:: Birth ::
A/N: I forgot to mention that this is in fact a songfic. Based on 'Biogenesis' by a Japanese goth band, Schwarz Stein. The text is in the end of this chapter. With that, enjoy!
The opening of the seal was scheduled at midday, local time, when the red disk of Mars was like a big full dish on the lab's screens. The corridors of Kerberos were empty, but as the Captain walked towards the command station he felt that if only he turned fast enough he'd catch a glimpse of a busy shadow running past.
The cube with the egg was stationed behind several protective walls, all conveniently transparent. The opening had begun several hours ago by raising the temperature and adding air to the vacuum around the cube. Now constant currents of warm air caressed the egg's wrinkled surface and created an illusion of movement.
"That should wake it from its sleep," said one of the clones the moment Lorentz and the Captain entered the lab.
"We've built a nice home for it. It should feel welcomed."
At Lorentz's words, the Captain looked around. The white, plain corridors ended at the lab's door; inside, it was a plexus of tubes and ducts. Some were of glistening metal, some - semi-transparent, stretchable like plastic, membranes and hoses, coiling against dark walls covered with microchips and circuits. The controls at the walls seemed to need more than five human fingers to manipulate. The room made a dizzying effect, and the Captain tried not to look too closely at the details for any long time.
"The scissors, please."
Two curved blades, attached to metallic mock-hand manipulators, reached to the egg and cut off the threads holding it in place.
"Forceps." Lorentz directed the operation like an experienced surgeon.
The forceps grabbed the staples that were embedded in the egg's tissue to hold the threads. At first, nothing happened, but as the hands pulled harder the bars of wire began to stir pulling the flesh after them. It stretched bit by bit, becoming thinner, until the staples were torn out, leaving small rivulets of green opalescent fluid to ooze from the holes. And finally, with a fruity plop, the petals burst open and revealed tender pink insides.
"Number Four, please enter."
I don't want to look, thought the Captain. "I don't want to look," he said it aloud.
"But Greg, it's the most interesting part," chided Lorentz, not really looking at him.
Use your chance and leave, advised the Captain to himself. But his movements were slow despite his will and from the corner of his eye he saw the human figure - Number Four, the most animated of all five clones - enter the cube compartment. A second later, before he turned away completely, he noticed a small shadow dart across the screen, a round blot with a black line for the tail and a moving nimbus of clawed limbs.
He walked through the silent, empty corridors. With every turn he was quickening his step, and the final distance to his craft he crossed in a fast sprint.
"We must get out of here. Now."
"But," his Navigator was sitting by the escape hatch, smoking. "What about permission and all? We work for this guy, after all. We can't just...leave, can we?"
They wouldn't let them leave anyway. The Captain realized that in a flash. Every gate of the station, every passage must have been sealed by now, to ensure complete closure and autonomy.
"Lock the hatches at least."
The doors hissed and clicked as they closed, but that brought little relief to the Captain's mind. Even sitting in the now self-sufficient craft he felt nervous and kept staring at the wide gap of the corridor to the lab. The Navigator sat beside him looking in the same direction.
"What the hell's happened to the clocks?"
The indicator panel by the corridor gate that used to display the current environmental parameters of the station now was showing something nonsensical. The quickly decreasing figures still indicated time, but time going backwards.
"Shit," answered the Captain. "Shit, shit, shit."
That was how much they had left. Slightly less than six hours - not very generous. The six hours required for the maturation of the embryo inside a human carrier. How big would it grow by then? How quick would it move? And most important, in what direction?
"Get the engines ready," the Captain commanded, his eyes still on the clock. "Just in case."
He chose the copy number four of himself only for practical reasons. It was known that a lot depended on the physique of the carrier: stronger, more agile individuals made the incubation period shorter while in the weaker, calmer ones the embryo languished. As to her being a female...Lorentz smirked inwardly thinking that Dr. Freud would have a word or two to say on the matter. Did he want it to be a cold experiment or a dramatic birth involving a real mother? Was the thought of a man being impregnated by this violent parasite, intruded by its seminal tubule, really that atrocious beyond all logic? They were his clones, but he felt more bound to the male ones: they looked too much like himself.
He looked at the facehugger that was making itself comfortable on the Four, and his mouth turned dry. From his viewpoint, he could see its long thin claws envelop the human head, slowly, almost tenderly moving around to get a better, tighter position. The creature's seminal organ wasn't visible, but he could see how the soft flesh on its back pulsed rhythmically expelling the embryo. At some point the human almost choked on the large lump of tissue that was being forced into her, and the facehugger's tail coiled around her throat, massaging it gently until the embryo slid through.
This caring movement was the last the creature had strength to produce - together with the embryo, life left it, and it fell off the human's face, landing on the floor with a dull thud. Lorentz stared at the scene until one of the remaining clones coughed in a politely encouraging way.
"What? Oh right, start the countdown."
Despite the effort to keep calm, Lorentz seemed distracted. His eyes were still on the two figures behind the glass, one dead and the other nearly so. She never showed a slightest wish to disagree. That was expected, of course, from a clone. In a way, she was like those hand manipulators - one of his instruments, a bit more precise than any other. She was fit to be used in the most complex tasks.
She used to be part of his DNA and his genius. She used to.
He licked his lips that felt dry as paper and then covered his mouth with his palm in a gesture of instinctive protection.
Schwarz Stein: BIO GENESIS Yes, the urge to procreate The beat pushing us on towards chaos Into this increasingly empty world was he born Uncertainty Cold mechanality Birthed from an inhuman mother The symbol of rebirth's light The one to become God supreme Now Creation Standing into eternity Self Supreme Rise Blaze bleed Awake An alarm bell in this increasingly impure world Cells evolved to perfection Yes Now Thoughts produced to excel all Start up Birthed from a grotesque mother True paradise Eternal The lord who rules over the world Will stand into eternity Self Ascension of the lord Rise Blaze Bleed Awake Yes, the urge to procreate The beat pushing us on towards chaos Into this increasingly empty world was I born Uncertainty Cold mechanality Birthed from an inhuman mother The symbol of rebirth's light The one to become God supreme Now Creation Standing into eternity Self Supreme Rise Blaze Bleed Awake