Raina led him into a far corner of the throne room, where an argyle couch sat in front of an enormous CRT TV, one of the heavy ones, at least fifty inches on the diagonal but square. She plopped her –very fit– butt onto the horrid couch and patted the seat next to her. To Liam, it looked like grandma was trying to get him to watch a ‘Golden Girls’ marathon with her. If grandma’s anti-aging creams actually worked… And came with a gym membership.
“It won’t open unless you say the words and are sitting down.” Said Raina, half looking at Liam as she double checked Nekohiro.
The teen eclipsiarch had caught one of the white rabbits, and was now chewing on its femur, ignorant of the blood that stained her muzzle and paws.
I guess that’s one way to make the other rabbits run faster. Thought Liam, taking a seat.
Raina inhaled deeply, folding her legs criss cross and holding out her arms in front of her. Liam copied the gesture, feeling like they were trying to do yoga on a couch, deeply uncomfortable.
“Alright, now speak the words with me, they are an ancient tongue from before Taloc’s birth. Tis strange, and we must be mindful. So listen closely.”
One glance at the VHS tapes that were stacked beneath the TV told Liam everything he needed to know. There was an animated movie he’d seen dozens of times, a disney movie.
Cmon, please tell me you didn’t use *THAT* phrase. It’s so… cliche! Thought Liam.
“Ooppann Szechuaann!” Said Raina, gesturing towards the TV.
Nothing happened.
“You have to say it too.” Said Raina.
“You gotta be kidding me.” Muttered Liam, this time speaking English. A language he hadn’t used fluently for the past few years. His voice was gruff, but the words came easily. This was some kind of practical joke on Taloc’s part, there was no need for couch-yoga. So he did not raise his arms, and he unfolded his legs, leaning back against the couch.
“Let's hope the rest of this lab is voice activated, Ahem. Open,”
Liam cringed,
“Sesame.”
And for a heart breaking second nothing happened. He sat on the couch, staring at the television set, then the TV and the entertainment center it was nested inside of took on a translucent quality. The wall behind it faded and Liam could see into a laboratory. More of the stainless steel filled the room, lining the floor, walls, and –most peculiarly– the ceiling. Consoles lined the walls, looking like dell monitors with screens that seemed more blue than a particular windows error. All in english. It said a simple message.
“Welcome to the Genetic Ark,
If you’re reading this, then Therun is an asshole and zapped someone besides me.
Which means we failed. I’m sorry.”
There was a ‘...’ button below the words, a terrifying yet irresistible button that Liam immediately clicked on. Someone from earth had come before. Taloc had attempted to right this world before and failed.
Liam touched the nearest screen, and the ellipses button disappeared, replaced by more on screen text.
“I’ve coded ‘Gene’ to respond to voice commands. It’ll understand most languages, except the one it was originally coded in. Yeah, don’t ask, I got no clue if it’s aliens or ancient humans. And at this point, I do not care. Took me a century to get it to this point! Had to recode the entire unix system from memory. Installing Arch would have been a million times easier. So, Good Luck.
–Ian Murdock.”
Liam reread the message twice. Great, magic runs on a bastardized version of Linux. Can I SUDO LEVELUP?
Nothing happened.
Eh, worth a try. But with all things Linux, it doesn’t work. Why am I not surprised? If I had access to reddit I could probably find a decade old thread with my specific scenario… Thought Liam, advancing into the room.
The furnishings were an eclectic mix of nonsense from the twentieth century, with odd additions from earlier periods and a few items that Liam couldn’t place, though if that meant they were from the future or just an arcane dead end was unknowable.
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“Great… Gotta clean up another professor’s mess.” Muttered Liam, walking through the room a second time without touching anything.
“Ark, no. Gene, do you recognize me?”
New text appeared on the flatscreens, all presenting the same information.
User William Wilson, appointed as Administrator 00899 by Administrator Therun Perun Taloc.
“Respond using a voice please. Did Taloc leave me any notes on what he was working on?”
An emotionless voice spoke from a nebulous point in front of Liam.
“Administrator Taloc left the following note. ‘If I knew how Gene worked I wouldn’t need you.’ That was the final entry of his final visit.”
Liam found a chair, sitting down at a terminal with a dedicated screen and keyboard. If it took someone a hundred years to remake Linux, then some kind of time dilation was in effect.
“Great, I’m inside a madman’s time machine and genetic lab, no way this could possibly go wrong.” He switched from english back to the native tongue, “Raina, don’t touch anything if you can help it. This… Well, this place shouldn’t exist.”
