A Middle Earth Quest
Chapter 7
Disclaimer- Don't own...Don't sue
Suuki-Aldrea- Suuki, my number-one, bestest and most loyal reader, what would I ever do without you? I can always count on you to review, even if you're the only one, and it makes continuing this story so much easier. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all your support. And I am so happy to know that I have at least one person who truly does enjoy my story. Thank you!
Saria1992- I guess I do update fast, don't I? Well, now that school is done for the summer, there is much more time for writing, which I am more than happy to do. And you're right; you won't know what happens with the elves till I write it, which, sadly, is not in this chapter. But read on, it will come soon.
Nurikochan- I am glad you enjoy it. And I like your idea with the Balrogs, but sadly, I am too far in now to suddenly add a whole new creation. It would totally throw all the stability and believability I have (and I'm not sure how much of that I do have). Talk about a major plot hole. I really like that idea though. Maybe, when this is all finished, I'll make a little one-shot scene like that and just tack it on the end. That would be funny.
Silver Whirl- Militant elves is a scary thought, isn't it? That's part of the reason they are militant. You know, I don't think Owen is that stupid, to give them firearms. They might get a hold of them somehow, but he wouldn't give them to them. Well, no, maybe having them get a hold of firearms isn't such a good idea. And I think I already killed all the chances there were for cosmic phrases, oops. Oh, and there are no orcs, I didn't feel like messing with them, I thought angry elves and, eventually, dwarves would be enough without adding yet another danger. No, the dwarves won't dig so far that they break into Lothlorien. I think the elves would kill them all. But that could also be a funny appendix to put at the end. I'll keep that in mind.
A/N- whew! Now that I finished responding to all of my awesome reviewers, it's time to get to the story. This time it's not from Mel's or Owen's point of view, yea! Fresh idea's, and a new personality to look at! Sorry, I was hoping to get to some action, so far there has been a lack of it, but it just didn't work out like I had planned. Well, here it is, enjoy. And let me know what you think, and beware! It's long!
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
After finishing his exquisite lunch; tender, juicy filet mignon, with crisp tasty baby corn, and a sweet bowl of fruit salad, and two piping hot, buttery biscuits, Cale sat back to wait. When the pushy "park technician" had blown him off and run off, he had known he would get no answers until he and the actor were summoned to this meeting later with Mr. Bridges and his associates. Instead of getting frustrated and pacing and being angry, which would do him no amount of good, he pulled his book out of his travel bag. He stretched out on the bed and began to read.
Ironically enough, as he would soon find out, the book he had brought with him was The Lost World, sequel to the book that had inspired the park he was visiting. Michael Crichton, along with such authors as Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, and others, were on his favorite authors list. Of all that Crichton had written, Jurassic Park and The Lost World were his favorites, closely followed by Timeline. Caleb Major was an avid reader and enjoyed nothing more than settling into a comfy chair in the evening and losing himself in a good book.
It was a good thing he'd brought his book with him, as it was several hours before he received a phone call saying someone would soon be there to pick him and the actor up. Thinking of the actor, Cale grimaced. He couldn't believe he'd been stuck on this trip with that dope. The airplane and helicopter rides had been hell. The man talked incessantly, and about the stupidest and most trivial things imaginable. He had spent the whole trip here jabbering on at Cale about another young actor's new haircut and sense of style. And all through this afternoon he had heard loud and horrible singing coming from the room across the hall. Cale was disgusted; Liam Morgan, at least in his eyes, was a waste of human existence.
Ah, but there was no help for it, he was stuck. He got up off the bed, put his book away, and slipped on his shoes. As he walked out his door and down the hall, many questions made their way into his head. His company was already an investor in this whole deal. He was here to investigate and help his company decide whether or not to openly endorse the park. Cale was a little perturbed with Mr. Bridges for keeping them in the dark, but he guessed he had his reasons. For all he knew, the man just wanted it to be a surprise; Bridges did seem to have a flare for the dramatic. Either way, it didn't matter now, for the blinders were about to come off. Cale would make sure they came off.
With a polite nod to one of the helpful bell hops by the door, he went outside to wait for his ride. He didn't wait long. A couple of minutes later, Mel came driving up in her keep. She wore a tight smile on her pretty face, but it was just a thin veneer that barely concealed the grim determination within.
