"Hey, Dave, how's your giant bison coming along? Added anything to the design lately? I like the otter paws and beaver tail, but Tom said you were going to try to make it fly. I told him he must be wrong... I mean, you're crazy, but you're not that-" he stopped as he looked over Dave's shoulder at the drawings the bioengineer had been working on. "Hey, what's with the arrow?"

"I just like it, okay? And yeah, I am trying to figure out how to make it fly. Got a problem with that, Steve? You, with your winged lemurs and lizard parrots?"

"Touchy! I'm just making conversation, buddy. I didn't mean to offend."

Dave sighed, and rubbed his face. "Sorry, it's not your fault. I'm just a bit on edge today cuz I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Sick much? I told you not to eat that sushi..."

Dave glared at his colleague. "The sushi was fine. No, I just kept having nightmares. At one point, I dreamt a giant unagi was trying to eat me."

Steve laughed and said, "I repeat: I told you not to eat the sushi."

"Seriously, man, stop blaming the sushi. It's not the sushi's fault. People have always had dreams where food eats people, and they always will."

"Whatever. Anyway, try to relax. While I, personally, have never understood why anyone would want a bison to be 10 tons-"

"Or have six legs."

"Yes, I know I've harped on about that before-"

"Ad nauseam."

"O-kay. Where was I? Oh yes, or have six legs... that's no reason to uh... Seriously, though, why on Earth would anyone want a 10 ton bison to be able to fly?" He shook his head. "Never mind. What I was going to say was, at least you're not the craziest guy working here. I mean, Tom... when he told me about this flying thing, it was with this freaky gleam of admiration in his eyes."

"Oh, God, don't tell me that. The last thing I want is for anyone to start equating my ideas with his..."

"Well, look, how different really is your bison from his platypus bear?"

"That was the first hybrid creature he ever designed, and one of the last ones I'd classify as particularly sane. Don't get me wrong, his komodo rhinos are cool and all... but damn. What's he planning to do with them, storm the gates of Helm's Deep, or something?"

Steve grinned, briefly, then looked around quickly. Turning back to Dave and leaning in a bit, he lowered his voice. "The rhinos are nothing. You completely missed his whole bug phase, didn't you?"

Dave frowned. "Well, I was on vacation at the time, but I heard a bit about it when I got back..."

"The Powers That Be nixed that line, but he hasn't exactly deleted his files on the project, and I know he's itching to get back to it if the winds ever shift." Steve waved a dismissive hand. "But forget that. Creeps me out just to think about it, but it hasn't stopped him from... ahem, thinking outside the box."

"Well, really, this company's basic objective totally redefined 'thinking outside the box,' so..."

"So, when I say it about him, you know it's really saying something."

"I guess. So what's he up to, now?"

"Oh, I forget what he called it, some kind of bizarre giant anteater/wolf hybrid... looks very nasty, and very dangerous. Of course, it's also blind. Sees by smell. Honestly, I don't know why he does that kind of thing, designing odd flaws into his creations..."

"Maybe he doesn't see them as flaws."

"Whatever. All I'm saying is... I wouldn't mention your unagi nightmare to him, if I were you."

Dave nodded. "Wouldn't dream of it... But anyway, he may be crazy when it comes to his creature designs, but is he really the craziest person working here? I heard Jay was actually going to propose a project to the PTBs to genetically alter people..."

"Yeah. Listen, would you want to live in a world filled with all the creatures we've been designing here over the past few years? Granted, most of them are cute, and many of them should serve a useful purpose if properly domesticated. And really, how hard can it be to domesticate a species that was never wild to begin with? But still... sometimes I start worrying the whole world could just end up going totally 'Planet of the Apes' on us."

"C'mon, Steve, do you really think any of the creatures we design here will ever be created? It's all purely theoretical work!"

Steve stood for a minute looking silently at Dave. FInally he said, "You really believe the government would give Avacorp the kind of grants it has and not expect tangible, practical results, somewhere down the line?"

Dave laughed at first, but then really gave it a little thought. "Well, I can see how the military would certainly be interested in some of Tom's work. It'd explain why he's still on payroll instead of in the looney bin..." Then he shook his head. "But seriously, I just can't picture it. Why would anyone want to create all these new species? Maybe to put them in a sort of Jurassic Park or something, with futuristic animals instead of prehistoric ones. But surely they wouldn't just release them all into the ecosystem. The EPA would have something to say about that... But anyway, what does any of this have to do with giving people super powers?"

"Well, first of all, I don't really know that I'd classify Jay's proposal as 'super powers,' per se, but... the point is, we'd need some kind of defense if things went horribly, horribly wrong, somehow."

"You mean aside from all our advanced technology, our military, and the freakin' Parks & Wildlife Department?"

"You said it yourself, it's about the ecosystem. There's just no telling how much the world could be changed if Avacorp's creations got out of control. For all we know, our entire civilization could end up crumbling, and humanity could have to rebuild from scratch. And with the evolutionary edge we're giving these creatures, I think it'd be only fair for us to have a biological edge of our own, aside from just intelligence."

"Intelligence being debatable, if we let this happen. But again, I don't really believe any of it ever would, you're just being an alarmist."

"And you're being naive."

"Seriously, why do you even work for a company that you think would allow such a travesty?"

"Can't beat the benefits package. Full medical and dental, paid vacations twice a year, plenty of tea in the break room..." He broke into a grin, and so did Dave. Steve continued, "Anyway, you're probably right, it probably is just theoretical work, to push the bounds of human knowledge, just to be able to say we could do something, not that we ever would."

"Heh, yeah. But speaking of tea, I really could go for a cup right about now." Dave straightened up his papers, put them in a drawer, and stood up. "Care to join me?"

Oh, you know I never turn down a cup of tea... and hey, if Jay gets his way, maybe someday I'll be able to boil the stuff with my bare hands..."

As they headed for the door of his office, Dave said, "Yeah, and if it got too hot, I could always cool it off with my ice breath!" They both laughed as they walked down the hall toward the break room...

THE END ?