After the battle, I replayed the fight in my head on a loop to see what I did wrong and right. I consulted, modeled, and experimented with Galdalf to see what I could do to increase my combat survivability. The nose sensory organ was interesting, as a crab I did not have one. It was like a tongue that could taste the air. It would be a good backup sensory organ if my eyes were damaged or destroyed. As a bonus, according to Gandalf, 80% of flavor was based on the sense of smell for many species. There was a chance that food would taste better.
Now I had to decide where to put my new nose. The front of my face seemed like a bad place. I was easily able to cut off the mole monster’s nose to spite its face. I could not put it under my shell because it would drag on the ground. I did not want to lose skin off my nose every time I moved. With no other suitable location available, I decided to grow my new nose on top of my shell so everything would be right under my nose. With my decision made, a popup appeared in my field of vision.
Grow a new nose? Y or N?
Beginning growth of new organ…
Calculating time to complete growth..
Estimated time for completion is 5 hours.
OMG so itchy! I waved my claws above me and began to spin round and round trying to scratch the top of my shell.
1700 hours rolled around again and the white coats left as per their daily pattern. All except for one person, it was the white coat who had won all the bets. He climbed a ladder up to the top of my cage and with a crouching grunt, lifted open the heavy ceiling hatch far above me, then sat down with his legs dangling over into my room.
This was the sonofabitch white coat that caused me so much trouble! It had turned all of the other white coats against me with one bet and cost me my lunch. I rushed to the center of the room and tried to snip at his feet with my claws. But he was too far above me.
The human put his hand into his white coat and removed a flask, uncapped it and took a long swig then held the flask towards me. “I toast you Mr. Crab, you made me a lot of money today. None of the other scientists believe in you, but I do. It’s no fluke that you have survived this long despite choosing such a stupid body. You could have been a mini-raptor that is fast and strong but you chose to be a crab.”
“Do you have any idea how many man hours went into creating you? How tedious it was to magically CRISPR in the dna of a slime, a chimera, and a mimic to create you? It was a near impossible task and we could have saved all the trouble and a lot of money if we just went to the seafood section of a grocery store…”
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On and on the white coat complained about me while he drank from his flask. It was at this moment that my new nose popped out of the top of my shell and I sneezed for the first time, “HAACHOO!!”
The startled white coat leaned forward and fell into my cage. The fat man easily out massed me by a factor of 4 but I was getting used to unfair odds. I wisely scuttled to the side. He screamed as he fell and landed head first into my lair. His head bent at a strange angle. Well that was the easiest kill of my entire life.
Wow, this nose is amazing. It had somehow managed to kill a white coat all by itself! I sniffed the air for the first time. I nearly gagged from the smell coming off of my body. In addition to the odor of unwashed crab, I detected the smell of ethanol coming from the corpse. He had been drinking and it was not water.
With Gandolf’s help I played back the white coat’s rant and connected the language to my encyclopedic knowledge. In 15 minutes of one way conversation I had learned the human’s language.
How rude! He disrespected my awesome crab body. Hey Gandalf, which body is better? Human or crab? The answer was obviously crab, case in point, just look at the dead human next to me.
Gandalf.exe search running…
Human.bat interrupts process..
Abductive reasoning added.
New answer: Since the humans were outside of the cage performing tests on him, while he, a crab, was inside the cage, then it reasons that humans may be superior to crabs.
I stood on the body of the dead white coat and reached for the exit hatch. Not even close, maybe crabs were an inferior design. The probability of escaping this cage as a crab was 0.0000%.
With no other choice, I climbed onto the dead human’s head and began to eat his face nose first. Humans are delicious.
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The next day at 830 hours I was rudely awakened by the sound of alarms blaring down from the top of the cage. I saw men in black coats rushing in to surround my room. When everyone was in position, a white coat climbed the ladder up to the top of my cage. He was handed one of those hated electric prods and zaped me in the ass.
“OUCH! That hurts!” I screamed.
The white coat on top of the cage screamed back, “What the hell are doing down in there Intern Goggles? Is that part of Specimen Zero hanging out of your mouth? My god man, you reek of alcohol. What the fuck is wrong with you man? You ate the fucking crab did’ent you?”
I shrugged my shoulders and removed the crab legs from my last molt out of my mouth. The cage was empty except for me and I was not Intern Goggles.
“For the love of god man. Don’t even say a word, you will be contacted by our corporate attorneys. You just ate billions of credits of R&D money, you stupid, stupid, fool. You let that last win get to your head kiddo.”
The electric prod was replaced with a ladder that was lowered down from the hatch.
“Just so there are no misunderstandings. You are FIRED! And for the love of god man, put on some clothes. Grab your things, these gentlemen in black will escort you out of the building. Now get out of my sight!” Screamed the lead researcher.
I was grabbed under my arms by two black coats even larger than me and dragged away. On the way out, they searched through my clothes I had accidently put on backwards and took my white coat and its attached badge from me.
Before I knew what was happening to me, I was outside and free. Wow, I did not know the world outside was so big. Dazed and confused by the rapid change of circumstances, I drifted down a side street without any plan for the future for the first time in my life. So I followed my nose down a side street that smelled really good.