Ch 7

In another flashback, 89P13 was doing some math equations in the main room of the lab ship and the High Evolutionary was watching and nodding approvingly like a father would to his kid.

Except he was anything but a father.

"Yes, that's correct, 89P13. Very good."

89P13 looked at the vast city in front of them.

"That's the new world." the High Evolutionary told him. "Counter-Earth. Where the experiments will go once they're ready."

89P13 then pointed to the weird wide bluish thing in front of them which had what looked like puffy clumps of white.

"It blue." he said.

"That's the sky." the High Evolutionary replied.

"Sky."

"Yes, it is."

89P13 also noticed some strange noises coming from the big metallic box in front of them.

"What sounds?"

"That's music."

Was that what the people on Counter-Earth listened to?

"We like it?"

"We do. This recording is over 5,000 years old. Which translated, is be not as you are, but as you should be."

"It's our sacred mission." the High Evolutionary continued. "To take the cacophony of sounds around us and turn it into a song. To take an imperfect clump of biological matter such as you, and transform it into something...perfect. And we're halfway there, aren't we?"

The High Evolutionary wanted to change other species to make the perfect society.

But that quote still didn't sound right to 89P13.

If people were changed to be exactly perfect, then they would lose what made them their own person, right?

Then the High Evolutionary took 89P13 to a lab with walls of black steel and huge containers with the sentient Humanimals inside the mist-filled containers.

One Humanimal, a turtle, looked just like the others but instead it was banging itself repeatedly against the container, startling 89P13 who jumped a few feet away as the sentient turtle banged and pounded away, failing to escape each time.

The High Evolutionary gave a glance at the turtle, then sighed in annoyance.

"See now...There's the rub. For some reason, these specimens are also over-producing the loligo microsamino protein in their systems. Causing them to be, well..."

"Violent." 89P13 said.

That was the word for when there was any aggressiveness.

"We don't like it."

"A utopia can't have its denizens murder one another, can it?" the High Evolutionary asked, rhetorically.

"They can'ts." 89P13 replied.

"Can't." the High Evolutionary corrected.

"They're programmed to be peaceful, like you. But for some reason, it's not catching."

"Heptonic filters." 89P13 said.

"What?" the High Evolutionary asked, stunned.

How did 89P13 know the answer?

"They suppresaliding the glycusolided saltses. And then, boop, boop, boop...Absisting residual deformant. And then, they, make, um..."

He couldn't pronounce the other word the scientists said.

"What do you say?"

"The loligo microsamino proteins." Vim said.

"Yeah, thems." 89P13 said. "And then, angry turtleses."

"Huh." the High Evolutionary said, then sent 89P13 back to his cage.

The High Evolutionary just stared at 89P13 for a long time.

He made 89P13 to be just another of his sentient creations to help shape the perfect society.

But 89P13 was already showing rapid brain development.

Maybe it was a good thing, then their society could advance faster.

But no.

No, it just couldn't do to have one's creation be superior than the creator itself.

After 89P13 was sent back to the cage, he talked to his friends about how they were going to fly to Counter-Earth and be a part of the new society.

What 89P13 didn't know was his fate wasn't going to be like that at all.

Instead, it would be different.

Very different.