Seedlings

Seedlings

There are stories that come to you in the night.

This is one.

I make no claims of scientific authenticity.

~~~~~

I'm Earl Wagner, Science Writer. Well, Freelance Science Writer. I'm going to tell you about something that happened to me not too long ago.

I'd been covering a conference in Atlanta, and now heading to another in Seattle. I actually had several weeks between conferences, so instead of flying decided to drive. I had the time and wanted to see somewhere besides conference halls and hotels.

I was in the Midwest when this "thing" happened. I won't tell you the town, I don't think it's name matters in this anyway.

This was my second day of driving. I rediscovered why I'd been flying; sitting and driving is boring. Yes, the scenery was interesting, but once I hit the flat lands with nothing but corn or wheat fields that stretched to the horizon staying awake became a challenge.

I hit a small town around four PM, found the only hotel and stopped for the night. When I asked about a cafe or restaurant the clerk made an odd face and pointed out the only eatery in town.

It was a clean, neat place. Table clothes, flower in a vase at each table, nice ambient light. But no patrons. I was it. Okay, maybe I just got here before the dinner crowd. I mean the place could seat thirty so it must be popular.

No hostess, so I sat at a table near a window and looked for a waiter. A gentleman came to my table. "Welcome to my establishment. What can we serve you?"

"Well I've been driving all day so I don't feel like anything heavy. Any suggestions?"

"I have a nice lasagna just coming out of the oven. Perhaps that with a salad. And a wine?"

"Perfect. How about a coffee first."

A young man brought me coffee, nodded and turned away. "Strange." I thought but oh well. A few minutes later a young woman brought my salad, placed it before me wordlessly and turned away. "Miss..." I said. Nothing. No pause, no acknowledgement, nothing.

And then the young man, at least I thought it was the same, but a little older? Brought my dinner. Again, he just placed it before me and turned away. No "Enjoy your meal, here you go" Nothing. the face never changed, the eyes barely saw me. Just placed and turned. I realized they all dressed the same; black shoes and pants, white shirt. All were blue eyed and blond, including the girl.

"Are you enjoying your meal?" I hadn't noticed the owner approaching.

"Um, ah, yes it's delicious."

 "Thanks, it's my own recipe. I don't get a lot of customers so I have time to experiment."

"Why don't you? The food is excellent." He hemmed and hawed a bit supposing the locals preferred the fried chicken place or the franchise burger out on the highway, but finally suggested they found him 'different'.

"Well... your staff is for sure. But are they so different that no one comes in here?"

"Ah yes. My children."

"Your children? Pardon me but you don't look old enough to have kids in their twenties."

 "Perhaps I should introduce myself. I am Dr. William Copernicus Airre. I have Ph.Ds in Microbiology and Genetics."

"Copernicus?"

"My father had a deep reverence for science."

"What did he do?"

"This was his restaurant. I learned cooking from him. And his belief in science. He pushed me to getting top grades in school, paid for anything tuitions and grants wouldn't, encouraged my research."

"Research?"

"This is a small community, only a few hundred families, and very few move away permanently. And when they do come back it's almost never with partner. My father was one. A partner. He married my mother when she worked in Chicago. But she wanted to come back home, and he came with her.

As you can imagine this being an isolated community, that makes for inbreeding. Some of our families have been marrying together for generations. Certain characteristics have become common. Hair color, eyes, noses. Even sexual proclivities. Did you notice the woman at the hotel?"

I shook my head.

"Melinda Cross. Her father is married to Melinda's cousin, who's mother is married to Melinda's mother's brother. They all sleep with each other. It doesn't matter if it's men or women. It goes on and on."

"Okay, so that led you to genetics?"

"Exactly! You see it! So I wondered what characteristics we could breed for in humans to counter generations of the inbreeding. I don't know how much you understand DNA and the effects of a constant crossing of types..."

"I'm a science reporter, took some biology in college. I've picked up more over the years"

"Okay. So, I'll keep it simple. The whole human genome has been mapped. There are approximately 500 million base pairs. Thousands of genes. If you have access to a linkage map (and I do) you can select specific pairs for specific functions."

"It's much more complicated than that."

"Yes, but I said I'd keep it simple. I first found the codings for appearance; height, skin color, eyes, hair. Things of that nature. There was my starting point. My Children."

"So these are the results of your experiments?"

"Experiments imply I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing. This is

Creation."

I swear if he could, he'd have become the voice of Morgan Freeman with that pronouncement. "I can tell you don't believe me. No one does. Can you stay a few days? I'll prove what I'm saying is true."

