“You’re late!”
“I picked up the mail.”
“Put that package down and wait.”
As bulky as the package was, the mailing had a dual purpose. It help get her to work, and also covertly brought along the netting she’d hidden within. Furthermore, since the mail was already opened by her hand, no one could rife through it.
After further prodded investigation, it turned out she’d have to wait later in the day before she’d be needed for assistance. At least she had assurance that she’d have access to the cell-splicing machine. Until then, she had to cope with hearing the latest salacious gossip of the dullest current social events.
“Even though there are Social Workers out there acting in my best interests in the field, there are still incidents where they are lacking. Last time, I had a meeting with them, who remarked that the Subject had shown great improvement since the last session. At which point, my Child started having a temper tantrum and no one could figure out why. They tried to calm him down to no avail. They plied him with his favorite foodstuff to no effect. They held him down, but the crying only increased. After ten minutes of them running around being ineffective, I stepped in and reassured my child that this wasn’t the LAST session. At which point he calmed down. Apparently, he thought that this was the last time he’d be able to interact with people who paid attention to him.”
“It must be exhausting having to constantly intervene on his behalf.”
“Parenting is the toughest job you’ll ever love.”
“Don’t talk to me about tough jobs. Looking after my sister’s grandparents without pay was the worst job I ever had.”
“You think that’s bad? I had to host a birthday party for the Management, who couldn’t bother to hire a clown for their offspring.”
“If that was you, I think I had to clean up that party afterwards.”
The Girl’s head perked up. This was the first time the Mothers talked about something that wasn’t limited to their children. Even though she was supposed to keep a low profile, she couldn’t help piping in.
“You want to talk about lousy jobs? I used to be part of an assembly line, dissecting guts for food production. It was a grueling laborious task. And before that - ”
“I’m sorry, no one wants to hear about your disgusting past. It’s not sexy enough.”
The Girl grimaced in frustration. It wasn’t fair. The one piece of conversation she actually knew about that she could actually contribute to, and she couldn’t even share it, because it didn’t meet the proper standards. If she had any reservations about helping the Scientist out before, they were gone now.
An Assistant piped up, “Actually, I’d take handling animal guts over working for that Scientist any day.”
A heavy silence permeated over the room.
“Oh yeah, no argument there.”
“I wouldn’t last the first hour.”
“I’d call in dead first.”
“I’d deny my existence.”
“I’d move to another plane of existence.”
“I’d move to another dimension.”
“I’d move to another reality.”
Now the Girl’s curiosity was piqued. “What’s this about a Scientist?”
The other Mothers silently motioned for the Girl’s silence, but already the Assistant began talking. “You want to know? Let me tell you...”
Before she could get started, she dealt with the surrounding audience by proclaiming, “I needed the work experience!”, silencing their silent judging looks. That statement said, the other Mothers suddenly found reasons to leave, leaving the Girl as an audience of one.
“So, he’s a Mad Scientist?”
“Mad is too Tame a word to describe him. He’s more of a Weird Scientist. He’d boldly venture into new realms without considering the implications. Once, he was asked to produce a wand for a girl who wanted it to shoot star dust. He made one that opened a wormhole to the orbit of an actual star. And star dust weighs roughly 200 tons per mote.”
“She just wanted something that sparkled when she waved!”
“I gave her what she asked for.”
“The poor girl was traumatized!”
“Then she’ll know to wield that power better next time.”
“A little knowledge is said to be a dangerous thing, but in his case, a little knowledge was a ridiculous thing. No more was that true when I was assigned my first task upon receiving word of banned discoveries.”
“Well, now that cloning’s illegal, what’s the sickest most depraved way we can use it?”
“I think you misunderstand the point of the ruling. You’re supposed to find ways to work around those restrictions, not fully ignore the restrictions.”
“Those are more like suggestions.”
“No, they were pretty explicit in their - ”
“Haram isn’t Kosher.” he interrupted with one of his paradoxical statements, letting it hang in the air as he built up sufficient oxygen for his upcoming long-winded one breath rant.
