SCENE 1. HEARTBEAT.

Moreau enters the surgical theater in a full biological containment suit and approaches the large and apprehensive female dog, lying on her side on a raised metal operating table. The table is padded with blankets to provide some comfort to the doomed host-mother of the experimental blastula. Her belly has been shaved over the area of her horned uterus. The doctor holds up the ultrasound wand and applies gel to the semicircular tip, he turns and bows to the audience behind the observation barrier.

Moreau considers that a positive outcome is likely as the embryo has not been rejected and expelled, and it has been long enough for it to continue to develop normally. The department staff fills the gallery and is crowded around the surgical theater’s large projection screen. The big screen brightens with swarms of small spots outlining the dog’s organs and the cavity of her uterus as the ultrasound wand’s tip contacts the dog’s belly. At the center of the screen is a small bean shaped shadow, wiggling, inside one horn of her uterus. Moreau presses a foot pedal and the bean image enlarges to fill the screen. Something is moving, pulsing, in the center of the image outline. He presses the pedal again, red and blue streams of material, flowing to and fro, appear and disappear into and out of the fluid-filled channels of the pulsing organ, the new creature’s beating heart.

The crowd cheers with their achievement, clearly visible on the screen. After the goal of successful implantation, the next goal, advanced organ development and function, has been achieved. The embryo-blastula of the ‘new creature’ has morphed to become a fetus. Moreau turns and bows to his audience, and they cheer again. Moreau announces.

“You did it! We did it!”

SCENE 2. FETUS.

Moreau turns back to the table and continues to scan the dog’s uterus, scanning along the outer wall until he finds a second wall along the first, the placenta. He carefully continues to scan to see a shape from the center of the fetus, the beginning of umbilical cord development, connecting to the placenta attached to the wall of the uterus. Moreau continues to narrate the adventure.

“Here we can see the structure of the placenta, in the process of formation. This is the structure that defines our subdivision in our class of mammals, the Placentialia.”

“Differentiation from the stem cell embryo ends when the tiny sphere elongates into a bean shape blastula. When the blastula begins to access the bloodstream of the mother through the placenta, the umbilical cord and distinct organs begin to form. It then becomes a fetus and begins to assume the unique physical form of the creature, in this case, a wolf-man.”

After a thorough ultrasonic examination, Moreau returns the wand to its sterile holder. He removes the restraints on the patient dog, lifts her from the table and sets her on her feet, gives her a hug and a treat, her tail wagging.

“There, There. You’re such a good girl, I wish I could take you home.”

I am sad. If we are successful, it will mean your end.

Dr. Moreau examines the growth progression of the wolf-man-fetus every day by ultrasound, rewarding the kind dog mother with treats, petting, essential washing, and brushing, from guilt.

My demon brethren would laugh at me, crying over my future victim.

SCENE 3. HELL.

Moreau decides that it is time once again to give his friend Ernie a call and invite him on a tour of his infernal netherworld, so Ernie meets Moreau at his desk overlooking The Dungeon.

“What are you up to now, Moreau? Isn’t eternal damnation good enough for you?”

Moreau motions to Ernie and the tour begins. The Dungeon is dark and haunting, but it is not silent. The Dungeon is filled with the sounds of primordial chaos, the loud cacophony of animal sounds, barking, bleating, squealing, and mooing, from the many rows of pens, the sacrificial mothers for Moreau’s ‘new creatures’. The depth of the evil of the Dungeon is fully revealed in Moreau’s display case set against one far wall. Moreau stops in front of the display case and motions toward it with his outstretched arm, in pride.

“On these shelves of this display case, in these specimen jars, is the history and progress of my work. Each jar is filled with a clear preservative fluid, with the display item suspended in the center.”

“These jars are set in progressive order to display the development process of the embryo, up to the large and nearly mature fetus, small to large jars, set on the progressively stepped shelves. Each shelf displays a different species, wolf, goat, sheep, and antelope. There are two specimen jars for each stage of development, one row behind for the original animal, and one row in front, for the ‘new creature’, created from that animal.”

“Note that towards the end stages, the physical differences between the original animal and the ‘new creature’ is dramatic. The ‘new creature’ has longer legs and is in an upright form. Note the finger-like appendages that extend from the fore-feet.”

“Most problematic has been this most striking feature of the ‘new creature’, its massive head. The head of the fetus takes almost a third of the full-body length, in all the ‘new creatures’ of every species. Managing proper skull development to accommodate the new larger brains of these ‘new creatures’ has been, and continues to be, a difficult issue.”

Moreau looks down, frowning, not particularly proud of this last detail.

“The fetus in each tube is the result of months of work by many people and their machines. But these accomplishments all came at a cost, the sacrifice of at least one life.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Dr. Moreau raises his head, convinced that any sacrifice is worth this accomplishment. He appears as a contented devil, ruling over his Dungeon Hell, grinning in satisfaction as he examines the specimens in his display case. He looks down the row and smiling at his full collection of specimen jars, each displaying one of his ‘new creatures’ frozen forever in a premature stage of fetal development, destined to never walk The Earth of their New World.

Ernie shakes his head, upset at the casual display of death.

“Is this everything? Is this all the animals you have modified?”

“No, I plan to add a few other, larger animals, more suitable for manual labor: cow; bear; and maybe an elk.”

And a tiger.

Scene 4. Crematorium.