Cale hopped in the front seat and murmured a polite greeting. Mel ignored him, instead looking around for the actor. "Where is he?" she asked bluntly, not bothering to specify who "he" was. Cale shrugged.
"I don't know. I assume he got the same call I did. He should be out here soon," he said absently.
Putting the jeep into park, she scowled and hopped out of the car. "He had better be walking down that hall," she said as she disappeared through the double doors. Cale chuckled to himself. He didn't know this psychologist very well, but he could imagine the look on her face when she confronted the actor.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later they came out of the lobby; Mel rolled her eyes in exasperation, and Liam scuttled along behind her looking very sheepish. Mel climbed back in the driver's seat, and Liam hopped in the back behind Cale. Without a word, they took off along the North Road. As soon as they cleared the hotel grounds, the trees and underbrush seemed to close in around them on all sides. Trees and shrubs grew right up to the roadside, giving the area a scenic, but foreboding feel. The effect was such that even the light seemed to dim around them.
Before he could get his bearings, they burst through the brush and trees and pulled up in front of a massive, three story building. It was shaped like a giant, wide, and angular "w", and had no windows on the first floor, only a double set of steel doors on the point of the "w". I was constructed out of a nice, warm brown material and seemed to be quite secure. Though what it needed to be secure from, Cale had no idea.
Mel pulled up in front of the double doors and shut off the engine. "Well sirs, welcome to Head Quarters, the main building, or what some employees have admiringly called 'Mordor'," she said dryly. The actor snapped back to reality from wherever he had let his mind wander.
"'Mordor'?" he asked, confused. "Like the evil place from the Lord of the Rings movies?"
Mel nodded. 'Well, I'll be damned', Cale thought snidely, 'the man does have a brain cell or two.' Then he frowned. Why on earth call it Mordor? Mordor, in the books and movies, had been a place of evil, power, and control. How did that apply to a park building?
He was going to ask Mel about that, but she had already swiped her employee access card, and the steel doors were swinging open. So instead he just followed her inside.
The inside looked just like any old office building. There was neutral colored carpet on the floor and comfy looking chairs positioned around the reception desk. An extremely bored looking receptionist sat behind her desk, filing her nails. Cale was somewhat unimpressed.
Mel ignored it all and took off at a brisk walk down the hall to the receptionist's right, beckoning them to follow her. She wound them through hall way after hallway, up an elevator, and down yet another hallway. Finally they came to a door marked "Authorized Personnel Only". Mel swiped her ID again and opened the door for them. Waiting inside were Mr. Bridges and the man named Freddy.
Cale strode inside confidently, taking in the details of the room. There was a large conference table in the center, an overhead system in a corner and wood paneling along one wall. It was to most drab conference room he's ever seen.
# # # # #
Mr. Bridges extended his hand for a handshake. Cale took it again; there really was no need for one though. They had already met; this was little more than a formality. He waved them all into seats around the large conference table and made to start on a grand speech. Cale cut him off, he had had enough of grand speeches, and he wanted answers. So, showing a rare seen impatient side, he asked the first question that popped into his head.
"Mr. Bridges, let's cut to the chase, please. We are all the same as we were four hours ago. Please sir, excuse my rudeness, but we are a little perplexed here. Just what kind of park are you running here?" he asked shortly, hoping he hadn't offended his host too much.
But Mr. Bridges only smiled. "Well, since you are so adamant. I had a presentation set up, but as you said, let's just cut to the chase." He stood up and a pressed a button on the wall. The wood paneling on the front wall slid out and up, tucking itself neatly into the ceiling and revealing wide windows that over looked a control room of some kind. There were banks of computers everywhere. They lined the walls and formed neat rows all the way down to a large movie theatre style screen on that front wall. There were no more than fifteen people sitting at various consoles around the gigantic control room, staring at screens, checking stats, and working at other various tasks.
Cale was still not impressed. "Mr. Bridges, this is a control room. Every park has one. You still have not answered my question. What kind of park do you have here?" he asked again, this time with an impatient edge to his voice.
Owen sighed. "We do not run an ordinary park here, Mr. Major. Everything here is state of the art, and we spared no expense. We have all the best laboratory equipment and some of the world's finest geneticists. Freddy here graduated top of his class at Heidelberg University in Germany. And everything you will see here is all authentic."
