Sterile pale light dripped in through the window glistening off the metallic counter across the way. Everywhere the light seeped seemed to encounter some form of cool grey surface to perform the usual dance with.
The room was spacious with pristine dove-colored walls, squeak inducing linoleum floors, and cool steel countertops wrapping the entire circumference of the room. In the center of the rectangular room, the false-red sun bathed a large incubator in its warming light. The incubator made the occasional beep or boop when sensors stirred the translucent blush pink liquid within.
White robed figures shuffled swiftly to and from the room, each one carrying a variety of clipboards, needles, and test strips amongst other things. One at a time, the figures surrounded the incubator with their tools at the ready. Within the incubator, a grey-ish mass wiggled and thrashed. The mass was an encroaching storm churning the waves of the small blush ocean.
Within an instant, the placidness of the room broke with the screeching sound of an alarm. The incubator's scream echoed through the hospital, calling more robed figures to the white room. The equilibrium within the chamber released which sprung the muddied glass door of the incubator open. With its dying breath, the incubator evacuated the liquid within as red rain droplets splattered the surrounding white shoes of the figures.
The figures observed, measured, and noted while the babe stirred in the artificial sack.
"Ready to begin extraction?" questioned a figure who had produced a scalpel from their pocket.
"Ready" the other figures chorused in unison.
The scalpel sliced through the sack with the ease of warmed butter. A spurt of rose-colored liquid escaped from the incision. A gurgled cry croaked from the mass.
"Welcome" the figure who had cut the sack noted monotonously.
"Δ-22, bring the specimen here to be decontaminated, and weighed."
Δ-22 reached into the shed skin of the former sack, and lifted the babe stiffly. The babe's watery blue eyes strained in the strobing lights of the fluorescents, but the crying had ceased. The babe was too entranced by the flawless figure holding it. Δ-22 forced a smile in hopes of making the babe feel at peace. Yet, the babe replied only with seemingly confused eyebrow wiggles.
A nasal aspirator slurped away the excess liquid from the babe's budding mouth, and nose. Δ-22 noticed the babe was still attached to its former home, and reaching for the scalpel once more, severed the tethering cord. Δ-22 glided across the linoleum to a small metal scale on the other side of the blindingly illuminated room.
A startling whimper fled from the babe when the delicate skin from its beige back met the sharp coldness of the metal scale.
"Exactly 7 pounds, and 8 ounces."
"That is an average weight for a specimen of this age."
"According to the protocol, we must now begin feeding the specimen."
Δ-22 removed the floppy babe from the scale, and intricately wrapped it within a cashmere cocoon. With the babe in tow, Δ-22 removed a nipple-topped bottle from the thermal regulation chamber, and made an offering to the babe. Once again, the babe only responded with the confused wiggles of its eyebrows. Except this time, a nose scrunch was added in for good measure. After some probing though, the babe latched- its wispy black eyelashes fluttering with every suck of the bottle. Δ-22 watched as the babe's belly became nearly engorged with sloshing milk.
"The specimen's intake has reached capacity. The specimen should now be put into the bedchamber for approximately 12 to 18 hours of sleep."
Δ-22 wiggled their smooth spindly fingers underneath the back and frail head of the babe. Δ-22 moved the babe to their chest, mimicking the diagram they had studied a semi-centennial prior.
A projection of thick nimbus clouds floated across the ceiling of the pastel sky colored room. The warm room brimmed with stimulating colors, and textures. False animals from across the world, stuffed with heaps of fluffed cotton, surrounded a low-railed bed. Δ-22 laid the babe to slumber in the center of the tranquil habitat. Δ-22 watched the babe evict a few shallow breaths before gliding through the atomic glass doors that lead into a spacious hallway.
-
Δ-22 arrived at the council room moments after the deliberation had reached its climax. A dozen or so figures sat around the outside edge of the room, each of them wearing a snowy jumper set. The room, like all the other rooms of the hospital apart from the nursery, was a sterile white. Arched, gothic windows bathed the figures in light, radiating their angular faces. The figures sat in sleek rows of dark mahogany wood on either side of a crimson carpet runner. This room once served a different purpose within the hospital. However, it has since become obsolete in this new age of man.
"Δ-22, the council has determined that with your background in affective science, under the former Dr. Susan Stephen, that you will be named specimen 256,786's caregiver. You have 24 hours to form a team."
"Thank you, council" uttered Δ-22 as their face contorted into a stringent smile.
YOU ARE READING
The Dawn of Humanity's Death
FantasyWhat would you do if you were the only one left? Set in the year 2582, "The Dawn of Humanity's Death" centers around the birth of specimen 256,786. This is a story of birth, death, and re-destruction nestled in the age of a post-human world.
