Luna’s Experiments: Vacation
After a few incidents that involved a test subject with cat ears and another one with a wolf’s nose we can this time follow our heroine on her quest to find a new assistant while she is taking a little vacation from the strenuous experimenting.
“How dare they forbid me to experiment for a whole month! I am not even allowed any preparations! What am I supposed to do with all this unnecessary time?”
With these words she throws another dart at the letter she received two days ago and that she decided would be a suitable replacement for the missing dartboard. And the knifes from her kitchen were deemed a suitable replacement for the missing darts. Though she is far from a good thrower, as a bunch of knife-induced holes in her television attest, the letter is already shredded to pieces and barely readable anymore, but she has read it once, which is more than enough for her to remember every single word. They are burned into her memory as if someone took a branding iron and decided they needed to stay with her for the rest of her life.
People were working on a technology to fixate something in the mind of another person and many thought it was possible to do something like that in a few years, though for a reason completely incomprehensible to Luna the same people always stop their work to talk about the ethics and possible ways such a technology could be exploited instead of continuing their work to see if it was even possible. Why would you stop and talk about the consequences of something if you aren’t even sure whether it will really work or not?
The dark circles under Luna’s eyes attest the time she already spent on improving her aim and she is not willing to stop just yet, even if there are things that she needs to take care of.
“Failures… They called my last experiments failures… And now I not only have to find another test subject, I also have to find a new assistant first. Just because the first one was too weak for this job and the last one was deemed too promising to work with someone like Ms. Tick. Grrrr!”
Furiously she stares at the paper for a moment thinking about whether it was possible to give herself the ability to ignite stuff just by looking at it. After not finding a satisfying solution that wouldn’t just turn her eyes into ash upon usage or into a boring laser as everyone else following this stupid laser trend, she storms out of her living room with an expression as if she just ate a whole lemon.
Outside of her living room she pauses for a moment, looking through the open door in front of her the queen-size bed and thinking about just going to sleep instead of doing the work she is supposed to do, but that she doesn’t want to do. But instead of sleeping her problems away she turns right towards the kitchen. When she steps into the kitchen, she notices something different.
There was another person sitting at the kitchen table.
A man. Probably in his mid-twenties. Short, blonde hair and green eyes that reminded Luna of a cat. There was a little spark in them that she couldn’t quite file away in her mental system for classifying potential experiments.
“So, how long do you plan to analyse me, Professor Tick?” the man said with a smile.
“A few minutes will be enough to decide what to do with you. Who the hell are you?”
“Not one for polite small talk it seems. You can call me Nick.”
“I hope you didn’t really expect me to be polite to someone breaking into my house.”
“I didn’t break into your house. It’s our house now. Haven’t you read your e-Mails?”
There had been more pressing matters at her mind for the past few hours. Or has it been days? Luna wasn’t quite sure, but looking down at her messy clothes it was probably days.
“Was just about to get back to work and read those. Care to enlighten me?”
“I am your new assistant. You still haven’t said anything about how I should address you Professor Tick.”
“Do as you like. But tell me: how exactly does you being my new assistant correlate with you being in my house without my knowledge?”
“Well, as you are probably aware Miss Tick it is not exactly your house. It’s the house of the GCCMRD, the Grand Central Community of Modern Research of Dispensatia. And the higher-ups have decided that this is no longer your house alone, but our house. I am here to help you with your research.”
“And make sure I don’t ruin any more test subjects.”
“And to make sure that you don’t ruin any more test subjects. You’ve been ploughing through the last like there were hundreds available.”
“There are hundreds of test subjects available. In fact, there are thousands available. The whole country is our playground. Look out into the streets. Everyone you come across is a potential test subject! “
“Everyone, except for the individuals belonging to the GCCMRD, their families, a few friends, people from other countries, special individuals needed to keep everything running smoothly, the very young, the very old, the sick and quite a few other people. You are too careless when thinking about the masses.”
“They are our test subjects. There is no reason to be careful.”
“There is. We need to keep everything running smoothly and start improving the lives of the ordinary people. The ‘test subjects’ as you call all of them.”
“Why would we need to do that? Our job is to research possible ways to improve humanity as a whole. We don’t need to think about individuals.”
“You are right with that. But you are forgetting that there are many more of those people than of those in power. And we want it to stay that way. You want to continue your research, right?”
