The Genesis Saga

“Benefactors,” Ellie murmured. It had been several hours since their meeting with Ava and they’d been hard at work, trying to come up with new experimental procedures.

“What was that?” Connor asked. He hadn’t been paying attention and was pouring over the results from Adrian’s experiments. By now he practically had them all memorized he’d gone over them so many times.

“Ava mentioned that she had benefactors. If they’re the ones who created the machines that produced substance XN-05, then I wonder if they’re the same people who created those pods.”

“You mean the pods we stuffed Subject zero-zero-eight into seven years ago with no proof that he’d survive?” Connor remembered the room where the pods were located. It was hard to forget. In it were long, metal pods laid out in rings around large, white vats. A complicated mess of tubes connected the pods to the vats and were filled with that strange blue liquid that had kept Adrian preserved. The holographic screens that floated above each pod were unlike anything he’d ever seen before. The most eye-catching features were the pulsing blue lines arrayed along the walls and the deep blue, glowing lines scarred across the floor in mesmerizing geometric patterns.

“Exactly. We’ve been down in that room before, albeit rarely, but always accompanied by Ava. I’m sure that room contains the answers to our problems. I remember installing a key reader on the doors inside the room. I wonder what secrets are behind them.”

“I don’t see how knowing would help us with our problems.”

“Think about it, Connor,” Ellie exclaimed. “Ava said that the machines that produced the substance are beyond our ability to create. And the machines we saw down there defied our understanding. What else could we learn that she’s keeping hidden? What secrets do these mysterious benefactors have that they so desperately don’t want anybody to know? Secrets so important that they’re willing to destroy entire factories over!”

“I don’t know.” Connor bit his lip. Now that she’d said it, he did want to know more about what was down there. The holographic technology alone astounded him. “It’s a moot point,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t have the clearance necessary to access that part of the facility. Only Ashford and Ava do.”

“So then we’ll just get the proper clearance,” Ellie stated.

“And how are we going to do that? Do you suggest we steal their key cards? They’re going to notice that they’re missing.”

“No, I’m going to give mine access to everything.”

Connor’s eyes widened. “You can do that? How?”

“Because I’m a genius,” Ellie preened. “I helped design the security system when they decided to get rid of physical keys, so I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I don’t know what idiot thought keys were a good idea. We needed so many of them just to get around. Key cards are a much better alternative.”

Connor watched Ellie work her magic in amazement and some time later, they had a functioning master key card. Ellie flourished the item and Connor made sure to clap appreciatively for her.

“No one will know that we have access,” she said.

“Now what?” Connor asked, unsure how to proceed now that they had what they needed.

“Ava and Ashford are busy preparing for the new arrivals, and we’re expected to hole up in our offices to come up with new experiments. Now’s the perfect time to go investigate. Nobody’s going to come looking for us, and more importantly, nobody’s paying attention.”

Ellie stood up from her chair and stretched. She put her key card back on her lanyard and dragged Connor out of the room. Looking around to make sure that nobody was watching, she led the two of them around the corner and to the elevators. Pushing the button on the wall to call for one, the pair waited nervously.

“I still think this is a bad idea. We’re going to get caught.”

“Relax, nothing’s going to go wrong.”

“I’m sure that’s what Subject zero-zero-eight and the others thought when they tried to escape and look at what happened to them.”

“They were test subjects. We’re valuable researchers. They’d never do that to us.”

“Are you sure they think we’re valuable if we haven’t produced results in over seven years?”

“Research takes time. That’s not our fault. It’s theirs for not providing us with the proper resources. Resources we requested many times.”

The elevator arrived without fanfare and without warning. The heavy metal doors in front of them slid open. Seeing that there was nobody waiting inside to stop them, Ellie shot Connor a smug look and walked on in. When Connor hesitated, she grabbed him by his lab coat and dragged him inside with her.

Ellie pushed the button to close the doors and scanned her key card. She didn’t bother to select a button, as she knew that there wasn’t one on the wall that would bring them to where they wanted to go. She could only hope that the clearance level she gave herself was enough to make the elevator descend to the deepest floor of the facility.

She smiled when the elevator started descending. They rode in a nervous silence, neither one of them having anything to say. Ellie watched the numbers displayed on the small screen above the doors change until it froze on the lowest floor number indicated on the control panel. The elevator kept moving, however. It drew to a stop and the floor number changed one last time. They had arrived.

The doors slid open and revealed the large, alien room. It looked exactly as Connor remembered it. Taking a tentative step out, he looked around for signs of activity. The room whirred softly as countless machines hummed in concert with one another. He watched the walls pulse, captivated by the spectacle.

Ellie nudged him, snapping him out of his thoughts. “I told you it would work,” she said. “Let’s go check out what lies behind the doors.”

There were three doors in the room. Walking up to the first one, Ellie scanned her key card. With a satisfying click, the door unlocked, and she turned the handle, opening it. When they walked in, they were stunned speechless.

Inside was rows upon rows of shelves from floor to ceiling full of smaller pods glowing ominously in the low light. Organs, body parts and small creatures floated inside a strange blue liquid. They walked further in and began examining their findings more closely. There were no holographic screens that might give them any clues.

“What is this?” Connor asked, his voice tinged with fear. He walked up to a set of organs that didn’t appear to be human. He had no idea what kind of animal it could belong to, nor could he guess its function.

“It looks like a storage room of some kind,” Ellie replied. “But why? Why keep all of this? Look, here’s a rat, except it’s got three eyes and the tail is all wrong.” She moved in closer to take a better look. “So are the legs. There are too many joints. It makes no sense.”

