The Games

“Looks like it’s awake now,” Silas said.

“Probably hungry again,” Keith replied. “You wouldn’t believe how much it loves to eat.”

Silas checked the paper printout of the infant’s eating habits, then turned back to Baskov. “The chamber is a walk-in incubator. The system has autonomic control of everything from temperature to humidity to oxygen-sat levels.”

Baskov nodded, shifting his weight for a clearer view.

“Want to get a closer look?” Silas asked.

“Of course.”

They donned sterile masks and gowns, and stretched latex gloves over their hands. “Just a temporary precaution,” Silas said.

“For us, or it?”

“It.”

Baskov nodded. “Why are we calling it an ‘it,’ anyway? It’s male, right?”

“No, female by the external genitalia. Or lack thereof.”

With a soft hiss, the door to the inner chamber opened and they stepped through. The air was warmer, wetter. Silas could feel the heat of the lights on the bridge of his nose above the mask. He bent and reached his hands through the bars and into the crib. Baskov hovered just to his side. The covers peeled back from the writhing form.

Silas heard a sudden intake of air near his shoulder.

“My God” was all Baskov could manage.

The newborn was on its back, four stocky limbs pedaling the air. Once again, Silas struggled to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. There was nothing to compare it to, so his brain had to work from scratch, filling in all the pieces, seeing everything at once.

The newborn was hairless, and most of its skin was a deep, obsidian black, slightly reflective in the warm glare of the heat lamps, as though covered with a shiny coat of gloss. Only its hands and forearms were different. It was roughly the size of a three-year-old human toddler. Wide shoulders tapered into long, thick arms that now bunched and stretched toward the bars. Below the elbow, the skin color shifted to deep red. Its blood-colored hands clenched in the air, the needle tips of talons just beginning to erupt from the ends of the long, hooked fingers. The rear legs were raptor monstrosities, jointed in some complicated way, with splayed feet that corded with muscle and sinew just below the surface of its skin.

Two enormous gray eyes shone out of the brilliant blackness of its face and raked across the two men looking down. Silas could almost feel the weight of the alien gaze. The lower jaw was enormously wide and jutting, built for power. A grossly bossed cranial vault spread wide over the pulled-out face, capped by two soft semicircular flaps of ear cartilage.

It opened its mouth, mewling the same strange cry that Silas had heard the night before. Even the inside of its mouth was midnight black.

“This is beyond …” Baskov began.

“Yes, that’s a perfect way to describe it.”

Baskov began to reach a gloved hand toward the newborn but then apparently thought better of it. “This is beyond the reach of what I thought we were able to do,” he finished.

“It is. We cannot do this,” Silas said.

The two men locked eyes.

“How?” Baskov asked.

“You’re asking the wrong guy, remember? I’m the builder, not the designer.”

“Does it seem to be put together well? Are those legs supposed to look like that?”

“Well, everything is symmetrical on the exterior, so that’s a good sign. But you haven’t seen the really interesting thing yet.” Silas leaned through the bars and grabbed the newborn under the upper arms. It struggled, but he was able to flip it over onto its stomach.

“What are those?” Baskov whispered.

“We’re not totally sure, but the X-ray data indicate they’re probably immature wing structures of some sort.”

“Wings? Are you telling me this thing has wings?”

Silas shrugged his answer.

“They’re not functional, are they?”

“I don’t see how they could be. Flight is probably the single most difficult form of locomotion from a design standpoint, and this thing certainly doesn’t look like it was built along avian lines. The bones are huge, strong.”

“But why even try? There isn’t really room to fly in the arena.” Baskov bent closer. “And those big ears are a liability. The eyes, too.”

“Now you understand my frustration with your chosen designer. We need to talk to him.”

Baskov’s expression faded from wonder to irritation. “Chandler isn’t as easy to reach as he used to be.”

“Where is he?”

“Where isn’t the problem. He just isn’t easy to reach anymore.”

AFTER WALKING Baskov back to the lobby, Silas returned to the nursery and sent Keith home for the night. He stood alone at the side of the crib, silently watching the baby breathe. It was a baby. Big as a newborn calf but just as underdeveloped and fragile as any human newborn. He extended a hand through the bars and stroked the infant’s back. It lay on its tummy, legs drawn up, bottom stuck in the air.

It’s beautiful.

But then, almost all life is beautiful at this stage. Pure innocence combined with complete selfishness. Its only function was to take from those around it so that it could live and grow, while remaining completely unaware of the effort involved in meeting its needs.

Silas closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of the creature. He felt himself relax a little. His sister hinted once that she thought he’d become a geneticist to create something that was a part of him. She was wrong. That was why people have children.

He wanted to create something better than himself. Better than any man could be. Something a little closer to perfect. But he had always failed. His creations were monsters compared to this. They were just animal Frankensteins that acted out impulses society wouldn’t allow men to indulge in.

But he’d come close once. Teddy. Ursus theodorus had been loving, gentle, and even intelligent, after a fashion. That last quality had cost the first prototype its life. It had been too intelligent. Some people got nervous. The board of directors had had its say, and late one evening, he’d been forced to place the little creature on a table and inject it with enough animal tranquilizer to stop its breathing. He’d stood back with ice in his gut while his creation died.

The next series of Teddys were dumber and better suited the board, but it wasn’t the same for Silas. He’d lost his stomach for pet manufacture. When the position at the Olympic Commission became available, he’d jumped at it. If he was going to watch his successes die, he would know to expect it from the outset. No more surprises.

But this was a surprise.

But not my surprise. Not my baby this time.

Chandler was deranged. There was no doubting that. And this was his creation. Silas fought back a surge of begrudging admiration for the man. In all Silas’s years as a geneticist, he’d never even come close to developing a creature like the one that lay before him now.

He shoved the feelings to the side, letting the anger take its place. Chandler knew nothing about genetics. He knew nothing about life. All he knew was computers. And his computer had been the true creator, after all.

This perfect little life form that lay snoring on the other side of the bars had been created by an organized composite of wires, chips, and screens. Somehow, all this beauty, all this perfection, had come from a machine.