“Of course. But what are you implying?”
“I am implying, Miss Tick, that your carelessness is undermining the authority of the GCCMRD and riling up the masses if you continue in your ways without any change. That’s why I am here. I am supposed to help you and guide you on your way to becoming a better researcher.”
That was enough for her. Too many people belittled her all the time.
“I am a good researcher. It’s the one thing I am really good at.” Luna said with a low voice before turning around to get back into her room. The bed was basically screaming for her.
“There is more to being a researcher than being able to graft things onto other people.” she heard Nick call to her from the kitchen.
She didn’t care that a stranger apparently was allowed to live in her house. After locking the door, she fell on her bed and stayed right where she landed. For a while she watched the sun outside of her window sink and let her thoughts drift off. She had always been the best academic. There was nothing about biology and the current technologies that she didn’t understand. Nothing that she couldn’t teach herself in a matter of hours. What exactly was there supposed to be that she, the genius, was not good at? Why was everyone saying that she needed to change? Why was it necessary for her to be different from what she was right now?
Luna knew that her work was supposed to improve humanity. And indeed, her work had already helped to increase the lifespan of the wealthy population and the researcher by at least a decade. But she always hesitated when she was supposed to change herself. Was there something wrong with her? Was is necessary to change herself?
Others demanded that she should experiment. That she should find new ways to enhance the human body So she did what she was good at and what people wanted from her.
That Nick had mentioned that there was something she wasn’t good at in her chosen field or work stung. That she had to change apparently, because the higher-ups sent someone to control her stung even more. But the worst part about it was that she didn’t understand it. She couldn’t understand why this was necessary. She wasn’t even sure what exactly was necessary. It made her furious. And at the same time, it seemed to drain all strength from her. She felt like a lifeless sack of flesh, unable to move or even think about the whole issue. It was as if the thought about her failure, about every mistake she had ever committed, were completely occupying her mind, swirling in a cacophonous maelstrom that drowned out all other thoughts.
Finally, she slipped into a deep slumber. Apparently, it had been quite some time since she last slept.
In the following morning she went into the kitchen. Nick wasn’t there. But when she was making herself a crude breakfast, meaning that she just opened up a can of ravioli to warm up, a voice behind her made her nearly jump to the ceiling as if she had the legs of a grasshopper.
“What are you doing there?”
“Squeak! … Breakfast. What else would I do in the kitchen in the morning?!” she said to him angrily. How did he dare to scare her like that?
“That’s no breakfast. And it’s not really morning. You aren’t a morning person, right?” Nick said with a smirk on his face.
Indeed, she had always preferred the silence of the night when nothing around her seemed to notice her or anything else. It relaxed her and she enjoyed looking into the darkness of the sky for hours at times.
“No. No, I am not a ‘morning person’. And I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t judge my lifestyle. Now, please, let me get something to eat.”
The moment she said that her stomach grumbled loudly for a couple seconds. When Nick erupted into laughter Luna turned bright red. She continued making herself something to eat.
“Wait, wait… Sorry… Let me make you a real breakfast. I bought some eggs, ham, bread and cheese. That will do you good.”
“I know better what I like than you do.”
She looked down at the weird looking cold mess in the can and thought about the sound of eggs being fried in the pan with the sizzling of ham and some break with a large amount of butter and cheese on top…
“Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if you did that…” she said, again in a low voice. Looking through the kitchen it was obvious that she wasn’t much of a cook. Canned goods had always been enough nourishment for her and when she was alone, she didn’t need anything else from a meal. Quick and enough to get her through the day. But today things were a bit different. Nick silently began to make her some belated breakfast.
Afterwards he sat down with her while she was eating. When she mentioned how it made her uncomfortable, he started to eat a slice of bread while drinking a cup of tea. It was unusual for Luna that she would get uncomfortable from other people’s stares. That was one thing she had endured her whole life.
“So, Nick, what exactly is happening? I still haven’t read my e-Mails.”
“Well, Miss Tick, I am your personal assistant now. A bit more responsibilities than your previous assistants had, but also with a bit more power. I do have a veto in your choice of test subjects. And, as you have already guessed, my job also includes looking out for you a bit. The higher-ups aren’t too happy with the latest tests. While your talent is undeniable and you deliver fascinating results, everyone would prefer some smaller steps.”
