Hello, it's Friday night, and I'm putting this up a little later than usual. This is inspired by this week's [Fiction] Friday exercise over at Write Anything.  I enjoyed this exercise, so this is the possible start of a (much) longer work.  Enjoy!



SECTOR 46

Saul sat on the edge of the curb, his blackberry in front of him.  There was still so much to do.  The cells needed to be furnished.  The library needed to be scrubbed down.  The laundry facility was going to be equipped with lab equipment.  So…much…to…do.  He let out a deep sigh and tucked the electronic device back into his shirt pocket.  Dr. Ezra had a huge government grant – and the woman was brilliant.  Saul just wasn’t convinced the woman was sane. 

            Alcatraz had shut down years ago.  But it’s location, just off San Francisco’s shores, made it perfect for Dr. Ezra’s research.  Well, it wasn’t exactly Ezra’s research, it had been commissioned through the government, based upon her theories.  And why wouldn’t it be?  Saul stood up and dusted himself off.  This would make the government much more money than tourism – if it was successful.  It would actually make everyone much more money, and perhaps Dr. Ezra and himself would stand to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

            The idea was that they had identified two genes – one caused the human body to age at a much slower rate and one that eliminated the desire and ability for humans to reproduce. By manipulating these two genes, they could simultaneously cash in on everyone’s desire to stay young and they could effectively control the population increase.  Naturally, experimentation on human subjects was highly controversial, especially since Saul and Dr. Ezra would be manipulating genes and experimenting on stem cells at first.  Since Annabelle Lang had created the ability to reproduce any given human’s genetic code through cloning, a ban had been placed on anyone attempting to manipulate that code.  Ezra wanted to use cloning combined with gene control to create a super human, an Übermensch of sorts.  Because the human would age slower, the productivity level would be much higher.  Because the human would have no need or desire to reproduce, many of the genetic factors leading to violence like jealousy, competition, and promiscuity would be under control, causing peace for humanity. 

            Saul sighed again as he walked toward the construction team.  All that was great, but the government wanted to add another element to their research and development.  In addition to the mellow humans they believed they could create by manipulating the genetic code, the government grant specified that they must also advance military interests.  This meant creating three other species:  an army of fast-growing aggressive humans that were genetically disposed towards following commands, a group of breeders that would produce and care for children, and a class of extremely docile but strong manual laborers.  Saul was concerned about the implications for playing around too much with the genetic code, but Dr. Ezra had assured him time and time again that things would be okay. 

            Alesio, a tall Hispanic man stood at the center of the laborers.  Saul would need to explain to them that the cells had to lock and be completely impermeable (due to the decay of Alcatraz, one of the aggressive specimen they hoped to create could easily break out).  The barrier, of course, was that Alesio spoke broken English and Saul spoke broken Spanish.  He stretched to remember key words from his time in college, but to the foreman, he must have sounded insane.  Saul explained the needs slowly, patiently.  Alesio rolled out the construction plans.  He assured Saul that no one would be able to get in – or out – of the cells once the team was done, and that each cell, while lavishly furnished for the comfort of the experimental subjects, would also be completely safe from violent tendencies.

            Dr. Ezra was eating her dinner at the North Beach Restaurant.  Saul longed to join her, but it was forbidden.  The woman, while the object of his desire (she reminded him of a young Angelina Jolie), was married to a prominent senator.  Naturally, this relationship was one of the reasons they had been able to easily procure their research materials and location.  If any of the violent ones should escape (or any of the breeders for that matter), they would likely drown in the waters of the San Francisco Bay.  He liked to think of her though, about what it would be like to feed her.  They almost had an affair a few years ago, when Dr. Ezra (Jane at the time, before she insisted on professionalism) had been experimenting with libido.  She had created a pill that would increase the libido of anyone who took it. She tried it out on herself.  Saul still kicked himself from time to time for refusing her advances, but she was a newly married woman, and as much as he wanted to pull her close to him and kiss her, he also wanted to be a moral man. Morality, such a funny thing when you think about it.   He wouldn’t sleep with his partner, but he would craft a race of slaves in a laboratory made from a decommissioned prison.  The Nobel Prize meant so much to Dr. Ezra, though, and to him too.  Science was his wife. 

            Alesio was now giving instructions to his employees in Spanish.  Ezra walked away from the group and into the library area where workers were scrubbing from top to bottom.  It was vital that they were able to keep all the research materials, and the infants, in a sterile environment.  The actual act of manipulating genes required absolute sterility of environment.  When they made the docile Rottweiler pups, they didn’t account for a bacteria that was in the air. This resulted in a mass infection – genetically engineered animals are much more vulnerable to viruses and bacterial infections – and the first two litters died of staph infections.  The second two litters were overly violent – a result, they found of a mutated virus.  Once they recognized the need for the sterile environment, the genetically altered Rottwielers were a huge hit on the market, and they were soon inundated with requests for other breeds.

            It wasn’t like they were doing anything new, people had been selecting the traits they wanted in their animals for thousands of years by controlled breeding.  Why was it, then, that Saul felt so guilty about the prospects of engineering humans?

            He didn’t get the chance to finish that thought.  His phone rang.

            “Dr. Rocklee,” the familiar feminine voice said on the other end when he answered it, “we may have a problem with Sector 46.”


"Sector 46" Stan Levine @2009