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Prototype Counterfeit

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Prototype Counterfeit


‘Jett Harper,’ the judge called, and Jett rose. ‘How do you plead?’
Jett stared at him unwaveringly. ‘I’d like to tell my story first.’
‘About how you killed eight people and left them on Seriph?’
‘I’d like to tell the true story.’
The judge sighed. ‘In that case, begin.’

                                          ***


Alec wiped a bead of sweat from his temple as he turned the dial up on the thermostat beside the glass tank. He paused, eyes narrowing at the Seriphid that crouched motionless behind the glass, eyes closed.

Jett hummed quietly and jotted down the new temperature in his notebook before turning to his lab-hand.

‘If exposed to high temperatures such as these,’ he explained, ‘proteins in human cells denature and the person dies. It messes with your internal thermoregulation and destabilizes the intracellular fluid.’

Alec nodded thoughtfully, rushing to write down everything his mentor said. ‘What about when the dial is turned down?’ he asked, eyes fixed on his notepad.

‘Temperatures below 37 degrees Celsius slow down the metabolic reactions. You know when I made you freeze those peas? When you unfroze them, the enzyme reactions started back up and ripped up all the mitochondria so you couldn’t see them. If you’d done it properly…’

‘Yeah, I fucked it up, carry on.’

‘Well, the enzymes in your body cease functioning and those reactions don’t happen. So you die. Thermoregulation,’ he added pensively, ‘seems to be unusually advanced in these guys, though.’

Alec flicked back a few pages in his notebook as Jett went on. ‘Not only did they survive at -60 degrees Celsius; they also survive at the opposite. Normally creatures are better suited to one or another.’

‘Should we turn it up more?’ he asked, eyes flickering to the thermostat, then to the Seriphid . It had opened its eyes now and was watching them stoically.

Jett shook his head, staring at the creature’s arm as it twitched it slowly, back and forth. ‘No, I’m done here. We’re not permitted to perform lethal experiments. Call the guards and get it taken back.’

Alec nodded, confused. ‘Okay, Dr Harper.’

He left the lab, the scanner beside the door clicking softly as it read his retinas when he passed through. Jett would have to scan his own eyes to let Alec back in – his lab-hand didn’t have permissions to the lab yet and it was grating on his nerves. The kid went to the bathroom every five minutes, for god’s sake.

He crossed the room and stood before the Seriphid, noting the way its ears twitched at his footsteps. They were strange-looking creatures, from a planet with a similar atmosphere to Earth. This one had a flat, jutting muzzle and angular eyes the colour of autumn leaves and the shape of almonds.

They had three eyelids, he knew from dissecting them, and four spindly but well-muscled legs. Their exterior layer was less like skin and more like bark. It was hard to describe; almost scaly, but it was all one individual layer. It was white and grey mottled, like a birch. Their ears were right at the back of their skull, and their brain was less of a brain and more just a cluster of neurons ringed with cells that no scientist had categorised yet.

The amazing thing, he thought, was that the Seriphid were made of cells. Having come from an entirely different planet, it was completely plausible that any form of life there would have evolved completely differently. However on Seriph, cells had evolved eerily similarly to how they had on Earth. The outcome of the organism had been vastly different, but the environmental pressures had been different too. On Seriph, the temperatures ranged from either end of the spectrum, generally resting on some extreme.

There were few Seriphid left in captivity now. Most of them resided in what had been dubbed the ‘Projects’; outer space prisons that orbited Earth and other planets. The majority of them hadn’t been fully completed or staffed, and the Seriphid made up the majority of their residents. They were great accomplishments from another time, when any craft in space had been a huge deal.

Jett had been one of the first scientists to board Leon XII, the prison that orbited Earth, ignored, while the real scientists went further out into space discovering more planets. But he’d paved his way there, scrounging for grants while studying the strange aliens that Earth had almost wiped out several years before. He had made the Seriphid popular, by sending Earth back everything he discovered.