He broke off his speech and pressed an intercom button on the wall. "Dave, bring up the visual on the caves please on the big screen," he ordered. Then he sat back in his chair again. Cale grumbled to himself. Obviously this man was not the type given to bluntness. He turned his attention to the large screen in front of him, shaking his head.
The screen lit up and the picture changed from an overhead view the island, to a dimly lit cave full of toiling men. They were very hairy me, very short men. In fact, they didn't look so much like men at all. Liam, who had been sitting quietly next to Cale suddenly shot up out of his chair.
"I know what those are," he exclaimed excitedly. "Those are dwarves! Like from the Lord of the Rings movies. They look just like them!"
Cale raised a skeptical eyebrow, ready to dismiss that right away. But Mr. Bridges smiled hugely and nodded his head at the actor. "Very good, Liam," he said happily. "They are dwarves. Genetically engineered dwarves, but dwarves just the same."
Suddenly it all clicked in his head. 'Mordor', dwarves, a team of geneticists, a park psychologist, it all made sense. But he wasn't sure if he believed it. "Wait," he said slowly. "Are you trying to tell me, however subtly, that you have a whole park here of genetically engineered book characters?" He wasn't quite sure he wanted to know the answer to that question.
Owen nodded again. "That is precisely what I am trying to tell you," he exclaimed. "But they aren't book characters, they are fully functioning Middle Earth species. And we don't have just dwarves. You'll actually get to see them all tomorrow or Tuesday. But for now, we'll just stick to the basics of the park."
It was almost too much for Cale. "You mean to say you've got a whole island of people living here, engineered people? Just how many species do you have? How do you keep them here? How did you do it?" Cale asked, the questions flying out of his mouth before he could even decide what to ask next.
Owen chuckled. "Whoa there. One at a time. Yes, we have a whole island here of genetically engineered races. There are three of them, humanoid one's at least, we've got one not humanoid species and another in the works. We have a society of elves, dwarves, and hobbits, all living peacefully in separate habitat-like compounds. As to how we did it. Freddy can explain it to you, or we can show you some of it," Owen explained, taking each question in order.
"Both," Cale replied. "Explain it to me here, and then show me the lab, or whatever."
Freddy scooted up the table and adjusted his tie. "Very vell then," he said, taking on a professional like air. "It is quite simple really, provided you know the basic genetic makeup of whatever it is you want to manipulate. And that is all this was, genetic manipulation. Ve took human DNA, and simply started playing around vith it. Ve have here a machine that can digitally produce an image of vhatever it is you have created, it gives you a physical image along vith a list of physical capabilities. All of our creations are as close to the real thing as it is possible to come, but they are not perfect. The only thing this machine cannot tell you is the mental capacity and capabilities of your creation.
"So I simply began playing around vith genetic combinations that vere fairly close to vhat I vanted. I stopped vhen I had the right combination for all the physical capabilities of an elf, dwarf, and hobbit. They vere fairly simple to engineer. It vas a much harder process to actually create the individual beings. Engineering the non-humanoid creations vas much harder. It vas much more of a challenge to engineer the giant eagles than the elves, etc."
Cale remained quite, soaking in all the German had said. He didn't claim to know anything about genetics, but it seemed fairly straight forward to him. As he sat there thinking of his next question, Liam, who had until this point been listening with mild interest, piped up.
"Hey, you said you have elves here?" he asked. Owen nodded. "Does that mean you have some hot elf chicks here as well?" The actor smiled widely to himself, thinking about something. Cale rolled his eyes, he was pretty sure he had an idea along which lines those thoughts were.
Owen raised his eyebrows. "Yes, a little less than half of the elves here in the park are female. You'll probably see them tomorrow." The actor smiled to himself again, but by now they were all ignoring him again.
"I have a question," Cale started. "Just how smart are these beings?" He wanted to know about the morality of keeping such creations in compounds like common animals in a zoo. Were they smart enough to fend for themselves? Or were they dependant on Owen and his park for survival? It would be wrong and illegal to be keeping fully mature people as virtual prisoners for the profit of others.
Owen smiled again, this time a little less enthusiastically. "Originally they were all supposed to have the average IQ of ,say, a five year old child. That way we could teach them to do certain tasks, but they would still remain dependant on us. They turned out to be somewhat smarter than intended," he said, hedging around something.
