What are we as a Species?

Palm Desert, California, United States of America

“Mnnhhh, mnhhh, uhnnn.” Between gasps of his own breath Sebastian skipped ahead to another scene, hoping it would help maintain his current state of arousal. This was his typical Saturday, alone, frustrated and fulfilling his desires in the only way he knew how. A notification alert chimed on his phone.

Picking it up, “Crap,” he said aloud. The email on his phone was about how his latest protoype for the dynamic reporting dashboard he’d sent over to leadership just didn’t meet expectations. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was workable. Seb felt the pangs of wishing leadership understand that working through a third party contractor to develop a solution based on half baked requirements was of course going to result in something substandard. But he felt that the prototype was a least a few steps above sub-standard.

In his response, he acquiesced, taking an agreeable tone, rather than saying how he really felt about leadership’s perception of the prototype. Another example in a long list of destructive behavior, reflecting his epically damaged self esteem.

***
The reconstitution process completed its cycle, but this time felt different. Transmitting his consciousness across the vast void of space at several times the speed of light generally was a mundane process. But the scientist had never done it to an off limits galaxy. The sentinel beacons should have prevented traversing any space within the limits of that space, but the override codes, obtained at great expense, did their job.

Checking all his appendages, he confirmed everything physical was in order. Then he pinpointed the mental disturbance. He was nervous. A forbidden planet. An ancient race locked away, forgotten and discarded in a deserted galaxy, on a remote planet in the farthest reaches of a single spiral arm.

The ancient archives were explicit in their descriptions of the brutality of this species, the chaose they consistently left in their wake as they burned swathes of the galaxy to a cinder in ancient times. Their utter disregard for any form of life that wasn’t their own, matched only by their ingenuity in defeating even the best intentions of the coalition of other races that rose up to defeat them.

Only after decimating their race to a bare minimum, were the great races spanning hundreds of galaxies able to contain the horror.

But the scientist knew different thinking would now be required to defeat an even greater threat opposing the utopian combination of great races. Thinking that had been demonstrated by this species every learned member of the Fountainhead considered a virus, a species that was now quarantined and isolated on this small blue dot of a planet in the middle of a galactic nowhere.

***
Feeling a toxic mix of guilt, physical satisfaction, and mental anguish around thinking he could have used that time to be productive vs pleasuring himself, Sebastian finished the water on his desk and headed for the door.

Buying a house outside the city, away from everything had been the ex-wife’s idea. It had also been her idea to end their 20+ year marriage, partly because Sebastian had given up on continuing to grow, in her words. Functional depression would have been a more accurate description of what happened to him though.

Swinging the door open and stepping out in the cooler, dark night, Seb looked up at the stars. They blinked intermittently above the hills and houses down below. Being this far away from the city meant they looked even brighter without the streets of close by houses and street lamps washing out the sky. Plus, Seb preferred the solitude. The breakup with his ex cemented that part of his personality.

***

The scientist tapped the controls and powered down the reconstitution chamber; the bio gel completely depleted after creating the new body housing his mind.

Everything about the ecosystem and the dominant species he’d gathered seemed to confirm the conclusion that this was the mythic race that sowed so much discord throughout the known universe so many eons ago. The scientist needed to confirm further though. And the specimen standing in front of the dwelling in the distance would do perfectly to help start the decades long process of fully weaponizing the chaos prone species scattered on this planet they called Earth.