You’re late again Joe”, professor Alice Bates called out from beneath the glare of a large organic projector. She has been up all evening trying to understand a peculiarity in her most recent enhanced gene samples. A young prodigy of sorts, at the age of 28 and head of the department most of her underlings were her own former teachers. Slightly eccentric with out of control hair she still managed to keep a somewhat trim figure. At first the announcement of her heading the Gene Labs was met with outrage from the more senior seats at the school. Her work was admired, as was the extra government funding she had brought to the school-yet most people found it unnerving to work for someone so fresh from receiving their PhD. This was quickly settled when after a few weeks of working for Professor Bates people realized she was easy going for her position, not to mention the research was cutting edge. The list of students declaring genetic theory and engineering majors tripled since she was given a chair-all in the hopes of one day working with the illustrious author of a simple paper entitled-“Accelerated Gene Evolution.” A departure from the normal day practice of gene enhancement with code found in the current population, Bates was attempting to speed up evolution via a process similar to natural selection at a much smaller time scale.
“Ah shucks Alice, “ Joe Allen rolled casually off his tongue. “Here, I brought you some coffee.” Joe walked with the quiet demeanor of confidence without the need for being pretentious. Though not the best student, his charms took him far with the staff and he was able to land an assistant position in the lab-even being that he had been working on his doctorate for over a decade now and most thought he would never complete it. At the age of 35 he still spent most of his nights in bars trying to impress the under classmen with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of University policies. If anyone wanted to know how to miss a month of class or fail their mid terms and still pass, Joe was the man to go. After buying him a few rounds of course.
“Just what I needed Joe, I guess we can over look you’re tardiness this time around?” Alice turned and with a wink took the warm cup into her hands. A warm mist floated from the cup into the cool labs air that she savored with a meditative look upon her face. Eyes gently closed as her lips pulled gently at the corner of the cup. A small sip and than a larger near gulp followed. Alice smiled.
“Hope it’s not too hot Professor,” Joe spoke up eagerly hoping to make amends at his late entrance. He had been up late the night before at a local party. Quite the ladies man typically, he probably would have been wise to have not challenged the frat freshmen to a drinking contest. Trying to pick up a girl while forgetting her name and spilling your drink on her new blouse is not a good way to leave an impression. ‘Ah well, I’ll lay low for a few weeks and be back in business’-Joe thought to himself. Though quite hung-over Joe was smart enough not to let it show to Alice.
“Just perfect thanks, I needed that.” Alice took another long sip and placed the coffee down on one of the few safe spots on a cluttered desk. Pausing for a moment with a look of consternation drawing her face into a series of wrinkles she pointed at the latest data collected from the labs experiments. “What do you think of that Joe?”
“Another gap?” Astonished Joe leaned forward to get a better look at the generalized sequence. “And this time it’s in our immune system. Hmm. What do you think it means Professor?”
“I’ve got no idea, but it shouldn’t be there. It just shouldn’t be there,” was all Alice Bates said as she waved Joe off and got back to work.
The process of causing a rapid evolution of our genetic code could never have been possible during the grey ages, now near only a bit over a decade off. For the better part of the 21st century religious groups began to have more and more clout over Washington. Science funding was cut and a board of religious figures was created in Congress to oversee all scientific research. Experiments and research were ground to a halt. Even theorizing anything that could possible have any tones viewed as anti-religious was near banned, as no publishing companies would touch it. Science of all kinds ground to a halt throughout the U.S. and much of the European Union. It was hailed as the age of decency by the majority of people, but to those educated prior to this movement-was referred to as the grey ages in dark bars and back rooms. There were no public burnings of scientists or lynch mobs. New ideas were freely discussed where possible, but were met with ridicule from near all news outlets. The lack of funding prevented much of anything from getting of the drawing board. It wasn’t entirely bad. Crime for one thing was way down. People finally found it was their religious duty to help their fellow man and the cruelties of poverty were left to a distant age. Eventually even some of the scientific elite found the trade off to be beneficial. Sure, they had to go back to relatively menial jobs outside of their fields to earn a living, but humankind was better off, wasn’t it? Even the role in the U.S. changed from one of deploying military troops abroad to sending humanitarians. The crisis of starvation in Africa and turmoil in the Middle East was settled by American dollars reaching out to people on the most basic of level, regardless of politics. There were no more trade embargos, and with the end of Foreign Aid forever in the shadow of Foreign Policy few people could find fault in the gestures. Unfortunately the good will presented by the religious state, also lead to its downfall.
