Scene 1. Spark

Lilly spends the day at home meeting with Ellie, who is visiting to review Lilly's new drawings of her ‘new technologies’. Lilly reflects while she is working with Ellie,

Is my bringing this ‘new technology’ here, to my world, always a good thing? Apollo’s ‘frame’ shows that this technology is progressively used in his world for useful things, but also for war and destruction…

After the meeting Lilly resumes welding her metal sculpture 'art', and eating pizza to relax. She examines a pizza slice, If I keep this up, I won’t fit through any of the doorways here in the house!

.....

After a relatively uneventful day in the waking world, alternately feeling hungry and pregnant, Lilly awakens back in Apollo’s world. Her day begins with her morning constitutional, including the ‘goat washer’. She is feeling refreshed and ready for the day.

At least I’m not pregnant again here, yet…

At breakfast Apollo suddenly looks up at Lilly and smiles, “Today we are going to visit the ‘Biological Sciences Institute’.” “That’s where I work.” They leave the residence without Ticktock, I guess there will be no questions asked, or answered, on the trip today, probably because I would just get myself in trouble with the ‘thought police’ for asking too many questions.

The two travel by autonomous car to another large white industrial building and enter. The receptionist here is a human female. Apollo walks past her, apparently needing no permission to proceed into this building. The two walk into one of the floor boxes to another floor of the building. Then they proceed down a series of long hallways and finally enter a large laboratory room, filled with apparatus different from anything Lilly has seen before. It features many glass tube sets, much like the Chemistry lab, but also a lot of electrical boxes connected to each other and large wire bundles leading to large liquid-filled tanks. In the back of the room are racks holding rows of small cages, with small animal faces peering out. On the walls are drawing boards filled with cryptic symbols and diagrams of animal body figures. Photographic negative viewer boxes and the image and movie projection ‘frames’ are also mounted randomly on the walls of the laboratory room.

“Lilly come here and take a look.” Lilly looks into one of the animal cages to see something quite shocking. The animal inside the cage is a small rat. This rat has patches of fur that all seem to be from different animal species. The rat has patches of fur that are variously, coarse, fine, straight, bristle and fluff, and each patch is a different color. Apollo points at the animal, “This rat is a ‘chimera’, an animal that is a composite of different animal species.” “You can see the different patches of fur representative of the different animals: wolf; sheep; weasel; and bear.” “We transferred the fetal cells for fur from the donor animals into this rat while it was still a fetus.”

Lilly briefly examines the other cages. They contain little ‘monsters’ with varying kinds of legs and heads. Lilly backs up horrified. “These animals are combinations of fetal cells for other body structures, organs and bones, from different placental animal species.” “We have shown that we can grow a placental animal fetus to full term and normal birth, containing the organs and bones consisting only of the cells of the donor animal.” “These ‘chimera’ organs are used for organ and bone transplants, to replace the diseased organs or bones in human patents.” “These ‘chimera’ animals are also used for drug research.”

Lilly looks away, Can I erase that last vision please?

“Related to this research, the entire chemical sequence of the molecular inheritance for humans, and a large number of other organisms, was fully decoded.” “The original goal was to find treatments and therapy’s for the development anomalies that can occur during fetal development and early childhood growth in humans.”

“One thing that was found was the amazing similarity of the molecular sequence of all the placental mammals to each other.” “In very few places was the molecular sequence very different between the species of the placentals.” “Apparently, all placental mammals evolved from a small group or maybe a single species.” "This division into the present placental species occurred only a short geological-time period ago.” “Although the different placental mammal species can differ greatly in size, behavior and lifestyle, they are not very different inside." "All have the same number and shape of bones, muscles and teeth.” “And within some variation, the different placental mammal species all have the same organs and blood.” “The organs may be modified for the different lifestyles and ecological niches, the different placental mammal species internal structures differ only in development, not basic structure, and most importantly, none have any completely new structures that the others do not have.” “An important example of this is the placental mammal brain.” “All placental mammal species have the same brain sub-structures, differing from each other only in size, or the number of neurons.” “Our ‘computing engines’ were put to work to determine the possibility of molding any of these animals into other body and brain forms, such as a ‘biped sentient human’ form.” “The answer did not take very long to compute.” “The gap between the species is not very large and the number of code differences in the animal’s molecular sequence is small.” “As an added bonus, all of the code differences occur in the molecular sequence where the function of that section was previously identified.” “So we immediately knew what to change and where to change it in the molecular sequence, to produce the result we wanted in the ‘new’ animal design.”

“The animal body structures that require the most changes for humanizing development are, in order of difficulty: brain sub-structure size; fore-limb ‘hands’ for tool manipulation; throat and mouth for speech; and biped stance for locomotion and balance.” “Additionally, for the females, moving the primary mammary glands from the lower loin to the top of the nipple line on the chest, as human females have.” Lilly looks down at herself, Yeah, that is a difference. I would kick those bags when I walked if they weren't moved up. Then a realization starts to set in to Lilly,

Wait! What!? Me!?

