Chapter 33: Chapter 32 – Project Alpha

It was a dark, unlit laboratory with a sterile, white floor and gray walls. The overhead lamps were all turned off and the only light sources were the wall-mounted computers and their constantly blinking green and blue lights. In the middle of the lab, two rows of human-sized vats were set up, numbering 8 in total. They had a greenish, gel-like substance in them, filled to the brim as little, human embryos were floating in all of the 8 vats. They were still in a gestating phase. All of them were connected to the top of the vat via a synthetic umbilical cord, and through thick cablings, to the laboratory’s supercomputers. Suddenly, all the fixtures had turned on, showering the laboratory with bright, white light and all the computers started to beep constantly. It was followed by a loud alarm going off and dozens of scientists rushing in from nowhere.

“Which one?” Shouted one of them, a woman, not even trying to fix her bad, fluffy red hair or the hastily buttoned up clothes on her. Her green eyes were still heavy as she had just been woken up from a deep sleep at her desk by the facility’s alarm system. 

“Vat number 3! We are losing the embryo!” An old man answered.

“Increase its dosage!” She ordered, clearly the leading figurehead of the group.

“I already did!” He replied.

No matter what they tried, in the end they failed and the embryo was dead in a few minutes. The woman was watching the now lifeless being, float in its vat, never to grow into a human. Into more than a human.

“We still have seven of them, Liz…” The male scientist walked up to his leader, patting her shoulders.

“Yes… we do…” She murmured, looking around her team, made up from the brightest humans and gene engineers in the whole Hegemony. 

Lizzy or as her team called her, Liz, always remembered that one sentence; ‘We still have seven of them.’ Yet after more than two decades of constant work, letting them gestate, nurturing them, way past the time that any naturally conceived intelligent being would need, they were only left with one. Only one. The last baby boy who was still alive. All of the others perished in different phases of Project Alpha.

The Moon. It was, by then, not just colonized but also a very popular tourist destination. Museums and parks were established at the sights, where humans first landed and stepped onto its surface. Its cities never rose to the size that those on Mars, Europa or on Titan. Yet it was still one of the most frequented places in the Solar System, besides Earth. It was the perfect camouflage for what was going under its surface. People knew about the military factories and installments on Titan. About the underwater research facilities on Europa or the many, similar, guarded sites on Mars. But on the Moon? It was nothing but a tourist attraction for the people. Nobody knew, besides the Hegemony’s top brass, that under its surface, deep down, close to its core, an extensive black site project was being housed. 

It had no real name, no written records of any kind. If it was ever brought up, it was done so in spoken words. As rumors. As crazy conspiracy talk. Nothing more, nothing less. Those who were working down there, simply started to call it the Alpha Project. For a very simple reason; They were working to create a new kind of human. The next step in human evolution. Their research didn’t start with the embryos though. It was a slow start, lasting for almost 150 years before they even managed to create the eight embryos. It was done under the plans of their current lead, their newest director; Lizzy Meriot. With the experience that they gained by playing with genes for more than a century, they solved many unanswered mysteries. They found many solutions to illnesses, especially in hybrid species. For the offsprings of humans and aliens. What was even more beneficial to the Hegemony was that with their research results they managed to come up with methods that let the humans mate with any other intelligent life in the Galaxy. They made it possible to reproduce with any other chosen species. It just needed a little bit of… help. 

The Hegemony’s territories were constantly expanding, year after year as they were the dominant species in the known Galaxy. Now, they could welcome others into the Hegemony by not just with different forms of alliances, trade agreements, military occupations or the likes, but by one simple fact; Their population had a constantly increasing numbers of human-alien hybrids. When their numbers reached a certain point, the Hegemony usually started to interfere and slowly but surely, bring them into the fold. One thing was visible for even those who constantly waged war against them, trying to resist the Hegemony’s dominance; It was a fight against an inevitable tide. The Galaxy was destined to be ruled over by them, sooner or later.

When Lizzy’s team started, what they called, the Alpha Phase, they created 8 embryos. They were completely engineered by them, from the first strand of DNA down to the last. In every sense of the meaning, they were perfect. Yet one of them failed on the first day of incubation. Six more followed it throughout the two decades, leaving them with the final one. The scientist started to call him Omega, almost as a mockery to the project’s unofficial name. Lizzy never liked how it sounded. It made it final. Way too dark for her tastes. So whenever she caught someone addressing the baby in the vat that way, she scolded them like an angry mother. 

“Mommy!” A young, happy voice greeted Lizzy as she arrived back home, into her underground flat. It was her own daughter, Marin who rushed at her, jumping up into her embrace. She was the spitting image of hers from when she was 4 years old. Which was not an accident. She rarely had time to socialize and as the years were going by like a flash, her motherly instincts were chasing her around day and night while she was trapped in the laboratory. So, as a solution to that, she went ahead and artificially inseminated herself to give birth to her daughter 9 months later. In a biological sense, Marin was a perfect clone of herself. Yet her personality was nothing like when she was at her age. Not even her interests matched her mothers.

Lizzy was remembering how her parents always told her what a wild and unruly little princess she was while growing up. Marin on the other hand was a well behaved, proper little lady. When her colleagues were coming over, they even questioned Lizzy if it was Marin who was taking care of her and not vice versa. 

“Were you a good girl?” Lizzy asked while raising her happy daughter who immediately wrapped her arms around her neck, showering her mother with kisses. 