Things were going so well around the world that the dream of a united and democratic Middle East came to pass in the year 2020. Women were allowed and encouraged to pursue a higher education. Though there was a good deal of argument opposed to democratic changes by the few fundamentalists left-without someone to hate it was easy enough to separate church and state there. By 2030 the nations of Iran and Iraq formed a new, United Arab Council that promoted the growth of science and technology beyond that of the U.S. since the industrial revolution. Within years if you wanted a new piece of electronics equipment or gadget it came from the Mid East. The impact on the U.S. people, who had long felt themselves to be the leaders in all things even with their change in political persuasion, could only be described as a feeling similar to Americans hearing about Sputnik for the first time. Outraged at their loss of place in the world a new science initiative was begun. Schools were once more funded to provide advanced science programs for their students. Bans on stem cells and cloning were immediately dropped, though regulation was still put in place. Derelict colleges focusing on technology once again reopened their doors and began accepting students. Though protests from the religious communities assailed the ears of the common person, losing their edge to a once undemocratic and savage people changed all that. It was fine when they were being humanitarians, but not when they were equals or worse, more developed than the U.S. was. The Grey Ages as near everyone began to consider it was written off as history in the textbooks, and another Age of Reason was upon us.
Mars Colony Astronomy Lab 9:20 AM March 1st 2043
“Good God Bob what is that?” George asked while pointing at the display for the long ranged telescope located on top of Mount Olympus. Currently the Mars Astronomy team was attempting to catalogue the various debris spaced at the fringe of the solar system in preparation of the first robotic interstellar probe designed by humankind.
“What is what George?” Replied Bob sullenly who from being so bored with this routine and menial work has taken to flipping through an old romance novel left behind by one of the secretaries.
“Those things, right over there. Coming out of nowhere. Tell me that’s an error on the tracking velocity.” Numbers were rapidly decreasing from well over the speed of light to slightly below it. Interested now Bob put the worn book down and got to his feet.
“That’s impossible.” Breathed Bob running to a terminal trying to backtrack the series of objects movements. A visual display popped up showing the objects as first being recorded at three times the speed of light. “Okay I change that, it’s totally impossible. This must be some sort of glitch. I’m calling over to maintenance to see when the velocity tracking system was last calibrated.” Still slightly puzzled but dismissive of such an unlikely finding Bob continued, “It will be just our luck if we have to repeat the past months work because we got the wrong data. Why don’t you head down to the mess hall and see if one of our programmers is available to check the software. Damn, I just hope it’s the software that will save us a lot of trouble.”
George didn’t totally buy into the whole error bit being an avid science fiction fan, but was quick to mutter a yes sir and get down to the cafeteria. Besides, this was news and he wanted to be the one to break it.
“Hello maintenance, we seem to have a problem with one of our telescopes up here in astronomy- you know we’re on a tight schedule and would like to have someone up here right away.” A few seconds pause and George heard Bobs frustrated voice echoing, “yes, yes, I’ll hold!” as he took the stairs three steps at a time.
Moon Base-Light Side HQ 10:32 AM March 1st 2043
“Earth Mission Control, this is Moon, I think we have a problem.” The radio technician said in as steady a voice he could manage. Moments ago a horde of large spherical objects glided over the Moons recreation hall during a Low Gravity Basket Ball tournament between the scientists and the techies. In mid air the favored Janet from mining crew simply let the ball go as she soared ever higher, staring straight up. Puzzled the audience who had been cheering her on to Janet’s fifth 30 ft dunk of the game followed her eye movements and gasped almost as one. For moments they were paralyzed even after the objects had passed on by, until one man realized the enormity of the situation and began to run and bounce his way to moon head quarters.