They had sent him a lab-hand after the first few, hard months up on Leon XII. They had let him come home often once they read his detailed and well-written reports on the anatomy of the Seriphid. They had sent over whole populations from other prisons for his research.
His last discovery, however, had not made them happy.

It was hard for him to ignore the human-like gestures and soft whisperings they used amongst themselves. Even harder to ignore the way their eyes questioned him when they were dragged into his lab, their heads cocked innocently right up until he picked up a scalpel.
He had come to the unpopular conclusion that the Seriphid, like humans, possessed intelligence and thought, not far behind man.

They had decommissioned his research, then. It was only with the help of Lars-Tech, the well-known space-exploration corporation, that he had been able to continue.
‘You understand, of course,’ Lars Dresden, the CEO had told him the first time they met, ‘that we’re looking for results here. We need people up on that planet, shipping back new materials and setting up colonies. We’re looking for a new way of life to sell, and we see big bucks in these little discoveries of yours.’

‘I understand,’ Jett had replied simply, feeling his freedom slip away. But to figure out more about Seriph, he had to know more about the Seriphid.

‘They call it the ‘uninhabitable planet,’ Lars had finished. ‘Your job is to make it inhabitable. Capisce?’

‘Got it.’

And just like that, his research had more money put into it than ever before. Leon XII was suddenly fully staffed again, and stuffed to the brim with Seriphid for him to observe. His insatiable curiosity jump-started his career back into action, and soon enough, the results were flowing.

The Seriphid had highly evolved thermoregulation systems, Jett had hypothesised. This was the purpose of their pale, bark-like skin, their folded back ears and their multiple eyelids. The skin kept the heat both out and in, while their ears wouldn’t freeze or burn so close to their skulls. Their eyelids kept the light from the star their planet orbited out of their eyes, and kept them moist in the dry.

There was something more ominous about the Seriphid, though. They had a third eye, on the back of their skull between their folded ears. When dissected, there was a cavity in their skull that gave the third optic nerve access to their strange brains. Jett had thought long and hard about that third, lone eye.

His conclusion was that the Seriphid had something else, something more lethal than themselves, to fear on Seriph. Something, he thought, that attacked from behind or above. Other scientists had disputed that conclusion, partly because, Jett mused, that the fear of there being something big or dangerous enough to prey on the Seriphid meant that humans would be an even more ideal target.

He had tried desperately to relate this to Lars. ‘Despite evolving to be bipedal,’ he had urged him, ‘the Seriphid have a specialised joint between their neck and head, meaning they can switch to running on four legs at any time. Their hands and feet are designed for comfortable movement both ways.’

But his warnings had fallen on deaf ears. ‘I have no idea what you’re trying to say,’ Lars had snapped impatiently. ‘But if you’re trying to tell us not to go to Seriph, you’re mad. We’re leaving next month so you better have that research done.’

‘I’m trying to say that there’s something else on Seriph,’ Jett had called after him, but the man hadn’t answered.

‘There’s a reason you haven’t fought back,’ he murmured now to the Seriphid in the tank before him. ‘There’s a reason there were so few of you. What were you so afraid of, that living in a prison in space seems preferable?’

The Seriphid stared back at him, three eyes unblinkingly regarding him curiously.
He approached the door to the tank and unlocked it carefully, drawing a vine-fruit from his pocket. Vine-fruit were part of a Seriphid’s main diet. They grew horizontally, growing across great expanses of desert-like ground. Their leaves were sour but the fruit they heralded matured underground and was the source of nutrition for most creatures on Seriph. The Seriphid fed on the creatures that ate the fruit too, making them omnivores. The lack of water above ground meant that the bodily fluids of smaller creatures provided enough fluids to keep the Seriphid from dehydrating.

Holding the fruit out in his hand, he opened the door and proffered it to the creature, watching as its eyes never left his.

Its teeth clicked threateningly in its mouth as it regarded him nervously, all traces of curiosity evaporating.

