The Experiment
Lt. Alvage wasn’t in the mood for this. Especially not when awakening after a year long preservation. That length of time was out of protocol, but orders from the top were not meant to be overturned due to small safety concerns. And really, it was a minor inconvenience, similar to ancient alcohol hangovers.
As was customary, the senior member of the ship was the first to awake — doing the honors of Preservation Breaking. Lt. Alvage had always thought this “honor” was silly. We have drones, why can’t they wake up first and prep? Traditions die hard.
At this awakening, a persistent beep and flickering of lights were pounding into Lt. Alvage’s hungover skull. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. It was hard enough to remember who you were, let alone process existential errors.
He quickly unstrapped himself from the chamber and awakened a nearby drone.
“Good awakenings, Lt. Alvage.”
Lt. Alvage managed something between a grumble and a snort.
“This was a long one, I know. But we will need you up to speed quickly. There is an anomaly.”
No shit, though Lt. Algave. It sounded like a jackhammer was piercing his skull each second.
“Can you turn that damn thing off. I feel like death.”
There was silence immediately.
Lt. Alvage managed to make it to his command chair. “Ship, what is the anomaly?”
“We have detected a civilization close to Type 1,” said the ship.
“Impossible.”
This was supposed to be a routine patrol mission.
“What system is this,” asked Lt. Alvage. Of course, he was supposed to know all this off the top of his head, but at this point, he was feeling jaded about these damn patrol missions.
“It is Earth 4255 P-33. Experiment type C.”
Lt. Alvage shifted dramatically in his seat.
“Type C?! Why was that major detail left out in the briefing?”
For years, Lt. Alvage had been assigned to assist with the Grand Experiment Project doing research on specie interpolation. Forging the future of humanity was no small task, and there was no better place to start than to study how humans would interact under different histories.
Type C, though, was something the lieutenant had never encountered. He remembered studying the different human types in his briefings over the years. Type C was highly controversial. Hell, he didn’t even know any that were deployed in the wild.
It was a tweak of the standard Anderson human type that introduced an aggression gene that was illegal for most experimenters. In essence, it lead to greed and self destruction in most simulations.
Sweat brewed on Lt. Alvage’s forehead. “And you said Type 1 civilization? This is insane.”
Typically, these experiments never made it past an ice age, let alone to agricultural societies. Lt. Alvage was used to ferrying these human experiments back to Main System for studying. Even after all these years, he took a great interest in the varying ways humanity could evolve. But, those were never Type C.
He now understood why the protocol was ignored.
“So, should we prepare the ferry,” asked Lt. Alvage.
“No, we must eliminate immediately.”
Lt. Alvage almost fell out of his chair.
Insanity. In his decade of service, he had never eliminated more than a hundred specimens. And that was mostly because they were too sick to survive on their own anyway.
The ship noticed his heightened heart rate. “There isn’t time. We aren’t scheduled to be back in this system for at least another 30,000 local years. By then, this Type C specimen would be huge, requiring an immense amount of resources to control.”
“The readings show 7 billion beings. 7 BILLION. Surely this mission is a cruel joke.”
“It is not. You were tasked this due to your immense loyalty to the System. You must complete the mission before we awake the rest of the crew. No record will be saved.”
Lt. Alvage stared blankly as a red button pushed up out of the console.
The ship continued, “You must push the button. Their death will be painless, I assure you.”
The ship paused a few seconds.
“The future of humanity hinges on this, and your secrecy.”
Lt. Alvage was still barely awake. Maybe this was a bad preservation dream.
But he knew he was resigned to this fate. Type C was just too dangerous.
Too dangerous to progress.
He slowly pressed his finger on the button. And pushed.