~~~

The next day we drove to a farm an hour out of town. At least that's how he tried making it look with multiple twist, turns, double backs, pauses. I had my phone's tracker on. Checked it later, we ended up a quarter mile out of town to the south. At a small farm stead basically in the middle of a very large corn field. You wouldn't notice the place from the road, if you even saw it.

There was an old wooden house, barely standing. A barn in slightly better condition, and a fairly new structure that might have once been a chicken house.

We stepped into an anteroom with several clean suits hanging against one wall, and a scrub basin on another. "Please, It's a sterile environment so please do as I do." He, we, donned clean suits, scrubbed our hands and faces, and then masked up. I'm thinking how clean are these suits but Dr. Airre wasn't concerned, so... okay.

We stepped into an air lock. "Please stand still, we are being sterilized by gamma rays." I'm thinking I haven't had kids yet.

The first area, a multitude of beakers, flasks, equipment I had no name for. On one wall was a microscope. A very large microscope. He called this his mixing and separating zone. "Where I pull the specific genes I require."

He led me along a central aisle where first I saw what looked like large baking pans with a dark liquid. "I've perfected an analog of amniotic fluid. This is where my first stages of embryos begin." Farther along I could see progressive growths of what looked very much like human embryo. By the end of the section they looked very much like a baby about to be birthed.

In the next group were, I can only describe them as infants, but the growth progression was amazing. "Yes. It takes one month from inception to a simulation of birth. Another two months to the equivalent of one year, and two more to five years in growth."

"But mentally? What have they learned?"

"I'm still working on that. Right now I'm achieving physical growth. In a moment I'll show you an eighteen year old girl. It took me just under nine months to get her to this point. But she doesn't think for herself. I've found developing the brain is much more complicated than the body.

The girl, apparently eighteen as he said, nude, standing in the next room, a blank look just as I saw on the waiters. Very blonde and pale skin. The same even features, the same blankness.

"I afraid I don't understand." I said to him. You have not much more than biotic robots, what are your plans? Your goals? They seem to age very fast?"

"In my next room I've been developing a brain. It's not quite ready to merge with the bodies."

"I'm trying to follow you here. Are you making bodies, and brains, separately? And then merging them?"

I'll give him this. He laughed. "No, no. I'm no Dr. Frankinstein putting pieces together. Once I've perfected my coding for a brain, I can include it with the coding of my bodies. I will have the perfect human. Handsome or beautiful, with a fully developed brain capable of helping mankind solve it's most complicated problems."

I didn't have the heart to tell him my phone was doing that already.

~~~

"Mr. Wagner. Mr. Wagner. Your wife Sheila is here."

"My wife?" Something wasn't computing. I have a wife?

"Yes, she flew up from Phoenix when we called her. She's in the other room."

"Where am I?"

"Friends Hospital in Friends, Nebraska. You were flown here. I understand you survived a tornado. The crew that flew you here said you'd been found in the wreckage of an old farm house. You were lucky one of the farmers saw your car off the road."

"Dr. Airre?"

"I don't know him. At least he doesn't work here."

I have a headache.

~~~

I tried returning to the farm. The co-ordinates in my phone led me to a cornfield, but not a farm house or barn, or chicken house/lab.

There is no town within ten miles.

My headache is back.

~~~~~

I month to 'birth', six months to age ten, i year to 18, adulthood accelerated, good for waiter for 3 years, then aging takes over and dead within another 3.

Two years later farm hit by tornado. Everything wiped away.

"Mr Wagner. Mr. Wagner. Your wife is here. Mr. Wagner. Your wife Sheila."

"My wife?"

"Yes she flew up from Phoenix yesterday."

"Yesterday? Where... what... Where am I?"

"You are in the Friends Hospital. In Nebraska. I'm your nurse, Caroline. You were flown here. Apparently you were caught in a tornado several days ago. You're a lucky man to have survived."

"Dr Airres?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know him."