‘Take it,’ Jett said, and the creature inched forward slowly, sinking onto its front legs.
It reached out a clawed hand and swiped the fruit suddenly, leaving tears in Jett’s gloves where its claws met the latex.

Why did they need claws, if they only ate fruit? Their hands had shape enough to dig up their source of nutrition, so why have a defence mechanism if there was nothing to defend yourself against? The few other creatures they had found on Seriph were primitive and small, none of them were a threat to the Seriphid. So why have claws?

He backed out of the tank quickly and bolted the door shut just as Alec knocked on the doors. Taking a deep breath to steady his hands, he tore off the gloves and shoved them in the trash, hiding them beneath the plastic wrapping they had come in.

He opened the door and Alec stared at him, two guards close behind.

‘Take it back,’ he snapped, ushering them inside.

Alec raised an eyebrow, ‘Is your head hurting?’ he asked quietly as they guards gathered the Seriphid from its observation tank.

Jett pushed aside the wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him, shaking his head moodily at the youth. ‘I’m fine,’ he snapped.

Alec was the only other person that knew about his condition. He had even kept the information from his own family, knowing that the news would bring about too many questions and likely send them into space to keep him company in his final months.

Pressing his fingers to his temples, he pushed past Alec and headed down the silent halls, aiming for his quarters.

It had been two years since he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He shouldn’t have lived that long, since it was utterly inoperable, but instead he had battled on, throwing himself into his research with renewed fervour in the hopes that he could discover what entity truly haunted the wastelands of Seriph.

His headaches plagued him now, the dull throbs in his frontal cortex reminding him daily that death was very imminent. Today they were worse, the throbs turned into sharp stabs and the headaches turned into nausea.

Once in his room he grabbed the contact-screen that rested beside his bed and tapped in the number for Lars.

‘Dr Harper,’ Lars greeted him, his smile jolly but his voice betraying his dislike for the moody scientist. ‘How can I help?’

‘I’ve made progress,’ Jett said, voice rough. He had decided. ‘But I need to go to Seriph, just to be sure.’

Lars’ face said it all. ‘What about the temperatures?’ he said confusedly. ‘You’ll burn or freeze!’

‘I think I’ve found a way to stop that,’ Jett said quietly.

Lars sighed, running his hand through greying hair. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, Harper, but talk to my pilot. I’ll have you there within the month.’

‘You won’t regret this,’ Jett said quickly.

‘Better not.’ The screen went black.

Jett rose, gasping as pain racked his head. ‘I hope I’m right,’ he murmured, staring out the window of his quarters at the black that encircled the craft.



                                         ***

‘This is where we need to land,’ Jett told the pilot authoritatively, jabbing at the map on the screen before them, towards the range of mountains that circled a wide plain. ‘That’s where my droids’ sonar indicated to the ground being less dense than everywhere else. I think there is something underground.’

The pilot sighed, not seeing his point. ‘Why does it matter what’s underground, unless we can dig it up and ship it back to Earth?’

‘I feel like there might be tunnels underground,’ Jett told him between gritted teeth. ‘Hollowed out spaces where humans could dwell. This could be the key to humans residing on Seriph permanently. Underground the temperatures would be stable, away from Seriph’s sun. When the planet spins, the time between night and day there would have a safe enough temperatures for above-ground ventures.’

‘So we could live there? Just, like, have an alarm that tells us when we can go outside?’

‘Precisely. That’s what Lars wants, isn’t it? Some way humans can live there and profit from it?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

The shuttle took two weeks to arrive at Seriph, the progress each day seeming impossibly minimal to Jett, whose head began to ache more and more as they drew close. Orbiting Seriph, they waited until the perfect moment before landing in the designated spot.

Jett’s mixed teams of scientists and military clambered out with him, their helmets flashing painfully as Seriph orbited towards its sun. Seriph’s atmosphere was mainly air, but it was thick and heavy in the heat and thin and scarce in the cold, so they all required breathers in case the temperatures underground weren’t as Jett predicted.