Cale was about to ask just how smart were they, when Owen cut him off. "What say we go take a tour of the lab now? It truly is fascinating. Then, if they are still up, we can visit the nursery. Mel, what do we currently have down there?" he asked quickly.
She scowled. "We still have a hobbit, and a dwarf. I introduced the elf a week ago, remember?"
"Ah, yes, very good. What say you two?" he asked. Cale nodded and Liam stood up to go.
"Sure, sounds good. But why do you need a nursery? Aren't they all able to reproduce themselves?" he asked, this question more directed at Mel. She shook her head.
"No, they aren't able to reproduce. It is a way for us to exert more control, and keep the population from booming out of control. We grow them here, then introduce them into their society when they reach the maturity level of about five or six. Shall we go down to the lab?" she went to open the door. She was tired of this already.
Owen motioned for Freddy to lead the way, and they all headed back down the hall. It was not far from the conference room to the lab. Freddy and his crew did an excellent job of explaining things in greater detail for their guests and showing them exactly what Freddy had tried to explain in the conference room. They spent nearly an hour down there going over details and genetics and DNA. It wasn't until Liam complained about being bored and wanting to play with the little "hobbitlings", that they left the lab.
By the time they had gotten to the nursery wing, all the lights were off and the door warned them all to be quiet. Owen asked Mel if she would go in and wake them up for his visitors to see, but she refused. She did not want to deal with cranky hobbit and dwarf babies. Frustrated, Owen called it a night and had Mel run his guest back to their hotel, but only after he promised them they could see the babies in the morning.
That night Cale got comfortable in his bed to read again, but this time was much more satisfied with the answers he had received.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
A/N- that was a really quick ending, I know. But it was running long and I needed a good way to end it without leaving a cliffhanger. And for any science fanatics, I do not profess to know anything about genetics, I am taking the cheap way out and saying that this is in the future (remember- 2017) and they could do any of this. Sorry. I really don't like saying that, but sometime or other I was going to have to confront the mechanics behind it all. I just hope I didn't screw it up too much.
Chapter 7
Disclaimer- Don't own...Don't sue
Suuki-Aldrea- Suuki, my number-one, bestest and most loyal reader, what would I ever do without you? I can always count on you to review, even if you're the only one, and it makes continuing this story so much easier. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all your support. And I am so happy to know that I have at least one person who truly does enjoy my story. Thank you!
Saria1992- I guess I do update fast, don't I? Well, now that school is done for the summer, there is much more time for writing, which I am more than happy to do. And you're right; you won't know what happens with the elves till I write it, which, sadly, is not in this chapter. But read on, it will come soon.
Nurikochan- I am glad you enjoy it. And I like your idea with the Balrogs, but sadly, I am too far in now to suddenly add a whole new creation. It would totally throw all the stability and believability I have (and I'm not sure how much of that I do have). Talk about a major plot hole. I really like that idea though. Maybe, when this is all finished, I'll make a little one-shot scene like that and just tack it on the end. That would be funny.
Silver Whirl- Militant elves is a scary thought, isn't it? That's part of the reason they are militant. You know, I don't think Owen is that stupid, to give them firearms. They might get a hold of them somehow, but he wouldn't give them to them. Well, no, maybe having them get a hold of firearms isn't such a good idea. And I think I already killed all the chances there were for cosmic phrases, oops. Oh, and there are no orcs, I didn't feel like messing with them, I thought angry elves and, eventually, dwarves would be enough without adding yet another danger. No, the dwarves won't dig so far that they break into Lothlorien. I think the elves would kill them all. But that could also be a funny appendix to put at the end. I'll keep that in mind.
A/N- whew! Now that I finished responding to all of my awesome reviewers, it's time to get to the story. This time it's not from Mel's or Owen's point of view, yea! Fresh idea's, and a new personality to look at! Sorry, I was hoping to get to some action, so far there has been a lack of it, but it just didn't work out like I had planned. Well, here it is, enjoy. And let me know what you think, and beware! It's long!
