Incubator

Jeff stared at the smashed eggs. “What in—“

“Someone’s been ransacking our files.” Lucy, his herpetologist colleague, had entered the laboratory behind him and now she stood beside him, her voice low and her tone one of surprise and shock.

It was true. They both stood in stunned silence. His senses alert; he was aware of the low hum of the air-conditioning system and the computer fans. No intruder in the room, but the main lab had been compromised. Files lay open in disorganized piles and paperwork was distributed across the tiled floor and over the main lab’s desks.

Someone had taken the egg containers out of the controlled environment in Lab C and deliberately smashed each one, leaving the contents spread over the counter by the observation glass.

“I’ll raise the alarm,” he whispered.

He’d taken two steps towards the square console at the entrance when he noticed something else. “Oh Lord, a program’s running on my terminal. It appears to be…”

“It’s deleting all our files,” Lucy said. She rushed to her computer monitor in a panic and started to tap desperately at the keyboard.
Jeff, realizing that their central database, voice transcripts, and journals could easily be accessed if the security had been compromised, abandoned raising the alarm and followed her lead.

“I've managed to halt execution,” said Lucy, her voice full of relief.

Jeff killed the process and scrolled up the command list. “Damn it! Most of the files have already been removed, and the database has been accessed. Luckily, we back this stuff up on a daily basis or we’d have lost just about everything.”

Lucy didn't respond immediately. She’d walked over to the observation area on the far side of the room. “Jeff, someone’s turned the readings up on these things, and some of them have been damaged.”

He shot up and hurried to where Lucy was, looking through the observation window at a line of bell-shaped glass cylinders. In each were three softball sized eggs, all of them at various stages of growth. The eggs in the incubator on the far right were in the most advanced state: both the apparatus and eggs untouched. The rest had been tampered with and the eggs destroyed. Lucy was looking at the containers in the middle.

“The temperature has been increased radically.” Her eyes darted around nervously. “And someone’s modified the system constraints because the system hasn't raised an alarm.”

Who did this? No one could do this except… “Where’s Sam?” he asked.

“I don’t know, we’re back early. She’s probably still on lunch. You don’t think—” He heard her gasp. “That program,” she said. “It’s started up again.”

“Christ,” Jeff said. “What the hell is going on here?”

Lucy was back at her desk, waging a furious war with the keyboard.

“Don’t bother. Raise the alarm, I’m going to call tech and get them to remove it!”

“That won’t be necessary.” They both turned to see Sam. She was standing in the doorway to Lab B, an adjacent wing used mostly for microscopic study.

“Sam…” His voice caught. Sam, their petite, blonde-haired, pony-tailed assistant, who was always the picture of neatness looked a mess. Her white lab coat was stained with— with what? It looked suspiciously biological.

“You shouldn't be here,” Sam said.

“What have you done, Sam?” Jeff demanded. He was trying to sound assertive, but his assistant’s calm, controlled behavior was unsettling.

He heard a sharp cry and looked behind him. Lucy, who’d reached for the emergency button, was standing stooped over with her hands on her head, her expression contorted with agony.

“I can’t allow her to do that, Dr White.” Sam said.

Lucy sank to the floor moaning. Then she screamed and started convulsing. Jeff hurried towards her and crouched down next to her. “Lucy, No!”

He looked up, unbelieving, and yet he realized—

“Stop it, Sam. Whatever you’re doing, you’re killing her.”

She was staring at Lucy, her expression deep with concentration. If she’d heard him, she did not respond. Lucy convulsed a few more times, each one weaker than the last, and then lay motionless in his arms. He felt for a pulse, there was none. Forgetting Sam, he eased Lucy down on the tiles and fervently tried to resuscitate her.

He heard Sam moving around the room. “Dr White, we cannot allow you to continue.”

He’d found Lucy’s breastbone, measured two fingers. 1001… 1002… 1003.

“The eggs should never have been brought here,” he heard her say.

1008… 1009… She wasn't responding.

Panic.

“What have you done!” he shouted at her.

Sam had picked up a measurement stick they’d used to rule lines on the whiteboard. She used it to smash some sealed sample containers and then, almost as an afterthought, swung it like a club at a row of suspended test tubes. The contents and shattered glass sprayed against the near wall.

“We can’t allow it. I’m here to make sure your work goes no further.” She paused. He could feel her eyes on him. He resumed mouth to mouth.

“Dr White, it’s admirable of you. It’s unfortunately useless, I've left her brain damaged. If you could revive her, she wouldn't thank you.”

Jeff stopped in mid action. Dr White? She’d always called him Jeff. He could feel the tears running down the sides of his face. A howl of frustration and anxiety escaped from somewhere deep inside. “Please! This is your work too, Sam. Your research.”

“I’m simply an observer. You’re putting your own species in danger.” she replied, calmly. “You need to understand, we’re stuck here. If this gets out you’ll start a war.”