‘Are we digging, or blasting?’ one of Lars’ private soldiers asked Jett as he knelt down beside the markers the droids had left.

‘Blasting,’ Jett told him distractedly as he scanned the markers. ‘We need to be quick.’

They set explosives in the ground between the markers, and after several tries, the ground fell away to reveal a maze of tunnels beneath them.

One of the scientists swallowed as she hovered at the rim of the hole. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said.

‘Who made these?’ another queried Jett.

Jett shrugged. ‘They could be natural,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think they are.’

‘Could the Seriphid have made them?’

‘I don’t think it was the Seriphid.’ Jett glanced down the hole and took a deep breath. ‘I think it was something else.’

The female scientist snorted loudly. ‘Let me guess – “Guys, there’s other shit on this planet that eats shit that we don’t like! Honest!” There’s nothing other than the Seriphid and their prey. There’s no niche. We’ve all heard your random theories, but you have no proof. And no one is going to dispute you because your theories are such bullshit that no one’s going to bother challenging them,’

‘Okay, okay, down into the hole,’ a soldier snapped from behind them. ‘We’re losing time, here.’

They proceeded into the hole, padding into the first tunnel that they came across. Jett walked ahead of the group, skin tingling with excitement and trepidation.

Ten minutes into the tunnels and a searing pain cut a swathe though his head. He fell down, crying out and clutching his skull as it rent him with pain.

‘Shit,’ the female scientist yelled.

Jett writhed on the ground, moaning and gasping as the cancer gripped his brain in its burning fingers. ‘Help,’ he choked, crying out again. ‘Help me!’

A sound like a high-pitched hum filled the tunnel. Jett watched as blood poured from his nostrils and ears and cascaded down his shoulders. The others stood back, horrified, blood leaking from their own orifices.

The first of them fell down, then the rest followed, one-by-one. Jett checked the pulse of the man closest to him.

Nothing.

The humming stopped. His breathing came out short and sharp as he rose, the pain in his head subsiding to a throbbing burn. ‘No,’ he choked out, ‘shit, no.’

He took off at a run, hoping that he was going in the direction they had come from. The tunnels all looked unfamiliar so he paused at a junction, heart racing.

A figure slid from the shadows beside him so suddenly that in his haste to jump aside, he tripped and fell, hitting the ground hard. He shook as it loomed over him, drops of saliva shining on thin lips that pulled tight around sharp, metal-like teeth.

‘Please,’ he said, closing his eyes as it extended a silvery appendage.

He recalled the Seriphid in the lab the month before, its eyes watching him warily from the tank. He felt a sudden, strange kinship with the creature now, like they had fallen prey to the same awful beast that stood before him. Maybe humans and Seriphid weren’t so different after all.

He felt something sharp on his forehead and then everything went black.


                                       ***


‘So,’ the judge said dubiously. ‘This alien you saw, it just cured your brain cancer.’
‘That’s correct. I’ve had scans done. It’s all gone.’
‘It killed everyone else and left just you alive.’
‘I think my cancer saved me.’
The judge leaned back in his chair, eyes hard as flint. ‘Send him back to Leon XII,’ he announced. ‘This man has some research to do.’
Jett recalled the third eye of the Seriphid. The creature on Seriph had taken his cancer, of that he was sure. He’d seen the scans but one thing still troubled him…
       What had they left in its place?
I'm gonna make an extended version of this, it was really hard to keep it to the 3000 word limit! Also will post a pic of the Seriphid later on, just have to wait for a break. 

Challenge was No. 1, the character has a life-altering disability.

Relationship was the one developing between the main character and the race he studies. 

WC: 2999
© 2014 - 2024 G-R-Visini
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NamelessShe's avatar
I enjoyed this! You mentioned the word count, but I think you handled it very well. I would love to read an extended version.

That last line gave me chills. Loved it!