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
After finishing his exquisite lunch; tender, juicy filet mignon, with crisp tasty baby corn, and a sweet bowl of fruit salad, and two piping hot, buttery biscuits, Cale sat back to wait. When the pushy "park technician" had blown him off and run off, he had known he would get no answers until he and the actor were summoned to this meeting later with Mr. Bridges and his associates. Instead of getting frustrated and pacing and being angry, which would do him no amount of good, he pulled his book out of his travel bag. He stretched out on the bed and began to read.
Ironically enough, as he would soon find out, the book he had brought with him was The Lost World, sequel to the book that had inspired the park he was visiting. Michael Crichton, along with such authors as Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, and others, were on his favorite authors list. Of all that Crichton had written, Jurassic Park and The Lost World were his favorites, closely followed by Timeline. Caleb Major was an avid reader and enjoyed nothing more than settling into a comfy chair in the evening and losing himself in a good book.
It was a good thing he'd brought his book with him, as it was several hours before he received a phone call saying someone would soon be there to pick him and the actor up. Thinking of the actor, Cale grimaced. He couldn't believe he'd been stuck on this trip with that dope. The airplane and helicopter rides had been hell. The man talked incessantly, and about the stupidest and most trivial things imaginable. He had spent the whole trip here jabbering on at Cale about another young actor's new haircut and sense of style. And all through this afternoon he had heard loud and horrible singing coming from the room across the hall. Cale was disgusted; Liam Morgan, at least in his eyes, was a waste of human existence.
Ah, but there was no help for it, he was stuck. He got up off the bed, put his book away, and slipped on his shoes. As he walked out his door and down the hall, many questions made their way into his head. His company was already an investor in this whole deal. He was here to investigate and help his company decide whether or not to openly endorse the park. Cale was a little perturbed with Mr. Bridges for keeping them in the dark, but he guessed he had his reasons. For all he knew, the man just wanted it to be a surprise; Bridges did seem to have a flare for the dramatic. Either way, it didn't matter now, for the blinders were about to come off. Cale would make sure they came off.
With a polite nod to one of the helpful bell hops by the door, he went outside to wait for his ride. He didn't wait long. A couple of minutes later, Mel came driving up in her keep. She wore a tight smile on her pretty face, but it was just a thin veneer that barely concealed the grim determination within.
Cale hopped in the front seat and murmured a polite greeting. Mel ignored him, instead looking around for the actor. "Where is he?" she asked bluntly, not bothering to specify who "he" was. Cale shrugged.
"I don't know. I assume he got the same call I did. He should be out here soon," he said absently.
Putting the jeep into park, she scowled and hopped out of the car. "He had better be walking down that hall," she said as she disappeared through the double doors. Cale chuckled to himself. He didn't know this psychologist very well, but he could imagine the look on her face when she confronted the actor.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later they came out of the lobby; Mel rolled her eyes in exasperation, and Liam scuttled along behind her looking very sheepish. Mel climbed back in the driver's seat, and Liam hopped in the back behind Cale. Without a word, they took off along the North Road. As soon as they cleared the hotel grounds, the trees and underbrush seemed to close in around them on all sides. Trees and shrubs grew right up to the roadside, giving the area a scenic, but foreboding feel. The effect was such that even the light seemed to dim around them.
Before he could get his bearings, they burst through the brush and trees and pulled up in front of a massive, three story building. It was shaped like a giant, wide, and angular "w", and had no windows on the first floor, only a double set of steel doors on the point of the "w". I was constructed out of a nice, warm brown material and seemed to be quite secure. Though what it needed to be secure from, Cale had no idea.
Mel pulled up in front of the double doors and shut off the engine. "Well sirs, welcome to Head Quarters, the main building, or what some employees have admiringly called 'Mordor'," she said dryly. The actor snapped back to reality from wherever he had let his mind wander.
"'Mordor'?" he asked, confused. "Like the evil place from the Lord of the Rings movies?"
Mel nodded. 'Well, I'll be damned', Cale thought snidely, 'the man does have a brain cell or two.' Then he frowned. Why on earth call it Mordor? Mordor, in the books and movies, had been a place of evil, power, and control. How did that apply to a park building?
He was going to ask Mel about that, but she had already swiped her employee access card, and the steel doors were swinging open. So instead he just followed her inside.
The inside looked just like any old office building. There was neutral colored carpet on the floor and comfy looking chairs positioned around the reception desk. An extremely bored looking receptionist sat behind her desk, filing her nails. Cale was somewhat unimpressed.