Connor moved to come inspect the strange animal. The bulbous head was just as off-putting as the rest of it. “That’s disturbing,” he said with a shudder. “I don’t think we’re going to find our answers in here. We should move on to the next room.”

“Not until we check out everything this room has to offer.” Ellie forced them to walk through the entire room. Connor was glad when they could finally leave the creepy place and move on to the next one. Spotting the next door, Ellie fearlessly marched towards it with Connor in tow. She scanned her card and opened the door.

Inside was a futuristic laboratory, complete with a screen floating above a terminal along the wall. There was a large, upright cylindrical station of some kind, but neither of them could discern its purpose. “Now this is what I’m talking about,” Ellie breathed.

“Don’t touch anything,” Connor warned.

“This is exactly the time to touch things,” Ellie stated as she approached the terminal. Attached to it was several strange keyboards filled with alien symbols. There were four of them surrounding a dull glass orb. She examined it but recognized none of them. “What do you think these mean?” she asked, calling Connor over to show him.

He inspected the strange device one key at a time. He looked over to the holographic screen that shone a static, bright blue. “I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that it controls the screen.” He reached out to touch the screen and yelped when his hand passed right through it. The rest of the screen remained undisturbed as Connor moved his hand around. “This is impossible. How does this even work?” he marvelled.

“It’s clearly possible. It’s right in front of you.”

“I know that. Look at it. It’s a hologram,” he said, excited at the discovery. “I wondered how the screens outside floated in place without being attached to anything. They’re all holograms! It’s just light. This is incredible.”

“Moving on,” Ellie said. “What do the keys do?” She looked more closely and noticed that one key in particular was a different colour than the rest. “Look at this one,” she pointed. “What do you think it does?”

“I noticed it before,” Connor said, turning his attention from the screen back to the keyboard. “It must do something special for it to be a different colour.”

“I’m going to press it,” Ellie declared.

“Are you nuts?” Connor shouted. “Don’t push the strange button, Ellie. We don’t know what it does.”

Ellie ignored him and pushed the button anyway. The change was immediate. The screen in front of them changed forms and displayed a rotating series of floating cubes, slowly swirling around each other. The button on the keyboard began to flash.

“What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie panicked. The pair of them looked at the screen, hesitant to try pushing any other buttons lest they make things worse. “Think it will stop on it’s own?” she asked. Connor shot her a flat look. “Right, probably not.”

“Yes, sir. I understand,” Irric said in a placating voice. He held up his data slate and spoke to an irate Cyrix. He’d just learned that Adrian’s existence had been leaked to the Tribunal from Nessah and had been ordered to determine how the leak happened. This was news to Irric, who now had questions to answer.

“Explain to me how this happened,” Cyrix said sternly. “Your data slate is supposed to be secure, is it not? Could somebody have put a backdoor in the program?”

“I’m reasonably certain that’s next to impossible. I modified the data slates myself. I would’ve noticed such a thing when I was tampering with them.”

“If you could change the coding, couldn’t somebody else?”

“That’s the thing. While it is possible, they’d have to get past my encryption, which should be impossible.”

“Well it clearly happened. Figure out how. We can’t afford another leak.”

“I will sir, I promise.”

“You’d better. I’ll be making a trip down to the facility myself to examine the situation. Can you think of anything at all that might have cause this to happen?”

“Not without taking a closer look at the code. I’ll work on it as soon as the call is finished.”

Cyrix ran a hand through his hair. “Make it your priority, but don’t stop your actual work to do so. We need to figure out what’s on those terminals. The Tribunal is breathing down our neck for results and I fear what might happen if we don’t present any.”

Irric gulped. “Understood, sir.”

The call ended and Irric let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He sat at his workstation, stumped. He had no idea how a leak could’ve even occurred. It was hard to imagine such a scenario occurring given that he almost never left his data slate unattended and it required authentication each time it was used. Unless one knew the proper password, which only he knew, then it should be impossible for that person to waltz up to it and use it.

Irric continued to ponder the problem. As he thought, he connected his data slate back to the terminal in front of him. He began digging through the file directory, navigating his way through the corrupted programming that impeded him. A sudden change in the lighting in his field of vision stole his attention.

The terminal projected a holographic image, something it had not done since Irric first started working with it. He’d assumed that the corruption had disabled such features. With the terminal connected to his data slate, having a functioning holographic screen had become irrelevant so he hadn’t bothered trying to repair it.

A blank screen appeared in front of him. Irric moved closer to get a better look. A rotating series of floating cubes replaced the previously blank screen, startling Irric. He watched, transfixed. A blinking light on the keyboard attracted his gaze. One of the keys was flashing orange.

Irric walked over to the keyboard and inspected the change. He glanced back towards the projected image, debating what to do next. Carefully, he took his data slate and propped it up so that its camera could see the screen unimpeded. He started recording and walked back over to the keyboard.

He pushed the blinking key.

Connor and Ellie appeared onscreen, their surprise mirroring his own. Irric’s eyes widened. He struggled to find his words as he stared at the pair, taking in their alien skin tone and features. Idly, he noticed the pale brown freckles that dotted Ellie’s nose while Connor had none. He compared what he remembered of Adrian and noted the differences. Adrian had been telling the truth; there were more people out there like him, implying that an entirely new society of people almost exactly like them existed.

In a single moment, Irric’s world irrevocably changed.