Scene 2. Adam

“The new molecular sequence is injected into an egg cell with the original molecular sequence removed. The fetus is allowed to develop in the normal placental way, inside a female host, a ‘surrogate mother’, animal.” “The first animals that were tried were several species of primates.” “This was thought to be the easiest animal for this research, because primates have a molecular structure and body plan naturally closest to humans.”

“The primate development research was an unmitigated disaster, right from the start!”

“Although the animals developed to term without any problems, as the young animals matured, they became increasingly violent and viscous.” “Their increased intelligence resulted in animals that could plot complex escapes from the laboratory and into the surrounding towns, to steal human food and to lurk in the shadows planning murders, far beyond their original animal abilities.” “There were several spectacular incidents involving these first modified primates.” “All of the modified primates were eventually recaptured and then immediately destroyed.” “It was deemed unsafe to even try to restrain or cage these brooding, plotting, intelligent monsters.” “Because of all the bad publicity, the entire ‘animal modification’ program was considered for permanent cancellation, with any further research being outlawed, for all time.”

“But there is always an ‘outlier’ in the group.” “While the main line of research was on the primates, a maverick researcher decided to try a placental mammal a bit further afield." "The researcher performed the molecular modification on a wolf.” “And it was an astounding, and prize winning, success.” “The embryo developed normally to a fetus, and then to full term to be born more or less naturally, by a cow surrogate.” “This new modified wolf’s fetal form was quite a bit larger than the original wolf fetus size, so a cow was used as the surrogate mother.” “This ‘modified animal’ was a male wolf cub." "He quickly learned to walk upright and to talk, although clear speech was difficult." "He was calm and very sweet, we named him, ‘Adam’.” “This modified wolf cub, Adam, was clearly very intelligent, friendly, and easy to work with, unlike all of those evil primates.” “Unfortunately Adam did not live very long.” “Adam suffered from clonic seizures, thought to be due to pressure on his brain.” “He had an underdeveloped and undersized skull brain-case” “The skull fissures had closed too quickly during his fetal development.” “Adam also had difficulty vocalizing human words, so the vocal structure of his throat also needed more work.” “Adam made many friends among the researchers in his short life.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Many cried when Adam died, but we all acknowledged that it finally ended Adam’s living pain, for which we had no treatment, no cure.”

Scene 3. God

Apollo then smiles to the sky, looking like a true mad-scientist, “But, at last, we now knew that we were on the right track!”

“Come Lilly, and see for yourself the amazing progress that we made with this research.” Lilly stops cold, Why do I have so much apprehension again about proceeding? What are the horrors that await me? And what revelations?

Apollo then walks to a door in the back of the lab. The door opens into foreboding darkness. Inside the door the lights near the door light up. Lilly and Apollo stand looking into a large warehouse with a high ceiling. The lights come on as they walk and go out behind them. The lights are around them, like sprites, following them as they walk.

The souls of the dead.

The lights only illuminate their immediate area, the rest of the warehouse remains very dark,

and the truth hidden.

The first rows have small and medium sized clear glass specimen jars. Lilly looks into the first jar,

It is a brain! Maybe even a goat brain! This is what Foxworthy wants to do to me!

Apollo reads the specimen description card, “This is a typical specimen of an unmodified brain of a mature male North American gray wolf.”

Beyond the first specimen of the complete brain are several more specimen jars, each holding a brain sub-structure. With each original brain sub-structure specimen are additional specimens in jars that show the progressive sequence of the visible changes made by modifying the molecular structure for the development of this brain sub-structure. Generally the specimen sequence shows the sub-structure grow progressively larger and changing shape with the sequential modifications. Apollo enumerates the functions of the substructures and how increasing the relative size will allow the creature to have self-awareness and symbolic language comprehension. A number on each specimen card is the average number of neurons contained in that sub-structure, before and after. All of these sub-structures have increased the number of neurons they contain by many times.

Also in the row are several bone skulls, also displayed in a modification sequence. The first skull being the skull of the original animal. Then the skulls become progressively larger, and they also change overall shape, especially in the back of the skull. The skull assumes more of a ball shape, similar to the skulls of the humans. Overall the brain case volume increases by a factor of three from the original.

The next row features the bones of the species’ fore-legs, also shown in the progression of modification. The fore-leg bone sequence is shown for several different animals: a sheep; a wolf and a rat. The modified rat claw bones end up looking very much like the human hand bones. This resultant design is presumed to allow fine tool manipulation. The wolf paw also was already very close to the human hand and already was fairly dexterous so not much modification was required. The sheep fore-hoof also did not change much. It still looked almost as awkward for tool manipulation as the original hoof. Apollo comments, “Hooves are the hardest to progress back to the original claw structure.” “These beast-folk can use special gloves for object manipulation.” “Horses, with their single-digit hoof, gave us the most trouble.” “Modifications to cloven-hoofed animals worked out pretty well though.” “Two of the toes are already at the end of the lower-leg.” “These beast-folk can hold handled tools for labor, agriculture and cooking,” “Cows, sheep and goat and pig hooves are all about the same for modification.