He stared at her, confused. What? She must be talking about the research. They’d received thirty-three eggs a fortnight ago. It had become immediately obvious that they were dealing with an unknown species of reptile with an unusually large cranial cavity. A momentous discovery— a reptile in an advanced evolutionary state of intelligence. Why had she reacted like this?

“I don’t understand, Sam. You can’t get rid of the existing data. Apart from the eggs and samples, we've only lost a day’s work.”

“You’re referring to the backups. Do you think I’m working alone?”

“The DNA? We’ll just begin again.”

Sam smiled back at him. “Oh yes, the DNA.”

She dropped the stick and walked towards him, kneeling in front of him. There was no fear in her eyes, and Jeff knew that she could see the fear in his. “I've injected the four remaining eggs with a self-destructive gene. Your successor, whoever that may be, will start with the eggs and discard everything else as contaminated sample tissue. Judging by your rate of success, my tampering may not be necessary, but I have to play safe, you understand?”

His successor? Jeff felt the dread rise in him. “You’re going to kill me, too?”

She did not reply and her stare did not waver. His own eyes betrayed his thoughts as he looked in the direction of the red emergency button. Instead he lunged at her, swinging his right arm at her face in an attempt to strike her down. He landed the punch, but it was weak and ineffective because he’d been squatting, cradling Lucy.

She cursed and lost her balance but recovered quickly and grabbed him around the neck with surprising strength. She slammed his head back against the wall with such force that his vision was filled with flashing lights. He almost passed out. Oh God! She was strangling him.

Her grim face was inches from his. “Can you feel it?”

Feel what? And then he could. He’d not raised his arms to protect his throat. He couldn't; his arms and legs were unresponsive as if they’d suddenly been disconnected from his body.

She relaxed her hold on his throat.

“The brain is such a powerful organ. Have you heard of sleep paralysis, Dr White?”

He found himself struggling to respond. “Sam, you don’t have to.” he pleaded.

She ignored him. “The concept is similar, I instruct your brain to instruct your body to go to sleep. The human brain is very open to suggestion.”

He wondered what he could do to subdue her. Her unexpected power— or whatever it was. Some form of mind control. How could he fight it?

He decided on distraction.

With an effort, he managed to control himself. “How long have you had this, this ability?” The scientist in him questioned even though he was in peril.

“Oh, I've had it for as long as I've lived,” she replied. “We all have it. All of… us.” She let go of him, and he slumped onto Lucy, his paralysis extending from the tips of his toes to his neck. Sam re-positioned him against the wall so that he was faced towards the line of incubators.

She pointed at an incubator— the incubator. “You deserve to see it, you've worked hard.”

They’d been preparing to hatch the eggs later that afternoon. She walked to her own terminal and punched in a few keys. Jeff knew what she was doing. They’d discovered through experimentation that the hatching process was similar to that of turtles, the incubation period could be varied by fluctuations in temperature. Sam was inducing the eggs to hatch.

While they waited, she moved around the main lab, injecting a serum into some of the samples, probably to contaminate them. She shredded a few hard copy journal pages that Jeff had left on his desk. The destruction was almost complete.

“Oh look, Dr White!” she said, pointing towards the incubator.

The eggs were hatching.

Jeff looked on, his interest numbed by terror. Little reptile creatures emerged, using their egg teeth to cut through the egg shell. Similar to crocodiles, yes, but their hind legs were much longer and their skulls distended around the brain chamber. No surprise there, they’d been monitoring the progress of these little creatures for weeks.

One of them managed to extricate itself completely from its leathery shell and it stood up on its hind legs with its forearms up against the glass looking out with reptilian eyes.

“Darling, aren't they?” Sam did something extraordinary. Her body blurred and transformed in front of him until he was looking at a much larger version of what was hatching behind the glass. It turned its head and glanced at him. It hissed and its forked tongue flickered at him. Without warning the glass smashed outwards from the incubator. The observation glass disintegrated into fine shards. Sam, what used to be Sam, stepped into the observational area. She opened her mouth, revealing layers of serrated teeth. She let the three hatchlings crawl into it. Closing her mouth she blurred again— a woman once more.

He felt sick, but he could not vomit.

“You’re going to have a heart attack now, Dr White,” she said. “You don’t want to be alive when the little ones feed.”

She moved purposefully towards him from the observation area and blurred. The creature in front of him stooped, opened its mouth, and let out the three occupants. As the three juvenile reptilians turned their attention to him, it once again blurred into Sam.

Sam looked sad.

“I’m sorry. You don’t deserve to be prey, but they've got a long journey ahead of them.”

He watched in horror as one of the little creatures clambered over Lucy’s lifeless body and sank its sharp teeth into her cheek, see-sawing its head rapidly from side to side, ripping out a chunk of flesh. Blood sprayed onto her dark hair and collar.

“Take heart. You've learned something, and your death will probably save your species.”

Jeff could feel the heart attack coming on, and he saw that the hatchlings were not in the mood to wait.

1965 words