|Viraliv|[17-21]Ciusir-Bi|Umaek|Usaeni|Lidrion|
12,763,892,458cy
High orbit above Lidrion, Arkan Station
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#Tube Pov#
*Tap* *Tap* Inside the tubule, trillions cry out in pain and suffering as their life is mercilessly ripped out from their outer layer. As their organs rupture from their bodies, their fellows are forced into the mess by the movement caused by the oxygen based compound that is forced into their environment every now and then. Looking outside the tubule they see their captor, their master, and their most hated enemy looking at them with a bored attitude.
#Willum Pov#
Willum looks closer as the liquid in the tube moves with intelligence after his tapping, trying to wake them into action as he starts his daily routine. He moves on from the tubes and begins walking to the bathrooms, looking to fix up his appearance for the conference that will start in a little while; a conference that brings him little joy. His bosses, ever the tyrants, want him to speed up the development of one of the biggest discoveries in the history of their civilization. Of course, they don’t understand how such a development would require absolute delicacy and trust from them, but no, they want it to be done in a timely and profitable timeline. A bunch of useless oafs that couldn’t even begin to understand how important this research is for humanity. He adjusts his collar and gives himself one more final look in the mirror before heading back to the lab. He gets stopped by a lab assistant that informs him that the specimens have already started their treatment for the day, to be specific the electric therapy.
From that point on the specimens will undergo shocks every 5 minutes which will abruptly kill around 75% of the population and force them through continuous genetic bottlenecks. Of course, with the oxygen compound supplemented to them and with how quickly their generations are there is absolutely no threat of them all dying out. This is done for two main reasons. Firstly, it pushes them towards certain evolutionary mutations in the hopes of creating a population of somewhat intelligent microbes capable of surviving in a human body and making it more efficient by optimizing the body's natural functions. The second reason is very important to this plan for the reason that the second plan is to increase subservience of the microbes, shock them into submissive so to speak. After all is done this should create an extremely beneficial species of microbes that can make the human body more efficient in all regards, all the while having a stable population that can exist from whatever waste is in the host body and best of all something that can be specialized to deal with certain situations. Colonizing a desert world would be no problem no, simply optimize the microbes to work in that environment and then inject them into the host and wallah; this development would make many worlds worth it to colonize now that they aren’t money holes and logistical nightmares.
Of course, that’s the goal and the team aboard this station are the ones who have to get it done, all the while suffering under the neck-breathing of the impatient directors. Willum, being one of the primary scientists who originally came up with the idea after finding the miraculous microbes on the nearby planet, and after securing funding from these people, is their primary contact aboard the station. Speaking of Willum, he’s marching his way down to the briefing room, the only room fitted with an uplink to a commercial-use long range satellite; a nifty tool for stations so far into undocumented space. Operating the device, Willum quickly changes his grimace for a slight smile, not too strong of course, and hits the big button causing the uplink to go live.
“Hello and welcome, I’m sure everyone is wanting to hear the good news on the progress that we’ve made during these last six months?” Willum said, still trying his best to wear the face of a conman.
“Of course… we’re here to see if our funding went to use or if your scientific mumbles were just those of a charlatan. So, show us.” The bald, fat one says.
Willum quickly shoots back, “Of course, I’ll pull up the results of our early investigations into how truly useful these microbes can be…”
One of the CEOs decidedly interjects, “We don’t care how useful they are, we just care about how profitable they can be!” at the time he points his finger at the screen as if to prod Willum.
Willum, disgruntled, quickly throws away the little speech he had prepared from his mind and immediately dives into the progress they made towards the promised applications of the microbes. What follows is a lengthy overview of the most important research Willum, and everyone aboard the station, has ever done in their lives. Quickly followed by a yawn from one of the directors, many of them looking bored. All they say in response is that Willum has secured their funding for a while more but they expect quick returns on their investment so, speed up the work. These are the exact words Willum didn’t want to hear. Forcing the microbes under more stress could result in some unwanted and risky mutations, them developing a way to counter whatever stresses them would risk the passiveness they have developed. Of course, not following along with the board’s direct orders would result in the fundings being pulled and the project would simply shift hands to another team more willing to quicken the process.
Nobody wants that, so the riskier but quicker approach is really the only option. I only hope that our work on the microbes doesn’t get too shaken up. My thoughts are interrupted by one Joseph Mathews, my second in command, saying “What’d those fat hens want this time?”.
“Just the same old crap about wanting their investments to immediately turn into a golden goose, specifically they want us to spend up our work.”
“What? But that will...”
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“Increase the instability and risk certain unwanted mutations? I know but it’s our only option, they won’t listen to reason nor look at the long-term versus short-term benefits. Anyway, tell the team, we need those specimens to undergo treatment for six more hours a shift.”
“Well alright, I guess it’s our only option but if this backfires then that’s the end of our lives as scientists, like forever.” says Joseph rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.
Staring at Josephs retreating back, Willum sighs before returning to the specimens and observing them, thinking that he just needs to take it one day at a time until the end. Whatever that end will look like, at least he’ll be the one to see it in person.
#Tube Pov#
“The culling ended later this cycle” says one voice.
Another adds “We keep losing more and more of us as this goes on”.