“You already mentioned something like that. Why would they want to slow down? They are always talking about improving humanity and looking for ways to make their already incredibly long lives even longer. It’s counterproductive to slow down the research. If anything, they should allow me to experiment for freely.”
“From the perspective you described you are absolutely correct.”
At first this felt like a compliment and Luna was quite happy. Now with a full stomach, enough sleep and having Nick say that she was right the world seemed a little bit better than the evening before. But there was obviously something Nick hadn’t said.
“You mention that from this perspective I am correct. That sounds like there is more to it than that.”
“Again, you are right. There are indeed some things that you are not taking into account in your calculations. The masses.”
“… You mean, like, … how much the test subjects weigh…?”
For a moment Nick was looking at Luna just as confused as she looked at him. Then he started to laugh, which made Luna turn bright red again and she stood up from her chair.
“I don’t need to be belittled by the likes of you.”
“Wait, wait, … sorry. It was just a funny misunderstanding. I am not implying anything, although we need to talk about ‘likes of you’ part later. Please sit down and listen to me.”
For a moment she stood there, just to make a point of not listening to every little word Nick said.
“How many people are there in the GCCMRD?”
“Depends on what you count towards that number. There are a couple dozen politicians with their extended families and friends. About a hundred Professors such as myself. Each with their family. Then maybe two hundred students, each with one family member of their choice. The staff that run the facilities. So maybe a thousand people or so?”
“That’s very close. There are right now 967 people that belong to the circle of the GCCMRD that is protected by the law.”
“How do you know that number so fast?”
“A little secret that I will talk about later, Professor. For now-“
“Please don’t call me ‘Professor’. I hate that title. Just like I hate ‘researcher’ or ‘Miss Tick’. Just say ‘Luna’, will you?”
“Of course, Luna.” Nick said with a small smile. Something about that occasional smile struck Luna as weird and fascinating at the same time. A part of her wanted to dissect him to find out what made this particular smile so different from most other smiles she had seen in her life.
“Anyways, there are currently a little less than one thousand people in the GCCMRD as you have said yourself. How many people are living in Dispensatia in whole?”
“I don’t know. Why would I care? There are thousands.”
“Wrong.”
“What?”
“You are wrong. Guess again.”
Something inside her was starting to get furious. She hated being wrong. She hated that he knew something better than she did. But he at least gave her a chance.
“Twenty thousand.”
“Wrong again. Tell me how you arrived at that number?”
“I remembered the numbers from the potential test subjects list and multiplied it by 2.5 to account for a potential spouse and child.”
“Very good. In that case you are incredibly close to the number. The correct factor would have been 2.4, but that is changing a bit from time to time. You are forgetting a couple things though. There are many people that are not explicit test subjects. There are some people who are ill and can’t be used as test subjects, but their contracts allow them to stay in Dispensatia. Then there are a few lower-class workers that you need to keep things running and that would exhibit too many physical problems for most tests. The people who are checking the sewage for example. The risk of them dying from an infection if you play with their bodies is unreasonably high. Then you have the young ones. Little children. The old ones. The people who are exempt from the policies to care for their children or parents when they are especially young or old. Many people also only have the responsibility to interact normally with everyone so that there is a normal human social circle around every potential test subject.”
“You’ve told me the same thing yesterday.”
“Yes, I did. And apparently you have already forgotten all of it.”
That stung again. Luna made a mental remark to remember this conversation and the numbers involved.
“Okay. How many people are those in total?”
“Around thirty-five million.”
It felt like he had just hit her in the face. She was off by a factor of more than a thousand percent.
“That’s impossible.”
“No, Luna, it’s not impossible. You just have never bothered to check the numbers properly.”
“I checked the numbers for this city. If every part of the country is like this –“
“Not every part is like the biggest, most important, highest developed city in the country. This place is special with an extraordinarily high number of researchers and therefore an extraordinarily high number of potential test subjects. The moment you get out of this city things look vastly different. And now we come to the problem that made the higher-ups put you on ‘vacation’ for the time being.”
“What is that supposed to be…?” Luna said with a hoarse voice.
“The people outside of this town have heard about your experiments.”
Well, that didn’t sound very scary to Luna.
“So what?”