Mel ignored it all and took off at a brisk walk down the hall to the receptionist's right, beckoning them to follow her. She wound them through hall way after hallway, up an elevator, and down yet another hallway. Finally they came to a door marked "Authorized Personnel Only". Mel swiped her ID again and opened the door for them. Waiting inside were Mr. Bridges and the man named Freddy.
Cale strode inside confidently, taking in the details of the room. There was a large conference table in the center, an overhead system in a corner and wood paneling along one wall. It was to most drab conference room he's ever seen.
# # # # #
Mr. Bridges extended his hand for a handshake. Cale took it again; there really was no need for one though. They had already met; this was little more than a formality. He waved them all into seats around the large conference table and made to start on a grand speech. Cale cut him off, he had had enough of grand speeches, and he wanted answers. So, showing a rare seen impatient side, he asked the first question that popped into his head.
"Mr. Bridges, let's cut to the chase, please. We are all the same as we were four hours ago. Please sir, excuse my rudeness, but we are a little perplexed here. Just what kind of park are you running here?" he asked shortly, hoping he hadn't offended his host too much.
But Mr. Bridges only smiled. "Well, since you are so adamant. I had a presentation set up, but as you said, let's just cut to the chase." He stood up and a pressed a button on the wall. The wood paneling on the front wall slid out and up, tucking itself neatly into the ceiling and revealing wide windows that over looked a control room of some kind. There were banks of computers everywhere. They lined the walls and formed neat rows all the way down to a large movie theatre style screen on that front wall. There were no more than fifteen people sitting at various consoles around the gigantic control room, staring at screens, checking stats, and working at other various tasks.
Cale was still not impressed. "Mr. Bridges, this is a control room. Every park has one. You still have not answered my question. What kind of park do you have here?" he asked again, this time with an impatient edge to his voice.
Owen sighed. "We do not run an ordinary park here, Mr. Major. Everything here is state of the art, and we spared no expense. We have all the best laboratory equipment and some of the world's finest geneticists. Freddy here graduated top of his class at Heidelberg University in Germany. And everything you will see here is all authentic."
He broke off his speech and pressed an intercom button on the wall. "Dave, bring up the visual on the caves please on the big screen," he ordered. Then he sat back in his chair again. Cale grumbled to himself. Obviously this man was not the type given to bluntness. He turned his attention to the large screen in front of him, shaking his head.
The screen lit up and the picture changed from an overhead view the island, to a dimly lit cave full of toiling men. They were very hairy me, very short men. In fact, they didn't look so much like men at all. Liam, who had been sitting quietly next to Cale suddenly shot up out of his chair.
"I know what those are," he exclaimed excitedly. "Those are dwarves! Like from the Lord of the Rings movies. They look just like them!"
Cale raised a skeptical eyebrow, ready to dismiss that right away. But Mr. Bridges smiled hugely and nodded his head at the actor. "Very good, Liam," he said happily. "They are dwarves. Genetically engineered dwarves, but dwarves just the same."
Suddenly it all clicked in his head. 'Mordor', dwarves, a team of geneticists, a park psychologist, it all made sense. But he wasn't sure if he believed it. "Wait," he said slowly. "Are you trying to tell me, however subtly, that you have a whole park here of genetically engineered book characters?" He wasn't quite sure he wanted to know the answer to that question.
Owen nodded again. "That is precisely what I am trying to tell you," he exclaimed. "But they aren't book characters, they are fully functioning Middle Earth species. And we don't have just dwarves. You'll actually get to see them all tomorrow or Tuesday. But for now, we'll just stick to the basics of the park."
It was almost too much for Cale. "You mean to say you've got a whole island of people living here, engineered people? Just how many species do you have? How do you keep them here? How did you do it?" Cale asked, the questions flying out of his mouth before he could even decide what to ask next.
Owen chuckled. "Whoa there. One at a time. Yes, we have a whole island here of genetically engineered races. There are three of them, humanoid one's at least, we've got one not humanoid species and another in the works. We have a society of elves, dwarves, and hobbits, all living peacefully in separate habitat-like compounds. As to how we did it. Freddy can explain it to you, or we can show you some of it," Owen explained, taking each question in order.