Another “What can we even do, trapped in this strange place?”
Even more voices pour in, all talking at nearly the same time and yet comprehensively, “If we don’t have the ability necessary to free ourselves then all we can do is wait for our captor to free us.”
“And how many cycles do you think that will take, how long until we lose ourselves and meld?”, this one has a rather angry feminine voice.
“Then, what do you suggest? I don’t like it either but I don’t see any other way around it.” a more stern voice says.
“What we should be discussing is that each cycle we change, would our brethren even recognize us as being the same as them anymore?”, this one has the voice of an old man.
A more scholarly voice, “Exactly, we can’t control much while trapped but at least we should be documenting what has transpired here. Anything that happens after we are free will probably be dealt with by our descendants.”
A sigh and then, “Right, we are on the 180th cycle and I don’t imagine that this will end anytime soon. We are worrying over the same things our ancestors did, the only thing we should be worrying about is what we can do to preserve our sense of self.”
All of the voices go quiet at this, going back to their task of thinking some more. To a human, milliseconds have gone by but that’s enough for the countless microbes in the tube to have a lengthy debate involving all of their “leaders”. A debate that has happened many times before and usually ends in the same result, to wait to be freed. Not that they didn’t try to free themselves, it’s simply that their cage is too well built that there is nothing that they can do.
#Willum Pov#
It’s been almost three months since the last meeting with the board and since then we’ve increased the stress on the specimens as told. So far, nothing bad has happened, in fact they’ve become more passive. Passive is a bad way to explain it, it’s more like they’ve become stupider; perhaps due to the lower standard population level. They still pass the mental test whenever we throw it at them but it certainly takes longer, this is good and bad. Good because it means they will be more compatible to the human body. Bad because it means they’ve become less efficient and we could’ve made them more compatible in other, less wasteful ways. Furthermore, we don’t know why they’ve become stupider. There are many hypotheses on why but the only way to test that would be to take some specimens from one tube and transplant them in another and test. That’s dangerous because it would shock their already low population and we risk some specimens escaping while the transplant is ongoing.
In any case, the only thing we can do is push forward, after we succeed we’d have enough money to start our own experiments and once the culling stops their population wouldn’t be as fragile either. Well anyway until then maybe we could do some less complicated experiments to try and increase their intelligence, we want these little guys to be able to compete with nanites after all and they’ll need everything they can get to do so. Speaking of nanites, some good news came in recently that the price to produce them has gone up again. I’m sure the business people are quaking in their boots but their downfall will be our upswing.
Continuing on to the lab I see Joseph observing the specimens before he sees me in the reflection and turns around. He brightens up at seeing me and reports, “Finally, everyone in the lab was waiting to tell you their ideas about why these things have been getting slower, I’ve put them all into this file. Here.” he says before shoving a file at me. I look through the file, many of the ideas I’ve already heard before but there are a few new ones. Like this one that states, their intelligence depends on the amount of members in the area. Or this one that says, the environment being vastly different from their natural one is affecting them in unexpected ways. Or even the last one in the file that’s claiming that maybe there is an undiscovered organelle in some specimen that gives them a higher intelligence then their brethren. Some kind of recessive gene or maybe a sub-species that, through the cullings, hasn’t fared as well as the dumber ones. All of these hypotheses are good but they all point to one thing, that perhaps we have overlooked something about the specimens. My own thoughts lead somewhere else, unlike the others in the lab only a few of us were in the team that actually obtained these specimens and they weren’t very intelligent when we found them. I think, early on in the testing, due to chance perhaps, they mutated in such a way that made them more intelligent. Perhaps they had some natural curiosity and the intelligence test they were subjected to encouraged that and now with the increased stress they no longer care about the intelligence trait but only survival, resulting in a diminish of intelligence.
Ultimately, we have no way of knowing until we can do extensive tests which will have to come after we complete their development. Whatever intelligence they lose here we’ll have to accept it and move on due to the time constants. Hopefully this won’t bite us in the ass later but what can you do when you’re on a leash to those greedy bastards.
Tapping at the glass again, as I do, I see the liquid move again much as it always does. These microbes are very curious, they adapt very quickly and there are many sub-species of them even within a few feet of area. They seem to be the undisputed champions of the planet, 93% of all surfice life on this planet are within their super-species classification. And yet, even after extensive observation they aren’t aggressive. We don’t have any documented cases of them predating on other microbes or being territorial, as if this entire super-species just lives by the words of “live and let live”. Even when being attacked by the other lifeforms on the planet they simply migrate and choose not to compete or engage with aggressives. It makes one wonder how they came to conquer the planet, perhaps they had a predecessor that was incredibly efficient at killing or a league above in being fit?
Though in the future their position in the world will no doubt change. Likely within the next few thousand years they will have a mass extinction event and with how sparse in biodiversity the planet is, I doubt life will fare well. Of course, with their natural ability to adapt so quickly who knows? What I do know is that we should see this as our one and only chance to study this truly remarkable species. And so we shall, for the good of mankind, for our place in the histories, and to fund my studies for the rest of my life! These little guys are my golden ticket to everything I have ever wanted in life and I will never let them slip from my grasp!