“You’re speaking the language of our manuals.” She said, speaking in heavily accented English.
Liam jerked in surprise, accidentally knocking over a nick-nak of a gunmetal colored flying saucer, one that seemed to float above a gray base. Probably using magnets.
“You speak english! Ah, I guess that makes sense, wait, there is a textbook? Show me!”
Raina strode through the room, her steps always falling perfectly into the center of the walkway. Nimbly maneuvering to Liam’s side, where her slender fingers found the escape key on the keyboard in front of him.
A login screen appeared on screen. Complete with a background that must have been made in MSpaint, like a terrible meme. Even the text was slightly skewed.
“Taloc, that asshole, pulled me backwards in time and left me in this genetics laboratory. But it’s not really a lab, this is some kind of ship. I’ve got samples for days and complete control over genomes. Everything is automated, and some clown got in here before Taloc, like really, who tries to make a rattlesnake their waifu? What the actual fuck?!?
Anyways, this ship was used to seed this world and empower the ‘workers’. Can’t make heads or tails of what that means, but it involves these ‘levels’ and ‘magic’. I have no clue how magic works, but it’s tied to a series of satellites in orbit. Don’t try and remove the system, just work within it. There are countermeasures if you try and shoot down a satellite or remove magic. Seriously, don’t fuck with the AI. I put it to sleep, but if you wake this cunt up, well, kiss your ass sayonara. If Taloc sent you, then the password to this Ark is ‘Passw0rd’. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t bother giving it to you, cause if you can’t figure that out, you shouldn’t be playing with anyone’s genetic code.”
Liam stared at the message, reading it three times before he typed Passw0rd into the terminal.
“Welcome.” Appeared on screen, running something that was vaguely reminiscent of a windows mobile operating system.
“Oh great, this shit is awful.” Said Liam, recalling the piece of garbage phone his grandpa had given him during middle school. Everything worked off touch commands. Easily the worst system he’d ever known.
“Of all the operating systems to emulate you picked a linux version of windows OS… Bro, what the hell?” He glanced back at Raina, her eyes wider than her shoulders.
“How!? It took me ten years to get that! You, you- cleared it in seconds!”
“Yeah, not my first time, at least Taloc got that much right. I can read this language, uh, fluently.” Said Liam, tapping on a secondary screen. “I’m not wandering around here without a clue, I got at least one lightbulb over my head.” Said Liam, chuckling at the joke.
“What’s a lightbulb?” Said Raina, walking into the lab and closing the door behind her. “No, it doesn’t matter! Who are you? How did you know without ever trying?”
“I hate to admit it, but Taloc seems to know what he’s doing. Now show me how you made Nekohiro.”
—
They spent two days within the lab, working tirelessly as Liam meticulously dissected the database. These tools were everything he had ever hoped for, more than that, they were fully automated. Genetics and gene editing hadn’t been his specialization, which was anatomy with a focus on application via surgery, with some kinesthesiology mixed in. But the Ark compensated for his lack of skill, seeming to adjust to his demands. Within a day he had the gorgon genome rewired so their future generations wouldn’t be quite so bitey, or scaly. While it only took an hour for the automated lab to fix the felinid genome. They could keep their external appearance, but gestation, number of children, and cross compatibility with humanity was added. There was just one problem. This was a single room, in a distant southern land. And there were millions of felinids.
Raina opened up to him with surprising ease and the two worked well together, making Liam suspicious enough to run a genomic analysis on a strand of her hair, then on his own. It was a thirty one percent match. Without a doubt they were half siblings, ones who had their –or their ancestor’s– genome altered. Liam made no attempt to hide the results, and Raina seemed unable to read English in its entirety. Often confusing L for R and vice versa. A problem Liam began to solve. The lab provided them with a sort of glass whiteboard, one that you could mark with your finger and erase with a wave of the hand. He stayed away from genetic lessons, though he acquired one of Nekohiro’s hairs and found it to be a 97% match to Raina.
Moriel Nekohiro wasn’t Raina’s child at all.
She was a clone.
Of all the nonsense you could have done. Thought Liam, beginning to understand the total chaos this laboratory could cause.
“Hey Gene, do you have a copy of the HIV virus?”
Twelve windows opened, each a variant of the requested virus.
“How about Ebola and smallpox?” Asked Liam, wincing as a list of over one hundred bioweapons appeared on screen.
We could kill everyone on the planet with a single one of these bioweapons. How about an airborne AIDS epidemic? Or an Ebola breakout with a month long incubation period. That would result in a ninety nine percent fatality rate…
God… This power shouldn’t exist.