The next row featured displays of complete skeletons, before and after modification. The most noticeable was the change from a quadruped stance to a biped stance, the span between the shoulders and the hips is widened. The bodies of rats and mice were modified to make them bigger, almost to the stance height of the smaller weasels.

Apollo comments, "The biped version bodies for horses, cows, bears are all made smaller than those of the unmodified animals." "This is necessary to have these modified animals fit into an environment already sized for the average human." Lilly stares at the skeletons of the unmodified rats and mice, noting that, other than size, the rats and mice have bodies that are almost identical to the human skeleton in the display.

Lilly laughs, I knew it! You humans are just a bunch of big ol’ Rats!

Further into the warehouse, the rows are lined with vertically standing, three meter tall, clear glass cylinders. Each cylinder is a sealed hollow tank, filled with a clear liquid.

But the real horror is what is suspended within the cylinders. All of the cylinders contain the dead bipedal animal bodies. The first tank contains one of the primate modification subjects. It had a body that strongly resembling a human body, except it is hairy, has bigger, uglier ears and its face is pulled into a frozen, grimacing snarl.

This row is dedicated to the numerous unsuccessful primate modification experiments and apparently all of the experimental subjects created are displayed here. Some of them feature small black holes at various places on their bodies. These holes are presumably where these creatures were shot with bullets to ‘neutralize’ them. The different primates only to differ in overall body size, some have huge chests and bulging muscles and look very scary.

‘Monsters’ indeed!

The next row is shows the results of the non-primate placental research. The first tank holds a small wolf-boy, likely it is ‘Adam’. Lilly’s eyes are wide as she is yet horrified again,

He looks just like Timmy!

Lilly recoils from the sight and backs up against Apollo’s leg, shaking her head. “No Lilly!” “It is very important that you look at everything in this room.” The next tank had another young wolf-boy. “This one was better at speaking but still had seizures and died young.” “Modifying the development of the brain-case was the most difficult of these efforts and it remains difficult, being a major difference between the various species.” “Even the molecular modifications of the throat and vocal chords for clear speech is difficult, but it was easier than perfecting the modifications necessary for the suitable brain-case size for each species." "All modifications had to fit in species with sexual dimorphism, differences in size and in other body elements between the males and females.”

Apollo herds Lilly along the row, each cylinder has a new wolf-boy. Each specimen appearing a little older. Then the specimens begin to resemble Fendor. Every hair on Lilly’s body is standing straight up. “As you can see we eventually stabilized the inheritance molecule.” “Along the way we found that these new creatures could reproduce naturally, among themselves, and produce healthy offspring, naturally passing all of the attributes of the original modifications.” “The offspring have all the new features, especially the intelligence.”

Lilly notes that each row starts with a different species, but with fewer tanks, fewer unsuccessful examples. Apparently the development process became more efficient with experience. They walk past tanks containing specimens of both domestic and wild placental animal species. Even if the size of the original animal is very large there is not as much variation between the different modified versions. The naturally smaller animal species are still smaller than the other naturally larger species.

Apollo halts walking and reflects, “A few placentals were found to be too difficult, such as aquatic types and those of giant sizes.” “Some of these were tried, for curiosity sake, but in general, the commercialized versions of the modified animals are all the common types that you see here, goats, sheep cows, horses, pigs, the various carnivore species, cats, dogs, bears, and weasels, and then the rats, mice, squirrels and rabbits.” “It is even easier making the modification to the rodents, which are the closest to primates in genetic and body structure, they already have hand-like claws.” "Rabbits also weren’t too difficult to modify."

And so, with the exception of the primates, all of the beast-folk on display in this archive resemble the residents of Lilly’s waking world.

Scene 4. Promise

Then they come to the ‘goat’ row. Lilly can see a shadow ahead. She recoils and does not want to look at the tank and looks down and away. Apollo grabs her head and points it at the tank ahead, “There’s you!” “Your ancestor actually.” Inside the tank suspended from the top is a naked body, a large, white, goat-woman, identical to the ‘Lilly’ in the other world. She is hanging in the tank, motionless, her eyes are closed as if asleep. Lilly, her eyes are wide in horror, screams,

It’s Me! “Baaaaaaaah!”

Now, at last, no more cagey, circumspect words, no more hints.

Now, at last, I am forced to confront The Truth!

We originated directly from the non-sentient species of wild and domestic animals of this world.

You 'humans' created us, the sentient beast-folk, in your own image, with your ‘science’.

Apollo continues, to try and calm the gasping, panting Lilly, “Lilly, Don’t take this revelation too hard.” “During our placental species modification research we found evidence in the human molecular sequence that we ‘humans’ are also the result of deliberate molecular sequence modifications. Enhancement modifications similar to our beast-folk modifications were performed on an extinct primate-ape species a million or so years ago.” "We 'humans' are the resultant species."

“By whom and why, we do not know.”