“I am always a good girl!” She answered proudly, speaking fluently and without any mistakes.

“She really is.” Another, female voice added as a holographic image of a black haired, young woman appeared in the room. She was Alice, the home’s AI, taking care of most things and also acting as a babysitter when Lizzy had to work. 

“I am always glad to hear it!” Lizzy laughed, rubbing the little head of Marin which was full of long, red hair. 

“Teehee~ That is why I am a good girl! I like making you proud, mom!” She grinned happily. “You look tired! We should take a bath and watch TV!” 

“You just want to watch tv, no?” She chuckled as her daughter simply stuck her tongue out. “But sure thing! We are going to watch something funny tonight! I need some good relaxation!”

“Mom…” She looked at her with a curious light in her eyes, wanting to ask about it, yet Lizzy just shook her head. Even though her daughter was now her everything, she could say the same about the project she was in charge of. The remaining boy in the last, functioning vat. He was her son too, at least she saw it that way. Yet she couldn’t speak about him, not even to her daughter. Some rules simply couldn’t be broken.

“Don’t worry about it Marin! Let’s get into that bath and eat some spaghetti while watching a comedy! There are some classics that I think you are going to love!”

“Yey!” She clapped happily while Alice just nodded, opening the door at the farside of their home, leading to the luxurious bathroom.

“The water is ready. By the time you come out, I am going to finish with the food.”

“Thank you, Alice!”

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“You’re welcome, Miss!” She smiled back, watching the duo with a smile.

…

….

…..

It was hours later when Lizzy was woken up by her personal communicator. She slowly sat up next to her sleeping daughter, sprawled out on the bed. She was occupying most of it with her small body. A feat that should have been impossible yet it happened every night. 

“What is it?” She thought, touching the left side of her neck, unlocking her implant, slowly climbing out of the bed. She was already changing and dressing up. If she was called like this, it either had to be bad news or super bad news.

“It is Ome- the subject.” 

Her second in command, Fizzy answered. Nobody even remembered what his real name was originally as he looked like someone who always drank a bit too much coffee. He was unable to even stand straight and was unable to stay still for even a minute. Be it ticks on his face or snapping his fingers, maybe simply stomping in place, he had to move his muscles one way or another. He was the only scientist who was from the last cycle as the others had already died out by now. Project Alpha was not something that one could quit. Space only opened up amongst them when one of the scientists passed away. It was a job, meant for lifetime. Literally.

“What happened?” Lizzy asked with her chest already tightening. 

“He shows abnormal brain functions!” Fizzy answered, shooting out sentences like a machine gun. Lizzy was already racing towards the elevator, barely even dressed up, still struggling with her pants. “Our computers can barely keep up! It already fired two relay stations and deleted one of the AIs, Liz! The data we could secure shows that… I don’t know what! None of this makes sense!”

“How’s his life functions?!” She asked, walking in circles in the rectangle elevator, cursing out loudly that it was not faster.

“Erratic! His heart rate is 140! And it's climbing! We already administered all the drugs we have at hand but it just keeps climbing! His arms and legs are twitching constantly… Liz, we are losing him…” 

“The fuck we are!” She shouted both in mind and loudly, storming out of the elevator after arriving. She was almost kicking in the doors to the laboratory, blasting through them like a tempest.

Her team was already there, some arriving at the same time as she did, called back by the emergency. Lizzy was shouting orders at them and nobody thought about it, just did what she ordered them to do. None of them felt more attachment to the eight than she did. They were her babies. She was the one who did the first DNA splicing on them and she was determined to see the last one survive. Whatever it took. 

“Liz…” Fizzy stood next to her. His already wrinkled, old face trembling. His bushy, bird nest-like white hair was shaking as he was standing from one leg onto the other. “We are losing him… He won’t survive this…!”

“Drain the vat!” She ordered, stopping everyone in their place. “Did I stutter?!” She looked around them.

“N-no!” Fizzy gulped, never seeing her like this. In the end Lizzy herself was the one who started the emergency ‘flushing’. 

“Come one Alpha…” Lizzy murmured, calling him the opposite of the name that the others referred to him. Simply out of spite. “Show these idiots that they are wrong…!” 

As the green fluid was drained and the wat opened up, Lizzy cut the synthetic umbilical cord, taking the little, fully human-looking baby into her arms. He was no longer twitching or moving at all. His small chest was unmoving and he never started to breathe.

“Liz…” Fizzy said softly, releasing a silent sigh.

“Come on…” Lizzy bit into her lips, gently pressing onto his small chest, trying to massage his hearth.

As soon as she did so, the little baby coughed, throwing up a great amount of green gel. Lizzy immediately raised him, tapping at his back, letting him vomit out a great amount of it as he took his first breaths. He did not cry, he just slowly struggled a little in her hands and started to open his eyes, for the first time in his already 20 years long life. They were completely violet in color and filled with light as he looked at Lizzy, memorizing the first face he ever saw with them. 

“Ahahaha!” Lizzy laughed and cried at the same time, seeing him alive, breathing and looking into her eyes. 

“...” He just watched her, gently furrowing his small brows, before blinking his eyes and turning his head. He took a look at all the others surrounding him before turning back towards Lizzy.

It was a moment that none of the scientists would forget as the remaining fruit of their two decades of work has finally paid off. The first of a new evolutionary step has been taken. The first of a new kind of human was born and the real Project Alpha has just started.