Doctor David Mendel was telling us the story leading up to the explosion a few weeks ago, an explosion that nearly coincided with the appearance of a winged golden man who gave the name “Solarr.” If Mendel’s skill as a scientist was close to his skill as a storyteller, he was bound for great things. Eventually…

After telling us that his lab, originally part of the Human Genome Project until Doctor Adam Tinker, CEO and owner of Cyberdyne Technologies, had bought the entire group. Things moved slowly for them until six months ago when they had experienced some kind of breakthrough. After announcing this, Mendel finished his coffee and waved Melanie, our server, over to order another. As soon as she walked away, he resumed his tale:

“We were working with some small, relatively simple animals when Doctor Li managed to somehow grow a miniature human arm on a cat. It was disturbing, yes, but it also showed where our technology might lead - if we could grow limbs on animals, maybe we could grow entire organs.

“At first, Tinker himself seemed more excited at the potential of this discovery. We could potentially use stem cells to ‘clone’ organs for accident victims, or individuals suffering from some types of illness.”

I should have made the connection between this and Tinker’s degenerative condition, but my head was throbbing so much I could barely keep the others from seeing my pain.

“Cloning organs? Aren’t there laws about that?” Dina asked.

“No, the laws are about cloning humans, not specific organs. Adam - Doctor Tinker - had lawyers research the subject before he brought us on, hoping our research would go that way.”

“Ah, a fine distinction but the kind of thing lawyers love,” my partner said, a little bitterly.

“Exactly. We first did organ replacements in animals and found a rejection rate about one third of normal tissue rejection. When we grew human organs on animals, the organs often failed before they could be harvested, and one of our monkeys had a lethal reaction but otherwise the research was very promising, and we were on the verge of setting up clinical trials when something went wrong. The computer records were lost, along with a lot of tissue samples, some specialized equipment, and, most tragically, our research animals so we were unable to piece together exactly what went wrong. But an explosion trashed our lab and left me on medical leave for a few months.”

“So you have no… uh, sorry, is something wrong, Rookie?” Dina said, her attention suddenly turning to me.

“Just a bad headache,” I replied. I … well, I think I need to step outside for a bit,” I replied, as I noticed the rain had just stopped.

Concern was clear in her eyes, but she just waved for me to go. I later found out that she got very little of use from Mendel, but also that she felt he was holding back on something, just that she couldn't figure out what….

Once I was outside of the shop, the headache dropped down to a manageable level. I took a few deep breaths, and then heard something odd, a strange rush of air. Focusing my attention on it, I tracked it to a position a few blocks from where I was. I started jogging that way. The odd rustling stopped, and a strangely musical voice began welcoming ‘weary wanderers’ to ‘hear the Blessed Words’ - and, yes, it did make those words sound capitalized when this voice said them.

I rounded a corner and saw a crowd gathering in an alley nearby. Glancing around, I could tell that the alley was just outside of the range of any obvious cameras. I slowed my pace, sent a quick text to my partner, and joined the growing throng.

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The figure they were watching so intently was a beautiful being - androgynous, tall, muscular, with long golden curls surrounding a classically beautiful face. Its skin really did look like it was made of solid gold, as did the broad wings behind its back. Its voice was nearly hypnotic, and it sounded almost as if every line were sung, not spoken.

It gave its name as Solarr, and it spoke of peace and love and began reciting what sounded like Bible verses.

And that was when things went sideways - a man near the front of the crowd interrupted his spiel: “But that is not the actual verse!”

“Excuse me, sir?” Solarr asked, arching one eye in surprise.

“Reverend. Reverend James Mason. My sermon two weeks ago was on that very verse!” He challenged.

Solarr simply gazed at him wordlessly. The Reverend swallowed hard enough for me to hear about twenty feet away, and pulled a Bible out of his pocket, flipping through, most likely to the verse in question.

As he stopped his search, the golden being frowned, and jumped into the air.

This sudden movement broke whatever hold Solarr had on me, and I glanced around to verify that nobody was looking in my direction. Seeing that all eyes were on either Solarr or Reverend Mason, I then darted away as fast as I could without drawing attention to myself, and, once out of sight elsewhere, reverted to my natural state. Indigo then followed Solarr into the air.

Solarr was gaining speed slowly; I could accelerate much more swiftly than he could, but it seemed its upper end was higher than mine. I called out “Solarr! Wait!”

My simple cry startled it, and Solarr stopped in midair, its wings still flapping, but now casually, to maintain its position. “Who are you?” The musical voice asked.

I replied: “I am called Indigo. Why did you flee like that?”

It hesitated for a moment, and then answered: “I have not been taught how to handle a challenge like that.”

“Taught? By who?” I asked.

“I am not supposed to answer that,” it replied.

I reached its side and hovered in the air beside it. “Why do you do this, gather people into alleys like that?”

“They will listen. I must spread the Word.”

“You know that a woman died at one of your rallies,” I asked.

It looked at me blankly, considered for a moment, and then asked: “what does that mean? Died?”

It was my turn to stare in surprise. “You don't know what death is?”

“I know the definition of the term but I do not understand it,” the golden being replied.

A strange thought came to me, and I asked: “how old are you?”

“If I understand the query, I became aware eighteen days ago, and first came into being five days before that,” came the answer.

“Can you tell me where you first, ah, became aware?”

It looked at me for a moment and then flapped its massive wings. A blast of air sent me tumbling away, and it shot straight up into the air. Doing some quick mental calculations, I realized that I would not be able to catch up to Solarr and watched it for as long as I could. It vanished into the clouds.

I sighed, found a secluded spot below, returned to the ground and shifted into my Detective Daniels form. Taking out my phone, I was about to text my partner when I heard her voice behind me: “Thought you might like this spot. What happened?”

“Other than Indigo and Solarr meeting, I’m really not sure. I think Solarr is some kind of artificial life form or a machine though. It seems oddly naive but very intelligent and talks in an oddly formal manner.”

“Do you think Tinker and Mendel had anything to do with making it?” She asked.

“Honestly I don’t know enough to even guess, but I do suspect it, especially since he claims to be twenty-three days old...”

“Twenty-three? The explosion was twenty-two days ago; I think we have some new questions for Tinker when we meet him in three hours,” Dina replied. “Come on, Rookie, let's grab some lunch.”

“I just hope I don’t have to fight that Solarr thing - he seems both child-like and incredibly powerful, a very dangerous combination,” I mused aloud. Dina either ignored me or just did not hear the comment.