“NO,” Ardat spat out with a clipped tone, casting a nearly venomous glance at her friend. What looked like a frankenstein futuristic electric chair stood proudly in the center of the room. “I”m not climbing into your stupid death trap, Jack, this thing looks like it’ll fry my brain.”

“Chicken.” The man laughed, waving his hands as if it would dispel her fear of the obviously cobbled together contraption. He smiled conspiratorially at her. “I got approval from my professor to screen some testers, I thought you might want to try. We’re going to be setting up a virtual environment and everything. You’d be one of the first people to ever truly experience a 1:1 true virtual reality. We’ve got an advanced physics engine running and everything. Don’t you want to try?”

Honestly the prospect was tempting. She looked back and forth from the monster of a machine to the shit-eating grin Jack had on his face. He knew he had her. She may have been a biology major focusing on gene-mods, but who didn’t play VR games and follow news on new rig developments? “Fine, but if this fries my brain I’m going to be feeding you to the babies.”

That sent a literal shudder down his spine and he paled slightly. “Ardy, I still don’t get how you can hang out with those spiders every day, let alone call them your babies. They’re freaky.”

“Hey, I resent that. I spent a ton of time creating custom gene-mods for them to make them the best spiders that have ever existed!” She would never admit it, but early on she couldn’t work with them without getting queasy. So she spent some time making custom mods to make them less “icky” looking. Her professor wasn’t very pleased, but afterwards she was able to interact with the spiders better, so she was given a pass. “Plus they’re more intelligent than you know, the most recent changes to their genome have allowed them to directly spool thread and even mimic some of the weaving I’ve shown them.”

“Exactly why I said they’re freaky, you’re working with intelligent or at least semi-intelligent spiders. That’s right out of a horror film.” Jack shook his head and scratched the phantom crawling sensation that prickled at his skin. “Anyway, no more talk of spiders. Be here tonight if you want to be in on the ground floor!”

“Alright, I’ll be there. But I’m serious about my threat!” She laughed as his face soured into a grimace. Ardat walked out of the computer science building and made her way across campus to her biology lab. Since she was a graduate student working on her PhD., she was given her own office space connected to the lab. It was a small office, but she had a mini fridge, her computer, and even a cot in case she needed to spend the night doing late night gene sequences.

Ardat rummaged through her fridge to find the lunch she had packed today, leftover pad thai from the night before, and settled down at her desk positioning herself in front of her most recent experiment. Inside of a small tank was a solitary large spider with all white exoskeleton with black and red marking. “Hello sassypants, are you going to be nice today or are you going to mope around today?” She said while waving at the spider.

To her surprise the spider lifted one leg and waved it back and forth… it almost looked like it was mimicking her. She repeated the action and got the same response. “Oh my god! You can mimic actions too!” Ardat jumped out of her chair and pumped both fists in the air, prompting the spider to rear up on its back legs while raising its front two into the air.

“Haha, this really isn’t a fluke. Well I can’t keep calling you sassypants, that’s hardly a name. I’ll call you Uttu for now, it’s the name of a Sumerian spider goddess.” Really, what kind of intelligent creature would want to be referred to with a name like that? Even if the poor spider didn’t understand English, she did and it would make her feel guilty.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The rest of the evening was spent recording different actions and reactions of Uttu. The spider was mostly mimicking large gestures, but Ardat was able to get her to dance a little in response to her own attempt at rhythm. Most importantly she was able to get Uttu to respond to her name and she had taught her an action for “food”.

She was pouring over all of the most recent gene mods she had introduced into Uttu in an attempt to identify just what had caused the jump in cognition. It didn’t quite make sense, almost all of her recent additions to its genome should have been focused on silk production, size, or “beauty”. In fact she was almost inclined to think that it might be the beauty ones at work. It was known that certain genes affect behavior. A Russion fox domestication experiment that tried to breed for docility ended up with floppy eared foxes. Maybe this was something similar?

Her thoughts were cut short when a HUD display popped into her vision; MEETING WITH JACK. “Alright Uttu, we’re going to have to be done for tonight. I’ve got a meeting with a friend, but I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you.” She left her office with a wave in the direction of the spider before locking up the lab.

Another trek across campus, this time in the dark, and she was back at the computer science building. Jack was waiting for her when she entered the design lab where the fancy electric chair was located, beaming with a smile that could blind the sun. “You’re actually here!”

“Uh, yeah. Where’s everyone else though.” As far as she could see, not including herself, it was only Jack and his professor.

“We uh, we didn’t get any other volunteers.” He chuckled wryly. “I think quite a few of the people took one look at our rig and decided they didn’t want to be the first to try it… well, let’s get you hooked up!”

Ardat against her better judgement sat down in the chair as probes were taped to her skin and a helmet with too many wires coming off of it was secured to her head. She let out a shaky breath and tried to calm her thundering heart. “It’s perfectly safe, Jack is a fine engineer. Nothing’s going to happen.” She whispered under her breath.

“Alright, just close your eyes and imagine you’re sleeping. This is going to probably feel like a bit of static has run through your head, but it should clear up pretty quick. You should find yourself in a large meadow.” Jack said in a placating tone. “Read? 3...2...1...G-”

A kaleidoscope of colors blurred behind her eyelids and just like Jack had said it felt like static was passing through her head. However, it quickly turned into a burning sensation that ran down her spine and her temples felt as if they were on fire.

“-y God, Dr. Tho-” She heard Jack’s voice break through the static in her head for a moment.

“-er out of it now! She’s having a seiz-” That was Dr. Thomas’ voice.

Even with the pain an odd sense of calm had taken over her. She registered the absolute panic in both of their voices, she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, as well as her vision blackening at the edges and tunneling to pinpricks.

I think I might be dying. The thought didn’t actually register emotionally like she thought it would. I’m definitely feeding Jack to my spiders. That thought made her mentally chuckle.

Abruptly the world fell away, the pain stopped, and she found herself floating in a large black expanse. While she couldn’t see any of her surroundings she noticed that her own body seemed ethereal and gave off a soft misty glow.

The sudden lack of pain sent an odd sense of euphoria through her as she stared into the unending abyss. But the sensation was cut short as she suddenly felt like she was being watched.

Without warning she felt something descend upon her, two sharp points biting into her temples. They pierced into her brain suddenly and it felt like liquid lightning was being forcibly driven into her. It wasn’t exactly painful, but she was paralyzed and the sensation terrified her.

As more and more of the stuff was poured into her she began to feel a nagging sensation at the back of her mind. It was almost like a voice. She couldn’t pick out the words, but she got a distinct feeling it needed something from her.

The voice and the liquid lightning were gone before she could actually comprehend what was happening. The void was replaced by a different darkness. This time, she could feel a cramped pressure surrounding her. Before she could get used to another whirlwind of changing sensations, something flashed into her vision.