‘We normally keep the lighting very low in here. The in-vitro candidates are verysensitive to bright lights, especially the smallest ones. Just a second…’
They heard Foster moving around, fiddling with something in the darkness. Then, very gently,a couple of wall lights began to glow red softly. With that, they could just make out half adozen tall cylinders in front of them, each about eight feet tall. As the soft crimson glowfrom the lights above increased, Maddy decided to lead the way in.
She could see tall cylinders of clear perspex. Inside each she could just about make out somedark, solid mass.
‘So, uh… what’s in those tubes?’
‘I’ll give you a little more light,’ Foster spoke in the gloom. They heardhim flick a switch and then, in the bottom of each cylinder, an orange spotlight winked on,illuminating the contents.
‘Oh my God!’ She recoiled. ‘That’s… utterly gross!’
Each cylinder contained what looked like a watery tomato soup in which floated a gooeysediment and strands of soft tissue that dangled and wafted like snot in a toilet bowl. In themiddle of the murky stew of the nearest tube floated something small and pale and curled up onitself. Strands of umbilical tissue connected to it so that it looked like a pale larva caughtin a glistening web of entrails.
‘That’s a… that’s a human foetus! Isn’t it?’ said Maddy,stepping towards it and peering closely through the glass. Liam and Sal joined her.
‘Prenatal phase. That one is in pre-growth stasis. It’ll remain like that untilwe need it.’
‘Here,’ he said, standing by the next tube along, ‘we have one that is approximately one third of the way through the growthcycle.’
They looked into the murky water of the second tube to see what appeared to be a boy ofeleven or twelve years of age, hairless, naked and tucked into a similar foetal curl. Like thefoetus, umbilical cords connected to it and curled down to the bottom and up to the top of thecylinder.
Liam found himself recoiling at the sight. Horrified, disgusted and curious at the sametime.
‘That’s not a
‘No, it’s an artificial,’ Foster said. ‘Grown from engineered humangenetic data.’
Liam shrugged. The word ‘genetic’ meant absolutely nothing to him, but he wasreassured by Foster’s answer that he wasn’t looking at a
And then its eyes suddenly snapped open.
CHAPTER 17
2001, New York
‘Oh Jayzus!’ Liam blurted as he and the girls lurched backwards inhorror.
‘It’s OK,’ said Foster. ‘It’s OK. It’s not going to leapout and get you.’
All three of them gathered their breath. Sal giggled nervously. Maddy shook her head.‘Oh my God, it’s like something out of
They watched in silent fascination as the boy’s eyes slowly swivelled round to look atthem through the murky fluid.
‘I think it’s seen us,’ said Maddy.
‘Yes,’ replied Foster, ‘it’s seeing us, but there’s nointelligence there. The body’s motor responses are handled by a small organic brain atthis stage. It has the brain capacity of a mouse. Real cognitive processing, in otherwords…
The boy’s mouth opened and closed silently.
‘Is it trying to talk?’ whispered Sal.
‘No. That’s just a reflex action.’
Liam watched the cloudy liquid drift in and out of the boy’s open mouth. ‘How canit breathe?’
‘Oxygenated liquid solution. It’s breathing the liquid into its lungs, just likewe breathe air.’
Liam shuddered at the thought of that. ‘But that must feel just likedrowning.’
Foster nodded. ‘I suppose it would feel like that if you were unused to it. But thisunit has known no different.’
The boy in the tube cocked his head.
‘Jahulla!’ gasped Sal, leaping back. ‘Did you see that?’
Maddy stepped closer to the glass tube. ‘Are you sure it’s not… youknow…
Foster nodded. ‘Trust me. There isn’t enough brain matter in there to
She shook her head. ‘It looks just like a normal little boy. That doesn’t seemright to me.’
‘Come on,’ said Foster. ‘We’re here to meet yourcolleague.’
With some difficulty he managed to drag them away from the boy in the tube, past a couple oftubes covered over with a tarpaulin.
‘What’s in there?’ asked Liam.
Foster shook his head. ‘Mis-growths. I’ll need to flush them sometime.’
‘Mis-growths?’
‘Ones that didn’t turn out quite right. It happens from time to time.’
Sal started to lift the canvas and peek under, before Foster stepped forward and pulled thetarpaulin back down. ‘Probably best if you
‘Oh,’ muttered Sal.
‘Here,’ said Foster, ‘this is your colleague.’ He pointed towards thelast tube. Like the others it was full of murky organic soup, but this time, through thefloating clouds of debris, they could see a fully grown man.
‘Gosh!’ uttered Maddy. ‘It’sfreaking…’
‘Well built?’
She nodded. Liam studied the creature inside. He was easily six, maybe seven, feet tall,broad shouldered, every part of his stocky frame wrapped with well-defined, bulky muscles.Liam was reminded of a book by a woman called Mary Shelley. The story was about a monsterraised from the dead by a mad old man called Frankenstein.
‘It looks like some kind of superhero,’ whispered Sal in awe.
‘Uh… it looks very strong, so it does,’ said Liam warily, guessing how muchdamage just one of those huge hands could do. ‘Are you sure it’ll behave itself,Mr Foster?’
The old man laughed. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Liam, you couldn’t hope for a morereliable colleague.’
‘Does this one have the brain of a mouse too?’
‘Yes. But it also has a silicon neural net processor unit and a wafer-plex data storageunit inserted into its cranium.’
Liam looked at Foster, bemused by the gobbledegook. ‘A silly-con new…what?’
‘A computer in its head,’ cut in Sal.
Liam, none the wiser, turned to Sal. ‘A what?’
She sighed and cocked a dark eyebrow. ‘You really are from 1912, aren’tyou?’
‘It’s a machine that lets the unit store information, Liam,’ said Foster.‘Lots and lots of it. In that skull is a small block of circuitry that we can fit morefacts into than a hundred libraries full of books.’
Liam’s jaw dropped. ‘How’s that possible?’
Foster waved a dismissive hand. ‘That’ll have to come another time. The historyof computers is another whole subject, and one we don’t have time for right now.’He stepped towards a panel on the side of the tube. ‘This unit’s been full term for a while now — waiting its turn. So, let’s not keep itwaiting any longer, eh? Stand well back… This stuff really smells.’