"Both," Cale replied. "Explain it to me here, and then show me the lab, or whatever."
Freddy scooted up the table and adjusted his tie. "Very vell then," he said, taking on a professional like air. "It is quite simple really, provided you know the basic genetic makeup of whatever it is you want to manipulate. And that is all this was, genetic manipulation. Ve took human DNA, and simply started playing around vith it. Ve have here a machine that can digitally produce an image of vhatever it is you have created, it gives you a physical image along vith a list of physical capabilities. All of our creations are as close to the real thing as it is possible to come, but they are not perfect. The only thing this machine cannot tell you is the mental capacity and capabilities of your creation.
"So I simply began playing around vith genetic combinations that vere fairly close to vhat I vanted. I stopped vhen I had the right combination for all the physical capabilities of an elf, dwarf, and hobbit. They vere fairly simple to engineer. It vas a much harder process to actually create the individual beings. Engineering the non-humanoid creations vas much harder. It vas much more of a challenge to engineer the giant eagles than the elves, etc."
Cale remained quite, soaking in all the German had said. He didn't claim to know anything about genetics, but it seemed fairly straight forward to him. As he sat there thinking of his next question, Liam, who had until this point been listening with mild interest, piped up.
"Hey, you said you have elves here?" he asked. Owen nodded. "Does that mean you have some hot elf chicks here as well?" The actor smiled widely to himself, thinking about something. Cale rolled his eyes, he was pretty sure he had an idea along which lines those thoughts were.
Owen raised his eyebrows. "Yes, a little less than half of the elves here in the park are female. You'll probably see them tomorrow." The actor smiled to himself again, but by now they were all ignoring him again.
"I have a question," Cale started. "Just how smart are these beings?" He wanted to know about the morality of keeping such creations in compounds like common animals in a zoo. Were they smart enough to fend for themselves? Or were they dependant on Owen and his park for survival? It would be wrong and illegal to be keeping fully mature people as virtual prisoners for the profit of others.
Owen smiled again, this time a little less enthusiastically. "Originally they were all supposed to have the average IQ of ,say, a five year old child. That way we could teach them to do certain tasks, but they would still remain dependant on us. They turned out to be somewhat smarter than intended," he said, hedging around something.
Cale was about to ask just how smart were they, when Owen cut him off. "What say we go take a tour of the lab now? It truly is fascinating. Then, if they are still up, we can visit the nursery. Mel, what do we currently have down there?" he asked quickly.
She scowled. "We still have a hobbit, and a dwarf. I introduced the elf a week ago, remember?"
"Ah, yes, very good. What say you two?" he asked. Cale nodded and Liam stood up to go.
"Sure, sounds good. But why do you need a nursery? Aren't they all able to reproduce themselves?" he asked, this question more directed at Mel. She shook her head.
"No, they aren't able to reproduce. It is a way for us to exert more control, and keep the population from booming out of control. We grow them here, then introduce them into their society when they reach the maturity level of about five or six. Shall we go down to the lab?" she went to open the door. She was tired of this already.
Owen motioned for Freddy to lead the way, and they all headed back down the hall. It was not far from the conference room to the lab. Freddy and his crew did an excellent job of explaining things in greater detail for their guests and showing them exactly what Freddy had tried to explain in the conference room. They spent nearly an hour down there going over details and genetics and DNA. It wasn't until Liam complained about being bored and wanting to play with the little "hobbitlings", that they left the lab.
By the time they had gotten to the nursery wing, all the lights were off and the door warned them all to be quiet. Owen asked Mel if she would go in and wake them up for his visitors to see, but she refused. She did not want to deal with cranky hobbit and dwarf babies. Frustrated, Owen called it a night and had Mel run his guest back to their hotel, but only after he promised them they could see the babies in the morning.
That night Cale got comfortable in his bed to read again, but this time was much more satisfied with the answers he had received.
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A/N- that was a really quick ending, I know. But it was running long and I needed a good way to end it without leaving a cliffhanger. And for any science fanatics, I do not profess to know anything about genetics, I am taking the cheap way out and saying that this is in the future (remember- 2017) and they could do any of this. Sorry. I really don't like saying that, but sometime or other I was going to have to confront the mechanics behind it all. I just hope I didn't screw it up too much.