“The normal people have heard about the brutal ways in which people here are dying. And they aren’t happy with it. Their contracts mention that there is a chance to die and everyone knows that this will occasionally happen. But most people expect to be able to live a somewhat normal life even after they’ve been chosen as a test subject. Dying in the matter of a few hours is not what they have agreed to. It’s not how they want to raise their children. It’s now what they want to have to fear. The normal people are getting riled up and this is a problem. Because there are lots of normal people. There are far more normal people than researchers and higher-ups.”
“Yeah, but they are normal!”
“That. Doesn’t. Matter. The moment a mob of angry people stand in front of your door and demand your head your status as a researcher is absolutely irrelevant. Your experiments are great. But if you continue with the same speed that you have shown in your last experiments there will be a revolution before the year is over. And nobody wants that. We have a nice place to live here in Dispensatia. There are some experiments that are more gruesome than others, but everyone living her is happy they are here and not outside the walls surrounding our country. If there is a civil war these walls will come crashing down and they will bury us beneath them.”
“That– “
“That’s exactly what will happen Luna. And that’s why I am here. I am a teacher of ethics, philosophy and history at the academy. I know you have always been a genius when it comes to genetic engineering, but it’s time you learn about other aspects of your work.”
“… So, I am not allowed to research anymore?”
It was the only thing she was good at. Ethics had always been difficult for her and she didn’t care one bit about things like philosophy and history. If she couldn’t experiment anymore, she didn’t have a purpose in life.
“No, Luna, you are allowed to continue your research. But you are not allowed to research alone anymore. I have to approve every official decision, such as choosing test subjects, the procedure to engineer the test subject, the way the test subject is observed, the information to the public and to the social circle of the test subject released before, during and, if it is necessary, after the experiment. Everything.”
It was hard. She looked down at the table thinking about all the things she had just lost. A part of her felt like a marionette on strings that were being pulled in directions she didn’t like.
“Obviously I will simply let everything regarding the procedure through. You are far better than anyone else in this whole country and we don’t want to dilute your valuable research.”
And suddenly things seemed a little brighter.
“I’ve always admired your work, Luna. And I am sure we can repeat your last experiments at some point with longer documentation. We just need to wait a bit and show some other results so that the higher-ups are satisfied.”
“You… admired my work? Didn’t you just say that you were a teacher a ethics?”
“I am still a teacher of ethics. And there is a lot of potential I can see in your work. It’s just that there are a few things you need to work on. And I will help you as best as I can. Mainly that will include keeping the higher-ups away from here and writing reports that will satisfy their weird curiosity. Your one-line e-Mails are extremely concise and a great way to relay instructions, but those guys love long prose.”
“Why would they like something so useless?”
“Everyone has something they like and dislike. In this case it’s nothing we need to worry about in such a detail right now. Just let me handle the external communication and we’ll be fine.”
“That sounds like a good plan. I’ve always hated that part.”
“I thought as much.”
Now they were both smiling at each other. It was a weird feeling, but Luna thought that this was starting to be an interesting arrangement.
“Okay, Nick, where do we start?”
“I’ve already started the preparations. Here, have a look. This one will be a useful starting point for our experiments. I’ve looked through your research from the academy and there is one essay you’ve written that I think needs some official test results as a backup for the claims you made. It’s widely known amongst the higher-ups and turning it into reality will surely have an impact, even if the results themselves will probably not be quite as impressive as your normal tests.”
He snapped his fingers and the underside of his arm turned into a screen.
“You have some cyborg parts?”
“That’s also the reason why I knew the exact numbers. Having all the information available at all times is something I really enjoy.”
Luna could understand that. She just never saw the necessity to do something like that. Her mind was perfect at memorising things and there rarely was a need to look something up.
They were both looking at the profile and Luna though to herself that maybe Nick wasn’t so bad after all. He definitely knew what to search for.
— — — — —
[…]
And with this I close my first official report about the mental state of Professor Luna Tick and the current state of her experiments. As we have discussed in our previous conversations in person, I will continue to assist Miss Tick in every way possible and help to bring the research results expected by the GCCMRD.
I hope that you will approve my attached request for a test subject. It will be our first test with the new team structure in place and we are currently preparing all the necessary communication. The risk is on the low end of the official scale regarding Risk Control in New Experiments and the results could magnificently improve research in other fields, as I’ve explained in detail in said request.
We are looking forward to hearing from you about the next stages of the experiment and your personal expectations.
Kind regards
Dr. Franklin Nick Stein