“They don’t understand what they’re forbidding. They can’t even explain it. They’re worried that I’ll combine the DNA of all the past warlords and wind up creating the next dictator who’ll overthrow them all, when I’d be more likely to create footsoldiers serving a dictator who’d overthrow them all. The circumstances that would make a harsh ruler are not bound to genetics, but surrounding environmental and historical events, making them less like programmable computers, and more like Organic computers. Thing is, Organic computers take SO LONG to implement upgrades. And when they do, they’re loaded with bugged features that wreak havoc on the emotional well-being of the system. I HATE puberty! Hormones just wreck everything!”
“Philosophy aside, if you weren’t bound by conventional logic, what would you do?”
“I’d create so many babies I’d be drowning in illegal organs to sell on the Black Market and support my research!”
“He spouted such sensible things, and then goes around and says things like that.”
“What about your experiments in animal research?”
“The Black Market isn’t interested in organs of Invertebrates. Believe me, I’ve tried. Besides, I can’t concentrate on that until I take care of my current obsession. I’ll go back to that once my interest in cloning goes away.”
“Are you fine with these clones growing up without someone to care after them?”
“Wait - I’ve just had a moment of inspiration! What kind of kids are there that no cares about? Disabled ones! I can make those and then experiment on them all I like!”
“I want whatever drugs you’re on.”
“Despite my objections, the Weird Scientist went ahead and did his unethical experiments which led to... unexpected results.”
“Drat! Another perfectly normal baby! I`ll have to start all over!”
“You know, with all the trouble you`re doing trying to clone faulty babies, you could actually save time by cloning actual tree frogs.”
“Wait - I`ve just had another moment of inspiration!”
“I thought you might.”
“Rather than waste time cloning impaired babies, we`ll clone humanoid tree frogs!”
“No, that’s not what I said at all!”
“We’ll clone humanoid tree frogs, and then use the naturally occurring drugs within their bodies to sell as illegal drugs on the Black Market to fund my research!”
“Aren’t there copyright problems with that?”
“Don`t worry, I’ll also give them poisonous fangs and laser eyes.”
“Why would you give them those?!”
“For self-defense, obviously. These rapid-growing babies are going to be hot properties. Hmm... I should probably give them poisonous claws as well.”
“What for?!”
“So they can defend themselves against predators who’d prey upon them in the first place!”
“You might as well have them hunger for human flesh.”
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea!”
“I was being sarcastic!”
“We’ve got lots of perfectly normal babies just lying around going to waste.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m doing whatever it takes to produce mind-warping drugs!”
“Are you sure you haven’t been using any of that stuff?”
“Not possible. My internal nervous system produces a fungus that closely resembles the hallucinogenic properties of a Rain Forest Frog.”
“That actually explains a lot.”
“So against my protests, we went ahead, and produced psychedelic humanoid frogs with poisonous fangs, poisonous claws and laser eyes so we could drain their drug-inducing blood for humane purposes. And sure enough, they broke out and started wrecking havoc on their creators. Somehow, we managed to get through the whole incident unscathed.”
“Well, this was a minor setback, but I’ll know better for next time! Obviously, they didn’t have steel-plated exoskeletons. That’d make them sturdier for - ”
“I hit him on the back of the head with a shovel for the good of the world. Then I kept hitting his body several more times and dumped the body over the edge. And even with all that, I still wasn’t entirely sure if he was dead or not, since a few months later, I heard rumours of a Scientist looking for volunteers for experimentary research. I didn’t want to see if it was the same guy. If I ever saw him again, I’d probably scream.”
By this point, several other Mothers who’d come back after hearing the denouement of the Weird Scientist final(?) fate piped in:
“I heard he’s constantly picked up and rejected by God, which would account for being saved from the brink of death all the time.”
“That could also explain how he keeps appearing throughout the ages.”
“It’s not even certain it’s the same guy, as he’s been described being both brunet and blond.”
“My guess is he’s secretly bald, and wears wigs to hide his looks.”
“It’s easier to believe one man is capable of all that, rather than men constantly repeating the same foolish mistakes.”
These speculative theories was the most interaction the Girl had with her co-workers, and the most stimulating material that helped passed the time by. Before she knew it, it was already lunchtime, and she brushed this trivia aside to focus on her intent of coming to work.
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