At first the people on Earth ground thought it was an elaborate hoax. Even went so far as to say, “and look moon base Santa Clause and his reindeer are currently passing by Jupiter”-still a popular figure, even though rarely anyone celebrated Christmas anymore. This comment caused half of mission control to laugh loudly till the ring of electronic tracking beeps rang loudly through the room. “Oh my god, he’s not kidding,” one person managed to get out as they dropped their coffee mug to a shattering silence on the floor.
All over the earth these great metal spheres took on an equally spaced orbit, more even than there were satellites in the sky. What was in their way was somehow pushed out of the spheres way by some unknown force as easily as one might blow on a hanging spider. All over the earth people stood transfixed as satellites came burning down as if some rain of comets.
“Earth Mission Control, come in. One of the spheres is moving close to where the international space station is. It’s being pushed down, towards earth.”
A series of maydays and yells were now pouring into Earth Mission Control from the space station as horrified people felt the wretch of gravity take hold on their little orbiting home. Everyone stood stunned without anything to say as the fevered pitch of the astronauts aboard the space stations screams for help was replaced with a dry hiss of static. Broken up high in the atmosphere only a few people saw the explosion as rocket fuel broke free in a large trail, quickly ignited by the surrounding oxygen. They were too busy looking skywards at the now visible from earth glittering silver spheres above them.
“There were over 50 people aboard the International Space Station, including children.” The mission commander claimed solemnly as he bent over and began to sob. One of those kids who died was his only child. Ever since his fourth birthday he had been promised a trip to space one day.
University of Alabama Gene Labs 10:40 AM March 1st 2043
“This just doesn’t add up!” Exclaimed Professor Alice Bates comparing the gene sequences for intelligence and immune system with the other figures for body length and organ function. It became a known fact that mutations didn’t suddenly pop up in a single generation and then slowly diffuse to the rest of the population over time, well known even before the Grey Ages. The current theory stands that the actual mechanics of the mutation begins long before it is even remotely expressed in a given population. Then just given time it will eventually emerge in a small sub-sample of those with the genetic markers. Over a course of several generations it will become more present until whether selected upon or not-it will recede into the history of our genetic code. Evolution will continue for hundreds of generations, even with no outside force acting upon it. Her PhD paper, “Accelerated Gene Evolution” was totally dependent upon this theory and so far it has been panning out. It was a method of speeding up the process to see where humanity was going without having to live several thousand years in order to see it. New mutations may not arise in the course of the study, but ones that have already begun should be present and refined from one generation to the next. In her experiments she takes the DNA from a fertilized egg, clones it and inserts it into another unfertilized egg. Thereby limiting the age of a generation to about three days. With gene sequencing and smart programs she can then extrapolate into a computer model what the embryo would look like as an adult, as well as its organs and even down to individual cells. What doesn’t make sense is that according to this method, ten generations from now human beings will cease developing a better brain or immune system. If the research was flawed, there shouldn’t still be results on everything from skin pigment to finger length.
Staring Alice in the face were two highlighted bars that should be continuous. In the middle a large gap appears where brain functioning and immune system responses were listed. She’s been here several times over already, thinking at first it was a rare disorder that cropped up from one of the generations she ran through-but it isn’t possible. ‘There is definitely something going on here’, Alice thinks firmly to herself.
“Professor, Professor you have to come see this!” One of the assistants burst into the lab calling out.
“I’m over here, what is it?” Alice says waving the young girl over whose name was forgotten several times over.
“It’s, I can’t explain it. Please just come outside-the whole school is there.”
‘The whole school, well I could use a break from staring at the screen. No matter how long I look at it, nothings going to change,’ thinks Alice as she stands up to get herself a fresh cup of coffee.
“Okay I’ll be right out, just let me get some coffee first.”
November 10th, 2005 at 8:40 am
oddly, this premise is sort of what the leader of the cult that my husband’s parents are in, believe.. (that and that mixed race children were sent here by aliens to destroy the world) yah for crazy falun gong lunatics