Ernie approaches Moreau, who is standing with arms folded as he watches as a large brick building under construction was being outfitted with iron gas jets and lined with firebricks. Through the roof of The Dungeon, a brick chimney was also under construction as the newest channel to the surface.

“What the hell is this demonic looking building going to be used for, Herb?”

Hell’s ruler, the demonic Dr. Moreau, turns to face Ernie and characteristically grins.

“What Hell is complete, without a ‘furnace’?”

“We needed to empty the freezers of all the sacrificed mother hosts, excess tissue, embryos, and fetuses as we are running out of room, and we need the freezer space for other things. I have preserved example specimens of the processes we have perfected. These specimens are displayed in this great hall of The Dungeon, as you saw yesterday.”

“Incineration by this crematorium is the only safe way to dispose of once living tissue, and contracting with external services for this raises too many questions, plus, it is cheaper to do this ourselves. Construction materials for this furnace are common and inexpensive commodities, as are the liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas necessary for a good hot sacrifice ‘conflagration’.”

Ernie looks on, understanding the issues, but he is emotionally torn between the necessity and the morality of this new ‘undertaking’ in The Dungeon.

“How did you get permission from the governments to build and operate this?”

“I got permission to build a small power plant, which we need anyway to supply reliable electrical service for our machines and an excuse to keep out snoopy utility investigators.”

“What about the smell and the smoke?”

“The post-burners will eliminate any smell and the electrostatic precipitators will remove the ash. All the neighbors will see is white vapor, mostly water vapor, as from a conventional power plant.”

“I have decided to always run the crematorium on Sundays when other employees are not present. It seems a fitting day to perform a ‘sacrifice’. I will do all that is necessary for this, myself.”

Ernie stares at his friend and master of The Dungeon, Dr. Moreau, standing, proud and content, in front of his new construct, satisfied with his ‘final solution’,

and oblivious to its evil.

Scene 5. Sanctum.

Moreau summons Ernie to The Dungeon, this time to review the progress in the development of the second generation of ‘new creatures’, The Giants.

Ernie arrives at Moreau’s desk overlooking The Dungeon, and they proceed to the back of The Dungeon behind the animal pens into a walled barrier enclosure.

“Moreau, you still have your tiger back here, don’t you?”

Moreau smiles as a marketing executive in a video advertisement, as he opens the door of the inner enclosure.

“Yes! Plus there’s more!”

Ernie is surprised to be greeted by several of his robots, the ones he loaned to Moreau, the two androids and the two quadrupeds.

“Weren’t you going to use my robots for The Dungeon's security patrol?”

“I need the robots more back in here. I am a strong demon, but even I, cannot lift these large animals without help.”

“Here, in back of The Dungeon, out of sight, is my Inner Sanctum. This is where I have hidden my embryos of the large ‘new creatures’, quietly growing large in the bellies of their surrogate mothers.”

Ernie pauses at a pen, he is approached by a smiling, friendly cow, hoping for a treat.

“I could have processed the cow outside, but I have all the equipment for examining and handling the large animals in here. So, she is in here with the rest.”

Moreau leads Ernie into the back area, towards the tiger’s cage. Two new barred cages are alongside the tiger’s cage: Bear; Elk;

“You’re doing the tiger too, aren’t you, Moreau.”

“Yes, I am very proud of this too. We learned so much from the other animals that we succeeded with implantation on the first try with her. Moreover, we have learned that these large species can carry the ‘new creature’ full term to birth. No sacrifice necessary. And the cow can carry the goat and the sheep to term, and the bear can carry the wolf.”

Damn, I should have included a giraffe, and maybe a rhino.

SCENE 6. THRESHOLD.

Moreau stands at his desk overlooking The Dungeon. The Dungeon workers have been called together for an announcement. Moreau raises his arms and begins.

“Today is a day of celebration. A celebration of all of your hard work to bring the initial phase of this demonstration project to a successful conclusion. I am pleased to announce that we shall soon have three ‘new creatures’ entering our world, creating their New World in the process.”

“Judgment day for the New World of the New Creatures has come at last. The first one of the newly created entities, one of the few, has achieved full term and will be delivered to you tomorrow, with two more to follow in the upcoming weeks.”

“If all goes according to plan, we will soon have a little wolf-boy, joined shortly after by his sisters, a little goat-girl and a little sheep girl. Although they will be initially kept in incubators here in our clinic, they will eventually be sent home with company volunteers. I have prepared a list of requirements for those of you that would like to consider assuming this task.”

“And no, our wolf-boy won’t become a wolf-man of the horror movies. We used a wolf as a subject because dog breeds have become inbred. We wanted the genes to be as close to natural as possible, to produce a robust ‘new creature’. The wolves we used are from our local zoo, and are quite tame.”

“The three species we selected for this first ‘new creature’ demonstration project, give us examples of carnivore, vegetarian, unguligrade, and digitigrade placental species.”

“We also planned to have a fourth ‘new creature’ species, an antelope, included in this first group. But so far, we have been unsuccessful with the implantation process of this species.”

“It is not deemed safe to have a natural birth for these 'new creatures' with their fragile bodies and unnaturally massive heads, so the mother has to be sacrificed. The newborn creature is removed from the womb surgically, before the natural delivery process can begin.”

…

The day has come, arrangements are made for the surgery theater.

And the crematory.

A supply of baby bottles, goat milk, and special formula is on hand. The staff has been instructed on the proper support for the large head, nursing procedures and clearing issues such as the infant’s choking and coughing.

End of Chapter 11.